Will Serbia Attack FYRoM?
sp...@erols.com
Liberius wrote:
> NOTE: Replace "Macedonia" with "FYRoM"
> in the following article.
>
> Could Serbia be Preparing an Attack on Macedonia?
> =========================================
>
> March 18, 1999
> http://www.stratfor.com/services/giu/031899.asp
> Global Intelligence Update
>
> SUMMARY
>
> With no progress in Kosovo peace talks, it appears that NATO and Serbia are headed for a military showdown. However, Serbian
> deployments suggest that Belgrade may have more in mind than to just follow Baghdad's example of professional Tomahawk catching.
>
> ANALYSIS
>
> Unless Belgrade suddenly reverses itself, which is always possible, the stage is now set for armed conflict between NATO and
> Serbia. The expectation is that air attacks on Yugoslavia will parallel those in Iraq. In Iraq, the United States and its allies
> have largely determined the scope and tempo of air operations. Iraq has essentially absorbed those air strikes without launching
> its own military counter-operations. To be more precise, Iraq has, on occasion, appeared to try to interfere with air strikes
> using anti-aircraft systems and some air interception, but Iraq has never tried to respond with ground operations outside of Iraq.
>
> It has appeared, at least publicly, to be a basic assumption in NATO's strategy that Serbia would follow the same pattern. In
> other words, it has been assumed that air attacks on Serbia would be low-risk operations, in which the forces directly involved in
> the attacks would be exposed to Serbian fire, but that no other assets would be at risk. Thus, if NATO relied on a cruise missile
> attack, deployed extensive air defense suppression systems and used stealth aircraft, NATO's casualties and risks would be
> minimal.
>
> This assumption may well be correct, but it is not certainly correct. We do not know how Belgrade is planning to respond to NATO
> air attacks nor even if they are planning to capitulate at the last minute. But assuming that maintaining the territorial
> integrity of their country is as important to the Serbs as it is to most countries, it is important to consider what military
> cards the Belgrade has available, should it choose not to behave like Baghdad. Let us further assume that, while Serbia has a
> somewhat more sophisticated air defense system than Iraq, NATO would have no real trouble suppressing that system, even if it had
> to incur some casualties in the course of the operation.
>
> Serbia's primary military goal would be political: to raise the cost of anti-Serb operations higher than NATO in general and the
> United States in particular would find endurable. The key to achieving this goal is to inflict casualties and take prisoners. A
> reasonable, though not certain, assumption could be made that NATO is prepared to intervene in Kosovo if the primary cost is money
> and effort, but that it is not prepared to intervene if intervention means substantial cost in lives or prisoners. This assumption
> could be taken from NATO's assertion that it would not deploy peacekeeping forces without a prior agreement from all sides, but
> would conduct an anti-Serb air campaign in the absence of a Serbian agreement. An air campaign will leave limited opportunities
> for casualties or prisoners, given heavy dependence on cruise missiles and stealth aircraft, as well as the heavy air defense
> suppression capabilities of NATO. With this NATO calculation in mind, the Serbs might choose to respond to air attacks against
> Serbia on the ground.
>
> The situation on the ground is quite different from the situation in the air. Consider the correlation of forces along the
> Yugoslav-Macedonian border, where NATO has staged in anticipation of deployment in Kosovo. First some geography. The Yugoslav
> border is about 12 miles from Skopje, the capital of Macedonia and the focus of NATO activity. There is a direct, multi-lane road
> from the border to the city. About 2 miles southeast of Skopje, there is the main airport, heavily used by NATO and UN forces. An
> autobahn/interstate quality road runs from the Serbian border to the airport, with lateral roads to the east and west. A division
> could easily deploy along this route. There is extensive evidence that Serbian forces, including armor, are massing along the
> Pristina-Skopje road. We infer from some reports that there is also massing along the Leskovac-Skopje airport superhighway. There
> are also reports of air defense units moving forward into the border region. It is clearly a multi-divisional deployment including
> armored and mechanized units.
>
> NATO, in turn, has substantial forces in the region, though currently less than half of the 26-28,000 troops planned for enforcing
> the as-yet unsigned Kosovo peace settlement. NATO forces in Macedonia include a German armored brigade with Leopard 2s, a French
> Mechanized brigade, a British Infantry brigade, and other units. In effect, there is a NATO division in the region with supporting
> units. What is not clear is whether these units are forward deployed between Skopje and the border. The terrain on the border
> along the Pristina-Skopje highway is quite hilly, with the advantage to the defense, while the terrain along the Leskovac-Skopje
> airport route is more favorable to rapid movement.
>
> It is not clear that Serbia could take Skopje. It is not clear that Serbia would want to take Skopje. Rather, attacking and
> seizing the airport and encircling and using artillery to bombard Skopje could produce an interesting political result: inflicting
> casualties and capturing NATO personnel, while shifting the diplomatic conversation from the status of Kosovar Albanians to the
> terms under which Serbians will withdraw from Macedonia and release NATO prisoners. With the weather forecast for the border
> region snow and sleet with low clouds for the next few days, the ability of NATO air power to create a "highway of death," Iraqi
> style, faces some limits.
>
> We are not predicting that this will happen. We are saying that this is a serious option for the Serbs and that their troop
> movements seem to indicate a willingness to at least bluff the option. They have clearly got the attention of NATO command. Agence
> France Presse reported on March 17 that an unnamed NATO official publicly warned Serbia that an attack against Macedonia would be
> "a catastrophe" for the Serbs.
>
> There is little doubt but that NATO could defeat Serbia's armed forces. It is not clear, however, that forces currently in
> Macedonia could do so. It is certainly not clear that they could do so without major casualties. What Milosevic is doing is
> causing NATO to evaluate the potential cost of intervention. Until now, the assumption has been that NATO could carry out an Iraq
> style bombardment without any collateral danger. Milosevic has been attempting to convince NATO that Serbia is not Iraq, and that
> the potential cost for intervention is much higher than NATO ought to be willing to pay. At the very least, he is making it clear
> that the current force structure in Macedonia is woefully insufficient to assure their own security, let alone to intervene in
> Kosovo.
>
> It is not clear to us that the Serbs will take the chance. They are in a powerful defensive position blocking passes into Kosovo.
> The correlation of forces does not give them a great advantage. The risk of losing irreplaceable formations is high. Nevertheless,
> a twenty-five mile encirclement could change the entire geometry of regional relationships. In the past, Milosevic has not been a
> serious gambler. He has consistently withdrawn his bluffs at the last minute. We certainly don't know what he intends to do this
> time, but he has set up quite a bluff, at the very least.
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Liberius
Agamemnon-Skopianosfaktis
>
>Could Serbia be Preparing an Attack on FYROM?
deployment in Kosovo. First some geography. The Yugoslav
NATO activity. There is a direct, multi-lane road
>from the border to the city. About 2 miles southeast of Skopje, there is
the main airport, heavily used by NATO and UN forces. An
>autobahn/interstate quality road runs from the Serbian border to the
airport, with lateral roads to the east and west. A division
>could easily deploy along this route. There is extensive evidence that
Serbian forces, including armor, are massing along the
>Pristina-Skopje road. We infer from some reports that there is also massing
along the Leskovac-Skopje airport superhighway. There
>are also reports of air defense units moving forward into the border
region. It is clearly a multi-divisional deployment including
>armored and mechanized units.
>
>NATO, in turn, has substantial forces in the region, though currently less
than half of the 26-28,000 troops planned for enforcing
German armored brigade with Leopard 2s, a French
>Mechanized brigade, a British Infantry brigade, and other units. In effect,
there is a NATO division in the region with supporting
>units. What is not clear is whether these units are forward deployed
between Skopje and the border. The terrain on the border
>along the Pristina-Skopje highway is quite hilly, with the advantage to the
defense, while the terrain along the Leskovac-Skopje
>airport route is more favorable to rapid movement.
>
>It is not clear that Serbia could take Skopje. It is not clear that Serbia
would want to take Skopje. Rather, attacking and
>seizing the airport and encircling and using artillery to bombard Skopje
could produce an interesting political result: inflicting
>casualties and capturing NATO personnel, while shifting the diplomatic
conversation from the status of Kosovar Albanians to the
prisoners. With the weather forecast for the border
>region snow and sleet with low clouds for the next few days, the ability of
NATO air power to create a "highway of death," Iraqi
>style, faces some limits.
>
>We are not predicting that this will happen. We are saying that this is a
serious option for the Serbs and that their troop
>movements seem to indicate a willingness to at least bluff the option. They
have clearly got the attention of NATO command. Agence
>France Presse reported on March 17 that an unnamed NATO official publicly
>"a catastrophe" for the Serbs.
>
>There is little doubt but that NATO could defeat Serbia's armed forces. It
is not clear, however, that forces currently in
major casualties. What Milosevic is doing is
>causing NATO to evaluate the potential cost of intervention. Until now, the
assumption has been that NATO could carry out an Iraq
>style bombardment without any collateral danger. Milosevic has been
attempting to convince NATO that Serbia is not Iraq, and that
>the potential cost for intervention is much higher than NATO ought to be
willing to pay. At the very least, he is making it clear
assure their own security, let alone to intervene in
>Kosovo.
>
>It is not clear to us that the Serbs will take the chance. They are in a
powerful defensive position blocking passes into Kosovo.
>The correlation of forces does not give them a great advantage. The risk of
losing irreplaceable formations is high. Nevertheless,
>a twenty-five mile encirclement could change the entire geometry of
regional relationships. In the past, Milosevic has not been a
>serious gambler. He has consistently withdrawn his bluffs at the last
minute. We certainly don't know what he intends to do this
>time, but he has set up quite a bluff, at the very least.
>
>
>
Liberius wrote in message ...
Liberius
Agamemnon-Skopianosfaktis wrote in message <7d1tct$7nm$1...@apple.news.easynet.net>...
Nicholas Manousos
Farah Aidid in Somalia; When, Where and How to Use Force by A.J.
Bacevich, professor of International Relations at Boston University
Commentary, December, 1993
They are a study in contrasts. The one goes by
the title of President, but in appearance and
manner is the very model--if not the parody--of
a modern field marshal. It is all there: the
Western-style battle dress, the beret, the
epaulets, the ceremonial sidearm, the bushy
mustache above stiff upper lip that would win
approval in any regimental mess, even the
entourage of similarly outfitted staff officers
and sycophants hovering respectfully nearby.
The other styles himself General, but makes
little apparent effort tolook the part, his
standard "uniform" consisting of slacks and
anopen-collar, civilian shirt. His public
persona is suggestive less of awarrior than of
some political hopeful running for election to
the city council, his appearances on the front
page of our newspapers typically taking place
against a backdrop of cheering constituents.
His most prominent feature is a seemingly
affable grin--incongruous anddisconcerting in
that his machinations seldom inspire mirth.
Appearances deceive. In this instance,
appearances belie expectations. Which of these
two individuals--Saddam Hussein and Mohammed
Farah Aidid--is likely to possess the greater
military acumen? Billed as a formidable
opponent, Saddam turned out to be a pushover.
Contemptuously labeled a "warlord" or "thug,"
Aidid has caused the United States no end of
consternation and embarrassment. With all due
respect to the ghost of General George S.
Patton, sartorial splendor would seem to be a
poor predictor of generalship.
Yet the deeper deception--self-deception,
really--derives from the conclusions drawn from
America's successive encounters with these two
adversaries, who in confronting the world's
only superpower employed vastly different
methods to vastly different effect. With the
one, America's encounter was a smashing
success; with the other, a minor but
frustrating failure. Together, they have
distorted our understanding of what war is or
is becoming. They have confused Americans about
the role of force in international politics.
And as a result, they have thrown American
military policy into disarray.
II
SADDAM HUSSEIN did more than conform to
preconceived American notions of how a "real"
enemy should look; his whole approach to
warfare reinforced established American views
of the proper character and rhythms of war.
Just as Saddam affected Western-style battle
dress, so did he mimic the standing conventions
of combat between modern industrialized states.
Consistent with the age-old faith in big
battalions, Saddam weighed his forces down with
Soviet-style fleets of tanks, fighter bombers,
and guided missiles. He organized and trained
his legions (albeit to indifferent standards of
proficiency) in accordance with precepts common
to mechanized armies going back to World War
II. He even initiated hostilities in the manner
expected of a dastardly adversary: with an act
of brazen aggression.
Yet, having thus boldly seized the initiative,
Saddam obligingly allowed the United States and
its allies six unencumbered months in which to
reclaim it. He ordered his forces to sit idly
in the desert while the American-led coalition
mustered its forces--equally laden with tanks
and fighter bombers and guided missiles--for a
massive counteroffensive aimed at liberating
Kuwait. The coalition's success in bringing
this episode to a rapid and decisive conclusion
dazzled the world. Dazzled in something like a
literal sense: Americans themselves found it
difficult to gauge accurately the factors
contributing to the outcome of Desert Storm.
That Saddam's own bungling had contributed
mightily to his defeat was noted only to be
dismissed. A victory so complete, so one-sided,
and so sudden required an explanation more
compelling than an inept opponent.
Military analysts discovered that explanation
in a concept borrowed from a most unlikely
source: Soviet military theory. American
performance in the Gulf war, these experts
determined, portended the arrival of an
entirely new approach to warfare, an approach
made possible by what the Soviets termed a
military-technical revolution (MTR). Although
this technology-driven revolution had been
under way for some time--as evidenced, for
example, by advances in long-range precision
weapons, in surveillance and target-acquisition
capabilities, and in the military application
of computers--it took the showdown with Saddam
Hussein to reveal its true scope.
What were the implications of this phenomenon?
In short order, discerning an answer to that
question became a cottage industry,
particularly in the rarefied circles inhabited
by Washington's national-security elites. Among
the effusions to which this effort gave birth,
a report entitled The Military Technical
Revolution, issued by the highly respected
Center for Strategic and International Studies
(CSIS) in Washington, may be taken as
representative.
The product of extensive deliberations by over
75 outside experts," the CSIS report heralds
Desert Storm as a portent of things to come. In
this one brief, spectacular campaign it divines
a template for all future combat. Realizing the
MTR's full potential will mean, quite simply,
that the face of battle and the nature of
warfare will both be completely transformed."
Nor will this event be long in coming. By the
first decade of the 21st century, according to
CSIS, warfare "will look very little like it
does today."
IN DESCRIBING the essence of this new style of
warfare, the CSIS report generates a fair
amount of balderdash: "The MTR is about
integration, synergy, and flexibility"; "the
MTR is a holistic phenomenon"; the MTR "may
boil down to two fundamental effects: tempo and
psychology"; "the heart of the MTR is
information"; and so on.
On two points, however, the report is emphatic.
First, for the foreseeable future, "only the
United States has the capability to achieve the
MTR." Second, as Desert Storm's low-cost,
lightning victory seemed to promise, this
revolution in military affairs expands the
utility of force. The military-technical
revolution will provide American political
leaders with an instrument possessing broader
application while easing the
constraints--notably the prospect of heavy
casualties and widespread collateral
damage--that heretofore have limited the
willingness of democratic societies to use
force.
By exploiting the promise of this revolution,
the report concludes, U.S. leaders will be
increasingly free to conduct such operations
without assuming massive risks. The MTR will
render the military instrument more effective
by reducing the costs of military operations,
both to the United States and to its
adversaries, and will thereby help mitigate the
constraints on military operations imposed by
media coverage and public opinion. The language
may not be crisp, but the implications are
clear: the MTR will free the United States to
employ force not simply as a last
resort--responding to outrages perpetrated by
the likes of Saddam Hussein--but in pursuit of
more positive goals.
In short, according to the experts convened by
CSIS, the MTR endows the United States--and the
United States alone--with the ability to use
military power to shape the future political
order.
To be fair, the CSIS experts describe the
military-technical revolution as still in the
process of being realized. Yet, as the
"lessons" of Desert Storm worked their way into
elite and then into mainstream opinion, such
distinctions were soon lost. Confidence in
American military superiority became so
pronounced that the capabilities foreseen by
MTR's prophets acquired the sheen of
accomplished fact.
Because such thinking discounted the peculiarly
favorable circumstances of the Gulf
war--circumstances as much, or more, the
product of Saddam's bungling as of American
genius--a belief took hold that the "troops"
could accomplish almost anything. In the wake
of the Gulf war, this perception opened the
door to a rush of new American military
undertakings. Viewed as a whole, it is the
widely divergent character of these tasks that
is striking: delivering humanitarian relief
(Operation "Provide Comfort"); rebuilding
shattered nations (Somalia); deterring the
spread of ethnic violence (Macedonia);
unseating oppressive regimes (Haiti);
protecting minorities (Kurds and Shiites); and
parceling out retribution from afar (Iraq)--not
to mention proposals too numerous to count for
military intervention in Bosnia.
Few of these initiatives were anchored in any
prudent calculation of American strategic
interests. Rather, as many observers have
noted, things were done largely in response to
some uproar in the media. But in any case,
there was no particular reason not to do them.
What was there to lose?
III
ENTER Mohammed Farah Aidid. Whether the Somali
leader ever had occasion to contemplate the
wisdom proffered by CSIS, the display of
American military might in the Gulf war can
hardly have failed to impress him. Yet whatever
thought Aidid might have given to theories of a
military-technical revolution, he remained
unintimidated. Contrary to the expectations of
many American policy-makers, Aidid did not take
[Imageto heart the lesson administered to Saddam
[Image] [Image]
Hussein and behave accordingly.
As a military commander, Aidid appears to have
had one great insight: unlike Saddam, he knew
that to play your enemy's game is the height of
folly. On the other hand, to engage your
opponent on terms that emphasize your own
strengths and expose his weaknesses is to gain
a priceless advantage. Too few generals have
grasped this seemingly simple idea. Grant
understood it; Lee refused to acknowledge it,
and led the Confederacy to exhaustion and
collapse. In Vietnam, Ho and Giap understood
it; French military leaders of the 1950's and
Americans in the 1960's did not, and suffered
disastrous defeats at the hands of a nominally
weaker power. To be sure, properly applying
this insight to the amalgam of circumstances
bearing on a particular conflict is far easier
to do after the fact than before. But doing so
is a mark of true generalship.
Saddam had challenged the United States on
terms that could hardly have been less
conducive to his own success. It was war in the
preferred American style: a high-tech,
high-firepower encounter conducted (for the
most part) on a battlefield remote from large
civilian populations, in which combatants and
noncombatants were (for the most part) clearly
differentiated, and where the operational
goal--liberating Kuwait--had the virtue of
being limited and unambiguous.
The terms under which Aidid took on the United
States were quite different. For starters, his
chosen terrain was urban--a complex and
congested environment as alien to American
forces as it was intimately familiar to Aidid's
supporters. The technology that had given rise
to speculation about a revolution in military
affairs proved ineffective, if not
counterproductive, for close-in urban warfare.
By the time Americans resorted to the use of
anti-tank guided missiles to root out snipers,
it had become apparent that the firepower which
had demolished the Iraqi Republican Guards was
ill-suited to the streets of Mogadishu. As
American attack helicopters took to dispersing
crowds of angry Somalis by spraying them with
the fire of 20-millimeter cannon, the large
numbers of dead and wounded--many of them women
and children--suggested that the Gulf war's
promise of a style of fighting minimizing
noncombatant casualties was a long way from
fulfillment.
But all that was nothing compared to the
astuteness with which Aidid identified the
American "center of gravity"--the point at
which Americans are most vulnerable, against
which a successful blow will likely have a
decisive effect. As is now readily apparent,
that point is the new American sensitivity to
casualties, a sensitivity as pervasive as it is
acute.
No doubt many factors contribute to this
sensitivity, not least of them the trauma of
Vietnam and even the personal history of the
incumbent commander-in-chief But the main
factor is the Gulf war itself, and the
expectations inspired by that conflict. As the
CSIS report suggests, at the very heart of the
military-technical revolution lies the belief
that American military power can hence forth
achieve success without significant loss of
American life. That expectation has become a
bulls-eye painted on the chest of every G.I.
sent into harm's way.
It was Aidid's genius to seize upon this
sensitivity, to orchestrate a campaign in which
technological superiority counted for little
and in which it would be only a matter of time
before a minor reverse laid open the flaws of
recent American thinking about war. The bloody
firefight of October 3 did just that.
Aidid's reward was not long in coming: the
Clinton administration promptly signaled its
intention of surrendering the field to the
Somali warlord as rapidly as a semi-respectable
withdrawal could be arranged. That American
military power could destroy Aidid and all his
henchmen--could obliterate the entire city of
Mogadishu, for that matter--was beside the
point. The United States would not do so.
Having inflicted approximately 100 casualties
on the American forces deployed to Somalia,
Aidid had won a victory that by any definition
of the term was decisive.
IV
WHAT are the implications of this defeat? Many
analysts worry that the setback in Somalia will
seriously undermine American military
credibility. Whether that will be the case
remains to be seen. Much depends on how the
Clinton administration manages the details of
disengagement, and how it responds to
subsequent crises. (Haiti comes immediately to
mind.)
In some respects, however, the fallout from
Somalia may even be positive. Among other
things, the American encounter with Aidid
might--indeed, should--accelerate the pace of
Gulf-war revisionism. Did Desert Storm give us
a glimpse of the future of warfare? Or was the
conflict there a splendid anachronism, a style
of warfare approaching obsolescence, if now
finally done right? Is Somalia an unpleasant
throwback to the colonial wars of the previous
century? Or does it hint at a type of conflict
that will continue to proliferate in the
post-cold-war era?
In considering these questions, we cannot
remind ourselves too frequently that by its
very nature, warfare is rooted in politics.
Just so, the continuing evolution of war will
be driven by political as much as by
technological developments. The world today is
entering into a period of profound political
transformation; any nation fancying that a
corner on the market of leading-edge technology
will give it a military mastery that
effectively transcends politics is setting
itself up for disappointment. Indeed, such a
nation ventures forth into an unruly world at
its peril.
Somalia provides the United States with a sharp
reminder of what that peril entails. The
fighting in Somalia has had little to do with
the stakes over which wars have been waged
since time immemorial--preserving sovereignty,
controlling critical resources, extending
spheres of influence, or seizing strategically
vital terrain. It has had everything to do with
ethnic identity, culture, history, and the
rivalry of unsavory local elites vying for the
privilege of picking over the remains of their
pathetic quasi-state. In this regard, the
Somali conflict shows a marked similarity to
the brutal and murky conflicts convulsing many
other societies of late. Events in
Mogadishu--like recent events in Moscow,
Sarajevo, Belfast, Monrovia, Port-au-Prince,
and perhaps even at New York's World Trade
Center--suggest that it is no longer the desert
or the steppe or the pampas that forms the
cockpit of struggle. Instead, the use of
violence to achieve political aims is
increasingly an urban phenomenon.
Furthermore, as the fighting in Mogadishu and
elsewhere suggests, when war erupts in the
streets, distinctions between combatants and
noncombatants become blurred, chivalrous
"rules" of warfare go by the board, methods
appropriate to winning air superiority or
targeting armored columns prove of limited
utility, and relatively crude hardware--mines,
mortars, and small arms--is employed with
telling effect. Such conflicts are seldom
susceptible of rapid resolution. Where they are
concerned, the finesse and expertise that are
the hallmarks of modern military
professionalism count for less than persistence
and pure bloody-mindedness. He who refuses to
quit wins--eventually.
Thus, the expedition inaptly named Restore Hope
can hardly be said to point the way toward a
future in which "U.S. leaders will be
increasingly free to conduct such operations,"
as the CSIS report hopefully predicted. Nor are
such conflicts likely to loosen "the
constraints on military operations imposed by
media coverage and public opinion." Far from
it. Absent clearly stated objectives and a
persuasive rationale pointing to substantial
American interests at stake, the firstsign of
trouble will provoke a public backlash, a
prospect that increases dramatically the
political risk of such undertakings.
So if General Aidid has deflated some of the
wilder expectations derived from Desert Storm,
it may be just as well. The painful lesson he
has taught the United States will remain a
useful one. The lost battle for Mogadishu has
shattered the dangerous illusion that the
American military prowess displayed in the
desert foretold an era of war without the
shedding of American or civilian blood, an era
in which American military might would
guarantee political order. Americans have
learned again what they should never have
forgotten: that to resort to arms is a
proposition fraught with uncertainty.
The lesson of Somalia is not that the United
States must avoid conflicts of that type at all
costs. Rather, Somalia reminds us yet again
that for even a small war, clarity of purpose,
resolution, and willingness to sacrifice are
prerequisites of victory. Any adversary worthy
of the namewill bring as much to the
battlefield. No revolution in warfare can
guarantee success on the cheap.
The errors and oversights that led to the
debacle in Somalia are mostly attributable to
Washington. For those errors, young American
soldiers paid the price. This is as usual. We
can only hope that in helping to restore some
sense of realism to American military policy,
those sacrifices may yet be redeemed.
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