"Our strikes have three objectives:
First, to demonstrate the seriousness of NATO's
opposition to aggression and its support for
peace. Second, to deter President Milosevic from
continuing and escalating his attacks on
helpless civilians by imposing a price for those
attacks. And, third, if necessary, to damage
Serbia's capacity to wage war against Kosovo in
the future by seriously diminishing its military
capability."
-President Clinton, March 24, 1999
Operation Allied Force started as a short, sharp
response to the final collapse of Rambouillet. When
airstrikes began there were 112 US and 102 allied strike
aircraft committed to the operation. Thirteen of NATO's
19 nations sent aircraft to participate. NATO's three
new members, Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic did
not join in. Greece, Iceland, and Luxembourg also
abstained.
The initial plan envisioned a few days of air
operations against a carefully chosen set of about 50
preapproved targets. Target categories included air
defense sites, communications relays, and fixed military
facilities, such as ammunition dumps. No targets in
downtown Belgrade were on the list for the initial
strikes. Air planners had data on far more than 50
targets, but the consensus in NATO was only strong
enough to support limited action.
On its first night the campaign began with a
formidable array of weapons. CALCMs and TLAMs targeted
air defense sites and communications. Two B-2s flew from
Whiteman AFB, Mo., marking the first use of the B-2 in
combat. The B-2s flew more than 30 hours on a round-trip
mission and launched the highly accurate Joint Direct
Attack Munition (JDAM) against multiple targets. US and
NATO fighters in theater maintained combat air patrols
while others bombed targets.
No one knew exactly what it would take to make an
impact on Milosevic. Two statements made at the start of
the campaign bracketed the ways it might unfold.
Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon explained on March 23,
"We have plans for a swift and severe air campaign.
This will be painful for the Serbs. We hope that,
relatively quickly the Serbs will realize that they have
made a mistake."
11
Bacon's comment echoed NATO's collective hope that
demonstrating resolve would get Milosevic to accept
Rambouillet.
Clark spelled out the other alternative on March 25
when he said, "We're going to systematically and
progressively attack, disrupt, degrade, devastate, and
ultimately--unless President Milosevic complies with the
demand of the international community--we're going to
destroy these forces and their facilities and
support."
12
Clark's statement described what NATO airpower could do,
given time. But the air campaign had started from the
premise that NATO wanted to try limited action to
achieve its goals. Clark's words hinted at a much bigger
military task at hand.
The stealthy B-2, pictured on the front cover,
was not the only US bomber in the action. B-1
Lancers and venerable B-52s, shown here on the
ramp at RAF Fairford, UK, added heavy firepower
to Operation Allied Force.
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Milosevic's Gamble
Now the question was: How would Milosevic react? A
White House "senior official" had already
mulled over the possibilities: "As we contemplated
the use of force over the past 14 months, we constructed
four different models. One was that the whiff of
gunpowder, just the threat of force, would make
Milosevic back down. Another was that he needed to take
some hit to justify acquiescence. Another was that he
was a playground bully who would fight but back off
after a punch in the nose. And the fourth was that he
would react like Saddam Hussein. On any given day,
people would pick one or the other. We thought that the
Saddam Hussein option was always the least likely, but
we knew it was out there, and now we're looking at
it."
13
Milosevic ignored the NATO airstrikes, just as he had
flouted NATO-backed diplomacy. CIA Director George J.
Tenet had forecast for weeks that Yugoslav forces could
respond to NATO military action by accelerating the
ethnic cleansing.
14
Now Milosevic gambled that his forces push ethnic
Albanians and the KLA out of Kosovo before NATO could
react.
By the time Milosevic backed away from Rambouillet,
his forces had battlefield dominance in Kosovo. The
Yugoslav army reportedly numbered about 90,000 men,
equipped with 630 tanks, 634 armored personnel carriers,
and more than 800 howitzers. The Yugoslav 3rd army was
assigned to Kosovo operations, along with reinforcements
from 1st and 2nd armies.
15
About 40,000 troops and 300 tanks crossed into Kosovo,
spreading out in burned out villages and buildings
abandoned by the refugees. Paramilitary security forces
from the Interior Ministry were engaged in multiple
areas across Kosovo.
By early April, the KLA was bloodied and organized
resistance in most of central Kosovo was diminishing. An
American official said the government forces had carried
out devastating attacks, and the prospects for the KLA
were "dim." "They've been running out of
ammo and supplies, they've been reduced to isolated
pockets," summarized the official. KLA strongholds
from Pec in western Kosovo to Prizren in the south
contracted as the rebels fell back and consolidated
positions west and north of Pristina.
16
Bacon said that even the last KLA holdouts in the west
nearer the Albanian border were under strain. "They
are lightly armed and they don't really have the
armaments they need to deal with a sustained armor
attack, and that's what they're getting right now,"
he reported.
17
But Milosevic's gamble was also his major
miscalculation. His push through Kosovo created a mass
of refugees that ignited world opinion. Estimates of the
number of displaced persons jumped from 240,000 in March
to 600,000 by early April. Clark called it "a grim
combination of terror and ethnic cleansing on a vast
scale." Central Kosovo was largely emptied of its
ethnic Albanian population. "Those of us who've
grown up in liberal democracies have a hard time truly
appreciating what's happening right now in Kosovo,"
Clark said.
18
 |
KLA Resistance Shrinks
CIA reports forecast
Milosevic might try to wipe out the KLA
resistance in Kosovo. In late March, Milosevic
launched an all-out attack on KLA forces
fighting in multiple locations. According to the
Washington Post, KLA strongholds in the Drenica
region of central Kosovo fell quickly. |
 |
 |
By April 3, a Pentagon spokesman said of
Milosevic's gamble, "He's basically
done." Three days later the KLA resistance
was in tatters, and Milosevic declared a
cease-fire. NATO had not planned to hit a major
military force on the move or strike north of
the 44th parallel when the offensive began.
|
However, Milosevic's tactical gamble caught NATO at a
vulnerable spot. NATO was committed to limited
airstrikes, with no firm plans beyond a few days or
weeks. Since fixed targets were the focus of the plan
NATO flew just a few packages each night. There was
nothing that military force could do quickly against the
fully developed offensive. As US Air Force Chief of
Staff Gen. Michael E.
Ryan commented, there was no way that airstrikes alone
could halt the door-to-door killings that had been under
way.
19
On April 3, a Pentagon official said of Milosevic's
campaign, "He's basically done."
20
The plight of the Kosovo refugees cemented NATO's
resolve. "It's clear we will need to roll back the
Serbian offensive by force in order to get the refugees
back home," said a NATO official. "We can't
leave them in Albania or Macedonia very long, or those
states will collapse," he said. Now, NATO would
have to win.
Two F-16s from the 555th Fighter Squadron at
Aviano AB, Italy, prepare to launch on April 2,
1999. Crowded Aviano, home to the 31st Fighter
Wing, was once again the hub of air operations
for NATO. Fighters maintained combat air patrol,
joined strike packages, and provided Suppression
of Enemy Air Defenses. Some 103 F-16s
participated in the Kosovo campaign.
|
Changing Course
To deprive Milosevic of his gains in Kosovo, the
alliance would have to use its air forces to meet goals
that had just gotten much more difficult. The politics
of the situation meant that NATO missed the chance to
let its airmen do it "by the book" and halt or
disrupt Milosevic's forces as they massed on the border
and moved into Kosovo in March.
As US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright explained
on March 28, the new goal was to force Milosevic to back
off by "making sure that he pays a very heavy
price."
21
The first thing NATO needed was more airpower. Five
B-1 bombers, five more EA-6B electronic warfare
aircraft, and 10 tankers were already en route along
with more allied aircraft. The aircraft carrier USS
Theodore Roosevelt, veteran of Bosnia operations four
years earlier, was due to arrive with its battlegroup
around April 4. Its air wing, CVW-8 brought F-14s
equipped with infrared targeting pods, plus two
squadrons of F/A-18Cs and other aircraft, including four
more EA-6Bs. In the battlegroup, the TLAM shooters
included the cruiser Vella Gulf, destroyer Ross, and
submarine Albuquerque.
NATO also needed enough aircraft to sustain 24-hour
operations over the dispersed Yugoslav forces in Kosovo.
Plans were formulated for an augmented package of forces
known as the "Papa Bear" option that would
more than double strike aircraft in the theater.
Secretary of Defense William Cohen captured the mood
after a meeting at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers
Europe on April 7. "We have always known that the
campaign would be difficult and time consuming,"
Cohen remarked, "and I emerged from my meetings
this morning and this afternoon convinced that NATO
indeed intends to stay the course." However, as
Cohen added, NATO would have to gear up for a new kind
of effort. "Whatever General Clark feels he needs
in order to carry out this campaign successfully, he
will receive," Cohen pledged.
22
Now the joint and allied air forces faced the most
difficult task. To make an impact, NATO air had to take
on the military both directly, at the tactical level,
and to take it on at the strategic level by hitting
targets in Yugoslavia as well as in Kosovo. Airmen would
have to expand the roster of strategic targets and seek
out and destroy both fixed military targets and mobile
military forces, including tanks, armored personnel
carriers, and artillery pieces. Much of this would take
place in close-battle conditions. Yugoslav forces were
mixed in with civilians and refugees. Military vehicles
and forces hid in and around buildings.
NATO expanded and clarified the air campaign plan in
early April. The goal was to conduct simultaneous
attacks against two target sets: fixed targets of unique
strategic value and fielded military forces and their
sustainment elements. Here was the heart of the air
campaign as it would be carried out over the next
two-and-a-half months.
Target-set 1 was termed fixed targets of unique
strategic value. It included national command and
control; military reserves; infrastructure such as
bridges, Petroleums, Oils, and Lubricants (POL)
production, and communications; and the military
industrial base of weapons and ammunition factories and
distribution systems. Serbia's electric power grid was
soon added to the list. Target-set 2, and a high
priority for Clark, was the fielded forces. Fielded
forces included attacks on Yugoslav military forces, to
hit their tactical assembly areas, command and control
nodes, bridges in southern Serbia and Kosovo, supply
areas, POL storage and pumping stations, choke points,
and ammunition storage. Initial guidance focused on
forces south of the 44th parallel, but soon, military
targets north of the line also made the list.
23
As this guidance made clear, NATO was now pursuing a
multipronged strategy with its air campaign. The goal
was not just to demonstrate NATO resolve and hope to
coerce Milosevic. It was to directly reduce and
eliminate the ability of Yugoslav forces to carry on
their campaign of destruction in Kosovo. Fortunately,
NATO's air forces could make the transition. "NATO
had one consensus, and that was for application of
airpower," said Cohen.
|
Locations of Strikers and Tankers
Above is an example of where strike aircraft and
tankers were based during the Kosovo campaign.
New NATO partners like Hungary permitted strike
aircraft deployments for the first time. Many
aircraft made long trips from bases in England.
One major base not included on the map is
Whiteman AFB, Mo., where B-2s began their
30-hour missions.
Source: USAFE
|
11
Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon, Pentagon briefing,
March 23, 1999.
12
US Army Gen. Wesley Clark, SACEUR, NATO briefing, March 25, 1999.
13
Thomas W. Lippman, "State Department Miscalculated
on Kosovo," Washington Post, April 7, 1999.
14
Howard Kurtz, "Media Notes: Airstrikes Followed by
Retreat," Washington Post, April 5, 1999.
15
Vernon Loeb, "Yugoslav Military is a Formidable
Foe," Washington Post, April 3, 1999.
16
Peter Finn, "Kosovo Guerilla Force Near
Collapse," Washington Post, April 1, 1999.
17
Bradley Graham, "Weather Clears, NATO Rains
Bombs," Washington Post, April 6, 1999.
18
Lippman, "US Captives to Face Serb Court,"
Washington Post, April 2, 1999.
19
John A. Tirpak, "Lessons Learned and
Re-Learned," Air Force Magazine, August 1999.
20
Dana Priest and William Drozdiak, "Milosevic nears
Goal of Driving Out Rebels," Washington Post, April
3, 1999.
21
US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright on CBS
"Face the Nation," March 28, 1999.
22
US Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, remarks at
Brussels, April 7, 1999.
23
Dana Priest and William Drodziak, "First Raids
Targeted Defensive Facilities," Washington Post,
March 25, 1999.
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The Kosovo Campaign: Airpower Made It Work
