eBook

NATO's gamble : combining diplomacy and airpower in the Kosovo crisis, 1998-1999

Henriksen, Dag

2007

Overview

In this revealing work, Dag Henriksen discloses the origins and content of NATO's strategic and conceptual thinking on how the use of force was to succeed politically in altering the behavior of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY). The air campaign, known as Operation Allied Force, was the first war against any sovereign nation in the history of NATO and the first major combat operation conducted for humanitarian purposes against a state committing atrocities within its own borders. This book examines the key political, diplomatic, and military processes that shaped NATO and U.S. management of the Kosovo crisis and shows how air power became the main instrument in their strategy to coerce the FRY to accede to NATO's demands. The book further shows that the military leaders set to execute the campaign had no clear strategic guidance on what the operation was to achieve and that the level of uncertainty was so high that the officers selecting the bombing targets watched NATO's military spokesman on CNN for guidance in choosing their targets. Henriksen argues that structures preceding the Kosovo crisis shaped the management to a much greater degree than events taking place in Kosovo and that the air power community's largely institutionalized focus on high-intensity conflicts, like the 1991 Gulf War, hampered them from developing strategies to fit the political complexities of crises. Because fighting and wars in the lower end of the intensity spectrum are likely to surface again, study of the Kosovo crisis offers lessons for future international conflicts in which the combination of force and diplomacy will play a very significant role.

• Publisher: Naval Institute Press
• Subject: 20th century / Aerial operations / Armed Forces / History, Military / Intervention (International law) / Kosovo (Republic) / Kosovo (Serbia) / Kosovo (Serbia) -- History -- Civil War, 1998-1999 -- Aerial operations / Kosovo (Serbia) -- History -- Civil War, 1998-1999 -- Participation, American / Kosovo War, 1998-1999 / North Atlantic Treaty Organization / North Atlantic Treaty Organization -- Armed Forces -- Serbia -- Kosovo / Operation Allied Force, 1999 / Participation, American / United States / United States -- Armed Forces -- Serbia -- Kosovo / United States -- History, Military -- 20th century
• ISBN: 9781591143550, 1591143551, 9781591143581, 1591143586