Officially the talks which began last Friday inside the world's most photographed hangar here in northern Macedonia were about how NATO forces could move into Kosovo as Serb forces left. But the real haggling went on elsewhere, and at a much higher level, leaving these generals in the position of someone trying to alter windows and doors of a house while the foundations kept moving.
Simply put, the problem was this: Serbia had agreed that NATO troops could enter Kosovo, but wanted a United Nations resolution to come first so that it could present the move not as a retreat, but as the UN imposing an agreement to end a war which was a draw. NATO was happy with that, but the Chinese are not, indicating yesterday that they, as permanent members of the Security Council, will block any such resolution unless NATO waters-down the force it sends to Kosovo. To which NATO replies that a watered-down force is no force at all. Stalemate.
While this diplomacy continued in capitals across the globe, the NATO generals and their Serb opposite numbers continued to tinker with time lines and deployments, neither side able to get a grip on the problem until they know how many men, tanks and guns each side will be allowed to have in Kosovo.
A more vicious struggle was continuing in the hills to the north, as NATO jets continued to pound Serb positions while rebel KLA units clashed with Serb troops along the Kosovo-Albania border.
Even these air strikes were political: They are taking place not because there are targets to be hit, but because once they stopped, Alliance hawks feared they will never get the political momentum among all NATO members to restart them. And without the threat of air strikes, Serbia was expected to fold its arms and refuse to let the Alliance in.
German Foreign Minister, Mr Rudolf Sharping, nevertheless declared that air strikes had been suspended at 9 a.m. yesterday. Not true, insisted US Vice Admiral Daniel Murphy, commander of NATO naval forces in the Mediterranean. "The bombing has not stopped," he said.
So Serb soldiers continued to die in a war that may well be over before their parents get their sad telegrams.
And they are dying in unusually high numbers. Three giant US B-52 bombers of Vietnam vintage caught two Serb battalions in the open in western Kosovo, hitting them with a carpet of bombs two miles long and half-a-mile wide.
There were other reasons for the on-off nature of these peace talks: Russia wants to contribute 10,000 troops to a peace force, but has no troops to hand. Its cash-strapped airforce is probably in no position to fly them in - and in any case, Yugoslavia has few intact airfields in which to receive them. Driving in by land is also complicated because Yugoslavia's eastern neighbours, once part of the Soviet Block, are now independent, pro-NATO and nursing unhappy memories of the Russians.
Hungary is inside NATO, while neighbouring Romania has just taken delivery of train-loads of US troops planning to use her soil as a forward base of their own for Kosovo.
And behind the diplomacy was the same jostling for power and position that governed this war, with Serbia hoping that it could get better terms in Kosovo because NATO's hawks were splitting from its doves. Last night, the heat gave way to thunderstorms, the dust outside that Komanovo tent being turned to mud, the guards illuminated by glaring electric flashes. Even the gods, it appears, had grown impatient.