Kosovo 1999

[Riain]

I'm new to this war so please bear with me.

Apparently one major strategic flaw with the NATO campaign in Kosovo in 1999 was the public and private ruling out of ground forces. It is quite a coincidence that a couple of days after Clinton met with Joint Cheifs to discuss a ground campaign Milosovic capitualted.

So WI a ground campaign was not ruled out, and even better, if NATO forces staged amphibous and airborne exercises in the Adriatic during the bombing capaign? Would the war end sooner? WI the US wasn't involved, that only European airborne and amphibious forces were exercised in the area?

[Clipper747]

I'm new to this war so please bear with me.

Apparently one major strategic flaw with the NATO campaign in Kosovo in 1999 was the public and private ruling out of ground forces. It is quite a coincidence that a couple of days after Clinton met with Joint Cheifs to discuss a ground campaign Milosovic capitualted.

So WI a ground campaign was not ruled out, and even better, if NATO forces staged amphibous and airborne exercises in the Adriatic during the bombing capaign? Would the war end sooner? WI the US wasn't involved, that only European airborne and amphibious forces were exercised in the area?


The Serbs would fight and the Russians might be tempted to do something indirectly to help Serbia. A lot of Serb Americans were infuriated that Serbia was bombed, I can only imagine what may have occurred had Serbia itself been invaded.

I heard from several friends in Belgrade that the reason Milosevic gave up was because his money, which he stole from the banks, was in danger of being seized by the US. All of his assets were located in Cyprus.

[TxCoatl1970]

I hate bashing Slick Willie as CinC but the Somalia experience left him and the JCS extremely gun-shy about committing ground troops without some vital American interest at stake.
Plus folks were spooked by the possibility of Partisans Part II and needing to base 100,000 troops to barely keep a lid on things in Yugoslavia, much less intimidate the locals into playing nicely. Everyone wanted to draw down, not play world cop at the time.

To be snarky, NATO did what it should've been done in Bosnia in 1992, but Kosovo was a much different situation. The Kosovars decided that Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia) wouldn't respect any plebiscite would allow them autonomy, so the KLA went on a terrorist campaign to (a) convince the FRY they wouldn't take it quietly, and (b) bait them into looking like fascist monsters stomping on an oppressed minority. It worked.
From what I've read the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo were one of many ethnic minorities that official Yugoslavian policy suppressed, were allowed some autonomy in the 1980's and once Yugoslavia was fissioning, bid for the whole enchilada of independence, got rejected, and what started off as passive resistance became more active.
NATO looked silly, Yugoslavia got bombed silly, and the Kosovars embarked on a nice ethnic cleansing campaign of their own afterwards.

As disastrous military interventions went, it was relatively mild in casualties but donkey-punched US relations with Russia and China for a bit, considering that Russia was a little upset we were supporting ethnic cleansers and terrorists against people they cared about and we bombed the Chinese Embassy in Beograd.
Earlier NATO ground participation might have stopped some of the nonsense on the ground and might've convinced Milosevic he no longer had a free hand dealing with an internal matter but we were playing with fire as it was.

[MarshalBraginsky]

More like Yeltsin falls from power a lot sooner and someone who could be a hard liner comes into Russia as the new president, and I could mean Putin. Here's an article of what might have happened if ground forces have entered Serbia:

http://www.bulgaria-italia.com/fry/docs/balkans-vietnam.htm

Of course, if the Russian government has replaced Yeltsin with a hard liner, then it could very well be World War Three. I'm not sure if it is true, that there was a US general who wanted to do something crazy and the British general replied back, and I quote "I will not start World War Three for you."

[Riain]

I'm not suggesting an actual ground campaign, rather the threat of one. IOTL a ground campaign was expressly ruled out, which meant the Serbs had one less (hugely important) thing to worry about. I think that if NATO had remained silent on the issue, or better yet moved amphibious and parachute forces to the area to exercise the Serbs would have had to take that into consideration.

[Cook]

So WI a ground campaign was not ruled out...
If Clinton hadn’t ruled out a ground campaign early on the Serbian forces would have had to concentrate so that they could be effective against a ground action, which would have made NATO’s air campaign far more effective. As it was, the Serbs dispersed, making them harder to hit.

[Riain]

If Clinton had kept quiet and the Europeans had conducted exercises in the Adriatic would that have been enough of a threat to concentrate Serb forces? Or is a US force vital?

[Karelian]

There's swarms of interesting butterflies flying around this conflict.
Rugova could die earlier than OTL, or some hardliner K-Alb nationalists might be stupid enough to provoke Yugoslavia in a middle of wars of the 1990s. Both cases would most likely lead to a modern situation where Kosovo is still part of Serbia and most of the Albanian population would have experienced the same fate as Serbs in Krajina during 1990s.

Zajedno protests of 1996 might lead to more lenient Serbian government taking over, but by this time it's already becoming quite late to sooth the tensions between Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo.

The last and best chance to avoid Nato involvement is in Rambouillet, where the Western powers really opted for war by demanding to NATO the right of "free and unrestricted passage and unimpeded access throughout the FRY including associated airspace and territorial waters", a virtual occupation without war. And this was given as take-it-or-leave-it, unnegotiable offer. The Serb National Assembly Resolution of 23 March 1999 was nevertheless willing to

Had Russia been more active in this point in pressuring Serbs, the peacekeeping operation in Kosovo would have begun with Serbian invitation and approval, would most likely have consisted of primarily non-Nato countries and the most likely end result would be Åland-style autonomy for Kosovo as a part of Serbia.

Kosovo War was a US operation, and would have been impossible to stage without American involvement. European states simply didin't have armed forces capable of projecting enough power to Kosovo and Serbia in 1999-2000, and the experiences of this war led to several projects that made the latest intervention to Libya possible.

[Marko]

I remember back in the day Croatian news papers had articles about the posibility of NATO ground invasion of FRY with tanks rolling from Hungary and Romania towards Belgrade in a "rush to Bagdad" manner and troops moving into Kosovo through Albania and ports in Montenegro sized by NATO naval forces. There were even coments from military circles 'that Croatia will do its part' if NATO asks asistance of us. The war in Croatia was only 4 years away and reintegration of Eastern Slavonia had just finished and there were quite a lot of people (though I wouldn't say majority) that were itching for another round because the peaceful reintegration of Eastern Slavonia and the Dayton Accord left the people feeling like we didn't actually win and that Serbia deservs to lose in WWII Germany style. People on the far right publicly called for Croatia and Federation of BiH to strike at Republic Srpska and Serbia proper in order to help 'brother Kosovars' even without NATO intervention.

If NATO went in with ground troops they would have to do some serious arm twisting in Croatia and Federation of BiH to preventem from taking the opportunity to dismantle Republic Srpska. With Tudjman allready pushing Croatia into international isolation and being in the terminal stage of his illness when he was even more irational than usualy it might not be so unlikely that Croats and Bosniaks would attack Serbs in BiH.

[MarshalBraginsky]

The Serbs would have just turned their country into a quagmire for NATO forces if ground troops entered the country. Heck, I'm not sure if it is true that they used derelict tanks and dead soldiers as decoys.

[vultan]

Shamelessly plugging my TL, but it does happen in "You Get What You Give", albeit I haven't gone into much detail on it (yet).

[Riain]

In my mind the role of ground forces wouldn't have been to invade and conquer the country, that`s too hard, but instead to bring the Serb forces out into the open where the 1000 NATO planes can bomb the bejesus out of them. This is what the KLA did to some extent in the final weeks of the bomnbing campaign.

[Angel Heart]

AFAIK a land invasion was opposed by France and Germany while the US and UK were in favor. It would depend on how much the US is able to convice them to think otherwise.

I'm not sure if it is true, that there was a US general who wanted to do something crazy and the British general replied back, and I quote "I will not start World War Three for you."

That was the Incident at the Pristina Airport (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incident_at_Pristina). The nutjob who ordered to pick a fight with the Russians was Clark himself.


@Marko: I don't know. Franjo and Slobo got along with each other very well and both even discussed how to carve up Bosnia. AFAIK the only reason Tuđman entered and alliance with Izetbegović in 1994 was because the Americans promised him that Croatia would be allowed to enter a confederation with Herceg Bosna, which didn't happen. I can't imagine him having any interest going to war against Serbia as minus Herceg Bosna he got what he wanted.

[Marko]

@Marko: I don't know. Franjo and Slobo got along with each other very well and both even discussed how to carve up Bosnia. AFAIK the only reason Tuđman entered and alliance with Izetbegović in 1994 was because the Americans promised him that Croatia would be allowed to enter a confederation with Herceg Bosna, which didn't happen. I can't imagine him having any interest going to war against Serbia as minus Herceg Bosna he got what he wanted.

In the early '90 before the outright war began the two were rather, shall we say "friendly" but that was only as long both thought they could gain more with an agreement than through outrigth conflict though Slobo always knew he was in a stronger position and acted as such.

During the Kosovo crisis the situation in Croatia was very anxious and newspapers were filled with jubilant tones how Serbia was getting what it deserved and that now is the time to put the final nail in the coffin of greater Serbia etc...

The Croat-Muslim peace of 1994 came only through USA preasue and no promise at all. Croatia couldn't win the war in Central Bosnia because officialy Croatian armed forces were not involved so we couldn't overwhelming numbers to deal with Muslims. The Muslims apart from the Sarajevo airport were cut of from the world and what supplies got them first had to go through Croat controled territory and were regullarly relieved of a few trucks of supplies. Muslim were faced with a real threat of state wide starvation and epidemics so USA decided it had to stop and forced the Washington Agreement upon both sides. The Croats had to dismantle Herceg-Bosna while BiH was ment to enter into a Confederacy with Croatia to allow it at least try and function like a normal state. The first thing happened while the second was simply forgoten and never implemented following the military colapse of Republika Srpska and the Dayton Accord.

[MarshalBraginsky]

In the early '90 before the outright war began the two were rather, shall we say "friendly" but that was only as long both thought they could gain more with an agreement than through outrigth conflict though Slobo always knew he was in a stronger position and acted as such.

During the Kosovo crisis the situation in Croatia was very anxious and newspapers were filled with jubilant tones how Serbia was getting what it deserved and that now is the time to put the final nail in the coffin of greater Serbia etc...

The Croat-Muslim peace of 1994 came only through USA preasue and no promise at all. Croatia couldn't win the war in Central Bosnia because officialy Croatian armed forces were not involved so we couldn't overwhelming numbers to deal with Muslims. The Muslims apart from the Sarajevo airport were cut of from the world and what supplies got them first had to go through Croat controled territory and were regullarly relieved of a few trucks of supplies. Muslim were faced with a real threat of state wide starvation and epidemics so USA decided it had to stop and forced the Washington Agreement upon both sides. The Croats had to dismantle Herceg-Bosna while BiH was ment to enter into a Confederacy with Croatia to allow it at least try and function like a normal state. The first thing happened while the second was simply forgoten and never implemented following the military colapse of Republika Srpska and the Dayton Accord.

Also, NATO's scheme for the Balkans was to force the collapse of Yugoslavia and replace the six republics's communist governments with pro-Western governments. It did work, except Serbia didn't fall for the ruse and got bombed. Heck, right now I knew some close friends who were Serbs and they said that they hated Boris Tadic. Of course, they also consider Mr. Tiger Lover a hero too. (Tiger Lover, aka: Arkan)

[Clipper747]

Serbs are the ultimate renegades. It's in their blood to defy anyone bigger than they are.

[MarshalBraginsky]

Serbs are the ultimate renegades. It's in their blood to defy anyone bigger than they are.

Yeah, they defied the Turks, Austrians, Germans, and even Soviets. Now they defy NATO.

[Eurofed]

I was wondering, IMO this scenario necessarily requires a PoD to make a) the Serbs more defiant than OTL b) the Western public opinion to be more pissed off against them (besides and in addition to their defiance, otherwise NATO most likely would just carry on with the bombings) than OTL, so it can accept NATO ground deployment as necessary. What that might be ?

[MarshalBraginsky]

All hell breaks loose when the Western public opinion is so hyped up in this Serbophobia that it's going to make Hitler's invasion of Yugoslavia seem like a walk in the park. Literally as the Wehrmacht had to do was to blitz into Belgrade and Yugoslavia is finished. Serbs being more defiant, let's say a change in the Russian government is needed. (Yeltsin may not be useful with the situation in Yugoslavia. Someone who is a hard liner would be perfect for the job, like either Zyuganov, Primakov or Zhirinovsky. Putin isn't the star at this point yet.)

[CivisOccidensSum]

I hate bashing Slick Willie as CinC but the Somalia experience left him and the JCS extremely gun-shy about committing ground troops without some vital American interest at stake.
Plus folks were spooked by the possibility of Partisans Part II and needing to base 100,000 troops to barely keep a lid on things in Yugoslavia, much less intimidate the locals into playing nicely. Everyone wanted to draw down, not play world cop at the time.

To be snarky, NATO did what it should've been done in Bosnia in 1992, but Kosovo was a much different situation. The Kosovars decided that Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia) wouldn't respect any plebiscite would allow them autonomy, so the KLA went on a terrorist campaign to (a) convince the FRY they wouldn't take it quietly, and (b) bait them into looking like fascist monsters stomping on an oppressed minority. It worked.
From what I've read the ethnic Albanians of Kosovo were one of many ethnic minorities that official Yugoslavian policy suppressed, were allowed some autonomy in the 1980's and once Yugoslavia was fissioning, bid for the whole enchilada of independence, got rejected, and what started off as passive resistance became more active.
NATO looked silly, Yugoslavia got bombed silly, and the Kosovars embarked on a nice ethnic cleansing campaign of their own afterwards.

As disastrous military interventions went, it was relatively mild in casualties but donkey-punched US relations with Russia and China for a bit, considering that Russia was a little upset we were supporting ethnic cleansers and terrorists against people they cared about and we bombed the Chinese Embassy in Beograd.
Earlier NATO ground participation might have stopped some of the nonsense on the ground and might've convinced Milosevic he no longer had a free hand dealing with an internal matter but we were playing with fire as it was.

If comments could be "liked".... :)

[Clipper747]

All hell breaks loose when the Western public opinion is so hyped up in this Serbophobia that it's going to make Hitler's invasion of Yugoslavia seem like a walk in the park. Literally as the Wehrmacht had to do was to blitz into Belgrade and Yugoslavia is finished. Serbs being more defiant, let's say a change in the Russian government is needed. (Yeltsin may not be useful with the situation in Yugoslavia. Someone who is a hard liner would be perfect for the job, like either Zyuganov, Primakov or Zhirinovsky. Putin isn't the star at this point yet.)


If Putin had been in office for several months to a year I can only imagine what he may have done to deter airstrikes.

[CivisOccidensSum]

If Putin had been in office for several months to a year I can only imagine what he may have done to deter airstrikes.

True..he wouldn't have been the pushover that the alcoholic Yeltsin was... I'm also pretty confident that a Putin in charge of Russia could've made NATO quickly forget about its desire to try out its weapons...

[Karelian]

You do know about the Russian airbridge plan was the prime reason their paratroopers marched there from Bosnia, taking Nato completely by surprise?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/671495.stm

The plan in a nutshell: Flow in thousands of paratroopers while Nato marches in through ground routes, and send them to northern Kosovo as non-Nato peacekeepers and part of the KFOR to prepare ground for future partition of the province. The Nato paratroopers foiled this, while Romania and Bulgaria closed their airspaces in exchange (alledgedly) of a hastened Nato-membership and US quarantees.

[Clipper747]

Or do what the Soviets did in October '73, base an airborne brigade at Belgrade's Surcin airport.

[MarshalBraginsky]

I wonder what would the repercussions of Clark's fatal mistake when he does order the attack on the Russian soldiers who occupied Pristina Airport. Would it lead straight to World War Three and the possible NATO invasion of not only Yugoslavia, but Russia and Belarus as well? Belarus for logistical reasons, and maybe Ukraine for securing NATO bases.

[Karelian]

I wonder what would the repercussions of Clark's fatal mistake when he does order the attack on the Russian soldiers who occupied Pristina Airport. Would it lead straight to World War Three and the possible NATO invasion of not only Yugoslavia, but Russia and Belarus as well? Belarus for logistical reasons, and maybe Ukraine for securing NATO bases.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/671495.stm

[MarshalBraginsky]

I read the article, and it seems that if one of the two scenarios descibed in the article had gone wrong, then it would be chaos.

[serbrcq]

I wonder what would the repercussions of Clark's fatal mistake when he does order the attack on the Russian soldiers who occupied Pristina Airport. Would it lead straight to World War Three and the possible NATO invasion of not only Yugoslavia, but Russia and Belarus as well? Belarus for logistical reasons, and maybe Ukraine for securing NATO bases.

I can't imagine the situation escalating that drastically unless Russia was being run by Zhirinovsky. Let's not forget that there are still nuclear weapons around.

Let's say things did turn out differently on the ground in Pristina. James Blunt goes into music early rather than joining the military (I always found it hilarious that the crisis was averted by the guy who sang "You're Beautiful") and the British ground commander there doesn't call his supervisor but just blindly follows Clark's orders and storms the airport.

International crisis, jets scrambled and missiles on alert - sure. But Clinton will make it absolutely clear that this was an accident and NATO will fire Clark as fast as possible. Nobody wants World War III, especially when there's no real ideological conflict between the West and Russia anymore.

If you have an earlier PoD that results in Zhirinovsky leading Russia, though, you might get some interesting results.

[MarshalBraginsky]

I can think of the Constitutional Crisis of 1993 where Zhirinovsky becomes the dominant leader of Russia instead of Zyuganov. Although would the clown still screw up the Russian economy during its roller coaster like recession? Another Zhirinovsky PoD would be that an early death for Boris Yeltsin (alcohol was always his thing), and Zhirinovsky becoming the Yeltsin-analogue, although it wouldn't end well if Russia suffers more under Zhirinovsky.

Although I'm still thinking about the Pristina Airport incident with a Russia led by Zyuganov, and I was wondering if the results would be the same as it were in OTL when Yeltsin was around.

[abc123]

That talk about "Balkans Vietnam" is just a pile of nonsences and myths.
;)

[MarshalBraginsky]

Maybe true, but this was written by a Bulgarian. Balkans Vietnam was written as a theory on a worse Balkans crisis.