Kosovo 1999: Air campaign is not enough

During the 1999 war against Serbia, NATO was in the brink of mounting a land invasion of Kosovo. The air campaign against Serbia was supposed to last a few days or weeks during which the serbian military would be trashed to pieces. Actually, after 80 days of combined bombardments, the serbian army and leadership were still standing. Only Milosevic's acceptation of the finnish mediation plan and the russian refusal to support Serbia stopped NATO from invading: had the war lasted a week or two more, allied troops would have entered serbian territory. In fact, if NATO troops could enter Pristina the very same day the war was declared over, it was because they were already deploying at the border and preparing to invade.

So, what PoD would be necessary to make such an invasion likely? Obviously, Milosevic being more stubborn and refusing any mediation plan is a starter. A land invasion of Serbia would greatly piss off Russia, so the western powers would have to make sure that Russia wouldn't intervene, something really difficult given that a land invasion is a way more serious stuff than just bombing from the air.

Other points:

-What would be Montenegro's already difficult position in this scenario?
- The US were the most reluctant allies to mount a land invasion -and I can't really blame them for that-, so american land troops would be in a minority compared to their european counterparts. Along with the americans, there were also british, french, canadian, italian and german troops.
- For the first time since 1945, german armed forces (in this case the Luftwaffe) entered combat. This sparked a certain debate in Germany and was even used by the serbians as propaganda. Now imagine if the Wehrm... I mean, the Bundeswehr, intervened in a joint invasion of Serbia.
- The obvious front for such an invasion would be Kosovo, with the allied forces making their way towards Pristina through the difficult terrain of the albanian-kosovar border. However, Hungary had entered NATO in February 1999 and shared a land border with Serbia. I think this verges on ASB territory, but would it be possible or desirable to open a second northern front, with allied armoured forces blitzing through Vojvodina towards Belgrad? Only if the land invasion was seen as an unavoidable alternative from the very beginning by the allies, IMO, but I like the idea.

Your thoughts?

Good luck to NATO troops, they are going to need it. Invading from Albania would be a nightmare both from geographical point and logistical one. Not much can move from albanian ports north and once across you have rugged and wooded terrain. and helicopter ops would be vulnerable to MANPADS and AAA (including SPAAGs).

Invading from Hungary or Bosnia might work but would be tough to sell why invade FRY to liberate Kosovo while not going anywhere near Kosovo. Plus NATO would need preparations, stockpiling of supplies, forces etc etc.

Invasion from the north would be an easy way to reach Belgrad and force the serbian government to accept terms, as well as releasing some pressure from the Kosovar front where, as you point, the allied forces would have a very hard time.

Another option is that, instead of a full-fledged invasion and all the logistics problems it would cause, the allies send small contingents to help the kosovar guerrillas, not unlike the american support to the Northern Alliance during the Afghanistan War.

The bulk of this invading army would be of european troops, mostly french, german and british, with some italian, spanish, canadian and dutch contingents too. Clinton was not too fond of sending american soldiers into yet another pointless european war and I don't think Congress had authorized him anyway.

Now, in OTL during the Kosovo war american leaders complained a lot about the performance of european armies. They cited bad leadership, bad training, obsolete weapons and uncoordinated doctrines as some of the failures they saw in the european armies. Combine those factors with the difficult terrain and poor logistics and the Kosovo war wouldn't be a walk in the park as the Gulf war was. It could have interesting effects in:

-the US leadership regarding an invasion of Irak or Afghanistan.
- The European public regarding military spending
-The european leadership regarding military union.

Anyway, to make this workable, NATO would have to be operating from Day 1 with the assumption that a land invasion was unavoidable. What PoD would be necessary for that?

Dr. Strangelove said:

During the 1999 war against Serbia, NATO was in the brink of mounting a land invasion of Kosovo.

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I don't think that's correct. As of Week Ten, NATO was juuust moving from "land war unthinkable" to "we must start thinking about a land war". (See, e.g., Wesley Clark's memoirs... which must be taken with a grain of salt generally, but are clearly accurate on this.) When the shooting stopped, Nato was /at least/ 60 days away from putting boots on the ground in Kosovo, and probably more like 90.

Dr. Strangelove said:

So, what PoD would be necessary to make such an invasion likely? Obviously, Milosevic being more stubborn and refusing any mediation plan is a starter.

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Well, Slobo could be stubborn sometimes, but he wasn't insane. The country's economy was collapsing. The initial surge of popularity and support had dwindled, and the Serb on the streets was getting more and more depressed about a bombing they couldn't stop. You really have to assume Slobo going more or less nuts for him to keep holding out.

Dr. Strangelove said:

A land invasion of Serbia would greatly piss off Russia,

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Meh. This is Boris Yeltsin's Russia we're talking about -- demoralized, disorganized, and at pretty much rock bottom in terms of both self-assertion and actual ability to project force.

(The lunge to get some Russian troops into Kosovo OTL? That was a rogue operation out of the Defense Ministry, done without the knowledge of either Yeltsin or his diplomats. )


Doug M.

Bright day
It can also affect cohesions of NATO's new acquisitions. In Czechia there has been historically a lot of support for Serbia. In Yugoslav War the situation was unclear, though in my experience more Czechs seem to view all sides as corrupt, whereas when I spoke people in the West, they have not heard so much about massacres of Serbian civilians. Further the issue of Kosovo resonates with us well. Maybe if protests are voiced, it could slow down further enlargements?