VI.Conclusion

VI.Conclusion

The Kosovo War proved once again how dominant US Air Power has become. Although the war was not 100% perfect, there were minor accidents, it is as close to perfection as modern warfare will ever get to. This was the first time NATO worked together on such a big scale. Although only a few NATO members participated militarily, all NATO members helped out in some way. New members like Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic also contributed to the victory. It also paved the way for Bulgaria, Romania, Albania to enter into NATO.

When the Kosovo War began plans called for air power to do the job. Critics from all over said that it could not be achieved due to the terrain and weather of the Balkans. This was proved wrong as NATO achieved all it's goals in just 79 days. This was the first time in history where the Air Force was able to defeat a country by itself, and most amazingly no combat casualties. The Serbs did achieve a "lucky shot" downing 1 F-117 Stealth attack aircraft, but otherwise this was yet another case of US weapon superiority over Russian weapons. Only after the war documents revealed that the Russians had sent SA -10,S(S-300,S) to Serbia. The SA-10 is the finest SAM in the Russian military, but one system was knocked out by an F-16.

Milosevich finally came to his senses and saw that his country was no match for NATO and gave in to all demands. As of now it appears that Kosovo will be independent and might unite with Albania. Not just that but Montenegro is on the verge of declaring independence as well. NATO statistics show that a total of 38,004 sorties were flown between 24 March and 10 June, an average sortie-generation rate of 494 missions per day. Of the total, 14,006 were strike and suppression of enemy air defences (SEAD) missions (10,808 of which were dedicated strike sorties). In the early days of the campaign, however, the sortie rate over Yugoslavia was more like 150 missions per day. Two new aircraft the B-1 Lancer and B-2 Spirit saw their first action in Kosovo. The B-2 got highest remarks after the war silencing all critics that complained about its cost.