Au countraire - nothing was vindicated in addition to what has been already known. That you could bomb civilian targets with relative impunity has been known since 2nd world war. But bombing strategic target ans winning a war are two different things and the diffrenece betwee the two widens exponentially the further the bombing target departs from the western model of urban industrial society.
A few days of bombardment or, for that matter, *any* disaster natural or man made, that turns western cities into rubble is tantamount to a defeat, because western societies are organized around cities (just check their stats on the ratio of urban to rural population).
By contrast, bombardment of rural areas has very limited impact, even if counducted on a massive scale (in the same vein, earthquakes devastate cities, but have little impact on the countryside).
Moreover, bringing airforce to support tactical (as opposed to strategic) operations in the countryside can be really disastrous, as the aircraft must fly low to be effective and that exposed them to small arms fire (cf. stinger missiles). And it sis not exactly a victory when you loose $40 million aircraft chasing after soldiers whose chief weapons are worth a few hundred dollars. That is the lesson of Vietnam and Afghanistan.
So from that standpoint - the Yugoslav air war was a tactical disaster - it confirmed what is already known without winning any military concessions. In fact, the deal Yugoslavia got after the bombing i smor favourable than the ultimatum they were proposed before it. Moreover, I am pretty sure that military planners world wide took notice of little cost effectiveness of hi-tech weapons (I can almost see those grins on the faces of manufacturers of lower-tech and much cheaper weapons in Russia and Co.).
So if wo count winners and loosers, the score will look more or less like that:
Russia - big time winner (a good thing); Yugoslav army - winner (especially versus their domestic competitors, the police); Yugoslav nationalists - winners (a bad thing); Yugoslav democratic opposition (or whatever is left of it) - loosers Kosovar guerillas - loosers (they will have to now fight NATO) Kosovar people - big time loosers US military industrial complex - winner of short term contracts to repleace used munitions, but may loose in the long run on international weapons sale NATO - looser in a long run (the International Capital might find it cheapet to buy rougue nations instead of fighting them) European social democrats - loosers US democrats - loosers European unity - winner, collective butt-kicking, cf. sports team, the military, street gangs, kkk - are perhaps th eoldest male bonding ritual; Leaders of rogue nations - perhaps not winners, but can sleep assured that their technologcial backwardness may be an advantage after all Peace dividend - a what? does anyone still remember that old liberal joke?
I am pretty sure that spin doctors and propaganda machine will be saying otherwise - but if you believe them, hey, Clinton did not have sex with Monica either.
wojtek