World Naval Developments: Did Kosovo Teach Us Anything?

Now that the war in Kosovo is over, what lessons, if any, can be drawn? Clearly, this was a war of air power; the great question must be which application of air power proved decide.

Sloodan Milosevic held out against a sustained application of strategic bombing, which, among other things, completely destroyed the Serbian oil industry and also wiped cut the electric power grid supplying his capital. Much of his military industry was disabled. Toward the end of the air war, NATO began to attack Serbian troops and special police in Kosovo, and, not too long after that campaign began, the Serbians withdrew from Kosovo. One might then conclude that although Milosevic could survive easily the loss of Serbian industry, he felt very different about his troops and his police, which are the props of his regime back in Serbia.