Today marks the 26th anniversary of a dark chapter in European history: the day NATO bombed Yugoslavia. NATO unleashed a 78-day bombing campaign on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, beginning March 24, 1999.
Billed as a “humanitarian intervention” to halt ethnic cleansing in Kosovo, Operation Allied Force instead rained destruction on a sovereign nation, leaving a legacy of death, displacement, and unresolved questions about the true cost of Western military hubris.
For 78 days, NATO Bombed Yugoslavia with over 23,000 bombs and missiles, including depleted uranium rounds and cluster munitions—weapons whose lingering effects still haunt the region’s soil and people.
The alliance, led by the United States, acted without UN Security Council approval, sidestepping international law in a move that critics then and now decry as reckless imperialism cloaked in moral rhetoric.
Joe Biden was entirely behind the attack on Yugoslavia. pic.twitter.com/FChIjuipnn
— T. Sassersson, Editor@NewsVoice (@newsvoicemag) March 24, 2025
The NATO bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia involved several member nations of the alliance. At the time, NATO comprised 19 member states, but not all participated directly in the military operations.
United States: The primary contributor, providing the bulk of air forces, including B-2 stealth bombers, F-15s, F-16s, and A-10s, and cruise missiles launched from ships and submarines. The U.S. led the operation strategically and logistically, with bases like Aviano in Italy serving as key hubs.
United Kingdom: A major participant, deploying Tornado GR1 and Harrier jets and contributing naval forces (e.g., HMS Splendid, which fired Tomahawk missiles). RAF aircraft flew numerous sorties from bases in Italy and the UK.
France: Played a significant role with Mirage 2000, Jaguar, and Super Étendard aircraft, conducting strikes and reconnaissance missions from bases in Italy and the carrier Charles de Gaulle.
Germany: Participated with Tornado ECR aircraft, marking its first combat deployment since World War II. German involvement was limited to electronic warfare and suppression of enemy air defences.
Italy: Hosted air bases (e.g., Aviano, Gioia del Colle) and contributed aircraft like Tornado IDS and AMX fighters, though its role was tempered by domestic political debate over the campaign.
Canada: Deployed CF-18 Hornets, flying over 600 sorties and dropping bombs on Yugoslav targets.
Netherlands: Contributed F-16 fighters, which conducted strike missions and were notably involved in the campaign’s first confirmed kill of a Yugoslav MiG-29.
Belgium: Provided F-16s for combat operations, flying from Italian bases.
Spain: Deployed F-18s and KC-130 tankers, participating in airstrikes and support roles.
Denmark: Contributed F-16s, which flew combat missions from Italy.
Norway: Supplied F-16s, engaging in bombing runs and air patrols.
Turkey: Participated with F-16s, though its role was smaller compared to Western European allies.
Portugal: Provided limited support with F-16s in a defensive capacity, primarily for air patrol rather than strikes.
Sweden stayed on the sidelines of the 1999 bombing, neither contributing nor associating militarily with NATO’s efforts, neither entirely condemning nor endorsing the operation.
Sweden had begun cooperating with NATO through the Partnership for Peace (PfP) program, which it joined in 1994.
This reflected its neutral tradition, though its PfP ties hinted at a gradual shift toward Western security cooperation. This trend would culminate in its NATO membership application decades later, in 2022.
Some countries opposed NATO
Russia and China’s opposition at the UN were ignored, and the bombardment proceeded, shattering lives and infrastructure under the guise of saving them. Other NATO members at the time: Greece, Iceland, Luxembourg, Poland, Czech Republic, and Hungary, did not directly participate in combat operations.
Tucker Carlson confronts Pierce Morgan, an English broadcaster, journalist, and media personality, about the NATO attack on Yugoslavia. When Carlson asks Morgan who in NATO Yugoslavia attacked, Morgan halts. pic.twitter.com/8O4UloUmHR
— T. Sassersson, Editor@NewsVoice (@newsvoicemag) March 24, 2025
The toll was staggering when NATO Bombed Yugoslavia. More than 2,000 civilians—some estimates climb higher—lost their lives to errant strikes and deliberate targeting of dual-use facilities like bridges, factories, and even Belgrade’s RTS television station, where 16 media workers perished on April 23, 1999.
Over 250,000 people were uprooted, adding to the million-plus displaced by the broader Kosovo conflict—a crisis NATO claimed to resolve but arguably inflamed. Yugoslavia’s economy, already fragile, was gutted, with damages estimated in the tens of billions, while cultural treasures and civilian homes were reduced to rubble.
The justification?
A supposed humanitarian imperative to stop Yugoslav President Slobodan Milošević’s brutal crackdown on Kosovo’s ethnic Albanians. Yet the bombing’s aftermath tells a different story. Far from a clean victory for human rights, the campaign escalated the very displacement it sought to curb, as Yugoslav forces intensified their assaults during the airstrikes.
Post-war, Kosovo saw reverse ethnic cleansing, with over 164,000 Serbs and 24,000 Roma fleeing Albanian reprisals—hardly the harmonious resolution NATO promised.
The use of depleted uranium and cluster bombs remains a festering wound. NATO’s own figures admit to 31,000 DU rounds fired, their radioactive residue linked by local reports to spikes in cancer rates, though Western studies conveniently downplay the risk.
Cluster munitions, with their high failure rate, left behind a deadly litter of unexploded bomblets, claiming lives long after the last jet departed. In Niš, a May 7, 1999, cluster bomb strike killed 14 civilians in a marketplace—a grim emblem of the intervention’s “collateral damage.”
Twenty-six years on, the humanitarian veneer of Operation Allied Force wears thin. NATO’s actions lacked a legal mandate, bypassed diplomatic alternatives like the faltering Rambouillet talks, and set a precedent for unilateral military overreach—echoed later in Iraq and Libya with similarly disastrous results.
Milošević fell, yes, but at what cost? Yugoslavia’s infrastructure, culture, and spirit were systematically shattered, while Kosovo remains a fragile ward of international oversight, its independence contested and its stability uncertain.
As we reflect on this anniversary, the voices of the bombed—Serbs, Albanians, Roma—demand a reckoning. Was this indeed about saving lives or asserting NATO’s post-Cold War dominance? The scars of 1999 suggest the latter, a cautionary tale of noble intentions paving a road to ruin. Europe and the world should not forget the day the skies over Yugoslavia burned—not for humanity’s sake, but despite it.
Related
- Report on the NATO attack on Yugoslavia
- David N. Gibbs: There is a parallel with Afghanistan and how the US dragged Russia into the Ukraine war
- # NATO Bombed Yugoslavia
