Issued July 7, 1999; Revised July 28, 1999

TO: COL Carl F. Bernard, USA-Ret.; Soldiers For The Truth

RE: Preliminary Report: Kosovo & "Operation ALLIED FORCE" -- Lessons to Be Learned

"Know the enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles you will never be in peril."

?? - Sun Tzu; The Art of War, Ch. 3, Nr. 31.

Overview:

??

I have been asked to prepare a view of the "Lessons Learned" from the recent air war between NATO and Yugoslavia --Operation "Allied Force." This is a tough question to answer while the dust is still settling and the war's end less than two months behind us. This was primarily an air war, so lessons learned center more on that. But there are also lessons to be learned in the conduct of ground forces during the war and in the subsequent peacekeeping occupation of Kosovo.

Caveats: I am told that in a 1968 report Brigadier General Michael Lynch USA-Ret, categorized three groups under the subject of "Lessons Learned;" specifically, new Lessons Learned, Mistakes Made and Fundamentals Forgotten: Nothing has changed in the intervening years, but this is a very preliminary report in the immediate aftermath of an air war, where the post-war occupation and peacekeeping is just evolving. In six months and a year, more "lessons learned" will emerge fitting each of Lynch's categories.

The NATO powers have indulged in self-congratulatory puffery and sophistry, having got away with a collective coercion while bending all international laws and treaties. To statesmen, the lessons seem to be what a group can get away with. There were no new strategic, operational or tactical doctrines tested, only new munitions. The objectives of the NATO alliance were political more than diplomatic, tied to emotions, rather than long-term, objective goals. The alliance prevailed for the moment, but has it achieved aims that can be easily maintained and conserved, or must they be guarded and coaxed over many decades? KLA drug-dealing and depredations against Serb, Gypsy and other minorities indicate a long and troublesome occupation. Militarily, the alliance demonstrated its technology a bit too well; diplomatically it demonstrated its weaknesses, rather than its abiding strengths.

The dispassionate analyst can see lessons not learned and lessons others should draw from NATO's wartime behavior and conduct of the occupation of Kosovo. Greatest of all, the 19 members of NATO demonstrated the power of propaganda disseminated through the media. They also demonstrated that the collective action of a large group of governments, though of questionable legality under the UN Charter, The OSCE (Helsinki Accord) Treaty and the NATO charter, can get away with asserting rightful action, by hanging together and ignoring the criticisms of other great powers (China and Russia) seeking to challenge the legality of the operation.

To the analyst, seeing the high level of morale and operability of withdrawing Yugoslav Army Forces in mid-June, one must also conclude that it was back-room political horse-trading, rather than effective military operations, which brought the conflict to its early conclusion --NATO offered some apparent concessions to end the affair. Among other stratagems, NATO powers used financial incentives and threats to limit Yugoslavia's ability to rally international support. At war's end NATO was still "ramping up" for even more intense air attacks at the strategic, operational and tactical levels, but any meaningful strategic target was already destroyed and Yugoslav casualty reports indicate the tactical strikes in Kosovo were only barely effective (more below). The operation's cost is estimated at over $4 Billion and yet appears to have only destroyed 13 tanks, 6 IFVs, a handful of artillery pieces and fewer than 500 soldiers. This is not a new standard for efficiency and effectiveness. It may actually ncourage despots to prepare defensive and unconventional means to resist the West's conventional air power.

In this campaign, it seems that Yugoslavia and other non-NATO powers such as Russia and China were more disposed to profit from technological and operational-doctrine "lessons learned" about the conduct of Allied air operations. Yugoslavia demonstrated its ability to make use of decoys, camouflage and concealment to minimize the effectiveness of allied tactical and operational-level strikes, while using prior fortification doctrine and emergency evacuation to reduce the effect of strategic strikes. During the campaign, the Yugoslavs and their friends had ample opportunity to develop stealth-tracking, intelligence sharing and other air defense techniques, while assessing means for countering the allies' guided munitions. These "Lessons Learned" are the most important --the West has squandered the mystique of conventional air power, which was less efficient than proposed, and has now been subjected to technological analysis by powers which develop defensive systems to defeat the West's technlogies.

General Conduct of Operations and Lessons:

In this paper I consider Strategic targets to be the National Command, Air Defenses and strategic production and storage sites, as well as transport infrastructure. I consider Operational level targets to be the theater routes of communications, bases and command-control sites. Tactical level targets are the military and police forces in the field throughout Kosovo.

In Desert Storm, the US and its allies flew over 100,000 missions in six weeks; by contrast, during Allied Force, the 19 NATO countries produced 34,000 sorties, including only about 9,000 strike sorties, in 11 weeks. Some 23,000 munitions (missiles, precision-guided munitions and "dumb bombs") were expended.

Air Operations were conducted much as they were against Iraq in 1991 and subsequently, in that they held to pre-planning of missions in a 48 or 72-hour time-cycle which relied heavily on satellite and other "point-in-time" electronic intelligence. In terms of target selection, the US and NATO planners appear to have continued to place their reliance at the strategic and operational levels on "centers of gravity" doctrine developed by Col. John A. Warden, III and outlined in his 1988 book, The Air Campaign (New York: AFA-Brassey's, 1989; ISBN 0-08-036735-6). In the 78 days of "Allied Force," though bridges were dropped and the electricity grid disrupted, there was no material degradation of the Yugoslav Army's ability to fight on the ground, as it had a plenitude of pre-positioned stockpiles to draw from. Sleep deprivation was one objective of repeated night strikes. Deprivation of water, electrical power and communications only served to anger the civilian population without discommoding the nation's leadership or command and control.

The dream of decisive strategic air power remains oversold. Conventional air forces are unable to deliver decisive results, by themselves, against a well-prepared and determined enemy unless diplomatic aims are discrete. Again, we also see that bombing a civilian population is counter-productive, adding to the popular resolve to resist, even if they must support an unpopular government. Target selection was designed to "degrade the quality of life," rather than to kill large numbers, but the target selection included many non-strategic targets including historic public buildings, consumer products factories (cigarettes, pharmaceuticals, appliances and the Yugo car), and even the Masonic Grand Lodge Temple.

In contrast to the high-level of sustained operations from opening night of Desert Storm, Operation "Allied Force" began with flurries of Tomahawk missiles and a combat air force only about 20% of the size of the allied air fleet in the Iraqi war. NATO was forced to practice a gradual escalation, much like the gradual build up in the Vietnam air war, which gave the opponent force time to evacuate, camouflage, disperse and protect its strategic, operational and tactical targets. Again, the politicians and diplomats pinned their hopes on the myth of air power, again air power alone was grossly inadequate to the mission at hand --other means brought an end to the overt conflict.

On the opposing side, Yugoslavia and Russia got a chance to experiment with penetrating Stealth technology with Doppler Radar and with other information sharing techniques. An F-117A was shot down.

Strategic, Operational and Tactical Air Operations were governed by concern for potential casualties if Yugoslavia's national and tactical air defenses were disregarded. Thus, aircraft remained at higher altitudes, risking less, but finding few static targets of any real strategic value in debilitating ("attriting") Yugoslavia's war fighting abilities. It was clear in the opening days that there were few meaningful strategic infrastructure targets to hit, so increasingly the allies targeted (and struck repeatedly) infrastructure which served the general civilian population. This leads to some questions about proportionality of response under the Law of Land Warfare (US Field Manual FM 27-10).

It should be noted that meaningful command and control (C2) targets are difficult to find and suppress. Any table, chair and telephone become a viable C2 headquarters point for a determined political leader or military commander. While it is possible to destroy an air defense command center, other backup sub-centers will become operational in a well-prepared opposing force, such as Yugoslavia, Iraq and North Korea maintain.

Even more important than the lack of the credible threat of ground attack forces, the allied powers made inadequate prior provisions for logistics in the front line states adjacent to Kosovo, that is, in Macedonia and Albania. There were inadequate ports, roadways, supply points and airfields. No provision was made for the flood of refugees which stampeded out of the violence-ridden Yugoslav province.

It is clear that if one side has what are, essentially, unlimited means and the other is highly limited, and if the side with the greater power has limited aims, then a deal can be found at some point through a combination of coercion, diplomacy and deal-making compromise(s), where some pragmatism exerts a force. This is a proxy for the "air power" explanation for the allied "victory."

In fact, the ability to perfect sanctions and blockade over several years, and the ability to head off Russian and Chinese animosity through use of IMF loans and World Trade Organization membership threats seems to have helped neutralize the effectiveness of Yugoslavia's potential allies. War crimes indictments may have helped as well. Neighboring governments were bought with little regard to public opinion in Romania, Bulgaria, Greece and Macedonia.

Intel-Reconnaissance Lessons:

Satellites: Opponents of the United States well understand the scheduled over-passes of U.S. spy satellites. It is no longer suitable to use static satellite imagery in the selection of mobile targets, which may not be struck for hours after the recon overflight. The Yugoslav Army proved highly effective at staging deployments for the satellite passes, then redeploying to other locations, often leaving behind decoys, or even empty revetments. (More later below.)

NSA Signals Intel: Gleaning through the newswires one got the sense that at times the Yugoslav government and military were deliberately feeding misinformation-disinformation into those media monitored by the NSA's "ECHELON" system. Dummy traffic is one of the older tricks in the book.

The Chinese Embassy: A lesson of particular importance lies in how the US failed to update its most critical target maps despite an annual budget of some $28+ Billion for strategic intelligence and despite several months buildup to the bombing campaign --given threats began as far back as October 1998, when Mr. Holbrooke negotiated a hollow ceasefire between Belgrade and the KLA, one never respected by the KLA..

That US ordnance hit the code room of the Chinese Embassy, which was known to be availing Belgrade of the use of its transmitter for command control purposes, underscored Beijing's plausible suspicions that the strike was not entirely an accident. That in the following hours and days, President Clinton sought to "apologize" in passing, while visiting tornado victims or consoling bereaved families of the Columbine High School massacre. He tried to avoid a formal apology directly to China, then tried to avoid a full-scale investigation of the causes of the tragic mistake. This is not the behavior of a responsible global superpower when it makes a fatal mistake upon another great power, or even minor neutral state. Mr. Clinton's attempts at avoidance were not worthy of "the sole remaining global superpower" seeking to establish and defend a higher level of "morals and virtues" as espoused in NATO war aims.

Geo-Political:

It has been widely reported in Washington and other Capitals that Mme. Madeleine Albright initiated the air war thinking that President Milosevic would only defy NATO's demands for two days before crumbling; on Day 3, she thought it would take a week. But force size turned out to be inadequate to the mission assigned. Further, weather was bad, which further diluted the effect of strikes in the initial weeks of Allied Force. Not until the allied air fleet nearly tripled in size and until Russia entered the diplomatic negotiations, did Belgrade accept a modified set of conditions offered in outline by the G-8 powers. By then, there was a growing threat of a ground war, but Yugoslavia's armed forces proved to be barely scratched by 78 days of bombing and posed the threat of heavy NATO casualties in a ground war, where NATO had the logistical nightmares at its back.

NATO proved itself to be less than adequate to the task, by many admissions: as a war-by-committee of 19, it is inefficient and nearly toothless. NATO's Command and Control was stretched far beyond the breaking point with 19 different nods needed; its logistic completely fell apart as did much of its intelligence gathering. And without the US component, Serbia would still be grinning from the bottom of the bunker. Of the other 18 members, only Britain has made a preliminary investment in PGM weapons and delivery. The other NATO military establishments are years behind in development, acquisition and deployment. Several of the 19 members leaked strategic and operational targets to Belgrade to reduce the number of casualties, a well-placed US officer confirmed in a Washington military strategy conference I attended last week. "OPSEC" was a nightmare, he concluded, adding that casualties such as the technicians and hairdresser killed at Radio-Television Serbia (RTS) were the fault of their bosses for nt evacuating them. That officer also confirmed that at the onset of operations, US leadership was convinced the air campaign would only need to run for two days; then seven.

At the same time, in attacks on Iraq and Yugoslavia, the US has drawn down its supplies of TLAMs and CALCMs to dangerously low levels; out-bound naval "shooters" must now "cross-deck" their loads of Tomahawks from ships returning from deployments, in order to fill their magazines.

All this leads to a geo-strategic lesson learned by other nations: Yugoslavia had threatened no neighbor, but having insufficient power, was attacked by neighboring powers, with the clear intent of depriving it of a culturally and economically significant province. Yugoslavia had no Nuclear, Chemical or Biological (NBC) Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) to maintain a deterrent or retaliatory threat.

The United States has, under the Clinton Administration, loudly proclaimed its wish to prevent the proliferation of such weapons and has been bearing down on Russia and China as suppliers, and on North Korea, Iran, Iraq, Pakistan and India as potential developers of such weapons. In particular, Operation Allied Force appears to have provided North Korea with a fresh reason to both cheat on its existing "promises" not to build arms, and to accelerate other arms programs. On July 6, 1999, in "Kosovo Victory Doesn't Inspire Americans," Carla Ann Robbins of the Wall Street Journal reported (p. A8):

First Strikes: Strategic and Operational Level "Op-Sec"

Operational Security (Op-Sec) is increasingly difficult to maintain in the Information Age. In the strategic-operational strikes, it is also clear that Yugoslavia's military intelligence operations were able to monitor the take-off and progress of inbound strike aircraft. Given the B-2 operates from a single, observable air base in Missouri, operatives with cellular phones can monitor flight operations from outside the perimeter, as Saddam's operatives have been doing from Bedouin camps in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

This means that the element of surprise is all but impossible to sustain after the first strike. "Observability" of our launches has worked in some situations in the past, as with the Haitian intervention, when departure of the 82^nd Airborne from Pope Air Force Base was observed by Haitian operatives. But in high-stakes confrontations, operational security is still important. It is increasingly difficult to sustain the element of surprise even in the maritime first strike, given the advance of satellite and communications technology. The US has learned this in operations in the Arabian Gulf, using ship-launched missiles and aircraft for the surprise first strike. But in the densely trafficked Adriatic, it is more difficult for naval air power to maintain surprise.

Now a larger opening night strike package might have been mounted, but still, Belgrade had ample warning and was able to disperse its important units, while command-control infrastructure was already well-distributed and protected by defenses designed to resist an extended Soviet air onslaught. Militarily, Yugoslavia was prepared to ride out much worse than NATO gave; it seems Belgrade folded for diplomatic reasons other than the direct pressure of bombing. The G-8 proposal it accepted did offer some concessions.

Air Tasking -- The Target Attack Cycle:

The US electronic intelligence (ELINT) cycle and "Air Tasking Order" planning cycle both still run on a three day schedule for Strategic and Operational level targeting. That is slow enough, but against fixed targets in a national infrastructure, may be acceptable. Against actual command and support "nodes" at the operational level, a faster cycle is needed; intelligence has to be processed faster to be effective, as these targets can be moved. That became apparent as the days and nights of bombing wore on.

At the tactical level, this extended cycle cannot work and even a multi-hour (12 more or less) cycle for identifying armored and artillery units in the field proved ineffective: Serbs knew when satellites were overhead and set up false "photo-opportunities." Tactical targets are by nature targets of opportunity, not ones that can be planned for in advance. "Tank Plinking" tactics or some other form of "real-time response" must be utilized to have any impact. At 15,000 feet, this proved to be difficult, even with OA-10 observers loitering over the battlefield.

Aviation Week (July 12 issue) reported that a new ground-based workstation developed by the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) was tested during "Allied Force." Michael Ignatieff, writing in the Aug. 2, 1999 issue of "The New Yorker," (sic!) reports that General Clark's staff initiated new battlefield surveillance techniques built around the EC-130E to improve lethality. Still, results in attacking a motivated, trained, supplied and well-lead opponent were minimal.

Logistics of the Air Campaign & Tempo of Operations:

As NATO recognized the need to build up forces to find a credible force-mix to sustain a meaningful tempo of operations, basing got very problematical and airspace management was very complex, as Yugoslavia is such a relatively small space. Since adjacent airfields were few, operations dictated long-distance shuttling, which increased the number of large tanker aircraft necessary to support strike missions. Managing tankers became an increasing part of the battle management problem in the crowded skies. Thus, Allied Force had an exceptionally high ratio of support to strike sorties, even disregarding strike missions aborted because of bad weather, a material factor in the early weeks of the air war --when force size was also inadequate to the diplomatic goal being pursued.

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The tempo strained US air resources. Other missions were neglected, particularly patrols in Iraq's northern "no fly zone" which were suspended for more than four weeks. Reinforcing units from the US (reserve and regular) were heavily disrupted, causing the US Air Force's Air Combat Command chief, Gen. Richard E. Hawley to make the following admission in the July "Air Force" magazine (p. 51):

The positive lessons learned from "Desert Storm" proved out again in "Allied Force." Inter-operable communications and in-flight refueling by the US Air Force tanker fleet helped Air Force, Marine and Navy combat aircraft sustain long flights and patrols.

Another positive lesson is the efficiency of using precision-guided short, medium and long-range munitions and missiles (PGMs). Air Force PGMs filled the gap caused by the shortage of the expensive, longest range, ship-launched and air-launched Tomahawks (TLAMs & CALCMs). The 509^th Bombardment Wing, which operates the B-2 Stealth Bomber, reported to Defense Daily (July 6, 1999) that 89% of the 650 Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) landed within 40 feet of the aim-point. In fair weather, the 509^th claims it can hit within 10 feet of the aim point. The Chinese Embassy was one target successfully hit by the B-2.

European members of NATO learned the value of US military PGM and other technologies, in which European governments have not yet invested heavily.

SEAD, CyberWar and Counter Measures:

America's Suppression of Enemy Air Defenses (SEAD) technology is increasingly understood by its opponents, yet America has not devoted a great deal of effort to further advances in SEAD technology in the years since Desert Storm. Yugoslavia shut down most of its air defenses most of the time, maintaining the very real threat of "a force in being." This kept allied strike aircraft at higher altitudes where tactical strikes, in particular, were less effective. Strategic and Operational level strikes matching precision weapons against fixed targets were less hampered by the need to maintain high altitudes.

The EA-6B Prowler fleet is small and between air operations in Kosovo and in the Iraqi flight denial zones, these small squadrons were clearly overworked. Defense Daily reported on July 6, 1999:

GPS guidance is radio-wave controlled; radio waves can be jammed and a 1-watt jammer can be built for about $200 in parts from Radio Shack. It is not wise to over-rely on high-tech sensors that do not have an alternate command-guidance mechanism.

There is not much information as yet on the success or failure of attempts at "cyber-war" and "info-war" other than that there appear to have been a number of amateur hacker attacks on non-critical military computer websites, etc. It is to be expected that any operations conducted by the United States are highly classified and that little meaningful information will emerge in the near term.

Tactical Operations: Tank-Plinking from 15,000 feet:

NATO was bold enough to estimate that it had destroyed 5-10,000 troops, 120 tanks, dozens of IFVs and more dozens of artillery and mortars (up to 60% of IFVs and artillery). Yet Yugoslavia's Colonel-General Nebojsa Pavkovic, commander of the 3rd VJ Army, admitted to 161 dead, 299 wounded, and only 13 tanks, 6 IFVs and 8 artillery pieces lost to air bombardment and KLA operations on the ground. We do not think these figures are very inaccurate and indications are that there are not that many published obituaries of Yugoslav army war dead; a British reporter (The Telegraph) found only two combat deaths in the large city of Novi Sad, and Paul Beaver of Jane's Group also confirmed a lack of destroyed military equipment.

At war's end, eleven Mig-21s emerged unscathed at Slatina Air Base, near Pristina, demonstrating the quality of Yugoslav fortifications. At least 254 tanks were logged as they exited the province intact at war's end; units and equipment shown on film all looked in good condition. Reporters found many damaged decoys, but little destroyed equipment in Kosovo to refute Yugoslavia's estimates, and further, found few death notices in Yugoslav papers to dispute Belgrade's overall body count of less than 500 military and 113 police dead. The operation's cost was some $4 Bil and the physical-moral damage inflicted on the army seems slight at that price.

"Tank plinking" from 15,000 feet to avoid enemy air defenses, simply put, is not effective against a sophisticated opponent's disciplined forces. By definition, tank plinking is not conducted, even at lower altitudes, against unsophisticated opponents lacking large amounts of armor, though some bombing and strafing of vehicles and field units may be tactically viable. More sophisticated Yugoslavia simply packed its tanks away, since they were not needed against the KLA, and the army set up plenty of decoys.

In the perpetual technological war between attack and defense, the advantage lies with the defender astute in the use of terrain, dispersal, decoys and camouflage against a fast-moving strike aircraft. Yugoslavia, by maintaining its mobile SAM batteries intact, and by being a manufacturer of shoulder-fired "heat-seeking" missiles, never allowed NATO air forces the uncontested air supremacy necessary to execute punitive ground attack missions without the prospect of significant aircraft losses. In particular, NATO never created circumstances considered safe enough for the combat deployment of its AH-64A Apache gunships.

The AH-64A: This was the signal failure --at every level-- of the US Army in Operation Allied Force. The pilots were under-trained, the site for the Apache base was in low ground and flooded, the helicopters chosen were the older A-model, which lacked important sensors and survivability capabilities; there was a shortage of maintenance parts, and even a shortage of night-vision goggles. The US and the US Army embarrassed themselves day after day with the Apache deployment story. We of the Vietnam era recall that over 5000 helicopters were lost in action even before the general deployment of shoulder-fired heat-seeking missiles, such as the SA-7 "Strela," manufactured in Yugoslavia. To lose Apaches in Operation Allied Force in the pursuit of scattered tanks, infantry fighting vehicles (IVFs) and entrenched infantry would have been an unsatisfactory exchange of a $14 million machine and two officers for, at best, a $500,000 T-55.

The F-16 and F/A-18: The single-seater attack aircraft, where the pilot guides both aircraft and weapons, is particularly over-taxed in this air-ground combat where missile defenses remain organized and threatening. Though onboard LANTIRN sensors may provide 12x magnification of moving ground targets, a pilot flying at 480 knots and 15,000 feet is hard-pressed to differentiate effectively between a 2 1/2 ton truck and a farm tractor towing a hay trailer. Managing the SAM threat and target acquisition where decoys are widely used is very challenging and NATO's pilots achieved minimal results, destroying, it appears, more civilian tractors & hay-trailers than tanks and IFVs. At this writing, only the Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle and some US Marine F/A-18D squadrons have two-seat crews with pilots and weapons systems officers. Conversion to two-seaters would be expensive in the short term but should be carefully considered.

Air-Ground Combined Forces: The one plausible threat that added weight to the air campaign, from a military view, is that though under-trained and under-equipped, the KLA represented a ground force in being. Its own guerrilla operations were not particularly effective in inflicting casualties or fixing forces that could then be attacked from the air, but it is also fairly clear, that with allied air support, the Yugoslav Army could not look forward to defeating the KLA and suppressing the insurrection. The KLA provided the necessary ground force vital to the air-ground combined arms equation.

One "success" was the extensive use of reconnaissance drones --the Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), which are cheap enough to be expendable. Some 21 or more of these craft were lost, but they did provide some real-time and short-cycle target information to cover the gaps between satellite passes. But as we have also seen, losses in the 3^rd VJ Army were so light that is difficult to proclaim the UAVs to be an unqualified success.

Four E-8 JSTARS aircraft were operational during "Allied Force," and their advocates proclaim them a success. But the results in terms of destroyed equipment admitted to by the Yugoslav 3^rd Army indicate that this ground surveillance monitoring system is still in its infancy. Small aperture radar will be useful in detecting small moving target groups for attack in "real-time" in future conflicts, but they had no material impact in destroying enemy rolling stock this time, though their presence may have led to further defensive procedures by moving Yugoslav forces.

This brings us back to the important point that it was the extensive use of decoys, camouflage, burning tires and other methods, that reduced the effectiveness of NATO attacks on ground forces and infrastructure in Kosovo. In the age of the cheap microprocessor, it may be possible to program better sensors that can discriminate between some false signatures and genuine targets: this would require some experimental work at Aberdeen Proving Ground and other research facilities. Such sensors and a two-man cockpit might make ground attacks from 15,000 feet a potentially viable military doctrine for limited adventures in future, but with present weapons and sensors, a good hit on a ground target remains a matter of considerable luck. A serious air campaign against a determined and prepared opponent would be a fiasco without adequate ground forces in the immediate vicinity to counter the opponent's initiatives on the ground.

Ground Forces and Terrain:

The logistical nightmares in Albania, Macedonia and along the Kosovo border were all potentially at the allies' back. The art of war lies in maneuvering so that the nightmares are at your enemy's back, so a credible hasty ground war was never a viable option in a limited-casualty scenario. In the case of Kosovo, those who proposed an airmobile assault into Pristina from the south blithely ignored high mountains along the Macedonian border and the lack of defensible lines of communication up from Macedonia. Given time to develop logistics points and lines of communications (LOCs), plus a buildup of overwhelming force, such an assault might have been viable as part of a larger, multi-front attack, but was a diversion of, by and for dilettantes as far as proposals published during the war are concerned.

As to ground forces, several lessons to be learned have been underscored; most importantly, the need for more flexible heavy ground forces, and the need to rethink operational security for troops on borders when the threat level changes. The heavy divisions of the US Army are not mobile enough to transfer to the theater of operations in short order. A battalion task force resembling an armored cavalry squadron had to be cobbled together out of the 1^st Infantry Division in order to provide defensive security for forces deploying in Albania. To increase mobility and readiness, the US would do well to increase the number of armored cavalry regiments, reducing the less flexible division establishments. Instead, the Army is currently reducing the numbers of troops in division battalions as recruitment falls behind manpower needs.

NATO special operations commandos appear to have played some role in the campaign, but Kosovo was a more difficult theater for infiltration and operations than were the vast expanses of Iraq.

Three American soldiers were taken prisoner due to carelessness in the chain of command; operational security procedures were not tightened, first, when the "Able Sentry" mission was re-flagged from UN to NATO sponsorship, nor was it improved when the bombing attacks began. These troops were observing Yugoslav army and police dispositions and movements while a state of war existed between NATO and Yugoslavia, small wonder they were taken prisoner.

Slowness in preparing the 26^th Marine Expeditionary Unit for entry into Kosovo to begin the post-war peacekeeping mission led to the Russians arriving first at Slatina Airfield. Lack of provision for law enforcement and a slow occupation schedule further led the KLA to overrun much of Kosovo while armed and intent on inflicting the maximum of terror and vengeful retribution on civilian populations of Serbs, Gypsies, Turks, Gorani, loyalist Albanians and other ethnic groups.

MPs: The behavior of the KLA in the initial weeks of the peacekeeping mission also suggests the United States and its allies need to consider increasing the number of available military police battalions for peacekeeping missions, if this is to become an ongoing business of the international community's military establishments.

Conclusion - Precision vs. Mass:

Operation Allied Force was undertaken as a display of blunt diplomatic force against a target that was thought to be willing to succumb to a discrete "package" of precision strikes after two days. Belgrade withstood the onslaught for 78 days (21 days longer than the London Blitz of 1940), and its forces emerged militarily intact despite the allies' tripling the level of daily attacks. Meanwhile, the NATO allies expended a tremendous percentage of their high-value precision munitions in the strategic air campaign, plus significant quantities of munitions in its operational-level and tactical level operations, with little success. The mystique of conventional air power suffered again and the substitution of precision (guided weapons) for mass (massive force) does not appear to be effective enough as a means of imposing our will on a prepared opponent.

The US will have to considerably improve its intelligence sensors and strike aircraft sensors, while rethinking the logic of its extended "air tasking order" cycle. If aircraft are to be effective at 15,000 feet, they need better sensors and weapons systems officers to guide munitions onto real targets, avoiding the plenitude of tactical decoys.

NATO may have succeeded, after great expense, in claiming trusteeship over Kosovo, but it squandered its credibility and the mystique of strategic conventional air power in the process; probably encouraging more opposing powers to develop unconventional WMD weapons to keep the West at bay. Now NATO will find itself responsible for many years for what happens in Kosovo, at further financial cost. At the same time, NATO members will have to restructure their forces, restore operational readiness and replenish expensive munitions stocks, while investing in new US-developed technologies and systems.

Note: On July 27, 1999, General Wesley Clark's early retirement from active duty was announced to take effect in April, 2000.

© Copyright 1999 by Benjamin C. Works -- SIRIUS www.siri-us.com