For the Record.

• Author: Layne, Christopher

Through inept diplomacy and strategic miscalculation, the Clinton administration bears much of the responsibility for Kosovo's humanitarian crisis and for the Kosovo Liberation Army's (KLA) subsequent emergence as the dominant political force in Kosovo. Naturally, the administration has denied that its policies have had these adverse consequences, and it has been especially sensitive to the charge that its actions were in any way connected with the mass exodus of ethnic Albanians from Kosovo. Given the scale of the catastrophe in Kosovo, the Clinton administration's defensiveness is understandable. But despite its efforts at spin and "perception management", the facts are clear. As the great baseball manager Casey Stengel once said, "You could look it up."

The historical background of the Kosovo crisis is complex, but the immediate cause of the Kosovo war is readily identifiable: the irreconcilable aims of Serbia and the province's ethnic Albanians. Constituting the overwhelming majority of the province's population, Kosovo's ethnic Albanians invoked the principle of national self-determination and sought complete independence from Serbia. The Serbs, invoking the principle of national sovereignty, rejected an independent Kosovo because the province has deep historical and cultural significance to them.

In 1998, frustrated by the failure of nonviolent political methods to advance the cause of Kosovo's independence, the KLA emerged on the scene. As a classic armed national liberation movement, the KLA was committed to gaining independence for Kosovo by waging guerilla war against Serbia. It attacked Serbian police, assassinated Serbian officials in Kosovo, and targeted various government buildings and installations.(1) The Serb response - a brutal military crackdown on KLA strongholds in rural Kosovo - added more fuel to a spiral of rising violence. In October of that same year, fearing that the conflict could spill over and destabilize the Balkans, the United States and NATO used the threat of air strikes to compel Belgrade to withdraw troops from Kosovo and accept an internationally monitored ceasefire.

Three aspects of the process leading to that ceasefire are noteworthy. First, notwithstanding that Yugoslavia was engaged in an insurgency against secessionist rebels on its own territory, the United States blamed Belgrade alone for the violence in Kosovo, and Washington's military threats were directed only at Yugoslavia. This underscored a serious inconsistency in Washington's policy: while opposing ethnic Albanian demands for independence, the United States also opposed Yugoslavia's efforts to suppress the KLA insurgency. Second, the KLA proved openly hostile to the ceasefire, as a cessation of hostilities did not further its aim of independence. Third, as soon as Yugoslav forces began withdrawing in accordance with the ceasefire, KLA forces immediately moved to reoccupy the territory they had lost during the Serb offensive.(2) The KLA also used the respite to reconstitute its fighting power. Thus, the familiar pattern of guerilla war once again set in: insurgent attacks provoked Serb reprisals, which prompted further insurgent attacks and an escalation of the fighting.

In January 1999 Yugoslav forces embarked upon a renewed assault against KLA strongholds. The war in Kosovo prior to the March 1999 N^TO bombing was a particularly brutal form of modern conflict, a counterinsurgency effort against a guerilla force. In counterinsurgencies, civilians inescapably become targets because the guerillas draw their manpower, material sustenance and political support from the population in whose name they fight. Insurgent forces often deliberately provoke the authorities into harsh reprisals against civilians to weaken support for the counterinsurgency, and to gain outside sympathy and support for their cause. From early 1998 until the commencement of the NATO bombing in March 1999, the KLA deliberately attempted to provoke Serb repression - and, true to form, Belgrade's regime responded as the KLA hoped it would. In early 1999 the U.S. intelligence community apprised the Clinton administration of the game the KLA was playing. The administration nevertheless decided that the Serbs bore full responsibility for the fighting, while implicitly absolving the KLA.

The unraveling of the ceasefire heightened U.S. and West European concerns that the fighting could lead to a humanitarian tragedy, and that it could spread to Albania and Macedonia, thereby destabilizing the Balkans. These fears led to the Rambouillet negotiations.

Rambouillet

AT THE Rambouillet meetings, the aim of the United States and its West European allies was to fashion a peace agreement between Belgrade and the KLA. Rambouillet called for: (1) withdrawal of Yugoslav military and paramilitary forces from Kosovo; (2) the restoration of Kosovo's political autonomy; (3) a three-year transitional period, at the end of which there would be a referendum on Kosovo's future; (4) disarmament of the KLA; and (5) deployment of an armed NATO peacekeeping force in Yugoslavia.

After two weeks, however, the Rambouillet talks were at an impasse, with both Belgrade and the KLA refusing to sign the accord. The KLA refused to sign because, in determining Kosovo's future status, Washington and the Western Europeans had agreed only to "consider" the results of the referendum. This complicated the administration's strategy of coercing Yugoslav...