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Albright is convinced that thousands needlessly lost their lives in the Bosnian civil war because the West dithered. She vowed not to repeat that mistake in Kosovo. But by last month it seemed that Washington was going to do just that. The unarmed peace monitors who had been sent to the province watched helplessly as the slaughter continued. Albright, nervous about the quickly deteriorating truce, persuaded President Clinton and Defense Secretary William Cohen to deploy peacekeepers, then cajoled European foreign ministers into giving Milosevic a two-week deadline to accept a peace agreement or face NATO bombing. On a trip to Moscow in January, she laid out the U.S. plan to Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov during intermissions at a performance of La Traviata at the Bolshoi Theater. By the end of the opera, Ivanov had agreed that Russia would not object to the threat of air strikes--giving Albright a stronger negotiating position.
With the Russians on board, Albright spent the next two weeks keeping half a dozen trains moving in a complex operation of diplomatic logistics. She began each day with a 7 a.m. phone call to U.S. ambassador Christopher Hill, who was paving the way for the peace talks. That was followed by phone calls to nervous European foreign ministers, Ivanov and U.S. Congressmen--all to keep everyone from wavering on air attacks if Milosevic reneges. Albright has learned from past failures that "she has to be on top of each train to make sure they all end up in the same place," says an aide.
If Milosevic finally blinks, it will be a much needed victory for Albright, a validation of her speak-loudly-and-carry-a-tomahawk diplomacy. Since she took office two years ago, America's first female Secretary of State has done plenty of loud talking. Her ultimatums--delivered to leaders as different as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Iraq's Saddam Hussein--have become a common refrain in international diplomacy. And the cost of ignoring her is often a rain of missiles.
So far, at least, the strategy has had mixed results. And Albright has seen her once golden image dim. Places like Baghdad and Belgrade seem every bit as tumultuous today as when she took office. Congress is wary of her promises that U.S. troops--some 4,000 will be part of the NATO force--will be in Kosovo no more than three years. And negotiations in places like Israel are frozen. It is hard to pin the blame for those stumbles on Albright--these are, after all, centuries-old conflicts. But her tenure has been dominated by the irritations of what aides call "unsolvable" problems instead of the major achievements that dot the careers of great statesmen and -women.
Albright, of course, hopes to join their ranks. And a victory in Kosovo would be the first step toward validating a kind of Albright Doctrine, which combines careful coalition building with the judicious use of force. "I am a great believer in American power and the importance of making it clear we can use it," she says.