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Cato Policy Analysis No. 345
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May 20, 1999
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Blunder in the Balkans
The Clinton Administration's Bungled War against Serbia
by Christopher Layne
Christopher Layne is a visiting scholar at the Center for International Studies at the University of Southern California and a MacArthur Foundation Fellow in Global Security.
Executive Summary
The Clinton administration has made one
miscalculation after another in dealing with the
Kosovo crisis. U.S. officials and their NATO colleagues
never understood the historical and
emotional importance of Kosovo to the Serbian
people, believing instead that Belgrade's harsh
repression of the ethnic Albanian secessionist
movement in Kosovo merely reflected the will of
President Slobodan Milosevic of Yugoslavia. The
administration's foreign policy team mistakenly
concluded that, under a threat of air strikes, the
Yugoslav government would sign a dictated
peace accord (the Rambouillet agreement) to be
implemented by a NATO peacekeeping force in
Kosovo. Even if Milosevic initially refused to sign
the Rambouillet agreement, administration
leaders believed that Belgrade would relent after
a brief "demonstration" bombing campaign.
Those calculations proved to be disastrously
wrong.
President Clinton and his advisers justified
their decision to use force with two arguments:
that NATO bombing was needed to prevent a
Serbian military offensive in Kosovo with
attendant "ethnic cleansing," and that vigorous
action was essential to prevent the Kosovo
conflict from spilling over into neighboring
states, thereby destabilizing the southern
Balkans. Administration leaders also hoped
that NATO pressure would undermine
Milosevic's political power and embolden the
democratic opposition in Serbia. The bombing
campaign has been wholly counterproductive
with regard to all three objectives.
Administration officials have committed miscalculations
eerily reminiscent of faulty U.S.
assumptions during the Vietnam War. Those
mistakes include overestimating the effectiveness
of air power; underestimating the willingness
of the target government and population to
fight for their homeland; and demonizing the
opposing political leader, thus making a negotiated
settlement more difficult.
Even if Belgrade finally capitulates, the
adverse effects of the administration's actions
already constitute a policy fiasco. Instability in
the Balkans is far worse than before the bombing.
Relations with Russia are now at their worst
point since the darkest days of the Cold War.
And the bombing of China's embassy in
Belgrade has caused a serious rift in the Sino-American
relationship. NATO's bombing campaign
has produced a humanitarian catastrophe
in Kosovo, the rest of Serbia, and neighboring
countries. Good intentions alone cannot excuse
the negative consequences of U.S. Kosovo policy.
© 1999 The Cato Institute
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