Word: airs
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...that the Serbs have moved hundreds of SA-7 shoulder-fired missiles toward Albania, lurking in the valleys the Apaches would follow into Kosovo, just waiting for the gunships to cross the frontier. "The Apaches are MANPADs magnets," an Army officer says, referring to the acronym for Man-Portable Air Defense System, used for the small-missile launchers. "We keep asking the Army," a Joint Staff officer says, "how many Apaches they think are going to come back." That's why the helicopters--initially heralded as saviors--still sit at their Albanian base, twiddling their rotor blades...
Military and political leaders probably wouldn't be agonizing over what planes to fly, and how high, if they could settle on an answer to the question of ground troops. The longer the air war drags on, the more frequently the ground issue pops up. Last week the alliance found itself in a new muddle as various capitals sent out contradictory messages. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroder called the use of ground troops "unthinkable" and pledged to block any alliance combat on land. From London came the opposite, a steady drumbeat of demands by the Blair government to start assembling...
...move Milosevic. Threatening to dispatch troops at the start might have given him pause, or at least forced some of his soldiers to stay home and protect Serbian borders instead of depopulating Kosovo. Had a relatively small ground force been deployed by now, it could have made the air war more lethal by spotting targets and flushing Serbian armor from hiding. But now the noisy, public ground-troops debates seem more likely to crack apart NATO than to cow Milosevic...
Diplomacy is destined to pick up speed as both NATO and Belgrade begin to realize they don't want the air war to last many more months. If NATO is not ready to take risks to defeat Milosevic, it may have to prepare itself, and the wider world, for the least bad negotiated settlement. And winter comes quickly in Kosovo. Clinton pleaded for the allies to "stay focused and patient." But there are not many months left for the air campaign or the diplomacy to work in time for ethnic Albanians to be shepherded home to their charred villages before...
...that wins? Ray Evernham, Gordon's crew chief, helps me out a little. Every track is different, so the preparation of the car, and the strategy, changes from week to week. During a race, he and Gordon talk by radio. A half-pound of air pressure in one tire, added or subtracted during a pit stop, can tighten handling and make the difference between winning and losing...