Winning Ugly: NATO's War to Save Kosovo

by Ivo H. Daalder, Michael O'Hanlon, Michael E. O'Hanlon

Book Overview

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After eleven weeks of bombing in the spring of 1999, the United States and NATO ultimately won the war in Kosovo. Serbian troops were forced to withdraw, enabling an international military and political presence to take charge in the region. But was this war inevitable or was it the product of failed western diplomacy prior to the conflict? And once it became necessary to use force, did NATO adopt a sound strategy to achieve its aims of stabilizing...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0815716974
• ISBN13: 9780815716976
• Release Date: October 2001
• Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
• Length: 360 Pages
• Weight: 0.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

A worthwhile and serious study about American leadership

This is a serious and worthwhile study which analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of American leadership and the NATO system in its first offensive war. It is particularly useful to read this book after Kaplan's The Coming Anarchy (also reviewed). Kaplan makes clear there will be a lot more destruction of humanity that will require American leadership and the use of force. Daalder and O'Hanlon make clear that we have a lot to learn if we are going to engage in campaigns like Kosovo.Anyone who plans to advise the next Administration would be well served by reading these two books together and pondering their implications for improving American decision making and coalition leadership skills in the context of interventions in dangerous places. The clearest points in this book are Daalder and O'Hanlon's judgments that this was the right war, it was ultimately a success, airpower had a powerful but limited influence and without the threat of a land campaign and the Russian abandonment of Milosevic. In their view, airpower by itself would have failed, and that the United States has to lead for these interventions to work and the Clinton Administration consistently failed to lead the public, the Congress or our allies and because of the Clinton's Administrations prior vacillation on Saddam Hussein (loud threats, tiny attacks that ended quickly without coercing Saddam). The confused posturing of the Clinton Administration actually increased the likelihood that force would have to be used because Milosevic had no reason to believe they would actually fight to the end. Once NATO had consolidated its position and the Administration had launched the gamble of forceful coercion Daalder and O'Hanlon give Clinton and the allies high marks for realizing that NATO had to win or cease to be relevant and they stepped up to the challenge. Their critique of the Clinton Administration is decisive and thorough: "Having failed to make a public case for the use of force, the Clinton administration opted for a minimalist strategy. Its hope was that a bit of bombing would work. This was the military equivalent of the 'Hail Mary' play in football. Not only was this an irresponsible way to go to war, it also was unnecessary. A case for decisive military action-at a minimum, a robust air campaign from the war's outset--could have been made. The American public would probably have supported such a strategy given its disdain for Milosevic and memories of the Bosnian war. The tragedy of this case is that, in fearing the absence of public and congressional support, the administration embarked on the use of force lacking both. That is no basis for taking the tremendous risks that the use of force necessarily implies." (pages 224-225). This is a book worth studying and thinking about.

Winning Ugly: NATO's War to Save Kosovo

Ivo Daalder and Michael O'Hanlon are to be commended for their brilliant analysis of the issues and personalities that resulted in the are war in Kosovo. They have thoroughly researched the materials and provide a relatively objective assessment of the political dynamics surrounding NATO's first major combat operations. Unfortunately, brilliant minds often overlook simple facts. ALLIED FORCE, the air war over the Balkans, was not NATO's first combat operation, DELIBERATE FORCE, several years earlier, was. That point aside, The authors are to be commended for the wealth of first hand accounts they obtained to produce such a solid work. Of particular note are their policy implications ... a must read section of the book for anyone who thinks that we have wrestled with all the pol-mil nuances of the post-cold war world. Bravo gentlemen!