Following the weekend massacre, NATO is under pressure to deliver on a promise made last year to bomb Yugoslavia if it went back to war in Kosovo.
Last October the Western alliance threatened air strikes against Yugoslavia unless it stopped fighting and pulled its forces out of the province, following the massacre of 14 ethnic Albanian villagers.
Back then, NATO chiefs warned President Slobodan Milosevic that the air strike threat would remain in force. But officials doubt the alliance now has the stomach for action, with many members including Germany, France and Italy not wanting to in effect go to war with Yugoslavia.
Even the more hawkish nations, the US and Britain, were stung by criticism after four days of strikes against Iraq before Christmas and may balk at launching another series. President Clinton warned that the massacre was "a clear violation of the commitments the Serbian authorities have made to NATO" but has made no mention of punishments.
"There's not much agreement among the members to go to war," said one senior Western official. "There wasn't really agreement back in October. You should have read the diplomatic cables."
Nevertheless, NATO will have to do something or see its credibility take a knock. Moreover, without pulling something dramatic out of the hat, the Western powers will probably see the province now slide into full-scale war.
Last night a senior official of the ethnic Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), Mr Pleurat Sejodiu, said the optimism generated by his army's release of eight captured Yugoslav soldiers last week had evaporated.
"The international community wanted us to give a sign of goodwill and we release eight soldiers, and look how they repay it," he said.
NATO's October agreement with Yugoslavia suffers a key weakness: it does not apply to the guerrillas. They are free to carry on fighting, with no one sure what sort of response to attack is allowed by the Yugoslav forces.
President Milosevic has said that recent offences against villages across the province were simply self-defence after attacks by rebel forces.
More than 800 international verifiers are now in Kosovo, supposedly verifying whether Mr Milosevic is keeping his agreement, and blowing the whistle if he does not. But these teams have been unable to tell, amid the chaos of battle, whether the fighting is in fact triggered by the rebels or by the Yugoslavs.
Racak is different. The village is in an area known as a rebel stronghold, but the wiping out of so many people in cold blood goes far beyond any notion of "proportional response" to attack.
Making good on its bombing threat is not only politically difficult for the alliance. Even the best "surgical" weapons are unable to target the Yugoslav units who carried out the massacre. Instead, as with Iraq, NATO would have to opt for punitive strikes against targets all over the country.
Aside from bombing, NATO may decide on reimposing trade sanctions which were placed on Yugoslavia for its support of the Bosnian Serbs in the Bosnian war.
A third option is beefing up support for war crimes investigators. The trouble with this option, as with sanctions, is that while they cause long-term difficulties to Mr Milosevic, they do nothing to stop the war going into a second year.