No End in Sight

This past week, while we enjoyed our spring vacation, the United States finally made the decision to intervene in the Balkans on behalf of the embattled Kosovar Albanians. For months, President Slobodan Milosevic, the hard-line nationalist leader of Serbia, has waged a war of ethnic cleansing against Albanians in the province of Kosovo. The result has been a humanitarian disaster that was left unchecked far too long.

After countless empty threats of action against Milosevic, we are glad that the Clinton administration and the NATO alliance have decided to come to the Albanians' aid. For the past week, NATO planes have launched air strikes against Serb military positions and government infrastructure. However, we are concerned that the current strategy may actually be making the situation worse rather than better.

During the NATO attack, the already horrendous refugee situation in the region has worsened. Serb police have escalated their cleansing campaign, massacring civilians and burning villages. Thousands of innocents have been streaming across the border into neighboring Macedonia and Albania proper, overwhelming aid agencies.

Further, NATO has already sustained some high-profile losses including the downing of an F-117A stealth Fighter and the capture of three infantry soldiers. Our relations with some of our allies around the world, especially Russia, have been strained. Finally, one of the stated goals of the strikes was to destabilize Milosevic's hold on power, but in the wake of the bombings, anti-U.S. sentiment has swelled, and the Serbian people are all the more supportive of the leader.

All of this would be acceptable if there were some end in sight to the conflict. Unfortunately, the Clinton administration has adopted a half-baked approach to the situation. By relying the possibility of ground troops, the administration has adopted a course which seems too limited to achieve real progress.

NATO has essentially sent Milosevic the message that if he can withstand the bombing, the alliance will be out of options. Understandably, the U.S. is reluctant to send in its troops on the ground, but at least the threat of a ground action should be left open, if only to emphasize NATO's commitment to this mission.

In the meantime, we only hope that relief workers can keep pace with the constant stream of victims. The United States and its allies must provide the effort with all of the resources it needs. Also, while we appreciate the enormous burden it entails, we hope Macedonia and other states in the region will keep their borders open.

Too many have already suffered in the ravaged Balkans. We hope that now that we have made the decision to intervene actively, the Clinton Administration and NATO will do what it takes to bring the conflict to a successful resolution.