NATO’s War against Yugoslavia: Spins & Facts

By Bob Travica

August 1999

NATO waged an air war against Yugoslavia, an 11-million people country of the size of Connecticut in southeast Europe, since March 24, 1999 till June 9, when the war was "suspended." Many aspects of this war are yet to be illuminated, including its rationale. The rhetoric coming from the U.S. government, which had a distinguished role in the war, has not been very helpful in explaining the war. The same goes for the war coverage provided by the main media outlets (for example, CNN, ABC, and the New York Times). Disentangling facts from spin doctoring is in order, and this article is a pioneering attempt in this direction.

Humanitarian Spin

The U.S. government and NATO leaders have claimed that the war was fought for "humanitarian interests," to protect Albanian inhabitants of Yugoslavia’s province of Kosovo from oppressive policies of the Yugoslav government and its President Slobodan Milosevic. The media repeated thousands of times that the results of the ethnic strife in Kosovo (800-2,000 dead in two years, and thousands of displaced person) represented a "genocide" that NATO was going to stop. The ensuing fact, however, was that just in 11 weeks NATO’s bombing killed indiscriminately about 3,000 civilians of Yugoslavia's 26 ethnic groups (Albanians including) injured twice that number, created hundreds of thousands of refugees, made Kosovo unlivable, and inflicted over a $100-billion damage on the entire economic and civilian infrastructure of Yugoslavia. Perhaps because the numbers did not play out well, the spinning turned to refugees.

Refugees came into the focus of media’s attention, but only to be interpreted as yet another indication of "bad things" the Yugoslav government did to its Kosovo Albanians. Note that 100,000 refugees in Serbia proper (Serbs, Albanians, Gypsies, and other ethnic groups) were almost ignored by the media. "Ethnic cleansing," a convenient label the media used in covering conflicts in the Balkans through the 1990s, was revamped and attached to the "Serb" side (for the media, Yugoslavia consists of Serbs and Albanians without other 24 ethnic groups). So, we were made to believe that the war was fought to get refugees return home. In effect, concealed was the fact that NATO’s primary objective was to show how serious the alliance was about making President Milosevic accept the Rambouillet accords from February 1999 (these demanded pulling out of Yugoslav authorities from Kosovo, a broad autonomy for Kosovo during a three year transition period ending with a referendum on self-determination, occupying Kosovo by NATO 28,000 troops, and a semi-occupation of the entire territory of Yugoslavia). President Clinton cited these objectives in his first address as the war commenced. However, he missed to recollect it in his address following the war "suspension," and cited the objective of refugee return as the reason for ordering “our troops in combat." The "ethnic cleansing" spin was also starkly supported by the media. All this invalidated possible alternative explanations of the refugees flood: both a fear and economy/infrastructure devastation caused by NATO’s bombardment, escalation of the fighting between Yugoslav police/army and Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) attempting to take advantage of the bombardment, moving of the people by KLA, etc.

The humanitarian spin deviated particularly from the destruction NATO inflicted on the reminder of Yugoslavia (Serbia proper, Vojvodina, and Montenegro) targeting bridges, railroads, roads, factories, power plants, electricity facilities, apartments, houses, hospitals, schools, diplomatic residencies, recreational facilities, national parks... NATO’s comment was that all these were instances of "collateral damage," "mistakes," a "sort of things happening in wars" (President Clinton). As NATO intensified attacks on the civilian infrastructure, new rationales appeared – "making the Yugoslav people increase pressure on President Milosevic," or that civilians were "at wrong place, in a wrong time" (NATO's statement after killing 11 market goers on a pedestrian bridge at 1 p.m.!). TV media faithfully supported the humanitarian spin, often tacitly through the design of the TV coverage – first brief images of NATO-inflicted destruction, then a lengthy human-interest coverage (Albanian refugees, expanding in rumors on atrocities, etc.).

If this war is “humanitarian," one may wonder what a "non-humanitarian" war would be like with the high-tech machinery of destruction NATO possesses? Looking beyond the "humanitarian" argument, what can explain the war? One way of answering this question is by focusing on the main protagonist of this war and probably the least understood factor – NATO.

Defense Spin

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) was established by Washington Treaty (NATO’s Charter) as the security organization of the United States, Canada and 10 European countries in 1949. Article 5 of the Treaty stated that NATO was supposed to intervene only if any of its member countries was attacked. Article 5, therefore, limited military intervention of NATO to defensive purposes. This limitation was in compliance with the Charter of the United Nations (UN) precluding member countries from attacking each other. One should note that the opposing alliance, the Warsaw Pact was created in 1954. Since then, the two alliances became entangled in a military and political competition known as the Cold War that lasted until the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in 1991. Both the purpose of NATO reflected in Article 5 and the spirit of the Cold War provided NATO with an image of a defensive organization. In the Western Hemisphere, NATO was generally considered a defender of the "free world." This image was so strong that many missed to question NATO’s reason for existence once the Warsaw Pact disappeared.

Within NATO’s ranks, however, there was struggle between those who believed that NATO should no longer exist and those trying to salvage NATO. By the end of 1991 the latter ones won, discovering a new mission for NATO in operations beyond defending member countries. This new mission became known as the "non-article 5 operations," in effect contradicting Article 5 and the spirit of NATO's Charter. This marked the end of NATO as a defensive alliance and signaled NATO’s offensive remake. From that point on, NATO’s offensive character has been maturing, but rather clandestinely, taking by surprise even international experts once it erupted in the attack on Yugoslavia. Some landmarks in the process of NATO’s policy development are:

• The introduction of the concept of "non-article 5" operations by the end of 1991;
• The introduction of Partnership for Peace (PfP), an organizational vehicle for admitting new members, in 1992. Former Warsaw Pact countries, and some Balkan countries admitted in 1994;
• A set of decisions initiated in 1991/92 on making NATO’s forces available for operations of the UN in the former Yugoslavia. These helped NATO to prove its "indispensability" in the post-Cold War world;
• Policies backing NATO’s military involvement in Albania, in which the government was overthrown in 1997;
• Decisions concerning the ethnic conflict in Yugoslavia in 1998 that contained an increasingly threatening tone; and
• The Strategic Concept update at NATO’s 50^th Summit in Washington, D.C. last April increasing the scope of military intervention to include the following: the disruption of the flow of vital resources; acts of terrorism, sabotage and organized crime; the uncontrolled movement of large numbers of people; crises due to ethnic and religious rivalries, territorial disputes; inadequate efforts to reform; the abuse of human rights; the dissolution of states; proliferation of arms of mass destruction; war prevention; crisis management; disarmament; etc.

All these policy modifications were complemented by action on the ground that either preceded or followed policies. For example, since 1992 the NATO airforce enforced the no-fly zone over Bosnia and provided Close Air Support to UNPROFOR. Then, NATO engaged in war-like operations for the first time in its history by attacking military assets of Bosnian and Croatian Serbs. In 1995 NATO' air force helped the Croatian Army to attack Croatian Serbs in Krajina, which resulted in a forced expulsion ("ethnic cleansing") of 200,000 Serbs. Later in 1995, NATO waged a full-scale air war (again, first in its history) against Bosnian Serbs, helping the Serb opponents in a ground attack. Finally, NATO attacked the sovereign country of Yugoslavia in March this year even before modifying its Strategic Concept at its 50^th Summit in April.

Eastern Firewall Fact

The Balkans may be strategically important for NATO since it lies close to oil-rich countries in the Mediterranean. A control-preoccupied mind may see in the Balkans’ ethnic conflicts a danger for NATO. For example, the delicate relationship between Greece and Turkey might get affected. But this sort of problem is not inevitable. Rather, the NATO leadership can use it to make a case for military intervention, which it really did, albeit meekly. Indeed, NATO is not against all ethnic conflicts but just those affecting its interests. However, understanding NATO’s interests is not easy. The NATO Charter and most of the NATO speak concealing the actual offensive orientation of the alliance are misleading. Instead, one should look at orientations of politicians in leading NATO countries, implications of decisions of NATO organs (e.g., the North Atlantic Council and Summit), and especially at NATO’s practical interventions that are increasingly a generator of NATO policies.

It is also important to scrutinize practical interventions of NATO from a perspective of their consequences. In this light, it appears that NATO is determined to be both a supreme policy maker and policy re-enforcer in the Balkans, interpreting ethnic relationships, stirring up ethnic conflicts, and re-tailoring national borders as it deems useful. The remainder of Yugoslavia will certainly continue to be affected, but other countries may be so as well (e.g., Romania, Bulgaria, and Macedonia, each having a sizeable ethnic group of a foreign origin). NATO can play on ethnic diversities in these countries in order to accomplish its objective of controlling the Balkans.

The Balkans is additionally important for NATO because of the terrestrial firewall it has been creating in repositioning itself from the West to East Europe, with prospects of making the Russian and Central-Asian space the focal politico-military theatre. NATO’s repositioning is apparent from admitting new members that belonged to the former Warsaw Pact (Poland, Czech Republic, and Hungary), Balkan partners (Albania, Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria, Slovenia, and Macedonia) as well as Austria (the country bordering with the Balkans), while keeping Bosnia-Herzegovina occupied and holding Croatia in check. With the occupation of Kosovo now, NATO inched toward completing its firewall. The alliance now controls East Europe from Turkey to Baltic countries (Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, also NATO partners). However, there is a piece of land in Yugoslavia linking Kosovo with Bosnia called Sandzak that NATO needs for completing the firewall. Sandzak is likely to be a new "acquisition" of NATO.

The air war against Yugoslavia served NATO as a showcase of military organization and power, a test of international institutions (the UN, international law, and the concept of sovereignty of nation-state), a test of political groups in NATO countries and elsewhere concerning their tolerance on breaches of international law and attacking civilians in small sovereign countries. It appears that NATO passed all these tests, so far with impunity (lawyers from Canada, the U.S., the U.K., and Greece accused NATO of war crimes against civilians in Yugoslavia).

For the U.S. taxpayers, NATO's interventionism precipitates a larger defense spending. NATO’s war against Yugoslavia was 80% financed by the U.S., costing about between $5-10 billion. The occupation of Kosovo will cost minimally $2 billion a year. All these are expenditures over the regular defense budget. Further NATO’s expansion and interventions will incur extra expenditures. A potential loss of life in operations against stronger enemies is another cost the future may bring. Moreover, a precedent of legitimizing NATO’s action over the Congressional and other constitutional political processes has been created. It can be used in the future at the expense of democratic principles. For other countries, consequences can be even more dire. There is nothing or no one that is capable of opposing NATO in the foreseeable future. In contrast, the list of possible NATO’s targets is nearly infinite. With the offensive security strategy and practice today’s NATO compels, no country is truly secure indeed.

(References provided upon request.)