NATO and Kosovo.

• Author: Daalder, Ivo H.

Ivo H. Daalder takes issue with Layne and Schwarz:

DURING the early weeks of the Kosovo war, critics of the Clinton administration were appalled by NATO's lack of planning. NATO, after all, had gone to war for the ostensible purpose of protecting the Kosovar Albanians, only to see 1.5 million of them being forced from their homes. With the benefit of hindsight, however, it ought to be evident to these critics that their conclusions about the administration's fallibility were premature. While the diplomatic and military strategies hardly proved optimal, there can be little doubt that NATO won the war. Having myself been one of the critics, I have no compunction admitting that this is the case. Not so Christopher Layne and Benjamin Schwarz, who recently argued in these pages that the Clinton administration bears primary responsibility for the humanitarian crisis in Kosovo ("For the Record", Fall 1999).

Layne and Schwarz's contention is based on three arguments. First, the conflict in Kosovo was essentially one that pitted a radicalized and violent Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), bent on independence, against a Belgrade government that sought to defend the status quo. Second, the humanitarian calamity that befell the Kosovar Albanians (who constituted 90 percent of Kosovo's population) was the result not of what Serb military, paramilitary and police forces did, but of NATO's decision to bomb Serbia. Third, the people of Kosovo today are worse off because NATO intervened.

In essence, Layne and Schwarz blame the victims for the crimes inflicted on them and then compound that error by confusing those who sought, however ineptly, to prevent the crimes with those who perpetrated them. But even a cursory examination of the evidence suggests Serb responsibility for the conflict. What is more, NATO's intervention in the end created a situation that is infinitely preferable for individual Kosovars to the one in which they found themselves before the war. Indeed, their life is better and their future more promising than would have been the case under the Rambouillet agreement, the rejection of which by Slobodan Milosevic was the reason for NATO's intervention.

LAYNE and Schwarz rightly contend that the "historical background of the Kosovo crisis is complex", but they then proceed to ignore even the most basic historical facts of the conflict. This is unfortunate, since such facts might help explain why Serb and Albanian aims proved irreconcilable. For example, it might be useful to acknowledge that Milosevic rose to power in Serbia partly on the backs of the Kosovar Albanians. In 1989 he stripped away the constitutional autonomy Kosovo had enjoyed during the previous fifteen years. In its stead emerged a highly repressive Serb regime that denied Albanians any authority in running day-to-day life in the province. It is equally important to recall that for eight years after autonomy was taken from them, the Albanian people resisted Serb repression without violence. Instead, they contented themselves with setting up parallel state structures--organizing elections for a "presidency" and "parliament", providing Albanian-language education for their young, and seeking in many other ways to circumvent Serb authority.

Yet, eight years of non-violent resistance proved...