Air strikes against Serbia would not be the walkover for NATO that military action against Iraq proved to be for the US and Britain last December, a British defence expert warned yesterday.
Mr Paul Beaver, Yugoslav expert at defence publishing and information group Jane's Defence, said the Serbian armed forces were better equipped than President Saddam Hussein's had been. Serbia has a modern air-missile defence system which was "a generation more advanced" than anything Saddam's war machine could muster.
"The Serbs would be no walkover in the way the Iraqis were. When NATO carried out air strikes against the Bosnian Serbs five years ago three aircraft were shot down. We believe the risk to aircraft involved in this operation would be significantly greater than during the air strikes against Iraq," said Mr Beaver.
NATO does, however, have highly detailed intelligence on Serbia's military facilities. "Intelligence coverage is excellent. Over the last six months there have been a large number of U2 flights, American and British reconnaissance aircraft have been very active and there is satellite intelligence. They have built up a very, very good target map, far better than the target map of Iraq used by the Allies."
Jane's Defence has identified a number of military sites in Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo which could be targeted by NATO missiles and bombers. They include the main early warning and coastal missile defence site at Mount Rumija, on Montenegro's Adriatic coast, the main air-surveillance and air-guidance site at Kopanik, in central south-western Serbia, and the Podgorica air base, near Belgrade. The missile and radar sites in the hills surrounding the Serbian capital could also be targeted. NATO has a force of more than 350 aircraft ready to go into action, including US B-52 bombers armed with cruise missiles. That air power is backed by at least six US warships armed with cruise missiles.
NATO strategy would probably mirror Allied tactics in the attack on Iraq at the end of last year, when the bombardment began with cruise-missile attacks on air defence systems. The early strikes were designed to reduce the risk to bomber pilots attacking in later waves.
Serbian missile systems are based on the Soviet style of integrated air defence which was designed specifically to defend against a NATO attack. And Belgrade has warned that all NATO forces in the region will be regarded as legitimate targets.
The NATO forces in the region include 12,000 American, British, French, Italian and German troops in Macedonia. Germany, taking the threat seriously, has ordered anti-aircraft defences to its Macedonia base at Tetovo.
In Bosnia, the NATO-led SFOR peacekeeping force numbers 30,000, many of them in bases within range of Serbia or Bosnian Serb attacks.
At the Taszar air base in the south of Hungary, a brand new NATO member which provides staging for SFOR, there are 2,000 US troops. They too would be in range of Serbian army missiles, long-range artillery and aircraft.