I supported the Kosovo War at the time (1999). But I've never thought it was the role of responsible citizens to just mindlessly cheer forever for a war that you supported. War always brings bad results, even in the occasional case where the good outweighs the bad.
Robert Marquand reports for The Christian Science Monitor on the rocky state of affairs in Kosovo even now, as Kosovo tries to launch independence softly 02/14/08 (accessed 02/13/08):
Kosovo's independence closes a chapter of grief and genocide in the Balkans dating from 1992. Analysts concerned about a "domino effect" of a bloody re-ordering of ethnic borders see Kosovo's peaceful evolution as a test for EU and US resolve in southern Europe. But the province's independence is bitterly opposed by Serbia, which enjoys at least rhetorical backing from Russia.
Since 2000, the EU has spent $4 billion here and will send its largest ever (1,800) civil and police mission in days.
Serb Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica stated Tuesday, "We shall not allow a fictitious state to exist for a minute on Serbian territory. It has to be legally annulled."
Kosovo is routinely considered a success story of American intervention. It was a success, in that stopped Serbia from applying massive ethnic cleansing in the long run in Kosovo, which up until now has been a province of Serbia. And it kept Milosovich's Serbia contained and avoided the danger that separatist fighting could spread to wider parts of southern and eastern Europe, with maybe a war between Greece and Turkey in the mix.
But in the short run, the air strategy that NATO applied allowed Serbia to accelerate ethnic cleansing of Kosovar Albanians in the short run. They were mostly able to return. But even the NATO peacekeeping force was unable to prevent the Albanians from largely running ethnic Serbs out of the province. NATO has had to keep some troops there, and the EU is sending in more personnel for aid. And Serbia may start a new war.
And this is an intervention success story!
The seemingly brilliant success in Kosovo in 1999 also provided evidence in the minds of great geopolitical strategies like Rummy and Dick Cheney that the so-called Revolution in Military Affairs (RMA) had created a new era in warfare. Briefly put, the lesson was that since we can blow hell out of anybody with our air power, the United States can do whatever we want in the world.
Anatol Lieven described the risks a bit more diplomatically in a 2001 collection, War Over Kosovo: Politics and Strategy in a Global Age, edited by Andrew Bacevich and Eliot Cohen. As he put it, "in the estimation of many well-informed analysts, the war for Kosovo provides the first real example of victory achieved through air power alone, a war won without having to engage in ground combat operations." His essay was written before the 9/11 attacks and the interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq. But the risk to which he pointed is being borne out daily in both wars:
Urban combat against well-armed and fiercely committed, but politically amorphous bands constitutes the kind of warfare that over the next two generations will pose the greatest challenge to Western armed forces. By contrast, major wars between the West and large opposing states are less likely. ... Unless the United States hopelessly mismanages relations with Russia, China or both, it is difficult to see why these or other states would risk directly confronting U.S. military power. ...
Most of the thinking being done by the U.S. armed forces is wholly irrelevant to such conflicts, and the lessons learned from Kosovo have been enitrely the wrong ones. The chief result, as evidenced by the 2000 military budget and the proposed reforms of Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, appears to have been even more spending on the airforce and high technology. This spending has gone in part to "smart" weapons, which however useful against enemy armor in the open field, are next to useless in cities and in partisan warfare. The "lesson" of Kosovo has also translated into further development of the joint strike fighter, a weapon designed to fight above all against sophisticated, well-trained, large scale enemy air forces of a kind which simply do not exist in the world today. (my emphasis)
So how are we fighting counterinsurgency wars today?
In Iraq, Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets dropped guided bomb unit-38s onto an enemy vehicle that had been destroyed by coalition forces helicopters near Balad. A JTAC declared the mission a success.
Yes, you read that correctly. The bombed an enemy vehicle that had already been destroyed. When the Air Force's press releases from this site say "near Balad" that also means that they could have been inside the named city. Most them I've seen says "near" such-and-such a city, never in. But this next one is an exception(Feb. 10 airpower summary: A-10s conduct shows of force) 02/11/08:
In Basrah, Navy F/A-18 Super Hornets dropped a guided bomb unit-12 and guided bomb unit-38s onto locations containing enemy weaponry. The JTAC confirmed the missions as successful.
In Basra. That would be the large city of Basra, the key port city in the Shi'a south. The Basra that has been safely pacified by the British. The Basra that lies along the main withdrawal route for American troops out of Iraq.
The bombs in those two excerpts are the GBU-38 and the GBU-12, both 500 lb. bombs. Is it any surprise that dropping bombs like this is urban areas cause civilian casualties on a regular basis? The fact that they may be very accurate doesn't decrease the liklihood of civilian casualties. In fact, in urban environments the enhanced accuracy makes civilian casualties more likely.
But the lesson that air power conquers all and quickly was reinforced by the widespread interpreation of the results of the Kosovo War. Still, the neocons' Trotskyist fantasy that bad regimes can be swept away by purging, cleansing violence and a democratic paradise created in a matter of months is not aligned with reality. At least not earthly reality. Maybe in that 13 billion-year-old galaxy that astronomers just discovered. But not here.
