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1998 Cease Fire. The six member Balkans Contact Group began drafting military contingency plans for Kosovo. The KLA effectively controlled forty per cent of the territory, and Milosevic launched a major summer offensive. As winter approached, an estimated 300,000 Kosovo refugees had been driven from their homes. The U.S. representative to NATO Alexander Vershbow recommended a U.N. approved protectorate secured by up to 30,000 troops in cooperation with Russia.
When NATO defense ministers met in September, Secretary of Defense Cohen urged a new activist role for the alliance. France, Germany, and Italy favored deployment of NATO peacekeeping forces. Clinton refused to commit additional U.S. personnel, even for an "extraction force" the Europeans deployed in neighboring Macedonia. Republicans might exploit any expansion of U.S. troops beyond Bosnia to gain votes in the fall elections.8 Following a visit to the Balkans, former Presidential campaign rival Robert Dole visited Clinton and supported the type of credible bombing threat that produced concessions at Dayton.9 NATO approved an action order for air strikes that Clinton explained in a letter to prominent Senators. Air sorties would "progressively expand in their scale and scope . . . There will be no pinprick strikes."10
Clinton dispatched Holbrooke to Belgrade in October armed with NATO's pledge to start bombing if Milosevic refused to withdraw Yugoslav troops from Kosovo. After nine days of negotiations, a cease fire agreement enabled Albanian Muslims hiding in the hills to return home before winter. Yugoslavia agreed to NATO overflights and allowed 2,000 unarmed observers to monitor the withdrawal of Serb army units from Kosovo. Clinton publicly cautioned that Milosevic had repeatedly broken past promises. Milosevic had demanded that NATO lift its order for air strikes, and he protested bitterly when the alliance merely suspended it. "He considered it a declaration of war."11
