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STRATFOR.COM's Weekly Global Intelligence Update - 7 February 2000


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STRATFOR.COM Weekly Global Intelligence Update
7 February 2000



Kosovo: The United States Looking for an Exit



Summary

The United States is moving to redefine its policy in Kosovo. The
immediate reason can be found in the deteriorating situation on the
ground. Last week, violence intensified between ethnic Albanians
and Serbs; this was not something that the United States bargained
for when it intervened last year. For this and a host of other
reasons, it appears that Washington is now in the process of
redefining its role and quite possibly preparing to withdraw its
forces.


Analysis

Increasingly, there are signs that the United States is looking for
a way to reposition itself in Kosovo, nearly a year after leading
NATO forces into a conflict over the province. Last week in Europe,
U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen suggested that U.S. forces are
facing "mission creep" which neither military commanders nor
political leaders want. In addition, a case is building in
Washington that blames Europe for doing too little to help control
Kosovo. And in the last week, the city of Mitrovica in Kosovo has
been the scene of the very violence and chaos that NATO has always
sought to avoid.

Ever since NATO intervened in Kosovo nearly a year ago, one of the
most interesting exercises has been the attempt of serious analysts
and Balkan residents to uncover the hidden reason behind the U.S.-
led intervention last March. The official reason for the conflict
was that the United States wanted to stop genocide in Kosovo.
Particularly in Europe, this was seen as a public justification
masking a hidden agenda. Theories suggested that hidden mines or
even the control of the telecommunications industry were the true
reasons for intervention. An entire industry was spawned to uncover
the motives behind the two and a half month-long conflict.

The reality, however, is far more prosaic and, in some ways, more
alarming. The U.S.-led intervention was prompted precisely by what
the U.S. government said. There were reports of an impending
holocaust in Kosovo. Criticized for failing to prevent genocide in
Rwanda and accused of sitting idly by in Bosnia, the Clinton
administration was afraid of another public relations nightmare -
at a time when domestic scandals were tarnishing the administration
anyway.

The administration viewed Kosovo as a low-risk, high-yield
operation. The administration did not expect an extended conflict,
having drawn the belief in Bosnia that Yugoslav President Slobodan
Milosevic was incapable of enduring an extended bombing campaign.
Expecting a repetition of events in Bosnia - when a brief bombing
campaign was followed by quick capitulation - the administration
was caught flat-footed when the war dragged on. The United States
had been suckered into a war of limited strategic interest from
which the United States could not withdraw. Milosevic, after all,
had been portrayed as a monster. And the administration could not
negotiate with a monster.

NATO and the United States ultimately engineered a victory, of
sorts, last June when NATO forces occupied Kosovo. But their
arrival did not bring anything like closure. Quite to the contrary,
the alliance began an open-ended occupation in which the mission
did not correspond to the reality on the ground. The mission of
NATO forces was to ensure the security of all residents. The
reality was that NATO forces were, quite against their intentions,
acting as the agents of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). The
ethnic Albanian guerrillas used the NATO peacekeeping mission as a
means for institutionalizing KLA rule in the province. The effect
was to turn victims into victimizers and NATO peacekeepers into
unwitting tools of ethnic Albanian revenge.

In this situation, NATO has never managed to find its balance or
its center of gravity. NATO troops have managed to alienate all
sides - a fact underscored by the ongoing violence in Mitrovica. On
a larger scale, neither Washington nor Brussels had ever faced a
simple fact. In the region, the prevailing view is that neutral
benevolence is impossible; for NATO troops, there was no neutral
standpoint from which to mount their operation. It was inevitable
that the peacekeepers would find themselves caught in the crossfire
between Albanians, determined to keep what they think they have
won, and Serbs, increasingly determined to recover what they have
lost. Milosevic remains in control in Belgrade. Nothing has been
settled.

For the United States, the Kosovo experience violates the key
lessons of the Vietnam experience. Withdrawing from Southeast Asia
nearly 20 years ago, the United States swore never to again become
embroiled, on the ground, in a civil war in another country. In
Kosovo, the United States has been involved in something worse: a
civil war that offers no clear exit strategy. The war, after all,
cannot truly end until one warring ethnic group, or the other, is
completely expelled from the region. Worse, this civil war is one
in which the United States has no real stake. In Vietnam, at least,
some sort of strategic logic could be asserted. But this has not
been the case in Kosovo, where the driving motive for U.S.
involvement has been based on humanitarian motives.

The humanitarian question is now cutting the other way as
peacekeepers are turned from saviors into confused bullies in the
minds of even the Albanians. This transformation is not the fault
of the troops, who are still mostly combat soldiers, trained to
respond to threats with overwhelming force. Keeping the peace,
particularly in a chaotic situation, requires a very different sort
of training - the sort that is given to police, of which there are
still precious few in Kosovo.

More than having the right training, a policeman is someone who is
local. NATO has taken people who were never trained as police in
the first place, tossed them into an utterly alien culture - and is
now discovering that the solution is not working.

It appears that the administration is slowly recognizing the
insanity of the situation. In Munich last week, Cohen reportedly
said, "I think it has reached the level of concern on the part of
not only members of the U.S. Congress, but military commanders.
They are concerned about the possibility of mission creep - that
the military is being called upon to engage in police functions for
which they are not properly trained and we don't want them to carry
out." The administration has acknowledged that the situation is
getting out of hand, that forces are not trained for the mission
and that no one now wants them to carry out the mission.

Most intriguing is Cohen's reference to mission creep; there has,
of course, been none. The nature of the mission has remained the
same. But increasingly, there is perception of creep: the
administration's perception has finally caught up with the reality
of the mission it so enthusiastically undertook nearly a year ago.

As a result, administration officials and Congress members are
looking for the exit. Since total withdrawal of NATO forces is
impossible without even more chaos, another solution is appearing:
Blame the Europeans and demand that they shoulder more of the
burden. Sen. John Warner, chairman of the Senate Armed Services
Committee, has claimed that the real problem in Kosovo is that
Europeans have not fulfilled their obligations. They were supposed
to send police, as well as $35 million for policing functions, but
only a few of the former and none of the latter have arrived.

European countries have agreed to take command of the peacekeeping
operation. By April, a Eurocorps contingent is scheduled to command
the NATO-led peacekeeping force (KFOR). More than 350 personnel
from the five Eurocorps countries - Belgium, France, Germany,
Luxembourg and Spain - are to take command of the 50,000 troops in
Kosovo. This of course does not solve the core problem. It may even
compound it. The United States, desperately wanting to minimize
exposure and casualties, will now find its forces under the control
of a headquarters with its own agenda.

The Europeans, however, are not eager to undertake full
responsibility for KFOR. Except for the British government, the
rest of Europe was more than a little restrained in enthusiasm for
the war. Most European governments foresaw precisely the situation
that has developed. The European view has always been that the
United States stumbled into a situation for which they had
counseled caution.

But there are far deeper issues for European governments at this
point. One is Russia. The emergence of acting President Vladimir
Putin and a much more assertive, anti-Western Russia is a result of
last year's war. European governments regard the end game of
Kosovo, in which the Russians were outmaneuvered and humiliated, as
a Pyrrhic victory. The Germans in particular now must deal with an
increasingly truculent Russia - in which they have invested
billions that they will never again see - and are not eager to be
the flag-bearers of an operation that continues to irritate the
Russians.

Indeed, the Russian factor is likely one reason that the United
States wants out. Washington's relationship with Moscow is
increasingly dangerous. Rhetoric aside, the upcoming Sino-Russian
summit in March presents a serious threat to global American
interests. The United States does not want to see a deepening of
the Sino-Russian relationship. Instead, Washington needs to signal
that the U.S. presence in Kosovo does not present a strategic
threat to the Russians. Beginning the process of withdrawal would
help enormously. The problem with this strategy is that Europeans
are not likely to replace Americans as the objects of Russian ire.

As U.S. troops are caught in the crossfire between Kosovo factions,
the basic irrationality of the operation becomes apparent. Having
entered a civil war, the United States lacks both the will and
resources to impose a settlement. The settlement at hand, a fully
Albanian Kosovo, cleansed of Serbs, is intolerable. A NATO
withdrawal, and the re-entry of the Yugoslav Army, is unthinkable.
In addition, U.S. forces are strained by their dispersal around the
globe with little strategic reason.

An exit from Kosovo will emerge as an issue in the months to come,
particularly in the context of an American presidential election.
The Clinton administration is setting the stage for the withdrawal
of at least some forces from Kosovo, leaving the Europeans to
handle it. It is far from clear that the Europeans will do it. With
both strategic and political considerations coinciding, Clinton
seems likely to try to trim the military commitment in Kosovo.
However, having stumbled into it, it is not clear that he will now
be able to stumble out. Nevertheless, he seems to be cranking up to
give it his best shot.





(c) 2000 WNI, Inc. http://www.stratfor.com/

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