Beck

Sarah Beck Analysis of the United States Intervention in Kosovo Based on Strategic Learning from Rwandan Genocide Introduction: In the 1990s, the United States witnessed and engaged in some unsuccessful and successful humanitarian interventions under the Clinton Administration. One of the unsuccessful interventions (or lack thereof an intervention) was the Rwandan Genocide in 1994 where Rwandan Hutus killed 800,000 Rwandan Tutsis. The United States failed to adequately respond to the genocide by first not acknowledging that the genocide was occurring, and then by letting bureaucratic politics between United States agencies and the United Nations interfere and prevent a swift response to the conflict. On the other hand, one successful United States humanitarian intervention occurred in 1999 in Kosovo. The United States acted with NATO to not only stop genocide already in effect, but acted to prevent a probable genocide from occurring. In a five year span between these two seemingly unrelated conflicts, the United States made a huge policy shift from little humanitarian response in Rwanda that had genocide already occurring, to acting out in prevention in Kosovo when 3,000 individuals had died. This change in strategy begs the question of what best explains the United States change in humanitarian intervention policy from Rwanda to Kosovo. There are many possible explanations for this shift, like the effect of the media in Kosovo, as well as specific political reasons surrounding geography and expected troop loss in each conflict. While these may have

Beck been contributing factors, the United States change in policy was based on recognizing failures from other conflicts, like Rwanda, and applying those lessons learned to future humanitarian interventions, like Kosovo. Based on first hand accounts from members of the Clinton Administration and distinct transformations in policy, strategic learning from the conflict in Rwanda lead to the United States to learn from their failures and apply these lessons to conflict in Kosovo. The strategic learning framework has been applied to the Gulf War and organizational responses and prevention to the 9/11 attacks, but never to the ethnic conflict in Rwanda and Kosovo. By applying this framework to the conflict in Rwanda and Kosovo, it becomes evident that the United States did learn from their failures in Rwanda and has made strides to correct them in future ethnic conflict in countries like Kosovo. Literature Review:

Because the United States had no clear interest in Kosovo, the question of why the United States intervened has been greatly debated. In The CNN Effect In Action: How the News Media Pushed the West toward War in Kosovo, Babak Bahador analyzes media portrayal of conflicts in the Kosovo War to find if there was bias to either the Serbian or Albanian side, and then analyzes the United States actions towards Kosovo to determine if the media was effecting the government, or if the government was effecting the media. Bahador finds through his cases studies of violent incidents in the Kosovo War that the CNN effect was one of many influencing factors behind NATOs decision to intervene militarily in Kosovo (Bahador, 2007, p. 163). While Bahadors conclusions show that the media did effect the United States government, he

Beck could only find two incidents where this occurred, so there were still other factors influencing the United States decision for intervention with NATO.

Another possible cause to United States intervention is explained my Ivo H. Daalder and Michael E. OHanlon in Unlearning the Lessons of Kosovo, in which the authors conclude that United States has intervened decisively only when humanitarian rises occurred near U.S. territory or in Europe, only when extremely few U.S. casualties were expected, and only when the presidents own rhetoric had essentially forced the administration to do something (Daalder & O'Hanlon, 1999, p. 139). The authors came to this conclusion by making skeptical assessments of five popular post-Kosovo truths and conclude that only when these qualifications are met that the United States will feel compelled to intervene humanitarianly. While this study was thorough in its explanation of its theory, there were few cases where their theory was applicable and there is still much to be explained in why the United States did not intervene in Rwanda, but did in Kosovo. While the media and political reasons may have influenced the United States intervention in Kosovo, another possible reason is strategic learning. Strategic learning aims to generate learning in support of future strategic initiatives that will, in turn, foster knowledge asymmetries that can lead to differences in organizational performance and is limited to decision makers and requires a change of attitudes and beliefs (Thomas, Sussman, & Henderson, 2001, p. 331) Lawrence Freedman has applied this framework to the Gulf War. In his article, Lessons of the Gulf War, he looks as lessons from past United States conflicts that influenced the

Beck execution of the Gulf War. One of these lessons came from Vietnam, which was that

politicians must not interfere with the detail of military operations because the execution of the air war in Vietnam had been mismanaged by key civilian officials in the Johnson Administration (Freedman, 1993, p. 275). To learn from this, Freedman argues that President George H. Bush made a point of refusing to interfere with the detail of military planning and the choice of targets for the air campaign because of failures regarding the air war in the Vietnam War (Freedman, 1993, p. 275). Strategic learning has also been applied to United States organizations in responding to and preventing acts of terrorism. In US Military Operations at Home and Abroad: Learning from September 11, Karen Guttieri focuses on how organizations like the FBI failed to connect the dots based on the numerous clues that such an attack might occur (Guttieri, 2002, p. 4). Guttieri then argues that because many organizations failed to connect the dots because of information asymmetry, the George W. Bush Administration responded by creating Homeland Security to coordinate intelligence and to consolidate American responses to terrorist attacks (Guttieri, 2002, pp. 28-29). Theory: The Gulf War and United States organizational responses and failures to September 11th have been analyzed through the lens of strategic learning, but the United States intervention in Kosovo has not. By applying the strategic learning framework to the United States intervention in Kosovo, the United States shows that it learned many lessons from its failures in Rwanda.

Beck Based on the definition used for strategic learning, the United States analyzed its failures in

Rwanda (i.e., not acknowledging the genocide occurring and crippling bureaucratic politics), and going forward in other humanitarian interventions, like Kosovo, aimed to fix knowledge asymmetries to better performances in domestic and international organizations like the United Nations and NATO. Findings: The first failure of the United States foreign policy in the Rwandan genocide was the United States unwillingness to get involved or to acknowledge that genocide was even occurring. When Rwanda occurred, the United States remained quiet and even refrained from using the word genocide, because not only would it make the United States look immoral for not intervening, but because based on the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, if there was a genocide taking place, the United States may be forced to take such action under the charter as they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide (Power, 2002, p. 361). It is well documented from organizations like the Nation Security Archive that United States officials knew about the Hutu intentions in Rwanda, but still did nothing and did not fear that they would pay a political price for doing nothing to save the Rwandans (Power, 2002, p. 372). The United States was also aware of the anti-Tutsi propaganda that was being spread through Rwandan radios and televisions stations that provided justification for Hutus to slaughter Tutsis prior to the genocide starting. The United States would have been able to jam the radio

Beck frequencies to stop the propaganda, but did not do so for fear of breaking international law (Power, 2002, p. 271). Moreover, the Clinton Administration felt that there would not be significant public support for them to intervene militarily into the region and that ignoring the conflict, rather than intervening in it, would be politically better for them. Additionally, there was not a strong media presence in Rwanda when the genocides occurred, so the United States government was able to ignore the conflicts with no significant backlash in public opinion because the public was not completely aware of what was occurring in Rwanda, and to what degree. However, once the United States public did hear about the atrocities in Rwanda and the lack of response from the United States when they were aware of the violence, the Clinton

Administration began issuing apologies to Rwandans. While visiting Rwanda in the aftermath of the genocide, President Clinton said: We in the United States and the world community did not do as much as we could have and should have done to try to limit what occurred It may seem strange to you here, but all over the world there were people like me sitting in offices, day after day, who did not fully appreciate the depth and the speed with which you were being engulfed by this unimaginable terror (Power, 2002, p. 386). Additionally, President Clinton has said that not intervening in Rwanda was the biggest regret of his presidency (Cooper & Myers, 2011). After the Kosovo issue was seemingly ignored in the 1995 Dayton Accords, Kosovar

Beck Albanians decided to form the Kosovo Liberation Army, which aimed to protect all Kosovar Albanians. Initially, inner Kosovo support for the KLA was weak, however that changed when the KLA gunned down several Serbian policemen and Milosevic struck back so violently that popular support for the KLA soared (Power, 2002, p. 445). KLA continued to attack Serbian

officials, leading the Serbs to increasingly intensify their attacks and violence toward Albanians. In a year, some 3,000 Albanians were killed and some 300,000 other were expelled from their homes, their property burned and their livelihoods extinguished (Power, 2002, p. 445). As the deaths continued, the senior officials in the Clinton administration became revolted and enraged and they decided to intervene with help from other European nations (Power, 2002, p. 447). They created take-it-or-leave-it proposal in early 1999 where Belgrade was required to remove most of its troops from Kosovo, grant significant autonomy to the Albanians, and allow 25,000 armed peace keepers (4,000 of them American) to be deployed to Serbia. If the Serbs refused, NATO would bomb (Power, 2002, p. 447-448). Accustomed to NATO making threats and them not enforcing them, Serbs were not about to surrender control over a province of great historical and symbolic importance and the Serbs refused to even entertain the deal (Power, 2002, p. 448). However, on March 24, 1999, NATO began a bombing campaign on Serbia and it was the first time in history that the United States or its European allies had intervened to head off a potential genocide (Powers, 2002, p. 448). The United States response to the ethnic conflict in Kosovo stopped 3,000 deaths from possibly turning into 300,000. Based on strategic learning, the United States realized that these

Beck small isolated conflicts that were occurring in Kosovo had the potential to become genocide, as they did prior to the breakout of the Rwandan genocide. In his own remarks, President Clinton recognized the speed at which Rwandans were being slaughtered, which influenced him and his administration to create a swift and hardlined response with a take it or leave it agreement to deal with the Kosovo conflict. The United States learned from Rwanda that it needs to take a stance and respond to the conflict early, before it has the possibility to spiral and spill over. Additionally, as President reflected on his presidency in November of 2009 in Kosovo

Parliament, he remarked that he had missed the Rwandan genocide and that it was gone in 90 days, and that the Rwandan genocides brevity explains why we were so quick to come [to Kosovo] (Clinton: Rwanda Guilt Led to Kosovo Intervention, 2009). In his own words, President Clinton acknowledges that he learned from the travesty of Rwanda and applied the lesson from Rwanda that a swift response is needed to genocide. Once the United States did decide to recognize the genocide in Rwanda and pledged to intervene, bureaucracy in the United States government, as well as the United Nations, stalled the intervention until it was too late. Romeo Dallaire, Force Commander of the United Nations Armed Assistance Mission for Rwanda (UNAMIR), created a plan for intervention in Kosovo that would include 5,000-armed soldiers so he would be able to secure Kigali, and then create safe havens around the country for Rwandans. The United States was one of the few countries that could supply the rapid airlift and logistic support needed to move reinforcements to the region, and Vice-President Al Gore pledged United States support for the intervention on May

Beck 10, 1994, but bureaucracy slowed the process dramatically (Power, 2002, p. 378). After Al Gore pledged his support, Richard Clarke and Tony Lake of the National Security Council began to question Dallaires idea because it was an inside out strategy rather than outside in (Power, 2002, p. 378). Additionally, after the failed peacekeeping attempts in Somalia, the United States drafted Presidential Decision Directive-25 (PDD-25), which narrowed the United States ability to become involved in United Nations Peacekeeping Operations to only when the operation passed the vital interests test for the United States.

Because intervening in Rwanda was not seen as vital to US interests abroad, Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott remarked that the U.S. is not prepared at this point to give heavy equipment and troops to Kigali (Power, 2002, 379). Negotiations continued to drag out between the United States and the UN about how to address the Rwandan genocide and after much back and forth between the United States government and the UN, the U.S. and UN finally agreed to a plan on May 17, but the Pentagon stalled the mission. The UN officially requested from the United States fifty armed personal carriers and the U.S. agreed to provide them on May 31. However, more problems arose between the UN and the Pentagon about details like who would pay for the APCs, is the UN buying the APCs or leasing them from the US, etc. After weeks of talks between the UN and Pentagon, the United States sent APCs on June 19, but they were missing the radios and heavy machine guns that would be needed if UN troops came under fire and the APCs were not in Rwanda until July, three months after the deadly conflict began (Power, 2002, p. 376).

Beck 10 While there still was bureaucracy in dealing with the ethnic conflict in Kosovo, the response to the conflict ran smoother and more efficiently compared to Rwanda. As President Clinton weighed United States interest in Kosovo, he remarked, I am convinced that the dangers of acting are far outweighed by the dangers of not actingdangers to defenseless people and to our national interests (Power, 2002, p. 449). Based on this urgency to act and the emphasized dangers to United States interests abroad from the Commander and Chief of the United States, the bureaucratic chains loosened. This is evident in the swift response from the United States and NATO. The NATO response began on May 28, 1998 when NATO set out two objectives for the Kosovo conflict. First was to help to achieve a peaceful resolution of the crisis by contributing to the response of the international community and second was to promote stability and security in neighboring countries with particular emphasis on Albania and the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (NATO's role in relation to the conflict in Kosvo, 1999). In October of 1998, many realized that the situation in Kosovo was deteriorating and UN Security Council Resolution 1199 called for a cease-fire for both parties in the Kosovo conflict and other steps were taken to increase surveillance of conflict in the area. After closely monitoring the area, the world saw the escalation of attacks on Kosovar Albanians and saw Milosevic refusal to comply with orders from NATO. This directly led to air attacks from NATO, beginning on March 24, 1999. This decision to have air strikes on Serbia marked a radically assertive break from past American responses to atrocity (Power, 2002, p. 451). After seventy-seven days of bombing Serbia, on

Beck 11 June 10, 1999, Milosevic surrendered and signed an agreement that forced Serbian troops and police to leave Kosovo and permitted 50,000 NATO peacekeepers to enter it (Power, 2002, p. 459). The events leading up to the Kosovo intervention show that the United States and NATO closely monitored the small conflicts occurring in the country see if there was any escalation, and this monitoring happened with little bureaucratic interference. The United States partnership with other organizations in monitoring this conflict actually worked to our favor, because as the events escalated, all countries involved were on the same page that if Milosevic did not comply with NATO orders, that there would be air strikes on Serbia. In Rwanda, the United States bureaucracy worked against organizations like the United Nations through actions like PDD-25 when trying to stop the escalation of the genocide. The United States learned from Rwanda that working against these organizations that have vital information and people who know the conflict (like Commander Romeo Dallaire) makes it more difficult to properly respond and diffuse the violence. In Kosovos ethnic conflict, the United States worked with other bureaucracies to monitor Kosovo for genocide prevention, rather then stopping a genocide that is already on its way like in Rwanda. The United States response with NATO to ethnic conflict occurring in Kosovo shows that the United States has learned how to effectively work with other bureaucratic organizations in order to ensure efficiency and a quick response. Conclusion: Based on first hand accounts from the Clinton Administration and President Clinton

Beck 12 himself, he realized that he made a mistake by not intervening in Rwanda when he had the chance. The conflict in Rwanda happened too quickly for United States government to respond, and they watched as 800,000 people were slaughtered. The Clinton Administration did not want to see a second genocide occur under their administration, so when the possibility of conflict arose on Kosovo, the United States worked with intergovernmental organizations (i.e., United Nations, NATO) in prevention of genocide. In addition, instead of working against intergovernmental organizations, as the United States had with PDD-25 in the Rwandan genocide, the United States coordinated monitoring efforts in Kosovo between multiple nations, so if conflict began to escalate, they would be able to respond quickly and efficiency. While some have suggested that the media and political concerns were some roles in influencing United States intervention, by far the largest role was strategic learning. The Clinton Administration was in a unique position when dealing with Kosovo. They had seen ethnic conflict under their administration only four years prior in Rwanda, so they had first hand knowledge about the mistakes made, and knew how to fix them going forward. In the future, the strategic learning framework should also be applied to conflict in Somalia in 1993 and how this lead the United States to not take a role in Rwanda (as seen with PDD-25), in fear that their administration would have another humanitarian intervention that lead to United States troop loss. Humanitarian interventions will never be perfect, but by analyzing past conflicts and their successes and failures, the United States and the world has the potential to learn how to deal with ethnic conflict and genocides quickly and effectively.

Beck 13 Bibliography Bahador, B. (2007). The CNN Effect in Action: How the News Media Pushed the West toward War in Kosovo. New York City. Clinton: Rwanda Guilt Led to Kosovo Intervention. (2009, November 2). Retrieved April 4, 2012, from Balkan Insight: http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/clinton-rwanda guilt-led-to-kosovo-intervention Cooper, H., & Myers, S. (2011, March 19). Shift by Clinton Helped Persuade President to Take a Harder Line. Retrieved April 4, 2012, from The New York Times: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html? res=9C02E4D81631F93AA25750C0A96798B63 Daalder, I., & O'Hanlon, M. (1999). Unlearning the Lessons of Kosovo. Foreign Policy (Autumn), 128-140. Freedman, L. (1993). Lessons of the Gulf War. Asian Affairs , 273-279. Guttieri, K. (2002). US Military Operations at Home and Abroad: Learning from September 11. The American Political Science Association . Boston. NATO's role in relation to the conflict in Kosvo. (1999). Retrieved April 4, 2012, from NATO: http://www.nato.int/kosovo/history.htm Power, S. (2002). A Problem from Hell: America and the Age of Genoicde. New York City: Basic Books. Thomas, J., Sussman, S., & Henderson, J. (2001). Understanding "Strategic Learning": Linking Organizational Learning, Knowledge Management, and Sensemaking . Organization Science , 331-345.