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What Washington was not altering either was its basic faith in air power. Even though all the weapons at NATO's disposal seem impotent to halt the Serbs' practically unimpeded rampage in Kosovo, the White House refused to address publicly the question everyone else is asking: Will it now take NATO ground forces to defeat Milosevic? Plenty of American pundits and former U.S. officials urged Clinton to rethink NATO's reliance on air power alone, suggesting that only "boots on the ground" can rescue the faltering campaign. "We're in a war, and we need to allow our military to do what is necessary to prevail," says Frank Carlucci, Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration. "If it means troops on the ground, then so be it."
Some critics charge that by forswearing ground troops from the start to placate domestic opinion, the Clinton Administration handed Milosevic his current military advantage. "It was a terrible military statement," said Brent Scowcroft, National Security Adviser under George Bush. "If you tell Milosevic we're not going to put ground forces in, that makes him even more determined to ride out a bombing campaign." As a result, the choice could come down to sending in ground forces or giving up and going home.
As White House aides realized that even stepped-up air assaults might not slow the Serb offensive quickly enough, a few began debating among themselves whether a ground attack should be considered. In public the Administration carefully stops short of categorically ruling it out. But the talk among policymakers has never progressed beyond the instant conclusion that "we don't think the American people would support that." Neither, they reckoned, would Congress. They didn't order up contingency plans for such an operation or even broach the subject with Clinton, who remains opposed to the idea.
A NATO assessment last year determined it would take up to 200,000 allied troops to invade and secure Kosovo. Both Cohen and General Henry Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were leery of any such mission, especially when its goals seemed vague. Now it is obvious that NATO could not have built up such a force before Milosevic had gobbled up Kosovo. And sending in ground forces in the face of Serb resistance would be bloody. Mountainous Balkan terrain makes for tougher fighting than Iraq's wide open deserts; Serbs would hold the high ground, including passes too narrow for tanks; mines salt the few roads and bridges. Such pitfalls loom large for officers who came of age in Vietnam. "Part of contingency planning," a Pentagon colonel says, "is looking at options and ruling them out."
Some planners talked instead of dispatching a much smaller force of, say, 30,000 or so to carve out "safe havens." But the idea carries such a negative image after enclaves set up in Bosnia--like Srebrenica--failed so tragically to protect civilians. Others suggested turning the war over to a proxy army of K.L.A. fighters outfitted by the West with effective Stinger missiles and antitank rockets. But U.S. and NATO officials feared that arming one side would only widen the war and destabilize the entire region. By now it may simply be too late: on Friday Serb officials were crowing that they would finish mopping up the shattered rebel force in a couple of days.