Operation Allied Force
| date | March 24 to June 10, 1999 |
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| place | Federal Republic of Yugoslavia , Kosovo |
| Casus Belli | Failure to sign the Treaty of Rambouillet by the FR of Yugoslavia |
| output | Victory of NATO, UN administration and KFOR occupation of Kosovo |
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;_Flag_of_Serbia_and_Montenegro_(2003%E2%80%932006).svg){kind=small}
Operation Allied Force (OAF, rough translation: "Companies Alliance force") was the code name of a military operation of NATO against the then Federal Republic of Yugoslavia , which it as part of the Kosovo war conducted from 24 March to 10 June 1999. The military operation, largely led by the United States, was the first war that NATO waged both outside of an alliance case , the proclamation of which had previously been considered the basis of NATO-wide action, and without an express UN mandate . The international legality of the operation is still controversial today.
NATO conceived the operation in the form of an air-to-ground war , which it waged exclusively through the military-technical use of space and airborne methods without extensive endangering its own troops. The aircraft used in the operation dropped a total of 28,018 explosive devices; 83 percent of these drops were made by United States Air Force (USAF) aircraft .
In addition, serious tactical and strategic errors derived from limited warfare have led to analyzes and re-evaluations of the OAF's military strategy, which, in terms of military history, reflect the ineffectiveness of the sole air war in the Kosovo War .
After Operation Allied Force, NATO minesweepers searched for and recovered ammunition that pilots of NATO aircraft had thrown over the Adriatic as planned after missions ( Operation Allied Harvest and Allied Harvest II ).
timeline
After the unsuccessful negotiations at Rambouillet , which were conducted to end the conflict between the Serbian security authorities and the UÇK, which is supported by the Albanian majority in Kosovo , the first attacks by the OAF took place in two waves between March 24, 7:41 p.m. and March 25 March 1999 3:30 am with around 200 aircraft and approx. 50 guided missiles and the bombing of numerous targets throughout the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.
Five MiG-29s of the Air Force of the Yugoslav Armed Forces ( Vojska Jugoslavije / VJ) flew mostly in tandems towards the NATO aircraft and were provided by a strong contingent of interceptors . On March 24th, one MiG-29 was shot down by Dutch F-16AMs and two by USAF F-15s in aerial combat . Two more Air Force MiG-29s ( Ratno vazduhoplovstvo , RV) were shot down on March 26 over Bosnian airspace near Tuzla; a pilot of the RV died. After none of the remaining MiG-29s were operationally operational in the military sense and the pilots complained about serious technical defects in the machines, the flights were suspended until further notice. The 250th missile brigade of the Yugoslav air defense ( Protivvazdušna odbrana , PVO) was able to shoot down a US stealth aircraft of the type F-117A over Buđanovci in Srem on March 27, 1999 with the anti-aircraft missile system S-125 Neva .
Since during the OAF no consensus could be reached within the political NATO alliance about the deployment of ground troops and the air strikes turned out to be ineffective with regard to the operations of the Yugoslav Armed Forces ( Vojska Jugoslavije / VJ) in Kosovo, which led to the escape of several Hundreds of thousands of Kosovar Albanians, the air strikes were escalated in a three-stage spiral to target civilian infrastructure. Due to the unforeseen length of the air war, the OAF led to the actual Kosovo war , which was operationally and strategically decisive against the military infrastructure and in particular VJ troops in Kosovo under the command of Dragoljub Ojdanić and with the help of SACEUR Wesley Clark and his responsible air force chief Michael C. Short UÇK units operating in Kosovo and Albania were coordinated in the ground war against the Yugoslav army.
On April 15, 1999 the US Secretary of Defense William Cohen defined the aim of the Allied air strikes against Yugoslavia as follows to the Control Committee of the American Armed Forces: “Our military objective is to degrade and damage the military and security structure that President Milosevic has used to depopulate and destroy the Albanian majority in Kosovo. ”The Yugoslav government had meanwhile declared that the military operations that were taking place served to protect the Serb minority in Kosovo from attacks by the UÇK .
After a month's break, the VJ Air Force used another RV MiG-29. This was shot down on May 4, 1999 over Valjevo . The pilot, the commander of the 204th flight regiment, died. After the last unsuccessful use of a MiG-29 on May 4, the remaining aircraft of the 127th Fighter Squadron were no longer used. The RV lost a total of 11 MiG-29s, 6 of them in aerial battles, and one fighter was damaged. All operational 10 MiG-29s of the RV were used during the war. In total, the MiG-29s of the 127th Fighter Squadron were used nine times in combat flights, seven of which were single flights and two of them were group flights.
On May 2, 1999, an American F-16CG crashed during the operation near Metlić . The pilot was able to save himself with the ejector seat.
On May 7, 1999, NATO bombed the Chinese embassy in Belgrade , killing three Chinese journalists. NATO said it was an oversight. According to a report in the British newspaper The Observer , the bombing was deliberate because the Yugoslav and Serbian military were using the embassy as a radio station.
On May 20, 1999, two NATO fighter jets fired a total of four rockets at a bridge over the Morava River in the Serbian town of Varvarin and destroyed it. Ten civilians were killed and 30 injured, 17 of them seriously (see also: Sanja Milenković ).
In addition to the military escalation of the attacks on Serbian cities, the diplomatic activities of the negotiating troika on June 2 and June 3, 1999 under the leadership of the Finnish President Martti Ahtisaari , the American negotiator Strobe Talbott and the Russian negotiator Viktor Stepanowitsch Tschernomyrdin ended the conflict . With the surprising change of Chernomyrdin in favor of the Ahtisaari plan, Slobodan Milošević declared himself ready on June 3, 1999 to meet the requirements of NATO. The military-technical agreement between NATO and the VJ in the Kumanovo negotiations was followed by the withdrawal of Yugoslav troops from Kosovo on June 10, 1999 and the establishment of an interim administration by the United Nations ( UNMIK ) under the protection of KFOR .
Basic idea of the conduct of operations and goals of NATO
On April 12, 1999, the North Atlantic Council of NATO formulated the conditions under which the air forces would cease bombing targets in Yugoslavia:
- The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia ensures the end of military operations in Kosovo and ends acts of violence and the suppression of the Albanian population.
- The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia ensures the withdrawal of its own troops consisting of army and police forces as well as paramilitaries from Kosovo.
- The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia accepts the stationing of an international military force in Kosovo.
- The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia accepts the unconditional and safe return of all refugees and the unhindered access of international aid organizations to them.
- The Federal Republic of Yugoslavia confirms its will to work towards a political solution to the Kosovo question on the basis of the Rambouillet negotiations and under applicable international law and the Charter of the United Nations .
Operation Allied Force primarily comprised the massive deployment of allied air forces against high-value civilian and military targets in Yugoslavia. This approach was chosen by NATO in order to keep the risk for its own troops as low as possible. In the course of the operation there were increasing attacks on infrastructure targets such as bridges, factories, power stations and media facilities in order to get the Yugoslav population to protest against President Slobodan Milošević .
Participating NATO contingents
Air Force
The brunt of the operation was borne by the United States Air Force and Royal Air Force . In addition to the participation of troops from Belgium , Denmark , Turkey , Italy , Canada , the Netherlands , and Spain , the German Air Force took part in an armed combat mission for the first time after the end of the Second World War .
Naval forces
The NATO fleet operated mainly in the Adriatic . The US and UK naval forces deployed a task force consisting of aircraft carriers, destroyers and frigates. The German Navy participated in the maritime operations with the destroyer Lütjens , the frigate Rhineland-Palatinate , the frigate Bavaria and the fleet service boat Oker .
Air defense of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia
Air defense of the VJ
The 250th Air Defense Missile Brigade ( Protivvazdušna odbrana , PVO) took on the bulk of the VJ's air defense . The PVO used third generation rocket systems, but on March 27, 1999 was able to shoot down a US stealth aircraft of the type F-117A over Buđanovci in the Srem. In addition to five S-125 Neva M divisions in Jakovo, Batajnica, Obrenovac, Kraljevo and Smederevo, six divisions were equipped with SA-6 batteries. While the Neva batteries were strategically placed in a ring around Belgrade, the SA-6 divisions were stationed to provide tactical support to the VJ land forces in Kosovo and Montenegro. In addition to the missile batteries, the arsenal also consisted in particular of mobile missiles and numerous anti-aircraft artillery.
Air Force of the VJ
The air defense of the Luftwaffe ( Ratno vazduhoplovstvo , RV) of the VJ took over exclusively the 127th Fighter Squadron of the 204th Air Regiment with 16 MiG-29 , of which not a single machine was in technically perfect condition when the fighting broke out. The 45 technically outdated MiG-21 interceptors were strictly forbidden. The air force commander Spasoje Smiljanić nevertheless ordered the operational distribution of ten operational MiG-29 fighter pilots to the six bases of Batajnica (Beograd), Niš, Lađevci (Kraljevo), Ponikve, Slatina (Pristina) and Golubovci (Podgorica) on March 24, 1999 ) on. The 127th squadron was distributed with two MiG-29s in Ponikve, one MiG-29 in Golubovci, two MiG-29s in Nis and six MiG-29s in Batajnica.
The air defense of the Air Force of the VJ was only symbolic, but was particularly active at the beginning of the fighting. The RV remained operational during the entire fighting and supported in particular the ground troops of the VJ in Kosovo. A ground attack aircraft was shot down by NATO. The RV was coordinated via the Operational Center in Straževica Mountain near Belgrade, from where the PVO's missile and radar units were also directed. However, during the operations of the 127th Fighter Squadron there was at no time an operationally effective guidance through the Vojin information system ( Vazdusno osmatranje, javljanje i navodjenje ). The pilots remained practically on their own during the missions and were driven to the hopeless missions, especially under massive pressure from the political side.
In addition to three pilots, the highest officer who died during the OAF, the former air force chief of the RV and the PVO, General Ljubiša Veličković, is a member of the RV. A visit to the air defense forces near Pančevo on June 1, 1999 is still officially considered to be the circumstance of his death. It is also known that the general took over missions on the MiG-29 and since May 25, 1999 from the Surčin civil airport carried out. A total of 39 members of the RV and the PVO were killed in the fighting. The units of the 250th Missile Brigade and the 126th VOJIN Brigade were awarded the highest medal of honor as “national heroes” after the war.
Victim
Human Rights Watch estimates that Operation Allied Force caused the deaths of a minimum of 489 and a maximum of 528 civilians. The later internationally banned cluster bombs were used by the US Air Force and the Royal Air Force . NATO itself assumes a share of at least 10% of unexploded bombs, which still pose a serious threat to the civilian population.
Assessment under international law
Operation Allied Force was the first NATO mission that was neither covered by a UN mandate nor justified by the occurrence of the alliance event .
Because of this turning point within the Western military alliance, the international law permissibility of the deployment is still controversial today, according to the lawyer and professor of international law Wolff Heintschel von Heinegg , the majority of experts view the NATO deployment as illegal today.
In the justification of NATO it was a question of a humanitarian intervention , which thus fulfilled its responsibility to protect the civilian population. For the events in Kosovo in the run-up to the NATO mission, Rudolf Scharping coined the term humanitarian catastrophe and accentuated it with pictures of massacres; the then German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer made a connection to the Holocaust in a parliamentary speech:
This was justified by incidents such as the Račak massacre and the so-called horseshoe plan, which NATO interpreted as crimes against humanity .
“ We always said: 'Never again war!' But we also always said: 'Never again Auschwitz!' "
However, the exact course and circumstances of attacks against ethnic Albanians are still controversial today, the existence of the "horseshoe plan" for the resettlement of ethnic Albanians has never been proven.
The selection of non-military targets, the use of cluster bombs and the use of uranium-coated ammunition were criticized for the war effort itself .
Military judgment
Benjamin Lambeth judges in his analysis of the military strategy and its implementation that not only the weather and the surprising flexibility of the enemy hindered the implementation of the operation. Another obstacle was the persistent indecision of the decision-makers on the part of the USA and NATO. This was caused by concerns about unintentional civilian casualties and the loss of their own aircraft, as well as the sharp differences of opinion within the military leadership of the USA regarding the best possible use of the Allied air forces against Serbian installations. For these and other reasons, NATO's air war in Kosovo was a significant step backwards in efficiency compared to Desert Storm , however inevitable some aspects might have been.
literature
- Lambeth, Benjamin S .: NATO's Air War for Kosovo - A Strategic and Operational Assessment , Santa Monica: RAND Corporation 2003
Individual evidence
- ^ Herfried Münkler , lecture at SPD Berlin on March 26, 2003 (short version): The new wars. Privatization and commercialization of armed violence and its consequences (PDF)
- ↑ cf. Lambeth, Benjamin S .: NATO's Air War for Kosovo - A Strategic and Operational Assessment , Santa Monica: RAND Corporation 2003, p. 64.
- ↑ The Stars and Stripes , March 24, 2009 Experts divided on overall success of Allied Force
- ↑ Jane's Defense Weekly : How Dutch F-16AMs shot down a MiG-29 ( Memento from April 17, 2001 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Yu Model Club Downed Yugoslav MiG-29 fighters
- ↑ "Serb discusses 1999 downing of stealth" , USA Today , October 26 of 2005.
- ↑ www.defenselink.mil (Engl.)
- ^ The Examiner, May 5, 1999 Yugoslav MiG shot down in dogfight ( Memento from May 14, 2005 in the Internet Archive )
- ↑ Politika, November 22, 2008 Ratni heroj kao modna ikona
- ↑ a b Former Air Force Chief Spasoje Smiljanic, Vecernje Novosti, March 3, 2009 Dali sve od sebe
- ↑ articles.cnn.com ( Memento from July 1, 2012 in the web archive archive.today )
- ↑ Chinese embassy accidentally bombed - CIA staff fired because of Kosovo , RP Online, April 9, 2000
- ^ British press: NATO deliberately attacked China's embassy in Belgrade , Spiegel Online, October 17, 1999
- ^ NATO (April 12, 1999). "The situation in and around Kosovo". Archived from the original on June 29, 2011. Retrieved August 2, 2011.
- ↑ "Serb discusses 1999 downing of stealth" , USA Today , Oct. 26, 2005
- ↑ a b Nin, March 21, 2002 Idem da se bijem pa sta bude
- ^ Commander of RV Spasoje Smiljanic in Vecernje Novosti, February 22, 2009 Strah od raketa S-300
- ↑ Interview former Commander of RV Spasoje Smiljanic in Vecernje Novosti, February 21, 2009 Borba Davida i Golijata
- ^ New York News transfer system, June 3, 1999 Yugoslav General buried with military honors ( Memento of January 19, 2012 in the Internet Archive )
- ^ Civilian Deaths in the NATO Air Campaign: The Crisis in Kosovo. In: hrw.org. Human Rights Watch, February 2000, accessed June 30, 2019 .
- ↑ Mines Arms Unit, ICRC : Cluster bombs and landmines in Kosovo (PDF; 871 kB), August 2000, rev. June 2001
- ^ AG Friedensforschung der Universität Kassel, Diana Johnson: Expect war - dream of diplomacy. The Kosovo Disaster: How the US Ordinarily Rejects Diplomacy in Favor of War
- ^ "Receipt for the Kosovo mission" - Crimean invasion is contrary to international law - n-tv
- ↑ a b History of War Propaganda - Time and again in history, propaganda has been used in connection with the war by politicians and the military. - Federal Agency for Civic Education
- ↑ Kosovo, the UCK and Psychedelia à la Rudolf Scharping - Telepolis
- ↑ Germany's new challenges, economic crisis and global responsibility ( Memento from March 21, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) - 60 years of Germany
- ^ Horseshoe plan - the war puzzle - AG Friedensforschung
- ↑ Lonely Doubters - Taz
- ↑ In January 1999 over 40 Albanians died in Racak - Secret reports contradict the thesis of a targeted execution - Berliner Zeitung
- ↑ "Not only was the operation's execution hampered by uncooperative weather and a surprisingly resilient opponent, it was further afflicted by persistent hesitancy on the part of US and NATO decisionmakers that was prompted by fears of inadvertently killing civilians and losing friendly aircrews, as well as by sharp differences of opinion within the most senior US command element over the best way of applying allied air power against Serb assets to achieve the desired effects. All of that and more, however unavoidable some aspects of it may have been, made NATO's air war for Kosovo a substantial step backward in efficiency when compared to Desert Storm. "