Focus: War In Europe: Changing the ground rules

The subject of sending troops to the Balkans was taboo. But now the US talks about infantry going in - and sooner rather than later

Robin Cook must be reading the headlines in the US newspapers with some satisfaction this morning. When he set out for Washington last week, it must have seemed that he was on a hiding to nothing, seeking to persuade America to shift its stance on ground forces. But by the end of the week, there was a sudden change of direction.

Despite claims that his visit had been long-planned, the Foreign Secretary's trip was put together in the last 10 days as it became clear that there were tensions over ground troops. There were three separate issues that needed to be resolved: the fact of the disagreement; the issue which had sparked it, Britain's prodding on the dispatch of ground troops; and the underlying question of what role they would play. The first two have been eased in the past 48 hours; the third is starting to be addressed, though it will not be fully addressed for another month.

Madeleine Albright, the US Secretary of State, and Mr Cook took on the public aspects of the rift with a head-on, aggressive campaign. It was a tremendously well-organised, energetic operation that saw them appearing together on Larry King Live, CNN's flagship chat show, Good Morning America and the Today programme. They spent five hours together on Thursday night, jointly rehearsing their appearance on the Larry King show with the State Department spokesman, Jamie Rubin, playing the role of the wisecracking chat show host. Not a word was to be out of place.

But if the mood music was in tune, the lyrics were different. The main point of substance between America and Britain has been when and how the Clinton administration started to talk about ground troops. Britain has argued since before the Nato summit last month that timing, politics and military strategy all dictate putting the issue on the table now. America is already committed to sending forces for the Kosovo peacekeeping force, KFOR, but it did not want to talk about the subject. Even this - let alone any talk about a ground invasion - was off limits.

There is little public support in America for sending ground forces to the Balkans: it grew as the air campaign opened, but then dimmed again. Congress - which will have to be consulted on the issue - is in a terrible mess at the moment, with no consensus on Kosovo. The military has always argued against ground forces, while other US allies, like Germany and Italy, are deeply divided on the issue, if not downright opposed. The argument from the US has always been that while ground forces would have to be considered at some point - assuming there was to be a peacekeeping force - the time was not ripe.

Sandy Berger, Mr Clinton's powerful National Security Advisor, has been instrumental in this. His job, once occupied by Henry Kissinger, can, in the hands of a political pro, be used to tremendous effect in Washington, overruling all the other foreign policy and defence baronies: the Pentagon, the State Department and the CIA.

Mr Berger is not a foreign policy intellectual but a lawyer by background, and a very political one who has specialised in international trade. His style is to command with a pragmatic and political agenda. He decided that ground troops would upset too many people too much. But that position has been shifting. The first hints came early last week, when Mr Clinton on Tuesday reformulated the usual response to questions about ground forces.

"I and everyone else has always said that we intend to see our objectives achieved and that we have not and will not take any option off the table," he said when asked about putting infantry into Kosovo. The aim, said his staff, was not just to put a lid on the dispute with London, but to start to shift the US out of a closed position to somewhere with a little more room for manouevre.

The US knew that eventually it would in any case have to make clear its commitment to ground troops. Nato was moving fast towards a new version of KFOR, one with more troops than originally planned. Out of its 50,000 members, the US was likely to pledge some 7,000, and Nato would rapidly need to know who was to be sent and when. That debate is set to come to a head in Brussels next week. One way or another, America had to start to talk about infantry, albeit as peacekeepers rather than invaders.

There was a shift in the military position which made this easier. General Wesley Clark, the Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, came to Washington last week for the first time since the Nato summit. On Thursday he gave a presentation to the Secretary of Defense, William Cohen, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which according to leaked reports pressed for further action. The air war might not work alone, he said. Adding ground forces would make a useful threat to back up continued bombing. And "should there be a peace agreement quickly, as we hope, we need a force that's ready to go in and help the refugees get back as the Serb forces pull out", said the Pentagon spokesman, Kenneth Bacon.

So as Mr Cook was landing at Heathrow in Concorde, the daily Pentagon briefing was starting to roll America down the road to Kosovo. Mr Bacon, the unflappable, very precise spokesman in his customary bow tie, was suddenly willing to speak about ground forces in a way officialdom had publicly avoided for months. Suddenly the catchphrase was "sooner, rather than later". While officials were adamant this was not an invitation to a ground war but merely a discussion of a peacekeeping force, the debate had decisively shifted.

The UK Government will have been gratified by this. But it does not resolve the third question: what exactly the ground forces are there to do. KFOR will, America has said, only go in if there is an agreement with Belgrade. Britain wants the flexibility to intervene if the Serb army collapses, for instance. The delicate phrase used is that "Milosevic has no veto" on KFOR. "We've got to be ready to move when the time is ready," said Mr Cook.

Looming over this is the question: what if the air campaign simply does not work? "We think the air campaign is working extremely well, but you have to be open to other possibilities," said Mr Bacon. "General Clark's point was that although the bombing campaign is going extremely well... you could not make a firm prediction that it will be over by June 15, for instance, or July 15." And suddenly new options were opened up.

A feature of Mr Berger's decision-making - and of Mr Clinton's - is a tendency not to cross bridges until they reach them - or, if you want to be unkind, to prevaricate and fudge until the last moment. The last moment is, they believe, some way away. In one month, the G8 leading nations meet in Cologne. It should be clear by then whether or not the air war can be maintained: not until then will the really difficult decisions be taken.