Late Spring Sunshine Brings Success for NATO
Clearer Weather in May Helped Pilots Hit Serb Targets With Accuracy
Feb 28, 2009
NATO began their Kosovo campaign in late March, 1999 because they wanted it finished before winter, when they thought a deteriorating weather situation might prevent them finishing the war without reaching their objectives. However, the early spring weather did not do them many favours, and low cloud hampered many of their sorties in the first weeks of NATO's campaign.
The Djakovica Convoy Attack
In the middle of April NATO had one of its most costly cases of pilot error, as a NATO plane attacked a refugee convoy near the village of Djakovica. Television pictures on the ground quickly showed mangled vehicles and bodies strewn across the road.
NATO at first denied responsibility, and this led to an embarrassing public relations episode that dragged on in the media for days.
NATO had to admit it had bombed the convoy in the end, but said it was ultimately the responsibility of the Serbs for starting the conflict.
Meanwhile, the Kosovo border regions had hundreds of thousands of refugees living in makeshift tent cities, and the wet conditions meant they were usually up to their ankles in mud.
A Meeting of NATO leaders
A meeting of NATO leaders to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the military organisation in late April led to a change in strategy for its Kosovo air campaign.
A hint of desperation led the leaders to agree that the campaign should be increased, and more planes were sent to the battlefield.
However, the campaign was still seeing mixed results, with the bombing of the Chinese embassy in early May again leading to a public relations disaster. NATO this time blamed bad intelligence information for the blunder.
Late Spring Brings An Improvement in the Weather For Nato's Pilots
In May, clearer skies helped the NATO planes fly more sorties and increase their accuracy.
They still found it difficult to locate the Serb military, but were having more success in targeting the Serbian infrastructure, such as bridges and factories.
The increase in successful missions, combined with a build-up of NATO ground forces on the Kosovo border seemed to persuade the Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic, to negotiate a peace settlement.
Spring Talks Lead To Peace Deal
Finnish premier, Martti Ahtisaari, led negotiations in May that led to Serbia withdrawing their forces from Kosovo in early June, and a NATO led peacekeeping force moving in to oversee the return of the ethnic-Albanians.
The war was over by early summer, and there would be no need for a NATO winter campaign in the frozen Balkans.
However, Russia was not happy, and the Russian war with Georgia ten years later had striking similarities with Nato's war in Kosovo.
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