Overview Understand the causes, outcome and impact of the Kosovo War and NATO’s Operation Deliberate Force Understand the impact and controversy surrounding NATO’s Operation Deliberate Force in the evolution of military aviation

State of Yugoslavia in 1991 Until 1991, Yugoslavia was one nation comprised of six republics: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, and Macedonia. Serbia was further divided into two autonomous regions; Kosovo and Vojvodina. Notes from:

Milosevic’s Rise to Power Slobodan Milosevic came to power in 1987 with the rise of Serbian nationalism following the fall of the Berlin Wall and Soviet communism. By 1989, Milosevic was firmly in control of the Serbian republic and embarked on a campaign to consolidate his power throughout Yugoslavia In 1991 Milosevic backed by Serbian ultra- nationalists embarked on a campaign to create a Greater Serbia, unifying in one nation all areas where Serbs lived and driving out all minorities through a genocidal process euphemistically called “ethnic cleansing”. Notes from:

Start of Ethnic Cleansing By 1991, the republics of Yugoslavia began clamoring for independence with Slovenia breaking away from Yugoslavia first. Croatia was the spark. While 79% of the republic was Croatian, 12% were Serb who responded in a manner that was to become commonplace during the next 8years. In Croatia, the Serbs declared their own mini- state and began a campaign of “ethnic cleansing”. Most infamous was the siege of Vukovar, where more than 10,000 civilians were killed Serb paramilitaries emptied the Vukovar hospital of Croatian patients and executed them in a nearby field. The bloodbath between Serbs and Croats begins

Ethnic Cleansing in Bosnia Under strong United Nations pressure a cease- fire in Croatia was negotiated in the fall of 1991 by U.S. diplomat Cyrus Vance The Serb forces pulled out of Croatia and began repositioning their troops neighboring Bosnia On April 6, 1992, the Bosnian Serbs launched a campaign of aggression against Bosnia with the siege of Sarajevo and the ethnic cleansing of the Drina River valley During the next three and a half years, Bosnian Serb forces, with the support of Milosevic in Belgrade, laid waste to large parts of Bosnia, killing more than 200,000 civilians and forcing half the population, two million people, to flee their homes Notes from:

Dayton Peace Accords With the violence escalating the U.S. in August 1995 launched a limited air bombing campaign against Serb positions in Bosnian. Under international pressure Milosevic signed the Dayton Peace Accords in November 1995 Notes from:

Kosovo During this time, Kosovo remained under the control of Milosevic. Kosovo Albanians desiring independence from Serbia set up a civil government, schools, and healthcare facilities Serbia responded with a campaign to ethnically cleanse Albanians from Kosovo With the situation in Kosovo only getting worse, the Albanians formed the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) to conduct a guerilla campaign against Serbians in Kosovo Throughout 1998 Milosevic increased his troop strength in Kosovo and began a scorched-earth policy of destroying whole villages in his attempt to wipe out the KLA. Notes from:

Operation Deliberate Force After years of violence and further ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, NATO launched, OPERATION DELIBERATE FORCE on March 24, 1999; an air campaign against military targets in Serbia, Montenegro, and Kosovo in an attempt to force Serbia to stop its ethnic cleansing campaign and sue for peace. Serb forces responded by an all-out campaign to ethnically cleanse Kosovo of its Albanian population, driving hundreds of thousands across the border into Macedonia, Albania, and Montenegro. From the onset OPERATION DELIBERATE FORCE faced controversy…chiefly this was going to be predominately an NATO air campaign only and the U.S. announced this strategy openly.

Serbian Withdrawal After 11 weeks of NATO bombing and significant diplomatic pressure by the international community, (specifically Serbia’s ally Russia) Milosevic was forced to withdraw his troops and police from Kosovo. The United Nations flowed in humanitarian aid to returning Albanians Kosovo today is still is administered by the United Nations despite its unilateral declaration of independence on February 17, Many countries strongly question NATO’s legitimacy of intervening in a sovereign country

Lessons Learned Does airpower have limitations? If so what? Did NATO or the U.S. see airpower through the lens of Hollywood or reality? How effective is high-tech airpower with a limited target set? Did attacking Serbia electrical power plants for example, stop ethnic cleansing in the countryside? Can airpower alone hold ground? Did you see a similar attempt with the Shock and Awe air campaign in Iraq in 2008?