Beating Milosevic at his own game
If NATO is to gain the upper hand over the Serbs in Kosovo it needs to place less emphasis on the unctuous righteousness of its task and instead come up with a strategy that will outdo that of the uncivil, but extremely shrewd, Slobodan Milosevic.
Perhaps it is NATO pride that refuses to acknowledge that Milosevic has long thumbed his nose at the U.S. and EU heavyweights with almost impunity and still managed to extract concessions for ethnic Serbs in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
The Serb strategy then was to grab land and commit atrocities in order to have a strong hand when the time to negotiate eventually came around. Milosevic's strategy in Kosovo is almost identical; but once again the U.S. and the EU are falling victim to it.
Milosevic's strategy is based on the premise that the Russians will oppose any aggressive act on the part of NATO, the American soldier is a new type of warrior that does not risk death and that EU solidarity can easily crumble when subject to strain. Therefore, most importantly, the Serbs will never have to surrender unconditionally, but, despite their barbarism, will always be invited to negotiate a settlement.
Under these circumstances, war becomes little more than an exercise in gaining the best cards and in which humanitarian considerations have no place. NATO's strategy, on the other hand, is overbearingly simplistic and is based on the unrealistic premise that the Serbs can be bombed into submission.
Milosevic's hand will be much stronger with the ethnic Albanians evicted from Kosovo and disposed of as refugees in the neighboring, volatile lands of the Balkans. A few naively imprudent American soldiers paraded in front of television cameras, a carefully engineered siege mentality aimed at uniting the Serb people against the common foe. And increased Russian irritation at NATO will give him another trump card.
Milosevic knows that NATO is most unlikely to fight a ground war to take Kosovo and, thus, that he can extract concessions for allowing the return of the Kosovars. Concession number one will be that the integrity of Serbia (of which Kosovo is a part) is inviolable and must be guaranteed. At the negotiating table, NATO will concede that rather than get embroiled in a war and risk the refugee situation destabilizing the area. Undisputed checkmate to Milosevic.
On the other hand, NATO could woo the Russians who, remember, are in dire financial straits. It could risk a few of its precious military lives for the sake of the apparently not so precious thousands of civilians who are being slaughtered in Kosovo.
It could also make it clear that failing an immediate cessation of hostilities by the Serbs, Kosovo will be made a sovereign NATO protectorate recognized immediately by all 19 NATO allies and that Yugoslavia will be subject to strictly enforced NATO sanctions.
To succeed, particularly with the last of these three, NATO will have to be fully aware that any bluff will be called by an increasingly bold and intrepid Milosevic.
FRANK RICHARDSON
Jakarta