The day itself: history has made its first move, and the next one is yours.
Briefing
24 March 1999. Milošević has rejected the Rambouillet accords, the OSCE monitors have left Kosovo, and the Yugoslav army and police have opened an offensive against the Kosovo Liberation Army. Tonight NATO – nineteen countries, three of them members for two weeks – launches Operation Allied Force without a UN mandate. Russia is furious, Đukanović's Montenegro keeps its distance, and hundreds of thousands of Kosovars flee to Albania and Macedonia. Hold Kosovo, break Belgrade or stop the war – every country is playable.
Real history stays a strong tendency: what happened later is planned for its date – until your actions change the world.
You govern: the orders are the state's.
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The world on 24 March 1999
On the evening of 24 March 1999 NATO begins air strikes on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, after talks at Rambouillet and Paris failed to bring Belgrade to accept a settlement for Kosovo with NATO troops on its soil. Cruise missiles and aircraft strike air defences and military targets across Serbia, Montenegro and Kosovo. It is the first time the alliance goes to war against a sovereign state, and it does so without a mandate from the UN Security Council.
In Kosovo, where most people are Albanian, fighting between the Kosovo Liberation Army and Yugoslav and Serbian forces has grown since 1998, and hundreds of thousands have been driven from their homes. President Slobodan Milošević holds Kosovo to be part of Serbia and refuses foreign troops. The OSCE monitors have just left the province.
Russia condemns the bombing: Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov, flying to Washington, turned his plane round over the Atlantic the day before. China and many other countries protest too. Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic joined NATO only twelve days ago. Whether the air campaign breaks Belgrade quickly, whether NATO sends ground troops and what Russia does will shape the Balkans and Europe after the Cold War.