PROBLEMS AT THE U.S. LEVEL

It was not only the alliance‑induced friction that made the air war inefficient. As Allied Force unfolded, it became increasingly clear that even the U.S. military component was divided in a high‑level struggle over the most appropriate targeting strategy–a struggle reminiscent of the feuding that had occurred nine years earlier between the Army’s corps commanders and the JFACC, USAF Lieutenant General Charles Horner, over the ownership and control of air operations in Desert Storm.[418]There was visible tension in this regard between General Clark and his air commander, General Short, over the heated issue of target priorities: Aggressive micromanagement on the former’s part was eventually met by understandably frustrated and increasingly transparent passive‑aggressive rebellion against it on the latter’s. As Clark later characterized this difference of view in his memoirs, he considered the achievement of success against Serbian ground troops in the KEZ to be the air effort’s “top priority,” unlike “some of [his] American commanders [who] subscribed to a more doctrinaire view of the conflict,” one which, he added, was “the classic view of the American air power adherents who saw air power as strategically decisive, without recourse to the dirty business of ground combat,” in contrast to the view of “Army leaders, who want the Air Force to make a difference on the ground.” Short, no doubt, would offer his own no‑less‑principled view of that characterization.[419]

Once the initial hope that Milosevic would fold within a few days after the bombing commenced was proven groundless, NATO was forced into a scramble to develop an alternative strategy. The immediate result was an internecine battle between Clark and his Air Force subordinate over where the air attacks should be directed. Short had naturally chafed from the very beginning at the slowness of Operation Allied Force to gather momentum–three successive nights had been required just to get through the 51 targets that had been approved up to that point, most of them air defense‑related and only a few located anywhere in or near Belgrade.[420]In light of the absence of an allied ground threat to flush out Serbia’s dispersed and hidden forces in Kosovo, Short insisted that a more effective use of allied air power would be to pay little heed to those forces and to concentrate instead on infrastructure targets in and near downtown Belgrade and other cities, including key electrical power plants and government ministries.

Indeed, by the account of numerous observers who either participated in or later watched the videotapes of the 94 top‑level video teleconferences (VTCs) conducted throughout Allied Force, a typical exchange between Clark and Short during the air war’s early days would have Clark ask: “Are we bombing those ground forces yet, Mike?” To which Short would typically offer a noncommital response. Even in the case of fixed infrastructure targets, Clark reportedly would venture deep into the most minute details of the target list. “Let’s turn to target number 311,” Clark would say, by this account “opening his binder as other participants flipped to the proper page, as if they were holding hymnals.” He would then raise questions about a target’s relevance, expostulate on allied sensitivities, or abort attacks already in progress. He would also, by this account, sometimes gainsay his own intelligence experts and targeteers by looking at a particular DMPI placement and asking “Isn’t that an apartment building?” or “Can’t we move that [DMPI] over 100 feet?” At which point Short would be seen “slumping back in his chair, folding his arms in disgust, and mentally checking out.” General Jumper would then weigh in out of earshot of the others, and a compromise arrangement would typically be worked out. By this informed account, it was never clear to participants whether Clark, through such ex cathedra interventions, was genuinely responding to political pressure from above or was engaged in a divide‑and‑rule game by playing on putative “constraints” to his advantage and gathering diverse inputs and opinions until he heard the one he wanted to hear.[421]

As the commander of U.S. naval forces participating in Allied Force, Vice Admiral Daniel Murphy, recalled after the air war ended, “there was a fundamental difference of opinion at the outset between General Clark, who was applying a ground commander’s perspective… and General Short as to the value of going after fielded forces.” Short believed that it made little sense to waste valuable munitions, sorties, and time going after the VJ’s 3rd Army in Kosovo “if we don’t have an army in the field [or] unless we have defined the opposing army in the field as a center of gravity.”[422]He later commented that he thought going after that elusive army entailed a “high level‑of‑effort, high‑risk, low‑payoff option” because there was no friendly ground presence poised nearby “to make them predictable.”[423]Nevertheless, Clark’s view as to where the target priority emphasis should lie prevailed throughout most of the air war. Not only did Clark insist on attacking dispersed and hidden VJ ground forces as the first priority–indisputably his prerogative as the theater CINC–he reportedly micromanaged the day‑to‑day execution of Allied Force, at times even choosing the particular type of weapon to be used against a given target.[424]

In fairness to the record, Clark was in the decidedly unenviable position of having multiple masters tugging at him from different directions, including the civilian ambassadors to NATO who made up the NAC; NATO’s Secretary General Solana, who was responsible for political control over NATO military operations; and the diverse cast of players in Washington, notably the president, Secretary Cohen, General Shelton, and the service chiefs with their independent interests. In the presence of these often conflicting influences, Clark’s overarching responsibility as SACEUR was to ensure that coalition warfare worked and that the allies remained in step until they produced a successful outcome. To his credit, keeping the other 18 allies on board to the very end was an immense and remarkable accomplishment. As Columbia University political scientist Richard Betts later pointed out in this respect, Clark’s command “was compromised by more conflicting pressures–political, diplomatic, military, and legal–than any other in history. Given these constraints, keeping the enterprise from flying apart was no mean feat.”[425]

That said, Clark had the option all along of leaving the day‑to‑day operational responsibilities of planning and implementing the air effort to his JTF commander, Admiral Ellis, as the principal subordinate warfighting CINC. That is what U.S. Army General George Joulwan had done as SACEUR in 1995 with Admiral Leighton Smith during Operation Deliberate Force, so he could devote his full time, attention, and energy to his paramount duties as a diplomat in uniform. Instead, Clark elected not only to shoulder his diplomatic burdens as NATO’s supreme commander, but also to conduct the air war himself from Brussels, in the process bypassing not only Admiral Ellis but also his air component commander, General Short, in making air apportionment decisions. Whereas General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, on the eve of Desert Storm, had become wholly persuaded by his trusted JFACC, then–Lieutenant General Horner, of the merits of the chosen air campaign strategy, Clark would not be moved by Short from his less trusting insistence that the VJ’s 3rd Army in Kosovo, rather than vital equities closer to Milosevic in and around Belgrade, constituted the principal enemy target set.[426]