[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 121 (Thursday, September 16, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S11018-S11023]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               OPERATION ALLIED FORCE: LESSONS RELEARNED

  Mr. ROTH. Mr. President, over the couse of the next several months, 
countless ``lessons learned'' studies assessed Operation Allied Force 
will be conducted by NATO authorities as well as by our armed services, 
our own Committees here in Congress, and their counterparts found among 
our NATO allies.
  What I wish to do today is to approach this matter of ``lessons 
learned'' from the vantage point of one who regards the NATO Alliance 
to be a vital

[[Page S11019]]

interest of the United States. I want to ensure that NATO's experience 
in Kosovo contributes to an Alliance that is better prepared for the 
challenges it will face in the next millennium.
  The conflict over Kosovo was NATO's first war, and the Alliance did 
win. Operation Allied Force forced the regime of Serbian Prime Minister 
Slobodan Milosevic to withdraw his forces from Kosovo. It thereby ended 
the systematic brutality that regime exercised against the province's 
Albanian population.
  It was in many ways a military campaign of unprecedented success. Not 
a single NATO airman lost his or her life to enemy fire in the course 
of over 35,000 sorties. Despite a few tragic errors, the bombing 
campaign featured unmatched accuracy and precision.
  However, while Operation Allied Force did attain victory, the 
accomplishment of its goals did not yield a shared sense of triumph and 
finality. This absence of triumph is the product of how NATO exercised 
its power in this war in light of the tremendous military advantages it 
had over its opponent, the forces of the Milosevic regime.
  Among NATO's first and foremost objectives in this war was to stop 
the atrocities then being committed against Kosovar Albanians. Yet, in 
the course of Operation Allied Force, Milosevic accelerated and 
expanded his campaign of terror. Before the war was over, nearly 90% of 
Kosovar Albanians were driven from their homes by Serbian para-military 
and military forces. Nearly one half were actually expelled from 
Kosovo.
  Moreover, no less than 10,000 Albanians were executed by Milosevic's 
henchmen during the course of the NATO campaign. As we learn daily from 
the grim excavations of body-filled wells and mass graves, the actual 
figure is probably much, much higher. And then there were the countless 
rapes of Albanian women, which for cultural reasons will unfortunately 
never be fully reported--all occurring during the course of Operation 
Allied Force.
  When assessing the lessons learned from the Kosovo war, we must not 
forget that the primary purpose of NATO's threats and then its bombing 
campaign was to prevent these tragedies from occurring.
  Then there are the facts concern the balance of power between NATO 
and Serbia. It took the Alliance 78 days to force Milosevic from 
Kosovo, a region that size of Los Angeles County whose population was 
90% Albanian--a population that wanted NATO's support and that would 
have warmly welcomed Alliance ground forces as was done when Operation 
Joint Guardian commenced.
  That this campaign took 78 days is especially disturbing when one 
takes into account that, according to a Washington Post report, NATO 
was a standing force some 37 times larger than that fielded by Slobodan 
Milosevic and a combined economy that is 696 times larger than that of 
Serbia. These statistics do not come close to capturing the vast 
technological advantages NATO forces have over the Serbian military.
  That NATO won the war is obvious. That in the course of Operation 
Allied Force, NATO demonstrated its awesome capabilities is 
indisputable. But, when assessing the lessons learned from this war, 
one cannot avoid the haunting fact that its results included an acute 
and brutal increase in the suffering of the Kosovar population, that an 
Alliance of such power and magnitude took over two months to defeat an 
exponentially far weaker foe, and that in the aftermatch of Operation 
Allied Force, the regime that created this crisis remains not only 
in place, but belligerent.

  So what are the key lessons and issues raised by NATO's first war, a 
war that brought NATO victory yet, denied it triumph?
  The first and foremost lesson concerns the Alliance's political 
cohesion. Many have stated that NATO's greatest success in this 
conflict was that its 19 members hung together.
  There can be no doubt that this cohesion was rooted in the common 
values and interests that bind the 19 Allies. But in recognizing this, 
one must not overlook a central fact: The first lesson from Operation 
Allied Force is that the trust among Allied military personnel promoted 
by NATO is an invaluable reinforcer of the political cohesion binding 
NATO Allies. Allied unity in this war was never a given. Several allies 
floated proposals to temporarily halt the bombing campaign. Others 
publicly denied the use of their territory for forced entry into Kosovo 
or Serbia proper. NATO's political cohesion was vulnerable in an often 
very visible manner.
  The trust and unity fostered among allied militaries through fifty 
years of joint planning, training, command and operations significantly 
buttressed the durability of Alliance cohesion during the conflict. 
Unfortunately, I fear that the significance of this military bond may 
never be fully appreciated. I am disturbed that French Defense Minister 
Alain Richard recently asserted that the experience of Operation Allied 
Force has only further legitimized Paris' inclination to remain outside 
of NATO's Integrated Military Command.
  Quite the contrary, the war over Kosovo underscored the need for all 
Allies to become full members of that integrated command structure. It 
is an institution that facilitates and orchestrates more effective 
military operations by the NATO coalition. Its day-to-day operation is 
a cornerstone of trust and credibility that in times of crisis and war 
not only maximizes NATO's military effectiveness, but also its 
political unity.
  As I just stated, numerous studies assessing the strategy behind 
Operation Allied Force are underway. Much attention will be directed, 
as it should, toward the factors that contributed to Milosevic's 
capitulation. These, of course, include that regime's intensified 
international isolation, the actual damage done to its military and 
civilian infrastructure, the role of the KLA, and the influence of 
slowly increasing NATO ground force deployments around Kosovo, among 
others.
  We also need to ensure a fair and objective assessment of the 
Alliance's decision to tailor the bombing campaign around a strategy of 
gradual escalation. And, there has to be a thorough review of the 
decision to preclude the use of NATO ground forces for a forced entry 
into Kosovo. An important question will be whether a more severe and 
overwhelming application of force would have more effectively prevented 
the suffering that occurred in Kosovo over those 78 days.
  Because so much attention will be directed toward these issues and 
others related to what went right and wrong in Kosovo, we must, 
however, avoid the mistake of making Kosovo a singular template for 
NATO's planning and preparations for future conflicts. As a matter of 
prudence, we have to assume that the future will present contingencies 
that are more demanding than that which we encountered over Kosovo.
  Hence, the central focus of our assessments must be the following 
issue: Did Operation Allied Force demonstrate that NATO benefits from a 
force structure that can deploy on suitably short notice, be sustained 
over long distances, and readily provide Alliance leaders the option of 
swiftly delivering overwhelming force, be it from the sea, from the 
air, or from the ground?
  These are not new standards. The Alliance's Strategic Concept of 
1991, which was updated in the course of the Washington Summit last 
April, postulated a NATO force featuring ``enhanced flexibility and 
mobility and an assured capability for augmentation when necessary.'' 
That same doctrine also called upon the Alliance to have available 
``appropriate force structures and procedures, including those that 
would provide an ability to build up, deploy and draw down forces 
quickly and discriminately.'' With this in mind, NATO established in 
1991 its ``Rapid Reaction Forces.''

  So after eight years, just how rapid and overwhelming are NATO's 
forces?
  Operation Allied Force yielded a very mixed answer to this question. 
And, it generates concern on my part about the overall readiness of 
Allied forces, including those of our own country, and, thus, the 
overall health of the Alliance.
  First, it is clear that the Alliance's ability to deliver devastating 
firepower from the air emerges almost solely from the United States. 
The U.S. provided 70% of the aircraft flown in Operation Allied Force. 
And, an overwhelming majority of the precision

[[Page S11020]]

guided missions launched in the conflict were American.
  While Allied Force demonstrated the awesome capacities of American 
air power, it also highlighted glaring shortfalls in European 
inventories, including: fighter-bombers; electronic jamming aircraft; 
advanced command, control, and communications capacities; intelligence 
capacities; and, precision-guided munitions.
  Instead of becoming a symbol of NATO power, Operation Allied Force 
emerged as a symbol of the imbalance that exists between the military 
capabilities of the United States and its Allies. While it is true that 
our allies are bearing their share of responsibility in Operation Just 
Cause, we cannot ignore the unequal capabilities the Allies bring to 
the forward edge of NATO's sword.
  The Alliance's singular dependence upon the United States is neither 
conducive to transatlantic unity nor is it the best way to provide an 
Alliance capability that is robust in the fullest sense of the term. An 
Alliance is simply not healthy if it is solely dependent upon the 
capabilities of but one member.
  It is, thus, especially disturbing that both France and Germany 
announced planned cuts in their defense budgets just weeks after the 
end of Operation Allied Force. It raises questions as to how seriously 
they take this matter.
  Second, the Kosovo war highlighted great gaps in inter-operability 
that divide Allied forces. No military commander has dedicated more 
time and focus on this urgent concern than General Klaus Naumann, who 
stepped down in April as Chairman of NATO's military Committee. He has 
repeatedly warned that ``the growing gap of capabilities which we see 
inside NATO . . . will lead to an inter-operability problem.''
  Operation Allied Force showed that this inter-operability problem is 
not a matter of military theory, but that it is matter of real and 
urgent concern. As we all know, Serbian forces were given advance 
warning of Allied attacks, including specific targets, when Allied 
aircraft were forced to communicate over open and insecure radio 
channels because they did not benefit from suitably compatible and 
secure communications systems. This, needless to say, undercut the 
effectiveness of the bombing campaign. More importantly, it subjected 
Allied pilots to unnecessarily greater danger.
  Third, the Kosovo war highlighted the limited mobility of Allied 
forces. In April, I was disturbed to hear our nation's premier military 
experts assert that it would take months for the Alliance to deploy a 
ground force in the Balkans suitable for a forced entry into Kosovo or 
Serbia. Considering the relative size and capability of Serbia's armed 
forces to that of NATO and the proximity of Kosovo to available staging 
grounds for such a forced entry, this assertion does not reflect well 
on the mobility of NATO military capacities.
  This is a matter relevant not only to our European Allies, but also 
to the United States as well. As the Kosovo War demonstrated, not every 
conflict of the future will be like that of Operation Desert Storm 
where the United States was able to use literally months to build-up 
the offensive force necessary to expel Saddam Hussein from Kuwait. In 
1991, NATO established its Rapid Reaction Corps. I repeat in 1991! 
Where was this corps and its rapidly deployable assets when NATO found 
itself confronted by a regime that was exponentially weaker and 
situated in its backyard, if not on its doorstep?
  These are not new issues nor new conclusions. Burden-sharing has 
always been an acute thorn in the side of Alliance unity. For several 
years, numerous European and American commanders, in addition to 
General Naumann, have been warning of the growing technology gap 
between the armed forces of the United States and Europe. And, NATO's 
own Strategic Concepts have been urging the Alliance to field forces 
that are rapidly deployable and assets that can sustain these forces 
over long distances and long periods of time. What is disturbing is 
that after nearly a decade, the need for such forces has been so loudly 
reaffirmed by the Kosovo war.

  Considering what can happen in war, Operation Allied Force provides a 
not-so-gentle reminder of the need to more seriously address these 
challenges. If one believes, as I do, that one has to assume that NATO 
will in the future face contingencies more challenging than that 
presented in Kosovo, it is imperative that NATO do more than study 
these issues. Alliance members must dedicate the resources necessary to 
overcome these shortcomings. To quote General Naumann again, what ``we 
require [is] action, and not just more paper declarations.''
  In addition to reviewing and studying the insights provided by 
Operation Allied Force upon Allied military strategy and capabilities, 
we have to remember that NATO is first and foremost a political 
Alliance. The conduct and procedures used in the course of the Kosovo 
war by NATO's political authorities must also be reviewed and 
critiqued.
  It was discomfiting, to say the least, to observe inter-Alliance 
disputes over target lists emerge on the public scene. NATO stumbled in 
the first phase of the campaign when individual NATO heads of state 
were personally reviewing and squabbling over daily targets lists.
  These disputes, which concerned how to achieve ends through the use 
of force, raise a number of questions that must be addressed over the 
coming months. These include the following:
  Was Operation Allied Force an example of coalition warfare or a ``war 
by committee.''
  Should the Alliance establish procedures that will further separate 
the political and diplomatic decisions defining the objectives of war 
as well as the decision to go to war from those military decisions 
through which the war is executed?
  In the course of Operation Allied Force, did the SACEUR benefit from 
the flexibility and freedom of action his office requires in the 
conduct of war? Are there alternative arrangements between the SACEUR 
and the NAC that the Alliance should consider?
  Does the SACEUR have sufficient command and control over his 
subordinate commanders?
  With regard to the last question, it has been widely reported that in 
the course of the NATO-Russia showdown over the Pristina airport, 
British Commander General Robertson refused an order from SACEUR 
General Clark to seize that airport prior to the arrival of the Russian 
battalion. General Robertson balked at the order and successfully 
appealed to his British senior political authorities to have that order 
rescinded. This example demonstrated the inherently political nature of 
NATO's multi-national command structures, one that warrants close 
examination.
  The questions I have raised constitute the core issues of coalition 
warfare. They are central to the Alliance's ability to sustain unity in 
times of crisis and conflict. They are also core issues of civilian 
control over the military, a cornerstone of democracy.
  While it is widely known that many NATO officers were not totally 
enamored of the political constraints they were dealt in Operation 
Allied Force, the evidence currently available indicates that they 
accepted and respected these constraints. They fully respected the 
authorities of their civilian leaders. That is another overlooked NATO 
success story in Operation Allied Force.
  In posing the aforementioned questions, the intention is not 
necessarily to yield structural change, but to ensure a fuller 
understanding of what to expect and demand of our Alliance's political 
and military leadership in times of conflict. In doing so we may be 
better able, and I quote again General Naumann, ``to find a way to 
reconcile the conditions of a coalition war with the principles of 
military operations such as surprise and the use of overwhelming 
force.'' That sustaining Allied unity was one of the success stories of 
Operations Allied Force is a fact that shows how NATO manages war is as 
important a matter as the capacities NATO brings to war.

  The Kosovo war also yielded lessons about another issue of great 
importance to the Alliance, the relationship between NATO and Russia. 
Over the last decade the alliance has made great efforts to transform 
that relationship into one of partnership. Toward that end, it invited 
Russia to join its Partnership to Peace Program, and in 1997 the NATO-
Russia Founding Act was signed establishing a unique consultative 
relationship between Brussels

[[Page S11021]]

and Moscow. This effort to build a genuine partnership must be 
continued, but it also must be pursued with greater realism.
  The Kosovo war was the first major test of the progress made in 
relations between the Alliance and Russia since the end of the Cold 
War. Moscow's conduct in the course of this conflict and its immediate 
aftermath demonstrated that while Russia may not be the protagonist it 
was in the Cold War, it is certainly not a partner, at least not today. 
To paraphrase Russia analyst Tom Graham, Russia is more often than not, 
sometimes purposely and sometimes inadvertently, a troublesome problem.
  A brief review of Russia's role in the Kosovo conflict underscores 
this point. First, remember that Russia still calls for NATO's 
dissolution. Second, from the very start of Operation Allied Force, 
Moscow harshly condemned the bombing campaign and sided with Slobodan 
Milosevic. Russia continued oil transfers to Serbia despite a request 
by nearly all other European democracies to impose an embargo. So-
called ``Russian volunteers'' operated with Milosevic's forces in 
Kosovo and Serbia and with the blessing of Moscow authorities. Third, 
Russia's successful dash to Pristina and its airport required a great 
deal of coordination with Serbian authorities. Moreover, let us not 
forget that Russian and Serbian soldiers jointly manned roadblocks in 
Kosovo that impeded the movement of Allied units in the initial days of 
Operation Just Cause.
  Russia's conduct in the course of Operation Allied Force and its 
self-invited role in Operation Just Cause demonstrated the volatility 
that still characterizes Russia's foreign policy, particularly its 
approach to NATO. Russian participation in NATO diplomatic and military 
operations is a double-edged sword, and has to be treated as such, 
particularly when sensitive Alliance operations are at stake.
  Engaging Russia should remain a significant priority of the Alliance. 
Introducing greater realism to this effort does not mean isolating 
Russia. It does involve recognizing the difficult challenge of 
simultaneously promoting cooperation and mutual accommodation while 
avoiding propitiating risk-taking behavior by Moscow, such as that 
which occurred in Pristina.
  The lesson from Kosovo is that while we must engage Russia with the 
goal of creating partnership, greater realism and caution in this 
endeavor is more likely to yield more stable and enduring cooperation.
  The Kosovo war demonstrated the continued centrality of NATO to 
transatlantic security. It has demonstrated the awesome power that 
emanates from allied unity. It underscored the profound political and 
military pay-off that comes from fifty years of intensive military 
consultation, cooperation, coordination, joint planning, joint 
training, and all the day-to-day activities the Allied militaries 
conduct to protect and defend our common values and interests and 
peace.
  The war over Kosovo tangibly reminded us of the military and 
political challenges NATO will likely face in the future. It was a firm 
reminder of the need for the Alliance's force structure to become more 
mobile and more capable of rapid deployment. It was an urgent call for 
improvements in the inter-operability of Allied forces and in the 
balance of transatlantic military capabilities. And it provided the 
first test of NATO's ability to manage war in the post-Cold War era.
  As Operation Allied Force was NATO's first war, it is essential that 
we ensure that it is comprehensively reviewed. In objectively assessing 
what went right and wrong, we must keep our eyes upon NATO's future. We 
must also work to ensure that the lessons learned and relearned from 
Operation Allied Force will not just reside in dusty reports but 
actually prompt decisions and actions that improve NATO's ability to 
decisively manage the political and military levels of war.
  Mr. President, I have quoted General Klaus Naumann several times and 
wish to share with my colleagues the transcript of his farewell remarks 
of May 4, 1999, the last day of his tenure as Chairman of NATO's 
Military Committee. They provide sage advise concerning NATO's future 
from an experienced military commander, and I urge my colleagues to 
take the time necessary to review them. I ask unanimous consent they be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                     Transcript of Press Conference

     (By General Klaus Naumann, Chairman of the Military Committee)

       General Naumann. Ladies and Gentlemen, first of all thank 
     you very much for coming. I thought I should not hand over my 
     Chairmanship of the Military Committee after three and a 
     quarter years without having addressed you once again and 
     giving you a little bit of I should say an up-date. Where do 
     we stand at this point in time, after three and a quarter 
     years which presumably will go down in history as the most 
     turbulent years in NATO's 50 years of history, years in which 
     the Alliance changed more profoundly than ever before.
       I think it is best expressed by two political data which 
     marked my tour, It started more or less with the Berlin 
     Foreign Ministers meeting in June 1996 when the Alliance set 
     sail to give itself a new set of missions, and it ended more 
     or less with the Washington Summit a couple of days ago, 
     where we published a number of documents in which all this 
     progress which we made I think is really enshrined.
       Of course you may be focused, as I am these days, on 
     Kosovo. But I think we should not forget the bigger picture 
     as well and I think I would like to bring to your attention a 
     few points which belong to the bigger picture. When I assumed 
     office as Chairman of the Military Committee, I had 14 
     nations sitting around the table--14. Then France joined, 
     then Iceland, after 49 years, joined the military Committee. 
     And now we have three new members at the table. It is a clear 
     indication that NATO maintains and has strengthened cohesion 
     and achieved improvements.
       One of the improvements which I would like to mention is 
     the new command structure which hopefully over time will lead 
     to marked improvements, particularly in the southern region 
     of NATO, and I dare to say no Chairman of the Military 
     Committee before me has invested so much time and devoted so 
     much attention to the problems of the southern region, and in 
     particular of southeastern Europe. And as a matter of fact we 
     have made big progress in this area and we planted seeds 
     which hopefully will produce over time a really big and 
     powerful tree.
       We also began to work in these three years in the EAPMC 
     format. We got partners to contribute and to engage in a 
     dialogue. This has been for me the most fascinating 
     experience. We should never forget most of these partners 
     were just 10 years ago in the camp of NATO's enemy, and now 
     we are working together. And we got them in this new format 
     of the EAPMC to contribute, to engage in dialogue, and I 
     believe this instrument of the EAPMC has the biggest gross 
     potential for crisis management and conflict prevention in 
     Europe if we handle it properly. So this is something we 
     should dwell on in the future.

                           *   *   *   *   *

       Question. General, that was the first confirmation we have 
     heard that the two planes lost by NATO were shot down. Can 
     you reconfirm that they were shot down?
       General Naumann. I think that we have said in previous 
     statements that they were shot down.
       Question. And I have a follow-up. You have been a key 
     player in the Kosovo operation since it started. How 
     difficult is it going to be for somebody else to take over 
     your position and how do you feel about it personally? Is it 
     going to be difficult for you to be no longer operationally 
     involved in something that you have been involved in from the 
     beginning, and is there a risk of you turning into one of 
     those people that you have criticised in the past, an 
     armchair General, who will be advocating sending in ground 
     troops the minute you take your uniform off?
       General Naumann. Starting with your last point, I can 
     assure you I will not join the league of armchair generals 
     and I will refrain from any comment with regard to the 
     activities of any of my successors. That is for me part of 
     fair play. And I am pretty well aware that it is very easy to 
     sit in an armchair and to make wonderful proposals since you 
     do not feel the burden of responsibility on your shoulders. 
     The only responsibility you have is to cater for the cheque 
     you receive in some of the broadcasting stations for giving 
     interviews, and I do not want to join that league.
       Secondly, with regard to how I feel personally, well of 
     course you are not entirely happy in such a situation. It is 
     like leaving a group of friends aboard a ship which is in 
     stormy seas and suddenly I am whisked away by a helicopter. I 
     haven't ordered the helicopter and I am not entirely happy 
     that I have to leave and pack, but there is no choice, that 
     is not my choice.
       And with regard to how I feel to be replaced, I think no-
     one is irreplaceable. Had I run my car into a tree yesterday 
     night, they had to face the problem to replace me as well, 
     or had I hit myself with a golf club by trying to have too 
     good a swing, they may have a problem as well. So that is 
     not a question, everyone is replaceable.
       Mark Laity (BBC). You are not yet an armchair general so 
     can I invite you to talk

[[Page S11022]]

     about ground forces? You have said in interviews that 
     military doctrine states that air power has never yet won a 
     war on its own so do you think this one can and if so why? 
     And taking up your theme of the limitations of coalition 
     warfare, do you think the lack of a ground option is a result 
     of the limitations of coalition warfare and the lack of 
     agreement on that?
       General Naumann. First of all, it's true that military 
     experience so far has suggested that an air campaign so far 
     in history never won a war, that is true and we have 
     mentioned this again and again. But as I said in my briefing, 
     we see a real chance that we can make it and for that reason 
     I think there is no necessity at this point in time to change 
     strategy. We would give out all the wrong signals. We are 
     making progress, we are nibbling away night by night and day 
     by day at some of his military capabilities? Why should we 
     change?
       You should also not forget that this air campaign is after 
     all, as far as I can see, presumably one of, if not the most 
     successful one which we have seen so far. That is to some 
     extent related to technology since we have many new assets in 
     our inventory which we use successfully, and it is on the 
     other hand related to the fact that we succeeded in winning 
     the necessary air superiority in mid- to high-altitudes.
       Furthermore, I should say this campaign was never planned 
     without a ground force option at the end but the ground force 
     option is based on a permissive environment. So that will 
     come at the end of the campaign, and for that reason we still 
     stick to military doctrine and, as you know, we are advised 
     to keep all our plans under permanent review--which by the 
     way is a good old military custom and experience. I hope with 
     that I have answered the question.
       Mark Laity. Could you take up the point about whether 
     coalition warfare is the problem here that has restricted 
     your options regarding a non-permissive ground force?
       General Naumann. I said earlier on that from my perspective 
     we have seen really good co-operation between the military 
     and the political sides in the planning and preparation of 
     this campaign. For that reason, I simply cannot confirm the 
     notion that the conditions of coalition warfare prevented us 
     from taking up any options at all.
       Question. General, the strategy behind the air campaign has 
     been criticized in that it limited the number of initial 
     targets and that the phased nature of the campaign gave time 
     to the Yugoslav forces to adjust. With the benefit of 
     hindsight, what would you have done differently to make this 
     campaign more effective?
       General Naumann. First of all, I really dispute that the 
     campaign is not effective. It is not working as quickly as 
     perhaps many of you had expected. What I think, with 
     hindsight, worth considering are the two points, which I made 
     earlier when I spoke about the two principles of military 
     operations, and that is surprise and overwhelming power. 
     That of course is not possible as far as I can see under 
     the conditions of coalition warfare and that makes a 
     difference between a coalition facing a national state and 
     a coalition facing another coalition. For that reason, I 
     think we need to think through how we can make sure in 
     future operations how we can achieve one or both of them.
       Question. General, there are assessments that the present 
     operation would have been more effective if NATO had launched 
     the whole operation sooner. Can you share this view?
       I would come back again to the air campaign. Taking just a 
     military point, what could we achieve just through an air 
     campaign within the different time-scale?
       And thirdly, if I may, how seriously has NATO/Russian 
     military co-operation been damaged?
       General Naumann. On the last point, better leave it to the 
     judgement of our Russian colleagues. It is not we who have 
     left co-operation, it is them, and so they have the onus to 
     come back.
       With regard to the air campaign, I believe that the air 
     campaign is properly working but you should also take into 
     account that we have conditions which we have to follow which 
     are degrading to some extent the impact of the air campaign, 
     most notably the conditions that we have to avoid collateral 
     damage.
       The Serb military forces are hiding their vehicles, their 
     armour, their artillery in Kosovo next to civilian buildings, 
     to churches, to mosques and what have you. We don't attack 
     them under these circumstances, although we technically could 
     do it, but this would destroy something which we don't want 
     to destroy. I think we have the justified value of all of our 
     society--after all in sharp contrast to Mr. Milosevic--that 
     we don't like war, we the democracies hate war. And for that 
     reason we have got the task of avoiding the loss of human 
     life and I think you would have to look for quite a time in 
     your history books to find an air campaign which lasted 41 
     days, being conducted in quite an impressive air-defense 
     environment, without one soldier wounded let alone killed. It 
     is not a bad result.
       On the question of how long it will take us, I cannot give 
     you an answer. There are two to tango and we have a lot of 
     patience if he wants to challenge us.
       Question (New York Times). General Naumann, you said in 
     your opening statement that an air campaign alone can't stop 
     the ethnic cleansing operation.
       General Naumann. Entirely, I said.
       Same Questioner. Entirely. If President Milosevic doesn't 
     change his mind and back down and accept the five points, is 
     it possible do you think that ground forces would not be able 
     to go in a permissive environment and get the refugees back 
     home before the winter sets in, which comes early in Kosovo, 
     at the end of September or October?
       General Naumann. First of all, when I said ``cannot 
     entirely stop ethnic cleansing and killing from the air'' I 
     think I simply referred to the fact that if we have a 
     policeman or one of these paramilitary thugs running 
     around chasing unarmed civilians with rifles or 
     threatening them with knives, you cannot stop this from 
     the air. It is asking the impossible. But what we can do 
     is to make life for these people so miserable that they 
     will think twice whether they should continue. And then of 
     course we should not speculate at this point in time under 
     which conditions an implementation force will go in. Of 
     course, we will see the impact of a continued air campaign 
     and we will see how they will feel after a few more weeks, 
     months or what have you of continuously pounding them into 
     pieces.
       Question. General Naumann, I think you said, if I heard 
     right, that President Milosevic's campaign of mass 
     deportation is still achievable. Could you expand on that and 
     tell us what you mean? Although there are still many hundreds 
     of thousands of Albanians still in Kosovo, do you believe it 
     is still achievable?
       General Naumann. I think if he really wants to get them out 
     and if he uses in the same way the brutal tactics he has used 
     so far, he may have a chance to do this. I don't know how 
     long they will be able to hide, how long they will be able to 
     sustain their lives under very miserable conditions. And we 
     should not forget what we have seen and statements we have 
     seen of his brutal shelling of unarmed civilians with 
     artillery and with tanks. This will have an impact over time 
     and I only hope that the appropriate international bodies 
     will take care of those who committed these crimes of war.
       Question (Newsweek Magazine). General Naumann, this seems 
     to be a war in which we count the bodies of our friends and 
     the people we're defending. We count them by the hundreds of 
     thousands, the people we are defending, who have been thrown 
     out of their country and we are proud that we have killed a 
     couple of dozen of the enemy. Does this strike you, as a 
     soldier, as ironic or as a good way to fight a war?
       And why do we think that the Serbs will capitulate if they 
     are left untouched while the people we are defending are 
     massacred and deported en masse?
       General Naumann. First of all, I think it is a wrong 
     impression that they are untouched. What we do not know is 
     how many casualties they have, but if I take the fact which 
     presumably was briefed--I didn't have the time to follow the 
     briefing this afternoon--of what result they achieved last 
     night and during the day, if you take it that several tanks 
     and artillery pieces were hit, this is not free of cost of 
     life.
       Same Questioner. But we don't count those, we are not given 
     those numbers, we are only given the numbers of the people 
     being deported.
       General Naumann. We don't count--and we cannot count--
     since, as you all know and you can hear it day by day if you 
     watch CNN when they issue their pictures from Serbia they 
     mention after--I would appreciate it much more if they could 
     do it in the beginning before they make their reports from 
     Mr. Sadler--they mention that this has been censored and that 
     they have to submit their film material to the Yugoslav 
     authorities so that they can control what they are allowed to 
     report. That is the daily statement which we hear on CNN and 
     for me it is quite amazing as a military man that we have not 
     heard one single statement about loss of military life from 
     the Serb side. They mention buses, just the one yesterday 
     which they alleged we had hit with an air bomb, but if you 
     looked at the bus only a layman could believe that this 
     was the impact of an air-delivered weapon, since the bus 
     looks different if you hit it with a bomb as we have seen. 
     But they get credibility for that and many of you take the 
     story up and say: ``This was NATO!''
       I think you are all experts to some extent and I think many 
     of you are capable of differentiating whether a bus was hit 
     by a bomb or by something like infantry weapons and regarding 
     this last one, I have seen buses which were hit by real 
     weapons and they look different.
       Same Questioner. But why are we so worried about Serb 
     civilians in fact? Why are we worried so much--not the 
     press--why are you so worried about killing Serb civilians 
     when the Serb government that they support very strongly is 
     massacring and deporting hundreds of thousands of people?
       General Naumann. You may be right from a moral point of 
     view but we have got the clear order to avoid civilian 
     causalities and that order we execute. And so you should not 
     be surprised if we regard it as a mistake if one civilian has 
     been killed. And it is not our judgement to establish the 
     moral balance. For us it is a deficiency if we kill innocent 
     lives, and I leave aside what the inmates of this bus were 
     doing. That doesn't matter for us. It is deplorable that we 
     hit this bus--the one on the bridge I mean--and that people 
     lost their lives since it was something we were told to 
     avoid. But as I told you, the overall performance in 
     executing this order I think is good and if I compare the 
     number of

[[Page S11023]]

     approximately 15,000 pieces of ordnance dropped and six 
     mishaps, I think it is really not a bad performance.
       Question (CBS News). General, you said just a few moments 
     ago that there is no reason to change tactics, to bring in 
     ground troops and then in the next breath you say that 
     Milosevic, if he really wants to, can ethnically-cleanse all 
     of Kosovo. We have had figures today of 90 percent of people 
     thrown out of their homes, of killings, of rapes. Is that not 
     reason enough?
       General Naumann. You are asking a moral question, I 
     understand you fully and from a moral point of view I also 
     hate to see this news, but on the other hand, you can only do 
     what is achievable and what is acceptable by our nations in 
     this Alliance. And for that reason I have to tell you once 
     again that we have no reason at this point in time to change 
     the strategy which is focused to some extent on the 
     philosophy of our democracies that we should avoid 
     casualties, we should avoid the loss of life. That is the 
     basic point. You may be morally dissatisfied with that but 
     that is how life is.
       Question. General, you had the opportunity and the 
     experience to meet Milosevic. You said before that we needed 
     two to tango. Do you think that the international community 
     can still ask Milosevic for a tango and make a political 
     agreement with him? Secondly, according to your statement 
     before, are the Albanians paying the price of an experiment 
     which wants to show that the war can be won without ground 
     troops?
       General Naumann. No, to your last point definitely no. I 
     think I explained to you where we stand in our societies and 
     I think I also mentioned to you that we have to have 
     consensus among 19 nations and that is something which you 
     can't get on this critical issue. With regard  to Milosevic 
     and my personal experience of him, the only thing which I 
     am really looking forward to in my imminent retirement is 
     that this makes sure that I will never see him again!
       Question: General, you said that Milosevic was the best 
     recruiting agent for the KLA but in fact it seems to me that 
     NATO is really the best recruiting agent of the KLA since the 
     air campaign which is taking place is partly to their 
     benefit. You pointed out that it was impossible to eliminate 
     the forces that merely clear villages and so on, two or three 
     policemen could do that, but it was possible of course to 
     degrade the Serb forces. Is in fact NATO, since there is no 
     consensus of putting in forces in a non-permissive 
     environment, basically hoping that the KLA will be able to do 
     that job for them, thereby really becoming the KLA's air 
     force?
       General Naumann: We clearly do not want to become the KLA's 
     air force. We have no intention of clearly siding with the 
     KLA since we know pretty well what the political consequences 
     may be and we still stick to the line--and I hope that 
     President Milosevic will eventually understand it--that 
     Kosovo should remain part of the FRY, that is part of the 
     five points, and if he is really responsible with regard to 
     his own people and the future of his own country, he would 
     really grasp the opportunity.
       Question: General, how serious is the lack of deeds you 
     mentioned in your statement that we need to see concerning 
     the ESDI and the Combined Joint Task Forces. How serious is 
     this lack in your opinion?
       General Naumann: I have to tell you that if I read all 
     these wonderful declarations on European Security and Defence 
     Identity, I always admire the fantasy of those who are 
     drafting but I am a very pragmatic, very simple-minded 
     soldier, I would like to see something and then I compare 
     what the Europeans can do in this present campaign and what 
     they cannot do and for that reason for me the very simple 
     conclusion is that they have got to do something. And there 
     are very simple things which you can do that do not eat up a 
     tremendous amount of money. I am not talking of launching a 
     European satellite programme or what have you but you have 
     deficiencies in the European forces which have to be 
     corrected as a matter of urgency.
       Many of our air forces, for instance, do not dispose of 
     stand-off weaponry. They have to fly more or less over the 
     target which is the most stupid thing you can do since you 
     expose yourself to the enemy air defence.
       Another essential capability, the capabilities of the 
     Europeans with regard to combat search and rescue are not 
     very impressive. That is not a thing which costs tremendous 
     billions of dollars, it is not something which would make the 
     armaments industry open the bottles of champagne but it is 
     extremely important for the morale of the pilots and for them 
     nothing counts more than the assurance ``We'll get you out!'' 
     And for the morale of our pilots I think nothing was more 
     important than these two successful search-and-rescue 
     operations and that is something we need to do.
       And if I look at the deplorably slow deployment of our 
     forces to Albania and FYROM, had we something like a European 
     transport aircraft capability then we could do better.
       Take the example of the humanitarian effort. We looked into 
     this but most of the European transport aircraft are two-
     engine aircraft and they cannot climb to an altitude where 
     you can safely travel without being exposed to missile air 
     defences.
       These are all things which can easily be done and for that 
     you don't need another voluminous conceptual paper--we 
     Germans are very good at liking concepts, nothing without 
     concepts. It buys you time by the way so you have a lot of 
     time to talk of the concepts before you have to take 
     action!--and that is what we need to avoid. And we can take 
     decisions, we can take them now and it would not blow up the 
     defence budgets of the nations.
       Another point which from my point of view is really the 
     core of the issue is that if we really want to do something 
     in Europe then we have to start to harmonise the research and 
     development programmes of our nations. The United States of 
     America is spending $36 billion dollars per year for research 
     and development, the Europeans all together--I think plus 
     Canada--spend $10 billion dollars per year but in contrast to 
     them, the European programmes are not co-ordinated. So what 
     we see expressed in these facts is an ever-growing gap 
     between the Europeans and the Americans, and this needs to be 
     redressed. And for something like this you don't need a 
     European summit, you need something like the will to decide.
       Question. Are we positive that the VJ is digging-in in 
     Kosovo. Jamie Shea talked this afternoon about Maginot Line 
     kind of works. What conclusions do you draw from that and do 
     you have the impression that still quite a lot of the 
     refugees in Kosovo are being kept there for tactical reasons? 
     And did you solve the problem with spies when it was talked 
     about. That the target list was known in Belgrade at the 
     beginning of the campaign have you any news on that?
       General Naumann. I do not wish to comment on such 
     speculations like the last one. That the VJ is digging-in we 
     have seen for the last couple of weeks. They are preparing 
     for the defence of Kosovo and they follow the good old 
     tactics which we learned in the days of the Cold War of the 
     Soviet tactics of defence, so it is exactly what we have in 
     our text books that we see right now. We are not surprised by 
     that and by the way, the more they dig in the more fixed the 
     targets will be, the easier to hit them.
       Question. For the last question, General, to sum up all 
     this discussion, what would be your vision for the 
     development of NATO's armed forces for the future?
       General Naumann. First of all, I think we need to find ways 
     in which we can achieve a complementary contribution between 
     the United States and Europe. This does not mean competition 
     but we need to harmonise our capabilities in such a way that 
     they really complement each other. I think that is feasible 
     and I think it is necessary since after all we will continue 
     to be confronted with very scarce defence dollars or euros 
     and so we have to follow the line which our American friends 
     are expressing with the simple sentence: ``We have to get the 
     biggest bang possible for the buck!'' That is something we 
     are not doing right now.
       Secondly, we need armed forces which are ready for quick 
     deployment, which are capable of operating under austere 
     conditions. Whether this will be inside or outside the 
     NATO treaty is unimportant.
       We need to have forces which have a mission effectiveness 
     and by that I mean they have to be able to project power from 
     a distance. This means in the initial phase presumably 
     something like unmanned vehicles like the Cruise missile, or 
     similar capabilities, but also it goes in the direction of 
     stand-off weaponry for our air forces and for some of our 
     ships.
       Then we need the capability to command and control such 
     forces wherever they will be employed. We need very mobile 
     Command, Control and Communications (C3) and we need 
     excellent intelligence.
       And if we think added as a fifth point that we have to be 
     able to sustain these forces then I think you have the 
     description of the future alliance forces. This means 
     employed only on their own territory, this does not fit into 
     NATO's future pattern and we have too think this through. By 
     the way that is not only a problem for Germany, it is a 
     problem for many other countries in this Alliance but if 
     politicians are serious about using their armed forces--which 
     I think is presumably the proper answer to the security 
     environment--then we have to be sure that the remaining 
     forces are so flexible and so deployable that we will be able 
     to defend an ever-increasing NATO treaty area with ever-
     decreasing forces.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.

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