Victory Spoiled

‘NOTHING except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.” So wrote the Duke of Wellington in his dispatch from Waterloo in June 1815.

As the war over Kosovo approaches its denouement, the United States and its allies may perhaps be forgiven for wishing to ignore the Iron Duke’s dour observation. That the Clinton administration, and the Gore campaign, tormented for weeks by the great sucking sound of a Balkan quagmire, will breathe a sigh of relief is understandable. Americans of all political persuasions rightly rejoice that the conflict ends with no U.S. combat fatalities and that Serbia’s vicious campaign of ethnic cleansing has at last run its course.

AJ

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Andrew J. Bacevich

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‘NOTHING except a battle lost can be half so melancholy as a battle won.” So wrote the Duke of Wellington in his dispatch from Waterloo in June 1815.

As the war over Kosovo approaches its denouement, the United States and its allies may perhaps be forgiven for wishing to ignore the Iron Duke’s dour observation. That the Clinton administration, and the Gore campaign, tormented for weeks by the great sucking sound of a Balkan quagmire, will breathe a sigh of relief is understandable. Americans of all political persuasions rightly rejoice that the conflict ends with no U.S. combat fatalities and that Serbia’s vicious campaign of ethnic cleansing has at last run its course.