Making A Deal: Why Milosevic Blinked

Milosevic may have capitulated, but there is little reason for exultation among the alliance

If personal survival is your war aim, then surrender is always an option. We will never know exactly when the decision took root in the contrarian lobes of Slobodan Milosevic's brain. But three weeks ago, his body language changed. For weeks, whenever he received Russian special envoy Viktor Chernomyrdin, the Serbian leader would loll arrogantly back in his seat and hold forth, filling the room with his self-serving discourse. Since launching a diplomatic shuttle on April 14, Chernomyrdin had spent dozens of fruitless hours with Milosevic, most of them listening. Then on May 19, the Russian detected a subtle shift. During...

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