A Journey_ My Political Life Part 11

When Kosovo emerged as an issue at the end of 1998 and erupted in the first months of 1999, the jagged edge of foreign policy and decision-making was immediate and painful in effect.

Essentially, the problems caused in the wake of the break-up of Yugoslavia, following the collapse of the Berlin Wall, were still reverberating. The wounds of the Bosnia conflict were not fully healed. In particular, Serbia remained under the dictatorship of Slobodan Milosevic. Religious, ethnic and nationalist tensions abounded. Kosovo a small territory about the size of Yorkshire or Connecticut, with roughly a million inhabitants of whom a majority were Muslim Kosovan Albanians remained part of Serbia, which was a Christian Orthodox nation. Relations between the Serb rulers and their Kosovan subjects were dire.

The outcome of the Bosnian conflict divided the former Yugoslavia into a number of countries according to the Dayton Agreement of late 1995, achieved by the energy and ingenuity of the American diplomat Richard Holbrooke. Though it had taken two years for the West finally to intervene in which time more than 750,000 people died when it did so, the part.i.tion allowed some sort of peace.

In December 1998, Paddy Ashdown had sent me a note from his visit to the region. He reported that generally things were improving; but in respect of Kosovo, things were deteriorating. The KLA the Kosovan paramilitary 'liberation' army was rearming in the face of Serbian military preparations for what looked like an invasion. Paddy's anxieties were reinforced by our intelligence people at the end of 1998, who reported strong evidence that Milosevic was about to authorise a major Serb a.s.sault. Already in the past months, hundreds of thousands of civilians had been displaced, and around 2,000 had died.

In October 1998, a temporary agreement had been made, and some civilians returned under the a.s.surance of the international community that it was safe to do so. But since then, displacements and killings had continued.

This was ethnic cleansing. What's more, it was happening right on Europe's border. In the first two months of 1999, the international community started to crank itself up to act. There was a conference at Rambouillet in France that tried to broker an agreement. Resolutions were pa.s.sed, statements were issued and daily declarations were made about the unacceptable nature of what Milosevic was doing, but the killing and cleansing carried on. On 15 January at Raak, a small village in Kosovo, forty-five civilians were executed. Further condemnations were sent forth. The cleansing only intensified. Thousands were now dying.

Finally, in March, military action was taken, in the form of NATO strikes against Milosevic's forces. This continued up until June 1999 when, faced with the prospect of ground troops at least from the US and the UK Milosevic retreated in disarray, a defeat that led to the erosion of his authority and, in time, his removal from power. Some 750,000 refugees returned.

The Kosovo conflict taught me many things, about government, about leadership, about myself. When I reread the material now and contemplate the situation as it evolved, I marvel at it. It also completely changed my own att.i.tude to foreign policy.

So many things stand out. The first is that without doubt the primary instinct of the international community was to act, but within very tight limits, and if at all possible to put together a deal, virtually any deal, that removed the issue from the headlines. There was a desire to pacify, but not to resolve.

Second, from the outset I was extraordinarily forward in advocating a military solution. I look back and can see that throughout, to the irritation of many of our allies and the consternation of a large part of our system, I was totally and unyieldingly for resolution, not pacification.

Third, the strengths and weaknesses of Europe in this type of situation were laid painfully bare: brilliant at ringing statements of intent, which then evaporated into thin air when the consequences of seeing them through became apparent. This whole episode convinced me of the need for strong European leadership and for a proper European defence strategy.

In addition, I put the most colossal strain on my personal relationship with Bill Clinton. It says a huge amount about him and is to his unalloyed credit that he allowed the pressure to be put on him in the way that I did so. It also says a great deal about America and its preparedness, in the ultimate moment, to recognise the necessity of the moment and act.

Kosovo was a very tough issue for US opinion. Unlike later conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, it was quite hard to describe the direct American interest. There was no real appet.i.te in the public or among the politicians for any action, let alone major military action involving ground forces. The US view was more or less that it was Europe's problem on Europe's frontier, thousands of miles from America, and the Europeans should summon the will to deal with it.

In discussions with officials and our military, I realised very fast that there was no way this was going to be resolved by diplomacy alone, and that military force would be necessary. Following our failure to intervene in Bosnia and the disaster of Sarajevo, Milosevic did not feel unsurprisingly that there was the will in the West for strong action, believing instead that he could do more or less as he wished. As a result, the advice I was getting was that without at least the threat of military action and one that was credible there was little prospect of stopping what were appalling scenes of brutality and oppression. Even then, the advice was that he was going to test our resolve and see whether we would put our forces where our mouths were.

From early January, I set about trying to build a consensus for action. My strategy was basically to engineer a set of strong declarations and keep diplomatic negotiations going, but make it plain that in the event of those failing, we were bound to act.

Why was I so keen to act? I saw it essentially as a moral issue. And that, in a sense, came to define my view on foreign and military intervention. I also saw it as an act of enlightened national self-interest, for I believed that if we left the issue to fester or allowed ethnic cleansing to occur unchecked, it would eventually spill over into other parts of Europe.

However, my primary motivation was outrage at what was happening. Here were ordinary civilians being driven from their homes and turned into refugees, killed, raped, beaten up with savagery and often sadism, whole families humiliated or eliminated. G.o.d, had we learned nothing from Europe's history? It was shocking. And in one way, even more outrageous was the sense in some quarters that, yes, well, it was shocking but did we really want to be involved?

Later, when I visited refugee camps in Macedonia and heard the stories of heartbreak and misery, I felt proud of what we had done, since these refugees would return home, but very uncomfortable at how close we had come to abandoning them.

Now we look back and most people would say: well, of course we couldn't have abandoned them; although we very nearly did not because the political leaders who hesitated were bad people or poor leaders, or because they didn't feel as much as I did about the suffering and cruelty, but as we figured out what could be done in early 1999, it wasn't simple. Kosovo was part of Serbia. Serbia had an army that was powerful by reputation. Beginning wars is relatively easy; it's ending them that's hard. Innocent people die; unintended consequences develop; bad situations can be made worse. It is the uncertainty, the absence of clarity until hindsight delivers it too late that makes leadership difficult.

Through Kosovo I came to the view rightly or, some may think in the light of Iraq, wrongly that in such an uncertain landscape, the only way of finding direction was first to ask some moral questions: should this be allowed to happen or not? Should this regime remain in power? Should these people continue to suffer injustice?

If the answers were no, then that didn't mean you reach for the military solution. You need to try all other alternatives. You need to ask if such action is feasible and practical. People often used to say to me: If you got rid of the gangsters in Sierra Leone, Milosevic, the Taliban and Saddam, why can't you get rid of Mugabe? The answer is: I would have loved to; but it wasn't practical (since in his case, and for reasons I never quite understood, the surrounding African nations maintained a lingering support for him and would have opposed any action strenuously).

Posing and answering a moral question doesn't inexorably lead to a military solution, but it establishes a framework that can do so. And it is a structure with a plainly different starting point from that of traditional foreign policy, which is: is this in our country's interests?

Of course, my broader argument, based on the theory of global interdependence, is that this moral question is part of the national interest; but historically, such a broad view was distrusted. With some justification, it was thought of as leading to zealotry, to subjective and not objective criteria of judgement, to the heart leading the head rather than being in alignment with it. I have some sympathy with this view. The opposite view to mine is not the product of a moral disability; it is born from a perfectly natural reservation about the unforeseeable ramifications of morally motivated intervention. My point is not to denigrate or deplore the moral limitations of such a view, but rather to say that non-intervention also has unforeseeable ramifications. Non-intervention in Bosnia in the early 1990s might have seemed sensible at the time, but not in retrospect. And, of course, it led directly to Milosevic believing that he could get away with the operation in Kosovo.

During 1991 and 1992, ethnic cleansing had been pursued as a policy, organised by Milosevic and carried out with extreme brutality by the Yugoslav National Army. Out of a population of just over 4 million, 200,000 Bosnians were killed, and a similar number were injured. Rape and pillage took place on a scale unbelievable in a relatively developed country in the late twentieth century. The UN was helpless. As the fighting started, its force in Sarajevo pulled out and left the civilians of that city to their fate, where 12,000 died. Thousands also died in Croatia and many hundreds of thousands were displaced across the region. Even after peace came, it left Milosevic intact, i.e. the peace pacified, but it did not resolve. As I sat in early 1999 trying to work out a way through, I was conscious that the same reluctance which had characterised our att.i.tude in the early 1990s remained.

I worked on two groups: the Americans and the Europeans. For the latter meaning essentially Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schroeder, with the Italian prime minister Ma.s.simo D'Alema also intimately involved, given the proximity of the fighting to Italy I tried to stoke up concern and also push the line that not resolving this was only going to lead to further trouble. Very early on, they were prepared to commit to the necessary expressions of disgust at what was happening and demand that it stop, but were insistent that any military threat should explicitly rule out the use of ground forces.

This, naturally, was an utterly hopeless negotiating tactic with Milosevic. It signalled from the outset that there was a limit to our seriousness of intent, and that provided he could withstand an air campaign, he could survive. It is amazing that people constantly miss the importance of the fact that any threat made in international affairs must be credible. The absence of credibility actually increases the likelihood of confrontation. The recipient of the threat doesn't believe it, so he carries on; then the very choice you are trying to avoid go to war or not is the one you are forced to make. I saw this time after time after time. We are about to witness the same wretched business over Iran. Back up a demand with a credible threat, and the demand has a good prospect of being satisfied. If you seem unsure about how far you will go to enforce a demand, a confrontation becomes almost inevitable.

So, from the off, I was somewhat isolated on the European side. To be fair, Gerhard had real internal and specifically German worries about partic.i.p.ation in military action for obvious reasons. Germany had become constrained by its const.i.tution and its politics in signing up to any use of German forces. But, as time went on, he became more and more emphatic that ground troops should not in any circ.u.mstances be used, not only German forces but any country's. It was the first real rift in my relationship with him. I understood his problem, but he was a smart guy and he could surely see our problem: if it became clear that only ground forces could do the job, then either we committed them or we didn't do the job. Hundreds of thousands of refugees had then gone back to Kosovo in the summer and autumn of 1998 on our a.s.surance that we would not permit a renewal of ethnic cleansing.

As we began the preparatory discussions for a NATO offensive, one other thing became crystal clear: even if we took action only by air, 85 per cent of the a.s.sets used would be American. In truth, without the US, forget it; nothing would happen. That was the full extent of Europe's impotence.

I began to engage with Bill Clinton over the possibility of military action, not just by air, but if necessary through the use of ground forces. By this time, my relationship with him had become close. We were political soulmates. We shared pretty much the same a.n.a.lysis of the weakness of progressive politics. We were both quintessential modernisers. We were both informal in style and young in outlook for our age. And both of us were at one level easy-going; but when you reached right down, there was a lot of granite providing the foundation.

He was the most formidable politician I had ever encountered. And yet his very expertise and extraordinary capacity at the business of politics obscured the fact that he was also a brilliant thinker, with a clear and thought-through political philosophy and programme. The myth he suffered from was the myth of his electability. In this respect, again, there were similarities with the predicament of New Labour.

The third-way philosophy that we both espoused was not a clever splitting of difference between right and left. Neither was it lowest-common-denominator populism. It was a genuine, coherent and actually successful attempt to redefine progressive politics: to liberate it from outdated ideology; to apply its values anew in a new world; to reform the role of government and the state; and to create a modern relationship between the responsibilities of the citizen and those of society a hand up not a handout on welfare, opportunity and responsibility as the basis of a strong society. It was a way of moving beyond the small-state, 'no role for society' ideology of the Republicans; and the big-state, anti-enterprise ideology of much of the traditional Democratic base. It was we who should be the good economic managers; the people who understood crime; the ones that got aspiration and empathised with it.

He completely recoiled from the rainbow coalition politics so favoured by parts of the left at the time. His famous speech against the black activists who preached hostility to whites, in which he told them bluntly he wouldn't countenance it, transformed in a moment the image of the Democrats as people in hock to minority radicalism.

Over time, the right wing brilliantly created the legend that people voted for him because he was just a really clever political operator; and of course a large part of the left joined in with the same chorus. In fact, people voted for him because they were smart. They didn't buy a slick politician; they bought a sensible, modern, worked-out programme, based on a philosophy that seemed far more relevant to the late twentieth century than what they had been offered so far.

Even as personalities, we were less dissimilar than people often thought, but as a political cla.s.s act I deferred to the master. He had it all. His superb intellect was often hidden by his manner, but he had incredible a.n.a.lytical ability, was genuinely interested in policy debate possibly, occasionally, too much so and constantly on the lookout for new ideas.

He was quick-witted. He would have shone at PMQs. When I visited him in the Oval Office in 1996, just before my election campaign and his re-election, we sat there, me feeling very awed, hoping as you do that the meeting isn't too short ('Blair snubbed'), praying it overruns ('Blair welcomed'), but in either event begging to avoid disaster. Neil Kinnock, who as Labour leader visited Washington during Ronald Reagan's time, was done enormous damage both by the content of the meeting (Reagan bluntly said Labour's unilateral nuclear disarmament policy was crazy) and by the fact that Reagan mistook Denis Healey, travelling with Neil as the Shadow Foreign Secretary, for the British amba.s.sador. For me, it was both a thrill to be there and a relief when it ended. But Bill couldn't have been kinder or more welcoming and it did overrun.

If the president isn't going to do a full press conference and it would be inappropriate to do that with an Opposition leader he often does an impromptu few words in the Oval Office, as the press file through to take pictures. As we sat there and the cameras rolled, someone (Peter Riddell of The Times The Times, I think) asked Clinton if he thought he was sitting with the next British prime minister. Tricky. Saying 'Not a question for me' looks a bit cold; saying 'Yes' would be diplomatically unthinkable. Quick as a flash, Bill says: 'Well, I just hope he's sitting with the next president of the United States.'

He also had inimitable resilience. When you reflect on what Bill went through during the impeachment saga, you have to sit down. It's too much. How could he, how did he, survive it? But he did, and left office with an approval rating over 60 per cent.

He did it first and foremost by refusing to let it dominate his view of his presidency, even if it did indeed dominate the media's. This is where the resilience was so fundamental to his success and survival. He used to tell me that every day he got up, determined to carry on governing. They would be talking about Monica Lewinsky; he would be launching a health-care plan. They would be dilating on the impossibility of him still being there; he would still be there, putting forward a new welfare programme. Whatever they did to him, he would carry on doing what he could for the people. He just got up and got on with it.

The second reason is that, as I suggested earlier, the public have always taken a more measured and human view of the s.e.x lives of politicians than the media hysteria surrounding them would indicate. They understand; they empathise; and, to some extent, they indulge. It's not that they approve, but their disapproval is tempered. Their disappointment is qualified in its intensity by their knowledge that they too fall from grace, they too err and they too need forgiveness. While some take the view that their political leaders should be above reproach in this regard, others think that there are more important measures by which to judge them, such as: are they doing a good job for the nation?

So even Bill's 'not telling the truth' they understood as him not wanting to embarra.s.s his family. And then of course his persecutors overplayed their hand, and by the end were as much in the dock as he was. I was also convinced that his behaviour arose in part from his inordinate interest in and curiosity about people. In respect of men, it was expressed in friendship; in respect of women, there was potentially a s.e.xual element. And in that, I doubt he is much different from most of the male population.

He was preternaturally cool under fire. By sheer happenstance, I was with him when major parts of the saga broke. The first time, in February 1998, the main revelation from Monica Lewinsky appeared, and I was in the White House. We had to do a press conference. As we stood in the ballroom, waiting behind the curtain to go through, we chatted away. I was more than a little nervous. I didn't for an instant think of doing anything other than being completely supportive. He was a great guy, a good president, and above all he was a friend. I am very, even excessively, loyal to friends.

It was one of those surreal moments in politics. At the press conferences there is a stated topic actually, believe it or not, in this case it was Saddam and the WMD. He was obstructing the inspectors yet again and the international community was gearing up. We thought a military strike a real possibility. Here was an issue of pressing life-and-death importance. But then there is the issue the media wanted to get their teeth into: Monica. So it was obvious which one would provide more interest.

Just before we walked out to the stage, Rahm Emanuel, at that time one of Bill's senior advisers, said to us, 'Don't f*** it up.' We didn't. Bill was dignified. I was supportive. Given the circ.u.mstances, all in all it was a triumph.

Later, on the day of another event a third-way progressive politics conference, where Bill and I were due to speak along with the president of Bulgaria (a lovely guy called Petar Stoyanov) and Romano Prodi (bizarre line-up) a fresh revelation broke, namely the tapes of the Starr interview. It was wall-to-wall. The pressure was mounting on Bill and the attacks were absolutely vicious. His opponents could smell blood and they were going for it.

As it turned out, the tapes were less sensational than at first had been hoped or feared, but the day was more surreal than the last occasion. As I entered the build-up to do the seminar, Bill and Hillary took me to a small office where we talked. It was there that I witnessed the indomitable Hillary determination, nerve and strength. If ever I wondered how important a part of Bill's rise she had been, I knew it from then on. She was angry and hurt in equal amounts and large amounts that was clear but no way was she going to allow it to destroy what she, as well as he, had built. And if anyone had the right to be angry with him, she had, n.o.body else.

People often asked me about their relationship. There was a common a.s.sumption among many people, including other leaders, that theirs was a marriage not of convenience exactly, but of political partnership; that this kept them together, despite it all. I used to say: you know what I think it's all about? I think they love each other. That's the real revelation. Yes it's a political partnership, yes it is b.u.t.tressed by mutual ambition, but when all is said and done, the ambition is the awning under which true love shelters, not love which gives shelter to the ambition.

I didn't quite know what to say as the three of us sat there together. Hillary just explained calmly and forcefully: this wasn't going to drive him out. He would stay, fight and win. We talked for a time about it all, then we went to do the seminar and of course Bill was articulate, interesting, relaxed. I sat there at points open-mouthed in admiration of the chutzpah.

Later that day he and I went to do a meeting with students at Montgomery Blair High School outside Washington. We were supposed to deliver a speech on education policy. When we arrived there were thousands of students in the gymnasium. It was like a rally; they were shouting, stomping their feet, singing. We threw away the scripts and worked the crowd like two old music-hall queens. He got a fantastic reception and it lifted him.

By that time September 1998 Kosovo was already making its presence felt. When we got to early 1999 and I had worked out what we needed to succeed, I realised it all depended on my relationship with him. If he could be persuaded, we had a chance. If not, the Europeans on their own would never act. We would repeat the mistake of Bosnia, not learn from it.

In January and February, Bill and I spoke regularly. The diplomatic offensive was still going on, but so was the Milosevic offensive against the Kosovan Muslims. The descriptions coming out of atrocities Raak was the most reported, but was not exceptional were pitiful. This was horrible: a civilian population slowly being ground into the dirt and for no other reason than being of a different religion. The leader of the Kosovans, Ibrahim Rugova, came to see me. He was a thin, unwell man who had had throat cancer. He begged for help. 'They are killing us,' he said. He gave me a present, a small piece of purple-and-white Kosovo crystal. 'I have little to give,' he explained. I used to keep it on my desk in the den in Downing Street.

Bill and I agreed to take military action through NATO in a series of air strikes. At the beginning, and despite my intense misgivings, it was stated unequivocally that there would be no ground troops. Without that statement, there would have been no air action, so I thought it worth agreeing to. We could work out how to unravel it later.

Preparations were made. Suddenly in late March, the eviction, cleansing and killing of Muslim Kosovans quickened. Milosevic was mounting the campaign that had always been presaged. Now we had to act. The air strikes began, in which UK planes took part. I made a statement in the House, and we had broad cross-party support. Paddy, though he had announced in January that he was standing down from the Lib Dem leadership, was still leader at this point, and was strongly supportive. He also sent me a note warning that ground forces would be necessary.

My first full-scale military campaign got under way. Basically, Kosovo demonstrates the fundamental, unavoidable and irredeemable limitations of a pure air campaign against a determined opponent who cares little about losing life. It followed what is now a familiar path for such campaigns. Air strikes do real damage and are visually forceful; they weaken an enemy's infrastructure and demoralise the military and certainly the civilian population; they can deter, inhibit and constrain what they can't do is dislodge a really dogged occupation of land by an enemy willing to sustain losses and wait it out.

At the beginning, the targets are plentiful. With modern technology and weaponry, these are swiftly taken out. The question then arises: now what? The targets get more interspersed with civilian areas. 'Collateral damage' a ghastly phrase that I tried to ban grows, and the wrong targets get hit. (In this case, not just civilian, but in a terrible accident, the Chinese Emba.s.sy in Belgrade.) The enemy is being damaged, but not being beaten. Frustration grows, as does a sense of unfairness, at least in Western nations, at a purely air campaign. 'Planes versus soldiers' is not thought quite fair. All of it increases the pressure on the political leaders. If you are not careful, the aggressor starts to a.s.sume the mantle of victim.

Worse, in this case, after a few days it became clear that NATO itself had certain severe limitations in running such a campaign. We had a hopelessly, almost laughably, complicated committee procedure for clearing targets, which frequently delayed decisions. Wes Clark, the Supreme Allied Commander Europe in charge of NATO military operations, was a good guy, fired up, committed, but in no way did he have the necessary media and communications infrastructure which a campaign like this, dominating the world news, required. Javier Solana, NATO Secretary General, was also first cla.s.s, but caught between the differing views (not to say egos) of his political bosses.

To cap it all, there were now hundreds of thousands of refugees streaming across the border, swamping the surrounding nations, especially Macedonia. After two weeks, I thought enough was enough. The thing couldn't go on like this. It was going to be a disaster.

I then took a clear decision. I had only been in power eighteen months, but already I was contemplating that I might have to leave. I spoke to Alastair and Jonathan and then called the close team together. I said: I am willing to lose the job on this, but we are going to go for broke. We are going to take even more of a fronting-up, out-there, leadership position and stake it all on winning. The response so far to what was a monstrous and unpardonable outrage had been pathetic. We were going to try to grip it and I would use all my chips with President Clinton to get a commitment to ground troops on the agenda.

The team were fabulous at moments like that. Some of them thought it more than a little strange that a government committed to changing Britain's public services and cutting unemployment should put its life on the line for a military adventure in the Balkans, but they all jumped to it to make it happen.

First, I contacted NATO and spoke to Wes and Javier. To my surprise, rather than resenting help, they welcomed it with open arms. We went to NATO. I took Alastair with me, not for my press but for theirs. I recall seeing Wes in his office. Suddenly his mobile went. It was a journalist asking about the campaign. He spoke to him briefly and returned to our conversation. 'How often does that happen?' I asked. 'Oh, all the time,' he replied. He was doing the military side brilliantly, but was immensely frustrated at the lack of political cohesion and commitment. He warned me, rather nicely and in a kindly way I thought, that I shouldn't think all leaders felt like I did. Alastair stayed on to work his magic and organise a proper comms infrastructure. Wes told him that he should watch my back. This was good of Wes but I knew already I was way out on a limb.

I then spoke to the generals, in particular the decent German in charge of the air campaign. The generals, including our own very capable Rupert Smith, were unanimous: you can't win this by an air campaign alone.

Paddy went out to the Balkans again, and returned convinced we were not winning. After thirty days, he said, we have yet to stop Milosevic taking any action he wants to take against the Kosovans. The number of refugees was growing; the targets were shrinking. The Macedonian prime minister sent me a message through Paddy: 'My people are frightened because they think NATO has a plan and they are not being told about it. I am even more frightened because I know NATO hasn't got a plan.'

I spoke once more to President Clinton and then followed up with a personal note. I put forward plans for better coordination, changes in targeting procedure, changes in the media operation.

A week later I sent another note. In the meantime, I had visited one of the refugee camps myself. However specious such visits are, it allowed me to speak with greater authority. In this second note, I went over our call of the night before, during which I had again raised the issue of ground forces. Unsurprisingly, Bill had recounted all the objections, even of planning such a thing, since the fact of the planning would inevitably leak out. In the note, I pressed the need for the logistics to begin now, because unless that happened, we might be too late to do anything before the winter came, given that a ground campaign could take months to implement.

I then really went over the score. I saw our military. The Chief of Defence Staff, Charles Guthrie, was someone I really liked, respected and relied on, as I say. He was of the same view as me, but I said if we needed a ground offensive, we should be prepared to offer 50,000 UK troops, with the US supplying 100,000150,000. I knew that very few, if any, other European nations were likely to join in and we would be relying on the Americans. Not unreasonably they would say: Well, if you're so keen, what are you prepared to commit? Even Charles's eyebrows were raised. It was an outsized gamble. And also Gordon, again not unreasonably, was starting to question the cost.

The air strikes continued, but as each day pa.s.sed, the absurdity of ruling out ground forces became ever more apparent. Of course, the figures for the number of troops staggered everyone. But here's what is interesting about leadership. These are the decisions that define. They separate out. They are the distinguishing features of high command.

It goes like this. You have a strategic objective. Let us say you have embarked on achieving it. You come to an obstacle. The cost of removing it seems vast. Everyone not sitting in the leader's chair can have a discussion about it. The cost is very high, says one; the objective is very important, says another; the pros and cons are mighty, says a third. The leader has to decide whether the objective is worth the cost. What's more, he or she must do so unsure of what the exact cost might be, or the exact price of failing to meet the objective. Both of these have to be judged and measured according to an inexact science. Those not in the seat can point to the cost or the price, but they don't have to say which prevails. Their responsibility may be acute, but it isn't ultimate. That responsibility sits with the leader.

In this context, by the way, indecision is also decision. Inaction is also action. Omission and commission both have consequences.

So, yes, a ground war in the Balkans. Are you crazy? But if the alternative is a victory for Milosevic, what price peace in the wider region then? What price NATO credibility? What price deterrence to dictators?

So however high the cost, my decision was that the price of allowing Milosevic to triumph was so high that it couldn't be countenanced. Therefore, if the only way of avoiding the price was a ground campaign, we had to do it.

It was, nonetheless, let us say, a minority view ...

As late April dragged into May, my anxiety redoubled. There was far more of a grip in Brussels at NATO HQ. We at least had a serious case to deploy and were deploying it. But the fact remained: Milosevic was still there and there was no sign he was prepared to withdraw. The diplomatic track continued, but it was unclear that it was leading anywhere acceptable, certainly anywhere acceptable to me. By then I had come to believe that nothing except his unequivocal defeat would do.

But the enthusiasm of our European allies for a ground offensive had not burgeoned; on the contrary, the opposition to it was as firm as ever. On 1819 May, I wrote two notes, one to President Clinton, the other to key fellow European leaders.

In the note to Bill, I agreed again that we needed to prepare for a ground offensive. I advocated a force of around 150,000 with half coming from Europe, and half of that from the UK. It was a pretty bold suggestion since I had no clear reason to believe Europe would contribute any troops other than UK ones, but I bet that if the US committed, the Europeans would feel shamed into support, especially if the Brits were putting in by far the biggest number.

I also tried to amend the proposal being put forward by Ma.s.simo D'Alema for a forty-eight-hour pause in the bombing, the purpose of which was to see if Milosevic would strike a deal. I was really worried that if we just accepted this proposal simpliciter simpliciter, it would give Milosevic exactly what he wanted. So I suggested that along with the pause, there should be a UN Security Council Resolution (there were signs Russia might support one if there was a pause) giving Milosevic an ultimatum: take it or leave it; and if he refused, reconvening immediately with the prospect of a ground operation.

The tone of the note to Bill was apologetic for continuing to press on ground forces, but unyielding on the necessity of confronting the issue. Milosevic was still absorbing the punishment, but the targeting was now harder and harder. A civilian convoy had been hit, causing more criticism of our campaign. I could see where this was heading, and a messy compromise was an acute possibility which I wanted to avoid at all costs.

For the Europeans, I made the point starkly: is the bottom line 'NATO must not lose', or is the bottom line 'NATO must not use ground troops'? If it is the former, how can we rule out ground troops when the military advice is unanimous that we cannot guarantee victory by the air campaign alone?

I b.u.t.tressed both notes with telephone calls. The one with Bill began very stickily indeed. A series of press reports had suggested the US were being pressured by me to commit and I was having to stiffen him. He pointed the finger at my press operation (of course everyone believed Alastair single-handedly shaped the news everywhere). He was genuinely steamed up. I denied it vigorously (and truthfully). It turned ugly for a bit until, having got it out of his system, the conversation turned back to the issue and for the first time I could feel he was manoeuvring his side into supporting a ground operation. It was a big step forward. I also realised how difficult it was for him. Virtually no one was urging that course on him and he knew full well the Republicans were lining up to cane him either way: weak, or foolhardy.

It was as well our relationship was strong enough to overcome what I call the 'winding-up syndrome' of political courts and courtiers. It was a phenomenon I came across so frequently, and it used to do so much utterly pointless damage.

By and large politicians are an odd mix of rhino hide and super-soft tissue. They need the hide just to get through the day, since slings and arrows are more or less constant. At another level, their natural insecurity often makes them acutely sensible of how they are seen, whether they are duly respected by their peers, who is out to get them and who supports them. It is unbelievably easy to forget this. Things can be written and said about another leader without you even being aware of them, but they are attributed to you, and in the blink of an eye a relationship has soured. I always say in politics that other than when you really need to, you should avoid making enemies deliberately, because you make so many entirely accidentally.

In this process, the 'winding-up syndrome' plays a big part. Leaders have teams around them. The members of the teams owe their positions to the leader. For the most part they are loyal, sometimes fiercely so. They are always on the lookout for a slight, and scour the press. More sinisterly, they also know their leader's inner fears and insecurities, and become adept at manipulating them.

I had a great team and was really lucky that Anji and Jonathan, especially, were very ready not to suspect or see a conspiracy behind every criticism or move made. But I lost count of the times I had to say: You don't know who put that story there; I don't know; what's more we will never know, so let's stop bothering about it. I therefore got the 'winding-up' a lot less than most, but I saw it go on perpetually around other leaders and indeed other Cabinet members. The worst time was in and around any Cabinet reshuffle when the speculation would be rampant, and if anyone's name appeared in the papers, it was naturally a.s.sumed to be put there by the 'Downing Street machine'.

The most bizarre example of this was in 2004 over the then Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Andrew Smith. Andrew was a capable minister, nice guy, never going to be Chancellor but hard-working and effective. The press started to say I was ready to sack him. It may well be that Gordon's people had put the thought in the press mind or his (see that's me being a victim of the syndrome, because actually I really don't know).

Anyway, he was convinced he was for the chop. He came to see me and said he was going to resign before he was pushed. The reshuffle was due in the next days, and I had the outline of it. I was not going to sack him in fact, I had never thought of it, and told him so but so wound up was he that he obviously didn't believe it and said, no, he really preferred to go rather than suffer the indignity of being sacked. So he went.

You have to be fantastically careful of being wound up by people who love the chatter and the intrigue and the 'behind the arras' stuff, or even by very well-intentioned close staff who genuinely believe you are being badly done by. Paranoia is the worst condition for a political leader to suffer from.

However many voices were whispering in Bill's ear that the famed Blair machine was trying to upend him and grandstand, fortunately he didn't let it bother him for long. And on the decision that mattered, he was moving in the right direction and with considerable courage.

Over the next two weeks, it became apparent that the American resolve to see this through had hardened. Clinton was arriving at the decision to prepare and if necessary implement the ground-force option at least in his own mind, but it is remarkable how quickly such things are communicated almost by osmosis through the system. Press reports to that effect started to circulate.

On 27 May, we spoke again and I followed it up with another personal note. He was not fully convinced, but we were on a trajectory. I also pointed out that a victory against Milosevic could be the signal to offer a whole new future to the Balkan countries, within Europe.

Interestingly, on 1 June, David Miliband sent me a note from Florida, where he had been at the same time as the president; David minuted that he thought Clinton's mind was made up and now the issue was only how he could persuade the American people.

As our resolve grew, so Milosevic's started to collapse. We were nearing the end. As European leaders met on 3 June, the UN negotiators led by President Ahtisaari of Finland went to Belgrade. Milosevic was prepared to capitulate. Over the coming days, there were some ups and downs but essentially it was over. On 10 June, the agreement for the complete and unconditional withdrawal of Serbian forces from Kosovo was concluded.

There was an extraordinary epilogue, which arose in this way: the idea was for the Serbian forces to withdraw, and then NATO would go into Pritina airport. On Friday 11 June, we awoke to news that there was a delay, and suddenly we were told Russian forces intended to occupy the airport. Throughout, of course, the Russians had been strongly opposed to the military action, which was one reason why we couldn't get a UN Security Council Resolution. They were obviously very closely connected to the Serbs. If they then took over the main airport, it would turn everything into a fiasco.

Russian planes demanded airs.p.a.ce to fly through Hungary to get to the airport. Russian tanks were on their way from Bosnia. At this point Wes Clark decided we had to take the Russians on. He wanted to order General Mike Jackson, the British on-the-ground NATO commander, to fight for control of the airport if necessary. Wes was Mike's commanding officer for these purposes. It was, therefore, very tricky. Did we really want British forces fighting Russians? I didn't think so.

Wes was absolutely right to be mad at the Russians. It was a total breach of the understandings that had been made. It was inflammatory and it threatened the peace.

I came out of a meeting to take the increasingly frantic calls ricocheting around the system. Charles Guthrie thought we should be extremely cautious. Contrary to all propriety in chains of command, I called Mike Jackson myself. Fortunately he was a very sound and solid citizen, brave though not daft; but also in a difficult position: Wes was his commander-in-chief. Mike explained an order was an order. What should he do? The US forces hadn't arrived. Only the Brits were on the spot. To fight, or not to fight? Mike clearly thought fighting the Russians was completely crackers. I told him to play along, ignore the order and stay cool. He sounded relieved.

Finally, after a couple of days of farcical toing and froing, the Russians said it had all been a mistake and the matter was settled. I often wondered what would have happened if I had told Mike to obey the order to fight. Doesn't bear thinking of, really.

The Russians were very weird to deal with at this time. Yeltsin was a man of considerable courage and had done a great thing for his country in defying the coup against the democratic forces after the Gorbachev changes in Russia. But by the time I knew him, he had become, let us say, a bit unpredictable. I recall meeting him at an international summit shortly after the Kosovo conflict. We had exchanged some pretty harsh words about it, but it was all over now, so he came across the room to greet me with one of his famous hugs. I was happy to be embraced, as it signalled that the feud was a thing of the past and now we could all get on. The hug began. The first ten seconds were, I thought, wonderfully friendly. The next ten began to get a little uncomfortable. The following ten started respiratory problems. I finally got released after about a minute and staggered off in search of a stiff drink. I think he made his point.

I got to know Vladimir Putin far better than I ever knew Boris Yeltsin. It was a relationship that began really well, and though over time it cooled as a result of Iraq, but more perhaps as a result of the worsening RussiaUS relationship I never forgot the initial warmth, and never gave up trying to understand what made him as he was and is.

One thing I did get completely: when Russia was the Soviet Union, although it had the wrong system of government and economy, it was nevertheless a power; it was treated with respect, even feared. It counted. I understood how glasnost, perestroika and the fall of the Berlin Wall may have liberated Russia from Communism, but it also made it seem to lose its position in the world. Yeltsin, for all his strengths, was not someone capable of regaining that position. Putin was; he is quintessentially a nationalist.

I also had a serendipitous connection with him. Our friends the Strozzis, whose villa in Tuscany we used to visit, were Russian on Irina's side. They are a remarkable family. He is a professor whose ancestor has been a.s.sociated with Machiavelli, and she is a strong-minded and delightful person. Together they have produced two extraordinarily talented daughters who both speak five languages. Irina's family had fled during the Revolution and settled in France, where she and her brother Vladimir were brought up, but they continued to be engaged with Russia. A good friend of Vladimir's was the then mayor of St Petersburg, Anatoly Sobchak, who was also the patron of Putin. I met Sobchak at the Strozzi villa in 1996, and once more before his premature death in February 2000 (supposedly from natural causes).

This gave me a point of connection with Putin, who had been Yeltsin's prime minister before running for president himself. As prime minister, Putin had prosecuted the war in Chechnya with vigour and, some said, brutality. Though I understood the criticism, I was sympathetic to the fact that this was also a vicious secessionist movement with Islamic extremism at its core, so I understood the Russian perspective as well.

I met him just before he took over as president in 2000, when others at that time, including Jacques Chirac, gave him something of a cold shoulder. Of course, in time that all changed and their relationship became very close as mine waned. Back then, Putin wanted Russia to orient towards Europe, and our first meeting was in St Petersburg, the most European of all Russian cities. He admired America and wanted a strong relationship with it. He wanted to pursue democratic and economic reform in Russia. We were the same age and, it seemed, shared the same outlook.