-Caveat Lector- from: http://www.weu.int/institute/occasion/1andreat.htm <A HREF="http://www.weu.int/institute/occasion/1andreat.htm">The Bosnian War and the New World Order </A> ----- Occasional Papers are essays that, while not necessarily authoritative or exhaustive, the Institute considers should be made available, as a contribution to the debate on topical European security issues. They will normally be based on work carried out by researchers granted awards by the Institute; they represent the views of the authors, and do not necessarily reflect those of the Institute, or of WEU in general. Publication of Occasional Papers will be announced in the Institute's Newsletter, and they will be available, on request, in the language used by the author. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ OCCASIONAL PAPERS 1 The Bosnian War and the New World Order Failure and Success of International Intervention Filippo Andreatta(1) October 1997 ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Contents Executive summary Introduction The characteristics of the Bosnian war and of international failure The causes of failure The consequences of ambiguity The causes of peace Phase I: from the outbreak of hostilities to the VOPP Phase II: incremental adaptation Phase III: the end of the war and the Dayton peace Conclusion and cautionary tales ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Executive Summary The war in Bosnia has witnessed a broad swing in the moods of the "international community" and of European nations particularly. In the wake of the end of the Cold War and of the victory in the Gulf War, expectations run high at the outbreak that collective security would have been able to deal with regional disturbances. Three years later, the "international community" had accumulated many frustrations and the IFOR operation which put an end to the fighting was regarded as a highly specific one which was unlikely to be repeated in other contingencies. This paper argues that both the initial and the final attitudes toward the Bosnian War have been excessive and, somehow, related. The initial optimism rested on uncertain foundations and was very likely to fail. The delusion, in turn, produced a cynical mood in which the initial mistakes were reversed and substituted with a pessimistic assessment of the prospects for long term stability. A more balanced attitude would not have produced such extremes and would have maintained a consensus in the "international community" for a wise and moderate engagement in regional stability. The initial enthusiasm brought about an unrealistic strategy which did not adequately balance ends and means. The Vance-Owen Peace Plan, despite the fact that it was bitterly criticized at the time for rewarding aggression, required a Bosnian Serb retreat from 27% of Bosnian territory to a total 43%, while the various cantons assigned to the three communities were displayed in a patchwork and would have therefore required post-war cooperation. With hindsight, these objectives were overly ambitious for an "international community" which did not have the willingness to upgrade its military presence and which was therefore limited to a peacekeeping mission. In these circumstances, UNPROFOR's presence was not geared to reverse aggression and to stabilise the area, but only to avert the worst humanitarian disasters. Three years later, the "international community" finally applied sufficient force to stop the violence and impose a settlement. However, the objectives had in the meantime been scaled down dramatically, as the Republika Sprska retained control of 49% of the territory and enjoyed territorial continuity, which is a fundamental prerequisite for partition. The point is that the chosen objectives and the available resources must be compatible in order for the international intervention to be credible and effective. The gap between UNPROFOR's limited capabilities and the ambitious objectives of the "international community" was further exacerbated by the institutional framework which has been selected for the negotiations. The fact that the first negotiators, Cyrus Vance and (after Lord Carrington) Lord Owen, represented international organizations rather than sovereign states fuelled the divorce between diplomacy and the use of military force as the mediators had a mandate only regarding the first Furthermore, the fact that prime diplomatic responsibility was endowed to the international organization without the control of military options stimulated a process of adverse substitution which was responsible for the underproduction of security in the Balkans. In the presence of the EU-UN initiatives, many national governments felt no direct incentive to take the lead in the diplomatic and military efforts. It is no coincidence that the governments which most criticized the international mediators also contributed least to the military operations for the first three years. Eventually, these problems where overcome with the creation of the Contact Group, which attributed primary responsibility back to national governments and with the direct involvement of NATO countries with Operation Deliberate Force. In the year of the Inter-Governmental Conference, it is necessary to analyse these processes in order to avoid the mistakes of the past. In particular, the danger is that European institutions will be given too much responsibility without the necessary means for implementation. In such a crucial area for democratic public opinions and national sovereignty as foreign policy, the scope for gradualism is more limited than in other issue areas because institutions must be weighed against developments which depend on other actors as well. If European foreign policy is to be more than the mere sum of the policies of individual states, it is therefore essential that some executive powers be given to the European policy makers. If on the contrary the time is not yet ripe for a true European identity and European institutions are to be merely restricted to a spokesperson's role, then it is better that expectations for the emergence of a new European role are kept under control. The danger is otherwise that the ensuing delusion would erode the consensus also for those common policy which could be effective. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Introduction The war in Bosnia, and in particular the failure of the "international community" to put an end to it for three long years, has represented a tough anticlimax for the post-Cold War euphoria envisaging a smooth and peaceful transition towards a functioning collective security system. Expectations in this direction run high after the fall of the Berlin Wall and after the Gulf War as the "international community" was no longer divided by fundamental conflict and -it seemed- could now unite its forces in protection of international peace and stability. At the July 1991 London G-7 Summit, shortly after the triumph over Saddam Hussein, the final communique proclaimed: "We believe the conditions now exist for the United Nations to fulfill completely the promise and vision of its founders. A revitalized UN will have a central role in strengthening the international order. We commit ourselves to making the UN stronger, more efficient and more effective in order to protect human rights, to maintain peace and security for all and to deter aggression. We will make preventive diplomacy a top priority to help avert future conflicts by making clear to potential aggressors the consequences of their actions. The UN's role in peacekeeping should be reinforced and we are prepared to do this strongly".(2) The war in Yugoslavia shattered this voluntaristic dream, as repeated rounds of UN resolutions and an escalation in military measures did not manage to halt the war and its brutal consequences despite the fact that none of the combatants posed an insuperable military challenge. The delusion was rapidly internalized. Three years after the London communique, the United States -led by an administration which had pledged to make "assertive multilateralism" the cornerstone of its foreign actions- issued a review of its peacekeeping policy which bore no reference to the idealism of 1991. Washington publicly admitted that "there have been many problems with UN peacekeeping" and that "peacekeeping is not at the center of our foreign and defense policy. Our armed forces' primary mission is not to conduct peace operations but to win wars. [...] We will never compromise military readiness to support peacekeeping".(3) The problem with collective security is that it presupposes that all states perceive any threat to stability as vital. Unfortunately, when international tension is high, as during the Cold War, states cannot afford to divert resources from their individual security while when tension is low, as after the collapse of the Soviet threat, states will perceive little incentive to do so. This does not mean that collective security is impossible or useless, but that it is not automatic and cannot ultimately be relied upon as a sole and exclusive security system. However, since by definition collective security requires states to intervene in disputes which they do not perceive as affecting their vital interests, it is likely that the role accorded to the multilateral mechanism is a minor one if the costs are high. The Bosnian war in particular has proven a difficult ground for collective security as the lack of compelling interests has spurred an ambiguous strategy on the part of the "international community" and the West especially.(4) On the one hand, optimistic assessment of international politics after the Cold War fueled very high standards for the objectives in the crisis, as the "international community" wanted both a just and a stable peace. On the other hand, the modest military and diplomatic efforts devoted to the effort ensured the failure of such ambitious targets as the scarcity of resources imposed in practice a choice between peace and justice. In international politics, resources for collective endeavours are scarce because -in the absence of a world government capable of centrally allocating them- they depend on the spontaneous willingness of states which is likely to undersupply them. This means that, even if means should be dependent on ends, as a corollary ends should bear some relations to the available means. In Bosnia, the gap between ends and means was so wide that it undermined the possibility of a successful intervention.(5) In other words, the "international community" failed to grasp Clausewitz's advice about the intrinsic interaction between ends and means: "As war is no act of blind passion, but is dominated by the political object, therefore the value of that object determines the measure of the sacrifices by which it is to be purchased. That, however, does not imply that the political object is a tyrant. It must adapt itself to its chosen means, a process that can radically change it".(6) Only when, after three years, the gap was narrowed, did outside pressure bring positive results forcing the parties to sign the Dayton peace. This essay will look at the peculiar characteristics of the Bosnian war and the challenges they posed for outside intervention. Secondly, the causes and consequences of the ambiguous response from the "international community" will be analyzed. Lastly, the process of adjustment from an ambitious and unrealistic strategy to a more rational one gauging ends and means will be sketched in detail. The main lesson from Bosnia is neither that the Balkans are an exception to the rest of the world nor that the end of the Cold War has brought about a post-modern age of inevitable and chaotic conflict, but rather that stability and peace are precious and fragile commodities which require a prudent and wise maintenance. International intervention may facilitate the resolution of conflicts and may at times even be necessary, but the family of nations should realize that the attainment of this end requires the allocation of sufficient capabilities and sacrifices in terms of other goals. An excessively ambitious strategy based on unrealistic expectations and the devolution of insufficient physical and moral resources can turn even the best of intentions into counterproductive factors for the solution of regional conflicts. In this situation, collective security becomes abused and it is likely that the consensus for it will be eroded even when it will be useful or necessary. The Characteristics of the Bosnian War and of International Failure If collective security can only be applied selectively, when conditions are ripe, Bosnia did not qualify from the beginning as an easy test. The Balkans represented in fact a bad enough crisis to deter intervention in terms of potential costs but not bad enough to justify a large intervention on the grounds that the national interest was affected. On the one hand, the tragic history, the ethnic mosaic and the fragmented terrain which composed the former Yugoslav republic represented a political and logistical nightmare as outside troops would neither have an easy front line to defend nor a clear target for their operations. The deep psychological belief evoked by the crisis in Western capitals and elsewhere was that it was a typical Balkan problem as intractable as all other Balkan problems. For example, EC mediator Lord Owen begins his account of the war with a cautionary note designed to depict its exceptional nature: "Never before in over thirty years of public life have I had to operate in such a climate of dishonour, propaganda and dissembling. Many of the people with whom I have had to deal in the former Yugoslavia were literally strangers to the truth [...] Within a week of taking my position of Co-Chairman I had to come to realize that there were no innocents among the political and military leaders in all three parties in Bosnia-Herzegovina".(7) The peculiar difficulties of the Bosnian theatre have been recurrently invoked by reluctant governments as an excuse for inaction. However, it is no use relegating Yugoslavia to the field of exceptions because it is precisely against these exceptions that the efficacy of new security systems must be weighed. All conflicts have a degree of peculiarity which distinguishes them from all others. As Clausewitz remarked: "no prescriptive formulation universal enough to deserve the name of law can be applied to the constant change and diversity of the phenomena of war".(8) However, all conflicts ultimately imply the same fundamental question for outside governments: does the "international community" have the interest, the willingness and the capability to induce the end of the fighting? On the other hand, the war did not affect international economic and political equilibria which would have justified a more traditional intervention. This is not only because, as some cynical critic put it, in Bosnia -unlike in Kuwait- there is no oil. Although the economic factor was important in the Gulf War, there was more at stake in 1990. In particular, the Iraqi invasion represented a major violation of international law in a crucial geopolitical area perpetrated by a potentially dangerous menace. By contrast, the Bosnian war was a predominantly civil conflict -less caustic to international law than the violation of an international border- in a peripheral region perpetrated by an entity which did not pose a threat, even if victorious, to international stability. The Kuwaiti crisis, in short, affected international order more directly than the Yugoslav one. Even the "example effect" connected to the principle of the indivisibility of peace -that is the fact that if aggression was allowed to go unchecked in Bosnia, aggressors elsewhere would have been encouraged to pursue their aggressive designs- was in this case limited by the very peculiar nature of Balkan relations, which did not easily invite analogies with other areas.(9) A further problem with a classic collective security operation was that the inter-ethnic characteristic of the country increased the difficulties in identifying a culprit against which to focus multilateral sanctions. All three ethnic groups had in fact lived in Bosnia for centuries and it was impossible in this situation to determine an "aggressor". It is true that the Bosnian Serbs, who held the upper hand for most of the conflict, bear most of the responsibility because they were the first to employ an hypernationalist rhetoric and because their methods often violated the most basic humanitarian principles on which international society rests.(10) Yet, also the other parties were not immune to adopting, when they had the chance, unacceptable instruments of war. "The distinction among the factions is more power and opportunity then morality".(11) Furthermore, all three sides had reasonable arguments in favour of their stance. Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats did not wish to live in a rump-Yugoslavia dominated by Serbs after the secession of Slovenia and Croatia while Bosnian Serbs did not want to be detached from Serbia proper to live in a state in which they were a minority. These conflicting claims led to the spiraling logic of the security dilemma which brought war about in the Spring of 1992. As Posen argues, the result was "a worst case analysis. Unless proven otherwise, one group is likely to assume that another group's sense of identity, and the cohesion that it produces, is a danger" and it will therefore respond in kind.(12) They also constituted one of the major difficulties for the "international community". There is in fact always a motivational gap in a collective security action between the involved parties, which perceive vital interests at stake, and the "international community", which by definition is involved for multilateral and indirect reasons such as international peace. Multilateral sanctions should in theory be sufficient to divert a potential aggressor because they can impose certain costs which are more consistent than the uncertain benefits of conquest. However, states in war are often not rational in this sense once they have taken the decision of using force and they can puzzle the "international community" by their failure to yield to outside pressure. In the Bosnian case, given the perceived stakes of the conflict involving the very existence of the various factions as recognizable entities, the motivational gap was particularly acute. Within this discouraging structural background, the "international community" failed to devise an effective strategy.(13) Once a conflict has openly broken out, there is often a trade-off in international politics between peace -which sometimes implies accepting the fait accompli on the ground- and justice -which sometimes requires to change the situation as it has developed instead. The "international community", and especially the West, dodged this crucial choice committing itself to justice even at the expense of peace without the capabilities of imposing either. As the status quo is usually the most relevant salience point, justice was in this case represented by the maintenance of a united Bosnia and of its pre-war inter-ethnic quality. This conception has been criticized on the grounds that the real status quo would have been the preservation of a united Yugoslavia which was the original goal of the Serbs. Contrary to many common views, there is in fact no internationally recognized right to secession. Nevertheless, the idea of a sovereign Bosnia was the legitimate opinion of the "international community" as expressed by the appropriate forum, the United Nations. Despite Sarajevo's obvious difficulties in controlling its own territory, once Bosnia had been recognized it was entitled to the same protection as any other member of the family of nations.(14) The problem was rather that the international preference for justice was not accompanied by an equal willingness to enforce it. On the contrary, in international politics, where the lack of a world government forces states to implement their decisions by themselves, the chosen ends should bear some relation to the available means. The outcome was a paradox. A compromise solution was rejected for three years on the ground that it would have rewarded aggression and the various plans proposed by the international mediators were often attacked because they allowed the Serbs to retain some of their war gains. Nevertheless, after three years of war and suffering, the peace which was finally agreed upon in Dayton at the end of 1995 was by the same standards less just than any of the draft agreements proposed earlier. Like the donkey of Buridan, by not choosing decisively between peace and justice, the "international community" failed to achieve either and undermined both. The Causes of Failure This peculiar stance was the result of pressures originating in the characteristics of the post-Cold War world and operating at two different level of analysis. At the domestic level, the lack of a catalyzing and compelling international threat induced democratic governments to rely heavily on public opinion. No government wanted to be blamed at elections that it risked the lives of its soldiers in a contingency where no vital interests were involved without ensuring previous and undoubted public support. For example, "the Clinton administration subordinated its collective judgment as to the country's substantial stakes in 'Yugoslavia' and its belief as to the requisite actions for a resolution of a conflict to domestic considerations".(15) However, the complexity and articulation of modern public opinion as well as its sporadic interest in foreign affairs produced contradictory pressures. As Walter Lippman bitterly remarked long ago, public opinion has a tendency to "arrive too late with too little, or with too much for too long, to be too pacifist in peacetime and too bellicose in wartime". (16) Governments were asked not to yield to Serb aggression and occasionally to "do something" to stop the bloodshed, especially when shocking images of bombarded bread or water queues in Sarajevo were televised. However, governments were also asked not to risk blood and treasure in such an uncertain and remote stage. This was true of the financial costs, especially at a time of budget cutting and peace dividends, as well as of the moral costs involved in the risks of loosing lives in a complicated battlefield distant from everyday's concerns. When in October 1993, 19 US rangers were killed in the streets of Mogadishu, the public's reaction in the United States made it abundantly clear that even the government of the only remaining superpower did not enjoy an unlimited freedom of maneuvre, leading to the review of peacekeeping policy referred to above. According to EC mediator Lord David Owen: "we were by now acutely aware of the reluctance of Defence Ministers in all NATO capitals except Ankara to take on new commitments, and I knew that there was no support for suggestions that our troops should have their mandate extended beyond that of escorting convoys, for example to a role in stopping ethnic cleansing".(17) Democracies wished to concentrate on their domestic problems after the end of the Cold War and were therefore reluctant to throw themselves into a tunnel of uncertain length and to commit the necessary resources for enforcing peace. Paradoxically, this was also the reason why the "international community" rejected a compromise solution and set itself unrealistically high standards for the settlement of the crisis. The "international community" in fact resented the violation of their peace of mind which sneaked through CNN and other TV channels. It therefore wished to put a decisive end to it rather than to sponsor a fragile cease-fire which would have involved a continuing foreign distraction. When the sizeable IFOR was finally sent to the theatre in 1995, it had a rigid deadline attached, while even its follow-on -SFOR- has been set up as a temporary operation. Furthermore, since the "international community" was involved primarily as a matter of principle rather than on the specific merits of the crisis, it could not easily allow itself to negotiate on those principles. Finally, behind the ambition of the objectives also lay a failure to comprehend the events in the Balkans. Public opinion in most Western countries could simply not reconcile itself with the idea that if war had broken out in Europe in the 1990's, partially dashing expectations of a perpetual peace, then it was unrealistic to expect the parties to lay down their arms without active outside pressure, as if that perpetual peace was still holding. If on the other hand the optimistic expectations had been right, even the modest pressure which was actually exercised would have been unnecessary. The resulting paradox was that the initial international intervention was a peacekeeping one even if there was no peace to keep while after the cease-fire, peace was kept by IFOR and SFOR, which had peace enforcement capabilities. At the international level, the moderate intensity of the crisis inhibited common views among the major powers. During the Cold War, the extent of the Soviet danger was such that it involved equally all states of the Western alliance. By contrast, the Bosnian war did not challenge anyone's fundamental interests and could therefore be seen in a different light from different capitals. Moreover, the multipolar system which emerged after the Cold War is characterized by an increased diffusion of power. As in all multipolar systems, the multiplicity of actors renders alignments less static and more contingent on the particular circumstances of the issue at hand, as actors have to spread their resources and attention across a variety of counterparts and cannot afford to concentrate them on a single dimension.(18) Alliances in a multipolar system are therefore not structurally determined as in a rigidly bipolar one, but are the result of "choice among several options [...and] tend to be unstable and vulnerable to policy disagreements". (19) This does not mean that multipolar systems are inherently more unstable, but that their stability requires a diplomatic finesse to which the major powers, accustomed to the rigid and undynamic structure of bipolarity, had not yet adjusted. This led to recurrent quarrels between Europe, the United States and Russia which squandered precious resources and rendered the international pressure even less effective. In general terms, the Europeans felt more involved than the others and for this reason sent the bulk of the peacekeeping force in the area and sponsored the earlier negotiations. At the beginning of the Yugoslav crisis, the European Union had only just begun the debate on a future Common Foreign and Security Policy, and was thus not ready to address the crisis properly, as it still did not have the institutional mechanims for decision-making, nor the appropriate means. However, Europe had not acquired, despite the Maastricht treaty, neither the capabilities nor the willingness to perform a peace enforcement operation alone. The United States had no troops on the ground and were therefore freer to impose higher and more idealistic standards for a settlement while proposing a strategy of "lift and strike" (allowing the Sarajevo Muslim-dominated government to arm itself while supporting it exclusively with air power), which was resented by the European because it endangered both their attempts to find a diplomatic solution and their troops in the theatre. Finally, when Europe and America did find a n agreement and confronted the parties with a credible unified line envisaging active retaliation for the continuation of the hostilities, Russia tried to block them in order to appease the domestic critics suggesting that the Kremlin was in the West's pocket and to acquire influence in the region through its historic Slavic and orthodox connection to Serbs. Nevertheless, more significant than the high profile quarrels between the powers was their low profile with respect to commitment. Following the spirit and letter of collective action, all powers fell to the temptation of free riding. Each wanted to share the benefits of international stability and the glory of providing peace to the Balkans but none wanted to pay the costs that this entailed and hoped that others would produce the public good. This meant that while diplomatic divisions created proposed settlements which were increasingly ambitious and complicated as they had to satisfy different views, the physical means to enforce these settlements were becoming increasingly inadequate. International institutions were the main victims of these attitudes as they were used as a scapegoat for the inevitable failure caused by the tension between ambitious tasks and modest resources. Since blaming international organization does not involve a direct confrontation with another state, it is perhaps not so ironic that the most criticized negotiator on the grounds of rewarding Serb aggression has been EU mediator Lord Owen, who drafted the harshest peace proposal on Bosnian Serbs of the ones produced in three years of war. However, international institutions can only amplify and deepen interstate cooperation once this is already in place, but they cannot bring it about if states are unwilling or unable to collaborate. Even their role as an arena for di scussion facilitating the emergence of common positions is most effective before, rather than after, the beginning of an operation in a war zone. Those organizations which were to be the main beneficiaries of the end of the Cold War fell instead into the vacuum created by the gap between the objectives and capabilities of states. The European Union set its policy as if it was already a unified state capable of rationalizing and mobilizing the entire resources of its members, but was then forced to face the reluctance of individual governments to increase their involvement. The contradiction was particularly clear in the hiatus between the EU diplomatic stance, which had some degree of coordination only sporadically interrupted by national policy, and its military policy, which remained solidly in the hands of national capitals. The EU was successful in the Bosnian war because it managed to avoid a direct confrontation between any of its members, despite different stances. For example, according to Delors: "I took part in all the Council of Ministers meetings during the Yugoslav crisis and can attest to the deep divisions, based upon history with the Balkans".(20) However, the EU's common foreign policy failed in Bosnia in the sense that European countries still perceived themselves to be distinct actors in the international stage. "The states most closely concerned have considered it more effective to take action outside the framework of the CFSP", through ad hoc arrangements such as the Contact Group and the RRF or acting unilaterally as in the case of the German drive for the recognition of Croatia at the end of 1991.(21) It is for this reason that Yugoslavia cannot be treated as a test for CFSP. The frustration for the lack of an effective common policy in Bosnia may indeed be perceived as an incentive for further integration in the future.(22) The United Nations and NATO were also entrusted with missions which they were not capable of performing in the absence of a clear commitment from member states. Without a clear political direction and a rational strategy gauging ends and means appropriately, each organization reverted to its basic organizational philosophy -peacekeeping for the UN, war fighting for NATO- provoking a conflict between each other. Such conflict resembled, but not equated, the transatlantic rift referred to above, with the United Nations, which had troops on the ground, cautiously concerned about the safety of its personnel while NATO, which was involved only sporadically, maintained a tougher attitude aimed at peace enforcement. Institutional involvement in this less than ideal situation even entailed counterproductive consequences, which were mitigated only by the professionalism and wisdom of EU, NATO and UN officials both at the organizations' headquarters and on the ground. Firstly, this spurred a process of adverse substitution by which states were even less inclined to assign resources to the crisis since international institutions were already dealing with it. Secondly, the fact that international institutions were involved may have rendered the Bosnian government less ready to negotiate in the hope of outside rescue, thereby lengthening the war. The Bosnian Muslims may indeed have fallen victim to moral hazard and to the unrealistic expectation of foreign support which could have diminished the chance for an early settlement. This process may even have been reinforced by the multilateral arms embargo which had been imposed on all parties but penalized Sarajevo most since both Croats and Serbs could count on other sources for armaments. Finally, since international institutions rely on abstract principles and deliberate only by a process of difficult consensus building among their members, the common positions may at times have been too rigid for increasingly complex and rapidly evolving negotiations. The Consequences of Ambiguity The result was an ambiguous strategy which entailed many risks and drawbacks. The "international community"'s high standards and its failure to fulfill them undermined confidence in the new world order and failed to reach a settlement in Bosnia. The gap between ends and means also undermined its credibility in the area. Most often the West employed a deterrence tactic to induce the Serbs to compromise. However, deterrence -that is the threat of force to inhibit an adversary's unwanted behaviour- works especially before a war has erupted. After a war has started, the logic is different because resistance to military pressure is much higher in those who are already suffering it. In this case, compelling would have been more appropriate, that is the actual use of force to hinder the adversary's capability to perform unwanted behaviour. However, compelling is a much costlier strategy and could not be applied with the tight constraints imposed by member states. It is for this reason that the "international community" squandered most of its credibility by issuing ultimata which were respected only in letter but not in substance. It is also for this reason that, once a credible and forceful intervention had been agreed upon in 1995, the all-powerful West actually had to carry it out in practice rather than just threatening it, because its credibility had already been eroded. A similar conceptual misunderstanding even jeopardized the safety of UN personnel in the area as well as the success of their mission.(23) Given the complexity of multilateral decision making and the reluctance of governments to send a conspicuous number of troops, UNPROFOR mandates were compiled in the wishful thinking that peace keeping and peace enforcement lie on the same continuum and that it is possible to move incrementally from one to the other. UNPROFOR was therefore increasingly asked to perform peace enforcement tasks alongside its original peacekeeping mission without abandoning it. On the contrary, the two philosophies are mutually incompatible and separated by a discrete interval. While peacekeeping is based on impartiality and passive use of force, peace enforcement relies on identifying a culprit and using force actively. Once either of these lines is crossed, it is impossible to r evert to the impartiality and passivity needed for peacekeeping. Peacekeeping required a scattered and non-threatening deployment which rendered the blue berets vulnerable and hostage in case they were perceived as combatants. It is for this reason, and also because of the insufficient reinforcement, that UNPROFOR troops were helpless even though their mandate was continuously extended to include more ambitious tasks, from escorting humanitarian convoys to protecting safe areas to rolling back Serb aggression. All UN commanders in Sarajevo -Mackenzie, Morillon, Briquemont, Rose and Smith- have been accused of being pro-Serb and of rewarding aggression. However, it was not their personal opinions, but the structural conditions in which UNPROFOR was operating which determined their behaviour. With insufficient resources to carry out all its missions, UNPROFOR was asked to perform a number of humanitarian functions, including the delivery of supplies to enclaves and other besieged areas. It clearly follows that, since the UN troops did not have the capability to impose its presence throughout Bosnia, it required the consent of all the parties in order to cross the various no man's lands. The impartiality of the force was therefore a fundamental prerequisite which could not be restored after being occasionally and casually broken without undermining the whole operation.(24) In the circumstances, the only alternative would have been to switch to a combatant role and to pursue limited enforcement objectives with the limited forces available. However, such a decision would have meant the suspension of all humanitarian tasks in the areas which UNPROFOR was simply unable to control. It was in fact estimated that the enforcement of even a single humanitarian corridor from the Adriatic to Sarajevo, forgetting all other areas, would have entailed five times the number of troops under UNPROFOR's command. Although the frustration of helplessly watching gross violations of human rights is understandable, only the reinforcement of UNPROFOR beyond the willingness of troop-contributing countries could have altered substantially the situation. UNPROFOR was therefore paradoxically employed not to stop the illegal use of force, but to render it more acceptable by alleviating humanitarian suffering. Although humanitarian concerns are certainly worthwhile, Western actions fell victim to a perverse kind of circularity. Since something had to be done, UNPROFOR was sent. However, since UNPROFOR was hostage to the will of the parties, not enough could be done. It is for this reason that, hiding behind UNPROFOR's humanitarian role, the "international community" abdicated to the parties its strategic role. The Bosnian Serbs -and to some extent the Bosnian Croats- wanted to retain their initial gains long enough to consolidate them and to present the "international community" with a fait accompli. It is for this reason that they did not launch a decisive attack on the Muslim enclaves until 1995 and reverted to a mediaeval siege tactic instead. The Bosnian Muslims on the other hand wanted an outside intervention to correct the military imbalance. The "international community" -in a way- helped both to attain their aims instead of pursuing its own objective. By delaying a decisive intervention for three years, it allowed the Serbs to build up their gains. By intervening in 1995, it changed the military balance and -as the government in Sarajevo wanted- it made the outcome contingent upon an outside presence. The Causes of Peace Only when the "international community" learned from these various mistakes and gradually approached a rational strategy balancing ends and available means did the intervention become effective and peace within reach. Firstly, governments increasingly took responsibilities on their own shoulder rather than buck passing them to international organizations. In 1994, the Contact Group was established between the five major powers involved -the United States, Russia, Germany, France and the United Kingdom- reducing the cumbersome decision making process within the EU, then within NATO, then within the UN. As an effect, the United States -and Russia to a lesser extent- became entangled in peace making and could no longer sit back and criticize the European proposals weakening them in the process as had been the case with the Vance-Owen plan and the EU Action Plan. Eventually, this process culminated in American direct commitment with operation Deliberate Force first and with IFOR-SFOR after the peace was signed. At the same time, Russia's concerns were to some extent internalized in the decision-making process and allowed for defusion of East-West tension. As a byproduct of a more responsible and united stance, sufficient pressure was exercised on Muslims and Croats by their most important sponsors -America and Germany respectively- to abandon conflict between each other and to form the Muslim-Croat confederation which simplified the war and made its resolution more viable. Similarly, international relations with Belgrade improved as its main sponsor -Russia- moved increasingly closer to the West. Secondly, the goals became more realistic. The commitment to a united and multiethnic Bosnia was maintained, but sufficient guarantees were increasingly given to the independence of the various communities. From the Vance-Owen Peace Plan -which envisaged 10 cantons not allowing territorial continuity for the three parties- the "international community" passed to the Invincible Plan and the EU Action Plan -which allowed for territorial continuity and required the Bosnian Serbs to withdraw from less territory than in the Vance-Own plan- and finally to the Dayton agreement -which recognized the Serb entity as a distinct unit and endorsed the ethnic cleansing which had taken place in Eastern Bosnia as late as in the Summer of 1995. As pointed out earlier, the irony was that while the "international community" refused to implement the Vance-Owen plan on the grounds that it was too unjust as it allowed the Bosnian Serbs to retain some of their war gains, it was forced in the end to implement -after two more years of sufferings- an even less just peace as the portion allocated to Serbs had increased from 43% in 1993 to 49% in 1995. Thirdly, more pressure was put on the Bosnian Serbs. On the one hand, Pale was increasingly isolated both from Belgrade, which was becoming increasingly reluctant to face an uncertain war which was wrecking its economy because of international sanctions, and from the Croatian Serb republic in Knin, which was attacked and destroyed by Croatian troops in 1995 without tangible international condemnation. On the other hand, multinational troops became increasingly more assertive against the recalcitrant Serbs. Initially, force was threatened to obtain specific tactical objectives, such as the lifting of the siege on a particular town. Then, tactical retaliation ensued not only on the Serb forces involved in the particular issue at hand but also on other units as we ll. Finally, a strategic air campaign was launched in 1995 which effectively crippled the Bosnian Serbs' capacity to continue the war. These three processes -increased coordination, less ambitious objectives and more assertive means- managed to close the gap between capabilities and expectations and therefore represent the causes of peace in Bosnia. Despite the war-weariness of three years of war, the parties could not in fact find a spontaneous agreement and only the application of superior force -both on the ground where the Croat army was crucial for a successful offensive in Central and Northern Bosnia and on the air where NATO planes destroyed the Bosnian Serbs' command, control and communications network- was capable of achieving peace. However, these processes did not emerge unequivocally nor suddenly and it is therefore possible to divide the history of intervention in Bosnia in three stages: from the beginning of the war in 1992 to the Vance-Owen Peace Plan and its failure in the Spring of 1993; the period of the three compromise proposals: the Invincible package, the EU Action Plan and the Contact Group proposal; and the phase leading to the end of the war and to the Dayton peace accords in 1995. Phase I: From the Outbreak of Hostilities to the VOPP The Bosnian war was an accident waiting to happen ever since Yugoslavia had started to break up in December 1990, when Slovenia had decided to seek its independence. As commentators warned, the complex multiethnic composition of the republic -44% Muslim, 33% Serb and 17% Croat- was bound to create problems if Yugoslavia was going to be reorganized along ethnic entities. When the fighting broke out in Slovenia in June 1991 and in Croatia in August 1991, the "international community" became immediately involved and was therefore already present on the scene when the Bosnian war erupted in April 1992. Furthermore, a rapid process of institutional selection had already place by which NATO was excluded from the start because of American reluctance to be drawn into what it defined as a "European" problem and the CSCE, which was the first organization involved, soon abdicated its role because its consensual rules gave to Serb-controlled Yugoslavia a veto power which was used to bloc multilateral procedures. The Slovenian cease-fire agreement at Brioni was therefore brokered by the European Community while the Croatian truce signed in January 1992 needed UN sponsorship as it involved the deployment of peacekeepers in the disputed so-called pink-zones or UN Protected Areas temporarily occupied by the Croatian Serbs. The joint EC-UN management of the crisis -which was then used as a reference model for at least the first two years of the war- was therefore already established before the fighting begun. With the benefit of hindsight, it is thus legitimate to ask why the "international community" did not resort to preventive deployments in Bosnia in order to deter an outbreak of ethnic fighting. The reason is simply the unavailability of resources since the UN was already in dire straits in finding the troops necessary to protect the pink-zones.(25) A more serious charge concerns the reason why the EC decided to extend recognition to Bosnia after it had decided -under German pressure- to grant it to Slovenia and Croatia.(26) At the Maastricht summit, the EC had in fact invited applications for recognition of former republics in December 1991, and the Bosnian government had applied calling a referendum on independence in the Spring. Given the fact that the Muslims and Croats did not wish to live in a rump-Yugoslavia dominated by Serbs and that the Serbs did not want to stay in a Bosnian republic in which they were a minority, the referendum could be seen as a detonator. Nevertheless, the process of deconstruction of Yugoslavia was already under way and the recognition issue must therefore be seen as a way of supporting one or the other of the factions rather than as a cause of conflict itself. Withholding recognition would not have averted conflict, but it would merely have helped the Serbs who were dominating the collapsing Belgrade Federal government and army. Both if one believes that the Yugoslav conflict is the result of the defrosting of ancient ethnic hatreds or if one attributes responsibilities to the former communist elites in Belgrade for attempting to regain legitimacy through Serb hypernationalism, by the time the first shots were fired in the Summer of 1991, it was already too late to stop the degenerative process.(27) In this light, the real initial mistake of the "international community" is not to have acknowledged the principle of secession, as some have argued, because this was done only after full scale violence had already erupted. Rather, the mistake is to have taken as an invariable reference point the old republican demarcation lines, despite the fact that these were merely administrative borders not designed to lead to viable independent entities. The resulting contradiction was that the "international community" allowed for the recognition of republics based on the principle of nationality while ignoring the claims of the national minorities within those republics, as for example Serbs in the Krajna and Eastern Bosnia, or as Albanian Muslims in Kosovo. In Lord Owe n's words: "It is true that there could have been a total accommodation of Serb demands, but to rule out any discussion or opportunity for compromise in order to head off war was an extraordinary decision. My view has always been that to have stuck unyieldingly to the internal boundaries of the six republics [...] was a folly greater than that of recognition itself".(28) In other words, this meant setting very high standards indeed for international intervention since recognition granted to various entities the right to be protected, while the principle of immutable internal frontiers rendered that protection extremely difficult because it carved out republics of dubious viability given the presence of sizeable minorities hostile to independence. An early attempt to moderate this dangerous process, carried out by EC mediator Lord Carrington, involving a proposed constitution for Bosnia constructed around three ethnic cantons, was rejected by the Sarajevo government. The referendum on Bosnian independence was therefore carried out at the end of February, the Muslim-Croat majority voting in favour and the Serb minority boycotting the polls. After the vote, the EC recognized Bosnia as an independent state on April 7th. The Bosnian Serbs, who had founded the self-styled Republika Sprska in January, responded with full-scale violence. They were favoured by the initial military balance also because the Belgrade-led Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) -which had agreed with UN envoy Cyrus Vance to retreat from Croatia and Bosnia- left 50000 men, most of its heavy equipment and its command structure behind to fight alongside the Bosnian Serbs. The offensive was remarkably successful and soon 70% of Bosnian territory was in Serbian hands, while the siege of Sarajevo begun. In the Summer, the war assumed a particularly brutal character as the Bosnian Serbs, in order to promote the security of the areas they had occupied and to acquire a stronger hand at the negotiating table, begun a deliberate policy of terrorizing the Muslims and Croats under their control with concentration camps, mass rapes and summary executions. The idea was to produce a fait accompli and to obtain an ethnically pure region which could then secede from Bosnia and join a greater Serbia. The "international community" responded to the escalation in a variety of ways. In May, sanctions were imposed on rump Yugoslavia (Former Republic of Yugoslavia or FRY) because of the JNA's role in the Bosnian Serb offensive. In July, 1100 troops of the United Nations Protection Force in Former Yugoslavia (UNPROFOR) were dispatched to protect Sarajevo airport and ensure that air supplies broke the Serbian siege. Soon, because of the impending risk of famine, these troops were also asked to support humanitarian operations coordinated by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). At the end of August, the London Conference on the Former Yugoslavia established a series of principles to act as the basis for a settlement which was not to reward aggression and ethnic cleansing safeguarding Bosnia's pre-war multiethnic character. In October, the UN Security Council barred military flights over Bosnia. Although these measures would probably have had an impact as preventive steps -and in fact they proved effective in influencing Belgrade, which was not an active combatant- they proved to be wholly inadequate in the violent situation which was unfolding, especially given the patent lack of military capabilities. In particular, the sanctions and the no-fly zone (NFZ) were systematically broken given the lack of enforcement capabilities. This sent the wrong signal to the combatants, namely that the "international community" was not ready to risk blood and treasure to impose a settlement. Furthermore, the enlargement of UNPROFOR's mandate from the defense of Sarajevo airport to the support of UNHCR activities fundamentally affected its philosophy as humanitarian convoys had to pass through the lines of all combatants and therefore required their consent, undermining their ability to deter. Furthermore, UNPROFOR involvement with UNHCR meant that at times the blue berets had to "endorse" ethnic cleansing by facilitating the flow of refugees. However, the alternative would have been a humanitarian disaster. Apart from assigning multilateral troops to hopelessly difficult tasks given their scarce resources, the "international community" also devolved responsibilities from governments to set up an aseptic multilateral forum, the International Conference on Former Yugoslavia (ICFY) under the joint chairmanship of Cyrus Vance for the UN and David Owen for the EC. Unlike governments, the ICFY could not couple its diplomatic mission with military clout to implement eventual agreements. In this light, the ICFY was an interesting experiment in institutional engineering, but it allowed states to dodge fundamental decisions in the crucial initial phase of the war. The co-chairmen diligently presented the Vance-Owen Peace Plan (VOPP) in January 1993, which respected the principle of the London Conference by preserving Bosnia as a truly unified state. The plan established a single entity with international legal personality divided into ten cantons endowed with large autonomy. The cantons were designed to enclose a majority of one of the three ethnic communities, each of which was to control three cantons, with a special status for Sarajevo. The plan was a compromise, but it was also the last attempt to preserve the inter-ethnic quality of pre-war Bosnia as the various cantons were displayed in a patchwork. Above all, the three Serbian cantons were not contiguous and would have therefore required cooperation with the Musli ms in a post-war period. On the other hand, the Bosnian Serbs were allowed to retain some of their war gains but would have had to withdraw from 27% of Bosnian territory, reducing their share to 43%. Despite the acceptance of the plan by the Bosnian Croats and by Serbia's president Slobodan Milosevic -who, after winning the elections against the pro-Western prime minister Milan Panic, had moved to a more moderate stance in the hope of reducing Serbia's diplomatic and economic isolation- the plan fell victim to the lack of unity on the part of the "international community". In particular, even though the plan required the Bosnian Serbs to withdraw from much of their war gains although they had not been defeated on the ground, the VOPP was inhibited by American criticisms that it rewarded aggression. Since the VOPP required large number of troops for its complex implementation, US skepticism was a very serious blow. Furthermore, Washington proposed for the first time its highly controversial policy of "lift and strike" and encouraged the Sarajevo government to delay acceptance in order to obtain a more favourable map. The "lift and strike" proposal angered the European Union, which wanted to preserve the safety of its personnel on the ground which would have become vulnerable to Serb retaliation and because it undermined the VOPP. Also Russia was extremely alarmed by the idea of lifting the embargo and its pro-Serbian stance dramatically emerged when The Times uncovered a flow of arms from Russia to the Bosnian Serbs in March. A full-blown crisis was barely avoided when America seemed to repudiate its muscular proposal for a very modest Joint Action Programme (JAP) which reiterated the intention of finding a negotiated solution acceptable to all parties, including the Bosnian Serbs. The Europeans reluctantly agreed to the JAP in fear of provoking an open transatlantic rift. A superficial unity was regained when both America and Russia decided to send their envoys -Reginald Bartholemew and Vitalj Churkin- to the ICFY. Nevertheless, the VOPP was effectively dead, closing the first phase of international involvement in the Bosnian war. This phase was characterized by EC leadership in the attempts to manage the crisis with UN assistance, with the US and Russia not always constructively in the background. This phase was also characterized by the widest gap between ends and means. The VOPP was the most ambitious plan amongst the ones proposed in preserving the multi-ethnic character of the republic at the root of the conflict while the physical capabilities employed were hopelessly insufficient to force the parties to accept the sacrifices that the plan required --[cont]-- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End Kris DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. ======================================================================== Archives Available at: http://home.ease.lsoft.com/archives/CTRL.html http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ======================================================================== To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
