ABSTRACT
This chapter provides a summary of the Air Historical Branch’s research on strategic aspects of the Kosovo conflict of 1999. A strategic study represents something of a break from the traditions of AHB’s past histories, which have tended to focus on the RAF’s contribution to military actions at the command, operational and policy levels. But in the course of preparing a tactical-level narrative on Harrier and Tornado GR1 operations during the Kosovo conflict it became clear that something more was needed: that a tactical-level history would mean very little in this particular instance unless it could be placed in a strategic context. To do that it was first of all necessary to establish what, precisely, NATO’s strategy was. Naturally there were limits to the extent to which the British archival sources could do justice to the history of a multi-national campaign, so what follows tends to reflect the British outlook on NATO’s conduct of the Kosovo operation.
