Washington's Long Knives

By James R. Hooper, for the Washington Times, August 13, 1999

The Clinton administration's decision not to reappoint Gen. Wesley Clark for a second term as Supreme Allied Commander (SACEUR) of NATO forces following his victory over Serbia in the Kosovo war reveals the state of high-level Washington confusion over fundamental Balkan policy aims.

More than any senior U.S. civilian or military official, Gen. Clark epitomized a tough, no-nonsense approach to Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic. Belgrade no doubt views the decision and its timing as a reflection of Washington's unwillingness to stay the course in the region that can be exploited in the months ahead.

The removal of Gen. Clark three months shy of the end of his first term has been portrayed by the Pentagon as a regrettable technical necessity to make room for the appointment of Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston, the Deputy Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. Gen. Ralston, a talented, hard-working and honorable officer, had emphasized that he would only remain in uniform when his current assignment ends early next year if he received the NATO appointment (technically, the appointment is to the post of Commander in Chief of United States Forces in Europe, or USCINCEUR, which carries with it the SACEUR billet as well). Gen. Ralston is well-liked on Capitol Hill, and many there and in the administration presumably felt that his previous decision to forgo a proffered nomination as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs due to publicity he received over an earlier affair when separated from his wife was an unnecessary sacrifice to political correctness.

So much for the People Magazine view of Washington personnel decision-making. The real story, of course, is that Gen. Clark was not reappointed because he had ruffled too much senior Washington plumage in achieving NATO's victory. The administration expected that a brief and light NATO bombing campaign would bring Mr. Milosevic to heel, put a lid on the violence in Kosovo, and enable the United States to restore the frayed credibility of its European leadership role and the viability of the alliance itself. All at little price and minimal risk.

Belgrade's decision to intensify the ethnic cleansing of Kosovo that it had begun the previous year, when over 500,000 Kosovo Albanians were displaced from their homes and 500 villages destroyed, challenged these comfortable assumptions. The alliance could either make peace with Mr. Milosevic on his terms, or adapt its strategy and tactics to the new Belgrade-driven realities. Washington hesitated, Gen. Clark did not. By exercising his option as field commander, forcefully advocating escalation of the air war to defeat Serbia and pressing for all necessary resources to achieve that objective, he left little room for the administration to follow its preferred course of action whenever Mr. Milosevic called its bluff.

This was a decisive break with the policy that Ambassador Richard Holbrooke had brokered of coming to terms with Mr. Milosevic and giving him a major "peacemaker" role. As a key participant in the Dayton peace negotiations with Mr. Holbrooke, Gen. Clark believed that such coddling of the Serbian leader had only tempted Belgrade to believe that Washington had an almost inexhaustible patience for Serb-inspired destabilization of the region. When negotiating the crucial written details of the October 1998 Kosovo cease-fire after Mr. Holbrooke had obtained oral commitments from Mr. Milosevic, Gen. Clark concluded that Belgrade would not abide by it for long, that the cease-fire would break down, and that this would present Washington with a national crisis. Anticipating war, he sought to prepare the administration and the allies for the looming conflict.

Any conflict produces inevitable tensions between field commanders and headquarters. Those tensions are multiplied when the alliance is as disparate as the 19 member nations of NATO. Gen. Clark's achievement was to provide the NATO alliance with the will, vision and strategy to win and not let tactical obstacles overwhelm his strategic objectives. His bombing campaign, moreover, set the stage for the resurgence of democratic activism in Serbia aimed at displacing Mr. Milosevic.

That Gen. Ralston differed with Gen. Clark over many of the key war-fighting recommendations made by SACEUR does not augur well for the firmness of future alliance policy in the Balkans. That the Army was prepared to let the NATO command go to an Air Force officer for only the second time in alliance history suggests that the Pentagon's senior Army leaders have yet to digest the lesson that their inclination to field the best-equipped force that does not fight - witness the Apache helicopter non-deployment fiasco - is impelling the service toward strategic irrelevance in Europe. That Secretary of Defense William Cohen would undercut Gen. Clark as he begins the enormously complicated and difficult task of implementing the KFOR security mandate raises questions about the secretary's military judgment (though not, of course, his right to remove Gen. Clark).

That the president would assent to the removal of Gen. Clark for, in effect, being right projects political small-mindedness and lack of vision.

Gen. Wesley Clark has earned the nation's gratitude. He learned well the lesson of using force to prevail in the Balkan snake pit and emerged as a genuine allied commander of stature. In so doing, however, even a leader of his talents and professionalism was unable to survive the more harsh and unforgiving Washington snake pit. He will depart NATO next April as the shortest-tenured SACEUR since Dwight Eisenhower. That's not bad company to be in.

James R. Hooper is executive director of the Balkan Action Council.