While Milosevic moved fast to stay ahead of the impact of the air strikes, NATO was plagued by bad luck. Only about half the bombing sorties actually dropped ordnance on targets. Some planes were socked in by bad weather; other pilots couldn't eyeball their prey--NATO rules required visual identification of a target to prevent civilian casualties--through the thick cloud cover, and returned to base with bomb bays still loaded. "Everybody is surprised," says a White House aide, "that we're not as far along as we wanted to be."
Even as General Clark insisted he was not engaged in a race with the Serbs, he pressed Western capitals for reinforcements. Washington rushed to comply, and by week's end the Pentagon had dispatched more F-117A Stealths, B-52 bombers, Prowler radar jammers and refueling tankers, as well as B-1 bombers, to give NATO enough aircraft for round-the-clock operations. Top brass weighed the risks of sending in radar-visible Apache helicopter gunships that could lay down a withering blanket of bullets and rockets against small concentrations of Serb tanks and armor. There was also some worry within defense circles about a dwindling supply of American cruise missiles. Defense officials reported that there were only about 100 air-launched cruises available, but some 2,000 sea-launched Tomahawks remained. NATO political bosses--reassured perhaps by the impressive accuracy of the Tomahawks so far--agreed to widen the target base by 20% to include the Defense and Interior ministries in downtown Belgrade, then scrapped the phases entirely to let Clark choose almost any targets he wished. Not even a plea from Pope John Paul II for an Easter halt in the assault changed the West's plans. "NATO is not on the Easter pause mode," said a senior Washington official.
What Washington was not altering either was its basic faith in air power. Even though all the weapons at NATO's disposal seem impotent to halt the Serbs' practically unimpeded rampage in Kosovo, the White House refused to address publicly the question everyone else is asking: Will it now take NATO ground forces to defeat Milosevic? Plenty of American pundits and former U.S. officials urged Clinton to rethink NATO's reliance on air power alone, suggesting that only "boots on the ground" can rescue the faltering campaign. "We're in a war, and we need to allow our military to do what is necessary to prevail," says Frank Carlucci, Secretary of Defense in the Reagan Administration. "If it means troops on the ground, then so be it."
Some critics charge that by forswearing ground troops from the start to placate domestic opinion, the Clinton Administration handed Milosevic his current military advantage. "It was a terrible military statement," said Brent Scowcroft, National Security Adviser under George Bush. "If you tell Milosevic we're not going to put ground forces in, that makes him even more determined to ride out a bombing campaign." As a result, the choice could come down to sending in ground forces or giving up and going home.
As White House aides realized that even stepped-up air assaults might not slow the Serb offensive quickly enough, a few began debating among themselves whether a ground attack should be considered. In public the Administration carefully stops short of categorically ruling it out. But the talk among policymakers has never progressed beyond the instant conclusion that "we don't think the American people would support that." Neither, they reckoned, would Congress. They didn't order up contingency plans for such an operation or even broach the subject with Clinton, who remains opposed to the idea.
A NATO assessment last year determined it would take up to 200,000 allied troops to invade and secure Kosovo. Both Cohen and General Henry Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were leery of any such mission, especially when its goals seemed vague. Now it is obvious that NATO could not have built up such a force before Milosevic had gobbled up Kosovo. And sending in ground forces in the face of Serb resistance would be bloody. Mountainous Balkan terrain makes for tougher fighting than Iraq's wide open deserts; Serbs would hold the high ground, including passes too narrow for tanks; mines salt the few roads and bridges. Such pitfalls loom large for officers who came of age in Vietnam. "Part of contingency planning," a Pentagon colonel says, "is looking at options and ruling them out."
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