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North Atlantic Treaty Organization The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
(NATO) carried out an aerial bombing campaign against the
Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Serbia and Montenegro ( sr, Cрбија и Црна Гора, translit=Srbija i Crna Gora) was a country in Southeast Europe located in the Balkans that existed from 1992 to 2006, following the breakup of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yu ...
during the
Kosovo War The Kosovo War was an armed conflict in Kosovo that started 28 February 1998 and lasted until 11 June 1999. It was fought by the forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (i.e. Serbia and Montenegro), which controlled Kosovo before the wa ...
. The air strikes lasted from 24 March 1999 to 10 June 1999. The bombings continued until an agreement was reached that led to the withdrawal of Yugoslav armed forces from Kosovo, and the establishment of the
United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo The United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK) is the officially mandated mission of the United Nations in Kosovo. The UNMIK describes its mandate as being to "help the United Nations Security Council achieve an overall ...
, a UN peacekeeping mission in Kosovo. The official NATO operation code name was Operation Allied Force whereas the United States called it Operation Noble Anvil; in Yugoslavia the operation was incorrectly called Merciful Angel ( sr, Милосрдни анђео / ''Milosrdni anđeo''), possibly as a result of a misunderstanding or mistranslation.
RTS RTS may refer to: Medicine * Rape trauma syndrome, the psychological trauma experienced by a rape victim * Revised Trauma Score, a system to evaluate injuries secondary to violent trauma * Rubinstein–Taybi syndrome, a condition characterized by ...

"Порекло имена 'Милосрдни анђео'" ("On the origin of the name 'Merciful Angel'")
, 26 March 2009
NATO's intervention was prompted by Yugoslavia's bloodshed and ethnic cleansing of Albanians, which drove the Albanians into neighbouring countries and had the potential to destabilize the region. Yugoslavia's actions had already provoked condemnation by international organisations and agencies such as the UN,
NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
, and various INGOs. Yugoslavia's refusal to sign the
Rambouillet Accords The Rambouillet Agreement, formally the Interim Agreement for Peace and Self-Government in Kosovo, was a proposed peace agreement between the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and a delegation representing the ethnic Albanian majority population of ...
was initially offered as justification for NATO's use of force. NATO countries attempted to gain authorisation from the
UN Security Council The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the Organs of the United Nations, six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international security, international peace and security, recommending the admi ...
for military action, but were opposed by China and Russia, who indicated that they would
veto A veto is a legal power to unilaterally stop an official action. In the most typical case, a president or monarch vetoes a bill to stop it from becoming law. In many countries, veto powers are established in the country's constitution. Veto ...
such a measure. As a result, NATO launched its campaign without the UN's approval, stating that it was a
humanitarian intervention Humanitarian intervention is the use or threat of military force by a state (or states) across borders with the intent of ending severe and widespread human rights violations in a state which has not given permission for the use of force. Human ...
. The UN Charter prohibits the use of force except in the case of a decision by the Security Council under Chapter VII, or self-defence against an armed attack – neither of which were present in this case. By the end of the war, the Yugoslavs had killed 1,500 to 2,131 combatants, while choosing to heavily target
Kosovar Albanian The Albanians of Kosovo ( sq, Shqiptarët e Kosovës, ), also commonly called Kosovo Albanians, Kosovar/Kosovan Albanians or Kosovars/Kosovans, constitute the largest ethnic group in Kosovo. Kosovo Albanians belong to the ethnic Albanian sub- ...
civilians, with 8,676 killed or missing and some 848,000 expelled from Kosovo. The NATO bombing killed about 1,000 members of the Yugoslav security forces in addition to between 489 and 528 civilians. It destroyed or damaged bridges, industrial plants, hospitals, schools, cultural monuments, private businesses as well as barracks and military installations. In the days after the Yugoslav army withdrew, over 164,000 Serbs and 24,000 Roma left Kosovo. Many of the remaining non-Albanian civilians (as well as Albanians perceived as collaborators) were victims of abuse which included beatings, abductions, and murders. After Kosovo and other
Yugoslav Wars The Yugoslav Wars were a series of separate but related Naimark (2003), p. xvii. ethnic conflicts, wars of independence, and insurgencies that took place in the SFR Yugoslavia from 1991 to 2001. The conflicts both led up to and resulted from ...
, Serbia became home to the highest number of refugees and
IDPs An internally displaced person (IDP) is someone who is forced to leave their home but who remains within their country's borders. They are often referred to as refugees, although they do not fall within the legal definitions of a refugee. A ...
(including Kosovo Serbs) in Europe. The bombing was NATO's second major combat operation, following the 1995 bombing campaign in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was the first time that NATO had used military force without the expressed endorsement of the UN Security Council and thus, international legal approval, which triggered debates over the legitimacy of the intervention.


Background


Goals

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
's objectives in the
Kosovo conflict The Kosovo War was an armed conflict in Kosovo that started 28 February 1998 and lasted until 11 June 1999. It was fought by the forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (i.e. Serbia and Montenegro), which controlled Kosovo before the war ...
were stated at the
North Atlantic Council The North Atlantic Council (NAC) is the principal political decision-making body of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), consisting of permanent representatives of its member countries. It was established by Article 9 of the North ...
meeting held at NATO headquarters in
Brussels Brussels (french: Bruxelles or ; nl, Brussel ), officially the Brussels-Capital Region (All text and all but one graphic show the English name as Brussels-Capital Region.) (french: link=no, Région de Bruxelles-Capitale; nl, link=no, Bruss ...
on 12 April 1999: * An end to all military action and the immediate termination of violence and repressive activities by the Milošević government; * Withdrawal of all military, police and paramilitary forces from Kosovo; * Stationing of UN peacekeeping presence in Kosovo; * Unconditional and safe return of all refugees and displaced persons; * Establishment of a political framework agreement for Kosovo based on
Rambouillet Accords The Rambouillet Agreement, formally the Interim Agreement for Peace and Self-Government in Kosovo, was a proposed peace agreement between the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and a delegation representing the ethnic Albanian majority population of ...
, in conformity with
international law International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...
and the
Charter of the United Nations The Charter of the United Nations (UN) is the foundational treaty of the UN, an intergovernmental organization. It establishes the purposes, governing structure, and overall framework of the UN system, including its six principal organs: the ...
.


Strategy

Operation Allied Force predominantly used a large-scale air campaign to destroy Yugoslav military infrastructure from high altitudes. After the third day of aerial bombing, NATO had destroyed almost all of its strategic military targets in Yugoslavia. Despite this, the Yugoslav army continued to function and to attack Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) insurgents inside Kosovo, mostly in the regions of Northern and Southwest Kosovo. NATO bombed strategic economic and societal targets, such as bridges, military facilities, official government facilities, and factories, using long-range cruise missiles to hit heavily defended targets, such as strategic installations in Belgrade and
Pristina Pristina, ; sr, / (, ) is the capital and largest city of Kosovo. The city's municipal boundaries in Pristina District form the largest urban center in Kosovo. After Tirana, Pristina has the second largest population of ethnic Albanians an ...
. The NATO air forces also targeted infrastructure, such as power plants (using the BLU-114/B "Soft-Bomb"), water-processing plants and the state-owned broadcaster, causing much environmental and economic damage throughout Yugoslavia. The Rand Corporation examined the issue in a study. The Dutch foreign minister Jozias van Aartsen said that the strikes on Yugoslavia should be such as to weaken their military capabilities and prevent further humanitarian atrocities. Due to restrictive media laws, media in Yugoslavia carried little coverage of what its forces were doing in Kosovo, or of other countries' attitudes to the humanitarian crisis; so, few members of the public expected bombing, instead thinking that a diplomatic deal would be made.


Arguments for strategic air power

According to
John Keegan Sir John Desmond Patrick Keegan (15 May 1934 – 2 August 2012) was an English military historian, lecturer, author and journalist. He wrote many published works on the nature of combat between prehistory and the 21st century, covering land, ...
, the capitulation of Yugoslavia in the Kosovo War marked a turning point in the history of warfare. It "proved that a war can be won by air power alone". Diplomacy had failed before the war, and the deployment of a large NATO ground force was still weeks away when Slobodan Milošević agreed to a peace deal. As for why air power should have been capable of acting alone, it has been argued that there are several factors required. These normally come together only rarely, but all occurred during the Kosovo War: # Bombardment needs to be capable of causing destruction while minimising casualties. This causes pressure within the population to end hostilities rather than to prolong them. The exercise of precision air power in the Kosovo War is said to have provided this. # The government must be susceptible to pressure from within the population. As was demonstrated by the overthrow of Milošević a year later, the Yugoslav government was only weakly authoritarian and depended upon support from within the country. # There must be a disparity of military capabilities such that the opponent is unable to inhibit the exercise of air superiority over its territory.
Serbia Serbia (, ; Serbian: , , ), officially the Republic of Serbia (Serbian: , , ), is a landlocked country in Southeastern and Central Europe, situated at the crossroads of the Pannonian Basin and the Balkans. It shares land borders with Hungar ...
, a relatively small impoverished Balkan state, faced a much more powerful
NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
coalition including the United Kingdom and the United States. #
Carl von Clausewitz Carl Philipp Gottfried (or Gottlieb) von Clausewitz (; 1 June 1780 – 16 November 1831) was a Prussian general and military theorist who stressed the "moral", in modern terms meaning psychological, and political aspects of waging war. His mo ...
once called the "essential mass of the enemy" his "centre of gravity". Should the center of gravity be destroyed, a major factor in Yugoslav will to resist would be broken or removed. In Milošević's case, the centre of gravity was his hold on power. He manipulated hyperinflation, sanctions and restrictions in supply and demand to allow powerful business interests within Serbia to profit and they responded by maintaining him in power. The damage to the economy, which squeezed it to a point where there was little profit to be made, threatened to undermine their support for Milošević if the air campaign continued, whilst causing costly infrastructure damage.


Arguments against strategic air power

# Diplomacy: ## According to British Lieutenant-General Mike Jackson, Russia's decision on 3 June 1999 to back the West and to urge Milošević to surrender was the single event that had "the greatest significance in ending the war". The Yugoslav capitulation came the same day. Russia relied on Western economic aid at the time, which made it vulnerable to pressure from NATO to withdraw support for Milošević. ## Milošević's indictment by the UN as a war criminal (on 24 May 1999), even if it did not influence him personally, made the likelihood of Russia resuming diplomatic support less likely. ## The Rambouillet Agreement of 18 March 1999, had Yugoslavia agreed to it, would have given NATO forces the right of transit, bivouac, manoeuvre,
billet A billet is a living-quarters to which a soldier is assigned to sleep. Historically, a billet was a private dwelling that was required to accept the soldier. Soldiers are generally billeted in barracks or garrisons when not on combat duty, alth ...
, and use across Serbia. By the time Milošević capitulated, NATO forces were to have access only to Kosovo proper. ## The international civil presence in the province was to be under UN control which allowed for a Russian veto should Serb interests be threatened. # Concurrent ground operations – The KLA undertook operations in Kosovo itself and had some successes against Serb forces. The Yugoslav army abandoned a border post opposite Morinë near the Yugoslav army outpost at Košare in the north west of the province. The Yugoslav army outpost at Košare had remained in Yugoslav hands throughout the war: this allowed for a supply line to be set up into the province and the subsequent taking of territory in the
Junik Junik ( sq, Junik, sq-definite, Juniku; sr, Јуник, Junik) is a town located in Junik Municipality in the Gjakova District in western Kosovo. According to the 2011 census, the town of Junik has 6,053 inhabitants, while the municipality has ...
area. The KLA also penetrated a few miles into the south-western Mount Paštrik area. But most of the province remained under Serb control. # Potential ground attack – General
Wesley Clark Wesley Kanne Clark (born December 23, 1944) is a retired United States Army officer. He graduated as valedictorian of the class of 1966 at West Point and was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford, where he obtained a degree ...
,
Supreme Allied Commander Europe The Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) is the commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) Allied Command Operations (ACO) and head of ACO's headquarters, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE). The commander is ...
, was "convinced" that planning and preparations for ground intervention "in particular, pushed Milošević to concede". The Yugoslav capitulation occurred on the same day that US President
Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...
held a widely publicised meeting with his four service chiefs to discuss options for a ground-force deployment in case the air war failed. However, France and Germany vigorously opposed a ground offensive, and had done so for some weeks, since April 1999. French estimates suggested that an invasion would need an army of 500,000 to achieve success. This left NATO, particularly the United States, with a clear view that a land operation had no support. With this in mind, the US reaffirmed its faith in the air campaign. The reluctance of NATO to use ground forces cast serious doubt on the idea that Milošević capitulated out of fear of a land invasion.


Operation

On 20 March 1999,
OSCE The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) is the world's largest regional security-oriented intergovernmental organization with observer status at the United Nations. Its mandate includes issues such as arms control, prom ...
Kosovo Verification Mission The 1998-1999 Kosovo Verification Mission (KVM) was an OSCE mission to verify that the Serbian and Yugoslav forces were complying with the UN October Agreement to end atrocities in Kosovo, withdraw armed forces from Kosovo, and abide by a ceasef ...
monitors withdrew from Kosovo citing a "steady deterioration in the security situation", and on 23 March 1999
Richard Holbrooke Richard Charles Albert Holbrooke (April 24, 1941 – December 13, 2010) was an American diplomat and author. He was the only person to have held the position of Assistant Secretary of State for two different regions of the world (Asia from 1977 ...
returned to Brussels and announced that peace talks had failed. Hours before the announcement, Yugoslavia announced on national television it had declared a state of emergency citing an "imminent threat of war ... against Yugoslavia by Nato" and began a huge mobilisation of troops and resources. On 23 March 1999 at 22:17 UTC the
Secretary General of NATO The secretary general of NATO is the chief civil servant of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The officeholder is an international diplomat responsible for coordinating the workings of the alliance, leading NATO's international staff ...
,
Javier Solana Francisco Javier Solana de Madariaga (; born 14 July 1942) is a Spanish physicist and PSOE politician. After serving in the Spanish government as Foreign Affairs Minister under Felipe González (1992–1995) and as the Secretary General of NA ...
, announced he had directed the
Supreme Allied Commander Europe The Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) is the commander of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization's (NATO) Allied Command Operations (ACO) and head of ACO's headquarters, Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE). The commander is ...
(SACEUR), General
Wesley Clark Wesley Kanne Clark (born December 23, 1944) is a retired United States Army officer. He graduated as valedictorian of the class of 1966 at West Point and was awarded a Rhodes Scholarship to the University of Oxford, where he obtained a degree ...
, to "initiate air operations in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia."


NATO operations

The campaign involved 1,000 aircraft operating from air bases in Italy and Germany, and the aircraft carrier sailing in the
Adriatic Sea The Adriatic Sea () is a body of water separating the Italian Peninsula from the Balkan Peninsula. The Adriatic is the northernmost arm of the Mediterranean Sea, extending from the Strait of Otranto (where it connects to the Ionian Sea) to t ...
. During the ten weeks of the conflict, NATO aircraft flew over 38,000 combat missions. On 24 March at 19:00 UTC NATO started the bombing campaign against Yugoslavia. F/A-18 Hornets of the Spanish Air Force were the first NATO planes to bomb Belgrade and perform SEAD operations. BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missiles were fired from ships and submarines in the Adriatic. In addition to fixed-wing air power, one battalion of
Apache helicopter The Boeing AH-64 Apache () is an American twin-turboshaft attack helicopter with a tailwheel-type landing gear arrangement and a tandem cockpit for a crew of two. It features a nose-mounted sensor suite for target acquisition and night visi ...
s from the
US Army The United States Army (USA) is the land service branch of the United States Armed Forces. It is one of the eight U.S. uniformed services, and is designated as the Army of the United States in the U.S. Constitution.Article II, section 2, cla ...
's
11th Aviation Regiment 11 (eleven) is the natural number following 10 (number), 10 and preceding 12 (number), 12. It is the first repdigit. In English, it is the smallest positive integer whose name has three syllables. Name "Eleven" derives from the Old English ', w ...
was deployed to help combat missions. The regiment was augmented by pilots from Fort Bragg's 82nd Airborne Attack Helicopter Battalion. The battalion secured AH-64 Apache attack helicopter refueling sites, and a small team forward deployed to the Albania – Kosovo border to identify targets for NATO air strikes. The campaign was initially designed to destroy Yugoslav air defences and high-value military targets. NATO military operations increasingly attacked Yugoslav units on the ground, as well as continuing the strategic bombardment. Montenegro was bombed several times, and NATO refused to prop up the precarious position of its anti-Milošević leader,
Milo Đukanović Milo Đukanović ( cnr, Мило Ђукановић, ; born 15 February 1962) is a Montenegrin politician serving as the President of Montenegro since 2018, previously serving in the role from 1998 to 2003. He also served as the Prime Minister ...
. "
Dual-use In politics, diplomacy and export control, dual-use items refers to goods, software and technology that can be used for both civilian and military applications.
" targets, used by civilians and military, were attacked, including bridges across the
Danube The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , p ...
, factories, power stations, telecommunications facilities, the headquarters of
Yugoslav Left The Yugoslav Left ( sr, Југословенска Левица, Jugoslovenska Levica; abbr. ЈУЛ, JUL) was a far-left political party in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. At its peak, the party had 20 seats in Republic of Serbia's National A ...
ists, a political party led by Milošević's wife, and the
Avala TV Tower The Avala Tower ( sr-cyr, Авалски торањ, Avalski toranj) is a tall telecommunications tower located on Mount Avala, in Belgrade, Serbia. The original tower was finished in 1965, but was destroyed on 29 April 1999, during the NATO bo ...
. Some protested that these actions were violations of
international law International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...
and the
Geneva Conventions upright=1.15, Original document in single pages, 1864 The Geneva Conventions are four treaties, and three additional protocols, that establish international legal standards for humanitarian treatment in war. The singular term ''Geneva Conve ...
. NATO argued these facilities were potentially useful to the Yugoslav military and thus their bombing was justified. On 12 April, NATO airstrikes struck a railway bridge in Grdelica, hitting a civilian passenger train and killing twenty people. Showing video footage, General Wesley Clark later apologized and stated that the train had been traveling too fast and the bomb was too close to the target for it to divert in time. The German daily '' Frankfurter Rundschau'' reported in January 2000 that the NATO video had been shown at three times its real speed, giving a misleading impression of the train's speed. On 14 April, NATO planes bombed ethnic Albanians near Koriša who had been used by Yugoslav forces as human shields. Yugoslav troops took TV crews to the scene shortly after the bombing. The Yugoslav government insisted that NATO had targeted civilians. On 23 April, NATO bombed the Radio Television of Serbia headquarters killing sixteen civilian employees. This was labeled as a war crime by Amnesty International. NATO claimed that the bombing was justified because the station operated as a propaganda tool for the Milošević regime. On 7 May, the US bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, killing three Chinese journalists and injuring at least 20. The US defence secretary explained the cause of the error as "because the bombing instructions were based on an outdated map", but the Chinese government did not accept this explanation. The Chinese government issued a statement on the day of the bombing, stating that it was a "barbarian act". The target had been selected by the
Central Intelligence Agency The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA ), known informally as the Agency and historically as the Company, is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States, officially tasked with gathering, processing, ...
outside the normal NATO targeting regime. The US president Bill Clinton apologised for the bombing, saying it was an accident. The US gave China financial compensation. The bombing strained relations between the People's Republic of China and NATO, provoking angry demonstrations outside Western embassies in Beijing. The victims were Xu Xinghu, his wife Zhu Ying, and Shao Yunhuan.


NATO command organisation

Solana directed Clark to "initiate air operations in the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia". Clark then delegated responsibility for the conduct of Operation Allied Force to the Commander-in-Chief of Allied Forces Southern Europe, who in turn delegated control to the Commander of Allied Air Forces Southern Europe, Lieutenant-General Michael C. Short, USAF. Operationally, the day-to-day responsibility for executing missions was delegated to the Commander of the 5th Allied Tactical Air Force.


Yugoslav operations

The Hague Tribunal ruled that over 700,000
Kosovo Albanians The Albanians of Kosovo ( sq, Shqiptarët e Kosovës, ), also commonly called Kosovo Albanians, Kosovar/Kosovan Albanians or Kosovars/Kosovans, constitute the largest ethnic group in Kosovo. Kosovo Albanians belong to the ethnic Albanian sub-gr ...
were forcibly displaced by Yugoslav forces into neighbouring Albania and Macedonia, with many thousands displaced within Kosovo. By April, the United Nations reported 850,000 refugees had left Kosovo. Another 230,000 were listed as internally displaced persons (IDPs): driven from their homes, but still inside Kosovo. German Foreign Minister
Joschka Fischer Joseph Martin "Joschka" Fischer (born 12 April 1948) is a German retired politician of the Alliance 90/The Greens. He served as the foreign minister and as the vice-chancellor of Germany in the cabinet of Gerhard Schröder from 1998 to 2005. Fi ...
and Defense Minister
Rudolf Scharping Rudolf Albert Scharping (born 2 December 1947) is a German lawyer and politician of the Social Democratic Party (SPD). He was from 1991 to 1994 the 6th Minister President of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate and from 1998 to 2002 Federal Minis ...
claimed at the time that the refugee crisis was produced by a coordinated Yugoslav plan of ethnic cleansing codenamed "
Operation Horseshoe Operation Horseshoe was a 1999 alleged plan to ethnically cleanse Albanians in Kosovo. The plan was to be carried out by Serbian police and the Yugoslav army. In 2011, former Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nadezhda Mihaylova (Neynsky) revealed in ...
". The existence and character of such a plan has been called into question. Serbian Television claimed that huge columns of refugees were fleeing Kosovo because of NATO's bombing, not Yugoslav military operations. The Yugoslav side and its Western supporters claimed the refugee outflows were caused by a mass panic in the Kosovo Albanian population, and that the exodus was generated principally by fear of NATO bombs. The United Nations and international human rights organisations were convinced the crisis resulted from a policy of ethnic cleansing. Many accounts from both Serbs and Albanians identified Yugoslav security forces and paramilitaries as the culprits, responsible for systematically emptying towns and villages of their Albanian inhabitants by forcing them to flee. Atrocities against civilians in Kosovo were the basis of United Nations war crimes charges against Milošević and other officials responsible for directing the Kosovo conflict. On 29 March 1999, to escape possible destruction, Jat Airways evacuated around 30 of its fleet of civilian aircraft from Belgrade to neighbouring countries for safekeeping.


Air combat

An important portion of the war involved combat between the
Yugoslav Air Force The Air Force and Air Defence ( sh-Cyrl-Latn, Ратно ваздухопловство и противваздушна одбрана, Ratno vazduhoplovstvo i protivvazdušna odbrana ; abbr. sh-Cyrl-Latn, label=none, separator=/, РВ и ПВ ...
and the opposing air forces from NATO.
United States Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the Aerial warfare, air military branch, service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part ...
F-15s and F-16s flying from Italian airforce bases attacked the defending Yugoslav fighters, mainly MiG-29s, which were in poor condition due to a lack of spare parts and maintenance. Other NATO forces also contributed to the air war. Air combat incidents: * During the night of 24/25 March 1999: Yugoslav Air Force scrambled five MiG-29s to counter the initial attacks. Two fighters that took off from Niš Airport were vectored to intercept targets over southern Serbia and Kosovo were dealt with by NATO fighters. The MiG-29 flown by Maj. Dragan Ilić was damaged; he landed with one engine out and the aircraft was later expended as a decoy. The second MiG, flown by Maj. Iljo Arizanov, was shot down by an USAF F-15C piloted by Lt. Col. Cesar Rodriguez. A pair from Batajnica Air Base (Maj. Nebojša Nikolić and Maj. Ljubiša Kulačin) were engaged by USAF Capt. Mike Shower who shot down Nikolić while Kulačin evaded several missiles fired at him, while fighting to bring his malfunctioning systems back to working order. Eventually realising that he could not do anything, and with Batajnica AB under attack, Kulačin diverted to
Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport ( sr, / ) or Belgrade Airport ( sr, / ) is an international airport serving Belgrade, Serbia. It is the largest and the busiest airport in Serbia, situated west of downtown Belgrade near the suburb of Sur ...
, hiding his aircraft under the tail of a parked airliner. The fifth and last MiG-29 to get airborne that night was flown by Maj. Predrag Milutinović. Immediately after take-off his radar failed and electrical generator malfunctioned. Shortly after, he was warned of being acquired by fire control radar, but he eluded the opponent by several evasive manoeuvres. Attempting to evade further encounters, he approached Niš Airport, intending to land, when he was possibly hit by an
2K12 Kub The 2K12 ''"Kub"'' (russian: 2К12 "Куб"; en, cube) (NATO reporting name: SA-6 "Gainful") mobile surface-to-air missile system is a Soviet low to medium-level air defence system designed to protect ground forces from air attack. "2К12" is ...
in a
friendly fire In military terminology, friendly fire or fratricide is an attack by belligerent or neutral forces on friendly troops while attempting to attack enemy/hostile targets. Examples include misidentifying the target as hostile, cross-fire while en ...
incident, but more probably he was shot down by a KLU F-16AM flown by Maj. Peter Tankink and forced to eject. * In the morning of 25 March, Maj. Slobodan Tešanović stalled his MiG-29 while landing on Ponikve Airbase after a re-basing flight. He ejected safely. * During the war Yugoslav strike aircraft
J-22 Orao The Soko J-22 Orao ( sr-cyr, text=Oрао, translation=eagle) is a Yugoslav twin-engined, subsonic ground-attack and aerial reconnaissance aircraft. It was developed and built in collaboration by SOKO in Yugoslavia and by Avioane Craiova in ...
s and
G-4 Super Galeb The Soko G-4 Super Galeb ( en, Super Seagull), also referred to as N-62, is a Yugoslav single-engine, advanced jet trainer and light ground-attack aircraft designed by the Aeronautical Technical Institute at Žarkovo and manufactured by the SOK ...
s performed some 20–30 combat missions against the KLA in Kosovo at treetop level causing some casualties. During one of those missions on 25 March 1999, Lt. Colonel Života Ðurić was killed when his J-22 Orao hit a hill in Kosovo. It was never firmly established whether an aircraft malfunction, pilot error or if enemy action (by KLA) was the cause (NATO never claimed they shot it down). * In the afternoon of 25 March 1999 two Yugoslav MiG-29s took off from Batajnica to chase a lone NATO aircraft flying in the direction of the Bosnian border. They crossed the border and were engaged by two US F-15s. Both MiGs were shot down by Captain Jeff Hwang. One MiG pilot, Major Slobodan Perić, having evaded at least one missile before being hit ejected, was later smuggled back to Yugoslavia by the
Republika Srpska Republika Srpska ( sr-Cyrl, Република Српска, lit=Serb Republic, also known as Republic of Srpska, ) is one of the two entities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the other being the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is locat ...
police. The other pilot, Captain Zoran Radosavljević, did not eject and was killed. * On 27 March 1999, the 3rd Battalion of the 250th Missile Brigade, under the command of Colonel
Zoltán Dani Zoltán Dani ( hu, Dani Zoltán, sr-Cyrl, Золтан Дани; 23 July 1956) is a former officer of the Yugoslav army and former commander of the 3rd battery of the 250th Missile Brigade, which shot down a NATO F-117 Nighthawk near the vil ...
, equipped with the Isayev S-125 'Neva-M' (NATO designation
SA-3 Goa The S-125 ''Neva/Pechora'' (russian: С-125 "Нева"/"Печора", NATO reporting name SA-3 ''Goa'') is a Soviet surface-to-air missile system that was designed by Aleksei Isaev to complement the S-25 and S-75. It has a shorter effective ra ...
), downed an American F-117 Nighthawk. The pilot ejected and was rescued by search and rescue forces near Belgrade. This was the first and so far only time a stealth aircraft has been shot down by hostile ground fire in combat. * Several times between 5–7 April 1999, Yugoslav MiG-29s were scrambled to intercept NATO aircraft, but turned back due to malfunctions. * On 7 April 1999 four RQ-5A Hunter UAVs were shot down. * On 30 April, some US sources claim that a second F-117A was damaged by a surface-to-air missile. Although the aircraft returned to base, it supposedly never flew again. * On 2 May, a USAF F-16 was shot down near
Šabac Šabac (Serbian Cyrillic: Шабац, ) is a city and the administrative centre of the Mačva District in western Serbia. The traditional centre of the fertile Mačva region, Šabac is located on the right banks of the river Sava. , the city ...
by a
SA-3 The S-125 ''Neva/Pechora'' (russian: С-125 "Нева"/"Печора", NATO reporting name SA-3 ''Goa'') is a Soviet surface-to-air missile system that was designed by Aleksei Isaev to complement the S-25 and S-75. It has a shorter effective ra ...
, again fired by the 3rd Battalion of the 250th Missile Brigade. The pilot Lt. Colonel
David Goldfein David Lee Goldfein (born December 21, 1959) is a retired United States Air Force four-star general who last served as the 21st chief of staff of the Air Force. He previously served as the vice chief of staff of the Air Force and, prior to that, ...
, commander of the
555th Fighter Squadron The 555th Fighter Squadron is part of the 31st Operations Group at Aviano Air Base, Italy. It operates General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon aircraft conducting multirole air and ground missions. The squadron was first activated during World ...
, was rescued. On the same day an
A-10 Thunderbolt II The Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II is a single-seat, twin-turbofan, straight-wing, subsonic attack aircraft developed by Fairchild Republic for the United States Air Force (USAF). In service since 1976, it is named for the Republic ...
was damaged by a
Strela 2 The 9K32 Strela-2 (russian: Cтрела, "arrow"; NATO reporting name SA-7 Grail) is a light-weight, shoulder-fired, surface-to-air missile (or MANPADS) system. It is designed to target aircraft at low altitudes with passive infrared homing guid ...
shoulder-mounted SAM over Kosovo and had to make an emergency landing at a
Skopje airport Skopje International Airport ( mk, Меѓународен аеродром Скопје, translit=Megjunaroden aerodrom Skopje, ), also known as Skopje Airport ( mk, Аеродром Скопје, translit=Aerodrom Skopje), and Petrovec Airport ...
in Macedonia, and a Marine Corps Harrier crashed while returning to the amphibious assault carrier USS ''Kearsarge'' from a training mission. Its pilot was rescued. * On 4 May, a Yugoslav MiG-29, piloted by Lt. Col.
Milenko Pavlović Milenko Pavlović (Serbian Cyrillic: Миленко Павловић; 5 October 1959 – 4 May 1999) was a Yugoslav fighter pilot who fought in the Kosovo War and came to prominence after he was killed during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia. Ear ...
, commander of the 204th Fighter Aviation Wing, was shot down at a low altitude over his hometown Valjevo by two USAF F-16s. The falling aircraft was possibly hit as well by
Strela 2 The 9K32 Strela-2 (russian: Cтрела, "arrow"; NATO reporting name SA-7 Grail) is a light-weight, shoulder-fired, surface-to-air missile (or MANPADS) system. It is designed to target aircraft at low altitudes with passive infrared homing guid ...
fired by Yugoslav troops. Pavlović was killed. * On 11 May, an A-10 was lightly damaged over Kosovo by 9K35 Strela 10. * During the war NATO lost two
AH-64 Apache The Boeing AH-64 Apache () is an American twin- turboshaft attack helicopter with a tailwheel-type landing gear arrangement and a tandem cockpit for a crew of two. It features a nose-mounted sensor suite for target acquisition and night v ...
strike helicopters (one on 26 April and the other on 4 May in Albania near the border with Yugoslavia, in training accidents resulting in death of two US Army crew members. NATO reported that it lost 21 UAVs to technical failures or enemy action during the conflict, including at least seven German UAVs and five French UAVs. While the commander of the Yugoslav Third Army claimed that 21 NATO UAVs had been shot down by Yugoslav forces, another Yugoslav general claimed that Yugoslav air defences and ground forces had shot down 30 UAVs. One of the preferred Yugoslav tactics to destroy hostile UAVs involved the use of transport helicopters in air-to-air combat role. The first IAI RQ-5 Hunter drone lost by the US Army in the campaign was apparently shot down by a
Mi-8 helicopter The Mil Mi-8 (russian: Ми-8, NATO reporting name: Hip) is a medium twin-turbine helicopter, originally designed by the Soviet Union in the 1960s and introduced into the Soviet Air Force in 1968. It is now produced by Russia. In addition to ...
flying alongside, with the door gunner firing a 7.62 mm machine gun. The manoeuvre was repeated several times until Allied air supremacy made this practice too dangerous.


Air Defence Suppression Operations

Suppression of Enemy Air Defences or SEAD operations for NATO were principally carried out by the US Air Force, with fifty F-16CJ Block 50 Fighting Falcons, and the US Navy and Marines, with 30 EA-6B Prowlers. The F-16CJs carried
AGM-88 HARM The AGM-88 HARM (High-speed Anti-Radiation Missile) is a tactical, air-to-surface missile, air-to-surface anti-radiation missile designed to home in on electronic transmissions coming from surface-to-air radar systems. It was originally developed ...
anti-radiation missile An anti-radiation missile (ARM) is a missile designed to detect and home in on an enemy radio emission source. Typically, these are designed for use against an enemy radar, although jammers and even radios used for communications can also be ...
s which would home in on and destroy any active Yugoslav radar systems, while the Prowlers provided
radar jamming Radar jamming and deception is a form of electronic countermeasures that intentionally sends out radio frequency signals to interfere with the operation of radar by saturating its receiver with noise or false information. Concepts that blanket the ...
assistance (though they could carry HARMs as well). Additional support came in the form of Italian and German Tornado ECRs which also carried HARMs. USAF Compass Call EC-130s were used to intercept and jam Yugoslav communications, while RC-135s conducted
bomb damage assessment Bomb damage assessment (BDA), also known as battle damage assessment, is the practice of assessing damage inflicted on a target from a Standoff missile, stand-off weapon, most typically a bomb or air launched missile. It is part of the larger disc ...
. The standard tactic for F-16CJs was for two pairs to come at a suspected air defence site from opposite directions, ensuring total coverage of the target area, and relaying information to incoming strike craft so they could adjust their flight path accordingly.Lambeth, Dr. Benjamin S. "Kosovo and the Continuing SEAD Challenge." Air and Space Power Journal. Summer 2002. p. 10-11 Where possible, NATO attempted to proactively destroy air defence sites, using F-16CGs and
F-15E Strike Eagle The McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) F-15E Strike Eagle is an American all-weather multirole strike fighter derived from the McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle. The F-15E was designed in the 1980s for long-range, high-speed interdiction without rely ...
s carrying conventional munitions including cluster bombs,
AGM-130 The AGM-130 was a powered air-to-ground guided missile developed by the United States of America. Developed in 1984, it is effectively a rocket-boosted version of the GBU-15 bomb. It first entered operational service on 11 January 1999, and was ...
boosted bombs, and
AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon The AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) is a glide bomb that resulted from a joint venture between the United States Navy and Air Force to deploy a standardized medium range precision guided weapon, especially for engagement of defended targets ...
missiles. Many NATO aircraft made use of new towed decoys designed to lure away any missiles fired at them. Reportedly, NATO also for the first time employed cyberwarfare to target Yugoslav air defence computer systems.Lambeth, p. 16 A number of deficiencies in NATO's SEAD operations were revealed during the course of the bombing campaign. The EA-6Bs were noticeably slower than other aircraft, limiting their effectiveness in providing support, and land-based Prowlers flying out of Aviano Air Base were forced to carry extra fuel tanks instead of HARMs due to the distances involved. The F-16CJ Block 50 could not carry the
LANTIRN LANTIRN (Low Altitude Navigation and Targeting Infrared for Night) is a combined navigation and targeting pod system for use on the United States Air Force fighter aircraft—the F-15E Strike Eagle and F-16 Fighting Falcon (Block 40/42 C & D mod ...
targeting pod, making it unable to conduct precision bombing at night.Lambeth, p. 14 Moreover, the US Air Force had allowed its
electronic warfare Electronic warfare (EW) is any action involving the use of the electromagnetic spectrum (EM spectrum) or directed energy to control the spectrum, attack an enemy, or impede enemy assaults. The purpose of electronic warfare is to deny the opponen ...
branch to atrophy in the years after the
Gulf War The Gulf War was a 1990–1991 armed campaign waged by a Coalition of the Gulf War, 35-country military coalition in response to the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. Spearheaded by the United States, the coalition's efforts against Ba'athist Iraq, ...
. Training exercises were fewer and less rigorous than before, while veterans with electronic warfare experience were allowed to retire with no replacement. The results were less than satisfactory: response times to engaging a SAM threat actually increased from the Gulf War, and electronic warfare
wings A wing is a type of fin that produces lift while moving through air or some other fluid. Accordingly, wings have streamlined cross-sections that are subject to aerodynamic forces and act as airfoils. A wing's aerodynamic efficiency is expre ...
could no longer reprogram their own jamming pods but had to send them elsewhere for the task.Lambeth, p.17 Further difficulties came in the form of airspace restrictions, which forced NATO aircraft into predictable flight paths, and
rules of engagement Rules of engagement (ROE) are the internal rules or directives afforded military forces (including individuals) that define the circumstances, conditions, degree, and manner in which the use of force, or actions which might be construed as pro ...
which prevented NATO from targeting certain sites for fear of
collateral damage Collateral damage is any death, injury, or other damage inflicted that is an incidental result of an activity. Originally coined by military operations, it is now also used in non-military contexts. Since the development of precision guided ...
. In particular this applied to early-warning radars located in Montenegro, which remained operational during the campaign and gave Yugoslav forces advanced warning of incoming NATO air raids. Kosovo's mountainous terrain also made it difficult for NATO to locate and target Yugoslav air defences, while at the same time the region's poor infrastructure limited where Yugoslav SAM and AAA sites could be placed. Yugoslav air defences were much fewer than what Iraq had deployed during the Gulf War – an estimated 16
SA-3 The S-125 ''Neva/Pechora'' (russian: С-125 "Нева"/"Печора", NATO reporting name SA-3 ''Goa'') is a Soviet surface-to-air missile system that was designed by Aleksei Isaev to complement the S-25 and S-75. It has a shorter effective ra ...
and 25
SA-6 The 2K12 ''"Kub"'' (russian: 2К12 "Куб"; en, cube) (NATO reporting name: SA-6 "Gainful") mobile surface-to-air missile system is a Soviet low to medium-level air defence system designed to protect ground forces from air attack. "2К12" is ...
surface-to-air missile systems, plus numerous anti-aircraft artillery (AAA) and man-portable air defence systems ( MANPADS) – but unlike the Iraqis they took steps to preserve their assets. Prior to the conflict's start Yugoslav SAMs were preemptively dispersed away from their garrisons and practiced emission control to decrease NATO's ability to locate them.Lambeth, p. 9 The Yugoslav integrated air defence system (IADS) was extensive, including underground command sites and buried landlines, which allowed for information to be shared between systems. Active radar in one area could target NATO aircraft for SAMs and AAA in another area with no active radar, further limiting NATO's ability to target air defence weapons.Lambeth, p. 15 During the course of the campaign, NATO and Yugoslav forces engaged in a "cat-and-mouse" game which made suppressing the air defences difficult. Yugoslav SAM operators would turn their radars on for no longer than 20 seconds, allowing little chance for NATO anti-radiation missions to lock on to their emissions. While most Yugoslav SAMs were fired ballistically (with no radar guidance) at NATO aircraft, as many as a third were guided by radar, forcing the targeted aircraft to jettison fuel tanks and take evasive action.Lambeth, p. 11 In response, over half of NATO's anti-radiation missiles were pre-emptively fired at suspected air defence sites so that if a radar system did become active the missiles would be able to lock on more quickly. Where possible, Yugoslav air defences attempted to bring NATO aircraft into range of AAA and MANPADS. A common tactic was to target the last aircraft in a departing formation, on the assumption that it received less protection, was flown by a less-experienced pilot, and/or was low on fuel needed to make evasive manoeuvres. However, because AAA were limited to deploying close to roads for mobility and became bogged down in difficult terrain, NATO pilots learned to avoid these by staying at least five kilometers away from roads, never flying along them and only crossing them at a perpendicular angle, though this made spotting ground traffic more difficult. By focusing on their operational survival, Yugoslav air defences ceded a certain amount of air superiority to NATO forces. Yet the persistence of their credible SAM threat forced NATO to allocate greater resources to continued SEAD operations rather than conducting other missions, while Yugoslav AAA and MANPADS forced NATO aircraft to fly at or higher. NATO reportedly fired 743 HARMs during the course of the 78-day campaign, but could confirm the destruction of only 3 of the original 25 SA-6 batteries. Over 800 SAMs were fired by Yugoslav forces at NATO aircraft, including 477 SA-6s and 124 confirmed MANPADS, for the downing of only two aircraft and several more damaged. According to a post-conflict US intelligence report, Yugoslav military had a spy in NATO's headquarters in Brussels who in the early part of the conflict leaked flight plans and target details to the Yugoslav military, allowing Yugoslav military assets to move to avoid detection. Once NATO limited the number of people with access to its plans, the effect on "what the Serbs appeared to know" was immediate. The identity and nationality of the suspected 'spy' was not stated.


NATO forces

While not directly related to the hostilities, on 12 March 1999 the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Poland joined NATO by depositing instruments of accession in accordance with Article 10 of the
North Atlantic Treaty The North Atlantic Treaty, also referred to as the Washington Treaty, is the treaty that forms the legal basis of, and is implemented by, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The treaty was signed in Washington, D.C., on 4 April 194 ...
at a ceremony in
Independence, Missouri Independence is the fifth-largest city in Missouri and the county seat of Jackson County. Independence is a satellite city of Kansas City, Missouri, and is the largest suburb on the Missouri side of the Kansas City metropolitan area. In 2020, ...
. These nations did not participate directly in hostilities.


Aviation

A large element of the operation was the air forces of NATO, relying heavily on the US Air Force and Navy using the F-16,
F-15 The McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle is an American twin-engine, all-weather tactical fighter aircraft designed by McDonnell Douglas (now part of Boeing). Following reviews of proposals, the United States Air Force selected McDonnell Douglas's ...
,
F-117 The Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk is a retired American single-seat, twin-engine stealth attack aircraft developed by Lockheed's secretive Skunk Works division and operated by the United States Air Force (USAF). It was the first operational aircr ...
,
F-14 The Grumman F-14 Tomcat is an American carrier-capable supersonic, twin-engine, two-seat, twin-tail, variable-sweep wing fighter aircraft. The Tomcat was developed for the United States Navy's Naval Fighter Experimental (VFX) program after the ...
,
F/A-18 The McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet is an all-weather, twin-engine, supersonic, carrier-capable, multirole combat aircraft, designed as both a fighter and attack aircraft (hence the F/A designation). Designed by McDonnell Douglas (now part ...
,
EA-6B The Northrop Grumman (formerly Grumman) EA-6B Prowler is a twin-engine, four-seat, mid-wing electronic-warfare aircraft derived from the A-6 Intruder airframe. The EA-6A was the initial electronic warfare version of the A-6 used by the United ...
,
B-52 The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is an American long-range, subsonic, jet-powered strategic bomber. The B-52 was designed and built by Boeing, which has continued to provide support and upgrades. It has been operated by the United States Air ...
,
KC-135 The Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker is an American military aerial refueling aircraft that was developed from the Boeing 367-80 prototype, alongside the Boeing 707 airliner. It is the predominant variant of the C-135 Stratolifter family of transpo ...
,
KC-10 The McDonnell Douglas KC-10 Extender is an American aerial refueling tanker aircraft operated by the United States Air Force (USAF). A military version of the three-engine DC-10 airliner, the KC-10 was developed from the Advanced Tanker Cargo A ...
, AWACS, and
JSTARS The Northrop Grumman E-8 Joint Surveillance Target Attack Radar System (Joint STARS) is a United States Air Force airborne ground surveillance, battle management and command and control aircraft. It tracks ground vehicles and some aircraft, col ...
from bases throughout Europe and from aircraft carriers in the region. The French Navy and Air Force operated the
Super Etendard Super may refer to: Computing * SUPER (computer program), or Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer, a video converter / player * Super (computer science), a keyword in object-oriented programming languages * Super key (keyboard butt ...
and the Mirage 2000. The
Italian Air Force , colours = , colours_label = , march = (Ordinance March of the Air Force) by Alberto Di Miniello , mascot = , anniversaries = 28 March ...
operated with 34
Tornado A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, altho ...
, 12
F-104 The Lockheed F-104 Starfighter is an American single-engine, supersonic air superiority fighter which was extensively deployed as a fighter-bomber during the Cold War. Created as a day fighter by Lockheed as one of the " Century Series" of ...
, 12 AMX, 2
B-707 The Boeing 707 is an American, long-range, narrow-body airliner, the first jetliner developed and produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes. Developed from the Boeing 367-80 prototype first flown in 1954, the initial first flew on December 20, ...
, the Italian Navy operated with
Harrier II The McDonnell Douglas (now Boeing) AV-8B Harrier II is a single-engine ground-attack aircraft that constitutes the second generation of the Harrier family, capable of vertical or short takeoff and landing (V/STOL). The aircraft is primaril ...
. The UK's Royal Air Force operated the Harrier GR7 and
Tornado A tornado is a violently rotating column of air that is in contact with both the surface of the Earth and a cumulonimbus cloud or, in rare cases, the base of a cumulus cloud. It is often referred to as a twister, whirlwind or cyclone, altho ...
ground attack jets as well as an array of support aircraft.
Belgian Belgian may refer to: * Something of, or related to, Belgium * Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent * Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German *Ancient Belgian language, an extinct languag ...
,
Danish Danish may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to the country of Denmark People * A national or citizen of Denmark, also called a "Dane," see Demographics of Denmark * Culture of Denmark * Danish people or Danes, people with a Danish a ...
,
Dutch Dutch commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands * Dutch people () * Dutch language () Dutch may also refer to: Places * Dutch, West Virginia, a community in the United States * Pennsylvania Dutch Country People E ...
,
Norwegian Norwegian, Norwayan, or Norsk may refer to: *Something of, from, or related to Norway, a country in northwestern Europe * Norwegians, both a nation and an ethnic group native to Norway * Demographics of Norway *The Norwegian language, including ...
,
Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...
and Turkish Air Forces operated F-16s. The Spanish Air Force deployed EF-18s and
KC-130 The Lockheed Martin (previously Lockheed) KC-130 is a family of the extended-range tanker version of the C-130 Hercules transport aircraft. The KC-130J is the latest variant operated by the United States Marine Corps (USMC), with 48 delivered ...
s. The Canadian Air Force deployed a total of 18
CF-18 The McDonnell Douglas CF-18 Hornet (official military designation CF-188) is a Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) variant of the American McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornet fighter aircraft. In 1980, the F/A-18 was selected as the winner of the New ...
s, enabling them to be responsible for 10% of all bombs dropped in the operation. The fighters were armed with both guided and unguided "dumb" munitions, including the
Paveway Paveway is a series of laser-guided bombs (LGBs). ''Pave'' or PAVE is sometimes used as an acronym for ''precision avionics vectoring equipment''; literally, electronics for controlling the speed and direction of aircraft. Laser guidance is ...
series of laser-guided bombs. The bombing campaign marked the first time the German Air Force actively attacking targets since World War II. The US
B-2 Spirit The Northrop (later Northrop Grumman) B-2 Spirit, also known as the Stealth Bomber, is an American heavy strategic bomber, featuring low-observable stealth technology designed to penetrate dense anti-aircraft defenses. A subsonic flying ...
stealth bomber saw its first successful combat role in Operation Allied Force, striking from its home base in the contiguous United States. Even with this air power, noted a RAND Corporation study, "NATO never fully succeeded in neutralising the enemy's radar-guided SAM threat".


Space

Operation Allied Force incorporated the first large-scale use of satellites as a direct method of weapon guidance. The collective bombing was the first combat use of the Joint Direct Attack Munition
JDAM The Joint Direct Attack Munition (JDAM) is a guidance kit that converts unguided bombs, or "dumb bombs", into all-weather precision-guided munitions. JDAM-equipped bombs are guided by an integrated inertial guidance system coupled to a Global Po ...
kit, which uses an inertial-guidance and
GPS The Global Positioning System (GPS), originally Navstar GPS, is a satellite-based radionavigation system owned by the United States government and operated by the United States Space Force. It is one of the global navigation satellite sy ...
-guided tail fin to increase the accuracy of conventional gravity munitions up to 95%. The JDAM kits were outfitted on the B-2s. The
AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon The AGM-154 Joint Standoff Weapon (JSOW) is a glide bomb that resulted from a joint venture between the United States Navy and Air Force to deploy a standardized medium range precision guided weapon, especially for engagement of defended targets ...
(JSOW) had been previously used in
Operation Southern Watch Operation Southern Watch was an air-centric military operation conducted by the United States Department of Defense from Summer 1992 to Spring 2003. United States Central Command's Joint Task Force Southwest Asia (JTF-SWA) had the mission of mon ...
earlier in 1999.


Naval

NATO naval forces operated in the Adriatic Sea. The
Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...
sent a substantial task force that included the aircraft carrier , which operated
Sea Harrier FA2 The British Aerospace Sea Harrier is a naval short take-off and vertical landing/ vertical take-off and landing jet fighter, reconnaissance and attack aircraft. It is the second member of the Harrier family developed. It first entered servic ...
fighter jets. The RN also deployed destroyers and frigates, and the
Royal Fleet Auxiliary The Royal Fleet Auxiliary (RFA) is a naval auxiliary fleet owned by the UK's Ministry of Defence. It provides logistical and operational support to the Royal Navy and Royal Marines. The RFA ensures the Royal Navy is supplied and supported by ...
(RFA) provided support vessels, including the aviation training/primary casualty receiving ship . It was the first time the RN used cruise missiles in combat, fired from the nuclear fleet submarine . The Italian Navy provided a naval task force that included the aircraft carrier , a frigate () and a submarine (). The
United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...
provided a naval task force that included the aircraft carrier USS ''Theodore Roosevelt'', , and the amphibious assault ship . The
French Navy The French Navy (french: Marine nationale, lit=National Navy), informally , is the maritime arm of the French Armed Forces and one of the five military service branches of France. It is among the largest and most powerful naval forces in t ...
provided the aircraft carrier and escorts. The
German Navy The German Navy (, ) is the navy of Germany and part of the unified ''Bundeswehr'' (Federal Defense), the German Armed Forces. The German Navy was originally known as the ''Bundesmarine'' (Federal Navy) from 1956 to 1995, when ''Deutsche Mari ...
deployed the frigate ''Rheinland-Pfalz'' and ''Oker'', an , in the naval operations. The Netherlands sent the submarine to uphold trade embargoes off the coast of Yugoslavia.


Army

NATO ground forces included a US battalion from the
505th Parachute Infantry Regiment The 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment (505th PIR), originally the 505th Infantry Regiment, is an airborne infantry regiment of the United States Army, one of four infantry regiments of the 82nd Airborne Division of the United States Army, with ...
, 82nd Airborne Division. The unit was deployed in March 1999 to Albania in support of the bombing campaign where the battalion secured the
Tirana Tirana ( , ; aln, Tirona) is the capital and largest city of Albania. It is located in the centre of the country, enclosed by mountains and hills with Dajti rising to the east and a slight valley to the northwest overlooking the Adriatic Sea ...
airfield, Apache helicopter refueling sites, established a forward-operating base to prepare for Multiple Launch Rocket System (MLRS) strikes and offensive ground operations, and deployed a small team with an
AN/TPQ-36 Firefinder radar Hughes AN/TPQ-36 Firefinder weapon locating system is a mobile radar system developed in the mid-late 1970s by Hughes Aircraft Company and manufactured by Northrop Grumman and ThalesRaytheonSystems, achieving initial operational capability in ...
system to the Albania/Kosovo border where it acquired targets for NATO air strikes. Immediately after the bombing campaign, the battalion was refitted back at Tirana airfield and issued orders to move into Kosovo as the initial entry force in support of
Operation Joint Guardian Operation or Operations may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Operation (game), ''Operation'' (game), a battery-operated board game that challenges dexterity * Operation (music), a term used in musical set theory * Operations (magazine ...
.
Task Force Hawk Task Force Hawk was a U.S. military unit constructed and deployed by General Wesley Clark to provide additional support to NATO's Operation Allied Force against the Yugoslavian government during the 1999 unrest in the Serbian province of Kosovo. ...
was also deployed. Task Force Hunter, a US surveillance unit based upon the IAI RQ-5 Hunter drone "A" Company from a Forces Command (FORSCOM) Corps Military Intelligence Brigade (MI Bde) was deployed to Camp Able Sentry, Macedonia, in March, to provide real-time intelligence on Yugoslav forces inside Kosovo. They flew a total of 246 sorties, with five drones lost to enemy fire. A German Army drone battery based at
Tetovo Tetovo ( mk, Тетово, , sq, Tetovë/Tetova) is a city in the northwestern part of North Macedonia, built on the foothills of Šar Mountain and divided by the Pena River. The municipality of Tetovo covers an area of at above sea level, w ...
was tasked with a similar mission. German forces used CL-289 UAVs from December 1998 to July 1999 to fly 237 sorties over Yugoslav positions, with six drones lost to hostile fire.


Aftermath


Civilian casualties

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...
concluded "that as few as 489 and as many as 528 Yugoslav civilians were killed in the ninety separate incidents in Operation Allied Force". Refugees were among the victims. Between 278 and 317 of the deaths, nearly 60 percent of the total number, were in Kosovo. In Serbia, 201 civilians were killed (five in Vojvodina) and eight died in Montenegro. Almost two-thirds (303 to 352) of the total registered civilian deaths occurred in twelve incidents where ten or more civilian deaths were confirmed.


Military casualties

Military casualties on the NATO side were limited. According to official reports, the alliance suffered no fatalities from combat operations. However, on 5 May, an American AH-64 Apache crashed and exploded during a night-time mission in Albania. The Yugoslavs claimed they shot it down, but NATO claimed it crashed due to a technical malfunction. It crashed 40 miles from Tirana, killing the two crewmen, Army
Chief Warrant Officer Chief warrant officer is a military rank used by the United States Armed Forces, the Canadian Armed Forces, the Pakistan Air Force, the Israel Defense Forces, the South African National Defence Force, the Lebanese Armed Forces and, since 2012, th ...
s David Gibbs and Kevin Reichert. It was one of two Apache helicopters lost in the war. A further three US soldiers were taken as prisoners of war by Yugoslav special forces while riding on a
Humvee The High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV; colloquial: Humvee) is a family of light, four-wheel drive, military trucks and utility vehicles produced by AM General. It has largely supplanted the roles previously performed by the ...
on a surveillance mission along the Macedonian border with Kosovo. A study of the campaign reports that Yugoslav air defences may have fired up to 700 missiles at NATO aircraft, and that the B-1 bomber crews counted at least 20 surface-to-air missiles fired at them during their first 50 missions. Despite this, only two NATO manned aircraft (one
F-16C The General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon is a single-engine multirole fighter aircraft originally developed by General Dynamics for the United States Air Force (USAF). Designed as an air superiority day fighter, it evolved into a successf ...
and one
F-117A Nighthawk The Lockheed F-117 Nighthawk is a retired American single-seat, twin-engine stealth attack aircraft developed by Lockheed's secretive Skunk Works division and operated by the United States Air Force (USAF). It was the first operational ai ...
) were shot down. A further F-117A Nighthawk was damaged by hostile fire as were two
A-10 Thunderbolt The Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II is a single-seat, twin-turbofan, straight-wing, subsonic attack aircraft developed by Fairchild Republic for the United States Air Force (USAF). In service since 1976, it is named for the Republic ...
IIs. One AV-8B Harrier crashed in the Adriatic Sea due to technical failure. NATO also lost 25 UAVs, either due to enemy action or mechanical failure. Yugoslavia's 3rd Army commander, Lt. Gen. Nebojsa Pavkovic, claimed that Yugoslav forces shot down 51 NATO aircraft, though no other source verified these numbers. In 2013, Serbia's then-defence minister
Aleksandar Vučić Aleksandar Vučić ( sr-Cyrl, Александар Вучић, ; born 5 March 1970) is a Serbian politician serving as the president of Serbia since 2017, and as the president of the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) since 2012. Vučić serve ...
announced that the combined Yugoslav military and law enforcement casualties during the air campaign amounted to 956 killed and 52 missing. Vučić stated that 631 soldiers were killed and a further 28 went missing, and that 325 policemen were also among the dead with a further 24 listed as missing. The government of Serbia also lists 5,173 combatants as having been wounded. In early June 1999, while the bombing was still in progress, NATO officials claimed that 5,000 Yugoslav troops had been killed in the bombing and a further 10,000 wounded. NATO later revised this estimation to 1,200 soldiers and policemen killed. Throughout the war; 181 NATO strikes were reported against tanks, 317 against armoured personnel vehicles, 800 against other military vehicles, and 857 against artillery and mortars, after a total of 38,000 sorties, or 200 sorties per day at the beginning of the conflict and over 1,000 at the end of the conflict. When it came to alleged hits, 93 tanks (out of 600), 153 APCs, 339 other vehicles, and 389 artillery systems were believed to have been disabled or destroyed with certainty.Lambeth, p. 86 The Department of Defence and Joint Chief of Staff had earlier provided a figure of 120 tanks, 220 APCs, and 450 artillery systems, and a Newsweek piece published around a year later stated that only 14 tanks, 12 self-propelled guns, 18 APCs, and 20 artillery systems had actually been obliterated, not that far from the Yugoslavs' own estimates of 13 tanks, 6 APCs, and 6 artillery pieces. However, this reporting was heavily criticised, as it was based on the number of vehicles found during the assessment of the Munitions Effectiveness Assessment Team, which wasn't interested in the effectiveness of anything but the ordnance, and surveyed sites that hadn't been visited in nearly three-months, at a time when the most recent of strikes were four-weeks old. The Yugoslav Air Force also sustained serious damage, with 121 aircraft destroyed (according to NATO). Operation Allied Force inflicted less damage on the Yugoslav military than originally thought due to the use of
camouflage Camouflage is the use of any combination of materials, coloration, or illumination for concealment, either by making animals or objects hard to see, or by disguising them as something else. Examples include the leopard's spotted coat, the b ...
and decoys. "NATO hit a lot of dummy and deception targets. It's an old Soviet ploy. Officials in Europe are very subdued", noted a former senior NATO official in a post-war assessment of the damage. Other misdirection techniques were used to disguise targets including replacing the batteries of fired missiles with mock-ups, as well as burning tires beside major bridges and painting roads in different colors to emit varying degrees of heat, thus guiding NATO missiles away from vital infrastructure. It was only in the later stages of the campaign that strategic targets such as bridges and buildings were attacked in any systematic way, causing significant disruption and economic damage. This stage of the campaign led to controversial incidents, most notably the bombing of the People's Republic of China embassy in Belgrade where three Chinese reporters were killed and twenty injured, which NATO claimed was a mistake. Relatives of Italian soldiers believe 50 of them have died since the war due to their exposure to depleted uranium weapons.
UNEP The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is responsible for coordinating responses to environmental issues within the United Nations system. It was established by Maurice Strong, its first director, after the United Nations Conference on ...
tests found no evidence of harm by depleted uranium weapons, even among cleanup workers, but those tests and UNEP's report were questioned in an article in '' Le Monde diplomatique''.


Damage and economic loss

In April 1999, during the NATO bombing, officials in Yugoslavia said the damage from the bombing campaign has cost around $100 billion up to that time. In 2000, a year after the bombing ended,
Group 17 The halogens () are a group (periodic table), group in the periodic table consisting of five or six chemically related chemical element, elements: fluorine (F), chlorine (Cl), bromine (Br), iodine (I), astatine (At), and tennessine (Ts). In the ...
published a survey dealing with damage and economic restoration. The report concluded that direct damage from the bombing totalled $3.8 billion, not including Kosovo, of which only 5% had been repaired at that time. In 2006, a group of economists from the G17 Plus party estimated the total economic losses resulting from the bombing were about $29.6 billion. This figure included indirect economic damage, loss of human capital, and loss of GDP. The bombing caused damage to bridges, roads and railway tracks, as well as to 25,000 homes, 69 schools and 176 cultural monuments. Furthemore, 19 hospitals and 20 health centers were damaged, including the
University Hospital Center Dr Dragiša Mišović University Hospital Center Dr Dragiša Mišović ( sr, Клиничко-болнички центар Др Драгиша Мишовић-Дедиње) or Clinical Hospital Center Dr Dragiša Mišović Dedinje, is a health facility of secondary lev ...
. NATO bombing also resulted in the damaging of medieval monuments, such as
Gračanica Monastery Gračanica () may refer to: Places Bosnia and Herzegovina * Gračanica, Bosnia and Herzegovina, a town and municipality in Tuzla *Gračanica (Bugojno), a village in Central Bosnia * Gračanica, Gacko, a village in Republika Srpska * Gračanica, P ...
, the
Patriarchate of Peć Patriarchate of Peć may refer to: * Patriarchate of Peć (monastery), Eastern Orthodox Patriarchal Monastery of the Serbian Orthodox Church, near the city of Peć * Serbian Patriarchate of Peć The Serbian Patriarchate of Peć ( sr, Српс ...
and the
Visoki Dečani The Visoki Dečani Monastery ( sr, Манастир Високи Дечани, Manastir Visoki Dečani, sq, Manastiri i Deçanit) is a medieval Serbian Orthodox Christian monastery located near Deçan, Kosovo. It was founded in the first half of ...
, which are on the
UNESCO The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization is a specialized agency of the United Nations (UN) aimed at promoting world peace and security through international cooperation in education, arts, sciences and culture. It ...
's
World Heritage A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for ...
list today. The
Avala Tower The Avala Tower ( sr-cyr, Авалски торањ, Avalski toranj) is a tall telecommunications tower located on Mount Avala, in Belgrade, Serbia. The original tower was finished in 1965, but was destroyed on 29 April 1999, during the NATO ...
, one of the most popular symbols of Belgrade, Serbia's capital, was destroyed during the bombing.


Political outcome

In early June, a Finnish-Russian mediation team headed by
Martti Ahtisaari Martti Oiva Kalevi Ahtisaari (; born 23 June 1937) is a Finnish politician, the tenth president of Finland (1994–2000), a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and a United Nations diplomat and mediator noted for his international peace work. Ahtisa ...
and
Viktor Chernomyrdin Viktor Stepanovich Chernomyrdin (russian: Ви́ктор Степа́нович Черномы́рдин, ; 9 April 19383 November 2010) was a Soviet and Russian politician and businessman. He was the Minister of Gas Industry of the Soviet Unio ...
traveled to Belgrade to meet with Milošević for talks on an agreement that would suspend air strikes. When NATO agreed Kosovo would be politically supervised by the United Nations, and that there would be no independence referendum for three years, the Yugoslav government agreed to withdraw its forces from Kosovo, under strong diplomatic pressure from Russia, and the bombing was suspended on 10 June. The Yugoslav Army and NATO signed the
Kumanovo Agreement The Military Technical Agreement, also known as the Kumanovo Agreement, signed between the International Security Force (KFOR) and the Governments of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the Republic of Serbia, was an accord concluded on 9 June ...
. Its provisions were considerably less draconian than what was presented at Rambouillet, most notably Appendix B was removed from the agreement. Appendix B called for NATO forces to have free movement and to conduct military operations within the entire territory of Yugoslavia (including Serbia). The Yugoslav government had used it as a primary reason why they had not signed the Rambouillet accords, viewing it as a threat to its sovereignty. The war ended 11 June, and Russian paratroopers seized
Slatina airport Slatina Air Base ( sq, Aeroporti Sllatina; sr, Аеродром Слатина / Aerodrom Slatina), located at Pristina International Airport Adem Jashari, contained the second largest military underground hangar complex in the former Yugoslavia ...
to become the first peacekeeping force in the war zone. As British troops were still massed on the Macedonian border, planning to enter Kosovo at 5:00 am, the Serbs were hailing the Russian arrival as proof the war was a UN operation, not a NATO operation. After hostilities ended on 12 June, the US Army's 82nd Airborne, 2–505th Parachute Infantry Regiment entered Kosovo as part of Operation Joint Guardian. Yugoslav President Milošević survived the conflict, however, he was indicted for war crimes by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia along with a number of other senior Yugoslav political and military figures. His indictment led to Yugoslavia as a whole being treated as a pariah by much of the international community because Milošević was subject to arrest if he left Yugoslavia. The country's economy was badly affected by the conflict, and in addition to electoral fraud, this was a factor in the overthrow of Milošević. Thousands were killed during the conflict, and hundreds of thousands more fled from the province to other parts of the country and to the surrounding countries. Most of the Albanian refugees returned home within a few weeks or months. However, much of the non-Albanian population again fled to other parts of Serbia or to protected enclaves within Kosovo following the operation. Albanian guerrilla activity spread into other parts of Serbia and to the neighbouring Republic of Macedonia, but subsided in 2001. The non-Albanian population has since diminished further following fresh outbreaks of inter-communal conflict and harassment. In December 2002,
Elizabeth II Elizabeth II (Elizabeth Alexandra Mary; 21 April 1926 – 8 September 2022) was Queen of the United Kingdom and other Commonwealth realms from 6 February 1952 until her death in 2022. She was queen regnant of 32 sovereign states during ...
approved the awarding of the
Battle Honour A battle honour is an award of a right by a government or sovereign to a military unit to emblazon the name of a battle or operation on its flags ("colours"), uniforms or other accessories where ornamentation is possible. In European military t ...
"Kosovo" to squadrons of the RAF that participated in the conflict. These were: Nos 1, 7, 8, 9, 14, 23, 31, 51, 101, and 216 squadrons. This was also extended to the Canadian squadrons deployed to the operation,
425 __NOTOC__ Year 425 ( CDXXV) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Theodosius and Valentinianus (or, less frequently, year ...
and
441 __NOTOC__ Year 441 ( CDXLI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. At the time, it was known as the Year of the Consulship of Seleucus without colleague (or, less frequently, year ...
. Ten years after the operation, the Republic of Kosovo declared independence with a new Republic of Kosovo government.


KFOR

On 12 June, KFOR began entering Kosovo. Its mandate among other things was to deter hostilities and establish a secure environment, including public safety and civil order. KFOR, a NATO force, had been preparing to conduct combat operations, but in the end, its mission was only peacekeeping. It was based upon the Allied Rapid Reaction Corps headquarters commanded by then Lieutenant General Mike Jackson of the
British Army The British Army is the principal land warfare force of the United Kingdom, a part of the British Armed Forces along with the Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force. , the British Army comprises 79,380 regular full-time personnel, 4,090 Gurk ...
. It consisted of British forces (a brigade built from 4th Armoured and 5th Airborne Brigades), a
French Army The French Army, officially known as the Land Army (french: Armée de Terre, ), is the land-based and largest component of the French Armed Forces. It is responsible to the Government of France, along with the other components of the Armed Force ...
Brigade, a German Army brigade, which entered from the west while all the other forces advanced from the south, and
Italian Army "The safeguard of the republic shall be the supreme law" , colors = , colors_labels = , march = ''Parata d'Eroi'' ("Heroes's parade") by Francesco Pellegrino, ''4 Maggio'' (May 4) ...
and US Army brigades. The US contribution, known as the Initial Entry Force, was led by the US 1st Armoured Division. Subordinate units included TF 1–35 Armour from Baumholder, Germany, the 2nd Battalion, 505th Parachute Infantry Regiment from Fort Bragg, North Carolina, the
26th Marine Expeditionary Unit The 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit (26th MEU) is one of seven such units currently in existence in the United States Marine Corps. It is an air-ground task force with a strength of about 2,400 personnel when at full strength during a deployment. ...
from
Camp Lejeune Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune () is a United States military training facility in Jacksonville, North Carolina. Its of beaches make the base a major area for amphibious assault training, and its location between two deep-water ports ( Wilming ...
,
North Carolina North Carolina () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States. The state is the 28th largest and 9th-most populous of the United States. It is bordered by Virginia to the north, the Atlantic Ocean to the east, Georgia and ...
, the 1st Battalion, 26th Infantry Regiment from Schweinfurt, Germany, and Echo Troop, 4th Cavalry Regiment, also from Schweinfurt, Germany. Also attached to the US force was the
Greek Army The Hellenic Army ( el, Ελληνικός Στρατός, Ellinikós Stratós, sometimes abbreviated as ΕΣ), formed in 1828, is the land force of Greece. The term ''Hellenic'' is the endogenous synonym for ''Greek''. The Hellenic Army is the ...
's 501st Mechanised Infantry Battalion. The initial US forces established their area of operation around the towns of Uroševac, the future
Camp Bondsteel Camp Bondsteel is the operation headquarters of the Kosovo Force (KFOR) in Kosovo. It is located near Ferizaj in eastern Kosovo. It is the Regional Command-East headed by the United States Army (U.S. Army) and it is supported by troops from Gre ...
, and Gnjilane, at Camp Monteith, and spent four months – the start of a stay which continues to date – establishing order in the southeast sector of Kosovo. The first NATO troops to enter Pristina on 12 June 1999 were Norwegian special forces from the
Forsvarets Spesialkommando ) , type = Special forces , role = , size = Classified , command_structure = , current_commander = Colonel Brage Andreas Larssen , garrison = Rena leir , ceremonial_chief = , colonel_of_the_regiment = , nickname = , patron = , mo ...
(FSK) and soldiers from the British Special Air Service 22 S.A.S, although to NATO's diplomatic embarrassment Russian troops arrived first at the airport. The Norwegian soldiers from FSK were the first to come in contact with the Russian troops at the airport. FSK's mission was to level the negotiating field between the belligerent parties, and to fine-tune the detailed, local deals needed to implement the peace deal between the Serbians and the Kosovo Albanians. During the initial incursion, US soldiers were greeted by Albanians cheering and throwing flowers as US soldiers and KFOR rolled through their villages. Although no resistance was met, three US soldiers from the Initial Entry Force were killed in accidents. Following the military campaign, the involvement of Russian peacekeepers proved to be tense and challenging to the NATO Kosovo force. The Russians expected to have an independent sector of Kosovo, only to be unhappily surprised with the prospect of operating under NATO command. Without prior communication or coordination with NATO, Russian peacekeeping forces entered Kosovo from Bosnia and seized
Pristina International Airport Prishtina International Airport Adem Jashari ( sq, Aeroporti Ndërkombëtar i Prishtinës Adem Jashari, ), also referred to as Pristina International Airport ( sq, Aeroporti Ndërkombëtar i Prishtinës), is an international airport in Prishtina ...
. In 2010,
James Blunt James Blunt (born James Hillier Blount; 22 February 1974) is an English singer, songwriter and musician. A former reconnaissance officer in the Life Guards regiment of the British Army, he served under NATO during the 1999 Kosovo War. After l ...
in an interview described how his unit was given the assignment of securing the Pristina in advance of the 30,000-strong peacekeeping force and the Russian army had moved in and taken control of the airport before his unit's arrival. As the first officer on the scene, Blunt shared a part in the difficult task of addressing the potentially violent international incident. His own account tells of how he refused to follow orders from NATO command to attack the Russians.
Outpost Gunner Outpost may refer to: Places * Outpost (military), a detachment of troops stationed at a distance from the main force or formation, usually at a station in a remote or sparsely populated location * Border outpost, an outpost maintained by a so ...
was established on a high point in the Preševo Valley by Echo Battery 1/161 Field Artillery in an attempt to monitor and assist with peacekeeping efforts in the Russian sector. Operating under the support of 2/3 Field Artillery, 1st Armoured Division, the Battery was able to successfully deploy and continuously operate a Firefinder Radar which allowed the NATO forces to keep a closer watch on activities in the sector and the Preševo Valley. Eventually a deal was struck whereby Russian forces operated as a unit of KFOR but not under the NATO command structure.


Attitudes towards the campaign


In favor of the campaign

Those who were involved in the NATO airstrikes have stood by the decision to take such action. US President
Bill Clinton William Jefferson Clinton ( né Blythe III; born August 19, 1946) is an American politician who served as the 42nd president of the United States from 1993 to 2001. He previously served as governor of Arkansas from 1979 to 1981 and agai ...
's Secretary of Defense,
William Cohen William Sebastian Cohen (born August 28, 1940) is an American lawyer, author, and politician from the U.S. state of Maine. A Republican, Cohen served as both a member of the United States House of Representatives (1973–1979) and Senate (1979 ...
, said, "The appalling accounts of mass killing in Kosovo and the pictures of refugees fleeing Serb oppression for their lives makes it clear that this is a fight for justice over genocide." On CBS' ''Face the Nation'' Cohen claimed, "We've now seen about 100,000 military-aged men missing. ... They may have been murdered." Clinton, citing the same figure, spoke of "at least 100,000 (Kosovar Albanians) missing". Later, Clinton said about Yugoslav elections, "they're going to have to come to grips with what Mr. Milošević ordered in Kosovo. ... They're going to have to decide whether they support his leadership or not; whether they think it's OK that all those tens of thousands of people were killed. ..." In the same press conference, Clinton also said, "NATO stopped deliberate, systematic efforts at ethnic cleansing and genocide." Clinton compared the events of Kosovo to
the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...
. CNN reported, "Accusing Serbia of 'ethnic cleansing' in Kosovo similar to the genocide of Jews in World War II, an impassioned Clinton sought Tuesday to rally public support for his decision to send US forces into combat against Yugoslavia, a prospect that seemed increasingly likely with the breakdown of a diplomatic peace effort." President Clinton's Department of State also claimed Yugoslav troops had committed genocide. ''The New York Times'' reported, "the Administration said evidence of 'genocide' by Serbian forces was growing to include 'abhorrent and criminal action' on a vast scale. The language was the State Department's strongest up to that time in denouncing Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević." The Department of State also gave the highest estimate of dead Albanians. In May 1999, Defence Secretary William Cohen suggested that there might be up to 100,000 Albanian fatalities." Post-war examinations revealed these statements and casualty figures to have been exaggerated. Five months after the conclusion of NATO bombing, when around one third of reported gravesites had been visited thus far, 2,108 bodies had been found, with an estimated total of between 5,000 and 12,000 at that time; Yugoslav forces had systematically concealed grave sites and moved bodies. Since the war's end, after most of the mass graves had been searched, the body count has remained less than half of the estimated 10,000 plus. It is unclear how many of these were victims of war crimes. The
United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the Senate being the upper chamber. Together they ...
passed a
non-binding resolution A non-binding resolution is a written motion adopted by a deliberative body that can or cannot progress into a law. The substance of the resolution can be anything that can normally be proposed as a motion. This type of resolution is often used t ...
on 11 March 1999 by a vote of 219–191 conditionally approving of President Clinton's plan to commit 4,000 troops to the NATO peacekeeping mission. In late April, the House Appropriations Committee approved $13 billion in emergency spending to cover the cost of the air war, but a second non-binding resolution approving of the mission failed in the full House by a vote of 213–213. The Senate had passed the second resolution in late March by a vote of 58–41.


Criticism of the campaign

There has also been criticism of the campaign. The Clinton administration and NATO officials were accused of inflating the number of Kosovar Albanians killed by Serbs. The media watchdog group
Accuracy in Media Accuracy in Media (AIM) is an American non-profit conservative news media Watchdog journalism, watchdog founded in 1969 by economist Reed Irvine. AIM supported the Vietnam War and blamed media bias for the U.S. loss in the war. During the Pres ...
charged the alliance with distorting the situation in Kosovo and lying about the number of civilian deaths to justify US involvement in the conflict. Other journalists have asserted that NATO's campaign triggered or accelerated the ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, which was the opposite of the alliance's stated aim, as prior to it Yugoslav forces limited their activities. In an interview with Radio-Television Serbia journalist Danilo Mandić on 25 April 2006,
Noam Chomsky Avram Noam Chomsky (born December 7, 1928) is an American public intellectual: a linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, social critic, and political activist. Sometimes called "the father of modern linguistics", Chomsky i ...
referred to the foreword to John Norris' 2005 book ''Collision Course: NATO, Russia, and Kosovo'', in which Strobe Talbott, the Deputy Secretary of State under President Clinton and the leading US negotiator during the war, had written that "It was Yugoslavia's resistance to the broader trends of political and economic reform—not the plight of Kosovar Albanians—that best explains NATO's war." On 31 May 2006,
Brad DeLong James Bradford "Brad" DeLong (born June 24, 1960) is an economic historian who is a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley. DeLong served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of the U.S. Department of the Treasury in the Clin ...
rebutted Chomsky and quoted from elsewhere in the passage which Chomsky had cited, "the Kosovo crisis was fueled by frustration with Milošević and the legitimate fear that instability and conflict might spread further in the region" and also that "Only a decade of death, destruction, and Milošević brinkmanship pushed NATO to act when the Rambouillet talks collapsed. Most of the leaders of NATO's major powers were proponents of 'third way' politics and headed socially progressive, economically centrist governments. None of these men were particularly hawkish, and Milošević did not allow them the political breathing room to look past his abuses."On the NATO Bombing of Yugoslavia...
, Brad DeLong, 31 May 2006. Retrieved 13 January 2014
The
United Nations Charter The Charter of the United Nations (UN) is the foundational treaty of the UN, an intergovernmental organization. It establishes the purposes, governing structure, and overall framework of the UN system, including its six principal organs: the ...
does not allow military interventions in other sovereign countries with few exceptions which, in general, need to be decided upon by the
United Nations Security Council The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, an ...
. The issue was brought before the UNSC by Russia, in a draft resolution which, inter-alia, would affirm "that such unilateral use of force constitutes a flagrant violation of the United Nations Charter". China, Namibia and Russia voted for the resolution, the other members against, thus it failed to pass.
William Blum William Henry Blum (; March 6, 1933 – December 9, 2018) was an American author, critic of United States foreign policy and socialist. He lived in Washington, DC. Early life Blum was born at Beth Moses Hospital (now part of Maimonides Medical ...
wrote that "Nobody has ever suggested that Serbia had attacked or was preparing to attack a member state of NATO, and that is the only event which justifies a reaction under the NATO treaty." Prime Minister of India Atal Bihari Vajpayee condemned the NATO bombing, and demanded a halt on the airstrikes and for the matter to be taken up by the United Nations. Since Yugoslavia was part of the
Non-Aligned Movement The Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) is a forum of 120 countries that are not formally aligned with or against any major power bloc. After the United Nations, it is the largest grouping of states worldwide. The movement originated in the aftermath o ...
, he announced that he would raise the issue at the forum. At a speech in a political rally in May 1999, Vajpayee said that "NATO is blindly bombing Yugoslavia" and "There is a dance of destruction going on there ugoslavia Thousands of people rendered homeless. And the United Nations is a mute witness to all this. Is NATO's work to prevent war or to fuel one?" Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs Ariel Sharon criticised the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia as an act of "brutal interventionism" and said Israel was against "aggressive actions" and "hurting innocent people" and hoped "the sides will return to the negotiating table as soon as possible". However, later into the campaign, Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu (; ; born 21 October 1949) is an Israeli politician who served as the ninth prime minister of Israel from 1996 to 1999 and again from 2009 to 2021. He is currently serving as Leader of the Opposition and Chairman of ...
expressed support for NATO's mission in the war and Israel provided medical assistance to 112 Kosovar Albanian refugees and housed them in Israel. On 29 April 1999, Yugoslavia filed a complaint at the
International Court of Justice The International Court of Justice (ICJ; french: Cour internationale de justice, links=no; ), sometimes known as the World Court, is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN). It settles disputes between states in accordanc ...
(ICJ) at
The Hague The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital o ...
against ten NATO member countries (Belgium, Germany, France, United Kingdom, Italy, Canada, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, and the United States) and alleged that the military operation had violated Article 9 of the 1948 Genocide Convention and that Yugoslavia had jurisdiction to sue through Article 38, para. 5 of Rules of Court. On 2 June, the ICJ ruled in an 8–4 vote that Yugoslavia had no such jurisdiction.Review of the ICJ Order of 2 June 1999 on the Illegality of Use of Force Case
Anthony D'Amato:Leighton Professor of Law, Northwest University, 2 June 1999. Retrieved 13 January 2014
Four of the ten nations (the United States, France, Italy and Germany) had withdrawn entirely from the court's "optional clause." Because Yugoslavia filed its complaint only three days after accepting the terms of the court's optional clause, the ICJ ruled that there was no jurisdiction to sue either Britain or Spain, as the two nations had only agreed to submit to ICJ lawsuits if a suing party had filed their complaint a year or more after accepting the terms of the optional clause. Despite objections that Yugoslavia had legal jurisdiction to sue Belgium, the Netherlands, Canada and Portugal, the ICJ majority vote also determined that the NATO bombing was an instance of "humanitarian intervention" and thus did not violate Article 9 of the Genocide Convention. Amnesty International released a report which stated that NATO forces had deliberately targeted a civilian object (
NATO bombing of the Radio Television of Serbia headquarters The NATO bombing of the Radio Television of Serbia (RTS) headquarters occurred on the evening of 23 April 1999, during Operation Allied Force. Sixteen employees of RTS were killed when a NATO missile hit the building. Bombing of RTS The bom ...
), and had bombed targets at which civilians were certain to be killed. The report was rejected by NATO as "baseless and ill-founded". A week before the report was released,
Carla Del Ponte Carla Del Ponte (born February 9, 1947) is a former Chief Prosecutor of two United Nations international criminal law tribunals. A former Swiss attorney general, she was appointed prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former ...
, the chief prosecutor for the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia had told the
United Nations Security Council The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) is one of the six principal organs of the United Nations (UN) and is charged with ensuring international peace and security, recommending the admission of new UN members to the General Assembly, an ...
that her investigation into NATO actions found no basis for charging NATO or its leaders with war crimes. A majority of US House Republicans voted against two resolutions, both of which expressed approval for American involvement in the NATO mission. Moscow criticised the bombing as a breach of international law and a challenge to Russia's status.Derek Averre, "From Pristina to Tskhinvali: The Legacy of Operation Allied Force in Russia's Relations with the West," ''International Affairs'' 85#3 (2009), pp. 575–59
in JSTOR
About 2,000
Serbian Americans Serbian Americans ( sr, / ) or American Serbs (), are Americans of Serb ethnic ancestry. As of 2013, there were about 190,000 American citizens who identified as having Serb ancestry. However, the number may be significantly higher, as there w ...
and
anti-war activists An anti-war movement (also ''antiwar'') is a social movement, usually in opposition to a particular nation's decision to start or carry on an armed conflict, unconditional of a maybe-existing just cause. The term anti-war can also refer to pa ...
protested in New York City against NATO airstrikes, while more than 7,000 people protested in Sydney. Substantial protests were held in Greece, and demonstrations were also held in Italian cities, Moscow, London, Toronto, Berlin, Stuttgart, Salzburg and
Skopje Skopje ( , , ; mk, Скопје ; sq, Shkup) is the capital and List of cities in North Macedonia by population, largest city of North Macedonia. It is the country's political, cultural, economic, and academic centre. The territory of Sk ...
.


See also

*
Legitimacy of NATO bombing of Yugoslavia The legitimacy under international law of the 1999 NATO bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia has been questioned. The UN Charter is the foundational legal document of the United Nations (UN) and is the cornerstone of the public internati ...
*
Operation Deliberate Force Operation Deliberate Force was a sustained air campaign conducted by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), in concert with the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) ground operations, to undermine the military capability of the ...
*
Operation Horseshoe Operation Horseshoe was a 1999 alleged plan to ethnically cleanse Albanians in Kosovo. The plan was to be carried out by Serbian police and the Yugoslav army. In 2011, former Bulgarian Foreign Minister Nadezhda Mihaylova (Neynsky) revealed in ...
*
Responsibility to protect The Responsibility to Protect (R2P or RtoP) is a global political commitment which was endorsed by all member states of the United Nations at the 2005 World Summit in order to address its four key concerns to prevent genocide, war crimes, ethnic ...
*
War crimes in the Kosovo War A series of war crimes were committed during the Kosovo War (early 1998 – 11 June 1999). The forces of the Slobodan Milošević regime committed rape, killed many Albanian civilians and expelled them during the war, alongside the widespread ...
* Allied Rapid Reaction Corps *
1999 NATO bombing of Novi Sad During the 1999 NATO bombing of Yugoslavia, aerial bombing was carried out against the second largest Yugoslav city of Novi Sad. According to NATO press releases, the bombing targeted oil refineries, roads, bridges, and telecommunications relay ...
*
Grdelica train bombing The Grdelica train bombing occurred on 12 April 1999, when two missiles fired by US aircraft F-15E Strike Eagle hit a passenger train while it was passing across a railway bridge over the Južna Morava river in the Grdelica gorge, some south ...
* Incident at Pristina airport *
Prizren Incident (1999) The Prizren Incident, also known among German troops as "Bloody Sunday", was a confrontation between German Kosovo Force (KFOR) troops advancing into Kosovo and stragglers from the withdrawing Yugoslav Army. The shootout took place in the city of ...
* Air Force of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro) * Operation Eagle Eye (Kosovo) *
Bombing of Belgrade in World War II The bombing of Belgrade in World War II may refer to: * The bombing of Belgrade in 1941, part of the Nazi Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right ...


Footnotes


References


Bibliography

* * * Daalder, Ivo H.; O'Hanlon, Michel E. ''Winning Ugly: NATO's War to Save Kosovo'' (Brookings Institution Press, 2000)
online
* * * * * * *


Further reading

* Averre, Derek. "From Pristina to Tskhinvali: The Legacy of Operation Allied Force in Russia's Relations with the West," ''International Affairs'' 85#3 (2009), pp. 575–59
in JSTOR
* Byman, Daniel. L and Waxman, Mathew C. "Kosovo and the Great Air Power Debate". ''International Security'', Vol. 24, No. 4. 2000. Pp. 5–38. * * Power, Samantha. '' "A Problem from Hell": America and the Age of Genocide'' (2002) covers Bosnia, Kosovo, Srebrenica, and Rwanda; Pulitzer Priz
online free to borrow
* ''New York Times''

17 April 2000.


External links


Kosovo Operation Allied Force—After Action Report
January 2000

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...

Civilian deaths in the NATO air campaign
Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human r ...

frontline: war in europe
PBS Frontline ''Frontline'' (stylized as FRONTLINE) is an investigative documentary program distributed by the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) in the United States. Episodes are produced at WGBH in Boston, Massachusetts. The series has covered a variety ...

Officially confirmed/documented NATO helicopter losses
*
Literature list on Operation Allied Force

Serbian Information Operations During Operation Allied Force – Defence Technical Information Center


Storming Media, Pentagon reports
Serbian Information Operations During Operation Allied Force
Air University
BBC: Nato's bombing blunders
A detailed list of incidents in which civilians were killed
Why Milosevic Decided to Settle the Conflict Over Kosovo When He Did
Rand Corporation study on why Yugoslavia gave in during the Kosovo War of 1999
Why Milosevic Gave Up When He Did
short exposé by the Rand Corporation {{DEFAULTSORT:Nato Bombing Of Yugoslavia NATO bombing Conflicts in 1999 1990s in Belgrade March 1999 events in Europe April 1999 events in Europe May 1999 events in Europe June 1999 events in Europe * NATO intervention in the former Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia Yugoslavia (; sh-Latn-Cyrl, separator=" / ", Jugoslavija, Југославија ; sl, Jugoslavija ; mk, Југославија ;; rup, Iugoslavia; hu, Jugoszlávia; rue, label=Pannonian Rusyn, Югославия, translit=Juhoslavija ...
Strategic bombing operations and battles 20th-century Royal Air Force deployments Military campaigns involving Germany
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Serbia and NATO Serbia–United States military relations Presidency of Bill Clinton Wars involving NATO