From the archive: the consequences of Nato bombing Kosovo

There are two reasons to return to the Kosovo Conflict for this week's hit from the archives. First, of course, the surface parallels with Libya: Nato involvement, bombing raids, all that. Second, that yesterday was the 12th anniversary of Nato's first operation in Kosovo. Here's Bruce Anderson's take from the time:

Milosevic has Kosovo, Nato has no idea, Bruce Anderson, The Spectator, 3 April 1999

There is a precedent for Kosovan conflict: Suez. Then, as now, our indignation was inflamed by misleading historical analogies; Milosevic is not Hitler, any more than Nasser was. Then, as now, we were afflicted by geopolitical tunnel vision, and lost all contact with the wider strategic realities. In Kosovo, as at Suez, Western interests could suffer long-term damage, whatever the outcome.

There are two points at which the comparison breaks down. At Suez, we still understood the nature of warfare, and were at least prepared for all military eventualities, though for none of the diplomatic ones. Now, unlike at Suez, we do have the Americans as allies, but this only seems to have reinforced our intellectual frailties. Never, not even at Suez, have we blundered into a conflict with so little forethought.

Yet the Kosovan crisis was foreseen, at least in the intelligence community. Almost a decade ago, Julian Amery warned the Tory backbench foreign affairs committee that the gravest problem in the former Yugoslavia was the Sanjak of Novi Pazar. His hearers were unsure whether he was referring to a place or a person. The Sanjak is, in fact, a Muslim salient within Serbia itself; El Amery was using it as a shorthand for the entire Serbo-Albanian conundrum. Given Serbian nationalism, given Albanian demographic predominance in Serbia's historic heartland, and, finally, given Milosevic, conflict was inevitable, sooner rather than later. But we never worked out a realistic contingency plan; we never even addressed the basic problem: what, if any, is Britain's national interest in Kosovo?

We should have done better, if only through learning from our mistakes in Bosnia. Unfortunately, however, our politicians have drawn the wrong conclusions from Bosnia, militarily and diplomatically. Because Western air power contributed to the collapse of the Bosnian Serbs' military position, we have ignored the most crucial factor in the Bosnian truce: Croatian ground forces, which inflicted a heavy defeat on the Serbs. Because Bosnia is no longer wracked by war, some of our politicians delude themselves that their policy was successful. But none of them can answer the most obvious question: when and under what circumstances will the West be able to leave Bosnia, without precipitating an immediate resumption of the fighting? There seems to be no alternative to an indefinite and substantial Western military presence in Bosnia. If we win the current conflict, the same will be true of Kosovo. We seem to be acquiring a Balkan empire in a fit of absence of mind.

Not only would the West have been much better off had we heeded Bismark's advice that the Balkans were not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian soldier; so would the inhabitants of Bosnia, and Kosovo. On any felicific calculus, the West's actions have made life much worse for the locals. We should have made it clear from the beginning that we had no intention of intervening, and that the other ethnic groups would just have to put up with Serb domination, as their forebears had had to put up with the Turks, the Karageorgevic kings and Tito. It would of course have been better if everyone in the former Yugoslavia could have enjoyed democracy and human rights, just as it would be better if those desiderata could be enjoyed in China, or in Africa. But history is not always beneficent; it is rarely wise to anticipate historical evolution. It would have been better if the Bosnians and the Kosovars had been patient, even if that patience was learned at the cost of a few broken heads at the hands of Serb policemen. It may be that the resulting Serb hegemony would merely have postponed the ethnic conflict; even so, it is hard to imagine a worse outcome that the present mess. Equally, the real threat to the West comes, not from the violation of humanitarian norms, but from the diplomatic and geopolitical ramifications.

It has never been possible to conduct foreign policy on the basis of Kant's categorical imperative: act as if your every action shall become a universal moral law. But if the process is to have any prospect of success, there must be some consistency, some sense of principle, some intellectual coherence. At present, in the West, there is none. It does not help that we have a US Secretary of State, Miss Albright (never has a name been more inappropriate), who cannot think, and a British Foreign Secretary who will not think. Mr Cook only seems to be interested in Kosovo inasmuch as it enables him to score debating points against the Scottish Nationalists. Every day he remains in his great office he proves anew his unworthiness to hold it. He is not a Foreign Secretary; he is a national disgrace.

Apropos of Suez, Churchill said that he was not sure whether he would have dared to go in; had he done so, he would never have dared to pull out. Now that Nato is at war, victory is the least dangerous outcome. Yet in purely military terms, the Kosovan operation was always likely to be hazardous; far more risky than the Falklands was. There are no precedents for bombing a proud and warlike people into submission, especially when the scope of the bombing is so limited for fear of civilian casualties; nor are there any precedents for trying to fight a war without killing people. It is simply impossible to prevent from the air ethnic cleansing. Even if we could destroy every Serb tank in Kosovo, the cleansing could continue by means of Kalashnikovs, knives and baseball bats.

The calculation was that by threatening to degrade not only Serbia's air defences but also its heavy weaponry, its command and control systems, and, ultimately, every piece of sophisticated hardware in its security system, we would intimidate Milosevic, who would fear the consequences of losing his ability to coerce his populace. In the short term, however, he may not need to coerce them; the bombing seems to be boosting Serbian morale and, with it, Milosevic's popularity. Even if Milosevic were eventually to respond as Western policymakers hope that he will, this could require weeks, even months, of bombing; that is were it ceases to be a purely military operation, and becomes a reckless gamble conceived in a diplomatic vacuum.

A bombing campaign lasting for several weeks would require a high degree of alliance cohesion. This cannot be the guaranteed. Mr Blair is prepared to tough it out; he dare not take the political risk of looking less resolute than Margaret Thatcher. London also believes that President Clinton will not waver; then again, how can one read the character of a man who has none? But what about the others? The French and Italians have already stated their reservations. London claims not to be worried by this, pointing out that both governments are giving full military support, and insisting that the expressions of dismay are merely for domestic political consumption. But if there is already a domestic political problem, neither government can be guaranteed to go the distance.

Milosevic is a master of diplomatic chess. He has already begun to make peace overtures, of the most disingenuous nature. This will continue. Can we be certain that he will not succeed in dividing the allies' counsels? There is only one honourable basis on which Nato can now make peace: the complete withdrawal from Kosovo of the 40,000 Serb regulars, their 300 tanks and their other equipment, to be followed by the stationing of a Nato force of around 25,000 men, to keep the peace and to enable the refugees to return to their homes. A peace deal on any other terms would be a victory for Milosevic and a defeat for Nato. Equally, peace on acceptable terms means the end of Serb rule in Kosovo.

But even if the alliance holds together and Milosevic cracks, the wider consequences could be disastrous for Western interests. There is no Western interest in Kosovo; there is in Russia. One can exaggerate pan-Slavism as a political force; Russia has changed since the 1870s, when Vronsky set off from the pages of Anna Karenina to the Serbian front, with thousands of real-life fellow countrymen. But the communists did not eradicate pan-Slavism, and humiliation is a profound political force. The spectacle of Nato doing whatever it likes in what the Soviet Union would have regarded as its sphere of influence, signalling that it is no longer a defensive alliance even while it extends its membership right up to the Soviet Union's borders, and conceivably beyond, is good news for the Russian ultra-nationalists and their communist allies, as is the prospect of another month of bombing. One Russian newspaper has already run the headline, 'President Clinton is a member of the Russian Communist Party.' He and Mr Blair have certainly furthered its interests.

Throughout the former Soviet Union, various political groups will have learned different lessons from the Kosovan conflict. Potential ethnic dissidents will conclude that they, too, are entitled to independence. Soviet irredentists will argue that the West can act as it does, not because it is in the right, but because it has might. Others will also draw that conclusion. Why does the West act to secure human rights in Kosovo, but not in Tibet? Because China has nuclear weapons, and Serbia does not. So if you want to protect yourself from interference by a rampant Nato, do what Iraq, Iran and North Korea are doing, and acquire weapons of mass destruction as rapidly as possible. After all, to judge by those examples, the Americans will be powerless to prevent you.

By the standards of the least successful century in human history since the Dark Ages, Kosovo is hardly in the second division of the atrocity league table. But the West's response to events in Kosovo has created a poisonous endowment for the new millennium.