Was the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia an "invasion" or not? [closed]

Question

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "invasion" means:

an instance of invading a country or region with an armed force.

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, "armed force" means:

a country's army, navy, and air force.

According to the US government,

The Army, Marine Corps, Navy, Air Force, Space Force and Coast Guard are the armed forces of the United States.

Based on those official definitions, including the one given by the US government, it seems apparent to me that the 1999 bombing of Yugoslavia by NATO was also an "invasion". I would imagine that at least some sources, official or not, would follow these definitions and define the operation as an "invasion".

However, after searching multiple keywords on Google, I find that no source has defined or used the word "invasion" to describe the Yugoslav war. It is kind of weird that all media holds a similar view on the definition of a war. Are there any reasons behind this? Is it because there is a negative connotation attached with "invasion"?

Answer 1

Invasion is the combination of "in" (obvious) and "vadere" "to walk, wander, go...". Though figuratively it's used for a lot of things where someone/something breaches the boundary of something/someone else. Invasive species, needles as invasive treatment, invasions of privacy and so on.

The Wikipedia definition:

An invasion is a military offensive in which large numbers of combatants of one geopolitical entity aggressively enter territory owned by another such entity, generally with the objective of either: conquering; liberating or re-establishing control or authority over a territory; forcing the partition of a country; altering the established government or gaining concessions from said government; or a combination thereof.

makes it sound as if the standard definition for a (military) invasion is still that of ground troops entering another country. And as such Wikipedia's list of invasions does not list this incident.

TL;DR: you can probably find a definition of invasion which makes it sound "technically true", but practically speaking its usage is mostly for ground gaining assaults, where soldiers enter another country, not aircraft entering and leaving a country.

Answer 2

Well, some in Serbia are calling it "НАТО агресија" (NATO aggression), if that's what this is about.

As, far as English goes, I don't think it's because of the negative connotation of "invasion" because the (ground) invasion of Iraq is commonly referred to that way. It has more to do with English language idioms like preferring "air campaign" (somewhat air brushed) or just "bombing". Nowadays "air invasion" seems more commonly used to refer to deploying paratroopers/gliders, e.g. in Burma.

OTOH back in the 1940s it seems it was (sometimes) used with this other (bombing) meaning e.g. by the NYT in March 1944 referring to the US bombing of Berlin, so I'm not seeing a negative connotation. It probably has more to do with evolving usage over time.

Nowadays some dictionaries define invasion by adding "take control", e.g. Cambridge's

an occasion when an army or country uses force to enter and take control of another country

Merriam-Webster gives

especially : incursion of an army for conquest or plunder

Of course, dictionaries are not necessarily covering the full range of usage, but that seems to suggest that bombing campaigns are not commonly described as invasion.

The question should probably best migrated to English SE, by the way.

Answer 3

Following the Cambridge Dictionary (here), "invasion" is an occasion when an army or country uses force to enter and take control of another country. Merriam Webster also writes "incursion of an army for conquest or plunder", hence assumption of control of a place or people by military force.

I would have some doubts if it is possible to "take a control of another country" by just attacking from the air. Some people below the aircraft would be killed but not "taken under control", this is not the same.

Answer 4

There are invasions and there are invasions. In principle, everything where something intrudes into space of something else is some kind of invasion. So call it an invasion, if you like. It wouldn't be totally wrong. But there is also the convention that a military invasion typically includes boots on the ground and that wasn't the case then.

Your used definition of invasion is very probably too much shortened and therefore insufficient to completely characterize what an invasion is. Some issues your definition is missing:

• the intent to really control that area (not just destroy some things)
• the intent to stay for a longer time (not just flying over)
• the ability to effectively control the ground (surveillance, application of immediate and extremely localized force) (not just flying over and destroying some things).

That's why for example the List of invasions on Wikipedia does not contain any entry without the involvement of ground forces, as far as I can see, and specifically does not contain the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999. NATO itself called it an intervention.

The NATO air attacks attacked military infrastructure first but later also civilian infrastructure. That is surely an attack but falls short of an invasion in that NATO never controlled any of the ground facilities. It could only destroy some of them. In the end, Milosevic agreed to a peace deal, but it's not absolutely clear how much the air bombing campaign added to that and other diplomatic influences or the mood in the Yugoslavian population contributed.

I personally would simply call it a bombing campaign against critical military and civilian infrastructure by NATO and would prefer not to label it invasion because that would be more confusing than clarifying even though it might be a bit longer.