WORLD

Where�s the Evidence for a Positive Russian Role in Kosovo?

By Wallace Kaufman

Pittsboro, NC, June 22

(The GLOBE)

The latest speculation or spin on the Russian role in the Kosovo cease fire is from The Nation magazine (July 5 issue) where we read, �Chernomyrdin and Yeltsin saved NATO from a protracted, costly and destabilizing ground war by brokering the G-8 peace deal.� Perhaps they did. Where is the evidence? Who is sure what they said to Milosevic and to NATO? What the Russians actually did has important consequences for US foreign policy and for all countries where Russia feels it has a national interest. In Kosovo did Russia demonstrate it is now a world peace maker or that it continues to be a paranoid spoiler incapable of joining other nations for a common good?

Whatever the Russians might have said to Milosevic about making peace, the military facts spoke in a language Milosevic understands better than Russian. In mid to late May Milosevic found himself facing the same kind of losses that sent him running to the bargaining table at Dayton to resolve the war he started in Bosnia and Croatia.

In March and April Milosevic was fighting the kind of war he likes�vastly superior on the ground and Western powers paralyzed by their own political fears and disagreements. President Clinton firmly ruled out ground troops. (He now says he never rule out ground troops as an option, but he�s the only one who believes that. On April 2 Secretary Albright on CBS television said, �I am saying what President Clinton has said and repeated a number of times, that he has no intention of sending ground forces into this operation.�) The air war was being fought from three miles up with little effect on the Serbian military forces. The US also said that the KLA had agreed not to use the air war to enhance its positions. Yugoslav Serbs set aside their differences and gave Milosevic a support he had not enjoyed in ten years. Citizens painted targets on their chests, stood on strategic bridges, and defied NATO bombers.

By mid May NATO strategy began to change rapidly. The main changes were these:

1. Albright announced that the bombing was no longer against military targets but aimed at increasing the pressure on the civilian population. The lights were out in Serbia, she said, and they would stay out.

2. Clinton, Blair and others embraced ground troops as a real option. Instead of insisting that NATO would send only peace keepers and only when Milosevic agreed, they began talking about sending in troops when the atmosphere was �permissive.� Then they began redefining permissive to mean something like in the military favor of NATO

3. NATO began a ground war by proxy�the KLA was its proxy. Reinforced by refugees, buying arms with money from ex-pat Kosovars, and being led by a new professional military commander, the KLA became an effective fighting force. While claiming no coordination with the KLA, NATO spokesmen made it clear they were working with the KLA to provide air cover and to use air power to destroy Serb forces and war machinery flushed out by KLA action.

4. Milosevic began to lose ground. The KLA took positions from the Serbs and held them.

5. Milosevic was threatened with having both Kosovo and Montenegro separated from Yugoslavia. Secretary Albright encouraged Montenegro to resist tightening control from Belgrade and hinted at possible independence.

These are the very forces that sent Milosevic to the bargaining table at Dayton. Yes, American planes had begun to bomb his heavy arms in Bosnia, but much more important were the advances being made by Croats and Bosnians on the ground. (The Clinton administration had quietly reversed its opposition to Iranian arms for Bosnian Muslims.)

At Dayton Milosevic got a divided Bosnia with a Serb enclave governed by his people. At the bargaining table earlier this month he stopped the war before NATO or the UN could take decisive steps toward an independent Kosovowhile and he still controls Montenegro. He stopped the war before he lost a critical amount of troops, and his military has returned to Yugoslavia with its firepower intact and several MIG fighters still flying. The result of the peace is better in some ways than the deal offered to him at Rambouillet before the war.

Based on Milosevic�s past behavior this result seemed inevitable under the circumstances. He didn�t need the Russians to tell him what was happening. So what did the Russians do? If anything they won Milosevic a better deal in the peace agreement. They sealed their new prestige by sending in their symbolic contingent to deny NATO the best airfield in Kosovo. They forced the Clinton administration into the role of supplicant. When the war began Primakov turned his America bound plane around in mid-air and returned to Russia. When the Russians invaded Kosovo breaking promises of cooperation, Strobe Talbott turned his plane around in mid air and returned to Moscow. Secretary Albright and President Clinton spent tense hours for a week trying to cajole Moscow into cooperation.

Unless The Nation magazine, Secretary Albright, and others have offered no specific evidence that without Russian intervention Milosevic would have watched his nation and his military protectors destroyed. Using the evidence we do have, most knowledgeable people have to conclude that the Russians did more to win concessions from NATO and to force NATO into reconfirming its respect for Russian military power than from Milosevic.

This is an important point for American foreign policy. It sends a clear warning to all countries in which Russia volunteers cooperation and security measures.