<P> On 10 and 11 April 1994, during the Bosnian War, the United Nations Protection Force called in air strikes to protect the Goražde safe area, resulting in the bombing of a Bosnian Serb military command outpost near Goražde by two US F - 16 jets acting under NATO direction . This resulted in the taking of 150 U.N. personnel hostage on 14 April . On 16 April a British Sea Harrier was shot down over Goražde by Serb forces . A two - week NATO bombing campaign, Operation Deliberate Force, began in August 1995 against the Army of the Republika Srpska, after the Srebrenica massacre . </P> <P> NATO air strikes that year helped bring the Yugoslav wars to an end, resulting in the Dayton Agreement in November 1995 . As part of this agreement, NATO deployed a UN-mandated peacekeeping force, under Operation Joint Endeavor, named IFOR . Almost 60,000 NATO troops were joined by forces from non-NATO nations in this peacekeeping mission . This transitioned into the smaller SFOR, which started with 32,000 troops initially and ran from December 1996 until December 2004, when operations were then passed onto European Union Force Althea . Following the lead of its member nations, NATO began to award a service medal, the NATO Medal, for these operations . </P> <P> In an effort to stop Slobodan Milošević's Serbian - led crackdown on KLA separatists and Albanian civilians in Kosovo, the United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1199 on 23 September 1998 to demand a ceasefire . Negotiations under US Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke broke down on 23 March 1999, and he handed the matter to NATO, which started a 78 - day bombing campaign on 24 March 1999 . Operation Allied Force targeted the military capabilities of what was then the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia . During the crisis, NATO also deployed one of its international reaction forces, the ACE Mobile Force (Land), to Albania as the Albania Force (AFOR), to deliver humanitarian aid to refugees from Kosovo . </P> <P> Though the campaign was criticized for high civilian casualties, including bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade, Milošević finally accepted the terms of an international peace plan on 3 June 1999, ending the Kosovo War . On 11 June, Milošević further accepted UN resolution 1244, under the mandate of which NATO then helped establish the KFOR peacekeeping force . Nearly one million refugees had fled Kosovo, and part of KFOR's mandate was to protect the humanitarian missions, in addition to deterring violence . In August--September 2001, the alliance also mounted Operation Essential Harvest, a mission disarming ethnic Albanian militias in the Republic of Macedonia . As of 1 December 2013, 4,882 KFOR soldiers, representing 31 countries, continue to operate in the area . </P>

What does nato stand for and why was it created