Word: nato
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...once immoderate and capricious, Milosevic has made himself one of the West's most difficult enemies. Lessons learned from one encounter do not necessarily apply to the next. Washington concluded after Dayton, when NATO bombers seemed to bring him to the negotiating table, that he respected what he feared and would give in to force and threats. Milosevic learned something different: how to exploit the West's hesitation. Diplomats who thought that Dayton showed they "could work with him" discovered he rarely works well with anyone. He enjoyed his combat with Richard Holbrooke, whose status as special American envoy...
Milosevic has miscalculated disastrously before, but he has also brilliantly calculated his hold on power. Which will it be this time? There are those in Washington and Europe who hope that he has gone too far in presiding over death and destruction. Perhaps all those NATO missiles and bombs may finally convince the Serbs that they do not need Milosevic ruining their lives any longer. But reports from Belgrade suggest that the air attacks have Serbs rallying to Milosevic as never before. Once again, in Milosevic's Balkans, it is far from clear who has calculated best...
...over Kosovo, one weapon is being used by both sides: Adolf Hitler. Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic accuses the West of acting like Hitler and appeals to his people's proud memories of the Partisan war against Nazi forces. And isn't the German Luftwaffe engaged in the NATO bombing? Meanwhile, in justifying that bombing, U.S. President Bill Clinton says, "What if someone had listened to Winston Churchill and stood up to Adolf Hitler earlier? How many people's lives might have been saved? And how many American lives might have been saved...
...KOSOVO AS VIETNAM Yes, but whose Vietnam? The Vietnamese people in this analogy are actually the overwhelmingly Albanian population of Kosovo, and the analogue to the Viet Cong is the Kosovo Liberation Army. Kosovo is the Serbs' Vietnam, not ours. If NATO really does eventually destroy Milosevic's army from the air, as General Wesley Clark has threatened (although he hasn't explained how this can be done without inflicting extensive civilian casualties), then the K.L.A. will soon be riding into Pristina as if into Saigon. Then the remaining Serbs living in Kosovo will probably flee. Milosevic knows this...
...Kosovo and Serbia at first hand, I reach a drastic conclusion. I hope against hope that the bombing will stop the murderous rampage and bring the Serbian side back to the negotiating table. But if, as I expect, it does not, then there is only one way for NATO not to be seen on its 50th anniversary as either impotent or complicit in a savage ethnic war. This is to assemble a large international force that will physically occupy Kosovo, make it an international protectorate and stop Serbs from killing or expelling innocent Albanians--and, as important, vice versa...