>>213943426
Because the primary strategic objective of America is the prevention of the resurgence of nationalism in Europe, and therefor the spillover of it from Serbia into the rest of the Balkans and their most precious fort - the German state. It was never about the Soviet Union. This is also why we were all illogically disarmed in advance when even a stupid person could've seen the 2022 war as an inevitability. To America it wasn't important that Ukraine no longer had the means of resisting Russia, but rather that Ukraine and Romania and Bulgaria and all the rest of us didn't have the means of resurrecting nationalist grievances and implementing them by force through the soviet weaponry, therefor triggering a second wave of European nationalism which would've divested NATO from the continent and made the security locally-oriented on a national basis. It would have chudmaxxed the continent in a year. For this, Serbs had to be bombed to be made an example of, and similar threats were thrown at us for our Turkish minority.
If you'd like to see a crystal-clear picture of the thought process of the people back then, I recommend this time capsule here
https://www.splcenter.org/resources/reports/kosovo-and-far-right/ . Especially note what your general said about it, which is the de facto casus belli of the war.