Sure if NATO went in seriously, as in 1983. Fulda Gap seriously (and as brutally), or as previously mentioned Wermacht did in '41. they would have won without any doubts. First, that would have required deploying a significant number of divisions, not just a couple of fast strike brigades. Second, that scenario would have seen hundreds of thousands of Serbian military dead and maybe up to tens of thousands of dead civilians. Could have Yeltsin showed it all under the carpet and stayed in power? Maybe, maybe not.
Our best hope was that in such scenario Russia and China would react somehow in our defense, at least diplomatically. We believed that world's hypocrisy would have to come to a end when a "humanitarian intervention" turns a entire country into scorched earth and leads to death a a few percent of adult male population. To repeat myself. If there was any real ground intervention it would have had to be preceded by vast and comprehensive bombing campaign of entire Serbia (and army forces in Montenegro), and main attack would simply have to be trough Panonian planes from Croatia and Hungary to Belgrade.
Both military and political officials, both supporters and haters of Milosevic were sure in one thing. NATO getting trough Kosovo quick and easy, not going to happen.
In any other scenario, that is NATO troops actually advancing and fighting, and not just claiming ground burnt by artillery and "Linebacker" style and scale bombing raids, people and military were confident we could inflict enough casualties to NATO to force them to disengage.
Remember, this isn't 2001 Iraq that is being attacked in a last ditch attempt to prevent WMD terrorist attacks that will claim hundreds of thousands of American lives. This is a full scale ground invasion on a country that hadn't done anything directly against any NATO country or ally.
We were confident there wasn't a will present in NATO populations to support war that would give them several thousand casualties in first week or two.
And as for worst case scenarios. People had believed NATO was willing to completely destroy our country and decimate us as a people. No one would have been surprised on new of NATO using nukes, we would have been shocked and terrified, but not very surprised. Pro Milosevic people listened to state media reporting of anti Serb propaganda in Western media and of demonization of our nation. People against Milosevic listened to Radio Free Europe and Voice of America emitted in Serbian language and those tried to paint a picture that would make us not want to fight and welcome a end to war. People who had access to Internet or simply had cable or satellite TV that showed CNN and others for (your) domestic use, were horrified to witness that demonization and anti Serb media campaigns were real.
Clinton himself was throwing around completely baseless figures of “500,000 Albanians/Kosovars missing presumed dead”. We were certain that if NATO or just American public fully believed those figures, they wouldn’t be against nuclear strikes if the call came.
Back to original thread. If NATO went full on with bombing in preparation of a massive (as no other would have worked) ground campaign, I fear some factors in Serbia politics were prepared to sacrifice the country to make themselves right and humiliate/hurt USA.
Hypothetical scenario. Chemical weapons are hurriedly improvised in time NATO gathers forces and are used against NATO troops when attack starts. Their effectiveness is mute point, purpose of attack would be to provoke USA to use nuclear weapons in retaliation (per doctrine and official policy) and thereby provoke Russia and China to do something, anything. We were praying that something like that would have caused Yeltsin to be ousted from power. Yes, it would have likely lead to nuclear WWIII. This is the people that celebrates its greatest sacrifices losses and defeats we are talking about. “Choosing kingdom of heaven before that of the earth”.