Martin William Smith wrote:
> Of course not. Nobody wants to send in troops, especially when, at
> the moment, it would be foolish. But if the bombing successfully
> minimizes the threat from the Serb military, and if the remaining
> threat is acceptable, and if, in the meantime, Milosevic doesn't agree
> at least to pulling all his remaining forces out of Kosovo and having
> UN forces occupy Kosovo while a political settlment is negotiated, but
> instead he continues with his program of eliminating Albanians, *then*
> NATO will have to send in troops.
1. What role is the UN playing in this? My impression is that the UN
has been largely excluded, and NATO wants to use its peacekeepers, not
UN troops. This is one reason Milosevic doesn't want to budge--NATO
troops in Kosovo would be an incursion into his sovereign state.
2. How do you know NATO would send in ground troops to fight? Here in
the US, officials are discounting the possibility of sending in ground
forces. Perhaps Clinton is lying to us (what a shock), but after Vietnam
I doubt that the American people are going to accept an all out war. A
ground war, with its high casualties, would be the end of Clinton
politically, especially after he explicitly assured us he is sticking to
airstrikes. No one here wants 100 thousand troops trying to occupy the region.
[snip]
> > The strikes can possibly weaken their moral to the point where they
> > capitulate, but that is not a tangible miliary goal, it is a
> > pyschological goal. No one knows how far Milosovic will go and how many
> > will die until he caves.
>
> I agree. If the Russians can get him to agree to the minimum
> requirments, I'm sure NATO will be relieved to stop the bombing and
> never mention sending in troops. I suspect the Russians will succeed,
> and I suspect it will be due in part to their need to get more loans
> from the the IMF that they will apply some behind the curtain
> pressure. I hope they succeed.
Primakov's attempt to strike a deal failed. NATO wouldn't accept it.
Now Russia is sending in its navy to "monitor" the situation.
Meanwhile, NATO expands its operations.
> > Meantime, the airstrikes seem to be provoking even greater atrocities on
> > the part of Milosovic. There are now reports of genocide.
>
> This provoking idea seems silly to me. I mean it places the Serbs in
> the position of heathens, which they are not. They are intelligent
> people, and I don't believe for a minute that they think they can stop
> the bombing by increasing the very atrocities that NATO is using to
> manufacture the consent required to carry on with the bombing. It
> doesn't make sense. It does make sense that they have stepped up the
> process because they know they are running out of time.
Perhaps you are right, if Milosevic thinks NATO will invade with ground
forces. But I suspect Milosevic knows how NATO dreads a ground war.
Milosevic wants to aggravate the situation so that the West sees the
bombings as a failure. The best way to do this is to initiate even more
atrocities against the Kosovars, atrocities which NATO can't stop
because they are committed by mobile soldiers with small arms.
Now Milosevic has not had a hair on his head scratched. Above you
equate Milosevic with his people. Milosevic and his regime are not the
same as the Serbian people. The Serbs may be intelligent people, but
they are ruthlessly controlled by their government. Moreover
Milosevic's soldiers are imbued with nationalism and may very well seek
revenge on the ethnic Albanians.
Nationalism bifurcates the world: there are your friends and there are
your enemies. Your enemy's friends are your enemies. A blow against an
Albanian is a blow against NATO.
> > These bombings seem like another bad decision on the part of Clinton. He
> > continues his "bomb first, ask questions later" policy. The strikes
> > lack clear, attainable objectives and don't seem to have any limit. Thus
> > the situation could very well become worse.
>
> It is a military action and its purpose is purely military, namely to
> knock out as much of the military machine as possible.
That is not at all a clear objective. How much of his military regime
should we knock out? How do we know when we've done enough? How does
that goal correspond with the other alleged priority: saving lives.
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