At a defence specialists meeting in Germany last weekend, we talked of nothing but the coming crisis in Kosovo. At the same conference two years before, we had agreed that the Kosovo problem needed urgently sorting out. Yet last Sunday, the television news bulletins were given over to Morecambe and Wise, and the public seemed unaware of the impending major conflict in Europe. Senior military, diplomatic and political figures were agonising over how the certain humanitarian crisis could be avoided. It was clear that President Milosevic would continue his policy of ethnic cleansing - replacing those of Albanian origin with his own Serbian people - unless armed international peace keepers were in place in Kosovo. The unarmed monitors had been withdrawn: they could not prevent the Serbs from committing atrocities. NATO had threatened to use force to back the diplomatic process at key stages over the past year, and each time an uneasy diplomatic settlement had been achieved, only to be subsequently broken by Milosevic. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke tried one last time to broker a deal early last week, but after two fruitless meetings returned to Brussels empty-handed and the 19 NATO nations agreed that Operation Allied Force was on.
On Wednesday evening, NATO launched a massive coordinated air attack on Yugoslavia. Cruise missiles from American B52 bombers and warships, and for the first time from a Royal Navy submarine, struck key air defence installations in Serbia, Kosovo and Montenegro. Almost immediately precision guided bombs from the jets of 13 NATO air forces were raining down on army, air force and police targets. Tony Blair had made the military aim quite clear in his speech to a sombre House of Commons. Air strikes were "to curb continued Serbian repression in Kosovo in order to avert a humanitarian disaster". Subsequent briefings by George Robertson, the Defence Secretary, and NATO leaders have explained how air power will achieve this. A lengthy air campaign is planned which will at first concentrate on destroying the Yugoslav integrated air defence system. This will mean that airfields, radars, headquarters, missile sites and ammunition stores will be high up the target list. The horrors in Kosovo are enacted by both army and police units. Their headquarters, fuel dumps, tank parks, barracks, training areas, communications systems and logistics areas will feature increasingly in later phases. General Sir Charles Guthrie, the British Chief of Defence Staff says that he, and his fellow NATO military chiefs, "are in no doubt that that what we have been asked to do can be done". A distinguished professional soldier is content that the airmen can deliver the campaign.
Yet, there are many questions left hanging. There is no doubt that without the air strikes, the killing in Kosovo, the shelling of villages and the growing Albanian exodus would have worsened. Some might argue that action was necessary to preserve NATO credibility; I cannot agree. Action was necessary to avert the inevitable humanitarian disaster in our backyard. While the action is essential, it is a step into the dark. We are asking air power to achieve a very precise and difficult aim. In the end, the deep felt animosity between Albanian and Serbian ethnic groups means that an armed peacekeeping force will be necessary for years to come. We have proved that in Bosnia. There are only two ways that we will get such a force in place: either Milosevic returns to the negotiating table or NATO ground forces fight their way in. In any planning this must remain the bottom line. At the moment all NATO politicians are making it clear that a land war is not an option.
We are left with a strategy that requires unending bombing until Milosevic volunteers to allow NATO forces to come and police Kosovo. Will it work? We cannot know, but like any prudent military planner, we need to have contingency plans for every possibility. There are many obvious risks. War is always unpredictable. The Serbs might decide to go on the offensive, with attacks on the NATO troops in Macedonia, or in Bosnia, Albania or even against the airbases in Italy. NATO will have taken every precaution, and has far superior forces, but could still find its ground forces fighting to defend themselves. The Russians, against all their best interests, might offer tangible support to the Serbs, which would change the European security picture for years to come. These, and other risks, will keep the planners busy to ensure that the benefits of action continue to outweigh the consequences of inaction. Holding together the 19 NATO nations for a prolonged campaign will take great diplomatic effort.
If all goes well on the military and political side, will the nightly devastation make life better for the ethnic Albanians in Kosovo? It is as yet too early to say. The long list of targets will take time to complete. Some missions will be postponed because of the weather, others will bring their bombs back to ensure that the risk of civilian casualties is minimised. The pace of operations may be tempered in the light of Milosevic's actions. If he keeps up the ethnic cleansing, the firepower will increase; if he seems to be reducing his forces in Kosovo, longer pauses for diplomatic effort may result. Even when the bombs are dropping, the diplomatic process must continue. And if, in perhaps two months' time, a devastated Serbian military is still killing Albanians in Kosovo, what then? NATO may be trying to destroy every last tank, aircraft, field gun and headquarters, but as we have seen in Rwanda, a machete is enough for genocide. Prudent planning would include a contingency plan for this worst case. It would mean building a consensus for the use of ground troops to impose a settlement. NATO had previously planned to field some 28,000 troops to implement any agreement; they should be planning how to raise as many again in the first instance. Air power may add a new battle honour to its history, but only time will tell.
Air Marshal Sir Timothy Garden is a former Asistant Chief of the Air Staff and was Director of the Royal Insitute for International Affairs until 1998.
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