KOSOVO – AN UNFINISHED WAR

- Book Presentation -

The presence, in media, of the news regarding the conflict between the two main Kosovo communities, Serbs and Albanians, as well as the evolution of the political conflict between Republic of Serbia and other international entities on Kosovo, demonstrates that this problem is still unsolved.

          The book does not concern the history of the conflict. It is a work in the military analysis field. The history part is necessary to understand the origins of the war and the reasons of the military campaign conducted by NATO in 1999 against Republic of Yugoslavia. The military analysis of the war has two main goals:

1.    To emphasize the significant issues of the military campaign, which, without few exceptions, have not been approached or have been little approached.

2.    To demonstrate that the conflict might not be finished yet. From the political point of view, this is well-known. Nevertheless, there might be some chances to transform the political conflict into a military one.

          The book begins with a short history of the conflict, for coherence and to create a general picture of the origins and the evolution of military events. Then, another chapter presents the military capabilities of the belligerents, in order to show the gap between them: international armed forces, possessing hi-tech equipment and huge resources, versus a much smaller force, possessing old and obsolete Soviet (and Soviet-based) equipment, as well as very few resources.  

          The history part of the book continues with a chronology of the military events, by collecting information from various sources and synthesizing them. Although this chronology does not include all the details, it is, nevertheless, a clear picture of the war performed by the NATO Air Force, Navy and Special Forces against Federal Republic of Yugoslavia for 78 days. The chronology was necessary, because I could not find any accurate description of military actions and it is not possible to study a military conflict without it.

          The history part ends with a chapter that presents the campaign assessments, where I provided different figures of armed forces involved, in terms of people and means, as well as damages on both sides.

          The military analysis of the armed conflict approaches certain subjects that I consider not enough, even superficial approached in the previous works regarding the Kosovo War. These are as the following:

- How many invisible planes were hit or downed?

- How efficient was the Yugoslav air defense?

- Is the old military equipment still useful in the modern armed conflict?

- How efficient is the military technology against armed forces which use old and obsolete military equipment?

- What did the NATO Special Forces do during the campaign?

- How many Yugoslav tanks were destroyed in Kosovo?

- Were the armed forces of the Republic of Albania involved?

- Was a ground offensive against Yugoslavia achievable?

- Did NATO leaders really wish to conduct a ground offensive?

- Which were the actions of the Russian Federation armed forces during the conflict and at the end of it?

          There are still false stories regarding some of the subjects above-mentioned. For instance, there are journalists (and not only journalists) still convinced that NATO air assets destroyed only 14 Yugoslav tanks in Kosovo. This problem is approached in a separate chapter. Another false story concerns the loss of an F-117 Stealth. Many believe that this was the only victory of the Yugoslav air defense. On contrary, more aircrafts were downed or damaged, but not as many as some sources claimed at the end of campaign or after that.

          By approaching the details using military analysis methods, based on the above mentioned questions, one can find interesting facts. A complex picture, full of interesting aspects, results. And these aspects could not be seen before, while studying the wide range of sources that provide information on the subjects. For instance, the loss of the invisible fighter, corroborated with the details of the air operations, offers many opportunities to search and to reach novel conclusions.  The book only tries to clarify some aspects, without pretending a high level of accuracy.

          The most important theme of the book starts from a question: the Allied Force campaign (air offensive conducted by NATO against Yugoslavia in 1999) put an end to the military conflict? In my opinion, there are two answers: one for short term, another one for long term. For the short term, the answer is YES, the bloodshed was stopped, the problems were solved, the humanitarian crisis ended. For long term, the evolution of the political conflict is full of uncertainties. One can state, by watching the TV news, that it is not ended. What will it happen? Are there still risks to degenerate into a military conflict? This book tries to give an answer.