Three years separated NATO's first peace operation in Bosnia from the Alliance's first war over the fate of Kosovo in the spring of 1999. After the protracted bombing campaign forced Milosevic's security forces to leave the Albanian-dominated Yugoslav province, NATO inserted a large ground force that was to keep the peace, but found itself exercising de facto military governance in the ensuing power vacuum. Just as NATO officially never called it a war, however, it would not refer to the takeover as an occupation. Its Kosovo Force (KFOR) was mostly planned, perceived and referred to as a peacekeeping force. After all, by separating and controlling Serb security forces and the Albanian insurgents, soldiers were to create the military conditions for the parallel civilian mission, the UN interim administration for Kosovo. Just as previous civilian missions, however, it would take many months before the civilian mission was able to execute the civilian side of the UN mandate for Kosovo, which was the most ambitious project of truly international administration in the history of the United Nations.

NATO's peace operation in Bosnia was the primary point of reference for KFOR, but for the troops on the ground, such as a Dutch artillery battalion, the initial months of the operation bore closer resemblance to the anarchy found by the American- led force in Somalia. Apart from avoiding military entanglement in such a situation altogether, few lessons had been learned in America and Europe from this early experience of ad hoc vacuum filling. While focusing on the journey of the Dutch battalion in the provincial town of Orahovac in the second half of 1999, the following chapters explore why NATO failed to prepare for the power vacuum, how its forces improvised, and how they eventually performed in the fields of public security and civil administration by substituting and supporting civilians. In many respects the municipality of Orahovac resembled a scale model of the ethnic conflict raging in Kosovo and the challenges facing NATO and the UN.

Stepping into the Void

By 12 June 1999, D-Day as it was inevitably called, a substantial NATO force of infantry, tanks and artillery was assembled on the Macedonian border with Kosovo. Among the troops was a Dutch field artillery battery attached to a German Panzer Brigade for which it would provide fire support.