NATO's Air War for Kosovo: A Strategic and Operational Assessment

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On March 24, 1999, NATO embarked on a 78-day air war aimed at compelling the government of Yugoslavia and its elected president, Slobodan Milosevic, to halt and reverse the human rights abuses that were being committed by armed Serbs against the ethnic Albanian majority living in Yugoslavia’s Serbian province of Kosovo. That effort, called Operation Allied Force, ended on June 9 after Milosevic finally acceded to NATO’s demands and a withdrawal of Serb forces from Kosovo had begun. The air war was a first of that magnitude for NATO and represented the third largest strategic application of air power by the United States since World War II, exceeded only by the Vietnam War and Operation Desert Storm in scale and intensity.

With a view toward capturing the many useful insights to be extracted from that experience, the U.S. Air Force chief of staff, General Michael Ryan, asked Headquarters United States Air Forces in Europe (Hq USAFE) shortly after Allied Force ended to establish a studies and analysis office (USAFE/SA) to manage all USAF-sponsored assessments of the air war. The director of that office, Brigadier General John Corley, in turn asked RAND’s Project AIR FORCE to contribute to the assessment effort across a wide spectrum of topics, ranging from individual platform and systems performance to command and control, operational support, strategy and planning, and other considerations bearing on the air war’s effectiveness.

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