NATO, ostensibly a military alliance, involves 19 nations, with780 million people, much more than half of the world's economicproduct and most of the sophisticated weaponry. Obviously it has themeans to subdue threadbare and isolated Serbia. NATO lacks only thewill to do so.
Perhaps it is more accurate to say that NATO is choosing not tofight a war. NATO is waging a sort of war against an eccentricselection of Serbian targets, and NATO is disappointed by theresults, even though NATO is essentially unopposed. Serbia, too, iswaging an essentially unopposed war, mostly against the unarmedcivilians of Kosovo. The surrealism is complete: two simultaneous,parallel wars, one waged unsuccessfully by a military colossus, theother waged successfully by a military midget.On the eve of the April celebration of NATO's 50th anniversary,the most successful alliance in world history might have died bysuicide.Slobodan Milosevic wins if, after a campaign of contemptuouslyundisguised war crimes, he remains in control in any way of anyportion of Kosovo. He wins if NATO says, as Solana's statementimplicitly does, that NATO went to war for its own self-esteem. Ifhe wins, what then is the answer to the question, What is NATO goodfor?Solana says: "All our energy should be concentrated on stoppingthe killing and helping the refugees. We are going to continue thebombing until we can guarantee that the killings stop and will notrestart. The first objective was always to stop the killing on theground."That statement is transparently false. Solana knows, and if hedoes not he is not paying attention, that bombing cannot guarantee apermanent end to the killing that intensified when the bombing beganand has not been significantly impeded by the bombing. Furthermore,NATO has made it abundantly clear that its first objective is tominimize its casualties. Its second objective is to minimizecasualties of Serbian civilians.The killing on the ground vastly accelerated when NATO began itsoperations with the perverse announcement that it would never occupyany of Serbia's ground without Serbia's permission.We read that the United States has "urged" NATO to authorizetargeting government buildings in Belgrade. Who, exactly, urgedwhom? Is this "war by committee?" If so, is the committeecontrolled by its most reluctant members?On Tuesday President Clinton, who never speaks on this conflictwithout subtracting from clarity, issued what, amazingly, heobviously thinks was a stern warning to Milosevic:"He will see that his military will be seriously diminished, keymilitary infrastructure destroyed, the prospect for internationalsupport for Serbia's claim to Kosovo increasingly jeopardized."Earth to commander in chief: Milosevic, unlike NATO, is notfighting to conserve his means of fighting. And Milosevic is not anAmerican lawyer. He does not lose sleep fretting about internationalsupport for his claim to Kosovo. Milosevic might remember whatAmerican legalists might not, the homey axiom that possession isnine-tenths of ownership. Milosevic has Kosovo.NATO's state-of-the-art aircraft - stymied by rain and clouds -have not so far seriously jeopardized Milosevic's creation of newfacts on the ground by the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo. Why should hetremble at the prospect that weakened international support mightjeopardize his claim to Kosovo?As NATO went to war - sort of - a warrior who was uneasy aboutwhat was beginning set aside his skepticism and spoke a simple truth.Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said: "We're in it, and we have to winit."Instead, NATO is seeing the destruction of what it was fightingto protect, Kosovars and its credibility. NATO's response is aninstitutional shrug: Well, we tried, sort of.
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