NATO`s Victory
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US troops out of Europe!
Obscene Hipocrasy
When Will the Media Call It War
NATO Briefing
Deception
Who is the liar
Case Against Further Bombing
World Power Oil Gold
Bankers New World Order
Bombing Free Press
There will be no III World War
Why are there no Serbian refugees?
Why Kosovars Flee
Houston
US Bombing of Albanian Refugees
Winning and Losing
After the Slaughter
New Roman Empire (12 articles)
Essence of the New World Order
NATO Cluster Bombs Kill Serbs
The NATO Coup That Failed
The Method of Distortion
NATO`s Victory
Why New World Order Hates Serbs
Enforcing Agreements
A War of Words
Krajina - The Croatian Invasion



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+ Why New World Order Hates Serbs
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+A Truly Heroic Resistance
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Leon Chame - 12/04/99

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March 03, 2003

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

NATO's Victory

by Leon Chame

NATO's political leaders ended the war by diplomatic cunning. Of course, the prize NATO has won is control over Kosovo, a dubious trophy at best. I wonder what was second prize? In addition, the war has opened a deep rift inside of NATO and intensified the anti-reform process in Russia. Along the way, it also drove U.S.-Chinese relations to the lowest level since Nixon first met Mao. That is a large price to pay for assuming responsibility for the Balkans. In fact, responsibility for the Balkans is not something most sane people would want. But this much must be said: even if NATO won a booby prize, the concluding diplomacy was a wonder to behold.

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.

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 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. Air power had not broken Serbia's will, but the price may have been too high to endure, particularly when alternatives were available them.

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. On the bright side, NATO now has a full-time mission to keep digesting it.

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. 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.

While Russia and China have, for the past few years, been talking about forming a strategic alliance to counterbalance U.S. hegemony, the conflict in Kosovo has driven the two countries together at an unprecedented pace. On June 14, Russian First Deputy Defense Minister Nikolai Mikhailov said that the Kosovo conflict prompted Moscow to strengthen Russia’s defensive power and look for strategic partners. Mikhailov said these partners are India and China. Russia and China, neither able to confront the U.S. alone, were already moving toward a strategic alliance. Kosovo provided a catalyst that should facilitate the establishment of a formal alliance between Moscow and Beijing in the very near future.

On June 22, Moscow agreed to sell 72 Sukhoi Su-30 fighter bombers to China. This unprecedented sale of front line equipment marks the culmination of a process underway for the past few years – the process of Russia and China coming together to oppose U.S. global hegemony. With the sale of these top of the line aircraft, and an agreement in the works to allow China to produce an additional 250 Su-30s under license, Russia not only confirms its acceptance of China as more ally than potential foe, but also lays the groundwork for broad defense cooperation.

Moscow and Beijing are now openly voicing their intention to militarily counterbalance the United States. The two countries have already taken practical steps toward achieving their proclaimed goal. Russia will cooperate with China in the area of military training and research and, most importantly, it will supply Beijing with the newest military technology, including its front line fighters. Russia and China are done talking the talk. They’re now walking the walk. The alliance is all but signed.

NATO came out of the war in Kosovo internally weaker than it went in. It was a "victory".  A few more victories like this and....