Societies know what to do with losing armies. In general, they disarm or destroy the defeated forces. And what happens with the victors. Normally the victorious nation maintains political - power, retains its army, transforms its army into the police force or sees its army evolve into a combination of both police and army. But what happens when the army claiming victory resides - as a minority inside a nation it does not own. What happens when that army does not even possess an elected political minority. Can a society internally vanquish or reabsorb such a victor. Or will this beast only be tamed with eventual independence. The end of the Kosovo air war left the world with such a challenge. The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) claimed victory but the world would not grant Kosovo its independence. The government of Slobodan Milosevic required the disbanding of the KLA as part of the capitulation. As a compromise, the United Nations (UN) agreed to transform the Kosovo Liberation Army into the Kosovo Protection Corps. This paper will examine the overall transformation process. It will examine the creation of the Kosovo Liberation Army and determine if the transformation of the KLA into the Kosovo Protection Corps was consistent with the end state objectives of the conflict.
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