Thompson's Defeating Communist Insurgency (1965) is an intelligent book, written as a response to Mao's equally or even more intelligent guide to subversion of a central power. Interestingly, given that he wrote the book in 1964, had already forecast Viet Nam as a "lost cause."
You can go thorugh the book as a kind of check list do this, do that, etc., and if you do it all right your central power (in that era, non-communist) has a chance against the central power.
But by those criteria S. Viet Nam obviusly was a losing case. By those same criteria Milosovich also had a losing cause against the KLA:
A) He couldn't provide goods to the Albanian Kosovars (health, education, good govt) because, like the govt of S. Viet Nam, he was the opposite (corrupt, ruling on behalf of his extended family and friends) and moreover predicated his rule on denial of those things to the Albanians and using what surplus he hasd to shore up support among Serb supporters..
B) Therefore he couldn't isolate the guerillas from contact with the Kosvar population. They were the "fish that swam in the sea of the people"--which almost inevitably means that operations have to be undertaken against the undifferentiated mass of people in order to suppress the activiteis of a very small minority..
C) Therefore he had to resort to tactics designed to favor relocation and the creation of "safe zones"--much like the US in Viet Nam, the French in Algeria, etc. It's the strategy of losers, for the most part, because the winning strategy is one which gets the indigenous population to turn against the guerillas and cooperate with the central power.
Milosovich's hand was forced by who he was, in much the same manner that the corrupt ruling elite of S. Viet Nam was dictated by whho they were. They couldn't clean up the govt because basically the govt was a cartel of drug lords and other monopolized interests who saw "clean govt" as the destruction of their self-interest. Milosovich was equally unable to offer reform and progess to the Albanian population of Kosovo.
So I don't think he could have carried out a successful "anti-KLA only" policy.
BTW, as a general matter, Mao's "On Guerilla Warfare" and "On Protracted Warfare" along with Thompson's Defeating Communist Insurgency are a good guide to much of peripheral zone politics in this century. -gn.
Chris Burford wrote:
> At 11:46 11/06/99 -0400, Doug wrote:
> >Chris Burford quoted:
> >
> >>Milosevic caved in not because the air strikes were working, but because he
> >>realised that this bombardment became the lowest common denominator around
> >>which NATO countries maintained their consensus, and could therefore be
> >>continued indefinitely at a negligible human cost to the west. This,
> >>coupled with serious preparations for a ground offensive, forced Belgrade
> >>to accept the deal. The technique of just spraying people with bombs from
> >>the air has, therefore, not been vindicated.
> >
> >In what sense? The US & its NATO buddies have shown that they can destroy
> >the physical infrastructure of a reasonably advanced country at no cost to
> >the bombers. If they'd kept it up they could have destroyed the social
> >infrastructure too. Sure the bombing didn't succeed if you think the goal
> >was to prevent a "humanitarian catastrophe." But if you think the point was
> >to demonstrate NATO's power and scare the hell out of other potential
> >targets, then it looks lots more like a success.
>
> Good debate, but I have been unable to join in earlier.
>
> On the balance of forces we could all agree that NATO was much more
> powerful than Serbia, and once committed, was probably most unwilling to
> withdraw in a manner that could look like a defeat.
>
> BUT within that the need to get acquiescence from 19 countries was a real
> constraint. My guess is that if the Serbs had not implemented a plan to
> clear Kosovo as soon as Nato bombing started, but had limited themselves to
> a robust campaign against the KLA, the alliance would have been under much
> more pressure to stop bombing.
>
> Countries like Italy and Germany were critical for sustaining the NATO
> alliance, logistically in the first case, politically in the second. Vocal
> opinion could easily have swung as strongly against the NATO bombing
> campaign in Germany and Italy, as it did in Greece.
>
> My impression was about two or three weeks ago at the time of a cluster of
> humantarian blunders, it was politically critical that Blair made a great
> show of promoting discussion around a ground invasion, to distract
> attention from the other option of calling off the campaign altogether.
>
> What will constrain NATO bombing in other areas where it seeks to control?
> Even allowing for the triumphalism of victory, and the profits to be made
> by the capitalists in restocking the armaments, and rebuilding the bridges
> that the armaments destroyed, the broad picture will look pretty desolate
> in documentaries. NATO has crushed Serb armed nationalist opposition to the
> assimilation of eastern Europe, but economically FRY will bear these scars
> for 2 or 3 decades, and will be even more dependent on European capital. It
> will be commonplace to regret the expenses of reconstruction, and the war
> that caused the destruction. Even in Britain, the country most in favour of
> intervention, there is little militaristic triumphalism.
>
> We will be able to judge how uneasy Europe is about the transatlantic NATO
> strategy in the appointment of a replacement to Solana. If they get Michael
> Portillo that will be a signal for maintaining a strong transatlantic axis
> and US hegemonism. But Solana's move to the EU is a signal that it wishes
> to speak more strongly militarily and diplomatically independently of the US.
>
> NATO and the US has been forced to make some concessions. Even though they
> defied Russia in launching the war, they had to court Russia to manage
> consensus among the big powers. It is having to tread carefully around
> Pristina airport.
>
> They had one of the most prominent oligarchs, Chernomyrdin, as their secret
> ally in Russia. But the US had to take on board a real risk of a
> strengthened alliance between Russia and China. China asserted its
> indigation on a world stage, and was noted. It continued its policy of
> using its possible veto on the Security Council, with discretion, but it
> did oblige NATO to go through a complicated time table to get the UN seal
> of approval.
>
> Yes the US may take further initiatives outside Europe but if it wants to
> enhance its role as policeman of the world and have a chance of subsequent
> endorsement by the UN, it will have to take on board the limitations of
> mass bombing to control a population that believes it has right on its side.
>
> Intervention in Somalia turned out to be a mess. Is the US more or less
> likely to bomb peace into Burundi, if ethnic cleansing breaks out there
> again? I would have thought less. Yesterday at a Chicago graduation
> ceremony Clinton said he had been in touch with a range of African
> governments to find ways to prevent the Rwanda massacres happening. So the
> message is that national sovereignty will no longer be sacrosanct, but
> surely no one imagines that stealth bombers could have stopped the massacre
> of Tutsis with machetes.
>
> Will the US/NATO impose a peace on Kashmir and bomb either India or
> Pakistan, whichever appears the more recalcitrant? Its not just the nuclear
> weapons both countries now have. It is the respect that this symbolises. I
> would have thought western bourgeois political opinion would be highly
> alarmed and would roundly condemn a bombing initiative in Kashmir.
>
> Chris Burford
>
> London
-- Gregory P. Nowell Associate Professor Department of Political Science, Milne 100 State University of New York 135 Western Ave. Albany, New York 12222
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