NATO's Air War for Kosovo: A Strategic and Operational Assessment (Project Air Force Series on Operation Allied Force) - Softcover

Lambeth, Benjamin S.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0833030507 ISBN 13: 9780833030504

Publisher: RAND Corporation, 2001

Synopsis

Offers a thorough appraisal of Operation Allied Force from a military, political, and strategic perspective, calling attention to those issues that are likely to have the greatest bearing on future military policymaking.

About this title

From the Publisher:

On March 24, 1999, NATO embarked on a 78-day air war aimed atcompelling the government of Yugoslavia and its elected president,Slobodan Milosevic, to halt and reverse the human rights abuses thatwere being committed by armed Serbs against the ethnic Albanianmajority living in Yugoslavia's Serbian province of Kosovo. That ef-fort,called Operation Allied Force, ended on June 9 after Milosevicfinally acceded to NATO's demands and a withdrawal of Serb forcesfrom Kosovo had begun. The air war was a first of that magnitude forNATO and represented the third largest strategic application of airpower by the United States since World War II, exceeded only by theVietnam War and Operation Desert Storm in scale and intensity.With a view toward capturing the many useful insights to be ex-tractedfrom that experience, the U.S. Air Force chief of staff, GeneralMichael Ryan, asked Headquarters United States Air Forces inEurope (Hq USAFE) shortly after Allied Force ended to establisha studies and analysis office (USAFE/SA) to manage all USAF-sponsoredassessments of the air war. The director of that office,Brigadier General John Corley, in turn asked RAND's Project AIRFORCE to contribute to the assessment effort across a wide spectrumof topics, ranging from individual platform and systems performanceto command and control, operational support, strategy and plan-ning,and other considerations bearing on the air war's effectiveness.This book examines the conduct and results of Operation AlliedForce at the strategic and operational levels. An earlier and less de-velopedversion appeared as a chapter in the author's previous bookThe Transformation of American Air Power, which was published byCornell University Press in September 2000. The research docu-mented herein was carried out in Project AIR FORCE's Strategy andDoctrine Program and was completed in August 2001. Allphotographs included in this study were provided by the U.S.Department of Defense. The book should be of interest to USAFofficers and other members of the U.S. national security communityconcerned with strategy and force employment issues raised byNATO's air war for Kosovo and with the implications of thatexperience for force development, air power doctrine, and conceptsof operations for joint and coalition warfare.Other documents published in this series currently include the fol-lowing:MR-1279-AF, Command and Control and Battle Management: Expe-riencesfrom the Air War over Serbia, James E. Schneider, MyronHura, Gary McLeod (Government publication; not releasable to thegeneral public)MR-1326-AF, Aircraft Weapon Employment in Operation Allied Force,William Stanley, Carl Rhodes, Robert Uy, Sherrill Lingel (Governmentpublication; not releasable to the general public)MR-1351-AF, The Conflict over Kosovo: Why Milosevic Decided toSettle When He Did, Stephen HosmerMR-1391-AF, European Contributions to Operation Allied Force:Implications for Transatlantic Cooperation, John E. Peters, StuartJohnson, Nora Bensahel, Timothy Liston, Traci WilliamsDB-332-AF, Aircraft Survivability in Operation Allied Force, WilliamStanley, Sherrill Lingel, Carl Rhodes, Jody Jacobs, Robert Uy(Government publication; not releasable to the general public)Topics examined in series documents nearing completion include: Supporting Expeditionary Aerospace Forces: Lessons from theAir War Over Serbia Lessons Learned from Operation Allied Force Tanker OperationsProject AIR FORCEProject AIR FORCE, a division of RAND, is the Air Force's federallyfunded research and development center (FFRDC) for studies andanalysis. It provides the USAF with independent analyses of policyalternatives affecting the deployment, employment, combat readi-ness,and support of current and future air and space forces. Re-searchis performed in four programs: Aerospace Force Develop-ment;Manpower, Readiness, and Training; Resource Management;and Strategy and Doctrine.

About the Author:

BENJAMIN S. LAMBETH (Ph.D., Political Science, Harvard University) is a senior RAND analyst specializing in air power and international security.

About this edition

• Publisher: RAND Corporation
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0833030507
• ISBN 13: 9780833030504
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 276