(Page 2 of 20) - Kosovo 1999: Clinton, Coercive Diplomacy, and the War to End All (Ground) Wars authored by Barthe, Sebastien. and David, Charles-Philippe.

determination not to commit U.S. ground troops to combat operations was
partially responsible for the unforeseen duration of the war. Our own analysis
suggests that this stance stemmed more from a lag in the decision-making
process caused by over-reliance on images from Bosnia than from fears of seeing
a Vietnam or Somalia repeated in the Balkans.

To assess the importance of analogies in the decision-making process both prior
to and during NATO’s aerial campaign against Yugoslavia, we will use an
analytic model developed by Yuen Foong Khong in his ground-breaking 1992
book Analogies at War: Korea, Munich, Dien Bien Phu and the Vietnam Decision of
1965.

Khong labels his model the “AE framework,” and in our opinion it goes a

long way towards explaining how analogies operate cognitively and clarifying
the consequences for decision-making.

In the first part of this paper, we will revisit the AE framework, describe its basic
tenets, and describe how analogies typically influence decision-making and
policy choices. In the second part, we will use the AE framework to discuss how
conflicting analogies informed the debates in the White House in 1998 and early
1999 about what to do in Kosovo. Finally, the third section of this paper will
argue that when air strikes proved insufficient to stop Milosevic in April and
May of 1999, the Principals Committee

was forced to debate at length the

the Lessons of Kosovo,” Foreign Policy, No. 116, Fall 1999, pp. 128-140; Ivo H. Daalder and
Michael E. O’Hanlon, Winning Ugly: NATO’s War to Save Kosovo, Washington, DC, Brookings
Institution Press, 2001; Michael Mandelbaum, “A Perfect Failure: NATO’s War Against
Yugoslavia,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 78, No. 5, September/October 1999, pp. 2-8; Javier Solana,
“NATO’s Success in Kosovo,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 78, No. 6, November/December 1999, pp. 114-
120; Adam Roberts, “NATO’s ‘Humanitarian War’ Over Kosovo,” Survival, Vol. 41, No. 3,
Autumn 1999, pp. 102-123; David Halberstam, War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the
Generals, New York, NY, Touchtone Books, 2002, especially pp. 360-480; Wesley K. Clark, Waging
Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo, and the Future of Combat, New York, NY, Public Affairs, 2002,
especially pp. 107-161, 261-344; Madeleine Albright (with Bill Woodward), Madam Secretary, New
York, NY, Hyperion, 2003, especially pp. 378-428; Daniel L. Byman and Matthew C. Waxman,
“Kosovo and the Great Air Power Debate,” International Security, Vol. 24, No. 4, Spring 2000, pp.
5-38; Barry R. Posen, “The War for Kosovo: Serbia’s Political-Military Strategy,” International
Security, Vol. 24, No. 4, Spring 2000, pp. 39-84; Arnaud Martins Da Torre, “Les illusions
dangereuses d’une victoire aérienne,” La revue internationale et stratégique, No. 36, Winter 1999-
2000, pp. 103-121; Sean Kay, “After Kosovo: NATO’s Credibility Dilemma,” Security Dialogue,
Vol. 31, No. 1, March 2000, pp. 71-84.

Yuen Foong Khong, Analogies at War: Korea, Munich, Dien Bien Phu and the Vietnam Decision of

1965, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, 1992. The development of his analytical
framework can be found on pp. 19-68.

The Principals Committee is an informal body of the National Security Council (NSC) that

includes the key players involved in foreign policy decision-making. In 1998 and 1999, its usual
members were President Bill Clinton, Vice-President Al Gore, Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright, Secretary of Defense William Cohen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Hugh
Shelton, National Security Advisor Samuel Berger, and Director of Central Intelligence George