NATO has concluded its summit in Washington with a decision to continue its bombing campaign against Serbia. But there was no firm commitment to ground troops to relieve Kosovo and protect the return of well over a million refugees expelled from their homes. Instead, it has decided to impose an oil embargo on Serbia but without the military means to enforce it against Russian objections or resistance.
It is an unsatisfactory stance which continues to rely on the dubious assumption that air power will be sufficient to stop the Milosevic regime pursuing its foul campaign of ethnic cleansing in Kosovo. The summit outcome raises the necessity to restore diplomacy to the search for a settlement, primarily by involving Russia. This can best be done by seeking a consensus capable of delivering a Security Council resolution to demand Serb withdrawal from Kosovo, the return of the refugees and the presence of an international force to oversee and enforce such a settlement. Such a force must have Security Council approval to be legitimate and internationally acceptable. NATO does not have the right to decide unilaterally on it, however strong may be the humanitarian case for mounting the air campaign in the face of Serb intransigence and oppression.
There is now a strong case to suspend NATO's air campaign in order to allow such a UN resolution to be put in place by intense diplomatic effort. It is clear from the Washington summit that the political will does not yet exist to commit the ground forces that are needed to do justice to the Kosovo population, the majority of them now refugees. Intensification of the air campaign against the civil infrastructure - including the quite unacceptable bombing of official Serb television stations - is no substitute. At the NATO summit, German and Italian governments argued strongly against making a commitment to ground troops, mindful of resistance among their populations, while the French government insisted on getting specific Security Council approval to enforce an oil embargo against Serbia.
The only way through this political maze is to steer policy back towards the international legitimacy available through diplomacy involving Russia and the United Nations. Once that is secured, it becomes easier and more acceptable to assemble the political will and the international force that must be mobilised to impose a settlement doing justice to the Kosovars. The alternative will see a rapid alienation of Russia's leadership and population and a probable consolidation of Serb popular intransigence, despite the damage to their military and civilian infrastructures.
The NATO summit has made appeals and commitments to the Balkan states - as has the European Union - to short and long term reconstruction of the region. Given that Europeans will bear the brunt of these costs, it makes more and more sense for them to develop security structures capable of matching such economic and political undertakings. But such structures and decisions must carry United Nations mandates to be legitimate - something that is quite compatible with an intensified search for diplomatic means to resolve the Kosovo conflict. The alternative is a prolonged war imposing new and very dangerous divisions in Europe.