The Bombing of Kosova - A Flawed Strategy

On February 4, 1999, US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said that "...Kosovo is not another Bosnia because we have learned the lessons of Bosnia - and we are determined to apply them here and now. We know - and we are seeing again - that the only reward for tolerating atrocities is more of the same." Implicit in her statement were three main assumptions. The first is that the military action taken by the international community in Bosnia in 1995 stopped the atrocities there. The second is that if the international community had undertaken similar military action earlier in Bosnia, the atrocities could have been stopped earlier. The third is that the method of "victory" in Bosnia was applicable to Kosovo. When NATO intervened in Kosovo the next month, it acted in accordance with Albright's assumptions. Unfortunately, because each of these assumptions was dangerously flawed, it can reasonably be said that the international community applied the wrong lessons from Bosnia to the Kosovo crisis.