FEUILLETON: 25 Years since the NATO Bombing of Serbia (13): Schism in NATO Strategy

By Dragan Bisenic for Kosovo Online:

Kosovo was an "ugly victory" of the abandoned American military doctrine. Only in Kosovo and partially in Bosnia did American military forces manage to impose political objectives solely through the use of aviation. For political representatives and key players in the bombing of Yugoslavia over Kosovo, more or less things are known. What is not known is how the "recipe" that would be used during the Yugoslav crisis by the US military was arrived at.

In fact, General Short and the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, General Wesley K. Clark, had significantly different views on the use of air power during the bombing of Serbia in 1999. Short advocated for the use of air power in line with Warden's theory.

On the other hand, Clark saw the need to use air power differently. In an effort to maintain NATO's willingness to continue air operations and the desire to minimize civilian casualties, Clark ordered the air forces to focus mainly on bombing Serbian forces in Kosovo.

And so it began, the second war of the administration in the Balkans in four years. It was to be led, agreed the civilians and the military, if at all possible, exclusively from the air. That was the strength of America, and therefore the strength of NATO. Or, as Sandy Berger sometimes privately said, there lay the West's greatest advantage, an advantage of perhaps 1000:1 in air forces, while if the fight was to be waged with ground troops on desperate terrain, the advantage would fall to 7:1 and things would start to turn in favor of Milosevic. In addition, Yeltsin's government signaled to allies that although the Russians were unhappy with the use of NATO armed forces against friendly Slavs, they would not come to defend Belgrade, nor would they give the Serbs their latest surface-to-air missiles, which would significantly complicate things for NATO. But even in that case, the White House was actually tiptoeing into war, aware of congressional opposition at home and the fragility of the Alliance abroad.

When the bombing began on March 24, the administration was not fully committed to it. David Halberstam notes that on that night, Clinton inserted one crucial sentence into his statement, a sentence that would be at the heart of all divisions and ambivalences of NATO command in the next three months, reflecting all the unresolved divisions of the past six years. "I do not intend to send our troops to Kosovo to wage war," Clinton said.

Months later, when it was all over, leading figures in his administration privately admitted that the statement "could have been a big mistake." Leading figures in the military thought it was actually a catastrophic mistake because it gave the wrong signals to all kinds of people about the limits of American willingness to engage in war. Ironically, the sentence came from one of the harshest critics of the administration's policy towards the Balkans, Ivo Daalder, a researcher at the Brookings Institution, a former member of the National Security Council, and an anti-Serb activist in Balkan politics. Daalder, who has written two books on Bush's and Clinton's policy towards the Balkans, became one of those spokespersons sought after by serious television and radio stations, a rising star sought by all serious journalists.

Therefore, the White House, as it otherwise likes to show interest in such individuals, tried to involve him in politics, letting him see some things before others in the hope that, if he appeared later after the announcement, his criticism would be at least somewhat milder, Halberstam described.

In the afternoon when Clinton gave his speech, Miriam Sapiro, a member of the National Security Council, called Daalder to indicate what the president would say and expressed her hope that he would support such a policy. "Of course," Daalder said, "he will support more activity in Kosovo, but what will the president say about ground forces?" "We'll say we don't plan to deploy those ground troops," she replied. "You can't say that, because if we don't have plans to deploy ground troops, we should attack the person responsible for making such plans," Daalder said. "So either you don't have plans and you're incompetent, or you're lying, so you can't say that."

Then, almost unconsciously, because there is a thin line between being a person of the National Security Council and a person of Brookings, he suggested using the word "intention," saying something like "we do not intend to use ground troops." A little later, the sentence with such an effect was in the speech; Berger inserted it at the last minute without the knowledge or approval of Albright. This left Daalder wondering whether he was responsible and whether what he had said to Sapiro over the phone was the biggest mistake he had made in a long time. That evening, when he went to national public radio to criticize the speech, he was very adamant about the exclusion of ground forces.

Regardless of the origin of the sentence, it represented what the Clinton administration considered a necessary political step. They even failed to get Congress's approval for peacekeeping forces several months earlier when Holbrooke tried to reduce the level of violence. What they wanted now was Congress's consent, and the price of consent was that sentence about ground forces. If they had left open the possibility of ground forces, there would have been an uproar in Congress. So they did what looked like an agreement not to use ground forces, even though it wasn't a binding promise – it was an assurance, and "intention" was the most flexible of all words. "We do not intend to send ground forces" would have been more accurate.

That sentence also reflected the White House's view that this would be a quick and short war; NATO bombing similar to what happened in Bosnia would work just as quickly this time. White House spokesmen, in talks with reporters, made it clear that they believed the bombing would last only three or four days; if nothing else, the spokesmen let reporters know that Madeleine Albright had spoken to them in that way. Indeed, she went on television that first night, March 24, and spoke with Jim Lehrer about a war that would end quickly: "I don't see this as a long operation. I think it's something that can be accomplished in a relatively short period of time," she said to Lehrer. Or, as General Mike Short, who was in charge of the bombing, later said: "I can't tell you how many times I've been told, 'Mike, you'll be able to bomb for two, three nights. That's all Washington can support. That's all some Alliance members can support. So you have only 90 targets. It will all be over in three nights."

The dual strategy of targeting strategic objectives in Yugoslavia and forces deployed in Kosovo was not without controversy. Behind this decision were conflicts between two opposing schools of military action in the US Army, as well as decades of debate in military doctrine about whether victory could be achieved through aviation. The final conclusion of that debate was almost certainly that victory on the battlefield is achieved only by infantry and ground forces. In any case, these are completely opposing priorities in military operations. Advocates of aerial combat place the question and fate of enemy military forces last. The other school prioritizes them and argues that there can be no victory without defeating the enemy's army.

The strategist for the use of aviation in imposing American objectives was Colonel John Warden, nicknamed, not without reason, "Crazy John." The US military entered Iraq on foot in the Gulf War, but aviation was used for the first time in a way that could be said to have done the most important part of the job. The development of high technology enabled Warden to impose his views on American generals, although they were never happy with or convinced of the correctness of his opinion. Particularly resistant to this was the then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell. Warden and his followers believed that wars are won before the ground troops enter the war. Everything Warden envisioned and wrote in his doctrine was applied in the bombing of Serbia in 1999.

During the Gulf War in 1991, Warden headed a group in aviation working on a secret project at the Pentagon called "Checkmate." Military experts considered him a very important figure who symbolized not only aviation but also new thinking in the military, planning, and structuring brought about by new weapons.

To realize his ideas, the desire of soldiers alone was not enough. When Madeleine Albright took over the State Department from Warren Christopher in early 1997, her promotion was presented as the personal success of one woman, not as the collective success of a political faction. At one point, The New York Times mentioned influential political leaders as if they were "benevolent relatives" who support the "lady in power." Three months after she took office, it was announced that "Mrs. Albright sought advice from Zbigniew Brzezinski and outgoing President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Morton Abramowitz."

If Abramowitz can be considered the power behind the policy of "humanitarian intervention," Brzezinski provided her with the geostrategic background. Brzezinski had no scruples about using high principles in political games. During 1998, when he promoted the French translation of his book "The Grand Chessboard" in Paris, he was asked about the seemingly paradoxical fact that his book was imbued with the politics of "realism," while he himself, in the days when he was national security advisor to Jimmy Carter, advocated the idea of "human rights."

Brzezinski honestly formulates the goals of US policy: "To maintain America's dominance for at least another generation, and preferably longer." This involves creating a "geopolitical framework" around NATO that would include Ukraine but exclude Russia. This would establish a geostrategic base for controlling conflicts in the "Eurasian Balkans," a huge area between the eastern coast of the Black Sea and China, including the Caspian Sea with its oil reserves – one of the priorities of US foreign policy. For the political elites of Britain and France, extending transatlantic dominance can be interpreted as a way to prevent a potential Russo-German axis from dominating the European continent. The Balkans found themselves on the path of oil and technology.

Warden further states that every potential enemy consists of physical and moral elements, and military efforts should primarily focus on the physical side because "the physical side of the enemy is, in theory, perfectly known and predictable." Warden does not reject the fact that military forces can influence the moral of the enemy, but he focuses on the fact that the physical side of the enemy is known, can be destroyed, and the effects on physical elements can be measured.

Warden based his strategy on the fact that modern countries are highly dependent on technology. The more modern a country is, the more dependent it is on electricity, communication, sources of oil, power lines, and transportation systems. With the precision of modern aviation, it is possible to paralyze a modern country by destroying its central nervous system – which acts like a poison that numbs its capacities, military or otherwise.

Everything is possible to achieve with reduced risks to American forces, causing limited collateral damage compared to the amount of ammunition used and even limited physical destruction.

Warden concluded that due to the enormous success in the dynamics of the American economy and great progress in computer and satellite technology, the US is far ahead of the rest of the world in terms of military-technical progress, and this progress is most evident in aviation, then in the navy, and least in the infantry.

Warden saw the enemy in the form of a target composed of five concentric circles around the core. In each of these circles was a target of value: the power grid, military communication systems, fuel depots, civil communication system, which is as important as the military communication system. This was the beginning of what was called "faultless destruction" or "virtual war." In it, the destruction of civilian infrastructure and command centers, where the country's leadership and military command were located, took priority over military targets. When comparing the bombing of Germany, Warden argued that it was serial bombing, not parallel, which gave the Germans the opportunity to repair the damage. Bombing, in his opinion, should have been simultaneous.

In the narrowest and most important enemy element, there is enemy leadership. Warden believes that this is the strategic center of gravity for the enemy and includes the government's ability to communicate and provide security. He believes this is the most important ring "because it is the enemy's command structure... which is the only element of the enemy that can make concessions, which can make very complex decisions necessary to keep the state on course or it can lead the state into war."

In the next outer ring and next in importance are what Warden calls the enemy's "organic essences," which include its energy supply, including electricity, oil, and food. Warden believes that "depending on the size of the state and the importance it attaches to its goals, even minor damage to essential industries can induce the command element to make concessions." He states that most states have relatively few "organic essential" targets, so a successful attack on a small number of targets of this type can be greatly beneficial.

Within the next ring, Warden places the enemy infrastructure, including its roads, airfields, and factories that are not part of the enemy's "organic essences."

These potential targets are necessary for the enemy to produce and transport materials and personnel. Any degradation of the enemy's infrastructure obviously diminishes its ability to resist. However, Warden warns that "compared to 'organic essential' systems, there are more infrastructure objects and more redundancy; therefore, a greater effort may be needed to inflict enough damage to achieve the effect."

The fourth most important ring is the enemy population. This, Warden notes, may be the most difficult for a direct attack. Moreover, attempts to target the enemy population may not produce the desired results because "the population may be willing to endure hardship before turning against its own government."

In the outermost ring, and least important, are the enemy forces. Warden believes that this is the least important element of the enemy because it is only a means to an end and "their only function is to protect their inner circles or to threaten the enemy circles." Warden notes that including deployed forces on the outer and therefore least important ring, contrary to traditional military thought, but believes that "modern technology... offers new and politically potent options that can, in fact, put forces in the category of means rather than ends."

Tomorrow: More than 40 bombing plans