Hashim Thaçi

February 28, 1998 – June 10, 1999 · 13,535 total casualties

The Kosovo War established the precedent of humanitarian intervention without UN Security Council authorization — a radical departure from international law that NATO justified as necessary to prevent genocide, and which Russia and China condemned as illegal aggression. The war produced what would become the 'Responsibility to Protect' doctrine and directly led to Kosovo's eventual declaration of independence in 2008. It was also the first time in history that a functioning state was stripped of territorial control by an international military alliance without a UN mandate.

March 24 – June 10, 1999 · 5,700 total casualties

The 78-day bombing campaign demonstrated both the power and the limits of air power as a coercive instrument. The accidental bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade caused a major diplomatic crisis with Beijing and briefly threatened to break the NATO coalition. The campaign also exposed serious munitions shortages in European NATO members and accelerated US-European debates about burden-sharing that would persist for decades. The F-117 Nighthawk stealth aircraft was shot down by a Serbian SA-3 Neva missile on March 27, marking the first combat loss of a stealth aircraft.