Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Pastimes : Kosovo -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JBL who wrote (9053)	5/18/1999 10:56:00 PM
From: goldsnow	Respond to of 17770

ANLYSIS-Waiting for Milosevic may risk defeat 11:40 a.m. May 18, 1999 Eastern By Douglas Hamilton BRUSSELS, May 18 (Reuters) - The urgent debate taking place in NATO over how soon to send troops into Kosovo is about who will control events when it comes time to end the war. This will set the terms that will show if the West has imposed its will or accepted a compromise that Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic may warp to his ends. Relying on continuation of the air war alone could leave the crucial decision of the timing of a ground force deployment to Milosevic, some allies fear. ''If Milosevic picks the timing it will be the worst possible timing for us, you can be sure,'' said one NATO diplomat. ''If he succeeds in dragging us into a long negotiation, he'll have the upper hand,'' said another. The debate has burst into the open with Britain in the lead, insisting that NATO must make its own decision to move in, based on its assessment of probable resistance and attendant risks. For German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, however, it would be ''unthinkable'' to go in without the agreement of Milosevic. The United States says it wants to see ''acquiescence'' from Milosevic. President Bill Clinton on Tuesday repeated that no option, including ground troops, was ''off the table.'' Officials and diplomats say deliberations are still shrouded in ambiguity as NATO urgently plans to expand its embyro KFOR force in Macedonia, already 16,000 strong and heavily armed, but not well enough for its likely assignment. ''What allies are increasingly thinking and some are saying is that we need to think ahead for circumstances which may not be absolutely black and white,'' said a senior diplomat. British Defence Secretary George Robertson on Tuesday described one scenario for rapid KFOR deployment. ''If Milosevic's troops were in retreat and unable to fight and there was the prospect of large-scale deaths through starvation or cold and exposure... then we would have to look at that situation,'' he said. The diplomat said NATO must be ready to move in, even if there were no sign from Milosevic. ''We must make sure that our strategy gives us the chance to seize the moment when the moment arises, in whatever grey situation we're confronted with,'' he said. The risks of hesitation were clear. Waiting for Milosevic to consent could allow him to snatch victory from the jaws of defeat, and end up ''holding the whip hand, albeit from a bombed-out bunker.'' By the time Milosevic acquiesced it mmight be too late for NATO to escort hundreds of thousands of refugees home. They would have to winter in Macedonia and Albania, watching and waiting to see if it really is safe to return. If large numbers of Albanians never did return, the human landscape would have been altered in Belgrade's favour. ''If you have thousands of VJ troops (army) still in the place they don't go back. If you have a dud international force they don't go back,'' said a senior NATO diplomat. He said he doubted in any case if all would return before winter, and for some the grass would be greener elsewhere. Milosevic would also have ''many ways in which, if he is given the chance, he will be able to produce lots of filters and lots of disincentives'' to the refugees' return. He could also rig events so that his forces ''have to respond to renewed provocations'' from Kosovo Liberation Army guerrillas, accusing NATO of aiding the insurgents and undermining its suitability as a neutral peacekeeper. But if NATO deployed its force as soon as it judged that the troops would no longer confront ''organised resistance,'' as Britain advocates, Milosevic would become irrelevant. The urgency of the ground troops debate has nothing to do with ''the failure of air power,'' the sources said. It was about capitalising on the success of air power by not hesitating to send in an army at the right moment. ''We need to be in a position to capitalise on the sucess of the air campaign whenever that success is in a cashable form,'' said a NATO envoy. The key to that was having KFOR ready on Kosovo's doorstep to enter an environment military planners are still defining. Simply continuing the air war until Milosevic raises the white flag leaves it ''up to him when the end game is,'' as U.S. military spokesman General Charles Wald put it on Monday. If that is NATO's decision, it may perpetuate what many acknowledge was the alliance's original disastrous error: ruling out ground troops in the first place. It would offer Milosevic an opportunity to talk his way to the bombing halt that several NATO allies are clearly anxious to see, promising concessions in the hope that, once air strikes stopped, NATO would never summon the collective will to start them again, whatever he did next. Copyright 1999 Reuters Limited.