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No. 321

October 8, 1998

WASHINGTON'S KOSOVO POLICY

Consequences and Contradictions

by Gary T. Dempsey

Executive Summary

Although U.S. ambassador Christopher Hill is trying to

broker an interim political agreement between Belgrade and

moderate ethnic Albanians in the embattled Serbian province

of Kosovo, there is no assurance that the militant Kosovo

Liberation Army (KLA) will end its violent struggle for

independence if an agreement is reached.  Meanwhile, the UN

has issued Security Council Resolution 1199 demanding a

cease-fire in Kosovo, and the Clinton administration has

poised itself militarily and rhetorically for intervention

in the conflict.  Yet the White House still has not

explained to the American public how U.S. national security

is threatened in Kosovo, what the potential costs of inter-

vention are in American lives and defense spending, and how

another military commitment in the Balkans will affect the

nation's readiness to respond to crises elsewhere in the

world.

Above all, the Clinton administration's present course

in Kosovo is both contradictory and potentially counterpro-

ductive--a dangerous mix that threatens to mire the United

States in another internecine conflict overseas.  Specific-

ally, the interventionist measures that Washington is now

considering could further encourage the KLA, widen the con-

flict, set back the prospect of democratic reform in

Yugoslavia, and perpetuate European security dependence on

the United States.

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Gary T. Dempsey, a foreign policy analyst at the Cato

Institute, recently returned from Kosovo and Montenegro.