Give the Air War More Time

As the NATO air campaign against Yugoslavia enters its fourth week, there is growing frustration in the United States that the bombing has not yet produced a victory, or even much sign of progress toward one. Although Operation Allied Force may well fail in the end, it is far too early to expect a decisive result.

It is worth remembering that in the Gulf War, even though Western air power was startlingly successful, it took more than three weeks of intense bombing before Saddam Hussein began to express interest in negotiating a withdrawal of his forces from Kuwait. And after well over a month of air attacks, a brief ground war was still required to seal the coalition victory.

Yugoslavia is only about half as big as Iraq. But Operation Desert Storm was conducted by thousands of U.S. and allied aircraft, compared to the hundreds being employed against the Serbs. Moreover, Yugoslavia is more difficult to attack due to differences in terrain, weather and the nature--and competence--of the enemy forces. Even more important, Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic is being asked to give up control of Kosovo, something far more important to him and his supporters than Iraqi control of Kuwait was to Saddam.

In short, it is not surprising that NATO hasn’t won yet. It would have been shocking if the Serbs had conceded defeat already. What is surprising is that those who launched the campaign didn’t explain this clearly at the outset in order to avoid popular dissatisfaction with the slow pace of this war of attrition.

If Yugoslavia does give up, it will be for one of two reasons. The first would be that retaining control of Kosovo against the Kosovo Liberation Army or NATO had become hopeless. This is what led the Bosnian Serbs to sign the Dayton accords in 1995. Reaching such a point in this case will take a very long time without a ground invasion, and the Kosovo Albanians will continue to suffer greatly in the meantime, but it can be achieved eventually with patience and additional NATO forces.

The other possibility is that the continuing destruction of Serbia’s infrastructure and armed forces will persuade Milosevic, the Yugoslav military or the Serbian populace that it would be better to give up Kosovo than to endure further attacks. Milosevic is unlikely to decide that this is true, having risen to power on a platform of repressing the Kosovo Albanians and having good reason to fear a one-way trip to the Hague for a war crimes trial if he is deposed. And the Serbian people who elected Milosevic are hardly likely to oust him in order to make peace with NATO when they have suffered little from the war other than gasoline rationing and ferry queues, and know little of it beside what Belgrade tells them.

There may be a chance that the Yugoslav National Army will feel differently, however. Never the most pro-Milosevic organization in Serbia, its leaders may yet decide that the gradual destruction of the institution to which they have devoted their lives would be worse than submitting to the West’s principal demands on Kosovo. No air campaign has ever won a victory this way, but since such a strategy has only been tried once before--against Iraq, where the armed forces had little prospect of overthrowing Saddam--this doesn’t prove that it can’t work.

Even if victory for NATO will come in time, though, it isn’t just around the corner. Neither airstrikes nor a ground war will be fast enough to prevent the deaths of many thousands more Kosovars. For now, Milosevic is firmly in control and the Yugoslav army is stronger than ever, as patriotic fervor swells its ranks.

Some months ago, at least one pundit predicted that the Rambouillet negotiations would fail because neither side in the Kosovo conflict was really tired of fighting yet. Much the same is true of NATO and Yugoslavia today. The question now is whether frustrated Western citizens and leaders will be less patient than their Serbian counterparts, and demand either escalation or withdrawal because there hasn’t been an instant victory.