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KOSOVO: The future of international politics in the wake of Kosovo

In the event that NATO had not achieved its objectives, it is not hard to imagine the tenor of recriminations. "NATO should never have embarked on such an adventure", many would have said, and "having done so it should have fought to win from the start". Others would say NATO erred by failing to secure a UN endorsement prior to hostilities, by unequivocally ruling out a ground war only days into the operation and, finally, by investing too much in the inherently limited instrument of air power.

The political debris of a failed campaign would have matched the physical debris of a battered Serbia and destroyed Kosovo. The Serbs and the Kosovar Albanians would both have had their reasons to resent NATO, while the neighbouring countries would have been left picking up the pieces, no doubt with the aid of some guilt money from Western countries.

It would have been hard to avoid the conclusion that NATO was a busted flush led by a lone superpower which refused to take risks. Future threats would have been unimaginable. Western influence over the conduct of international affairs would accordingly have been diminished.

It was NATO's awareness that the stakes were so high that steeled it to sustain a bombing campaign for 79 days with scant evidence of a political return. It also began to seriously plan a ground war, despite statements earlier in the campaign that NATO had ruled out such a move.

Once the alliance had committed itself to fight the war, individual NATO members found it very difficult to break ranks. It quickly became clear how important it was for NATO to act as one voice. The alliance managed to remain focused on its original strategy and only furthered the air campaign on the basis of consensus. However, had NATO suddenly decided the campaign was a bad idea or been shocked that people were getting hurt, the alliance would have appeared naïve.

Therefore, the very requirement of unanimity that made it difficult for the alliance to move far beyond its original strategy, to a land war, also made it difficult for it to move back. New NATO members, who joined largely to be part of a Western club rather than to fight wars, discovered very quickly what 'alliance' can mean. Hungary, in particular, which suddenly found itself on the front line, passed the test of solidarity.

It is doubtful whether NATO will be sufficiently emboldened to attempt many more interventions of this kind. Such actions tend to be prompted only by exceptional circumstances ­ in this case the latest in a series of crude acts of oppression in a sensitive part of Europe where the alliance's prestige had already been fully engaged.

Great human dramas are being played out within the former Soviet Union and in North Africa but few of them are likely to present themselves in a form that calls for military rather than diplomatic or economic action by the West.

Furthermore, for the moment the most substantial European military powers, France and the UK, are at full stretch coping with Bosnia as well as Kosovo. They are unlikely to be in a position to take on any more major commitments in the near future. If land forces are required, for example in a Gulf contingency, the USA is likely to be left largely on its own.

There was a point in the Kosovo conflict when a new cold war appeared imminent. Russia had complained bitterly about NATO's air campaign against Yugoslavia. Moscow viewed NATO's willingness to go to war against Russia's expressed wishes as another slight, following earlier disagreements over policy towards Iraq and NATO expansion. These antagonistic feelings were bound up with frustration over the poor state of the economy, which itself is blamed on Western pressure to follow what is believed by Russia to be a wholly inappropriate capitalist model, and which has left Russia even more dependent on Western creditors.

The poignancy of Russia's position was summed up by three incidents: one at the beginning of the war, one at the end and the other during the KFOR operation.

As news that air raids on Yugoslavia had begun, the then Russian Prime Minister Yevgeni Primakov ordered his plane to return to Moscow rather than complete its journey to Washington. This had two results. First, it meant Primakov was unable to negotiate International Monetary Fund (IMF) loans which Russia so badly requires. Second, he was unable to take advantage of a moment when the USA was likely to be extremely sensitive to Russian opinion.

This began a pattern of Russian demands which it would have been hard pressed to act on if granted. Russian President Boris Yeltsin called NATO barbarous and demanded the bombing cease immediately. There was even some vague muttering about nuclear weapons.

At the same time, however, Yeltsin went to great lengths to disabuse Belgrade of any notion that Russia might be able to offer any material help. When Milosevic spoke of a Slavic alliance embracing Belarus and Russia as well as Yugoslavia he got no more than polite expressions of interest from Russia. It soon became clear that Russia was unable to put any sort of brake on NATO. In the end the Russian intermediary Viktor Chernomyrdin found himself conveying the essence of the alliance's demands to Milosevic. This occurred despite promises to the West that this would never happen.

The second incident came as NATO forces were about to enter Kosovo to establish its peacekeeping operation. Russia managed to steal NATO's thunder by moving several hundred Russian troops, who had been serving as part of the Stabilisation Force (SFOR) in Bosnia into Kosovo, establishing themselves at the main airport in Pristina.

The dash to Pristina seemed a clever ruse, creating a bargaining position out of nothing. But in the end Russia lacked the funds and spare military capacity to follow it up. Within a short time, NATO forces surrounded the airport and took up positions throughout the province, thus smothering the Russians with condescension. KFOR personnel eventually became the Russians' only supplier of water.

Yeltsin demanded a separate sector in Kosovo for Russian forces, thereby raising the spectre of partition. In truth, however, he would have been embarrassed if NATO had conceded the point because it would have required troops and logistical support beyond available resources. Again, Yeltsin backed down. Agreement appeared to have been reached by the time Yeltsin arrived in Cologne for the summit of the Group of Eight (G8), on the weekend of 20-21 June. Russia's economic needs were top of the agenda and it was time to make up.

The third incident took place in early July when Yeltsin demanded that Russia operate under its own chain of command rather than the NATO unity of command structure. In response, NATO asked Romania, Hungary and Bulgaria to deny Russian aircraft access to their respective airspace until the issue could be resolved. Following negotiations, it was agreed that Russia would follow NATO rules of engagement, but the Russian commander would be able to add reservations. In short, Russian forces would still subordinate to the overall KFOR unity of command.

Throughout the crisis, Moscow lacked effective sanctions when it did not get its way. As a result, most of the time it did not get its way. Events during the conflict confirm the limits of Russia's power. Long-term effects will depend on whether Russian policy-makers decide they must learn to operate more effectively within those limits, or carry on pretending to be a great power.

If NATO had been desperate for a way out of Kosovo, then Russia's ability to help them find one might have been crucial, and produced some sort of correction in the general trend of declining Russian influence. As this situation did not arise, it is clear that Kosovo changed remarkably little in basic power relationships.

The main exception to this rule may be China. The attack on the Chinese embassy in Belgrade must count as the worst targeting blunder of modern warfare, not in terms of casualties (where there have been many worse) but in terms of political effects. It came at a time when there were signs of a diplomatic breakthrough, with the G8 having just set down the terms upon which the war would eventually end, and with the diplomatic effort about to move to the UN. Here China would play a crucial role. While impossible to prove, this attack may have added a couple of weeks to the length of the war.

At the time, US-Chinese relations were already in some difficulty following a combination of allegations in Washington about Chinese violations of human rights and espionage activities with a Chinese feeling of letdown over trade negotiations. In Beijing, there was unease over the weak state of the economy, and the consequent risks of political unrest, and the imminent 10th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989.

When news came on 7 May that the embassy had been bombed, a wave of anti-Western sentiment was unleashed in Beijing and for a while Western diplomats were trapped in their embassies, facing hostile crowds. Grovelling apologies were offered by NATO, but were dismissed as insincere or unconvincing. The Chinese still do not accept that the attack was a mistake, as this strains their credulity, and assumed that they were being punished in some way for their independent stance and resistance to US hegemony. The conspiracy theory will probably be much more durable in this case than the 'blunder' theory.

Yet the Chinese overplayed their hand. US embarrassment turned to anger as it became apparent that the Chinese media was being manipulated, so that no word of the apologies had been broadcast. The protest marches provided an unnerving reminder of the militant days of the Cultural Revolution, while the sudden promise of active support for Yugoslavia's position, after more than a month of war, suggested that Chinese foreign policy was more parochial than principled.

In the end, there was little that China could do for Belgrade and it came into line for the June vote at the UN Security Council by abstaining. Previously it had threatened to veto any US-backed resolution, but this was a hard policy to reconcile with a complaint that the Security Council should have played a much larger role in the crisis.

The bitter aftertaste of this episode may harm Chinese-US relations for some time, but it may also do China long-term harm. The intensity of the popular reaction, and its official orchestration, may have left Western businesses wary about dealing with China. China has not proved to be a particularly lucrative market and has served as something of a revelation to other Asian countries who were hoping that it was putting its old Communist ways well behind it. It would be somewhat ironic if the most lasting effects of a small war in Europe were felt among the large powers of Asia.

Lawrence Freedman is professor of War Studies at King's College, London

Jane's Defence Weekly

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