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POWERLESS IN KOSOVO | PAGE 1, 2
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Guilt about their inaction in Bosnia while hundreds of thousands died haunts Western policymakers. Almost every statement put forth by President Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, National Security Advisor Sandy Berger or Britain's increasingly shrill Tony Blair is prefaced by the promise that Kosovo will not be allowed to degenerate into another Bosnia.
Unfortunately, Kosovo already is another Bosnia. Since March, Milosevic's police and special forces have been waging war against the ethnic Albanians who have had the temerity to call for a return to the provincial autonomy that Milosevic stripped from them in 1989, when he launched his messianic campaign to reassert Serbian hegemony over all of Yugoslavia's multiethnic lands.
Milosevic's refusal to consider the Kosovars' demands has undermined the influence of Rugova, a Gandhian moderate who favors negotiations. Rugova's impotence has strengthened the more militant Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which advocates independence, not autonomy.
In the past weeks, Milosevic's campaign against the small, disorganized armed groups of the KLA in the rugged mountains bordering Albania has blossomed into full-scale warfare, using artillery, helicopter gunships and scorched-earth shock troops to raze all Kosovo villages along the mountainous Albanian border through which the KLA is supplied.
Lest there be any doubts that history was repeating itself, Wolfgang Ischinger, the political director of the German Foreign Ministry who visited the Kosovo capital of Pristina, said the Serbian operations that have left hundreds dead and sent tens of thousands of refugees into neighboring Albania were nothing short of a new campaign "of ethnic cleansing."
As with Bosnia, Milosevic seems unmoved by Western consternation about Kosovo. He knows from past experience how hard it is for the West to come to a consensus on action in the Balkans. He also knows that Russia, long an ally of the Serbs, will not agree to any military action in Kosovo, even if there were a Western agreement to launch it. Since the United Nations Security Council would ultimately have to approve such action, a Russian veto will stop it. To make sure, Milosevic goes to Moscow next week to meet with Boris Yeltsin.
If military action was hard enough for the West to decide on in Bosnia -- an internationally recognized independent nation -- it will prove 10 times more difficult in Kosovo, which is recognized as an integral region of the Yugoslav state. So long as Milosevic's actions there don't spill over to incite war with neighboring Albania and Macedonia, what the Serbian leader does in Kosovo remains a domestic affair.
The much-discussed plans for NATO to send troops to Albania and Macedonia (where a U.S.-NATO observer force is already in place) as a means of containing the problem to Kosovo is something Milosevic would, in fact, welcome, as it might help isolate the KLA's cross-border operations and arms smuggling. Nor can sanctions, which the European Union and the United States so belatedly imposed this week, be expected to have a dramatic effect on Milosevic's behavior. He has weathered such economic punishment before and no doubt feels he can again.
In addition to the typical divisions among Western councils about what to do, there is also division of opinion in Clinton's cabinet. Secretary of State Albright, as is her wont, has taken a hawkish position in favor of intervention while Secretary of Defense William Cohen and National Security Advisor Berger have been counseling against military commitments that Congress or the American people might not support.
Milosevic may be a brute and a thug, but he is not dumb. He has proven time and again that he understand the dynamics and limits of Western power, perhaps better than people in the West itself. The Serbian leader knows that ultimately, unless the U.S. can agree to a concrete plan of action, no one else will. And with a scandal-weakened presidency, with its own internal divisions and bureaucratic rivalries, Milosevic is clearly betting on continued inaction from the world's only superpower.
The prognosis for Kosovo, therefore, is grim. The U.S. and its allies will continue to protest -- loudly -- Milosevic's latest bout of savagery, and they will bluster about military retaliation to come. Meanwhile, more villages will be razed, more civilians will die, more refugees will flee. In the near term, before the Albanian majority in the province can organize its own effective resistance, Milosevic, once again, will likely get away with the ethnic cleansing of yet another Balkan land.
SALON | June 12, 1998
Loren Jenkins is the foreign editor of National Public Radio. He last wrote for Salon on the new relations between the United States and Iran.
How should the U.S. and its allies respond to the situation in Kosovo? Weigh in on the latest Balkan crises in the International Issues area of Table Talk.

T A B L E+T A L K What if Clinton is telling the truth and all the accusations are based on lies? Then what? Join the discussion in Table Talk's Politics area D A I L Y+Q U O T E Ginsburg's "Bulworth" impersonation O N+O T H E R S I T E S The world's most dangerous terrorist. An exclusive report at ABCNEWS.com R E C E N T L Y Prophet of the plague By Terry Diggs Charlton Heston's dark view of his fellow humans makes him a perfect president of the NRA (06/11/98) Does the CIA stereotype Jews as security risks? By Jeff Stein A CIA lawyer denied clearance to work at the White house sues -- and charges that the agency is purging Jews (06/10/98) A Clinton critic's tax-exempt lifestyle (Part Two) By Jonathan Broder and Joe Conason As head of the American Spectator's nonprofit foundation, conservative editor R. Emmett Tyrrell enjoys some unusual perks (06/09/98) The American Spectator's funny money (Part One) By Jonathan Broder and Joe Conason How the American Spectator's attempt to destroy Clinton blew up in its own face (06/08/98) The sad death of a soccer maverick By Tamsin Todd The tortured life of Britain's first openly gay soccer star ends in tragedy (06/05/98) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - Browse the Newsreal Archives - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
		POWERLESS IN KOSOVO \| PAGE 1, 2 - - - - - - - - - - Guilt about their inaction in Bosnia while hundreds of thousands died haunts Western policymakers. Almost every statement put forth by President Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, National Security Advisor Sandy Berger or Britain's increasingly shrill Tony Blair is prefaced by the promise that Kosovo will not be allowed to degenerate into another Bosnia. Unfortunately, Kosovo already is another Bosnia. Since March, Milosevic's police and special forces have been waging war against the ethnic Albanians who have had the temerity to call for a return to the provincial autonomy that Milosevic stripped from them in 1989, when he launched his messianic campaign to reassert Serbian hegemony over all of Yugoslavia's multiethnic lands. Milosevic's refusal to consider the Kosovars' demands has undermined the influence of Rugova, a Gandhian moderate who favors negotiations. Rugova's impotence has strengthened the more militant Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which advocates independence, not autonomy. In the past weeks, Milosevic's campaign against the small, disorganized armed groups of the KLA in the rugged mountains bordering Albania has blossomed into full-scale warfare, using artillery, helicopter gunships and scorched-earth shock troops to raze all Kosovo villages along the mountainous Albanian border through which the KLA is supplied. Lest there be any doubts that history was repeating itself, Wolfgang Ischinger, the political director of the German Foreign Ministry who visited the Kosovo capital of Pristina, said the Serbian operations that have left hundreds dead and sent tens of thousands of refugees into neighboring Albania were nothing short of a new campaign "of ethnic cleansing." As with Bosnia, Milosevic seems unmoved by Western consternation about Kosovo. He knows from past experience how hard it is for the West to come to a consensus on action in the Balkans. He also knows that Russia, long an ally of the Serbs, will not agree to any military action in Kosovo, even if there were a Western agreement to launch it. Since the United Nations Security Council would ultimately have to approve such action, a Russian veto will stop it. To make sure, Milosevic goes to Moscow next week to meet with Boris Yeltsin. If military action was hard enough for the West to decide on in Bosnia -- an internationally recognized independent nation -- it will prove 10 times more difficult in Kosovo, which is recognized as an integral region of the Yugoslav state. So long as Milosevic's actions there don't spill over to incite war with neighboring Albania and Macedonia, what the Serbian leader does in Kosovo remains a domestic affair. The much-discussed plans for NATO to send troops to Albania and Macedonia (where a U.S.-NATO observer force is already in place) as a means of containing the problem to Kosovo is something Milosevic would, in fact, welcome, as it might help isolate the KLA's cross-border operations and arms smuggling. Nor can sanctions, which the European Union and the United States so belatedly imposed this week, be expected to have a dramatic effect on Milosevic's behavior. He has weathered such economic punishment before and no doubt feels he can again. In addition to the typical divisions among Western councils about what to do, there is also division of opinion in Clinton's cabinet. Secretary of State Albright, as is her wont, has taken a hawkish position in favor of intervention while Secretary of Defense William Cohen and National Security Advisor Berger have been counseling against military commitments that Congress or the American people might not support. Milosevic may be a brute and a thug, but he is not dumb. He has proven time and again that he understand the dynamics and limits of Western power, perhaps better than people in the West itself. The Serbian leader knows that ultimately, unless the U.S. can agree to a concrete plan of action, no one else will. And with a scandal-weakened presidency, with its own internal divisions and bureaucratic rivalries, Milosevic is clearly betting on continued inaction from the world's only superpower. The prognosis for Kosovo, therefore, is grim. The U.S. and its allies will continue to protest -- loudly -- Milosevic's latest bout of savagery, and they will bluster about military retaliation to come. Meanwhile, more villages will be razed, more civilians will die, more refugees will flee. In the near term, before the Albanian majority in the province can organize its own effective resistance, Milosevic, once again, will likely get away with the ethnic cleansing of yet another Balkan land. SALON \| June 12, 1998 Loren Jenkins is the foreign editor of National Public Radio. He last wrote for Salon on the new relations between the United States and Iran. How should the U.S. and its allies respond to the situation in Kosovo? Weigh in on the latest Balkan crises in the International Issues area of Table Talk.