Christopher Caldwell: Lessons from Kosovo for Nato in Libya

The writer is a senior editor at The Weekly Standard.

This weekend marks a curious anniversary. Twelve years ago, Nato’s air war to wrest the province of Kosovo from Serbia’s control ended after almost three months. The allies achieved their professed war aims: Kosovar autonomy and an end to Serbian counter-insurgency measures, which Nato described as genocidal. But Serbian resistance was tougher than anticipated and western publics began to fear the war was going terribly wrong. The fears were well-grounded. There were two big consequences of Kosovo. First was a deepening Russian distrust of Nato’s aims. That led to Vladimir Putin. Second was an end to the principle that a sovereign ruler’s mistreatment of his own subjects is not grounds for war. That led to the invasion of Iraq.

What makes the Kosovo anniversary curious is that Nato’s mission in Libya is so similar. As in Kosovo, the west intervened to prevent a humanitarian tragedy and has wound up engaged in a civil war on the side of an insurgency.

Both wars began with a focus on attacking enemy forces in the field and shifted to the bombardment of cities. US president Barack Obama, like Bill Clinton before him, committed his country to war while categorically excluding the possibility he would send ground troops. And both wars began in mid-March with the expectation that they would be over in days or weeks. But whereas the Kosovo conflict ended on June 11 1999, after slightly less than three months, the end is not yet in sight for the Libya conflict. At a meeting of Nato defence ministers in Brussels this week, the mission was extended by three months, into late September...