During the early weeks of the Kosovo war, critics of the Clinton administration were appalled by NATO's lack of planning. NATO, after all, had gone to war for the ostensible purpose of protecting the Kosovar Albanians, only to see 1.5 million of them being forced from their homes. With the benefit of hindsight, however, it ought to be evident to these critics that their conclusions about the administration's fallibility were premature. While the diplomatic and military strategies hardly proved optimal, there can be little doubt that NATO won the war. Having myself been one of the critics, I have no compunction admitting that this is the case. Not so Christopher Layne and Benjamin Schwarz, who recently argued in these pages that the Clinton administration bears primary responsibility for the humanitarian crisis in Kosovo ("For the Record", Fall 1999).
Layne and Schwarz's contention is based on three arguments. First, the conflict in Kosovo was essentially one that pitted a radicalized and violent Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), bent on independence, against a Belgrade government that sought to defend the status quo. Second, the humanitarian calamity that befell the Kosovar Albanians (who constituted 90 percent of Kosovo's population) was the result not of what Serb military, paramilitary and police forces did, but of NATO's decision to bomb Serbia. Third, the people of Kosovo today are worse off because NATO intervened.
