SUMMARY

Between March 24 and June 9, 1999, NATO, led by the United States, conducted an air war against Yugoslavia in an effort to halt and reverse the human‑rights abuses that were being committed against the citizens of its Kosovo province by Yugoslavia’s president, Slobodan Milosevic. That 78‑day air war, called Operation Allied Force, represented the third time during the 1990s in which air power proved pivotal in determining the outcome of a regional conflict. Yet notwithstanding its ultimate success, what began as a hopeful gambit for producing Milosevic’s quick compliance soon devolved, for a time at least, into a seemingly ineffectual bombing experiment with no clear end in sight. Not only was the operation’s execution hampered by uncooperative weather and a surprisingly resilient opponent, it was further afflicted by persistent hesitancy on the part of U.S. and NATO political leaders and sharp differences of opinion within the most senior U.S. military command element over the most effective way of applying allied air power against Serb assets. Moreover, the plan ultimately adopted ruled out any backstopping by allied ground troops because of concerns over the potential for a land invasion to generate unacceptable casualties and the consequent low likelihood of mustering the needed congressional and allied support for such an option. All planning further assumed that NATO’s most crucial vulnerable area was its continued cohesion. Therefore, any target or attack tactic deemed even remotely likely to undermine that cohesion, such as the loss of friendly aircrews, excessive collateral damage, or anything else that might weaken domestic support, was to be most carefully considered, if not avoided altogether. All of that, however unavoidable some aspects of it may have been, made NATO’s air war for Kosovo a step backward in efficiency when compared to the Desert Storm air campaign.