From BBC London, Newsnight Friday, August 20, 1999 Published at 03:34 GMT 04:34 UK
General Clark: "didn't always defer to those who wanted targets withheld" In a special Newsnight programme Mark Urban investigates Nato's handling of the Kosovo crisis. Interviewing the key players he finds that the Allies were far from united. (Newsnight - BBC Two - 10.30pm - Friday 20 August). Talk to the people running Nato's war against Slobodan Milosevic and many will tell you it was a "near run thing". Strobe Talbott, the American Deputy Secretary of State, told BBC's Newsnight Kosovo Special "there would have been increasing difficulty within the alliance in preserving the solidarity and the resolve of the alliance" had the Serbian leader not given in on 3 June. Mr Talbott, regarded as the man closest to President Clinton in the Washington foreign policy team, adds: "I think it was a good thing that the conflict ended when it did." From last summer, when the western alliance first began to think seriously about intervening, until the last day of the airstrikes this June, there were enormous difficulties getting members of the organisation to agree a common line on the use of force.
Not only would it have been very hard to get an agreement in Nato for a ground war against President Milosevic, but even continued airstrikes might have been jeopardised by disunity. The decision to go on bombing was the only thing the Allies could agree because hawks (arguing for all options up to a full-scale invasion) and doves (who wanted a pause in the bombing) cancelled one another out. Alliance decisions had to be agreed by all 19 members. This meant that clear warnings from Nato's military experts had to be ignored in the interests of consensus. General Klaus Naumann, chairman of Nato's Military Committee during last summer's first alliance discussions about intervention says he formally cautioned Nato's top political body that, "one has to be prepared to escalate, if one doesn't achieve the political objective with the first military actions".
That warning that everything up to a full-scale invasion
might be needed was ignored.
In fact it did not happen because, as Javier Solana the
Nato Secretary-General told Newsnight, the American who
negotiated that agreement, "didn't have instructions to go
that far from this country".
As for the "increasing difficulties" Mr Talbott thinks might have plagued the continued air campaign - it is now becoming clear that several allies came close to trying to "pause" the bombing and that America had to stop them by fair means and foul.
Within two days of Operation Allied Force starting, Italy
suggested there be a diplomatic solution.
On 27 March these dissenters agreed to an escalation from
Phase One of that blueprint to Phase Two, which allowed Nato
to bomb Yugoslav forces and supply bases.
Those countries felt they had a cast-iron case, since the
resolution passed back in October by the alliance's top
political body, the North Atlantic Council, made clear that
moving up the ladder of escalation required a unanimous vote
from all members.
In return for a promise that Nato would only hit
"strictly military targets", the lukewarm allies were
pursuaded to back them. The Supreme Commander then proceeded with his escalation,
occasionally phoning the key political leaders to get
particularly sensitive targets okayed.
The political/military dilemma at the heart of the air
war remains unresolved which is why ministers continue to
insist only "strictly military targets" were hit whereas it
is obvious that most people would not call a TV station or
electricitical power plants "military".
Those who had tried to brake the escalation either ducked
questions about their attitude to what had happened or tried
to claim they had stopped Gen Clark escalating further.
As Joschka Fischer, the German Foreign Secretary and
leading advocate of a halt to airstrikes now reflects, "I
had to realise that this was not workable in an alliance.
This was too complicated."
© BBC 1999 http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/default.htm
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