WASHINGTON -- The Clinton administration has subtly shifted the aims of NATO airstrikes against Yugoslavia, giving military officials a more achieveable goal while granting politicians a means to end the bombing without necessarily halting the slaughter in Kosovo.

But as they hedge their bets, both President Clinton and top NATO officials are giving no signs of ending the air campaign, which will soon enter a far more dangerous phase when allied planes begin to target Serbian tanks and artillery.

Citing mounting atrocities among Kosovar citizens at the hands of Serbian soldiers and police units, Clinton said yesterday, "That is all the more reason for us to stay the course."

Indeed, the NATO alliance may be strengthening. Italian government officials, who for much of the week had been calling for a quick end to military action and a move toward diplomacy, showed new resolve yesterday.

"The European position is united in a way it has never been before," Italian Defense Minister Carlo Scognamiglio told reporters yesterday. "We are convinced that in taking this action, albeit dramatic and painful, we are constructing a piece of the Europe of the future."

Still, top officials throughout the Clinton administration have shifted their demands on Milosevic from an explicit embrace of the peace accord hammered out in France during the last two months to a more vague acceptance of the framework of that accord. They say, however, that any changes would have to be acceptable to the Kosovar Albanians, and they remain resolved that any peace agreement include the one element that Yugoslavian President Slobodan Milosevic is most opposed to: a NATO-led peacekeeping force in Kosovo.

More important, administration officials say Milosevic must accept such an accord or face the "degradation" of his military forces. On Thursday, Gen. Wesley K. Clark, NATO's supreme commander in Europe, was more forceful, declaring the military objective to be the destruction of Milosevic's war-fighting capabilities.

But since then, the language has shifted to terms for more easily achieved, "degradation" or "damage."

"We must, and we will, continue until Serbia's leader, Slobodan Milosevic, accepts peace or we have seriously damaged his capacity to make war," the president repeated yesterday in his weekly radio address.

National Security Adviser Samuel R. Berger said Friday night on "The News Hour With Jim Lehrer": "We will reduce his capability to make war in a substantial way, and I have no question in my mind that Kosovo will be better for our having undertaken this action than had NATO walked away," even if Milosevic never signs a peace agreement.

In the world of diplomacy, such word shifts have meaning, especially when they are repeated throughout the administration, from the president to the secretary of state to the secretary of defense to the national security adviser, said Daniel Serwer, a senior fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace who served as the Clinton administration's special envoy to the Bosnian Federation.

"The administration is trying to say, 'We'll sit down and take another look at the Rambouillet agreement,' " he said.

Moreover, "they're trying to avoid a very clear definition for their military aims to leave themselves enough room on when to decide enough is enough."

Said Ivo Daalder, a former National Security Council Balkans adviser: "The nice thing about 'degrade' is indeed it means whatever you mean it to be."

White House aides and Balkans experts cautioned not to read too much into the change, at least for now. A senior administration official said the changing goals were simply a translation of political goals into military objectives, once airstrikes began.

This winter, the United States and the other eight nations in the so-called Contact Group at Rambouillet threatened military action if Milosevic did not sign the peace agreement. Once that threat was carried out, it was only natural to change the demands, especially since Republicans in Congress and defense officials were insisting on achievable war aims and an exit strategy.

Just yesterday, in the Republican response to Clinton's radio address, Sen. John Ashcroft of Missouri again laid out GOP demands: "First, our troops must receive a clear military mission. Second, our leaders must construct a strategy and timetable to achieve that mission. Third, our soldiers deserve an exit strategy that can bring them home safely."

White House aides are trying to give political opponents some attainable objectives without tying the hands of the commander in chief.

"You can't use the military to accomplish a political objective," the White House official said. "You have to translate political objectives into military terms."

Robert Hunter, who served as U.S. ambassador to NATO from 1993 to 1998, saw no significant changes in objectives either. The new language represents a warning to Milosevic about what he stands to lose if he does not accept a political settlement, not necessarily a loosening of demands.

So much diplomatic and military capital has been invested in a peaceful settlement to the Kosovo crisis that Hunter said he sees the future of NATO riding on a victory.

"We cannot lose this," he said. "The future of NATO's bet on this."