Kosovo’s Losing Deadline Game

Deadlines can be death to diplomacy. When the United States and its NATO allies let their Saturday deadline for air attacks on Serbian military bases pass without pulling the trigger, they opened the door to confusion on the Kosovo crisis and renewed, increased fighting in the Yugoslav province.

The Serbs, no doubt sensing weakness, promptly demanded that sympathetic Russian units be part of any international force in Kosovo. The Kosovars, sniffing opportunity, insisted on a referendum within three years that could separate them altogether from Yugoslavia and its Serbian masters.

Then, with matters going backward, the NATO powers Monday set a new deadline of this morning for agreement that NATO alliance troops alone--meaning no Russians--constitute any peace force in Kosovo. If the NATO commanders let this deadline pass without penalty, what can Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic be expected to think?

Attacks should have been launched Saturday. What’s involved here is not a high-risk commitment of ground troops; it’s an air attack against Milosevic’s heavy weapons--armor, artillery and aircraft. How many times must NATO threaten before it strikes? Milosevic is not going to toss in the towel, nor will the Kosovars abandon their demands for self-rule. Whichever side flinches loses--for now.

Kosovo has become a major test for NATO, more significant in many ways than the war in Bosnia. The Kosovars are ethnic Albanians, a people who live throughout the Balkans. Trouble in Kosovo means trouble elsewhere.

Though Washington has a commitment as the leading force in NATO, we continue to oppose broad use of U.S. ground troops in the crisis. In these troubled waters American force should be closely measured. Nevertheless, the United States has committed itself to attack Milosevic’s material strength. It should do so, with no more warnings or deadlines.