On March 24, NATO launched Operation Allied Force, an air operation directed against Serbia and its leader, Slobodan Milosevic. The conflict began when Milosevic refused to accept a diplomatic settlement to the Kosovo crisis that involved withdrawing Serbian troops from Kosovo, accepting a force of international peacekeepers, and agreeing to a plan for Kosovo autonomy.

When the first bombs fell, it appeared that NATO was attacking Serbia’s key centers of gravity. But that turned out not to be the case. In fact, an official military spokesman said allied forces were conducting an operation “using the minimum force necessary to accomplish military objectives.” And one European diplomat went so far as to say, "This is not a war. It's a limited, precise, use of force to paralyze a repressive machine."

The Air Force Association believes that the U.S. and allied forces have been doing a superb job, but that the political and military strategy has been flawed from the start. The military objectives were too limited, and the level of force applied was artificially constrained.

Political considerations were behind NATO officials publicly announcing that there would be no ground troops deployed, publicly announcing a “phased” approach to targeting, and publicly announcing when one targeting phase ended and another began, providing advance warning to Serbian leaders in Belgrade of allied military operations.

War is serious business. It is not antiseptic, it is not risk-free, and it is not about sending signals. What we have seen in the first two weeks of the conflict in this restrained air operation is classic escalation theory being played out. NATO has been trying to send Milosevic signals by ratcheting up the level of force until he meets the terms of proposed diplomatic agreements. So far, Milosevic has chosen to ignore the signals.

Unfortunately, Milosevic’s intransigence has led many to call the use of airpower ineffective. The truth is that airpower has been applied in a way that has limited its effects. To have taken full advantage of aerospace power, there should have been many more sorties on the first night of the attack, and among the targets should have been key command centers, from the Ministry of Defense to Milosevic’s command posts to the TV and radio stations. Serb forces fielded in Kosovo also should have been attacked, despite the fact that NATO might have taken some losses. And a much higher level of sorties should have been maintained.

Such actions would have thrown the entire Serbian command structure and forces in the field off balance. One of the key lessons of the Gulf War was the idea of using parallel warfare — attacking a full range of targets at the strategic, operational, and tactical centers of gravity — to achieve specific ends, or effects.

Another lesson of the Gulf War was to let the military leaders make military decisions. In Vietnam, the limits of land power can be traced to the micromanagement of the war by political operatives in the basement of the White House and in the Pentagon.

In the case of Kosovo, political leaders in the White House and in NATO have been micromanaging target selection, the level of effort, and they have repeatedly ignored military advice. The bottom line: NATO military leaders have not been allowed to wage war. It appears that both the negative lessons of Vietnam and the positive lessons of the Gulf War have been ignored.