It Will Take More Than Bombs to Bring Stability

French President Jacques Chirac recently reaffirmed his country’s belated but resolute support for the ongoing NATO offensive against Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic. His comments reflect not only a revulsion at the wanton violation of human rights, but the new Europe’s considerable apprehension over the presence of an international outlaw in its own backyard.

His words also reflect the West’s propensity for demonizing its adversaries, whether Saddam Hussein in Kuwait or Milosevic in Kosovo. Yet as we proceed to “degrade” and, most likely, defeat the Yugoslav army, we should keep in mind one major difference between the tyrants of Baghdad and Belgrade: Since invading Kuwait in 1990, Saddam has enforced the compliance of his subordinates and the Iraqi people through terror, not loyalty. Over the same period, Milosevic has been well-served by a long line of subordinates who have eagerly played the role of “willing executioners,” in Serbia proper and in neighboring Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo.

Last month’s announcement of a secret 1997 indictment against Serb paramilitary leader Zeljko Raznjatovic, known as Arkan, is a case in point. Although Milosevic readily and repeatedly opened Serbia’s prisons to Arkan’s recruiters, it was Arkan himself who choreographed the grisly dance of death that his paramilitary force, the Tigers, performed in the towns and villages of Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. Nor is Milosevic primarily responsible for the former bank robber’s transformation into a genuine Serb folk hero, the owner of Yugoslavia’s world-class soccer team and celebrity husband of Serbia’s top female rock star.

With his indictment, Arkan joins a cast of 60 Serb war criminals. Some are top officials like wartime Bosnian-Serb leader Radovan Karadzic, who was primarily responsible for the three-year bombardment of Sarajevo, or Bosnian-Serb Gen. Ratko Mladic, who personally ordered the massacre of nearly 8,000 men and boys in the fields around Srebrenica. But most are bit players who freelanced as looters, arsonists, rapists and murderers independently of Milosevic, Karadzic and Mladic. Indeed, this same uniformity of purpose and tactics is presently evident in Kosovo, where Serbian special police boasted to journalists that they would “kill every Albanian in sight” if NATO bombed, even before receiving orders from above.

Despite NATO’s claims that its quarrel is with Milosevic, not the Serbian people, the grim reality is that violent retribution is rooted in Serbian popular culture. Milosevic has simply tapped into it to fuel and sustain his meteoric rise to power. This does not minimize the importance of defeating and, ultimately, toppling Milosevic. But we must realize that his fall from power will only be a first step toward resolution of the problem.

Peace and stability within and around Serbia can only be assured through the reacculturation and rehabilitation of Serbian society--a more formidable task that will demand more patience and political courage than dropping bombs. But it is achievable. We need only look to Germany’s assisted odyssey from fascism to democracy.

Of course, Germany’s catharsis was effected by a regimen of war crimes trials, denazification and years of Allied occupation. And this is a distinction worth keeping in mind as we contemplate the need for employing ground troops against Serbia. If the New Europe wants to prepare the landscape properly for its eastward expansion, then ground troops become a useful instrument for rehabilitating Serbia.

But they should not go through mountainous Kosovo, which is remote from NATO forces presently stationed in Central Europe and relatively inaccessible from neighboring Albania and Macedonia. Instead, NATO should head straight for Belgrade via Hungary or Croatia. That would put its tank columns on the flat, totally open farmland of Serbia’s northern province of Vojvodina. Once there, NATO could pursue the same air-land battle tactics that saved countless lives and cost Saddam so dearly in Desert Storm.

Indeed, by dropping all of the Danube River bridges that are Vojvodina’s only connection with the rest of Serbia, its pilots can prevent the Yugoslav army from reinforcing the few troops presently stationed there, thus facilitating their unimpeded march to Belgrade. And it is by reaching Belgrade that we can best save not only the Kosovo Albanians from the Serbs, but the Serbs from themselves.