JBL, As a former Honors Program Attorney in the Carter Administration I can only echo his sentiments. I have a tremendous respect for former President Carter and thank him for his efforts to end the genocide and slave trade in the Sudan (although the Sudanese Government did try to bomb his car convoy while in the Sudan).
I also suggest that we end this affair in the Balkans immediately before the entire country is decimated....
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Global Intelligence Update
NATO and the Politics of Bluff
1330 GMT, 990526
NATO announced on Tuesday that it planned to boost its Kosovo intervention force from the 28,000 currently planned to somewhere between 45,000 and 50,000. There are currently about 16,000 NATO troops in Macedonia and 7,000 reported to be present in Albania. The report was accompanied by simultaneous assurances that the force was strictly for insertion into a "permissive" environment following an agreement, hints that the force might move in if Serbian troops in Kosovo collapsed under bombardment and further hints that nothing, including an invasion, was off the table.
The bewildering array of official, officially unofficial and truly unofficial interpretations of the announcement can be explained readily by the meetings planned between Strobe Talbott and Viktor Chernomyrdin in Moscow Wednesday and between Chernomyrdin and Milosevic on Thursday. NATO badly needs to reposition itself in the negotiations that have been taking place. It is clear that Milosevic has not been convinced by the air campaign that concessions are inevitable and that the very real probability of intensified air attacks has also not impressed him. NATO is clearly searching for a convincing mechanism to start moving Milosevic away from his rather confident view of the situation. The announcement was meant to do this.
Of course, as Milosevic is aware, even the initially planned 28,000 Joint Guarantor Force, also called KFOR, is not fully in place as yet. Therefore the announcement did not represent the deployment of forces, but merely was the announcement of an intent to deploy the forces at some future date. He is also aware that only 8,000 members of the additional force is scheduled to be American and that the rest will be made up of other NATO countries. Milosevic is also happily aware that key NATO countries, like Italy and Germany are privately as well as publicly opposed to any ground war and are unlikely to change their positions. This undermines the credibility of the implicit threat this force represents, and limits its effect on Milosevic.
The problem, from NATO's point of view, remains that Italy and Greece want a cease fire in the air war. Thus, the two countries that would be indispensable logistically for waging a ground war, don't even like the air war. The issue is that NATO's splits are much too public. Everyone in NATO understands that the splits in NATO over strategy are what gives Milosevic the confidence to continue. It has become clear to NATO members that it is necessary to somehow suppress those differences if the hopes of countries like Italy and Germany are to be fulfilled. To pose this strange situation as clearly as we can: if the opponents of the war in NATO are to prevail and end the war, then they must convince Milosevic that they are shifting to a much more aggressive mode.
Now, this is a very difficult thing to do, particularly in Italy and Germany where very public, very apparent political forces are limiting the governments' room for maneuver. Indeed, hardening Italy's position even for tactical reasons, is politically impossible. Nevertheless, NATO is trying to give negotiators like Talbott whatever tools they can in order to pressure the Serbs into at least moderating their position.
One element in this strategy was a joint press conference featuring Madeleine Albright and German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer. Fischer did not say a word about opposition to a ground war, emphasizing instead Germany's commitment to resist Milosevic's "aggressive nationalism." This, coupled with the announcement of the troop build-up was designed to deliver a simple message to Milosevic: a ground attack is a possibility and he should not count on Germany to block that invasion.
Fischer was prepared to remain silent on the invasion issue because he has been convinced by the Americans that Belgrade's perception of Germany as an absolute block to a ground war is making a negotiated settlement impossible by making Milosevic inflexible. Thus, Fischer was prepared to go as far as remaining silent on the issue while Brussels was announcing the troop build-up. However, he was not prepared to go so far as to say that a ground war was an option. Nor, for that matter, was Albright, whose own official position opposes a ground war.
Milosevic knows several things. First, the decision to deploy troops is not the same as deploying them. He observed the saga of the 24 Apache helicopters and has clearly drawn some conclusions from it. NATO may be trying to convince him that his conclusions were unwise, but it isn't clear that he hasn't drawn the correct conclusion: that NATO's timeframes on deployment are sufficient protection in the short run and no reason to make panicky concessions. Second, he knows that whatever the Germans do, the Italians and the Greeks oppose a ground war and will not shift their position. Third, he knows that German silence on the ground war is not even close to endorsing one. Finally, he understands that the smaller the U.S. component in any force, the less likely offensive combat operations are.
The NATO strategy has been to convince Milosevic that NATO will do whatever is necessary to take control of Kosovo. NATO's actions have convinced Milosevic of exactly the opposite, which is that NATO is not prepared to risk very much on behalf of Kosovo. From the moment the first bombs fell, Milosevic's read of NATO was that they were bluffing, hoping to convince him of the terrible fate that awaited him if he didn't capitulate, but not having the will or force to turn the bluff into a reality.
Bluffing is not a bad strategy if the intentions of the bluffer are kept absolutely secret. But this bluff is incredibly weak because the limits on NATO's actions are entirely public. The willingness to pretend solidarity, on the part of the Germans, is completely undermined by what Fischer could not say. Milosevic heard what was not said, saw that the troops were merely being announced, not deployed, and drew the conclusion that is obvious. Another big wind blew in from Brussels and Washington, with nothing concrete to back it up. The problem at this point is that even if NATO weren't bluffing, convincing Milosevic of that would require actual military action. NATO has blown its credibility with too much empty bluster.
There is one part of this that is not bluff. The NATO air deployment is now becoming quite substantial. It is not yet at Desert Storm levels, but it is much greater than it was at the beginning of the war. NATO could now begin really hitting Serbia from the air. But with the Italians calling for a cease fire and the Germans publicly concerned about civilian casualties, it is not clear how the targeting committee is going to find targets that suit all of NATO's requirements.
Still, if Milosevic has anything to worry about, it is that the U.S. will slip the German and Italian chain and really go after Serbian targets.
That is what Talbott has to work with when he talks to Chernomyrdin and that is what Chernomyrdin has to take to Belgrade. Thus, we have a double problem. First, NATO is bluffing and bluffing so openly that it undermines its position. Second, the bluff has to be sold by a man, Chernomyrdin, who is clearly in no urgent hurry to solve the problem. He personally, and the country he represents, are not at all unhappy with the current situation. It costs them nothing and increases their leverage substantially.
If NATO is to succeed, it must directly convince Milosevic that its capabilities and intentions are so aggressive that the issue is no longer Kosovo but the survival of Serbia as an independent state. That is simply impossible at this point, without a major redefinition of the war, for which there is no appetite in NATO. The question is whether there is a point where NATO can admit that its bluff has been called and define its policy from there. NATO keeps hoping that another insufficient bet will convince Milosevic to fold his cards. Milosevic can count NATO's chips and sees NATO's cards. His country is tired of the war and afraid of an intensified air war, but it is not going to simply capitulate. If NATO keeps repeating its non-negotiable demands, Milosevic will sit tight and wait. NATO has not convinced him that time is not on his side. Tuesday's work did not do much in that direction.
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