After the bombs, the costs begin to climb

Nato forces are continuing to consolidate their position in Yugoslavia.

Despite the stand-off with Russian paratroops at Pristina's airport, the occupation of Kosovo has been in a so-called 'permissive environment', with scarcely a shot fired. Yet, the ease with which this was achieved should not mislead anyone over the problems ahead.

Kosovo is likely to be a major long term commitment for the Nato allies, and perhaps for the Russians as well. The Serbs may be offered the carrot of financial aid with reconstruction of their war- battered economy if they drop Milosevic, but given the long history of ethnic division within the former Yugoslavia, it is open to question whether wounds will heal well enough or quickly enough for foreign forces to be withdrawn. Whether Kosovo is partitioned or not, the effect will be, at best, a Balkan 'mini-Cold War'. A good example of what can happen lies not so far away from Yugoslavia, in Cyprus. Invaded by Turkish forces in 1973, the United Nations still has troops policing the Green Line dividing Turkish and Greek Cypriots. Yet the numbers involved on the opposing sides in Cyprus are much fewer than in Yugoslavia, while Nato membership of both Greece and Turkey has helped to minimise conflict. Kosovo is different. The population on each side of any boundary will be far larger than that of Cyprus, and the Serbs in particular have sufficient arms to pose a real threat to Kosovo, and the lightly-armed members of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Britain has no bases in the area, yet is deploying 13,000 troops initially, almost twice as many as either France or the United States, three times as many as Germany, and more than three times those of Italy. These numbers may be adequate if the uneasy relationship between Serbia and Kosovo settles into a stand-off. They will not be if sufficient if militant Kosovan nationalists start to carry out revenge attacks or agitate for complete independence. Serbian terrorists seeking the return of sacred sites in Kosovo to Serbian control, or attempting a war of contrition against Kosovo and the Nato forces, must remain another possibility. In any deployment, troops on the ground are effectively the tip of the iceberg. They not only require substantial numbers of support troops, including those at depots in the UK, but will need to be replaced periodically by fresh units. Then time for training needs to be taken into account, plus some time with their families in what is meant to be peacetime, after all. This is likely to be the start of a longer term commitment, with British troops rotating between Britain and Kosovo just as they do now to Germany or Northern Ireland. A limited call-up of Territorial Army units cannot be ruled out, especially for the support roles, including engineers and medical staff. Inevitably, a prolonged commitment will require additional funding. While the initial air attacks could be absorbed by the #22 billion annual defence budget by raiding allocations for fuel and spares used for training, replacement munitions will have to be paid for. There are indications that the Treasury is not proving too sympathetic, especially as regards the procurement of replacement 'smart' weapons, and, given the reductions in defence expenditure imposed by successive governments, with expenditure down by #6 billion in real terms since 1991, the Kosovo commitment is likely to leave the armed forces' procurement plans looking decidedly wobbly. The cost of maintaining a garrison in Kosovo could well exceed the #40 million a month extra demanded by the air war. Either the defence budget is increased, or many of the armed forces' cherished procurement projects could be threatened. It is not widely realised that many of the new programmes mentioned in last year's Strategic Defence Review are not being funded in full, if at all. Good examples among these were plans for two new larger aircraft carriers for the Royal Navy, to replace the three relatively small carriers of the Invincible-class. In the pipeline are new assault ships, Albion and Bulwark, to replace Intrepid and Fearless, which are long past their economic service lives, and plans for a new generation of frigates. Piecemeal cuts in the Eurofighter procurement programme might be one way forward, although at risk of upsetting workshare arrangements with the other partners, Germany, Italy and Spain, or a cut in the number of new Nimrod maritime-reconnaissance aircraft. One project unlikely to be cut in the circumstances will be the plans for a small fleet of heavy lift transport aircraft, the need for which has been underlined once again by the Kosovo crisis. The Army is least likely to suffer major cuts in the present climate, but even so, plans, such as those to increase the number of Apache attack helicopters beyond the initial order for 60, may also have to put off, indefinitely. David Wragg is a defence analyst

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