Police officers are now significantly better paid and have better housing than army officers. The changes caused enormous morale problems among an officer corps that plucked its recruits from villages, trained them in guerrilla warfare in special schools and largely insulated them from the country's chronic economic problems. Milosevic also purged scores of senior army officers to find generals who were willing to command troops that work with the police in savage attacks on civilians. Midlevel army officers have long questioned the professionalism of the loyalists, while quietly voicing doubts to Western military officers about the future of the army. But American Government experts on the region said this week that the bombing of Yugoslavia had silenced the grumbling and erased the doubts, at least for now, while handing the army a mission that officers perceive as legal and just.
Militaries respond well to crises.
When you talk to senior Yugoslav Army officers, they always speak of the Constitution. They will talk about defending their borders against external threats and defending the country against internal enemies. It is not much of a stretch for the army to take the situation on the ground in Kosovo and feel they are doing the right thing. Partly as a result of that, the army appears to have moved to the dominant command position in the war.