livio caputo

...........................

Livio Caputo

A deep analysis of the NATO's Allied Force in Kossovo reveals more shades than lights.
When the war burst in Kossovo many American and European citizens neither knew where the stage of operations was. Today it's not this way anymore: after having being on first pages of all newspapers world wide, the “Allied Force” that is the air offensive against Serbia that in 78 days has subdued the resistance of Milosevic, has become object of deep analysis by militaries, political commentators, diplomats and international right researchers. Someone even foresees it will enter under sails in books of history as the first of a series of “humanitarian wars “ fought in name of human rights. But, in spite of the rule according to which “all's well that ends well”, many doubts remain in fact, not only as regards to the legality of the operation, but also concerning the real efficacy and mainly the long term consequences the operation will involve.
The first error has been that of having not perceiving timely the burst of the crisis, and so having not put into effect, when maybe it was still possible, adequate preventive diplomacy measures. That the Kossovo presented, potentially, the most explosive situation in the Balkans was well known since 1989, when Milosevic, before directing the nationalist fury against other targets, revoked the autonomy statute the region benefit from and imposed a sort of apartheid. It was hard to imagine something more risky of a Slavic and orthodox government that, relying on the support of scarcely the 10 per cent of population, tried to subdue - and if possible to expel - the remaining 90 per cent, belonging to the Albanian ethnic group and of Moslem religion, which in addition could rely on important external supports (the government of Tirana, the Kossovo diaspora, and several Islamic countries). Instead, notwithstanding the precedent of Bosnia, the west played ostrich and maybe entrusting the Gandhi inspired approach of the Kossovo leader Rugova, did not exerted really serious pressure on Belgrade so to make Milosevic recede from its purposes.
A graver mistake has been made when, facing the escalation of the ethnical cleaning by Milosevic, the west powers finally decided to intervene: that of assimilating the Kossovo to Bosnia, without taking into account that the first one was not only an integral part of the Yugoslavia Republic, but furthermore the cradle of the Serbian culture, while the second one was a independent Republic inhabited only by a third by Serbians. The State Department got ready than the so called Diktat of Rambouillet, compelling in fact Belgrade to give up to the Kossovo in favour of the UCK. The alternative did not leave space to negotiation: or Yugoslavia accepted, or risked a wave of bombing. Surprising the allies, Milosevic, his public opinion strong, chose a war he still knew he could not win. There was nothing left for the NATO but launching its offensive, once more in the illusion that few days would be enough to subdue him. When Serbians, notwithstanding an ever heavier bombing, hold on beyond the foreseen limits, replying to the real bombs with the refugees bomb, the Alliance found itself without an alternative strategy since its governments had set apart from the beginning, for internal political reason, the hypothesis of the invasion by earth.
To prevent the conflict becoming inveterate and, in approaching the winter the refugees matter becoming uncontrollable, the NATO had therefore to resign not only to accept the Russian mediation, allowing the Kremlin a triumphal return to the Balkans, but also to get back under the United Nation umbrella and to accept as interlocutor a Milosevic whose arrest as war criminal has been just required by International Court of Les Hayes.
It we take as referring point the United Nations Statute, that declares as illegal any attack to a sovereign state but for in self-defence, it is hard to find a juridical basis for the operation, mainly lacking a special resolution by the Security Council. To bypass the obstacle, it has been invoked the principle of the so-called humanitarian interference, entered into the usual procedures after 1990 and employed for the interventions in Somalia (1992), Rwanda (1994), Haiti (1994) and Albania (1997), though all previously authorized by the United Nations. It' s true that, in the case of the Kossovo, this authorization lack, and that the intervention has been ratified later, and indirectly, when the Security Council rejected 12 votes against 3 a condemn resolution of the “Allied Force” presented by Russia, China and Namibia. But experts have tried to justify this anomaly with the impossibility to follow the usual procedures of authorization for the employ of force in presence of a menace of veto by Peking and Moscow.
More substantial the topics in favour of the legitimacy of the intervention, that can be based on the 1948 Declaration of Rights, and finding further support in the statute of the OSCE about the minorities safeguard, undersigned by Belgrade too. But nowhere it is stated that it was up to the NATO, a defensive alliance not 'covering' the territory of the ex Yugoslavia, to take the initiative.
An also about this, criticism did not lack. The “Allied Force”, that cost 13 thousand billions lire, has revealed also the imbalances existing inside the alliance among the USA and its partners. Three quarters of the aeroplanes, and nine tenth of the employed munitions was American, and the qualitative difference between aeroplanes and missiles put in field by Washington and those supplied by others has been repeatedly and pitilessly underlined by the Pentagon. Italy escaped for it has put on disposal the bases, surely not for the contribution of its Air Force.
The Nato's plans, however, has not revealed very careful. Departed with 400 aeroplanes, the Alliance must go on putting in field further 600 to have an enough fire power. The rule to fly always over a 5000 metres quota so to not expose to the anti-aircraft fire has revealed very disadvantaging in terms of efficacy, and it's the reason, at least in part, of the so frequent mistakes by pilots in hitting wrong targets causing an excessive number of victims among civilians. Damages inflicted on the Serbian war machine in Kossovo, that is the number of tanks, armoured means, and guns destroyed, has resulted finally far less than those foreseen.
Nobody can deny that the “Allied Force” resulted effective: Milosevic has ended giving up, even if succeeding in getting better conditions than at Rambouillet, and the right of the Albanian ethnic group in Kossovo to live in their land has been asserted. Military experts make notice furthermore that it is the first time in history it happens that the employ of the sole air force succeeds in subduing an enemy, meaning that the Americans have succeeded in the Balkans in what they have attempted with no result, even in very different circumstances, first in Vietnam and in Iraq later. Nevertheless often it was required to adjusted fire 'on going'.
When the Nato become aware that the attacks against military targets were not enough, it started bombing power plants, waterworks, television stations, factories and bridges, not only inflicting a deadly blow to the Serbian economy, but turning very hard the every day life to the sizeable part of the urban population. This brings us to the third “And”, the ethical content of the “Allied Force”: the opposers to the operation, both Left and Right, have beard that the humanitarian intervention masked really many more interests: the United States' will to weaken Europe just when launching the Euro, the requirement by the American war industry to experiment on field the new generation of smart weapons and so on. It concerns, almost needless to say, political fantasy in bad taste. Spurring allies to action it has been the guilty conscience for having missed the intervention in Bosnia, the will to put an end once and for all to the practice of ethnical cleaning and the feeling that the “bomb Milosevic” must be anyway defused before destabilising the entire Balkan area. Stated this principle, the criteria followed and especially the massive employ of bombing against civilian targets, plant strongly the question if this war can really be defined “right “: in details, is it 'ethic' to prevent losses for the allies to make 2.000 victims among the Serbian civilians, or this behaviour reminds a little those of the Europeans in the colonial wars, wherein the life of a white soldier was more worthy than the life of 10 natives? Is it true or not that bombing have had the effect to foster and hasten the Serbian ethnical cleaning against the Albanian population, in fact worsening the “humanitarian catastrophe “ they wanted to prevent?
But there's something else. By the military occupation of the Kossovo and the settlement of an UNO administration under the protection of the European Union, the west has committed itself without any sure conclusion, or what in technical slang is called an “exit strategy “. Theoretically the current regime must endure for three years, during which it will be necessary not only to provide for the reconstruction of the Kossovo and to create the conditions for the refugees return, but also to warrant the living together of the winning and thirst for revenge Albanians and what remains of the Serbian population.
Milosevic, with the help of the Russians, has succeeded in getting from the NATO the engagement that, also after the 2002, the Kossovo will keep under the Serbian sovereign. Realistically it seems impossible today. But since it belongs to agreements, any decision against could be the new casus belli. Therefore the risk is that, to prevent the massacre starts again, the NATO or whichever for it must keep a contingent in Kossovo for the next generation: a little as at Cyprus, but far high costs.
Was it worth while?