Reluctantly, but in the face of continued, directed, large scale action of the Serb military and police against ethnic Albanian Kosovars, the Center for Defense Information has concluded that a bombing campaign by NATO is the only short-term course available for stopping the carnage and allowing the placement of a peacekeeping force in the Serbian province of Kosovo. In spite of months of diplomatic efforts by U.S. and European envoys, including the 1,300 strong Kosovo Verification Mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Mr. Milosevic has chosen to unleash the dogs of war against unarmed civilians. The Center for Defense Information carefully weighed the following nine points in reaching the conclusion that military force was the only alternative remaining. There is no military solution to this situation. The Administration has not made the case for military intervention on critical national security grounds or because Serb actions in Kosovo are a direct challenge to U.S. vital interests.
Serb actions do raise a challenge to U.S. and universal values and the belief in basic human rights.
Even were there some intrinsic value in military action, Kosovo is a difficult area in which to accomplish traditional military objectives. America must be prepared for losses of personnel and equipment. NATO's action is military intervention in a civil war. As such it carries all the possible ramifications of similar, past interventions such as in Vietnam, El Salvador, and Nicaragua. Trying to orchestrate the level of bombing to force the Serbs to stop ethnic cleansing of Albanians without providing the Kosovo Liberation Army the opportunity to resume their campaign for independence is too fine a line for military force.