5 ms·

It did not destroy 93 tanks. The wiki page you link even spells it out. They air campaign destroyed an order of magnitude less, maybe even as few as 3 tanks. T

It did not destroy 93 tanks. The wiki page you link even spells it out. They air campaign destroyed an order of magnitude less, maybe even as few as 3 tanks. They hit decoys or fuck all. Far from levelli g the playing field ethinic cleansing rate increased as the air campaign was waged. The Kosovo air campaign was one of the most total an utter failures of recent times yet people still try and paint it as a success. Unbelievable.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> It did not destroy 93 tanks...the wiki page you link even spells it out The Wikipedia article [1] confirms the ninety-three figure. "When it came to alleged hits, 93 tanks...were believed to have been disabled or destroyed with certainty. The Department of Defence and Joint Chief of Staff had earlier provided a figure of 120 tanks...and a Newsweek piece published around a year later stated that only 14 tanks...had actually been obliterated...not that far from the Yugoslavs' own estimates of 13 tanks... However, this reporting was heavily criticised, as it was based on the number of vehicles found during the assessment of the Munitions Effectiveness Assessment Team, which wasn't interested in the effectiveness of anything but the ordnance, and surveyed sites that hadn't been visited in nearly three-months, at a time when the most recent of strikes were four-weeks old." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia#Military_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia#Mil...
anovikov 7y ago
How can it be called a failure? It achieved it's goal: Serbs were on the brink of defeating Albanians and totally cleansing Kosovo before it started, and ended with Yugoslav defeat and Kosovar independence (and somewhat indirectly, Yugoslavia's final dissolution a year later). Without Americans ever needing to put any boots on the ground, only by air power. Winning a war isn't about killing your enemies... It's about achieving your goals. You can't deny they were fully achieved, solely with air power. To me it sounds like anything but a defeat.
- EthanHeilman 7y ago
  I agree. It is often psychologically more appealing to win battles rather than achieve long term goals. For instance someone wants to get to work faster, but instead they get in a fist fight with the driver in the car ahead of them because the driver was driving too slow. Clausewitz hit the nail on the head when he said, "war is the continuation of policy by additional means". A rational strategy uses battles to achieve policy goals. Losing a battle by minimizing your own losses to win a war is rational with that context. - In German "Der Krieg ist eine bloße Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln" Politik with all its varied meaning: often translated into english as politics or policy or political.
  - anovikov 7y ago
    But in this case, they actually did won the battle. Yes Serbs preserved the vast majority of their military equipment, except planes. But only by hiding i.e. not using them in battle. Losing a war as a result because they weren't much better equipped this way than the Albanians, and the field was leveled. If they tried to use the equipment to the fullest, they'd just lose it, as Saddam tried in 1991, and result would have been pretty much the same. In a way, it even benefitted Americans because it couldn't be told that they won the war by massacring Serbs (hardly 500 of Serbian military plus about same number of civilians were killed - if they tried to properly operate their military equipment it would be destroyed along with crews and mean a lot higher casualties).
    - levosmetalo 7y ago
      Killing 500 civilians would be considered a war crime if anyone else except US military does it.
      - axguscbklp 7y ago
        NATO also deliberately targeted Serbia's power grid and deliberately targeted a radio/TV station during the war. Both of those things would cause uproar in the US media if an opponent of US geopolitical interests did them.
tacon 7y ago
I remember the attacks on their electric power systems towards the end was also effective. Was the Serbian population ready to spend months or years without electricity?
- gumby 7y ago
  Typically attacks against the populace do not cause governments to fall. In retrospect the strategic bombing campaigns against the UK, Germany, and Japan did not cause a change of regime. And this has been borne out in smaller wars (e.g. Serbia, Chechnya) since then. I don’t understand the psychology of it but regardless that appears to be the case.
  - AtlasBarfed 7y ago
    Still compromises economic responses, some aspects of C3, and, uh, did this one result in a popular uprising removing the regime?
    - gumby 7y ago
      Belgrade? Not as far as I know. Strategic bombing didn’t have the effect on German production that annoying would have predicted. Nor did it on Iraq in the first gulf war. I think it had some efficacy against the Japanese shipbuilding capacity but am not certain. Certainly it had no effect on Japanese support for the war effort right up to the day the Emperor gave his famous 1945 radio address.
      - AtlasBarfed 7y ago
        Milosevic was eventually removed from power by a popular uprising, but I guess that was 4 years after the bombings
      - gumby 7y ago
        s/annoying/anyone/ thanks autocorrect
- Spooky23 7y ago
onetimemanytime 7y ago
>>The wiki page you link even spells it out. They air campaign destroyed and order of magnitude less, maybe even as few as 3 tanks. They hit decoys or fuck all. You missed the OP brilliant point, NATOs mission was to force Serbs to retreat and to stop tanks from wreaking havoc, NATO doesn't care that Serbia now has some 1960's tanks. >>Far from levelli g the playing field ethinic cleansing rate increased as the air campaign was waged. As if Serbs were gonna stop voluntarily
- Marazan 7y ago
  The NATO air campaign Did. Not. Force. The. Serbs. To. Retreat. It completely failed in the objective. However, the second NATO put boots on the ground the Serbs pulled out. The air campaign was a total failure. Complete, abject, failure.
  - jcrawfordor 7y ago
    As someone with little knowledge of the history of this conflict, could you explain your position a little further?
    - Marazan 7y ago
      1. the Serbian military was engaged in ethnic cleansing in Kosovo 2. NATO attempted to use solely air power to stop them 3. Whilst the NATO air campaign was underway incidents of ethnic cleansing increased, not decreased 4. When NATO changed strategy and deployed land forces Serbia withdrew immediately, ending the Ethnic cleansing. 5. Not only did the air campaign fail at its stated goal of stopping ethnic cleansing it also had a miniscule rate of enemy assets destroyed making it a double failure.
      - redis_mlc 7y ago
        You missed some of the most interesting and sordid parts of the war as reported in the press. European countries contributing soldiers to NATO were extremely averse to even one or two casualties. The result was that "pacts" were made with the enemy dividing up zones, allowing unimpeded ethnic cleansing. Also, European NATO commanders would sideline their own country's troops to protect them. Albania so mistrusted NATO that they imported anti-aircraft guns at the time to shoot NATO helicopters down.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago

> It did not destroy 93 tanks...the wiki page you link even spells it out The Wikipedia article [1] confirms the ninety-three figure. "When it came to alleged hits, 93 tanks...were believed to have been disabled or destroyed with certainty. The Department of Defence and Joint Chief of Staff had earlier provided a figure of 120 tanks...and a Newsweek piece published around a year later stated that only 14 tanks...had actually been obliterated...not that far from the Yugoslavs' own estimates of 13 tanks... However, this reporting was heavily criticised, as it was based on the number of vehicles found during the assessment of the Munitions Effectiveness Assessment Team, which wasn't interested in the effectiveness of anything but the ordnance, and surveyed sites that hadn't been visited in nearly three-months, at a time when the most recent of strikes were four-weeks old." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia#Military_casualties https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia#Mil...

anovikov 7y ago

How can it be called a failure? It achieved it's goal: Serbs were on the brink of defeating Albanians and totally cleansing Kosovo before it started, and ended with Yugoslav defeat and Kosovar independence (and somewhat indirectly, Yugoslavia's final dissolution a year later). Without Americans ever needing to put any boots on the ground, only by air power. Winning a war isn't about killing your enemies... It's about achieving your goals. You can't deny they were fully achieved, solely with air power. To me it sounds like anything but a defeat.

EthanHeilman 7y ago
I agree. It is often psychologically more appealing to win battles rather than achieve long term goals. For instance someone wants to get to work faster, but instead they get in a fist fight with the driver in the car ahead of them because the driver was driving too slow. Clausewitz hit the nail on the head when he said, "war is the continuation of policy by additional means". A rational strategy uses battles to achieve policy goals. Losing a battle by minimizing your own losses to win a war is rational with that context. - In German "Der Krieg ist eine bloße Fortsetzung der Politik mit anderen Mitteln" Politik with all its varied meaning: often translated into english as politics or policy or political.
- anovikov 7y ago
  But in this case, they actually did won the battle. Yes Serbs preserved the vast majority of their military equipment, except planes. But only by hiding i.e. not using them in battle. Losing a war as a result because they weren't much better equipped this way than the Albanians, and the field was leveled. If they tried to use the equipment to the fullest, they'd just lose it, as Saddam tried in 1991, and result would have been pretty much the same. In a way, it even benefitted Americans because it couldn't be told that they won the war by massacring Serbs (hardly 500 of Serbian military plus about same number of civilians were killed - if they tried to properly operate their military equipment it would be destroyed along with crews and mean a lot higher casualties).
  - levosmetalo 7y ago
    Killing 500 civilians would be considered a war crime if anyone else except US military does it.
    - axguscbklp 7y ago
      NATO also deliberately targeted Serbia's power grid and deliberately targeted a radio/TV station during the war. Both of those things would cause uproar in the US media if an opponent of US geopolitical interests did them.

tacon 7y ago

I remember the attacks on their electric power systems towards the end was also effective. Was the Serbian population ready to spend months or years without electricity?

gumby 7y ago
Typically attacks against the populace do not cause governments to fall. In retrospect the strategic bombing campaigns against the UK, Germany, and Japan did not cause a change of regime. And this has been borne out in smaller wars (e.g. Serbia, Chechnya) since then. I don’t understand the psychology of it but regardless that appears to be the case.
- AtlasBarfed 7y ago
  Still compromises economic responses, some aspects of C3, and, uh, did this one result in a popular uprising removing the regime?
  - gumby 7y ago
    Belgrade? Not as far as I know. Strategic bombing didn’t have the effect on German production that annoying would have predicted. Nor did it on Iraq in the first gulf war. I think it had some efficacy against the Japanese shipbuilding capacity but am not certain. Certainly it had no effect on Japanese support for the war effort right up to the day the Emperor gave his famous 1945 radio address.
    - AtlasBarfed 7y ago
      Milosevic was eventually removed from power by a popular uprising, but I guess that was 4 years after the bombings
    - gumby 7y ago
      s/annoying/anyone/ thanks autocorrect
Spooky23 7y ago

onetimemanytime 7y ago

>>The wiki page you link even spells it out. They air campaign destroyed and order of magnitude less, maybe even as few as 3 tanks. They hit decoys or fuck all. You missed the OP brilliant point, NATOs mission was to force Serbs to retreat and to stop tanks from wreaking havoc, NATO doesn't care that Serbia now has some 1960's tanks. >>Far from levelli g the playing field ethinic cleansing rate increased as the air campaign was waged. As if Serbs were gonna stop voluntarily

Marazan 7y ago
The NATO air campaign Did. Not. Force. The. Serbs. To. Retreat. It completely failed in the objective. However, the second NATO put boots on the ground the Serbs pulled out. The air campaign was a total failure. Complete, abject, failure.
- jcrawfordor 7y ago
  As someone with little knowledge of the history of this conflict, could you explain your position a little further?
  - Marazan 7y ago
    1. the Serbian military was engaged in ethnic cleansing in Kosovo 2. NATO attempted to use solely air power to stop them 3. Whilst the NATO air campaign was underway incidents of ethnic cleansing increased, not decreased 4. When NATO changed strategy and deployed land forces Serbia withdrew immediately, ending the Ethnic cleansing. 5. Not only did the air campaign fail at its stated goal of stopping ethnic cleansing it also had a miniscule rate of enemy assets destroyed making it a double failure.
    - redis_mlc 7y ago
      You missed some of the most interesting and sordid parts of the war as reported in the press. European countries contributing soldiers to NATO were extremely averse to even one or two casualties. The result was that "pacts" were made with the enemy dividing up zones, allowing unimpeded ethnic cleansing. Also, European NATO commanders would sideline their own country's troops to protect them. Albania so mistrusted NATO that they imported anti-aircraft guns at the time to shoot NATO helicopters down.