Bill Clinton's War.

• Position: Conflict in Kosova, Yugoslavia - Column

The great historian Gabriel Kolko, in his book Century of War, writes: "War, in essence, has always been an adventure intrinsically beset with surprises and false expectations, its total outcome unpredictable to all those who have engaged in it."

Bill Clinton is finding this out the hard way. His ill-conceived decision to prod NATO into bombing Yugoslavia in March has wreaked havoc. The hundreds of thousands of refugees, the civilians killed by NATO bombs, the U.S. soldiers captured, the solidification of domestic support for Serbian strongman Slobodan Milosevic, the dangerous chill in U.S.-Russian relations--all these have come to pass since Clinton made his fateful decision.

Granted, the decision was not an easy one. Milosevic is a brutal leader. His troops in Bosnia committed acts of genocide, and, as he has demonstrated since the bombing, his ferocity in Kosovo knows few bounds. The international community must find a way to prevent or resolve human rights crises like this one. The Rwandan example, where more than 500,000 people died in a matter of weeks in 1994, demonstrates the need for some kind of action.

But launching a NATO air war against Milosevic was the triumph of threat over thought. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright had blustered so much about bombing that when Milosevic refused to budge, she and the United States and NATO were left with the option of losing face or carrying out the threat--even though the consequences of carrying out that threat had not yet been calculated.

That was just one in a series of blunders and blusters that led to this fiasco. First, at the Dayton Accords in 1995, the United States kept Kosovo off the table and whisked the problem under the rug. But the problem did not go away.

After the settlement, NATO troops should have arrested the butchers of Bosnia, Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic, and tried them for crimes against humanity. They've been under indictment by the world court at the Hague, but for years have been living in Bosnia, which is under the protection of NATO troops. What signal did this send to Milosevic or other thugs under his command?

For almost ten years, Kosovo had one of the most active nonviolent resistance movements since Gandhi's time. But the United States and NATO did not do enough to support this effort. Only when some Kosovats took up arms did Washington pay serious attention. Albright could barely exert influence over the Kosovo Liberation Army, and she used every bit...