[PEN-L:5305] (Fwd) NATO'S BALKAN FOLLY - Marcus Gee, The Globe and Mail

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Subject:                NATO'S BALKAN FOLLY - Marcus Gee, The Globe and Mail

The Globe and Mail                              Wednesday, April 14, 1999
  
NATO'S BALKAN FOLLY

        By Marcus Gee

        In her wonderful book The March of Folly, the late American 
historian Barbara Tuchman tried to explain why nations do foolish 
things. Why did the Trojans drag a wooden horse inside their walls 
when every sign pointed to a Greek trick? Why did the British court 
a revolt in their valuable American colonies by overtaxing the 
colonists? Why did the Renaissance popes ignore every call for 
reform and lose half their flock to the Protestant secession?
        Simple ignorance is seldom the reason, Ms. Tuchman argues. 
When the United States embarked on its doomed intervention in 
Vietnam, for example, its leaders knew very well that they could be 
wading into a quagmire. A generation of scholarship and political 
intelligence had told them so. Yet in they went regardless, sinking 
deeper with every step.
        "The folly consisted not in pursuit of a goal in ignorance of the 
obstacles," writes Ms. Tuchman, "but in persistence in the pursuit 
despite accumulating evidence that the goal was unattainable."
        So it is for NATO in Kosovo today. Three weeks into our own 
little quagmire, it is plain that the North Atlantic Treaty 
Organization's goal of protecting the Kosovo Albanians from Serb 
aggression is unattainable with the present means: air power. 
Instead of forcing Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic to back off, 
the bombing has furnished him with a perfect excuse to burn and 
pillage his way through his rebellious province. Yet on we march on 
this Balkan folly, singing Onward Christian Soldiers as we go.
        Ignorance did not cause this calamity. Evidence is growing that 
NATO knew Mr. Milosevic would lash out if attacked from the air. 
U.S. military officials have told American newspapers that they 
warned that the Serbian leader would strike brutally at the Kosovo 
Albanians as soon as NATO began to attack him.
        NATO's leaders went ahead anyway, gambling that Mr. 
Milosevic would fold as soon as he knew the alliance wasn't 
bluffing. When he didn't fold -- when he instead counterattacked by 
crushing the Kosovo rebels -- they simply shut their eyes and 
marched on. "Milosevic is losing, and he knows he is losing," insists 
NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana. NATO will "persist until 
we prevail," says U.S. President Bill Clinton.
        All of this is sadly typical. As one historian wrote of Philip II of 
Spain: "No experience of the failure of his policy could shake his 
belief in its essential excellence." Ms. Tuchman calls this quality 
"wooden-headedness." Once they have committed themselves to a 
counterproductive policy, she says, leaders find it all but impossible 
to reverse course, even if the evidence of failure is overwhelming.
        Occasionally a leader will find the moral courage to admit he 
was wrong. Ms. Tuchman mentions Anwar Sadat, who decided to 
overturn a generation of Egyptian policy and make peace with 
Israel, defying the whole Arab world in the process. But examples 
like that are "as rare as rubies in a back yard." More often, 
"practitioners of government continue down the wrong road as if in 
thrall to some Merlin with the magic power to direct their steps."
        The process is so predictable that Ms. Tuchman has divided it 
into stages. "In its first stage, mental standstill fixes the principles 
and boundaries governing a political problem. In the second stage, 
when dissonances and failing function begin to appear, the initial 
principles rigidify. Rigidifying leads to increase of investment and 
the need to protect egos. The greater the investment and the more 
involved in it the sponsor's ego, the more unacceptable is 
disengagement. In the third stage, pursuit of failure enlarges the 
damages until it causes the fall of Troy, the defection from the 
papacy, the loss of a transatlantic empire, the classic humiliation in 
Vietnam."
        NATO is now entering the second stage. This is the period, says 
Ms. Tuchman, when, "if wisdom were operative," rethinking and a 
change of course would still be possible. Instead, classic stage-two 
rigidity is setting in. When NATO foreign ministers emerged from 
their summit on Monday, they said the bombing would continue for 
"as long as it takes." Instead of changing course, NATO will raise 
its investment by sending 300 more planes into the fray. More 
bombs will fall. More Serb soldiers and civilians will die. Albanians 
will keep fleeing and dying.
        And for what? Why does NATO persist with a policy that is 
demonstrably failing? Above all, to save face. NATO began 
bombing because it had said it would begin bombing if Mr. 
Milosevic refused to sign a peace agreement. Now it keeps 
bombing because it said it would keep bombing unless he gives in. 
The allies bomb not to save Albanians -- we admit that bombing 
won't do that -- but to rescue their own credibility. This one, we 
keep hearing, is too big to lose. We can't change course now. We 
just can't.
        And the march of folly goes on.