U.S., Allies Get Ready for Force in Kosovo Crisis

The United States is nearing the climax of a hastily assembled strategy designed to threaten the use of the West’s most powerful armies unless Yugoslavia ends its military campaign against the southern Serbian province of Kosovo and agrees to a political settlement.

The Kosovo crisis turned a critical corner over the past three days as frantic diplomacy produced critical new consensus about specific goals and the means of bringing pressure to bear on Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic.

After a NATO meeting of defense ministers Thursday, the military alliance is now much closer to the use of force, possibly within the next week or two, if Milosevic does not agree to four clearly defined demands outlined Friday in London by foreign ministers of the six-nation Contact Group.

“NATO has now come forward aggressively, and the more aggressive stand by the Contact Group foreign ministers is not a bluff or a feint,” a senior U.S. official said Saturday. “This is quite serious, and you’ll see this in the days ahead.”

In Paris, French President Jacques Chirac also warned Saturday that Yugoslavia’s “brutal intervention” in the province and its “desire for ethnic purification” are totally “unacceptable” to the West, which is prepared to use “all means” to end these offenses.

“I hope that we can obtain the cessation of hostilities and the Serbs’ aggression in Kosovo, otherwise all means, including military means, will have to be used,” Chirac said after talks with Ibrahim Rugova, the leader of Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian majority.

The Yugoslav leader is expected to give a definitive response to the four Contact Group demands during talks with Russian President Boris N. Yeltsin on Tuesday in Moscow.

The demands of the Contact Group--the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Italy and Russia--are an immediate cease-fire and troop withdrawal; free access for international monitoring and humanitarian aid; repatriation of displaced people; and rapid, serious and conclusive talks with Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian leadership.

To drive home the tough consequences of any refusal to comply, NATO on Monday will launch its first air exercises over Albania and Macedonia, near the Kosovo border, to demonstrate the force it could use to pressure Yugoslavia.

The demonstration, code-named Operation Determined Falcon, will deliberately be “quite large,” the U.S. official said.

American warplanes will make up about a third of the force. All told, about 40 warplanes from nine nations--Belgium, Britain, Denmark, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, Turkey and the United States--will participate, according to NATO officials.

The United States will contribute F-16s, KC-135 tanker planes and an amphibious ready group that includes three ships with Marines, as well as Harrier jump jets and helicopters. The group is moving from Turkey to the Adriatic Sea for the exercise.

Aircraft will fly from bases in North Atlantic Treaty Organization countries to the exercise areas for specific events and then return to their originating bases.

“The objective of this exercise is to demonstrate NATO’s capability to project power rapidly into the region,” NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana said Saturday in a statement released in Brussels.

In Washington, Clinton administration officials said Saturday that the use of force is significantly closer, and perhaps even unavoidable, because of three factors.

First, U.S. intelligence Saturday reported a Yugoslav military buildup on two fronts, indicating new offensives are imminent. One is south of Pristina, the Kosovo capital, near Prizren, an important religious center for Orthodox Serbs. The other is near Dakovica, a major city of about 120,000 near Kosovo’s border with Albania.

“We’ve had reliable reports that Dakovica has been surrounded on three sides by artillery and aircraft buzzing the place in a repeat of past tactics. Because of the population size, this could create a massive outflow of refugees toward Albania,” the senior U.S. official said.

Because of the reports, Washington has privately sent a tough new warning to Serbia, which, with the much smaller Montenegro, is one of the two republics remaining in Yugoslavia.

Washington is concerned that Milosevic is repeating a pattern he has used in the current crisis and also during the 3 1/2-year conflict in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

“There’s no question in our minds that this has to do with attempts to create an intimidating atmosphere for any eventual talks,” the senior official added.

The Yugoslav leader has often launched new offensives before he says he wants to make peace, allowing him to make gains that he can then offer to return as part of any settlement, U.S. officials note. Thus, if Yugoslav forces do make new gains, any offers from the government could merely mean a return to the status quo of today or last week, rather than when the crisis began.

The second factor pointing toward the use of force by the West is Russia’s record in past attempts at urging conciliation on the Serbs.

Foreign Minister Yevgeny M. Primakov has traveled to the Serbian and Yugoslav capital, Belgrade, and a top aide has made two trips.

On each occasion, the Russians were rebuffed.

“It’s the feeling of all concerned that it’s desirable for the Russians to give it a try, and we strongly endorsed their attempt. But it’s also our feeling that they’re taking on a heavy responsibility,” an administration official said. “And it’s our fear that the Russians and Serbs will end up offering what amounts to only half-measures, not the whole package of steps outlined in London. And we want to make clear that we will not settle for what they declare [is] a solution but is something less. The package is a package, not a menu with choices.”

The Kosovo crisis differs from the Bosnian conflict because of Serbia’s historical claim to the province, so U.S. officials are predicting that Milosevic will balk particularly at the demand for a long-term solution to Kosovo’s political status.

The third factor suggesting that Western force may be brought to bear in the province is the heavy involvement there of Yugoslavia’s most aggressive military and security units, an indication of the Yugoslav commitment to retaining total control over Kosovo despite the fact that 90% of its population is ethnic Albanian.

Of particular concern to U.S. officials is the presence of Frankie Simatovic, head of an intelligence unit with a long record of “ethnic cleansing” of non-Serbs in both Bosnia and Kosovo.

“We knew the minute we heard he was involved in Kosovo that there would be atrocities,” the administration official said.

U.S. experts point to a fourth factor likely to push NATO into using force if Milosevic does not deliver--the initiative shown by Britain combined with firm stands by Germany and now France.

In stark contrast to the initial European reluctance to get involved in Bosnia, Europe wants to avoid the bloodshed and controversy generated by the Bosnian fighting, which threatened to tear NATO apart and undermine the relationship between the other alliance members and the U.S.

“The Europeans don’t want to go through that again,” said James R. Hooper, director of the Balkan Institute in Washington. “It’s the European desire to confront the Serbians forcefully that has, in turn, forced President Clinton to consider the use of force.”