Yugoslavia/NATO Info 27; 1/2 5/5/99 Via NY Transfer News Collective * All the News that Doesn't Fit The Global Reflexion Foundation will contribute, according to her ability, to inform on the situation in the Balkan and NATO that in the media does not recieve proper attention or is presented in a distorted way. We receive information from different sources, that does not necessary reflect our opinion. If you don't want to receive it, please send us an e-mail. ********************************************************************* Info. nr. 27 - May 05, 1999. 1. ISSA: Report on Saxton Fact-Finding Mission to Yugoslavia 2. Weekly Analysis -- The World After Kosovo 3. New Scientist: Radioactive Shells 4. Message from Diane Johnstone about Voivodina 5. NATO could face war crimes court if guilty of Yugo abuses=09 6. General Haig again criticizes NATO 7. Money Laundering Suspected in Kosovo Funds 8. Balkans Economies Battered by War in Yugoslavia ***************************************************************** ISSA: Report on Saxton Fact-Finding Mission to Yugoslavia www.Strategicstudies.org ------------------------ Essential Public Policy Points Relating to the ISSA Mission to Yugoslavia, April 18-21, 1999 The International Strategic Studies Association organized a fact-finding mission from Washington DC to Yugoslavia on April 18-21, 1999. The purpose was for the Association and a key US Congressman to determine to a greater extent factors important to future policymaking with regard to the war being prosecuted against Yugoslavia. ISSA worked with a Yugoslav NGO, the Institute for Geopolitical Studies, in facilitating the mission. US Congressman Jim Saxton (Republican, New Jersey), an ISSA Life Member and Chairman of the US House of Representatives Task Force on Terrorism & Unconventional Warfare (and member of the House Armed Services Committee; and Vice-Chairman of the Joint [House-Senate] Economic Committee), participated in the mission, along with the Director of the Task Force on Terrorism, Yossef Bodansky. The mission delegates met with key Yugoslav officials and politicians, at the highest levels, including the Foreign Minister. As well, contacts were= made with non-governmental individuals in Yugoslavia, and an assessment was made of NATO bombing damage in the greater Belgrade area. A. The Rationale Behind the Fact-Finding Visit 1. The visit was principally undertaken to ensure that the US Congress had sufficient independent information on the conduct of the war (=93the Kosovo Crisis=94) to be able to fully debate proposals put to it by the US Administration. The Founding Fathers of the United States wished to ensure that there were checks and balances in the US system. The Congress was empowered to approve and fund =97 or disapprove and withhold funding =97 the actions of the Administration, and was charged with the function of declaring war. It was, therefore, the responsibility of Congress to satisfy itself through the utmost diligence that courses of action to which it committed its actions were appropriate. It was never intended that the Congress should blindly endorse the Administrative Branch, but rather should support it or check it after due debate and research. 2. The commitment of US lives into a combat situation, where many lives will certainly be lost, and where the long-term strategic interests of the United States are involved, cannot therefore be undertaken without the most= complete research and understanding. With regard to the present situation in Yugoslavia, Congress had until this mission been virtually totally reliant on the Administration=92s view of events, and on the media, which has been= greatly influenced by the only real source of information and opinion available: the Administration. 3. It was necessary to determine far more objectively the real situation before one-sided evidence and jingoism was allowed to determine whether Congress threw American lives, and the future strategic position of the United States, into a war. This was the underlying motive for the ISSA/Saxton mission to Yugoslavia. 4. It was also necessary to ensure that the United States did not unwittingly commit crimes of its own in pursuit of a just solution to the tragedy. B. What was discovered was: 1. The Flow of Refugees: The international media, because it is largely on the external borders of Yugoslavia, has seen only the flow of refugees out of the country, to Albania and Macedonia. However, some one-third of the Albanian Yugoslav and other ethnic group refugees appear, in fact, to be fleeing further into Serbia, to avoid the Kosovo Liberation Army. Yugoslavia has already been burdened since 1992 with almost one-million refugees from Bosnian Serb areas and Croatian Serb areas, as well as Croatians and Muslims fleeing into Serbia-proper from what is now Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia. 2. There is no doubt but that the NATO bombings in Kosovo and in the rest of Serbia have contributed heavily =97 perhaps overwhelmingly =97 toward the outflow of refugees, not only the Kosovar Albanians but many other ethnic groups who have been forced on the road with the destruction of their homes or their livelihoods. 3. There are some 26 different ethnic groups in Yugoslavia, and some 20 different ethnic groups living in the Kosovo region. Within Yugoslavia, some one-third of the population is not of Serbian origin, and this makes it the most multi-cultural, multi-religious state in the Balkan region. 4. We saw extensive destruction of civilian targets, many of which could not be justified by NATO as military targets nor vital to the maintenance of a Yugoslav strategic power base. Given the widespread damage to these purely civilian targets which we saw, including the direct destruction of homes, it is not difficult to believe the claims of the Yugoslav Government that some 400,000 to a half-million people have been thrown out of work because of the destruction of their workplaces. This means that some 2-million Yugoslavs of all ethnic origins are without income, out of a population of some 10+-million people. 5. Justification for bombing civilian targets has now been given that these facilities were owned by relatives of President Milosevic, but the vast majority of these factories were either State-owned, privately-owned by non-Milosevic family members or, for the greater part, owned jointly by the State and by the workforces of the various factories. As a result, this has directly contributed to an attack on the average Yugoslav family. 6. There was no evidence to support the contention that the Yugoslav warfighting capability has been overwhelming broken by the sustained NATO bombing campaign. Rather, the bombing has driven the Yugoslav people to put aside their political differences and to unite in the face of an external threat, much as would be the case if the United States was attacked. We met with people who have, in the past, been totally opposed, politically, to President Milosevic. Today, they are working completely with Mr Milosevic to defend their country. So the intention of the bombing to break the Yugoslav people away from Mr Milosevic has totally failed, and shows no sign of succeeding. 7. The cost in terms of human casualties from the NATO bombing have largely been civilian: between 500 and 1,000 dead, with several thousand injured. Military personnel casualties have been minimal. 8. There has clearly been significant damage suffered by Yugoslav military assets, including domestic oil refining capability. However, it would be a mistake to believe that the real warfighting capability of Yugoslavia has been degraded to anything like the level where the insertion of ground forces could be successful: that is, that it could militarily defeat= Yugoslavia without massive loss of life and without destroying the one thing which the campaign intends to save, namely a viable restoration of Kosovars to their homes and livelihoods in the Kosovo region. The net result of an insertion of ground forces would be that a protracted war would continue within the= very rugged terrain of the country, and that the lowland areas would be= lain-waste to in the process. It surely is not our intention to achieve a victory without restoring the homes and employment of the Kosovar people (whether of Albanian origin or not). 9. Apart from a costly, protracted war with the massive loss of life among NATO states, including, of course, the United States, there is reason for grave concern over a wider war. Firstly, it is clear that there would be retaliatory actions against major Western targets, such as our own oil refineries and nuclear power stations, etc., from Yugoslav special forces or from non-government Serb activists. So we could expect a major outbreak of anti-NATO terrorism, perhaps on a scale not before seen, if we choose to escalate the war into a full ground operation. This must at the very least be taken into consideration. 10. We attempted to investigate reports that there has already been considerable loss of life among NATO forces, and we feel that we received some confirmation that this has been the case. Clearly, the cost to NATO in human and equipment terms has already been far greater than anything which has been announced. Just how extensive the NATO aircraft and personnel losses have been remains to be confirmed. What is clear is that already there has been a cost to us, apart from the mere monetary cost of equipment= and consumables. This cost can only rise significantly as the conflict proceeds. 11. It has been stated by NATO that the Yugoslav Air Force has been driven from the skies, with half the Yugoslav fighter aircraft force lost, and that all defenses now consist only of anti-aircraft artillery and anti-aircraft missiles. It is more likely that the Yugoslav Air Force is preserving its forces to be used in any broader conflict. This is not Iraq, and we should not make the mistake of believing that the fight, or fighting capability, has been driven from the Yugoslavs. 12. There has, in fact, been considerable progress toward reaching a political solution acceptable to all moderate parties. And, of course, we except from the definition =93moderate parties=94 the so-called Kosovo Liberation Army, which derived from the communist origins of the former Albanian stalinist leaders and which today is funded largely by narcotic trafficking into Western Europe and through extortion. It has been a mistake for the West to support the KLA now, when moderate Kosovar Albanian leaders have been committed to a political solution to the tragedy. Equally,= attempts to discredit moderate Kosovar Albanian leader Dr Ibrahim Rugova are counter-productive to achieving a peaceful and lasting solution to the problem. The fact that Dr Rugova=92s enormous courage in remaining in Yugoslavia to seek such a solution is now being dismissed by allegations that he is =93a virtual prisoner=94 only serve to reinforce the hand of the= KLA, which has previously been labeled a terrorist force by the United States,= and remains so today. [The matter of KLA terrorism and the prospect of Yugoslav special operations in a wider war are both matters which have been the subject of considerable study by the US House of Representatives Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare, chaired by Congressman Saxton.] 13. We received strong indications from the very senior officials with whom we met =97 and clearly the messages which we received were sanctioned by Mr Milosevic himself =97 that virtually all the substantive demands for= Kosovo=92s future autonomy within Yugoslavia could be met, and met quickly, provided negotiations could resume. As a result, we need to undertake a careful step-by-step approach toward peace and we need to see some substantive evidence of commitment and goodwill on the part of the Yugoslavs. I believe that this will be forthcoming. 14. Without question, we need to ensure that Congress is totally clear on the situation before further escalation takes place, and before further= funding is put in place to continue a protracted war. Congress needs to undertake this process of due diligence itself, given the fact that the enormous confusion which has taken place due to media manipulation on all sides has only contributed to a blood-lust which =97 if it is the only basis for decisionmaking =97 could lead to a much longer and wider war. 15. Finally, it seems clear that if we accept that we must commit to a broader war in Yugoslavia, then we must also accept that US and NATO military preoccupation with this conflict will open the door to a range of= other conflicts which could be of massive and lasting consequence. In this regard, we must expect that an expanded war would lead to an exacerbation of Turkish-Greek tensions leading to a separate war, in which the Cyprus issue would become a key. We could expect North Korea to take the opportunity to initiate a military attack on South Korea, with Japan drawn into the fray. We could expect that the People=92s Republic of China would use the= opportunity to attempt to invade Taiwan. We could expect a variety of new conflicts to arise in the Middle East. And so on. What is clear, not just to ourselves= but to others, is that we have a finite military force available to NATO at= present, and, because we have spent our post-Cold War =93peace dividend=94, others= will take advantage of the situation to launch their offensives, knowing the West does not have the capacity to fight on many fronts. Gregory R. Copley, Editor Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy ************************************************** ______________________________________ Stratfor's FREE Kosovo Crisis Center -=20 http://www.stratfor.com/kosovo/crisis/ The most comprehensive coverage of the=20 Kosovo Crisis anywhere on the Internet ______________________________________ STRATFOR's Global Intelligence Update May 3, 1999 Weekly Analysis -- The World After Kosovo Summary: Whether in a week or a month, the Kosovo crisis is drawing to a=20 close. The basic outlines of the settlement are already visible. =20 The question now is what the world will look like afterwards. We=20 expect a much more sober, cautious, and even mildly isolationist=20 U.S., facing the fact that tremendous power is not the same as=20 omnipotence. We see a dramatic decline in European confidence in=20 American leadership. Germany was particularly concerned about=20 Russia's reactions and is likely to concentrate on maintaining=20 its relations with Moscow independent of NATO's decisions. The=20 big winner was Russia, a country that got money, respect, and the=20 position of honest broker. The most extraordinary outcome of=20 Bill Clinton's Kosovo adventure was that it turned Boris Yeltsin=20 into a statesman, with his representative, Chernomyrdin, taken=20 more seriously in Bonn and Rome than Clinton's Strobe Talbott. =20 That was no small feat for the Clinton foreign policy team. Analysis: The Kosovo conflict is drawing to a close. Whether a settlement=20 will take a day or a month, the key elements are now clear. There=20 will be a cease-fire prior to the implementation of any=20 agreement. The Serbs will continue to control Kosovo, and=20 Serbian police will retain some sort of presence. A lightly=20 armed international peacekeeping force will be permitted into=20 Kosovo. Some NATO members will send forces, several non-NATO=20 members, including Russia, will also send forces. The command=20 structure of the force will remain deliberately vague. It will=20 be agreed that Albanians will be able to return to their homes in=20 Kosovo in stages. Many will refuse to go, hoping to be resettled=20 elsewhere. Others will return. Yet others will try to return=20 but will find it impossible. An ineffective peacekeeping force=20 will remain in place for a very long time, with an unclear=20 mission. But the bombing will end; the abuse of Albanians will=20 end. The world will go on. It is time to think about what that world will look like after=20 Kosovo. Let's begin by considering carefully what has happened=20 in Kosovo. The United States' government had received reports=20 that it found credible of a terrible genocide underway in Kosovo=20 and decided that it had to intervene to stop it. The U.S. began=20 by attempting to dictate terms to the Belgrade government,=20 drafting a document now called the Rambouillet Accords. It=20 gathered around itself its NATO allies, and demanded that all=20 sides agreed to those Accords. There was substantial hesitancy=20 on all sides, but in the end, the Albanians agreed. The Serbs=20 did not. Leading NATO, the United States announced that unless=20 the Serbs agreed to the Accords, precisely as stated with no=20 further negotiation, NATO would begin a bombing campaign against=20 the Serbs. The United States said this with full confidence that=20 Belgrade would capitulate. Belgrade did not. Now, finding that=20 NATO refuses to launch a ground war against Serbia, and finding=20 that it lacks sufficient air power to crush Serb resistance, the=20 United States will eventually be forced to accept a compromise=20 and call it victory. This will end an era that began with the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait=20 in August 1990. The United States, under President Bush,=20 determined that the Iraqi invasion was unacceptable. His precise=20 reasoning was not as clear as one might think. Part of the=20 reasoning was strategic. Part of it was his repugnance at one=20 nation seizing another. But the core of the intervention was=20 that in a global, strategic sense, it was risk free. Certainly,=20 there was a risk of casualties. However, there were two=20 assumptions on which the intervention rested. The first was that=20 if the United States chose to intervene, it could create, at=20 will, an international coalition to carry out the invasion. The=20 second assumption was that this coalition could in fact liberate=20 Kuwait. In other words, the issue that framed Bush's decision=20 was whether such an intervention was desirable and not whether=20 such an intervention was possible. The intervention in Iraq was the first of a series of=20 interventions that included Somalia, Haiti, Bosnia, and now=20 Kosovo. Not all of these ended well. Somalia was, by any=20 measure, a failure. The Haitian invasion displaced the former=20 government but no one would argue that Haiti has been lifted out=20 of its misery. Bosnia was intended to be a short-term=20 intervention but has become a permanent presence. But none of=20 these interventions have forced the United States to face the=20 core question: what are the limits of American power? The=20 Clinton administration faced the intervention in Kosovo as a=20 question of whether the United States would intervene and whether=20 we would permit Serbia to retain sovereignty over Kosovo. It=20 failed to ask the more important question of whether the United=20 States and its allies had the military power in place to achieve=20 its political ends, and whether the amount of military power=20 required should be spent in a place like Kosovo. The United=20 States simply assumed, without the meticulous analysis required,=20 that it had the needed power. It did not. =20 Thus, the decade begun in Kuwait ends in the skies over Serbia. =20 No American government will, in the near future at least, simply=20 assume that it has the military power needed to impose its will. =20 This is, obviously, a healthy lesson to learn. There is a vast=20 difference between being the greatest military power in the world=20 and omnipotence. The United States rules the seas and can,=20 wherever it chooses, rule the skies. This is not the same as=20 being able to compel other nations to capitulate on matters of=20 fundamental national importance. It must always be remembered=20 that demographics never favor intervention in Eurasia. American=20 ground forces are always outnumbered whenever they set foot in=20 Eurasia. Sometimes air and naval superiority along with superior=20 technology and training can compensate for this demographic=20 imbalance. Sometimes it cannot. Sometimes it can compensate=20 only after a build-up taking many months, as in Desert Storm. =20 The casual assumption that the general superiority of U.S.=20 military power inevitably translates into quick victory in any=20 specific circumstance is obviously wrong and the point has been=20 finally driven home. We would be very surprised if the Clinton Administration=20 attempted another humanitarian intervention after Kosovo. =20 Indeed, one of the lessons learned by all future administrations=20 is that interventions should never be casually undertaken until,=20 and unless, the military is given time to plan and implement the=20 intervention, as Bush permitted in Desert Storm. Moreover, since=20 the implementation of an intervention in Eurasia is always costly=20 and time-consuming, what appeared to be a good idea at first=20 glance, might well turn out to be a very bad idea in the long=20 run. Merely wanting to do something does not mean that something=20 can be done. Moral obligations are easy to assume. They are=20 sometimes impossible to carry out. This is a hard lesson to=20 learn. Put differently, talk is cheap. War is hard. We expect two parallel processes to emerge after Kosovo. We will=20 see a much more passive, indeed, isolationist United States. The=20 hair-trigger assumption of responsibility for Eurasian problems=20 will be replaced by a much more cautious calculation not only of=20 moral considerations, but also of costs and the national=20 interest. The second process, paradoxically, will be a=20 substantial increase in American defense spending. The Kosovo=20 exercise has clearly demonstrated that the draw-down in U.S.=20 military forces has limited American military effectiveness. =20 Military options that were available to President Bush are simply=20 not available, in anywhere near as lavish a quantity, to=20 President Clinton. There is no question of any further cuts in=20 defense spending. The only issue now is how much defense=20 spending will be increased? The United States will be withdrawing from its aggressive=20 leadership position not solely because it wishes to do so. It=20 will be withdrawing because it has seriously lost the trust of=20 many of its NATO allies. Except for the UK, the rest of NATO has=20 been simply appalled by the U.S. management of the entire affair.=20 The end game is being crafted by Germany, Italy, and Russia=20 because the United States simply locked itself into a position=20 from which it could neither retreat nor go forward. It very=20 quickly became apparent that the air war was not going to force a=20 Serbian capitulation. Rather than commence compensating=20 maneuvers, the United States insisted on rigidity and=20 bellicosity, without developing a crushing military strategy. German policy is particularly likely to shift after Kosovo. =20 Germany has a fundamental interest in maintaining good relations=20 with the Russians. From a geopolitical and a financial sense, a=20 hostile Russia is the last thing that Germany needs. The near- confrontation between NATO and Russia over Kosovo was a sobering=20 experience for the Germans. For a few days, they looked into the=20 abyss and the abyss stared back at them. Members of the Red- Green coalition in Bonn are inherently suspicious of both the=20 United States and military adventures. They spent the last month=20 trying to demonstrate that they could be good citizens of NATO,=20 putting aside their ingrained, 1960s sensibilities. They emerged=20 with a clear sense that they were right to mistrust American=20 leadership and to worry about military adventures. One of the=20 consequences of Kosovo is that the Europeans in general, and the=20 Germans and Italians in particular, are going to be extremely=20 cautious in agreeing to future creative uses of NATO. The big winner in all of this is, of course, Russia. It not only=20 got $4.5 billion but it also got everyone's attention, which it=20 didn't have since the good old days of summits with Ronald=20 Reagan. It has not only reminded Europe of its very real=20 military power, thereby setting up the process for extracting=20 money from the West, but it maneuvered itself into the position=20 of being an honest broker, trusted by both Germany/Italy and the=20 Serbs. Indeed, the Russians came out of the crisis looking like=20 sober statesmen, working toward peace and stability. Now, when=20 Boris Yeltsin can be made to look like a sober statesman and=20 facilitator, something has gone dramatically wrong in American=20 foreign policy. We believe that the Kosovo conflict will become a definitive=20 event in European history. The failure in Kosovo will cause the=20 United States to recoil from casual interventions. More=20 important, U.S. clumsiness in Kosovo will cause the Europeans to=20 shy away from American leadership, particularly concerning=20 European matters. The likelihood of an American administration=20 herding NATO into another military adventure in Europe is=20 minimal. This is a crucial change. There has been a tremendous=20 asymmetry between Europe as a politico-military entity and Europe=20 as an economic entity. NATO has been the primary politico- military expression of Europe, the EU the primary economic=20 entity. This has made it extremely difficult for Europe to=20 express a coherent viewpoint. The EU and NATO were simply not=20 congruent. The Europeans do have a vehicle for politico-military thinking,=20 the Western European Union, which excludes the United States and=20 is, therefore, far more congruent with the EU. But even that=20 doesn't get to the heart of the problem. Germany's interests are=20 specifically German. France's interests are French. The UK's=20 interests are the UK's and are quite different from the other=20 two. We expect two results from Kosovo. First, a strengthening=20 of purely European institutions at the expense of NATO. Second,=20 a greater caution by individual nations toward multinational=20 commitments, including purely European ones. Kosovo will undoubtedly bring to a close what we might call the=20 era of casual intervention for the United States. There is=20 nothing like failure to increase sobriety. We suspect that this=20 is the last major foreign policy adventure for the Clinton=20 Administration and would not be surprised to see Albright, Berger=20 and Holbrooke accepting private sector positions in the near=20 future. Most importantly, Kosovo closes what we regard as the=20 interregnum between eras. The Cold War was not replaced by a=20 unipolar world. That was a temporary anomaly. The new era of=20 one superpower and several great powers, loosely united to limit=20 U.S. power, is now beginning. =20 We'll tentatively christen this the New World Disorder while we=20 wait for the new era to name itself. ___________________________________________________ To receive free daily Global Intelligence Updates,=20 sign up on the web at: http://www.stratfor.com/services/giu/subscribe.asp=20 or send your name, organization, position, mailing=20 address, phone number, and e-mail address to=20 alert@stratfor.com ___________________________________________________ STRATFOR, Inc. 504 Lavaca, Suite 1100 Austin, TX 78701 Phone: 512-583-5000 Fax: 512-583-5025 Internet: http://www.stratfor.com/ Email: info@stratfor.com ******************************************** Global Reflexion - Foundation for International Cooperation P.O. 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