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THE CNN EFFECT IN ACTION
Table 7.3 Change in Western Policy Aspects between Phases 3 and 4
Phase 3
Phase 4
• Kosovo autonomy (meaningful
self-administration)
Strategic Policy
• Serb/Albanian dialogue
• Serb/Albanian dialogue
• Cease-fire/withdraw forces
• Elections for self-administration
from civilian areas
(within 9 months)
• Permit stronger international
Tactical Policy A
• Accept terms of UN resolution
monitoring regime
(as incorporated in Holbrooke-
Milosevic Agreement)
• Refugee return/humanitarian
group access
• Implement previous sanctions
• Maintain previous sanctions
(including those threatened)
• Implement Holbrooke-
Milosevic Agreement including
• Activation warning for
Tactical Policy B
robust monitoring regime
NATO air campaign
(KVM)
• Activation order for NATO air
campaign
at least elements within them that held real power, were more inter-
ested in fighting. This was particularly the case with the KLA, which
had no interest in the West’s political solution of autonomy within the
FRY. As a negotiated solution seemed a long way off, at best, Western
policy began to fill in some of the steps that would be necessary for the
fulfillment of its strategic policy goal. Key amongst these was elections
for Kosovo self-administration, which the West hoped to implement
sometime in the middle of 1999 under the supervision of the Kosovo
Verification Mission (KVM.) The second key tactical policy change,
relevant to both tactical policy A and B, was to the implementation of
the Holbrooke-Milosevic Agreement, which was highlighted by a
strict international monitoring regime, as envisioned under the KVM.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, the West was ready to seriously
threaten force for the first time to push the FRY to implement its
tactical policy A. In past phases, the West had always put diplomacy
ahead of military action as the means to resolving the Kosovo crisis. In
the post–Gornje Obrinje environment, however, for the first time since
the beginning of the civil war in March, the West proposed military