(6 of 7)
So that leaves the new battle plan looking pretty much like the old one. More sorties from more planes--if the weather improves--will try to rattle Milosevic by hitting him close to home. The classified guidance for this phase calls for attacks sufficient to break the will of the Serb leader. But some Pentagon officers wonder how wrecking Yugoslavia's military headquarters will do anything to curb violence against the Kosovars. "The Serbs in the field are just thugs on a rampage," says a Navy planner. "They don't need guidance on how to knock down doors and kill people." The Pentagon is no longer talking about an "air campaign" of a few brisk weeks but a war of attrition. White House officials now say the air attacks could last another 20--20!--weeks. "We'll continue to degrade his forces, and he'll continue his ethnic cleansing," explains an Air Force officer. "And we'll get back to the negotiating table only after he's finished."
WHERE'S THE ENDGAME?
The task before NATO is not simple. It must intensify its warfare without tallying high Serb or ethnic Albanian civilian casualties, worsening the refugee flight or shaking jittery public support. Yet it is unthinkable that the alliance should not finish the job it embarked on. NATO would fail history if it left Milosevic in place and the ethnic Albanians in exile.
It is certainly possible that air power may yet subdue Milosevic--or that he will sue for peace once he has emptied Kosovo of ethnic Albanians. By Friday the White House was cheered that NATO strikes were cutting critical fuel supplies. But perhaps it was always unlikely that one could bomb Milosevic into negotiating an acceptable political solution for Kosovo. Now it looks out of the question. The down-the-middle construct of Rambouillet that retained Serbian sovereignty over the province but gave self-rule to the ethnic Albanians for three years seems dead. No one believes the Kosovars can live with the Serbs hell-bent on eliminating them--and no one trusts some of the Kosovars not to seek bloodthirsty revenge. The anguished children streaming out of Kosovo were a reminder that already this Serb attack has inculcated a new generation with visceral ethnic hate.
Washington insists it has not dropped its opposition to independence for Kosovo, but what else, if the ethnic Albanians ever return, is there? Some in Washington and at NATO talk of making Kosovo into an allied "protectorate" that would require Western troops to escort the Kosovars back and stand guard inside Kosovo's borders for years to come. Yet any new political arrangement butts up against the fact that Milosevic has captured the kingdom. "As much as we wish we could stop him in his tracks," says a senior NATO diplomat, "it's obvious there will have to be an element of rollback in our future plans."
And Milosevic himself now represents a morally repugnant dilemma. As engineer of the brutality, he is both the man we have to deal with and the man we want no dealings with whatsoever. Threats to charge him with war crimes at the Hague tribunal may feel good, but an indictment would disqualify diplomats from sitting in the same room with him. He may have committed too many terrible deeds for the West, in good conscience, to make political deals with him.