NATO and the Kosovo crisis: Between scylla and charybdis

Taking issue with the critiques levied against NATO's handling of the Kosov o crisis, the author argues that - circumstances considered - the alliance' s war over Kosovo most probably led to a better 'end state' than would non- intervention. Criticism is articulated, however, against some aspects of NA TO's campaign, most notably the alliance's policy of ruling out the use of ground troops at an early point. The author identifies two basic factors that limited NATO's leverage during the crisis: first, the decisive role of local actors - the Milosevic regim e and the KLA - in setting the stage on the ground - NATO's role was, up un til the bombing, largely reactive; second, NATO's multilateral structure, w hich limited - at times severely the alliance's room for manoeuvring during the crisis. It is emphasised that NATO cannot be held responsible for the crisis itself , only for the way it handled the crisis. Given these limitations, and seen in a comparative perspective, the alliance did rather well. Despite some rather undesirable consequences emanating from NATO's interven tion, the argument is made that the situation, both for the local populatio n and for regional stability, would have been far worse had the alliance re mained neutral. The nature of the Milosevic regime - demonstrated through i ts policies of the last decade, its intransigence in negotiations and repea ted use of disproportional and indiscriminate violence against the civilian Kosovo-Albanian population, added to the growing strength and support of t he KLA - is argued to have made it all but certain that a humanitarian cata strophe of gruesome proportions, and with major regional implications, woul d have occurred within quite a short time had NATO not intervened.