What is the reason for NATO bombing Yugoslavia?

65438+1At 3 am on May 27th, 999, a motorcade sped from Cologne Airport to the Bristol Hotel in Bonn, and all the streets in expressway and the city were blocked. US Secretary of Defense Cohen secretly arrived in Bonn.

At that time, NATO troops led by the United States had bombed Yugoslavia for nine weeks, and Yugoslav President Milosevic was not prepared to give in. Cohen's visit is to discuss the possibility of launching a ground invasion with NATO allies. The defense ministers of Britain, France, Germany and Italy were all called in. After six and a half hours of debate, the five ministers came to an important conclusion: their governments must decide whether to assemble ground troops, and they must make this choice within a few days.

Although President Clinton publicly ruled out the possibility of NATO launching a ground war from the day the air battle began, the preparations for NATO's ground invasion of Kosovo have been going on, and the progress has far exceeded the public disclosure. On the one hand, NATO investigated Yugoslavia's national defense situation through the Kosovo Liberation Army, on the other hand, it sent engineering troops to step up the reinforcement of a main road for armored forces to use when launching attacks. Allied governments are also considering how many troops should be sent to participate in the ground invasion.

Throughout the war, although the CIA has always denied its relationship with KLA, it has actually been working closely with it to collect the deployment of Yugoslav troops in Kosovo. At the end of May, KLA armed forces launched a powerful offensive with the support of NATO and air cooperation. NATO military commanders now believe that this attack may be an important reason for the sudden compromise between President Milosevic and his generals. They believe that this is a prelude to NATO's ground invasion.

Invasion plan

On March 24, the first day of the Kosovo war, President Clinton delivered a televised speech to the whole country, saying, "I will not send our troops to fight in Kosovo." However, in mid-April, on the eve of the summit to commemorate the 50th anniversary of NATO, although the Pentagon was still not interested in launching a ground attack, Clark, commander-in-chief of NATO and American general, summoned British officers at NATO headquarters in Mons, Belgium, to listen to their opinions on various ground war options. After the meeting, Clinton decided that if aerial bombing failed and ground invasion became the only way to win the war, he would send troops to participate in the war.

In Mons, Clark's military staff told him that if Serbs wanted to leave Kosovo, they would have to use ground troops. Therefore, American and allied forces must be deployed as soon as possible, because the invasion time must be set before the arrival of winter.

On April 24th, on the eve of the 50th anniversary summit of NATO, Clinton asked British Prime Minister Tony Blair to stop talking openly about ground invasion, so as not to cause problems among allies and make Russians unwilling to work for a diplomatic solution. In return, Clinton agreed to upgrade NATO's initial contingency plan.

As a result, dozens of officers from the Mons headquarters of NATO and 60 military personnel from the European headquarters of the US military in Heidelberg, Germany, began to cooperate to make a top-secret invasion plan. By mid-May, Clark had a pre-selection plan for ground invasion, and planned to launch a full-scale attack on Yugoslavia from the south through a road in Albania with175,000 troops. The White House called it the "Weiss Plan", which was marked as "B" (B minus) plan on the NATO operational map.

Clark returned to Washington in May, hoping that the White House would approve the ground invasion plan before June 1 year and complete the deployment before September 1 year. However, the White House hopes to postpone the decision as much as possible, only looking forward to good weather, and still taking aerial bombing as the best policy. Berger asked Clark to postpone the deadline for making a final decision by at least 10 days.

At the same time, Clark ordered engineers from the United States, Germany and Italy to seize the time to reinforce roads so that they could withstand the passage of heavy tanks and artillery; German and British troops were ordered to prepare pontoons and other equipment to transport NATO armored forces by water. On May 19, 2009, Clark briefly introduced his "sub-B" plan to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the heavily guarded conference room of the Pentagon, but the response was cold, and the participants were skeptical about its feasibility. After the meeting, Secretary of Defense Cohen and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Sheldon reported their views on the plan to Clinton and reiterated their reluctance to send ground troops. Sheldon is unwilling to launch a large-scale ground war and thinks that air strikes can work.

Clinton's national security team is more interested in the ground invasion plan than Pentagon commanders. They even asked the Pentagon to consider it more appropriate to launch a ground attack on Yugoslavia from several directions-Bulgaria in the east, Bosnia in the west and even Hungary in the north.

On May 27th, a secret meeting was held in the German Ministry of Defence, which lasted from 10 in the morning to 4: 30 in the afternoon. The defense ministers of various countries had a heated debate on whether to launch a ground invasion. British Defense Secretary Robertson urged NATO to immediately prepare to send ground troops to Yugoslavia and promised to send 50,000 British officers and men to participate in the war. Britain is the main promoter of the ground invasion, and it is Britain that lobbies American officials at every pass. Just before this secret meeting, on May 23rd, Blair telephoned to persuade Clinton to agree to let NATO Secretary General work out a detailed ground action plan. British officials are well aware that the relationship between Clark and Cohen is deteriorating, because Cohen strongly opposes ground invasion and thinks that it is much safer to insist on air strikes than ground attacks. The British gave Clark the phone records of Blair and Clinton in case the US Department of Defense failed to inform Clark of the tacit understanding reached between Croatia and Bulgaria.

Germany and Italy have reservations about ground invasion. France did not constantly oppose the invasion, but thought it was too late to prepare for the attack before winter. At the end of the meeting, the ministers agreed that NATO could not lose the war, and the five governments needed to make a decision on whether to send ground troops within one week.

The CIA is on the move.

At the same time, in a secret operation center in the Albanian border city of Kukes, the special forces of the United States and Europe are discussing how to transform the KLA armed forces into a light infantry team to "blow up the bridge behind the enemy". In fact, since the end of April, the CIA and NATO have been working closely with KLA. Its intelligence station in Tirana and 24 American special forces in Kukes and Durres used KLA armed personnel to collect information about the deployment of Yugoslav troops. However, the United States does not want to disclose this relationship with KLA, because there is evidence that KLA militants are also involved in atrocities and drug smuggling. 1In February 1998, Clinton's special envoy to the Balkans characterized "KLA" as a "terrorist". In order to hide people's eyes and ears, the U.S. military took the Albanian Second Army as the intermediary. Representatives of KLA met with Albanian officers in the Albanian Ministry of Defence every day, and an official of the Central Intelligence Agency and an Apache attack helicopter brigade were present every time. Before the war, American military officers stationed in Kosovo as United Nations verification observers and forced to leave also kept close contact with KLA leaders.

On May 26th, "KLA" armed forces attacked the Yugoslav army with the support of Albanian artillery, but in the following three days, they were defeated, and 250 elite soldiers were besieged by 700 Yugoslav soldiers on Pastrik Mountain. Clark said in a video conference: "I will not let the Serbs occupy that mountain. If we can't help Jack keep that mountain, Americans will bleed for it in the future. "

On June 7, the United States dispatched two B-52 bombers for rescue, and all the bombs on the plane were dropped on the defensive positions of two battalions of the Yugoslav army. NATO believes that the bombing that killed hundreds of Yugoslav soldiers may be a turning point in NATO's victory. But after the war, they found no signs of mass death there. What surprised NATO commanders even more was that so many Yugoslav troops still withdrew from Kosovo. Their conclusion is that the Yugoslav Third Army can persist in Kosovo for several weeks or even months. However, Clark later said in a speech in a think tank in Washington that the B-52 bombing of Mount Pastrik made Milosevic think that NATO would launch a ground invasion of Yugoslavia, which was a turning point in his agreement to withdraw troops.

Whether Milosevic thought so or not, when Yugoslavia was preparing to withdraw its troops, Clinton was really considering the ground attack plan. At noon on June 2, Berger, assistant to the president for national security affairs, raised four points when meeting with several foreign policy experts who advocated ground invasion: the first point is that "the war must be won"; The fourth point is that "any scheme can be considered". When someone asks, "Does the President support sending ground troops?" Berger replied, "Think back to my first point. This means that if the ground invasion can win the war, the government is ready to do it. Berger's words surprised experts. In the afternoon, Clinton's aides worked out several plans, including: dividing several "safe areas" in Kosovo; Armed with "KLA", or launched a full-scale invasion of Yugoslavia through Albania, Bosnia, Bulgaria and Hungary. At 6: 30 the next morning, the White House Situation Room received a report. Milosevic gave in and agreed to accept the NATO peace agreement. But the White House is worried about it. In the afternoon, Clinton also discussed the issue of sending troops to Kosovo with members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

On the evening of June 7, B-52 bombers bombed the Pastric Mountains again. The next day, NATO and Russia reached an agreement on the draft United Nations peace. Two days later, Milosevic signed an agreement allowing 50,000 NATO soldiers to invade Kosovo, but the word "invasion" was replaced by "peacekeeping".

Terror deterrence

One of the lies of this war is that the leaders of NATO 19 member countries directed the bombing of Yugoslavia through a committee, but the allied generals and political leaders knew in their hearts that important decisions-such as whether to bomb buildings inhabited by a large number of civilians-could only be made by the leaders of the United States, Britain and France, while France usually hesitated during discussions.

Whenever NATO bombing kills Kosovo refugees or Serbian people, the international community immediately reacts strongly, and people's support rate for bombing drops. Therefore, the leaders of the United States, Britain and France had to weigh the deterrent effect after the bombing and the possible opposition of public opinion before approving the bombing target. These leaders knew in advance the possible civilian casualties, but in order to crush Milosevic's will, they should not only cause suffering to Serbs, but also avoid causing too many civilian casualties. In the words of White House spokesman Lockhart, "let Belgrade fall into darkness", but be careful.

On April 3, when President Chirac saw the Yugoslav Ministry of the Interior building in flames, he realized that the air raid of 1 1 day had far exceeded the original goal. He asked for an urgent call with Clinton to discuss the strategy implemented by NATO commander Clark. It was Easter, and there was no confidential telephone in Chirac's medieval castle. The White House immediately ordered a communication team to be sent to the US European Command in Germany to connect Chirac with the most confidential Stu-3 telephone line. Chirac said on the phone that he hopes to have a say in all major decisions about the war, just like the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Britain. Clinton said that the approval process for bombing targets is too slow. He agreed to include the French, and proposed to make a list of major bombing actions that each of them had the right to veto. Chirac demanded that any bombing of Montenegro should be reviewed by him. Blair demanded veto power over all targets attacked by B-52 bombers taking off from Britain. All three leaders demanded bombing targets that caused heavy casualties or had a significant impact on ordinary people's lives-such as power grid, telephone system and Belgrade.

Buildings-veto power.

The French chief of staff and other European officials still keep calling NATO commander Clark to ask about the bombing, so that he spends half the day on the phone with allied military and political officials. To this end, Washington set up a "management Committee" to ease different opinions on military operations. The core figures of this committee are the so-called five-member group: US Secretary of State madeleine albright and the foreign ministers of Britain, France, Germany and Italy. They hold a five-party conference call almost every day to maintain unity. Italy's foreign minister has often expressed concern about the escalating bombings. Albright first called the German and British foreign ministers and asked them to work as Italian foreign ministers. Sometimes, even Britain will hesitate to determine the bombing target. For example, when choosing Belgrade's power supply network as the bombing target, British Foreign Secretary Cook thought it would affect some big hospitals. But Albright finally persuaded him.

In mid-April, NATO commander Clark believed that Yugoslav troops hid helicopters and fighter planes in the bunker of Podgorica airport in Montenegro and used the radar there to track the whereabouts of NATO fighters, so he ordered the destruction of the airport. At first, France disagreed. General Clark and Albright, Berger, Cohen and Sheldon began to call their French counterparts to persuade them. France finally gave in to their plan.

Under Clinton's leadership, although the British ground invasion was not adopted by NATO leaders, they agreed to take two other major steps: bombing Milosevic's personal property and the property of his relatives and friends; It is necessary to bomb not only the TV broadcasting building, but also the transportation and water and electricity systems, which will have a great impact on the lives of a large number of civilians and implement the terrorist deterrent of war.

At the end of April, before American warplanes fired missiles at the headquarters building of the Socialist Party in Belgrade, NATO personnel in charge of planning the bombing explained in detail the risks involved in the bombing in a document handed over to US President Bill Clinton, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and French President Jacques Chirac. The document is marked next to the photo of the headquarters building: "The accompanying losses are: 50 to 100 government and party employees will be killed; The shock wave of the bomb will kill about 250 people. " Officials in Washington and London quickly approved the bombing plan. France, on the other hand, is unwilling to mention that there are Yugoslav television and radio stations in the party building.

The Americans tried to blow up Yugoslavia's power system in the first week of the war, but they were opposed by France. In order to break the deadlock, the military leaders of the two countries exchanged views on how to cause power system paralysis. The United States proposed to blow up the transmission line, and its repair work would take several days or even weeks, but France considered this plan unacceptable. The United States also proposed the use of top secret weapon CBU-94, which can only cut off power for a few hours. Sheldon also showed his French counterparts the effectiveness of this weapon. But France is still hesitant. The Americans were in a hurry and asked the French to think of other ways. As a result, the French had to accept the opinion of the United States. Late at night on May 3, the Americans ordered the bombing of Yugoslavia's power grid and substations, destroying 70% of Yugoslavia's power supply facilities. Three weeks later, France agreed to bomb the Yugoslav power system more severely and cut off the tap water supply. The only thing the French didn't agree to bomb was a bridge, because the Serbs built a human wall on it. Knowing that persuasion was useless, Americans gave up.

In the month after mid-April, almost every day, there was news of accidental bombing of civilians: the city of Alexinaz was bombed, killing 17 civilians; A passenger train was blown in half when crossing the bridge; More than a dozen refugees were killed during the trip; More than 20 people were killed by American laser-guided bombs; A bus was hit by a NATO bomber while crossing the bridge, and 47 passengers were killed in the fire.

On May 7th, a series of bombs and a missile attacked a market and a hospital in Nish, killing five people. Subsequently, the American B-52 bomber that shocked the world blew up China's embassy in Belgrade with five missiles, killing three China journalists and injuring more than 20 embassy staff. The bombing target of China Embassy was determined by the Central Intelligence Agency. More subtly, among the nearly 1000 targets of NATO bombing Yugoslavia, only this target was selected by the CIA. The next day, Clark put a lot of mocking faxes on his desk. Many faxes say, "Dear Mr. Clark, we have moved, and our new address is ..."

When NATO began bombing Yugoslavia, only 169 targets were drawn up, but at least 976 targets were actually bombed in the air raid. The bombing target was mainly put forward by the United States Integrated Intelligence Analysis Center. They will summarize and analyze the information from all sides, and then send the bombing target to the target personnel of the US military headquarters in Europe through the encrypted "Siprinet", and also send it to several target headquarters of the US military in Italy. After the target is selected, the relevant personnel should also check according to the latest information, including satellite images, human intelligence, and electronically intercepted telephone conversations. To ensure that the target is still used for military purposes before the bombing. For those bombing targets that will kill more than 20 civilians, the relevant personnel should further determine the "target point", attack angle, weapons used and so on of each missile. Then, these repeatedly audited bombing plans were submitted to the White House, the British Prime Minister's Office and the French Presidential Office for final approval.

Strategic dispute

While the Kosovo war was going on, Clark and his air force commander Short also had serious differences of opinion on how to fight the war. Clark insisted that the air force pursue Yugoslav tanks and artillery in Kosovo. Short believes that it is useless to fight like this, and the correct way of fighting should be to destroy Yugoslavia's "strategic" goals in one fell swoop, such as the buildings and power plants of Yugoslavia's central headquarters. He thinks his opponent is like the same snake. Bombing Belgrade is to cut off the snakehead, while bombing scattered tanks and small troops in Kosovo is just a snake's tail. He compared his strategic thinking to "picking the jewel in the crown".

Until the end of the 78-day air attack on Yugoslavia, how to fight this war, what is the best strategy and so on were inconclusive, and they are still arguing until now.

In fact, NATO led by the United States began to plan air strikes against Yugoslavia as early as June 1998. By the night of the war, 40 versions of the air combat plan had been designed. But NATO finally decided to divide air combat into three steps.

The first stage: combat air defense and command bunker; The second stage: expand the bombing scope to the infrastructure south of 44 degrees north latitude of Yugoslavia, just south of Belgrade; The third stage: bombing Belgrade.

The United States and its NATO allies did not make a long-term operational plan, because the Clinton administration and Clark were worried that if NATO 19 allies were asked to consider long-term operations, they would not agree to go to war at all.

On the night when the bombing began on March 24, Lieutenant General Short was sitting in the NATO Air Force Joint Operations Center at Vicenza Air Force Base in Italy. On the big electronic map on the wall, yellow, green and red signals are flashing. He is waiting to launch the first missiles into Yugoslavia. Short has carried out 276 bombing missions in Vietnam, and led the B- 15 fighter group to bomb many times in the Persian Gulf War. His strategic thinking on this air raid is that bombing the Yugoslav Third Army in Kosovo is a waste of time and financial resources, because the casualties of the Third Army will not affect the morale of Milosevic and his leadership at all. He urged that the first missiles should blow up the power plants and office buildings of Yugoslav government departments. 199 1 that's how the war against Iraq began. In his view, this is the theoretical basis of air combat, and it is necessary to bomb targets with strong military, high economic value or great psychological influence, so as to make them a means to collapse the enemy's will. But only 53 bombing targets were identified that night, and most of them were air defense and radar positions. The purpose is only to provide a safe air environment for NATO pilots when carrying out bombing missions.

In fact, Clark is also skeptical about whether the initial air strike scale can achieve the expected goal. But after a year as the supreme commander of NATO forces, he knew that the current plan was the biggest and best plan that the Allies could approve. He also believes that the war has a 40% chance of winning in three days. In his view, Milosevic just wanted to find an excuse to leave Kosovo.

But the day after the war, Clark urged the allies and Washington to reassess what they thought was a very short-lived conflict. Privately, he has begun to talk about preparing for the worst, that is, preparing for a ground war. He also asked NATO Secretary General Javier Solana to allow him to skip the second-stage bombing plan and directly implement the third-stage bombing plan. His request made some NATO allies uneasy. They think that as soon as the war started, Clark changed his strategy and greatly expanded the geographical scope and target types of bombing.

Clark refused to accept the proposal of some political leaders of NATO allies, especially those of Greece and Italy, to stop bombing. He was annoyed at the cowardice of his allies. The graduate of the West Point Military Academy graduated with the first grade in his class, won a Rhodes scholarship and went to Oxford University for further study. He studied not only political philosophy, but also army military strategy and tactics. He also participated in the Vietnam War and was injured four times during the reconnaissance mission. Military career not only won him the Purple Heart Medal, but also made him understand that public recognition is crucial to the victory of the war. He didn't accept Short's suggestion at the beginning of the war, which doesn't mean that he didn't agree with Short's opinion, because the bombing target he later tried to promote far exceeded Short's suggestion.

His political shrewdness played a role. On March 28th, Clark made a special trip to visit the home of NATO Secretary General Javier Solana in Brussels. The general gave the Secretary-General a lesson in military knowledge and explained to him the lethal range of different types of bombs. When it comes to choosing the "target point" of bombing-such as the beams and key stones on the building-the whole building will collapse inward; NATO planners can calculate how far blown glass can fly, and can calculate whether the flying glass will scratch people's skin or get in. If they change the angle or impact force of the warhead, they can determine whether the building was destroyed by one wall or three walls. Clark hopes Solana will understand these truths and approve the bombing of two specific targets: one is the seven-story stone building of the Yugoslav Ministry of Internal Affairs, and the other is the Yugoslav special police headquarters building. Although these two buildings were emptied a few days ago, bombing these two targets in the early days of air strikes can have an impact on the psychology of Yugoslav soldiers and civilians. On March 30th, the North Atlantic Council debated Clark's above two goals, but failed to reach an agreement, so Solana was asked to handle the matter on behalf of the Committee. Two days later, Solana approved Clark's request.

In mid-September, Clark finally announced the losses caused by the bombing to the Yugoslav army: 93 tanks, 153 armored personnel carriers, 339 military vehicles, 389 cannons and mortars were destroyed. In other words, the 78-day NATO bombing has caused Yugoslavia to lose one-third of its military strength in Kosovo. The general didn't have the courage to list the destruction of a large number of civilian facilities as a brilliant achievement. According to Yugoslavia's report, NATO air strikes destroyed 24 bridges, 12 railway stations, 36 factories, 7 airports, 16 gas stations and warehouses, 17 TV towers and many power facilities, which made Yugoslavia's economy retrogress for decades.