WASHINGTON -- Allied leaders will begin this weekend to lay the groundwork for alliance troops to wipe out pockets of Serb military resistance in Kosovo after NATO bombers "soften up" the Yugoslav army, much as the air war did against Iraqi forces occupying Kuwait, a NATO source said.
While NATO officially is committed only to an air campaign to drive President Slobodan Milosevic's forces out of Kosovo, alliance officials are reluctantly concluding that limited ground action might be needed to complete the military mission after weeks of punishing airstrikes.
"We're looking at it in a more flexible way," the source said. "You're seeing the beginning of a subtle shift, changing the language politically."
Britain signaled the shift, in advance of a gathering of NATO leaders in Washington this week for the alliance's 50th anniversary.
"We are determined that an international military force will deploy in Kosovo once airstrikes have done their job, so that the Kosovar people can return to their homes," Britain's Defense Secretary George Robertson said yesterday.
Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic "will not have a veto," he added.
While Britain has started to adjust its rhetoric to the changed outlook, the Clinton administration continues to deny any plans for ground troops.
Testifying before Congress yesterday, Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen and Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright continued to quote Clinton as saying he had "no intention" of sending ground forces into any hostile setting.
"The air campaign is moving along, we believe, in accomplishing what needs to be done, which is to damage and degrade and really undercut Milosevic's ability to control Kosovo," Albright said.
Cohen said NATO could give approval for U.S. Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark, the alliance's supreme military commander, to update a ground-war analysis from last fall.
"But that also takes consensus," Cohen said. "I haven't seen the consensus there. There are sharp disagreements about this within the alliance."
Initially, NATO planned for a force of 28,000 to 30,000 alliance troops, including about 4,000 Americans, that would be sent in largely to keep peace once an agreement had been reached on Kosovo autonomy.
Change in thinking
But few NATO officials now expect Milosevic to agree to an acceptable peace deal, so the allies have to adjust their thinking to plan for getting the refugees home. Intensive bombing will achieve a great deal -- "the best way to degrade is from the air" -- but not force a complete Serbian withdrawal from the province, the NATO source said.
The same source stressed that no one in the alliance favors a full-scale ground invasion in which NATO troops would have to fight their way in. After weeks of bombing, the forces would not meet with "serious resistance," but they can't expect the "permissive environment" that Clinton and top U.S. officials had previously spelled out as a condition for sending in ground troops.
Last fall, Clark came up with a concept for ground troops as part of the allied military mission against Yugoslavia, although NATO's political leaders rejected any ground element as too risky and politically untenable.
Clark's concept called for about 75,000 ground troops for a Kosovo mission alone, while 200,000 or more would be needed to subdue the entire country.
The number of allied troops needed to clean up remaining Serbian resistance would be impossible to predict until the bombing campaign comes to a halt.
Pentagon and NATO officials have repeatedly said the ever-intensifying airstrikes are degrading the Serbian military and slowing its advance in Kosovo.
But, despite such assertions, Serbian troops continue their assaults against the remaining units of the rebel Kosovo Liberation Army and forcing out tens of thousands more ethnic Albanians.
Moreover, the Serbs have recently reinforced their Kosovo forces with 3,000 troops, bringing the total to 43,000. An additional 12,000 to 14,000 special police are taking part in the Serbian mission known as Operation Horseshoe.
NATO and Pentagon officials have said it would take many weeks, perhaps several months, to prepare for the thousands of troops that would be necessary for ground action.
Besides training the troops for combat, the allies would have to shore up and expand currently inadequate ports and airports in neighboring countries along with the sparse and crumbling roads for the untold tons of military equipment.
"Amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics," said retired Marine Lt. Gen. Bernard Trainor. "It would take months to build up a Kosovo force, to say nothing of the political ingredient."
A key requirement for any ground force would be sensitive political negotiations with foreign leaders to obtain permission to use their countries as staging areas.
Wary and reluctant
Macedonia has been wary about a land attack beginning from its territory. Greece, though a NATO partner, has been a reluctant participant in the NATO campaign against Yugoslavia. Still, Greece has the region's best port -- Salonika -- that would be the most logical starting place for ground troops.
Other countries -- including Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria -- could be used for troop routes or stations, posing great distractions for Yugoslavia even if the troops are not fully deployed.
Military experts agree that troops would move north from Salonika through Macedonia and into Kosovo, taking the Morava River valley route before heading left toward Pristina, the capital of Kosovo. A simultaneous troop route into Kosovo could come from Albania to the west,the experts said.
"You can't go one dimension with land," said retired U.S. Army Gen. George A. Joulwan, Clark's NATO predecessor and the architect of the alliance's Bosnian campaign. "You have to launch at various routes."
Elements of the U.S. Army's V Corps in Germany would almost certainly be involved in an attack from Macedonia, including the 1st Infantry Division, "The Big Red One," and the 1st Armored Division, "Old Ironsides," officials said.
In addition, there would be contingents of British, German and French troops.
Another option would be an airborne assault from Albania, possibly including the U.S. Army's 101st Airborne Division or the U.S. 10th Mountain Division.
Before any ground operation, U.S. and allied special forces would slip into Kosovo to secure airfields, sabotage key Serbian facilities and possibly link up with KLA units for reconnaissance and intelligence operations.
Close-air support
The operation would begin with heavy close-air support, blistering attacks from Apache helicopters and anti-armor A-10 Thunderbolt II "Warthogs," as well as other Air Force fighter planes and carrier-based Navy attack aircraft.
What would occur next is what Joulwan calls "simultaneous engagements." As armored and infantry troops surge northward from Macedonia, airborne troops would sweep in from the west aboard a flock of helicopters, from Apaches and Black Hawks to Huey Cobras and Chinooks. Troops could also stream in from other countries.
The coordinated attacks from various points would try to "overwhelm the country," said John Hillen, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and an Army tank officer during the Persian Gulf war.
Hillen and other military analysts believe the Serbs will mount strong resistance, unlike Iraqi troops in the gulf war who surrendered in droves.
"They're fighting for their homeland. They're fighting for their religion. They don't like to be invaded," said Earl H. Tilford, director of research at the Strategic Studies Institute at the Army War College.
Using Soviet-made equipment such as the T-72 tank, the Serbs are not seen as a match for U.S. firepower. The Iraqis' T-72s were easily destroyed during the gulf war by the U.S. M1-A1 tank.
But Serbia is no flat desert terrain, where targets can easily be spotted from intelligence aircraft.
Most analysts and NATO officers believe the Serbs would quickly fade into the mountains and fight as guerrillas, embarking on search-and-destroy missions and ambushes against the superior NATO forces in the high passes and hilly folds.
The Serbian military doctrine, forged to resist an expected Soviet invasion during the Cold War, envisions quick dispersal and a war of attrition.
"The Serbs have caves and shelters and small caches all over Serbia and Kosovo," said Anthony H. Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, "small stocks of POL [petroleum, oil and lubricants], ammo and supplies, and are more than happy to live off the land."
Fear of chemical weapons
Hillen said another possible hurdle in fighting the Serbs is their possible use of chemical weapons.
Still another challenge would be house-to-house warfare within the cities. Although the U.S. military has devoted much attention to training for "urban warfare," it is grueling and bloody and avoided when possible.
One of the greatest strengths of the U.S. military is its ability to fight in the dark, with night-vision goggles and airborne sensors that can pick up the heat from a cooking fire.
"We try to own the night, we try to fight at night," said Tilford of the Army War College.
While NATO is deciding whether to begin planning for ground forces, Yugoslav forces in Kosovo are already preparing for that day.
Pentagon intelligence reports say Serbian troops are shoring up defenses in western Kosovo and digging trenches along the border with Macedonia, creating berms and bunkers to stymie an invasion force.
"Of course, we are basically expecting them. That is when we will get them [NATO soldiers]," Milosevic said this week.
"They will lose many people. We will destroy [the enemy] on the thresholds of our homes, defeat him and chase him out."
Sun staff writer Jonathan Weisman contributed to this article.
Pub Date: 4/22/99