Kosovo: Don't Go There - Center for Security Policy

‘Thanks, But No Thanks’ to Architect Holbrooke’s Promotion

(Washington, D.C.): The Clinton Administration is slouching towards a multinational
intervention in the Serbian province of Kosovo involving perhaps as many as 5,000 American
servicemen and women. It is using the deployment of NATO and other forces to Bosnia as the
model. Should it do so, the United States would embark upon an open-ended, ill-defined and
very expensive venture that will treat a serious regional problem symptomatically, but not
systemically.

Unfortunately, a peacekeeping operation in Kosovo is likely to have less in common
with
Bosnia than Somalia. It will be recalled that in that case American efforts
to contend with a
violently chaotic political situation produced policies doomed to fail, policies that sought
simultaneously to negotiate with and to defeat a local warlord, resulting in unacceptable U.S.
casualties and an ignominious retreat.

Holbrooke’s Legacy

The present crisis in Kosovo is, in large part, a direct result of the Clinton Administration’s
earlier
diplomatic efforts, directed by Ambassador Richard Holbrooke. By dealing
with — rather than
pursuing the overthrow of — Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic, Holbrooke and Company
bought a suspension of hostilities in Bosnia, after years of unchecked Serb-instigated genocide.

Even that outcome has been purchased at a huge price: conservative estimates suggest that
the
United States alone has expended over $10 billion in the post-Dayton peacekeeping
operation in
Bosnia. (This price tag does not begin to quantify the further toll that the deployment of
thousands of U.S. troops in Bosnia has taken on the materiel, readiness and morale of the
American military.)

Worst of all, there is no real peace in Bosnia. Everyone
familiar with the situation there
recognizes that Holbrooke’s diplomacy did nothing to address the underlying sources of the
Bosnian conflict (i.e., a defacto partition of Bosnia preceded by SFOR deployment.) All other
things being equal — especially if Milosevic remains in power and continues to sponsor and
underwrite ethnic Serb gangsters there — the war will resume in tinderboxes like Brcko the
moment international forces are withdrawn, and the vast sums expended to date will be
recognized to have been wasted. This reality renders the Clinton Administration unable, or at
least unwilling, to end the American deployment in Bosnia.

Today, the United States is confronted with the predictable results of Richard Holbrooke’s
reprise
with Slobodan Milosevic last October. In those negotiations (conducted before the American
mid-term elections with an eye to shoring up President Clinton’s popularity and political
relevance), Holbrooke again made a bad bargain: In exchange for calling off NATO air strikes
that could, if properly conducted, have contributed to Milosevic’s removal from power, the Serb
dictator was once again rehabilitated politically (“blessed be the peacemakers”) and given time
and what amount to hostages (the so-called international “verifiers” deployed to Kosovo) with
which to fight another day in Kosovo.

‘Hell No, We Won’t Go’

It is ironic that a man who so admired President Kennedy and then refused to fight the war
that
resulted from that President’s commitment of U.S. forces to Vietnam (with no clear strategy for
what they would do there, let alone an “exit strategy” for getting them out) is now prepared to
launch the American military on a venture that is, no less, more problematic than the effort to
prevent a communist take-over of South Vietnam. Consider just a few of the factors that make it
exceedingly unlikely that a Clinton deployment in Kosovo will succeed in bringing peace to the
Balkans, let alone serve larger U.S. interests:

There is very little likelihood that there will be peace in Kosovo for the
peacekeepers to
keep. The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) — a group akin to Ireland’s IRA and the
Basque
ETA that enjoyed little popular support until the West allowed Milosevic to engage in “ethnic
cleansing” in Kosovo similar to what his forces and proxies had done in Bosnia and Croatia —
will not settle for “autonomy.” It seems unlikely to abide by a future ceasefire, any more than
it has observed the deal Holbrooke cut last fall.

A large NATO presence could contribute to the spread of the Kosovo
conflagration. To
control the situation in Kosovo, peacekeepers are going to have to deal with neighboring
Albania, a nation that is itself in a Somalia-like state of anarchy and that serves as a conduit
and source for KLA of arms and logistical support. What is more, if Macedonia becomes a
major base for NATO operations, its tenuous status as a peaceable backwater in the Balkans
could be jeopardized. Already, Greece, Bulgaria and Serbia have designs upon “the Yugoslav
Republic Formerly Known as Macedonia.” With roughly 30% of its population made up of
ethnic Albanians, Macedonia will almost certainly be a target for one or the other side’s efforts
to destabilize the new anti-communist regime there. And Montenegro, the last remaining
partner with Serbia in a so-called Yugolsav Federation, has been trying to distance itself from
the Milosevic regime. The Serb dictator may see the NATO deployment as a pretext for
tightening his grip on Montenegro.

The United States military appears likely to be subordinated to foreign command.
Another lesson that was supposedly re-learned in Somalia is the importance of not
placing
American forces under the authority of foreign nationals. Yet, in its desperation to keep the
numbers of U.S. personnel attached to the Kosovo tar-baby to a minimum, the U.S. military
has reportedly agreed to assign at least 1,000 troops to a NATO force commanded by a British
or French general. If, as seems likely, Americans come under fire in Kosovo, their lives had
better be in the hands of officers accountable to this Nation’s chain of command.

A U.S. deployment in Kosovo will be a strategic windfall for Russia’s
Primakov. For one
thing, the United States has apparently agreed to repeat the Bosnia practice of including
Russian forces in the NATO peacekeeping operation in Kosovo. Doing so serves undesirably
to enhance Russian influence over and claims to have a say in Balkan affairs. (This will be
particularly true if, as is being considered, NATO creates “zones” in Kosovo assigned to
British, French, U.S. and other — read, principally Russian — forces.)

a U.S. deployment to Kosovo must seem like a no-lose situation:

The Bottom Line

Central Intelligence Agency Director George Tenet made clear in congressional testimony
yesterday that there will almost certainly be increased bloodshed in Kosovo come the spring.
Unfortunately, there will probably be more innocent lives lost there under all
circumstances.
The question is: Will some of them be Americans, and will they be lost in a vain effort to contain
a conflict that emanates, first and foremost, from the genocidal machinations of Slobodan
Milosevic?

There are no easy solutions to the present Balkan debacle, or approaches whose success can
be
guaranteed. It seems reasonably certain, however, that any strategy — like that employed
repeatedly by Richard Holbrooke — that rests on Milosevic’s good faith implementation and that,
as a result, requires the United States to support his continued hold on power is doomed to fail.
Such failure can take many forms, not least the expensive commitment of American personnel in a
dangerous setting from which they can, as a practical matter, never be withdrawn.

Congress must not issue another blank-check for this kind of diplo-military
venture. While
it may not wish to take responsibility for renewed violence in Kosovo, it has an obligation to our
armed forces, to the taxpayers and to the larger national interest to engage in a serious debate
before U.S. troops are committed. This debate must address which of the several
poor choices
now confronting the United States — thanks in no small measure to Mr. Holbrooke’s previous,
short-sighted diplomatic initiatives — is least bad.

In the Center for Security Policy’s view, that would be to forego deploying
peacekeepers in
Kosovo and concentrate on ending the despotic Serbian regime whose ambitions and
genocidal practices have produced each of the Balkans’ recent conflicts. Needless to
say, the
Senate should think long and hard about promoting to a position of still higher responsibility and
visibility at the United Nations a man who bears so much responsibility for preventing that
approach from being adopted before now and, thereby, contributing to the present fiasco.