19 Hands

NATO has won its war by committee, but euphoria over the outcome should not obscure a sobering reality: The requirement that all 19 democracies agree on every major decision prolonged the war and increased its costs far more than necessary.

Even though Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic capitulated to NATO's demands, the experience in Kosovo bodes poorly for the alliance's ability to conduct future coalition operations. The next time the United States puts together a team to cope with regional or ethnic conflict in or around Europe, it should pick fewer players for the first string and be prepared to let others sit on the bench.

NATO's consensus rule led to a lowest-common-denominator air campaign plan. Planners placed critical and legitimate military targets off limits to avoid civilian casualties or offending the sensitivities of individual members. It took two months for the campaign to reach the size and intensity of the air blitz that opened Desert Storm.

When NATO finally unleashed the full fury of its air power in the last two weeks of the war, Milosevic threw in the towel.

Gen. Klaus Naumann, the former NATO military chief, admitted that NATO's consensus rule severely hampered alliance efforts. He suggested that NATO revamp its organization and command structure in time of war.

Such reforms almost certainly will help, but will not resolve the fundamental challenge of forging consensus among 19 states on war aims, war plans and the price each is willing to pay for success. Proper reform therefore will ask who, as well as how.

The United States and its European allies must think hard about who should take primary responsibility for preserving security and stability in the Euro-Atlantic region -- NATO's new mission -- and the most effective decision-making procedures for carrying out military tasks. In the future, there are likely to be situations in which the European partners, with American blessing, will want to act on their own. Indeed, the European Union's June summit moved the Europeans further in this direction.

At the same time, there may be occasions when the United States will decide that the West should undertake military operations in or around Europe, and its NATO allies will be reluctant to go along because of their widely divergent interests and agendas. This could be the case, for example, if Macedonia imploded and Turkey and Greece, while eager to stabilize the situation, were too much at odds to agree on the operational details of NATO intervention.

What should be done in these circumstances? For some, Kosovo is a vindication of both air power and the alliance, and the temptation will be to believe the same strategy and procedures will work the next time NATO confronts a threat to stability.

However, future challenges will not likely lend themselves to this one-strategy-fits-all approach. In particular, NATO's institutional limitations may not make it well suited for coercive diplomacy.

The United States will not want to go it alone either: Multilateral operations enjoy greater international legitimacy and some operations cannot be carried out efficiently without access to allied bases. Moreover, a global policeman role commands little support at home and acting alone fosters resentment abroad.

Finally, excluding allies diminishes their willingness to support post-conflict peacekeeping or reconstruction.

To deal with this dilemma, NATO needs to develop decision-making procedures that would allow the United States to lead smaller, ad hoc coalitions of willing NATO countries with sufficient latitude to execute effective military operations. Such coalitions would be more likely to share strategic priorities and political goals, and participants would provide military value with fewer political downsides.

Similar arrangements are already in place for European-led coalitions to conduct certain military operations in Europe when the United States decides not to participate; Washington should be able to take advantage of this more flexible arrangement as well.

NATO's initial political approval for the operation would have to be obtained, but after that the conduct of the war would be left to the smaller group of participants.

True, such an approach would let some allies off the hook. However, the United States must be prepared to accept some free riders as the price of remaining a superpower. Concerns about limited coalitions undermining the unity of NATO are overblown, because the allies already have agreed to such arrangements when Europe wants the lead.

NATO took on Operation Allied Force because nobody else could do the job, and was stuck running the war because the alliance has yet to institutionalize more flexible arrangements that would allow the United States to lead a coalition of like-minded countries with NATO assets and command structures.

Of course, broader strategic considerations may sometimes require bringing certain members into a coalition even though they add little militarily. The next time around, however, war aims and military logic should determine whom Washington wants on its side, rather than the other way around.

Richard Sokolsky is a fellow at the RAND Corp., Santa Monica, Calif. Matthew Waxman is a consultant to RAND. Andrew Winner is a senior staff member of the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis, Cambridge, Mass. The views are solely those of the authors.