They’re Baaaack: The Kremlin’s Kosovo Kaper Augurs Ill for Clinton’s ‘Victory’

(Washington, D.C.): It was absolutely poetic. No sooner had President Clinton finished
trumpeting his “victory” over the Serbs in an Oval Office address — including fatuous remarks
about the very positive role the Russians had played in securing a “peace agreement” — than
the
Kremlin took a page out of the play-book that put half of Europe in its thrall at the end of
the Second World War: Hours before British and other NATO forces entered Kosovo,
several
hundred Red Army soldiers assigned to “peacekeeping” operations in Bosnia rolled through
Serbia to take control of the airport in the Kosovar provincial capital of Pristina.

Bad Business

There ensued a series of tough stand-offs with heavily armed NATO troops demanding to be
let
into the airport, only to be defiantly told by the Russians and their Serb allies to get lost.
Deputy
Secretary of State Strobe Talbott — the former Soviets’ preferred interlocutor — made
the same
mid-flight U-turn as Yevgeny Primakov had done two months ago, with one important
difference. The former Russian prime minister turned around his plane en route to Washington
as a gesture of contempt for the Clinton decision to launch the air campaign against Serbia;
Talbott went back to Moscow for the purpose of purchasing, yet again, the Yeltsin
regime’s
support for the peacekeeping operation that was supposed to replace it.

At this writing, apparently neither the chief American kow-tower nor his long-time friend
and
patron, Bill Clinton, have so far found and met the Russians’ price for a de-escalation of this
little drama. But it is a safe bet that, given enough time, they will — and the price
will be a
considerable one for U.S. taxpayers and interests.

This is, as the Communists are wont to say, “no accident, comrade.” The Russians are, after
all,
a people whose national sport is chess — an extraordinary game in which even the weak can turn
disadvantaged positions into triumphs if they are audacious, cunning and far-sighted enough.
Those who run Russia today (that is, one or more of the following: the ailing
Boris Yeltsin; his
prime minister du jour Stepashin; the “power ministers” responsible for defense,
foreign affairs,
intelligence and internal security; the politically well-connected oligarches; and the military
leadership) chose to strengthen their government’s field position by changing the “facts
on
the ground” in Kosovo.

Political Alchemy — Turning National Weakness into Strength

For these reasons, anyone who believes that the Russian move into Kosovo was a
“rogue
operation” is smoking something. This was a calculated move, pure and
simple. That reality
is especially obvious if, as has been reported, Moscow was prepared to fly large transport aircraft
— presumably crammed with additional personnel and firepower — into the Pristina airport once
Red Army troops had secured it. Implementation of this plan was only prevented when the
Kremlin could not get permission from either the Romanians or the Bulgarians to overfly their
territory.

Clearly, the powers that be in Moscow correctly calculated that the sneak deployment of
Russia’s
contingent from Bosnia would translate into increased leverage — leverage desperately sought by
an erstwhile superpower unwilling to accept its all-but-complete irrelevance in a region long
considered to be its sphere of influence.

The Kremlin’s Current Price

Indeed, it seems already to have had that effect as Russophiles like Talbott are putting out the
word that the Russians may now be given a “zone of responsibility” in which they will be
dominant. As the New York Times wryly observed today, “No one was saying yet
how or
whether a zone differed from a sector.”

In fact, early reports suggest that the differences may be minimized in order to “save face”
for the
Russians. Talbott declared after his negotiating session on Sunday that the zone would be one in
which the Russian role would be “important and manifest.” The Times reports that
one proposal
under consideration “would allow the Russians to turn down NATO orders to carry out missions
but would require the Russians not to intervene when NATO forces carry our the same orders in
the Russian zone.” (That would seem to be the least one could expect from fellow
“peacekeepers” — unless, of course, NATO might be so bold as to ask the Russian troops not to
compromise the mission by tipping off the targets to the Allies’ plans!) So much for the
principle of unified NATO command.

Some of the bitter fruits of Russia’s power play are already evident. The Serbs have been
emboldened by the arrival of fraternal Slav units, getting in a few last licks as they withdraw.
For example, there are numerous reports of retreating Serb forces torching some of few structures
left unscathed by their previous “ethnic cleansing.” Displaced Kosovar Albanians have been
alarmed at the prospect of returning if the Russians are running anything. And the Kosovo
Liberation Army, which needs no provocation to seek revenge, has reportedly begun deadly
reprisals against selected Serbs.

It seems likely that the Kremlin will be rewarded for its airport-seizing act of terrorism in
other
costly ways, as well. At the upcoming summit meeting of the so-called “G-8” — that is, seven
leading industrial democracies and the world’s most powerful charity case — Boris
Yeltsin may
be promised expensive new Western commitments to debt relief, fresh cash infusions (at
least from multilateral institutions like the IMF and World Bank), the easing of export
controls on strategic items like supercomputers, etc.

The Bottom Line

Welcome to the post-post-Cold War world, in which the U.S. role as sole superpower is
increasingly challenged by lesser states — and found wanting. This will be particularly true if as
a result of the Russians’ mischief-making or other factors, American forces find themselves in
messy cross-fires in Kosovo.

One thing is sure: The United States is a long way from winning the peace in the
Balkans.
And until it does so — if it can — President Clinton would well-advised to refrain from crowing
about what is, at best, an incomplete victory.