Operation Allied Force 1999

A focused, illustrated history and analysis of perhaps the most complete air power victory in modern times, NATO's war against Serbian forces over Kosovo.On the night of March 24, 1999, NATO forces began military action to stop Serbia's campaign of repression during the Kosovo War. Initially planned to be a 72-hour operation, it took 78 days of sustained air warfare for Operation Allied Force to cause Slobodan Milosevic to withdraw his forces. Despite such setbacks as the loss of an F-117 stealth fighter and the bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Allied Force ended with perhaps the most complete airpower victory of modern times. However, there is a dearth of written histories on NATO’s air war over Kosovo. In this book Dr Brian D. Laslie, one of the leading scholars of modern air power operations, offers a complete history of the campaign, based on a wide range of primary and secondary sources. Although predominantly a USAF effort, the campaign also featured multinational contributions as well as significant naval aviation. Using spectacular original battlescenes, maps and 3D diagrams, Dr Laslie examines the aircraft, weapons and doctrine used, the Serbian air defenses, how the Allied forces planned and launched their air campaign, and how NATO had to rapidly adapt its initial plans to achieve success.

Dr Brian D. Laslie is Command Historian at the US Air Force Academy in Colorado. A 2001 graduate and an historian of air and space power studies, Dr Laslie received his PhD in 2013. He is the author of various books including The Air Force Way of War: U.S. Tactics and Training after Vietnam, Architect of Air Power: General Laurence S. Kuter and the Birth of the U.S. Air Force and Air Power’s Lost Cause: The American Air Wars of Vietnam. He lives in Colorado Springs.