Kyle Chandler of Chicago, IL asks:

Why have we waited so long to do anything about the slaughter of these innocent people? Is there a policy reason for waiting? I can’t imagine the pain and the anguish of these people when a decision like this NATO attack, if it had been made back in June, could have saved so many lives if it was done swiftly and with authority. Why does the world let these people get away with this murder. Why has NATO not acted quicker on this one?  

Jonathan Landay responds:

There were many factors the U.S. weighed before eventually resurrecting the threat of military force in Kosovo, first made in 1992 and then abandoned.

The plight of the 50,000 refugees living in the open on the cusp of winter is just one among many considerations. During the summer and fall, their situation was "manageable" for the Clinton administration and its allies because the weather was warm and the Serbs were blocking access to the refugees by the media. But as winter descends, US officials are anxious to avert a calamity, one that would provoke a global outcry as CNN broadcast footage of ethnic Albanian women and babies dying in the snow.

But threatening airstrikes is different from launching them. The White House remains unsure of what it would do next should NATO actually attack, because the consequences are so uncertain. Among other things, airstrikes could give new impetus to Milosevic's crackdown on his pro-democracy opponents and trigger Serbian reprisals against the ethnic Albanians. To prevent the latter, NATO might have to deploy ground forces, including U.S. troops, something the Clinton administration and Congress are dead set against.

The U.S. is also highly concerned about the impact of airstrikes on the Dayton peace accords. Politically, the administration's ability to keep U.S. troops in Bosnia indefinitely -- as is now its intention -- depends on ensuring that none are killed. So far, so good. But a NATO attack in Kosovo could provoke retaliatory attacks on U.S. troops in the Serb half of Bosnia. It could also bolster Bosnian Serb hard-liners at a time that their power is in serious decline and moderates appear more willing to support Dayton.

The Clinton administration also opposes independence for Kosovo because it believes this will prompt minorities elsewhere in Europe to hanker for secession. It believes it can strong-arm Rugova into going along with a settlement short of independence. But the emergence of the KLA upset this formular. The U.S. does not want NATO to be the "KLA airforce." By not intervening for seven months, the U.S. gave Milosevic breathing room to crush the KLA. When the smoke cleared, the U.S. may have hoped that Rugova would be the only ethnic Albanian leader left standing.

The problem with this approach is that Serbian forces, reportedly commanded by some of the same Interior Ministry operatives who allegedly oversaw ethnic cleansing in Bosnia -- Lukic, Sematovic, Legija -- reverted to excesses, seeking to punish ethnic Albanian civilians for supporting the KLA. And, though thoroughly battered, the KLA has managed to survive, its remnants digging in for the winter in preparation for a spring resurgence.

The Clinton administration's attention was also engaged elsewhere, i.e. Monica Lewinsky. Nor was there any consistent policy formulation. First it was led by Robert Gelbard. Then Holbrooke came in and replaced Gelbard; then Holbrooke ran into confirmation problems, leaving no discernible "honcho" at the upper levels of U.S. diplomacy on Kosovo in Washington. Then Holbrooke was brought back to make the deal with Milosevic designed to avoid airstrikes while reopening Kosovo to humanitarian aid organizations.

Finally, the U.S. was unable to obtain agreement among its NATO allies on how to address Kosovo and faced considerable Russian opposition to NATO intervention.

Prof. Alex Dragnich responds:

Because under international law a NATO attack would be an act of war against a sovereign country -- Yugoslavia. That would set a precedent for any country or collection of countries to intervene in any country -- even the U.S. -- on behalf of some allegedly aggrieved minority. As Col. Harry Summers (U.S. Retired) has observed, the U.S. was "once the guarantor of national sovereignty," but today we "violate it at our will." No one has authorized the U.S. to be the world's policeman. Killings in other countries far exceed those in Kosovo.