Bombers fly, planes fly

AVIANO, ITALY—“The exercises you will see today are a model for NATO in the 21 century,” stated General Michael Short, commander for the alliance air force in southern Europe, at an early dawn briefing on Monday.  Dressed in an air force jumpsuit with no decoration, clearly exhausted and successfully hiding nervousness, the general continued, “This is the first time we’ve completed such an operation in such a short period of time.  We got the orders on Thursday, planned over the weekend, and we go into action today, on Monday.”  The estimated 100 journalists present had been skeptical the previous evening.  They predicted accidents, confusion, and similar incidents.  As usual, the Americans made an extreme effort on the level of the media:  special flights of the Hercules C130 from Brussels and Budapest brought all interested journalists to Aviano.  Interestingly, NATO High Commander for Europe General Wesley Clark was so insistent that journalists from Belgrade attend that on Saturday, 12 special correspondents from Belgrade’s media were invited to join the team in Aviano.  Journalists from the state’s media were invited, but they declined the invitation.  Like the exercises “Determined Falcon”, the media present were quickly organized in two’s and three’s, the only transportation was reproachable.  Journalists on the spot convinced themselves, however, that all military forces are the same—that evening the entire base at Aviano was left without electricity and the telephones stopped working.  When the generator began functioning (but not the telephones) it was discovered that all the outlets were set for the American standard for electrical currents, hence individuals from the press were unable to recharge the batteries in their mobile telephones...It should be said that professional solidarity was at its height—correspondents from Croatian and Macedonian newspapers and agencies loaned their mobile telephones to Belgrade colleagues, and in the end all batteries were drained.  The otherwise very kind and cordial endeavors of American soldiers to procure adapters lasted until the next day.  They succeeded in procuring British and Italian adapters that otherwise didn’t agree with the European and Japanese standard...That night the international press slept on approximately 70 cots arranged along the gym floor in the American gymnasium at Aviano Air Base in true military style.  The following morning, press center telephones went into action, true adapters were found, and from the media’s point of view, the maneuvers could begin.

The goal of the exercises as expressed by General Short was “to test and demonstrate NATO’s ability to target military power quickly and from a great distance.”  He used the term “out of range” which means outside of the former, traditional operating range of the Alliance—outside the classical Cold War theater of operation.  General Short didn’t want to get into the political aim of these exercises, citing the standard military response, “I am just a soldier, I carry out orders.  Ask Mr. Solana. NATO acts on the basis of consensus among member states,” etc.  The only thing he said at the morning briefing was that, “NATO is especially worried about the situation in Kosovo.  It’s not a question of pressuring President Milosevic, but NATO insists upon a political solution to the crisis and peace and stability in the Balkans.”  General Short mentioned that from 1993 his command was very involved in supporting UNPROFOR, IFOR, and SFOR forces in Bosnia such as in the action of prohibiting flights, military action, and air attacks.
As far as this correspondent could see, the weapons carried by the planes from Aviano were self-defense in character:  air to air missiles and HARM missiles for repelling enemy radar.  After all, General Short stated that he expects the Yugoslav Army to demonstrate understanding, “This is a peaceful exercise taking place in the airspace of two friendly states who gave their consent under no duress or threat. I expect the Yugoslav Army’s response to be in the same style.”

MEANING: From a clearly military, that is aviation, point of view, the “Determined falcon” exercises were of important and perhaps epochal significance.  That is to say, this is the first time that in such a short period of time so many airplanes were concentrated in such a small space and remained in the air simulating action for a full four hours.  Of course, during the Gulf War there were more planes involved, but the deadline for preparing the operation was a lot longer and the space was much larger and without regular civilian flights.  The Gulf War was a real war and full of “real” planning.  The problem with this concentration of aircraft in such a small space and in such a short time coinciding with the continuation of normal civilian air traffic is huge.  General Short explained to journalists that the quantity of aircraft involved was in function a political message from the Alliance to Slobodan Milosevic.  All member states agreed to participate.  That fact alone demonstrates the political meaning of these maneuvers—that is approximately 150 million dollars in tax payers money was spent on Slobodan Milosevic’s four hour fright. This was in harmony with the percentage of present military informers,  although General Short declined to cite his own figures.  The words “consensus of all member states”, “Peace and stability in the Balkans”, “halting the violence”, “a political solution”, “great concern”, were in this case repeated a number of times at the briefings or informally during your correspondents 24 hour stay in Aviano.  It was immediately clear that they are serious.  They should have illustrated that on the ground in a clear and convincing way so that the public in Yugoslavia would understand why they endeavored to drag Belgrade correspondents to Aviano as the American military daily Stars and Stripes explained on its front page.

General Short led the final briefing in the same jumpsuit, but visibly in a good mood and almost shaken.  Firstly, he thanked his chief of staff General Arnoldo Vanuchia, an experienced pilot who has flown over 3,000 hours since 1957 and who has completed almost every military school.   Then, as every general who is conscious of the significance of public relations, he praised above all his pilots and compared these war aviators to a happy family that has nicely brought up and successful children.  He described himself and General Vanuchia as “old pilots” who can peacefully retire with such successors.  Then he came to concrete details.  He announced that the “Determined Falcon” exercises went without problems if one doesn’t count two mechanical breakdowns occurring planes that were returned to base and immediately replaced.  “It was one of those magical days when everything you undertake goes as planned,” said General Short with visible relief and noticeable happiness (that is understandable  in regard to the previously explained problems).  He added that after many years Greek and Turkish pilots once again flew together in the same campaign.  He said that the Yugoslav Air Force and anti-aircraft defenses knew the whole time what was happening, followed it, and were aware of the Alliance forces’ every move.  One Portuguese pilot said that during two passes he was tracked for a short time by the radar of some anti-aircraft system from the territory of FRY, but that “it was really short,”.  General Short added that during the exercises not one alliance aircraft crossed the Yugoslav border with Albania and Macedonia with a proximity of 15 miles (27 km).  And so everything passed much better than anyone had hoped.  But a successful end of the maneuvers, found adapters for the electricity, the forwarding of reports and images, and charged mobile telephones weren’t enough.  Commander-in-Chief for NATO in Europe General Wesley Clark agreed to an interview from Naples on Monday across NATO’s closed television system following the closing of the exercises.  He ordered that Belgrade corespondents be present and that they have priority in posing questions.  That’s how the Belgrade team found themselves at Headquarters 16.  In introductory remarks, he said that there “had been enough violence in Kosovo. It’s time for peace and that is the message of the exercise.”  “The integrity of Yugoslavia,” said General Clark, “is a political question that the leaders of NATO member states will settle when the time comes.”  “I can’t predict when or how the leaders of NATO will decide to proceed in this case.” “NATO received a lot of options to develop before they make a final decision.” “I believe that the Yugoslav Army will try very hard to contribute to a peaceful solution in Kosovo.”  Exercises for NATO’s ground forces on Albanian and Macedonian territory are planned for early autumn this year.

When the diplomatic statement of this high official is translated into an understandable language, it means the following:  the integrity of Yugoslavia (per the question of Kosovo that is) has developed into a doubtful category; all possible scenarios for military intervention are in development; they suggest to the Yugoslav Army not to think about suicidal action (whatever Mr. Zoran Lilic said about a new Kosovo Battle and the Heavenly Kingdom); don’t think that we won’t intervene with soldiers on the ground if we get really mad.
In other words, that is what is called a serious threat.  In all that talk, however, one detail is noticeable—speed. In only seven months the mighty forces of NATO have come to a point in which it took them three years in Bosnia. That means they’ve learned Slobodan Milosevic’s modus operandi and handwriting.  They understand what leaves the biggest impression on him.  For those couple hundred million dollars spent on Monday they’ll already collect payment:  from the hostage crisis in Bosnia we know that NATO doesn’t spend money in vain.