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tinue fighting.  That's because only one side of the con-

flict--the Yugoslav government--will feel the pressure of

those measures; there are no KLA jets for NATO to shoot

down, no KLA installations to bomb.  As a result, attack-

ing Serbia or imposing a no-fly zone will not deter the

KLA from waging war for an independent Kosovo.  In fact,

the opposite could happen.  The rebels will have every-

thing to gain by exploiting the strategic opportunity that

the Western suppression of Serb force creates for them.

NATO, in effect, will be the KLA's air force.  A similar

scenario unfolded in Bosnia in 1995 when U.S. warplanes

dumped more than 1,000 bombs on Serb targets, giving

Muslim and Croat forces an opportunity to launch an

advance that triggered a wave of 150,000 Serb refugees.50

On the other hand, if Washington continues to make

bellicose threats and then does not follow through,

Kosovar Albanians could feel betrayed by the Clinton

administration, resent the United States, and probably suf-

fer more casualties than if Washington had not meddled in

the first place.  As Brookings Institution fellow Alan

Kuperman explains,

This dynamic has repeated itself so frequently

that it's become familiar.  First, an oppressive

government discriminates against a subordinate

group within its borders. . . . The group then

gets the attention of Western human-rights advo-

cates and the media, who pressure the United

States and/or other Western nations to issue

warnings to the oppressive government, with hints

of further action if it does not relent.  The

[oppressed] group infers optimistically from this

rhetoric that the West will come to its aid if

it provokes a violent government crackdown, and

therefore escalates its insurgency.51

That scenario not only encourages further government

repression, but when the West does not intervene, many

people in the oppressed group die.  Thus, concludes

Kuperman, "American officials should do everything they can

to avoid transmitting a false message to oppressed groups

that [the United States] will intervene on their behalf."52

Spreading Kosovo's Conflict

The Clinton administration says it fears that the

conflict in Kosovo could spread if NATO does not inter-

vene.  As Secretary of Defense William Cohen notes, "There

is a genuine concern throughout the region that if this