Jamie Shea: I don't want to die without seeing Kosovo in NATO

27 years after NATO's intervention in Kosovo, former NATO spokesman Jamie Shea has said he does not want to die without seeing Kosovo in NATO. According to him, the issue of non-recognition by some countries should not be allowed to block Kosovo's progress. He stressed that NATO's military intervention had no other alternative

"Kosovo was a success story," said NATO spokesman Jamie Shea at the time of the bombing in Kosovo. 

Recalling the time of NATO's intervention during the war in Kosovo in 1999, the former NATO spokesman said that it was not easy to reach consensus to do such a thing. 
In an interview given on KTV's "Interaktiv" show, on the occasion of the 27th anniversary of the alliance's attacks on Serbian military targets, Shea said that at the time there were doubts whether the air campaign would be successful and that there were discussions about a ground operation. 

The former senior NATO official also spoke about Kosovo's journey in terms of security after its liberation. 

He has expressed his desire not to die without seeing Kosovo in NATO. 

"I would certainly be very disappointed if I left this world without seeing Kosovo as part of NATO, and I think that will happen. I think the NATO Alliance needs more imagination when it comes to Kosovo," Shea said.

also Arberi 24 Tues 2026 Former NATO spokesman Jamie Shea says he doesn't want to die without seeing Kosovo in NATO

Time: Mr. Jamie Shea, it's an honor to have you on our program.

Jamie Shea: It is my honor to be on your program again and thank you for the invitation.

Koha: It is a special honor to have you here in Kosovo at this time when we are marking the 27th anniversary of NATO launching the air campaign against Serbian targets on March 24, 1999, which marks one of the most important dates in Kosovo's contemporary history. How do you personally remember it as one of the important voices of NATO at that time?

Jamie Shea: 27 years later, I am very happy that NATO did that air campaign. It was not easy to even reach a consensus to do such a thing and the military operation was difficult and complicated as everyone in Kosovo knows. But 27 years later, I think it was the right thing to do. It was necessary. Politically justifiable. Morally a justified intervention. It was a necessary intervention to stop a humanitarian catastrophe in Kosovo and if you look at the history of the last 27 years, the intervention has resulted in Kosovo becoming an independent state, not perfect, but at least these 27 years, Kosovars had an opportunity to live in peace, in freedom and can go to bed at night without fear that Serbian forces will kick down their doors or set fire to their houses. They can vote in elections and the country has made a lot of progress. 
So 27 years later, when I look at all the conflicts we had in this period: we had Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, today we have Iran, Ukraine, at least Kosovo was a success story. Not many success stories, but a success story, of a successful intervention that saved many lives and that made Kosovo free and that brought a more peaceful and stable region.

Koha: If I were to ask you in more personal terms, what was the feeling you had on March 24, 1999: that the war would end soon or that you would need ground troops to liberate Kosovo?

Jamie Shea: Nobody knows this. Let's be honest. When you start a military operation, you never know what's going to happen, whether it's going to be long or short. You know that your enemy, Slobodan Milosevic, can make your life harder, and of course that's what Milosevic tried to do: make NATO's life harder. In a way, in the end, you know that you're going to succeed, because NATO was of course much more powerful than Milosevic, but at the same time, things can go wrong in war. Military operations always carry mistakes, as we know, and that there will be good days and bad days and that you have to keep going. 
But on the other hand, I have seen how NATO has tried diplomacy, the peaceful way of resolving the crisis. We went to Rambouillet with the Serbs, with the Kosovars, and we tried to find a compromise that would make war unnecessary. 
But after January 1999 and the Recak Massacre, and the Serbs' rejection of the Rambouillet peace, I became pessimistic and convinced that Milosevic wanted a violent solution and so despite all the complications and unknowns, NATO military intervention had no other alternative.

Koha: As we know, after NATO's intervention, a cruel revenge against Albanian civilians by Serbian forces followed, with dozens of massacres being carried out while you were bombing from the air. As you saw what was happening on the ground, did the pressure for a ground intervention increase, and what were your initial thoughts when you saw the massacres being carried out against civilians?

Jamie Shea: Well, of course, the first thing is that these things made me and many other people even more determined to continue the air campaign, because Milosevic was even worse than people had thought. So it made me even more determined to have a violent solution. Now I know that Milosevic tried propaganda, saying that the killings in Kosovo were the result of NATO bombing and not the atrocities of Serbian forces. So that was an issue that as a NATO spokesman I had to deal with. But we knew with all the evidence that we had that the campaign of ethnic cleansing started a year before NATO started its intervention. I mentioned the Racak Massacre and that happened two months before NATO intervened. So it is completely untrue for people in Serbia to claim that the problems only started after NATO started the campaign.
On the other hand, it is true that there were doubts whether the air campaign would be successful and there were discussions about a ground operation and of course NATO was preparing troops in North Macedonia, which eventually became known as KFOR. But, fortunately, this did not happen and despite its imperfections, the air campaign was successful in convincing Milosevic to withdraw his forces from Kosovo. 
But it is good that NATO prepared the ground option, because that preparation allowed NATO to enter Kosovo quickly to enable the departure of Serbian forces from Kosovo and to enable the civilian population to be protected from anarchy during that transition period between Serbian forces and the new forces, UNMIK or the United Nations administration that was established in Kosovo.

Koha: You mentioned the Rambouillet talks. As we know, former KLA leaders were also involved, including Ibrahim Rugova and other participants. How would you assess the coordination or, better said, the cooperation between NATO and the Kosovo Liberation Army at that time?

Jamie Shea: I want to be honest. There were many NATO countries that were very careful not to be seen as being associated with the Kosovo Liberation Army, because those countries didn't want to be seen as intervening to separate Yugoslavia from what was left of Yugoslavia after what happened to Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia. 
The allies had differences. You know that the Americans met with representatives of the Kosovo Liberation Army, but the others were more cautious and for that reason, the common collective justification for the NATO air intervention was humanitarian intervention. On this we all agreed. We wanted to protect civilians, to protect Kosovars, to stop the violence, the ethnic cleansing, to not have another massacre like the one in Srebrenica in 1995. 
But I suppose that even if the allies understood that the goal of the intervention was not the independence of Kosovo, the consequences of Serbian repression and the consequences of the withdrawal of Serbian forces in Kosovo would create the circumstances for Kosovo to declare independence, and of course that process ended in 2008 with the declaration of independence. So I think it became inevitable, but it became inevitable precisely because Serbia made it clear that it could not be trusted with the governance of Kosovo, because it treated the Kosovars so badly and because Serbia's sovereignty in Kosovo was greatly weakened because of Milosevic's actions.

Koha: There is a growing debate, also due to what is happening in the world with international politics, that despite the human losses suffered by Kosovo, the war for liberation from the KLA and the war for independence, the Albanians of Kosovo were lucky and took advantage of the geopolitical circumstances of the time, with the genocide in Srebrenica that occurred a short time ago. Do you believe that if we were in the same situation now, NATO would intervene in Kosovo?

Jamie Shea: Well, today, who knows. If I'm honest, it's a very difficult question. When I became NATO spokesperson, I was advised never to answer speculative questions or hypothetical questions because who knows what would happen. But of course I'm not NATO spokesperson anymore, I'm an academic and a private citizen and I can give my opinion. 
Yes, today is a completely different momentum, let's talk about it openly. The United States is not as involved in NATO as it was, it is not as committed as it was back then, the war in Ukraine has hinted that NATO has returned to collective defense in eastern Europe and to its mission that it had from the beginning. NATO left Afghanistan and is now withdrawing from Iraq. It did not stay in Libya. 
So Kosovo is an exception with KFOR being there for 27 years. KFOR is the longest NATO mission in its history, longer than Afghanistan, longer than Bosnia and elsewhere. So you may be right, 1999 was a unique political momentum when the Russians were weak, the Chinese were neutral in the United Nations Security Council, and when the Americans were more involved. 
You know, we had a responsibility to defend the notion that we had to intervene to stop ethnic cleansing. As you said, nobody wanted to remember Bosnia anymore and what happened there. So sometimes you have to seize historical momentum when it comes before the window closes, because if you lose momentum, you might have to wait another century for the same opportunity to come back. I'm glad that at least in 1999, when the opportunity was there, NATO seized that opportunity, but today, you're right when you say that we live in a more cruel and difficult world today than a more optimistic world in 1999.

Koha: We will talk about this, but the past also reflects on the current issue, Mr. Shea. Because as we have seen, Serbia, jointly with Russia, through their diplomatic channels, through the meetings of the United Nations Security Council on Kosovo, are propagandizing against NATO intervention in Kosovo. What do you think may have been the impact of this propaganda that we have seen from the Kremlin and Belgrade for more than two and a half decades?

Jamie Shea: Well, it's a politics of postponement, postponement, postponement. What we had in 1999 and the independence of Kosovo in 2008 was a reality. Yugoslavia was destroyed in the Western Balkans, there were states that moved towards integration into NATO, the European Union, becoming democratic and normally when politicians are faced with a new reality, the old empire is gone, there is a new geopolitical system, the job of these politicians is to join this new reality, to leave history behind and look to the future and the possibilities of the future.
This is what the people of these nations want their politicians to do. But unfortunately, you are right, in Belgrade, we have a group of leaders who have built a half-democracy, half-reforms, half-goal to join the European Union, sitting in the middle of the fence and playing politics: East against West and West against East, and that has not changed the reality. 
Yugoslavia will not go back, but unfortunately this situation has only postponed the process of recognizing history, not apologizing for the crimes committed in the past, not saying "forgive us", normalizing relations with Pristina and thus serving the interests of their people. 
All these big demonstrations after the collapse of the roof at the Novi Sad train station have shown that civil society in Belgrade does not want to live in the past, repeating the old and tired disagreements of the past with Kosovo and with Serbia's other neighbors. This is not what these protesters want, but they want living standards to improve, they want their media to be free, their university to function better, they want more jobs and opportunities, so what you say does not change the reality in essence, but it means that we only lose years, we lose generations and this is a very, very big sin when times stop and when another reality dominates more other things that should be done.

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Koha: Once saved from NATO bombs and helped from within by the KLA, today Kosovo is an independent state and its people today experience their freedom, democracy despite the internal troubles it has on a daily basis. Today Kosovo has its own regular army, the Kosovo Security Force, which aspires to become a member of NATO. What is your opinion on Kosovo becoming the 33rd member of the North Atlantic Organization?

Jamie Shea: I of course want to see the KSF in NATO, and I especially hope that this will happen while I am alive, hoping that I have a few more years to live. 
I would certainly be very disappointed if I left this world without seeing Kosovo as part of NATO, and I think that will happen. I think the NATO alliance needs more imagination when it comes to Kosovo. We cannot allow the issue of non-recognition by some allies to block progress. In my view, there is no reason why Kosovo should not be a full member of the Partnership for Peace and not benefit from all the joint exercises, training, interoperability, common standards that the program brings.
There are several cooperative programs with the KSF, but it is a limited menu and NATO should expand it in relation to Kosovo. 
Kosovo shares NATO values, wants to get closer to the EU, is Western-oriented, and at a time when the West is frankly losing friends, in a more authoritarian world with more dictators, with democracy in decline, in my mind it would be foolish for NATO to ignore a democratic country that wants to become part of the club. 
NATO should be happy that countries are knocking on its door, not by making it harder for Kosovo to join the club, but by making it easier for it to join the club.
This is what I really hope will happen, that NATO will show more flexibility and imagination in relation to Kosovo.
If it is a question of recognition, it can be applied at the time of accession at a later time, but this should not be used to block at this intermediate stage such as joining the Partnership for Peace and all these other possibilities.  
Unfortunately in the US, as you see and know with the Ukraine issue, there is a different approach to Ukraine's membership in NATO now compared to what we had then during Bill Clinton's time. But with the hope that this will not last forever and will change, and that the US will return to the interest of European unification, completing the work in the Western Balkans with Kosovo's membership in NATO and thus following the example of Albania, Croatia, Slovenia, Montenegro and North Macedonia. So if Kosovo is surrounded by NATO, with the exception of Serbia, why shouldn't it be part of NATO as well?!

Koha: In short, have you followed the KSF reform and how would you assess its current state?

Jamie Shea: I think that the Kosovo Police and the KSF have done a very good job, such as the way the Police managed the incident in Banjska in 2023. There could have been a lot more bloodshed there and of course a Kosovo police officer tragically lost his life, but the situation there was managed very well by the Police.

Koha: Mr. Shea, I asked you about the KSF and not the Kosovo Police.

Jamie Shea: Yes, but I also wanted to add about the Kosovo Security Force, which has shown great professionalism, training with NATO, expanding its partnership with several NATO member countries, receiving education outside of Kosovo in friendly countries, and training in NATO treatment centers.

Kosovo has done a lot of good work in this regard, also taking into account the security dimension of Kosovo, considering the risks that Kosovo faces. Let's be honest, Kosovo does not need to buy "F-35" planes, or "Leopard II" tanks, these assets are very expensive. It is important to have a Security Force that is trained and equipped, taking into account the state budget and facing the current security risks.

Koha: But while Kosovo needs to rethink its spending on the Army, as you say, or not have the vision to buy "Leopard II" tanks or heavy military equipment, Serbia on the other hand, as a hostile neighbor of Kosovo, has recently purchased Chinese supersonic ballistic missiles in response to the military alliance between Kosovo, Albania and Croatia, which Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić has called an anti-Serbian pact. Does this seem like escalating language from the Serbian President to you?

Jamie Shea: No, I think that security cooperation between Kosovo, Albania and Croatia is for common issues like forest fires, environmental threats, pandemics like we saw with Covid, and they need security cooperation to help each other. This has happened in the region, especially with wildfires during the summer, with floods, with extreme weather situations, natural disasters or whatever. 
We should not see military forces only as fighting big wars and I do not see the alliance as being hostile towards Belgrade in any way. I think Belgrade should cooperate in this form of regional cooperation, and it would also be a measure of increasing trust. As for Serbia, it spends more on the Army than is required considering the fact that nobody is threatening Serbia at the moment.

Koha: That's not what the president of Serbia is saying, Mr. Shea. The president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, recently said that he fears that his neighbors might attack him, I'm more or less paraphrasing what he said.

Jamie Shea: I understand that, but you know, as I said, everyone is entitled to their opinion, but not everyone is entitled to their facts. And the facts do not support Vučić's point of view. Serbia is not threatened by anyone. It is in the process of joining the European Union, albeit slowly. It is absorbing a lot of investment from the United States, Europe, and has a partnership for peace with NATO, and even conducts joint exercises with NATO, although President Vučić does not often mention this publicly. 
So the idea that Serbia is like Ukraine facing a major external threat is simply not true. Again, if you look at the big protests over the past year in Serbia, people are not asking the government to spend unnecessary money on Russian or Chinese planes or missiles. They are simply asking for improved infrastructure, public services, education after all those school shootings that we have seen. This is what the people of Serbia want and of course if the Government of Serbia does not deliver what the people want, then I think the Government will disappear before the people disappear.

Koha: But this warmongering language can also be understood as a form of creating a strategy if not just a tactic to move money with other plans. And looking at all this whirlwind on the international scene, with the recent events in the Persian Gulf, then the rise of Europe with Ukraine and the conflicts that are sprouting more and more every day, do you believe that there is any direct danger to the security of Kosovo and the region from any new outbreak?

Jamie Shea: No, I don't believe that. I think the big wars are over. I see the biggest problem in the Western Balkans in what are otherwise known as gray war zones or hybrid wars. 
In other words, not by sending military forces across borders, which would be catastrophic, but more efforts to undermine other governments with cyberattacks, propaganda, disinformation campaigns, and sometimes even by sending armed formations like in the Banjska incident, when there were paramilitary forces that aimed to create tensions, create divisions, divide societies. 
We see this in societies in the Balkans and not just in Kosovo, but in many countries and it is important that NATO, the EU and Kosovo work together to improve Kosovo's resilience against these types of destabilizing gray area activities. 
When you look at Iran, I don't think Iran has any interest in expanding the war into Europe. There are enough problems right now with the US and Israel and the Gulf states. Yes, there were some drone incidents in Cyprus, but, as you've seen, the Europeans, including my own country, the United Kingdom, have sent a lot of ships, planes to the Mediterranean to protect Europe from any Iranian missile threat.
So in times of war you always have to be vigilant, but I don't see any direct threat to Europe from Iran. The biggest threat to Europe from Iran is the economic threat, in terms of rising oil and gas prices, inflation and lower European economic growth, which nobody wants. So, economic consequence more than military.

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Time: Thank you very much for your time, Mr. Shea!

Jamie Shea: Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with you this evening!