Waging Modern War: Bosnia, Kosovo and the Future of Combat [Hardcover]

US General Wesley Clark, Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, 1997-2000, espouses the Powell Doctrine, of swift escalation to decisive force, as opposed to `extended campaigns that could leave democratic governments being vulnerable to their own public opinion'. That is, US doctrine aims to prevent the public having any say over the actions of NATO's `democratic' governments.

Clark writes, "In 1993, the US government proposed the so-called `lift and strike' policy, in which the U.N. arms embargo against the former Yugoslavia would be lifted, theoretically enabling the Bosnian Muslim forces to gain the means to defend themselves, and the NATO nations would threaten to strike the Bosnian Serb forces if they continued to attack the Muslims. But to the Europeans, this looked like a recipe for the expansion of the fighting, not its termination. The principle of allowing the Bosnian Muslims in Sarajevo to acquire the arms to defend themselves was directly in conflict with the principles of remaining neutral, containing the conflict, and ameliorating its humanitarian impact."

Similarly today, arming the Libyan rebels is `a recipe for the expansion of the fighting, not its termination' and it is `directly in conflict with the principles of remaining neutral, containing the conflict, and ameliorating its humanitarian impact'. And just as NATO powers overrode these principles then, so NATO is overriding them today.

Clark wrote in the 2001 edition, "In the Pentagon in November 2001, one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia and Sudan ..." (p. 130.) This revealing comment does not appear in the 2002 reprint edition.

Clark, after all, always obeys orders, either to suppress the truth, or to break international law by leading NATO's illegal attack on Yugoslavia.

At the time of this review NATO is bombing Libya from air and still struggles with the options of how to continue the campaign - whether to seek authorization for ground troops or to continue with other means. Kosovo campaign was the first NATO war and it happened in the Europe in the end of the 1990s. Wesley Clark has written his memoirs from his personal experiences as SACEUR and from other positions he held. He received a very wide picture of events in Balkan, and experienced the pre Kosovo struggles in Bosnia. This book outlines in a very interesting way of how the Kosovo war was waged and what problems and challenges there was. Clark draws a picture about NATO as a very problematic organization, in which the military commander has to balance between different political actors both in the Europe and in the United States and to follow the consensus based line in NATO. I think this book is worth of reading. I think there can be missing some deep analysis especially from the political side, which is unfortunate. Although people interested in the military side can say similar things about the sections which deal with the military aspects - in the book there are both politics and military present. Clark also reveals in the end some interesting insights which he did not mention in the actual book - I think there was that kind of experiences which would have earned more analysis or at least description. But still, this book gives a very good first hand account on how NATO works as a military organization and how it wages war in globalized media environment. I think this book draws some interesting lessons of how similar campaigns will be waged in the future (it seems that Libya is like Kosovo at least in some parts), and with what presumable results.

General Clark provides an intriuging insight into the "new way of war" how can u fight in a civilized manner when the circumstances are so un-civilized? A very proffessinal account of events in Kosovo, for which future military and political leaders will find invaluable. at times though you feel the general is not going deep enough into the truth.