-Caveat Lector-
> ISSUE 1518Thursday 22 July 1999
>
> <Picture>
>
>
>
> <Picture><Picture>Nato admits air campaign failed
> By Tim Butcher and Patrick Bishop
>
>
> NATO's bombing campaign against Yugoslavia had almost no military
> effect on the regime of President Milosevic, which gave in only
> after Russia withdrew its diplomatic backing.
>
> This is the gloomy assessment of a private, preliminary review by
> Nato experts of the alliance's 78-day Operation Allied Force
> bombing campaign against Yugoslavia over Kosovo.
>
> At the same time, British diplomats have concluded that Milosevic
> had no intention of honouring any diplomatic agreement which
> reduced his hold on Kosovo - despite his vaunted willingness to
> enter the negotiations at Rambouillet and the peace talks in
> Paris which preceded the bombing campaign. The experts
> nevertheless judge that, diplomatically and politically, the
> operation was a success because the 19-member alliance remained
> united throughout and left Belgrade so isolated that it was
> forced to submit to Nato's terms.
>
> Despite the outcome, preliminary inquiries into the war are
> revealing some uncomfortable truths for soldiers and politicians
> seeking lessons from the Kosovo operation. Their findings will
> shape new military and diplomatic approaches as to how the West
> deals with maverick leaders and rogue states which confront them
> in future.
>
> The main finding of the Nato inquiry is that despite the
> thousands of bombing sorties, they failed to damage the Yugoslav
> field army tactically in Kosovo while the strategic bombing of
> targets such as bridges and factories was poorly planned and
> executed. Changes are being considered within Nato, including the
> radical overhaul of how strategic targets are identified and
> considered for attack.
>
> Any future operation by Nato is likely to involve heavier, more
> ruthless attacks on civilian targets such as power stations and
> water treatment plants at an earlier stage of the campaign. There
> is also an urgent operational requirement for more sophisticated
> surveillance equipment including Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs)
> to find small hidden tactical targets such as tanks and artillery
> pieces. As it was, by parking a tank, for example, in the ruins
> of an old house, the Serbs made it invisible from the air.
>
> A team of Nato bomb damage experts is yet to complete its work on
> the ground, but so far the assessment is that only a handful of
> tanks, guns and armoured personnel carriers were damaged.
> Military sources said that it was likely that the damage would
> have been greater had the Serb forces been actively engaged on
> the ground by the Kosovo Liberation Army and forced into the
> open.
>
> Without adequate surveillance assets, including low-level UAVs
> such as the British Phoenix system which only arrived in the
> Balkans in June, Nato was simply unable to spot well-hidden Serb
> military units in Kosovo. A wave of new air-launched missiles,
> including the RAF's Brimstone, will give Nato jets a more
> sophisticated missile for destroying targets on the ground.
>
> The second part of the campaign was the strategic bombing of
> military targets, including air defence systems, as well as the
> civilian infrastructure of Yugoslavia and the Milosevic regime.
> Military experts now concede that by breaking down this part of
> the campaign into phases, the alliance made a serious error.
>
> The political leaders of Nato wanted to threaten Belgrade with
> bombing and believed that a series of steps would be most
> effective, because it would gradually increase the pressure on
> Milosevic to negotiate. The Yugoslav leader was told at the
> outset of the bombing that Phase I targets such as command
> bunkers would be hit and that, if he did not comply, he could
> expect Phases II and III - which would be wider bombing.
>
> Nato sources now concede that this was an error as Phase I did
> not cause any significant military pain to the regime - all the
> main military assets and personnel had long been evacuated from
> obvious targets. Furthermore, Milosevic was able to use the
> state-controlled media to prepare the wider Yugoslav public for a
> long campaign, kindling a sort of Blitz spirit that reduced
> public opposition to his rule.
>
> Nato believes that the bombing in the latter weeks of Operation
> Allied Force against bridges, factories and other civilian
> targets was more effective but it could have been much more so
> had it been done earlier.
>
> On the diplomatic front, Foreign Office officials have concluded
> that Milosevic never had any intention of co-operating with the
> outside world to find a solution to the Kosovo problem that would
> reduce Serb control of the province. The undertakings he gave to
> the American special envoy Richard Holbrooke last autumn which
> averted an earlier threat of Nato punishment were worthless.
>
> They now accept that the numerous ultimatums issued to Milosevic
> during the course of the Kosovo crisis should have been backed up
> with the credible threat of force. Like Nato, they judge that
> Russia's withdrawal of support played a significant part in
> Milosevic's capitulation, along with other factors including the
> realisation that invasion was a real possibility if he remained
> defiant.
>
> Nato plans for ground war options which included a full-scale
> occupation of the whole of Yugoslavia were drawn up a year ago
> and updated throughout the crisis. Diplomats now say that with
> Nato's credibility at stake, a ground war was inevitable if
> Milosevic had not caved in. They believe that pressure from his
> cronies in the demi-monde that controls Serbia's disintegrating
> economy also played a part in his decision.
>
> British officials concede that the Kosovo problem should have
> been dealt with at the 1995 Dayton talks which ended the Bosnian
> war. One said: "Unfortunately, it got put in the 'Too Difficult
> and Not Absolutely Pressing' in-tray." They are now hoping that
> the alliance's ultimate willingness to go to war in Kosovo will
> convince future troublemakers that it does not pay to defy
> international opinion.
>
> But despite the talk of the need for urgent pre-emptive action in
> future crises, they conclude that the innate reluctance of
> democracies to project power means that history is likely to
> repeat itself.
>From Telegraph (UK)
<<But, it did give potential future adversaries a LOT of
information on how NATO might conduct its operations. I
consider the whole thing to have been the "NATO Airshow '99".>>
A<>E<>R
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