War In Europe: A journey into the unknown

The West finally succumbed to Milosevic's poker-playing tactics and sent in the bombers. But the future is bleak: Europe's first war in 50 years runs the danger of solving nothing at all

There had been so many warnings and so many false alarms that it seemed impossible that anything would actually happen. Repeatedly, the West warned Slobodan Milosevic that he must back down if he did not want to face terrible consequences. Repeatedly, the Yugoslav leader made a small tactical retreat, which left him stronger than ever. The minimal adjustment of strategy - a temporary withdrawal of forces here, a provisional ceasefire there - allowed the West to find an excuse for backing down.

Now, the unthinkable has suddenly happened. The politicians themselves seem surprised. We are at war with another European country for the first time in 50 years. The optimists and the doomsdayers alike profess certainty about where we are headed. But this is a political rollercoaster ride, such as we have never seen before.

Night after night, orange flashes light up the Belgrade sky. Serb radio compares the Nato attacks to those of the Luftwaffe. The alliance's military force is fearsomely deployed against one small country - the result ought to be clear cut. In reality, the endgame still depends on which way the Yugoslav president decides to jump. In the short term, the Serbs have turned up the murderous heat, burning villages and shooting civilians in Kosovo with casual bravado. But what comes next is still unclear. Unpredictability is Milosevic's greatest strength. His aim is to make the political cost of continuing the campaign impossibly high.

The bombings of recent days are a kind of revenge on Milosevic, for humiliatingly calling the West's bluff on so many occasions before. Eventually, enough was enough. But this is more than just a matter of bruised political egos. There is no question of strategic interests here. It may be argued that there are other places in the world - from Chechnya to Rwanda - where the world should have done more, but preferred to look the other way. But this argument in favour of a level apathy-field is hardly compelling. When Tony Blair said in his TV address on Friday that the bombing was "for the sake of humanity", it sounded trite. But it was not a lie. The West has no strategic interest in defending a bunch of Albanian villagers.

In the past decade, Western governments stood by while Slobodan Milosevic's regime, and slivovitz-filled thugs who were encouraged by his regime, committed barbaric crimes. When the Balkan wars began, Western politicians saw Milosevic as a man they could do business with. When he said "I want peace", they believed him, or pretended to. Milosevic was a key player.

And yet Milosevic's involvement in the bloodshed was clear from the start. Without Milosevic, none of this need have happened. Milosevic began his startling rise to power in the late 1980s by stoking Serb nationalism in Kosovo. By 1991, the pro-Milosevic euphoria ("Slobo! Slobo!") had long since ebbed away. Huge opposition protests took place in Belgrade. But successive wars in Croatia and in frightened, fragile Bosnia left the Serb opposition in disarray. Milosevic was at the centre of the web. But the West affected not to notice: when lists of war criminals were drawn up, Milosevic's own name did not appear.

Two successive peace envoys, the Lords Carrington and Owen, treated the warring factions with weary insouciance, even as the killing continued. In 1995 a hideous massacre of civilians in Srebrenica took place under the very eyes of the alleged UN peacekeepers. The world was too timid to send in the requested airpower that might have forced the Serbs to back down. Not until the arrival of the swashbuckling American negotiator Richard Holbrooke did things change gear. The threat of air strikes broke the Serbs' nerve. The bullies agreed to sit down at the Dayton talks which brought an uneasy peace.

Peace meant, however, that Milosevic's popularity, without the distraction of an ethnic conflict, again began to wane. The economy was in appalling shape, and he had lost territory in Croatia after an inhuman bout of revenge ethnic cleansing by the Croats in 1995. There were huge demonstrations against him in Belgrade and other cities in the winter of 1996-97. Yet again Milosevic held his nerve - and launched yet another war. Serb forces moved against the Albanians in Kosovo, renewing the massacres and ethnic cleansing that had by now become so nightmarishly familiar in Croatia and Bosnia: burned villages, makeshift mass graves, brazen lies.

Even now, the West hoped that Milosevic could be persuaded to "negotiate". But Milosevic is more of a poker player than a negotiator, calculating the point at which his opponents' nerve will crack. He is superb at playing divide and rule. Vuk Draskovic was one of the trio of opposition leaders who led the demonstrations against Milosevic in 1996. Milosevic duly co- opted Draskovic into the government as deputy prime minister - and set the opposition at each other's throats. Vojislav Seselj, a paramilitary leader and former critic of Milosevic, was lured to become a deputy prime minister. He began to pay homage to Milosevic while continuing his Zhirinovsky- style denunciations of Albanians and other foreigners.

Milosevic is sometimes described as having wanted a Greater Serbia. Embattled Serb liberals - at the bravely independent B92 radio station, for example - argue that it is more important to him that there should be a Greater Milosevic. Sitting in a Knightsbridge hotel suite in 1992, he appeared full of self-confidence at the conclusion of a conference on Yugoslavia which had allegedly forced him to make concessions. The Western politicians seemed under the impression that they had helped bring the Bosnian war to an end; in reality, it had barely begun. He knew that his power was not threatened, and that made him happy.

Milosevic, whose parents both committed suicide, boasts a ruthless amorality that hints at psychologically damaged goods. But, as with the leader of Germany between 1933 and 1945, the psychological flaws of the leader are only part of the story. Milosevic is a dictator - but he does win elections, too.

In effect, Nato wants to bomb Milosevic into submission. Western leaders hope that he will lose his nerve - tomorrow, next week, in three weeks' time. But, like the poker player that he is, Milosevic is capable of holding out even when his cards appear to be weak - in the hope that his opponent will crack, even while his domestic support continues to grow. Already the Serbs have raised the stakes by launching a campaign of unparalleled brutality in Kosovo. The Kosovo capital, Pristina, which until now remained eerily calm, has become a living and dying nightmare. Albanians cower behind closed doors, while Serb gangs roam around with a defiantly murderous swagger - looting, destroying, and carrying out summary executions in the streets. The Serb message to the West is clear: if you continue to bomb us, then things will only get worse for the Albanians you claim to protect; if you stop bombing then we might stop killing people.

It is a bloody logic, which Nato, having travelled this far down the road, is unlikely to accept. But what is the alternative - ground troops? This is the point where Western politicians and Nato generals alike reach for a cold compress, and rush to lie down in a darkened room. The implications of sending in ground troops are daunting - how many might die? How would they negotiate the terrain? Might this turn into a European Vietnam? The implications of not sending ground troops in may prove to be more daunting still - a half-completed mission which only serves to make the situation of the Albanians even worse, and which unites the Serbs behind the regime as never before.

Whatever happens, the Serbs now seem doomed to lose Kosovo in the longer term. As the example of Chechnya so clearly showed, a motivated guerrilla force can wear down the resistance of even the most thuggish army. The longer the conflict continues, the less chance the Serbs have of keeping hold of the territory. Already, Milosevic has lost chunks of Croatia, occupied by Serbs for hundreds of years. Now he may lose control even over Kosovo, the (mostly unvisited) cradle of Serb culture. So much for saving the Serb nation.

Meanwhile, the violence is beginning to seep beyond Kosovo's borders. Milosevic's motto throughout the Balkan wars has always been: when in difficulty, destabilise. Since the beginning of the conflict, little Macedonia has been nervous of its fate. Macedonia had no desire to leave the old Yugo- slavia. Like mixed Bosnia, it felt more comfortable in a multi-ethnic federation. Only Milosevic's policies persuaded the Macedonians to head for the emergency exit - they had no desire to stay in a country where chauvinism and intolerance could rule unchallenged.

President Kiro Gligorov - a former Communist Party leader in the old Yugoslav Macedonia - has tried, with a surprising degree of success, to keep his country stable in the past eight years. But, with both a Serb minority and a restive 30 per cent Albanian minority to cope with, it has not been easy. Violent protests by Serbs in Skopje have destabilised Macedonia in recent days. Sixty people, including a local Serb leader, were arrested after demonstrators attacked buildings and burned cars in the city centre. One does not need to be a lover of Balkan conspiracy theories to note that such demonstrations suit Milosevic's purposes precisely. Again and again in recent years - in Kosovo, in Croatia, and in Bosnia - Milosevic and his men encouraged local Serbs to stir up trouble, to provide pretexts for intervention and to further Belgrade's political aims.

Macedonia has not yet suffered the effects of mad politician disease. Nato forces there are on alert, but may be able to do little to protect it from the ultimate conflagration if Milosevic succeeds in making the conflict spread. Greece, one of the most truly Balkan countries in Europe, has been a staunch ally of Milosevic - and, unsurprisingly, is a fierce critic of the Nato action. It is a sworn enemy of Macedonia, which it believes should never have been allowed to exist. If Macedonia were to implode - with all the knock-on effects for stability in the region - many Greeks would applaud.

Then there is Montenegro, the last and smallest of the six republics of the old Yugoslav federation. Montenegrins and Serbs have traditionally seen each other as brothers in arms. The proud Montenegrins are often seen as "more Serb than the Serbs". But Montenegro, too, has sought to distance itself from the lunacies of Serbia.

The Montenegrin president, Milo Djukanovic, has described Milosevic's defiance of Western demands as "suicidal". He argues that the Nato raids are "the tragic consequences of a senseless policy of confrontation". Yesterday, Montenegro defied Belgrade by announcing that it would maintain diplomatic links with Nato countries, even though the Yugoslav government has announced a suspension of ties. Secession will be a likely option if Milosevic stays in power. In other words: and then there would be one.

Not least because of Milosevic's manipulation of television news during the past decade, few ordinary Serbs appreciate the extent to which they owe their miserable plight and the loss of the old Yugoslavia to their leader. In 1945, few Germans laid the blame for the destruction of their cities at the Fuhrer's door. Similarly, most Serbs believe that they and their leader are right; they have little inkling of the extent of the horrors which their countrymen have perpetrated in the name of Serb "dignity". One day, they will be confronted with those bitter truths. Germany's much-loved dictator took his own life in a bunker in Berlin; not until years later did most of his compatriots understand how much damage he had done to his own country. It is conceivable that Milosevic might follow Hitler's and his own parents' example, with a gun in a locked room. Certainly, a peaceful retirement seems unthinkable. Or there is the other nightmare scenario: like Saddam Hussein, he soldiers on, militarily wounded but politically powerful. The likely knock-on effect: yet more war.