>From an article by Jonathan Eyal, director of studies at the Royal United
Services Institute, London, published in the Guardian 5.6.99.
Chris Burford
London
"On paper, Nato's triumph in the Balkans appears complete."
<large snip to conclusion>
"Yet the biggest mistake the alliance can make is to assume that
Milosevic's deafeat signifies a triumph for the strategy of air strikes,
and that this policy can now be deployed against any other dictator. Air
strikes were launched in order to prevent a humanitarian disaster. They
were then justified as the mechanism for reversing the humanitarian
disaster that NATO failed to prevent.
Milosevic caved in not because the air strikes were working, but because he
realised that this bombardment became the lowest common denominator around
which NATO countries maintained their consensus, and could therefore be
continued indefinitely at a negligible human cost to the west. This,
coupled with serious preparations for a ground offensive, forced Belgrade
to accept the deal. The technique of just spraying people with bombs from
the air has, therefore, not been vindicated."
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