Transatlantic Security
Back to the main
page on Transatlantic Security
NATO
Humanitarian Disaster Shapes NATO Policy
15 April 1999
By Karel Koster, Working Group Eurobomb
The ongoing humanitarian disaster is helping
to shape the policy choices by the NATO leaders. At the same
time the bombing campaign is having no overt effect on Yugoslav
policy, except perhaps in accelerating the ethnic cleansing
of Kosovo. NATO press briefings concentrate on the purported
success of the air campaign in degrading Yugoslav military
capacity. Nevertheless opposition to or at least some skepticism
about the bombing in a number of NATO countries is increasing.
Numerous security experts have questioned the wisdom of the
air campaign because of its lack of result. This has led some
of them to argue for a number of variants on a ground campaign.
NATO rapidly rejected the poor result of the Primakov diplomatic
effort: the bombing was intensified. Meanwhile, the internal
political structure of the surrounding countries has come
under severe strain.
Military
As noted, it is quite unclear whether the NATO bombing
campaign is having any success. Judging from the numerous
images of explosions munitions, supplies and static installations
(SAM radar sites) are no doubt being destroyed. It is also
save to assume that part of the logistic structure is also
being disrupted and that a number of weapons systems are being
hit. Furthermore, Yugoslav anti-air has not succeeded in bringing
down more than the single Stealth fighter. (otherwise the
wreckage would surely have been shown on Serb TV) To dissuade
the air campaign far more losses would have to be imposed.
No doubt the Yugoslav armed forces are being degraded, which
means that in military terms the campaign is probably succeeding.
Political is another matter altogether - see
below. The images of ethnic cleansing are creating revulsion
among the public in the western NATO countries and therefore
political pressure for some relationship to be created between
the military campaign and the suffering of the Kosovar. As
pointed out before, NATO bombing policy does not directly
alleviate the suffering and this is no doubt the key factor
in the growth of skepticism all over the Western world. That
is the reason that the 'safe haven' idea is being floated
(tonight by Brezinski on BBC World TV) : the idea is to secure
a small part or perhaps parts of Kosovo where the refugees
can find safety from the Serbian military and paramilitary
units. The parallel would be northern Iraq and operation Safe
Comfort in the beginning of 1991. Such an operation would
still run into the basic problems noted before:
* If it were done against the will of the Serbs,
a ground battle would have to be fought. There is still no
political will for that, because of the inevitable losses.
* Even if the political decision is taken ,
there is a problem of finding a suitable invasion route and
having sufficient troops to seal it off. Of course a combination
of the Rapid Reaction Forces could be deployed within a week
* That however, also assumes a politically safe
base from which to invade: Macedonia is a problem because
its population is divided even against the NATO presence and
the refugees and would certainly be divided on allowing a
war to be waged from its territory. Albania has only one road
running across the border into Kosovo: the rest of the border
is unsuitable for mechanized operations. In Bosnia the Serb
Republic borders on Serbia and would undoubtedly create problems.
So a combination of political and geographical
problems appears to block the rapid military creation of a
safe haven. A more lightly equipped operation might be set
up by creating a helicopter extraction force to evacuate refugees
from Albania. However, the continued existence of effective
low-level anti-air assets must be assumed, as well as a large
number of well-armed troops prepared to fight it out.
One more option that is being discussed is the
arming of the KLA. If Yugoslav reports of captured NATO equipment
are to be believed this has already taken place. The question
here is whether the KLA troops can be armed and trained to
the degree necessary to brake the Yugoslav offensive, within
the space of a few weeks. This seems most unlikely. Therefore
in the short-term supply drops of food, light arms and ammunition
are of some importance. All in all this will be a nuisance
for the Yugoslav troops but little more. Closer coordination
between the scattered KLA units and NATO air support is perhaps
being achieved through the insertion of special forces units
like the SAS. These would be effective in calling in close
air support in local battles. Of course this will also depend
to some degree on the weather. This has largely been unfavorable
for the air assault the last week.
Finally, a word on the announced 'third stage'
of the air campaign. This appears to cover bombing missions
against the political infrastructure of the Yugoslav state
(ministry of defense buildings in the center of Belgrade).
If that is so, then the risks of collateral damage are increasing.
That is perhaps a deliberate choice with the hidden message:
'we are no longer going to be very choosy about whom we hit'.
This would be illogical in terms of downgrading the armed
forces, which NATO could work at for weeks on end, but fairly
logical (in a Neanderthal type of reasoning) in terms of the
unspoken political aims.
Political
Internal pressures in the NATO states are increasing
now that the bombing campaign has clearly failed in its unstated
political aim: namely to force the Yugoslav government to
accept the Rambouillet agreement. There is therefore a clear
choice between two routes:
I. Finding a political compromise which, beside
NATO itself, must involve actors other than NATO.
II. Intensifying the war in the hope of forcing the Yugoslav
political leadership to change its mind.
ad I: On the outside at least this route is
not being taken. The Primakov attempt was rejected out of
hand; NATO officials are still insisting on acceptance of
Rambouillet. However, a de facto political compromise is being
developed on the ground by the Serbian ethnic cleansing policy.
This is creating the possibility of dividing Kosovo between
a NATO Kosovar protectorate and a Serbian part. If at some
point the threat of a ground attack develops part of Kosovo
can be given up by Milosevic - a fall-back position if the
price of defending the outer border becomes too high. This
will create a new dilemma for NATO: ie whether to continue
the war at that stage. A UN or OSCE peacekeeping force would
probably be needed to police the dividing line, creating a
Cyprus type situation. This assumes the development of a ground-based
threat on the border, despite the difficulties mentioned above.
Excessive NATO losses or political divisions as are beginning
to surface might create a political climate which would allow
this situation to be created through the consent of both sides.
ad II: However, the political power factor in
Europe, disguised as political prestige, appears to have the
upper hand in present NATO calculations. It has been stated
a number of times that NATO cannot afford to lose this war
(because of the new world (dis)order where NATO, especially
the USA, wants to be the prime player). They must therefore
be seen to win. This results automatically in the cul de sac
of the militarist mind-set, bent on bombing the opposite side
to its knees and force it to agree to a political diktat.
(as distinct from the military mind-set, which full well realizes
that the military instrument is merely an instrument of political
aims, which need not fight total war down to unconditional
surrender). At present, the psychological campaign on western
TV screens is creating the right kind of hysteria to allow
far-reaching military measures to be taken. Meaning that extension
of the target set in Yugoslavia could well be a euphemism
for the serious bombing of targets no longer distinguishable
from civilian ones. The key to this political effect is the
message which essentially claims that the suffering of the
Kosovar can only be alleviated by continuation of the bombing
campaign.
Some longer term effects
Regional
- destabilization of Macedonia because of the rapid
increase of the Albanian part of the population
- Palestine effect in Macedonia and Albania: massive refugee
camps which will form the recruiting base of future guerilla
movements for a Greater Albania
- wrecking of Yugoslav military apparatus will make Croatian,
Bosnia government military moves attractive: they may try
a bit of readjusting of boundaries of their own.
- Possible trouble in Montenegro and Vojvodina
Europe
- set-back to development of independent European
security policy
- some risk of increased confrontation with Russia
- Increased US influence in NATO policy
- The ECU has been drastically reduced in value: setback for
EU expansion plans and therefore of development of political
rival to USA
International
- wrecking of the UN international security system:
NATO is now seen everywhere as a 'rogue alliance' which makes
up its own rules as it goes along
- encouraging proliferation of WMD: lots of countries could
be re-evaluating the value of security guarantees and concluding
that maybe they need something better than conventional weapons
to deter attacks by NATO
- further set-back NATO-Russia détente. Russia is starting
to counter the NATO policies by using smaller countries like
Iraq or Yugoslavia to create trouble for the Western alliance.
This policy will be continued and may involve China and other
powers as well.
Back to Summit Updates
Back to Trans-atlantic
Security Home Page
|
