War Over Kosovo: Politics and Strategy in a Global Age

Military Review, May-June, 2003 by Michael A. Wormley

Andrew J. Bacevich and Eliot A. Cohen, eds., Columbia University press, NY, 2001, 223 pages, $22.50

What is the only shooting war that NATO has fought? Has America ever fought a war without a combat casualty? Has America ever fought a war without a bona fide military hero emerging7 Has America ever fought a war for primarily humanitarian reasons? War Over Kosovo answers all of these questions and more.

The review of the facts surrounding the 1999 U.S.-led NATO air war is useful, but the beauty of the book is its insightful analysis of the grand security strategy implications for the United States and the world. War Over Kosovo is a compendium of seven erudite national strategy thinkers. The authors' unifying proposition is that the Kosovo war is worthy of study because of the implications it holds for the "way developed countries will wage war in years to come." Their predictive analysis is accurate when viewed in light of the current war against global terrorism.

Essayist William Arkin begins the study with a thorough narrative and analysis of the predominantly air campaign. His discourse on the problems of near-instantaneous information and its effect on decisionmaking highlight his analysis. He recounts the delicate decisionmaking among the NATO coalition's high conmand and the reservation of a critical targeting decision at the U.S. National Command Authority level.

Eliot Cohen discusses the real disconnect between U.S. Cold War doctrine and the new way of war evident in the Kosovo campaign. He also reviews the phenomenon of casualty sensitivity plus an imbalance in U.S. high-level civil-military relations.

James Kurth postulates effectively that the Kosovo war was the first campaign in a new U.S. global grand strategy. He sees a grand strategy that portends a rise in new types of institutional ideological objectives rather than traditional security and economic objectives. He cautions against this new type of strategy, asserting that the Kosovo war was thrice flawed because it was fought to enlarge NATO, was justified as a humanitarian campaign, and essentially disregarded Russia and China.

Anatol Lieven echoes Kurth's admonishment of a neo-imperial strategy for the West, and he explores the proposition that the vaunted U.S. and NATO military superiority is potentially more relative than absolute. He underscores the necessity of combining technology with stamina, casualties, ruthlessness, and adaptability and forecasts that urban combat against well-armed nonstate actors is the near-term challenge for the West.

Alberto R. Coll analyzes the moral dimension of warfare that the Kosovo campaign faced. Was there just cause to intervene militarily to end the ethnic cleansing? Did NATO have the lawful authority? Was war NATO's last resort? Did NATO use morally justifiable means in the conduct of the war? Was this campaign a manifestation of new moral obligations for the United States? Coll answers these questions and efficiently encapsulates the morality debate. Andrew Bacevich sees resurgence, a la Vietnam, in a troubled relationship between Carl yon Clausewitz's "remarkable trinity" of the state, people, and army (military). Bacevich postulates that the need to balance the trinity might be beyond American interests. If so, Bacevich deduces that it foreshadows immense difficulties for U.S. security strategy.

Michael Vickers places the use of technology in the war within the current debate of a revolution in military, affairs (RMA). He reasons that the neglect in changing Cold War doctrine has left the RMA unfulfilled. He argues that the campaign in Kosovo underscored the necessity for transforming organization and doctrine within the military.

Not only do I recommend War Over Kosovo, I feel it is imperative that all military professionals internalize the book's conclusions. The analyses are prescient, complementary, and well supported. Study of the profession of arms demands that this wise work by seven national strategy thinkers be included in any professional library.

MAJ Michael A. Wormley, USAF, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas