John McCain

Whether they want to or not--and surely several would rather pass--the Republican presidential contenders must stake out positions on Kosovo. Rep. John R. Kasich of Ohio, former Vice President Dan Quayle, Sen. Robert C. Smith of New Hampshire and conservative activists Gary L. Bauer and Patrick J. Buchanan have all opposed U.S. involvement, risking criticism for breaking the unwritten rule that presidential candidates should never say anything that undercuts foreign policy. Former Tennessee Gov. Lamar Alexander, former American Red Cross head Elizabeth H. Dole and publisher Steve Forbes all have said they favor bombing. The front-runner, Texas Gov. George W. Bush, has said only that he supports U.S. troops in the field, which is not far from saying, “Damned if I’m going to commit myself one way or the other.”

Then there’s John S. McCain, senator from Arizona and also a probable candidate for the GOP nomination. Nothing about McCain’s position is equivocal. McCain favors mobilization of North Atlantic Treaty Organization troops for Kosovo--fast, quick, now. He is the only potential candidate talking about a ground war, the one option that could directly resolve the humanitarian outrage of Serbian attacks on the defenseless.

McCain, 62, is the son and grandson of Navy admirals. He went to the Naval Academy in Annapolis, Md. and became a pilot, flying combat missions over Vietnam until he was shot down in 1967. McCain then spent five and a half years in a prisoner-of-war camp. After retiring from the Navy in 1981, he moved to Arizona, his wife, Cindy’s, home, and ran for Congress in 1983. Criticized as a carpetbagger, he memorably responded that owing to his service-family upbringing, “The longest place I ever lived was in Hanoi.” He won two terms as a representative, then, in 1986, easily won a Senate seat, which he has held since.

McCain’s voting record on Capitol Hill has been mainly conservative, bit his views can defy categorization. He has repeatedly infuriated the GOP leadership by pushing for campaign-finance-reform legislation that would essentially ban the big-donor money most Republicans depend on. The dark spot on McCain’s record is his membership in the “Keating Five,” the group of senators who went to bat for convicted swindler Charles H. Keating Jr. in 1987, before his criminal activities were well-known. Since then, McCain had led an almost error-free political life.

Owing to his powerful, personal military experience, McCain’s views on defense affairs receive close hearing in Washington. They have also been bringing him significant press attention in the last week, but his appearances on “Nightline” and “The Charlie Rose Show” paled before this headline over an editorial in the Des Moines Register: “McCain 1, Others 0.” What makes the Des Moines Register’s view so significant? The ground war of the year 2000 presidential race may be fought in Iowa.

McCain had planned to kick off his presidential candidacy last week in New Hampshire and then at an Arizona rally replete with high-school bands and balloons. Because of Kosovo, he postponed the formal announcement. He spoke to The Times by telephone just before departing for Brussels and Aviano, Italy, with Defense Secretary William S. Cohen, his former Senate colleague, and again after his return to the U.S.

Question: You say air power will be insufficient to compel Serbia to stop killing civilians in Kosovo, and if air power is not enough, that leaves only ground war.

Answer: Ground action is what’s appropriate now. You can say we never should have gotten into this situation in the first place, but we have gotten in, so we must deal with the situation as it is now. To fail at this point would not only have a tremendous humanitarian cost but would threaten the credibility of NATO and ultimately threaten the credibility of the United States itself. In Pyongyang [North Korea] and in Baghdad, they pay close attention to whether the United States follows through on its commitments. It is essential we show the world the United States does follow through.

Q: If there’s a ground war, some American troops are sure to die.

A: The president should be preparing the American people for the inevitability of casualties, if there is a ground war. I am completely aware that by advocating this option, I must take responsibility, too, for whatever casualties occur.

Q: Even a successful operation would do considerable damage to Serbia, including killing Serbian civilians who do not support the ethnic-cleansing policy.

A: A ground war does not necessarily mean a full-scale invasion aimed at Gregg Easterbrook is a senior editor at the New Republic and author of “Beside Still Waters: Searching for Meaning in an Age of Doubt.”

Belgrade. We could move armored divisions into Albania and Macedonia, with their first objectives being to enter Kosovo, stop the ethnic cleansing and return the rightful citizens there. Once Kosovo was secure, there might not be any need for ground action against Serbia proper. So it’s possible ground action would be confined to the liberation of Kosovo.

Q: In the last few days, the bombing has become more intense.

A: Reminds you of Vietnam a little, doesn’t it? “Graduated escalation” was the phrase back then. I see from this morning’s papers the Pentagon is saying it has “isolated” the Serb units in Kosovo by cutting the rail lines and bridges between Kosovo and Serbia. This kind of thinking is an example of the overselling of air power. Think about the situation during the Korean War. In that war, we had 100% uncontested control of the air 24 hours a day, and we were never able to prevent the Chinese from resupplying their units. Unless you resort to nuclear weapons, it is simply impossible to “isolate” an army using air power alone.

Q: What should be the West’s biggest concern right now?

A: I’m actually quite a bit more worried now that the Kosovars have stopped pouring across the border. At least when they were refugees, we knew they were alive. Now the Serbs are marching them back into an area where we can’t protect them. There are many thousands of women, children and older people who marched for days toward the border, and are now being marched back for days. They are going to start dying of exhaustion and exposure, and you know the wonderful Serbs are not going to help them. The wonderful Serbs plan to use them as human shields. The killing may reach a horrible level unless we act quickly.

Q: Some observers have suggested that a halfway solution would be to send Apache antitank helicopters into Kosovo. That would enable NATO forces to do a better job of destroying Serbian armor but not actually send in troops.

A: Remember that no one weapon is a magic solution. Also, remember that the Apache is a ground-support helicopter; it is not considered an air-war weapon. Apaches operate close to the ground and short-distance, and they require forward air controllers [spotter troops near the target] and ground-support fire. Bringing Apaches into Kosovo would be very close to committing to a ground operation.

Q: But suppose the U.S. and NATO did commit to sending troops and armor into Kosovo. That couldn’t happen overnight. Estimates are two to four weeks of preparation would be required. In the meantime, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic’s operatives can keep up the killings.

A: That’s a sad truth. Even if we do decide to prepare for a ground war, there will be more ethnic cleansing between now and then, unless you think air attacks can be totally decisive, which I do not think is likely. Additional atrocities are almost assured.

Q: Administration figures, including Vice President Al Gore, keep saying there is no ground-war scenario.

A: We made a very serious error by not being prepared for this in the first place. The vice president broke the first rule of military politics, which is never limit your own options. He was naive and foolish to say that we would rule out the use of ground troops, because this was the same as telling Milosevic he could operate with impunity. We should have been better prepared and thought this through much more carefully before injecting ourselves into this situation.

But now that’s in the past. The question is what should we do today, and the answer is we should prepare for a ground offensive while hoping it won’t be needed. Merely the preparation might turn the tide. Milosevic can hide from our bombs in bunkers, but if I were him, I would feel much less comfortable if I knew that NATO tanks and soldiers were coming onto my territory and would soon be near me personally.

Q: Going in, Clinton weighed the option of preparing for ground war and rejected it. Why should he change gears now?

A: It would nice if the president would say to the American people that things are not going according to plan. But in war, things never go according to plan, which is one of the reasons you avoid war. But now war has begun, things have changed, and our goal must be to win.

Q: Clinton’s national security advisor, Sandy Berger, has his background in commercial trade law and is widely viewed as lightweight. Madeleine Albright is as gung-ho as any secretary of state has been, but her grasp of military affairs seems tenuous. Who should Clinton be talking to?

A: The president should call in [former joint chiefs chairman] Colin Powell, [former national security advisor] Zbigniew Brzezinski, [former secretary of state] Henry Kissinger, [former national security advisor] Brent Scowcroft, [former secretary of state] Lawrence Eagleburger. These may seem a little like old names, but these are the people who won the Cold War. They know how to handle showdown situations and how to act credibly when the pressure is on.

Q: Suppose NATO does enter Kosovo. Won’t this raise the dreaded “Q” word: quagmire?

A: A quagmire is a valid concern. The American people must understand that there is no good option on Kosovo, only a range of bad options, and right now a ground offensive is the least bad. Remember, the Serb army has antiquated equipment; the Bosnian Serbs were defeated quite rapidly by the Croats. Serbia is a country the size of Ohio, with a population of just 10 million. The United States must be able to prevail in a contest of wills with such a state.

Q: Throughout his administration, Clinton has had testy relationships with the military, partly because he avoided the Vietnam draft. Is that an issue now?

A: No, it’s a dead issue. You don’t need personal military experience to be a leader. Several presidents without personal military experience have nevertheless been effective leaders in time of war. That’s why, early in the Clinton administration, I said he deserved the benefit of the doubt. When President Clinton was planning to go to the Vietnam War Memorial, some of the veterans groups said he should not. But I wrote him a note and said he should go, that he was commander in chief and he belonged there. I still feel that way, that Clinton should be judged on the merits of what he does today, not what he did or didn’t do as a student.

Q: You’re in a delicate situation, running for president and thus having an interest in criticizing the president, but knowing that in time of war, national unity is essential.

A: That’s why I have been trying to criticize policy, rather than the president personally. I would say the president’s problems with Congress and to a lesser extent the American people on this issue right now have nothing to do with his own personal problems or his moral standing. Everyone’s tired of that issue. The president’s problems are based on his policies, especially a feckless sort of photo-op foreign policy. Our China policy is in total disarray. We’re bribing the North Koreans. [The White House has essentially proposed paying North Korea for the right to inspect its nuclear reactors.] Haiti is worse off than before the Clinton experiment there. We bombed the daylights out of Iraq ostensibly because they wouldn’t give free reign to our inspectors, but now, after the bombing, there’s no inspector within 100 miles of the place. When President Clinton said our troops would only be in Bosnia one year, I said, “Come on, you can’t be serious. Everyone knows it will have to be longer, just tell the truth.” Yet, the White House kept standing up and insisting, only one year. It’s his policy behavior that has caused the president to lose foreign-affairs standing, not his personal problems. We all make mistakes in our personal life.

Q: A few years ago, during the Bosnia crisis, you cautioned against U.S. involvement, citing the limits of air power. Because America was slow to act, many thousands of unarmed Bosnians were murdered by Serb soldiers at Srebrenica and other areas. Is that a reason you favor U.S. involvement now?

A: Oh, yes. I was wrong about Bosnia, and that is something I reproach myself for. In the end I came around and stood up for the president’s plans in the Senate. . . . But early in the Bosnia crisis, I was completely wrong. Learning about the atrocity at Srebrenica had a deep effect on me. Even considering my own mistakes, though, I feel Kosovo is a somewhat more serious situation. Bosnia was a locally contained genocide, which is bad enough, but had little chance to become a larger conflict. The Kosovo war has the potential to destabilize the entire Balkan region.*

“My position is not that we must commit ourselves to a ground offensive. What I’m saying is that we must prepare for ground action, and as quickly as possible.”

“The president’s problems are based on his policies, especially a feckless sort of photo-up foreign policy. Our China policy is in total disarray.”

“Even if we decide to prepare for a ground war, there will be more ethnic cleansing between now and then. . .Additional atrocities are almost assured.”