America's course to war in Kosovo
By Page W. H. Brousseau IV
The years of the presidency of William Jefferson Clinton (1993-2001) will be remembered for many things depending on the location of the political spectrum the reviewer is standing. For better or worse, rightly or incorrectly, a variety of topics from immoral decadence and weakening of the military to balanced budgets and low unemployment will be attributed to Clinton. Perhaps the greatest event, or achievement, of the Clinton years will be largely overlooked, and ignored.
The Kosovo War was an anomaly. It was neither declared nor authorized by Congress and the United Nations. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization, an organization conceived and maintained for defensive purposes, was turned into the aggressor. Despite the conflict being the biggest since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the American public seemed uninterested, perhaps still recovering from the year long impeachment ordeal. Mere weeks after the Senate acquitted the president, bombs were falling across Yugoslavia. Many in the public, media, and Congress were taken by surprise with the commencement of hostilities in the Balkans, but those involved had long prepared for war. NATO allies and Serb alike had for the previous year been playing a form of brinksmanship that many in America had not noticed.
In the beginning.
The origination of NATO involvement began in 1990. Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger had a long affair with the Balkan region1. It was in 1990 that President George H. W. Bush dispatched him to the region to meet with the Yugoslavian president, Slobodan Milosevic. Milosevic in the past had been extremely friendly to the West. However, as he presided over a country that was being torn apart in ethnic directions, he emerged as a new man. The meeting between the two men did not go well. Milosevic went down the list of those who had persecuted Serbs2, from the Turks in 1389 to the Nazis during World War II, Milosevic painted a picture of school kid getting fed up with being bullied and was about to enact some revenge. Eagleburger left the meeting convinced the Yugoslavian leader was now an autocratic dictator with full support of the military. The next day, Eagleburger met with leaders of the different ethnic groups, all voiced a need to carve out their own part of Yugoslavia. Eagleburger said the administration had no policy in keeping Yugoslavia whole; this amounted to a "green light" for disintegration3.
Buoyed by the Persian Gulf War, Bush dispatched his secretary of state James Baker to the region in June 1991. Baker met with leaders of the ethnic groups and Milosevic, all of them told him this was about 500 years of hatred and revenge4. Baker told all parties the United States would not recognize any group that seceded; in addition, it would not allow the prevention of secession by force5. The secretary of state reported back to Bush that the United States had no way to influence the actions of the parties involved and America's interest were not suited in becoming involved, Bush concurred.
End of a Country.
Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina declared their independence from the Serb controlled Yugoslavia, and were quickly recognized by European countries. The Serb army stood as the third largest at the time6, while the defensive forces in the new countries consisted of rag-tag militia and police forces. When Serbs were committed to a military drive, opposition was easily swept away by artillery, and naval forces7. Planning a worst case scenario, Eagleburger and National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft both feared what a military campaign against the Serbs in the mountains of south east Europe would entail for United States troops. The memory of partisans resisting the Germans in World War II, forcing the Nazis to leave 100,000 men in the region throughout the war8, combined with the apprehension of a Vietnam quagmire was ever present. Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Colin Powell, tried to discourage some hawks in the pentagon that if American sea and air strikes caused Serb civilian casualties, the United States may never find away out of the area9.
Heading into the presidential election of 1992, the Bush administration was convinced the Bosnia question could be put off till after victory in November. Arkansas governor and Democratic Presidential Nominee, Bill Clinton felt the need to show the Democratic Party was not a push over when it came to foreign policy. The one issue where the Democrats could create a different policy from Bush was in Bosnia10. Clinton's foreign policy advisor Anthony Lake dispatched longtime Democratic foreign analyst Richard Holbrooke to Sarajevo to acquire a first hand account of the horror that was being broadcast throughout the spring of 199211. Holbrooke, upon his return to the States, took to the media to tell the world of the future problems that Bosnia was going to create for the United States12. Holbrooke proclaimed Bush, and much of the world was standing idly by while a population was being slaughtered13. Late summer of 1992, Bush moved Baker from State to his reelection campaign and promoted Eagleburger to Secretary of State. The administration's most learned individual on the Balkans was then in a position to craft policy. As reports of Serb genocide were revealed and Clinton continued with his attack of Bush's Balkans policy, Eagleburger knew something had to be done14. However, Eagleburger and Scowcroft assumed air power alone would not be enough to force the Serbs to retreat. Prior to leaving office, Eagleburger tried to get Bush and Europe to adopt a "lift and strike policy" that meant lift the arms embargo against Bosnia and strike Serb targets. None of the leaders were willing to go along, however, Bush issued a warning to Milosevic to stay out of Kosovo or the United States will use military force15.
The new players.
Vice Presidential Nominee Al Gore was considered a hawk on Bosnia and Clinton valued him as a close advisor on the area16. After the election Gore and United Nations Ambassador Madeleine Albright tried to convince Clinton to take a more aggressive approach with Bosnia17. Lake and Holbrooke worked during the first few years of Clinton's presidency to bring peace to Bosnia. The problem was that no side wanted to talk peace until a significant portion of territory was under their control. Early summer 1995 saw Serb forces fall back significantly from Croatia and Bosnia18. Holbrooke and Secretary of State Warren Christopher saw the West's moment was at hand, with Clinton leading, NATO began its first ever military operation. With approval from the UN Security Council19, NATO conducted a limited bombing campaign to send Milosevic a message his time to negotiate was now20. Milosevic backed down and agreed to peace talks at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base outside Dayton, Ohio. The agreement called for an international peace keeping force which Clinton did not see as a problem. The president's political advisors were already seeing pro-Bosnia interventionist Sen. Bob Dole as the perspective GOP frontrunner in the 1996 Presidential Election, and calculated that if the United States signed off on the Dayton Accords, Dole would have one less issue in which to attack the administration21.
Milosevic turned his attention to Kosovo in 199722. Repeating the process from Bosnia, the results were the same, shelling, charges of genocide and a flood of refuges all on CNN23. General Wesley Clark, Commander in Chief of US forces in Europe and military commander of NATO assumed the role of watching Milosevic in 199824. Clark saw Milosevic as a thug that only understood power and force, and soon Clark was advocating the use of force in Kosovo25. The Kosovo Liberation Army used Serb atrocities to rally support to their cause. As the KLA and Serb forces battled in 1998, two hundred thousand refugees were fleeing Kosovo into neighboring counties26. By fall 1998, the White House agreed to send Clark additional air support to use as a threat against Milosevic. Holbrooke was dispatched for a series of talks that once again saw Milosevic back down27.
The KLA quickly seized the opportunity and launched a series of strikes that forced the Serbs counter attack without mercy28. In the wake of a widely published massacre of Albanians in Racak, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright conducted a conference between the KLA, Albanians and Serbs at Rambouillet, in France29. Just prior to the Rambouillet conference, Gen. Clark convened a meeting with the ambassadors of NATO to review possible military options in response to the Racak massacre. All present ambassadors had warmed up to possibility of military intervention30. Milosevic was calling the massacre a "police action"31 and none of NATO's concern and called Clark a war criminal for traveling to Belgrade, at the behest of the White House, to investigate the massacre32.
The end of the beginning.
The Rambouillet conference was truly multilateral with Russia and many European dignitaries present33. At the conference, Albright and Clark pressured the Serbs while Bob Dole leaned on the KLA34. Members of the Pentagon and administration were hesitant at first to allow Albright threaten Milosevic with force until the Racak massacre was revealed35. An agreement was signed on March 18, 1999, less than a month after the Senate acquitted the president. The agreement closely followed the Dayton Accords36 meaning a sizable force of American troops would be deployed and the Serb military would have to fall back to Serbia. Additionally, Serbia was required to reduce its army and police force, and NATO countries began to ready their peacekeepers37.
The Clinton administration was convinced if military action happened it would last no longer than three days, and that is exactly what it told Congress38. Many Republican members of Congress held the view of the Bush administration that the insertion of ground troops was the first step in a no-win quagmire. In order to gain support, Clinton ruled out ground troops from the start39. The players involved within the administration, David Halberstram points out, remained the same since Dayton40 with the exception of William Cohen at Defense. Albright, Clark, and Holbrooke wanted to make sure the mistakes of the bombing of 1995 were not repeated41. The chief mistake was not pressuring Milosevic enough to change his ways, and Albright was determine that force had to be used.42
Carrots and sticks, and the new NATO.
Albright used the phrase "diplomacy backed by force" when describing NATO involvement in the region43. On March 24, 1999, diplomacy ended and the force began. The coalition held together for eleven weeks, and Russia grew into a problem only after the bombing was halted. Russia sought to carve out a piece of Kosovo and when the Russian military advanced into the Pristina airfield to proclaim their own sector of Kosovo44 NATO agreed to allow that temporary concession to the Russians.
Clark was relieved of command shortly after the war ended45, and without video and tales of genocide and allied bombings, eventually, it seemed Kosovo disappeared from the American conscience. It may have been fitting for the Kosovo war to end the way it did, from nearly nine years in the making, with few individuals crafting policy, to barley being mentioned less than a year later in the 2000 Presidential Election46. The Kosovo War became an orphan, no one wanted to claim its successes, the return of refugees, the shattering of Milosevic's hold on Serbia, and Milosevic himself on trial for war crimes. The war had few failures, only two airplanes were shot down47, there were no combat related allied casualties48 , and despite the Serb's propagandizing bombs hits on the Chinese embassy and a passenger train, collateral damage was minimal because of new technological advances49. The commanding general was not a hero, nobody compared Clark to Schwarzkopf. Politicians ran away from their record of support, Gore belittled his involvement in Kosovo during the 2000 campaign, a Gore campaign brochure stated he "spoke with the Russian Prime Minister to inform him of NATO's plans to attack in Kosovo,"50 pretty heady stuff. Congress and the President both agreed not to debate the war once it began51. The Kosovo War was a long time coming, and all told, it was a true anomaly.
1 David Halberstram War in a Time of Peace. (2001, Scribner, New York, NY) p. 25.
2 Ibid, 28.
3 Ibid, 29.
4 Ibid 46.
5 Tim Judah, Kosovo War and Revenge. (2000, Yale University Press, New Haven, CT) p. 76.
6 Halberstram, 31.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid, 45.
9 Ibid, 34.
10 Ibid, 23.
11 Ibid, 123.
12 Ibid, 125.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid, 135.
15 Judah, 74.
16 Halberstram, 158.
17 Ibid, 197.
18Ibid, 347.
19Judah, 121.
20Halberstram, 348.
21Ibid, 359.
22Ibid, 363.
23Ibid, 418.
24Ibid, 396.
25 Ibid.
26Ibid, 399.
27Ibid, 400.
28Ibid, 410.
29Ibid, 420.
30 Wesley K. Clark, Waging Modern War. (2001, Perseus Books Group, New York, NY) p. 159
31 Ibid, 160.
32 Ibid, 161.
33Judah, 195.
34Halberstram, 420.
35Ivo H. Daalder and Michael E. O'Hanlon, Winning Ugly: NATO's War to Save Kosovo. (2000, the Brookings Institution, Washington, DC) p. 71.
36Clark, 163.
37Judah, 196.
38 Halberstram, 425.
39 Ibid, 426.
40 Ibid, 443.
41Ibid.
42Daalder, 69.
43Madeleine Albright, "To Win the Peace…" The Wall Street Journal, June 14, 1999. Reprinted on http://www.wpunj.edu/cohss/old_cohss/polisci/faculty/mc-kos4.htm
44 Clark, 375.
45 Ibid, 408.
46 Halberstram, 488.
47 Daalder, 4.
48 Ibid.
49Ibid, 146-147.
50Gore for President campaign literature. http://www.4president.org/brochures/algore2000.pdf.
51 "Senate likely to table Kosovo resolution" CNN, May 3, 1999. http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1999/05/03/kosovo.congress/
© The Michigan Partisan 2004
