Weighing a Ground War

As NATO waits for Yugoslavia’s President Slobodan Milosevic to crack under the intensifying pressure of its eight-week-old bombing campaign, the fissures within its own ranks are widening. President Clinton, who once ruled out any use of ground troops to drive the Serbian army out of Kosovo, now says that is an option, and he wants America’s 18 NATO partners to agree to deploy up to 50,000 on Kosovo’s borders. Seven thousand of those would be Americans.

Peacekeeping operations could begin quickly if Milosevic agrees to terms acceptable to NATO. And if he does not, NATO would at least be far better positioned to fight its way into Kosovo should its commanders conclude that is necessary.

Clinton’s reluctant embrace of the ground-forces option came under prodding from British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who alone among NATO’s political leaders has had the courage to recognize that keeping open the threat of an invasion adds credibility to the alliance’s determination to end Milosevic’s reign of terror in Kosovo and bring security for its people.

But so far Blair and Clinton are getting little support. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has dismissed as unthinkable the participation of German troops in any invasion, and he threatens to try to block any change in NATO’s air-war-only strategy. On Monday, NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana similarly called for continued reliance on bombing to achieve NATO’s objectives and to do nothing “to give the impression that we are going to change the strategy.”

What the bombing-only advocates overlook is that NATO is racing the calendar. Even a peacekeeping force that would not have to fight its way into Kosovo would take weeks to assemble, and it is likely to take months after that to bring about the return of the Kosovars who have been driven into Macedonia and Albania and make sure they have adequate shelter. Winter comes early to the Balkans. The humanitarian tragedy of Milosevic’s ethnic cleansing policy would be grievously deepened if NATO, which has taken on the role of the Kosovars’ protector, continues to dawdle and evade its responsibilities on the ground.

The nucleus of a strong peacekeeping force already exists, with 5,000 American and 8,000 Italian troops in Albania and 13,000 mainly British and French troops in Macedonia. What’s needed in NATO now is the political will to augment these forces and to prepare them to meet the aims for which NATO has gone to war.