Rambouillet is dead
Stakes · Whether the Alliance treats a failed peace talk and a civilian expulsion as a reason to use force without a UN authorisation and without Article 5.
It is mid-March 1999. The talks have failed. Slobodan Milošević has refused a NATO-led implementation force. Reports from Kosovo describe villages emptied and a refugee column toward Macedonia and Albania.
The United Nations Security Council () has already adopted Resolutions 1160, 1199, and 1203. They demand a halt to repression. They do not authorise bombing. A new draft that says ‘all necessary means’ will die on a Russian or Chinese veto.
covers armed attack on an Ally in Europe or North America. Kosovo sits outside that clause. Bosnia already has a NATO-led force. That mandate does not stretch to Serbia.
Washington, London, and Paris want an air campaign. You can put an activation decision to the North Atlantic Council (). You can send the file back to the United Nations and accept delay. You can try one more Holbrooke mission and keep the Activation Order () on the shelf.
Constraints of the office here
- — You chair the Council. You do not vote a majority.
- — Kosovo is out-of-area. No Ally has been attacked.
- — Russia and China will veto a new UN use-of-force resolution.
Options · keys 1–3