On Fri, 30 Jul 1999, Nathan Newman wrote:
> 1) PREDICTION ONE: An Air War cannot be won and terror bombing will just
> harden Serbian resistance: Well, whatever one thinks about the morality of
> the NATO intervention, the empirical fact is that the basic goal of forcing
> Serbia to accept a NATO troop occupation of Kosovo was achieved through the
> pure application of air power
Actually it wasn't. Bomb damages assessment now shows we destroyed all of 10 tanks and almost no troops. We tore hell out of Serbia, but that wasn't why Milo signed. He signed because we gave him want he wanted -- and then it turned out we were lying. But once we were in he couldn't evict us. Which was the solution to our problem, that we couldn't/wouldn't fight our way in. Here is the analysis by the mysterious girls and boys of Stratfor, posted when you were gone:
NATO's Victory
0430 GMT, 990621
NATO has won the 1999 Serbian War. Of that there can be no doubt.
There are two questions to be asked. First, how did it manage to win
the war? Second, what are the ramifications of this victory? NATO did
not win the war militarily. It won the war with a breathtaking
diplomatic performance in the last week that was duplicitous,
disingenuous, and devious--precisely what brilliant diplomacy is
supposed to be. Yet, at the same moment that NATO's diplomacy snatched
victory from the jaws of military stalemate, its very characteristics
have set the stage for an ongoing and perhaps insoluble problem not
only in the Balkans, but within the councils of NATO and ultimately,
in the global geopolitical reality.
The issue of whether NATO won the war militarily will be debated for
many years. The question of air power's efficacy is always debated
with religious zeal. In this case, the question comes down to this:
why did Slobodan Milosevic agree to the G-8 accords during his meeting
with Chernomyrdin and Ahtisaari? Was it because he could no longer
resist militarily? Was it because the cost to Serbia of the air
campaign had become unsupportable? Was it because he felt that he had
achieved all that he could achieve militarily to that point? In other
words, did Milosevic think he was capitulating or did he think he was
reaching a satisfactory political settlement?
Certainly, the ability of Serbia's ground forces to resist a NATO
invasion of Kosovo had not been degraded sufficiently to permit NATO
to enter the "permissive environment" it required. When Serb military
negotiators broke off talks on June 6, NATO forces milled about along
the Kosovo border awaiting Serb permission for NATO forces to enter.
When French forces entered Kosovo a week later, they reported
formidable defenses along the Albanian-Kosovo border, and expressed
relief at not having to face them. Thus, unlike the Iraqi war of 1991,
there can be no argument that NATO's air power had defeated Serbia's
ground forces in Kosovo or elsewhere. Serbia's ability to resist
NATO's entrance into Kosovo remained intact.
The next question about air power is whether it had imposed strategic
and economic costs on Belgrade that were unbearable and whether these
forced Milosevic to capitulate? This is an important question, since
air power theorists since Douhet have argued that air power could
achieve this goal, yet conventional air power appears to fall
consistently short of achieving this mission. Since military
strategies and budgets depend on how this question is answered,
interpreting the origins of Milosevic's actions is far from an
academic issue. It is an important and difficult question.
This is hard to answer because, in part, it depends on what was going
through Milosevic's mind when he agreed to the G-8 terms for ending
the war. But the very nature of the question we pose points us in the
direction of the answer. Since we need to wonder what went through
Milosevic's mind, it is clear we are trying to figure out the reasons
for his actions. Implicitly, the very question means that Milosevic
had a choice. If he had a choice that means that the weight of the air
war was not so unbearable that he could not endure it. At the same
time, maybe Milosevic chose not to endure it. In other words, air
power had not broken Serbia's will, but the price may have been too
high to endure, particularly when alternatives were available them.
This is, we believe, the best case that can be made for the success of
the air war. That any case exists is remarkable, since the air war was
badly architected and conceived from the beginning. There were
insufficient forces in theater to carry out the sort of overwhelming
strike that NATO air planners felt was required even to open the
possibility of shattering Serbia's will to resist. The buildup of air
forces went too slowly. At no point did available forces begin to
approach the forces available in Desert Storm, in spite of the fact
that terrain, weather, and the correlation of forces required larger,
rather than smaller, forces. The air campaign was controlled by
civilians who triggered it without sufficient planning and
preparation, without providing minimal resources, and without
permitting a target set and tempo of operations capable of fulfilling
the mission. The Kosovo air campaign was not and can not be a fair
test of air power.
That said, it follows that the more extreme claims being made for the
success of the air campaign are unreasonable. The air campaign did not
in any sense conform to air power theory. Assertions that in spite of
all of its defects, it compelled Milosevic to capitulate are, oddly
enough, attacks on air power theorists. If this air campaign was
enough to break Milosevic, then air campaign strategists themselves
have vastly underestimated the impact of air power. The Kosovo
campaign was the polar opposite of what an air campaign, in theory,
required. Air power theorists have no reason to defend this campaign
and defending it undermines much of their theory.
The critical point is that the air campaign did not leave Milosevic
without options. There is no doubt that he could have endured the
campaign that was underway for many months. Milosevic did not act as
he did because the air campaign had crippled him. Milosevic acted as
he did because it appeared to him that a satisfactory diplomatic
resolution was available and because he believed the geopolitical
situation had developed in an unfavorable direction. Given that the
broader strategic environment was moving against him and a diplomatic
option was available, it made no sense to prolong the war.
The shift in the strategic environment was, obviously, the fall of
Primakov and the increasing unreliability of Russia as Serbia's
patron. The diplomatic solution was the G-8 compromise, which was
understood to differ fundamentally from the Rambouillet accord. As the
G-8 was written, Milosevic's acceptance of it did not mean a
capitulation to NATO, but the acceptance of an international
peacekeeping force under UN control, enabled by a UN Security Council
resolution. Since Serbia had accepted the principle of a foreign
presence in Kosovo, but objected to a purely NATO presence, the G-8
accords seemed to achieve Milosevic's primary objectives.
NATO, mainly the U.S. and U.K., went into action the minute Milosevic
accepted the compromise. First, NATO created a public atmosphere in
which it successfully portrayed Milosevic's acceptance of G-8 as its
own victory. What began as a public relations campaign designed for
domestic consumption, was rapidly transformed into the accepted
reality. In a brilliant, global public relations campaign, the U.S.
and U.K. convinced even the Serb public that Milosevic had
surrendered. Milosevic found himself trapped in a reality created by
NATO.
Behind the atmospherics, there was a defining military reality. NATO
could not enter Kosovo unless the Serbs permitted it. However, once
NATO was in Kosovo, the Serbs lost their ability to resist. NATO had
to convince the Serbs to allow it to enter Kosovo, past their frontier
defenses. Once inside, Serb troops were immediately helpless, having
given up not only their terrain force multipliers, but also having
their lines of supply and communications shattered and their forces
enveloped in mobile operations. The key was to get the Serbs to permit
entry.
From the collapse of the border negotiations with Serbian generals on
the evening of June 6 until the entry of NATO forces on the morning of
June 13, NATO diplomats brilliantly manipulated, by completely
confusing, the situation. For example, they agreed to enable the
Security Council resolution called for by the G-8 accords. They agreed
to give the UN control over civil administration. They agreed to
extensions in the Serb pullout. They agreed to a Russian presence in
Kosovo. They agreed with everything, yet gave away nothing. Their goal
was simple: to get NATO troops into Kosovo. NATO understood that once
that was achieved, NATO would run Kosovo, regardless of agreements.
The critical part of these maneuvers was to keep the Russians under
control. It was, after all, the intervention of a Russian officer that
scuttled the June 5-6 discussions. NATO knew that nothing it did would
satisfy all of the Russians. Therefore, its goal was to split the
Russians into as many camps as possible and to isolate hard liners.
NATO simply had to impress on Milosevic that the Russians were not
prepared to enforce the accords they had themselves negotiated in Bonn
on May 3.
Milosevic and his generals, helpless amidst the political forces
unleashed by NATO, reached out to supportive Russian factions for
help. This led to the Russian intervention in Pristina and NATO's
diplomacy's finest hour. Rather than treating the intervention as a
dangerous crisis, NATO carried on with its basic three-part program.
First, it declared the intervention unimportant, and once again, image
became reality. Second, it isolated the Russian force strategically,
tactically, and politically. Surrounding countries refused to permit
overflights, NATO troops rolled around them, and NATO's allies in the
Kremlin hemmed in NATO's foes. Third, and most important, by ignoring
the Russian intervention, NATO got what it wanted: its troops passed
into Kosovo, behind the mountains and minefields that had blocked
them.
Indeed, the Russian intervention actually helped NATO to get in. Serb
military leaders, with misplaced confidence in the Russian military's
will to confront NATO, committed a fatal error. They permitted NATO
troops to cross the border on schedule. In fact, they were eager for
NATO troops to enter, expecting a confrontation between them and the
Russian forces. This would give Serb troops the opportunity to join
with reinforced Russian troops and compel NATO to face war or retreat.
Instead, NATO used its influence in Moscow to limit the Pristina force
to a symbolic gesture. NATO then proceeded to surround, isolate, and
ignore the Russians. Russian forces at Pristina, rather than becoming
the trigger of a NATO-Russian confrontation, became benignly treated
hostages. NATO forces, now deep in Kosovo, proceeded to impose the
NATO occupation that Milosevic had resisted and that the G-8 accords
seemed to have avoided. Once NATO got Serbia to allow a "permissive"
entry into Kosovo, NATO was in control.
This was brilliant diplomacy. The simple fact is that having blundered
into a war they didn't really want, without a prepared military force
or a coherent strategic plan, Clinton, Blair, Albright, Berger, Cook,
Robertson and the rest in the end ran a clinic in diplomacy. They
turned a badly stalemated military operation that was going nowhere
into victory. The end game provides a textbook in the use of diplomacy
for retrieving poor strategic positions. Even more than a victory for
NATO, this was a victory for the Anglo-American coalition that drove
this war.
And therein lies the tale. Everything has a cost. The first price that
NATO must pay is the victory itself. It now controls Kosovo. That is a
booby prize if there ever was one. Second, NATO is now responsible for
the stability of the whole of the Balkan peninsula. What the
Austro-Hungarians and the Turks found undigestible NATO will now try
to digest. The Balkans is a region whose very geography breeds
insecure states without room for viable compromises. It can be done,
but the mission is, in the long run, always exhausting. On the bright
side, NATO now has a full-time mission to keep it occupied.
NATO's greatest price will be paid in NATO itself. Gerhard Schroeder
has tried to put a good face on it, but the Germans were and remain
appalled by the risks the Anglo-Americans forced Germany to accept in
relation to the Russians. Schroeder insisted on Friday that Russia
should be treated with "respect," a code word for avoiding another
such confrontation. Germany cannot afford another episode of
Anglo-American diplomatic brilliance. Thus, when Schroeder said last
week that: "Human rights are and should be inviolable," but that "we
have to look at issues very closely and in fact differentiate between
different situations," he was announcing that it would be a long time
before Germany tried this again. He went on to say that NATO action
should be "confined to its own territory and that should continue to
be its way." After Kosovo, a compliant Germany within NATO simply
should not be taken for granted any longer.
The Kosovo affair carries with it another price: it has intensified
the process in which reformers are losing out to communists and
nationalists. Kosovo was beyond Russia's reach. There are areas that
are very much within its reach, such as the Baltics, Ukraine, Central
Asia, and the Caucasus. NATO has established a precedent: it can
intervene in other countries so long as human rights issues justify
it. Human rights violations abound in the former Soviet Union. As hard
liners inexorably increase their power in the Kremlin, NATO will have
provided them with full justification for intervention in areas where
they have the upper hand and NATO is without options. If suffering
humanity is a justification for war, NATO just gave Russia the moral
basis for reclaiming its empire. And it should be remembered that
Russia may not be able to take on NATO, but Lithuania or Uzbekistan
have a different correlation of forces, to say the least.
NATO has clearly won a victory and the diplomats have been
instrumental. However, it is a victory in which the price will be, we
think, higher than anyone anticipated or would have been willing to
pay at the beginning of the war. NATO came out of the war internally
weaker than it went in. Russia and China came out of the war more,
rather than less, hostile. The stability of the Balkans is now a
permanent and impossible responsibility for the West. It was a
victory. A few more victories like this and....
© 1998, 1999 Stratfor, Inc. All rights reserved.
__________________________________________________________________________ Michael Pollak................New York City..............mpollak at panix.com