Getting NATO's Success in Kosovo Right: The Theory and Logic of Counter-Coercion

Frank P. Harvey
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Frank P. Harvey: Department of Political Science Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, Frank.Harvey@del.ca

Conflict Management and Peace Science, 2006, vol. 23, issue 2, 139-158

Abstract: The overwhelming consensus in the literature on Slobodan Milosevic's decision to pull Serb troops out of Kosovo in June, 1999, is very clear—his concession after 78 days of bombing was a direct product of both air strikes and NATO's preparations for a ground war. Most analysts believe it was the combination of these two pressures that established a sufficiently clear, resolute and capable threat to force Milosevic to comply. This paper directly challenges standard interpretations of `successful' coercion in Kosovo on empirical, theoretical and logical grounds, and offers a resounding disconfirmation of conventional wisdom: (1) the ground war threat failed to satisfy even the most basic prerequisites for effective coercion; (2) Milosevic had no reason to interpret the threat as credible, given the very clear signals from NATO confirming the `refusal' to mobilize and deploy ground troops; (3) the assertion that Milosevic viewed the threat as credible would require an assumption of procedural non-rationality derived from misperception theory (an assumption that lies outside the boundaries of rational coercion); (4) to the extent that Milosevic may have misperceived the evidence, he would rationally have preferred to fight the kind of ground war NATO appeared to be planning as a way of maximizing counter-coercion leverage (Milosevic's only hope for success); and (5) given the identical nature of the outcomes, it would have made more strategic sense for Milosevic to risk losing Kosovo after a ground war (in the hopes of significantly increasing NATO's costs) rather than be forced to hand over the territory to NATO after an essentially cost-free, `virtual' war. In direct contrast to accepted wisdom, the air strike and ground war threats were mutually exclusive and contradictory. To the extent that a ground war threat was credible, the impact on successful coercion would have been negative, not positive. Stated in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions, the absence of a credible ground war threat (both in terms of the `threat' and the actual `deployment' of troops) was a necessary condition for NATO's success , and, in combination with an escalation in air strikes in the final two weeks of May, constituted sufficient conditions for NATO's victory. This interpretation of the Kosovo case constitutes a more balanced and complete explanation for Milosevic's decision that is empirically valid, logically consistent and theoretically sound—conventional wisdom fails on all three grounds.

Keywords: deterrence; compellence; coercive diplomacy; rational decision-making; Kosovo; NATO; military strategy; U.S. foreign policy; air strikes; ground war. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2006
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:sae:compsc:v:23:y:2006:i:2:p:139-158

DOI: 10.1080/07388940600665842

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