In less than a decade of Post-Cold War history, the "New World Order" more often resembles a "New World Disorder."1 The end of the Cold War and the waning threat of nuclear holocaust brought, perhaps naively, expectations of world peace and prosperity. Ironically, the decades of the Cold War provided a certain degree of stability in the world acutely absent since. The competition between Washington and Moscow attached importance to any conflict around the world. The threat that any one conflict, no matter how remote, could draw in the two superpowers and their nuclear arsenals evoked a national interest everywhere. At the same time, this meant that any conflict eventually became a negotiation between East and West, both arguably rational, and both realizing the extreme potential cost of escalation.
The passing of the age of rival superpowers left a power vacuum eagerly filled by regional imperialists, while America hoped to worry less about international affairs and concentrate on the perceived neglect of domestic issues during the Cold War. Congratulating ourselves on a job well done, America gave a collective sigh of relief - after all, Washington prevailed over the now-defunct 'evil empire', and it was time to triumphantly ride off into the sunset. National interests would now be limited to what could be understood as a direct threat to America.
The Gulf War provided one such example of vital American interests and of the overwhelming power of the lone remaining superpower, when sufficiently aroused to action. The Iraqi threat to stability in the Middle East and subsequent menace to the crucial oil supply brought a swift and certain response by the United Nations, but led politically and militarily by the United States. This successful action, as did the Korean War forty years earlier, demonstrated the constructive use of the UN to build a coalition of nations against a clear aggressor. In both instances, the United States led the UN to action - and not surprisingly, both the Korean and Gulf Wars threatened U.S. national interests.
However, there are also failures, marked by the lack of leadership provided by the United States, in particular: Bosnia. From 1991-1995, the UN pursued a well-intentioned but ineffectual policy of peacekeeping in the Balkans which had neither peace to keep, nor a mandate to achieve peace. Only with the eventual exertion of American leadership and use of decisive force, in the form of NATO airstrikes, did the UN and the United States attempt to reclaim legitimacy by forcing negotiation, culminating in the Dayton Peace Accords in November 1995.
The UN attempted but failed to bring peace to the Balkans without the active participation of the United States. The history of the UN response to the Balkan conflict, and the struggle to find a solution, starts with Western European powers eager to show their independence from Washington, and America readily consenting to let them try.
As the Eastern bloc collapsed in 1989-1991 and tensions grew within Yugoslavia, the Bush Administration expounded a vague policy which both supported self-determination in particular, but at the same time called for Yugoslavian unity. During the 12 February 1991 Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee hearings, James Dobbins, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs, testified that the U.S. policy toward Yugoslavia supported democracy, dialogue, human rights, market reforms, and unity.2 Senators Dole and Bidden criticized the administration's policy, claiming a contradiction between promoting democracy and market reforms while supporting unity under the Yugoslav Communist government. Later on 21 June 1991, Secretary of State James Baker spoke in Belgrade in which he described the Slovenian and Croatian independence movements as "illegal and illegitimate" and that the US would not use military force in Yugoslavia.3 Milosovic interpreted these remarks as U.S. tolerance towards the maintaining Yugoslavia through force.4 The basic policy assumption was that European stability depended on unity within former East bloc states, including the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia. At this time, the US did not want responsibility for affairs in Bosnia and encouraged Western Europe to take the lead. During the spring, US attention focused on the Southern Balkans to preserve peace between Albanians and Kosovo Serbs as well as to ease tensions between Macedonia and Greece. The US gave the impression that Germany should take an active role in the northern Balkans while the US would take care of the southern Balkans.5
In a 21 September speech to the UN, Bush continued to advocate general themes of globalism without assigning a dominant or even leading role to the United States. However, the failed August coup in Russia and the growing tensions in Yugoslavia prompted the administration to abandon support for 'unity' without clearly defining any new policy toward Eastern Europe. Washington was unsure of what to do, instead adopting a 'wait and see' approach.6 In the coming months, the US policy increasingly shifted to a passive neo-isolationism, in which America deferred leadership to Western European powers in regard to Yugoslavia.
Although originally supportive of European leadership, the US did not like the way Europe handled the Yugoslavia situation. To the annoyance of the administration, Germany filled the leadership void by aggressively supporting Slovenian independence in early 1992, and by spring pulled Europe and the US into reluctant recognition of the former Yugoslav republics. Hoping for stability, on 10 March 19927 Baker pressured other European powers to recognize Bosnian independence, yet there was no plan to support Bosnia against Serb aggression either politically or militarily. After the United States recognized the new republics of Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina in April 1992, Baker condemned Serb aggression but plainly stated that the administration did not support military intervention. On 30 May, the United Nations approved economic sanctions against the new Yugoslavia, consisting of Serbia and Montenegro, followed up on 17 November with U.N. Security Council authorization of a naval blockade to enforce the embargo.8 Although the sanctions on were similar to those imposed on Iraq, no real threat of military force matched the economic measures.9 In the meantime, the arms embargo, imposed on all of the former Yugoslavia since September 1991, kept the Bosnians defenseless against the Serb onslaught.10 The arms embargo sounded good on paper - no weapons, no fighting - but failed because in reality it was not impartial, depriving Bosnians of weapons while the Serbs received weapons from the Yugoslav army under directions from Milosovic.11
From July 1991 to March 1992, the US hoped Europe would contain the Yugoslavia situation and did not strive to play a leading role.12 As the Serbs advanced and committed atrocities, the US continued to rule out unilateral military intervention, instead vaguely supporting a multi-national peace-keeping force, although at the time there was no peace to enforce. Despite diplomatic recognition only months before, in July 1992 Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney described the Balkan War as an 'internal civil war.'13
Within the administration, disagreement about what to do paralyzed the US policy. Force was not considered an option. Bush led the US into the Gulf War, one of the most one-sided military operations in recent history. However, the Gulf War was clear cut in ways Bosnia was cloudy. The Gulf War was clearly an international conflict with Iraq as the "bad guy" and Kuwait as the victim. Yugoslavia did not answer the questions as easily: was this an international conflict between new republics, or a civil war? While the Serbs were the aggressors, Croatia blatantly violated the rights of Serbs as well.14 A second issue was the lack of vital American interests in Bosnia. The Gulf War fought Iraq on the grounds of international law, but over grounds bubbling with oil. As long as the Balkan conflict remained within the confines of Yugoslavia's borders, finding vital American interests became difficult. The clear moral right-and-wrong of the Gulf War and the vital interests provided the political will to use force, but so did the situation. The Arabian desert was a conventional battlefield in which overwhelming numerical and technological advantage assured victory. The Pentagon fought the Gulf War with all its requirements: clear goals, overwhelming force, an "exit strategy" to get out once the job was done, and prospects for minimal causalities.15 In contrast, Bosnia brought mention of the dreaded "quagmire". Visions of Vietnam haunt America, and the last thing Bush wanted before the 1992 presidential election was to involve the US in anything that could cloud his glowing foreign policy record from the Gulf War.
By August, public outcry in response to the Serbian concentration camps prompted the administration to adopt tougher rhetoric, although the only policy changes included sending observers, tightening sanctions, and supporting a war crimes tribunal.16 Once again, there was no coherent plan as to how to stop the fighting. At West Point in January 1993, in one of his last speeches in public office, Bush continued to maintain that the US policy in Yugoslavia was "to contain the fighting, protect the humanitarian effort, and deny Serbia the fruits of aggression."17 Without any actual plan, Bush passed the reigns of a befuddled US foreign policy to the recently-elected Clinton administration.
Although Clinton campaigned in support of a tougher foreign policy against the Serbs, the only tangible difference during 1993 was a more combative rhetoric struck hollow by inaction. Clinton's first task was to respond to the proposed Vance-Owen Plan, but because of his campaign rhetoric Clinton could not support what amounted to the partitioning of Bosnia. During the 1992 presidential campaign, Clinton had criticized Bush for not addressing the humanitarian crisis in Bosnia. Clinton followed up this rhetoric in early 1993 after less than a month in office, stating that continued U.S. inaction in Bosnia "would be to give up American leadership."18 Instead of the Vance-Owen Plan, Clinton advocated what he called a "lift and strike" policy of lifting the arms embargo and using air strikes to limit Serb aggression. However, France and Britain rejected "lift and strike" by claiming it would endanger their troops on the ground. Ironically, Europe opposed Clinton's attempt to create peace in the Balkans not on the grounds that it would escalate fighting, although that was debated, but because such action would likely bring Serb reprisals against peace-keeping forces, which, in turn, had no peace to keep. The peace-keeping forces actually made the problem worse by handicapping NATO policies and tacitly legitimizing Serb gains won through blatant aggression.19 Disagreements between the US, France, and Britain plagued European policy during 1993. Yet another hurdle was the tenuous position of Russian President Boris Yeltsin, who faced a national referendum on 25 April 1993 and, since Russia was a traditional ally of Serbia, could not afford less than hard-line pro-Serb rhetoric.20 In February, not a single member of the Russian Duma supported airstrikes against Serbs. Deputy Yevgeny Ambartsumov, considered a Russian moderate, expressed concern that any NATO action against Serbs would only prop up the position of Russian ultra-nationalists, and went as far as to suggest the lifting of the economic sanctions against Serbia.21 However, Yeltsin became more conciliatory two days after his victory in the 25 April referendum. Although unwilling to support or condone military intervention, Yeltsin warned the Serbs that, "The Russian Federation will not patronize those who resist the will of the world community. Both Serbian nationalists and any other participants in the conflict who rely on force will be confronted with a tough rebuff by the United Nations."22
As the fighting continued in Bosnia on the battlefield and New York at the United Nations, the 'moral tragedy' of Yugoslavia gradually transformed into a 'hopeless quagmire'23, marked by Secretary of State Warren Christopher's testimony before the House of Representatives that 'the US had no moral obligation to intervene to protect Bosnia's Muslims because all three sides shared responsibility', at odds with testimony in February which had blamed Serbia alone.24 By the summer of 1993, less than six months into his administration, Clinton began to sound the muddled policy of the previous administration he had campaigned against. Bosnia was, once again, an essentially European problem and the US would follow, not lead, a yet-undecided European solution.25
The United Nations remained immobilized from disagreements on the Security Council, leading to inconsistent policies and a lack of bold initiatives. Instead, U.N. policies in Bosnia tended to be reactive to the most blatant Serb aggression, rather than proactive toward a solution. The Serbs also demonstrated an uncanny ability to know how far they could push before inciting sustained U.N. military response. On 5 February 1994, a mortar attack on Sarejevo killed 60 people. In response, NATO issued an ultimatum giving the Serbs ten days to withdraw artillery from around Sarejevo or suffer airstrikes. On 17 February the Serbs agreed to withdraw on the condition that Russian troops join the peacekeepers, and by the 20th withdrawing in time to avoid NATO airstrikes. Then in April, Serbs attacked Gorazde, and actually suffer two airstrikes before withdrawing in time to meet another NATO ultimatum.26 Sporadic fighting continued throughout 1994, then in October Bosnian Muslims in Bihac attacked the Serbs surrounding the town. The Serbs soon counter-attacked, revealing once again that no real solution had been achieved, and NATO and the U.N. once again found themselves reacting to aggression, culminating with the largest NATO action to date, on 21 November 1994, when NATO air power attacked Serb airfields around Bihac. In response, the Serbs took 55 Canadian peace-keepers hostage, demonstrating once and for all the liability of peace-keepers on the ground. NATO responded with more airstrikes, but the mountainous geography of the region made it difficult to accurately bomb Serb targets, a far cry from the heralded accuracy enjoyed by U.S. bombings of Iraqi targets in the Gulf War. Finally, in December, the mediation team led by Jimmy Carter produced a cease-fire which continued, although with sporadic fighting, throughout the spring of 1995.27
Finally, in the fall of 1995, NATO threats, and delivery, of air strikes forced the Serbs to negotiate for peace. The economic sanctions eventually hurt Serbia enough that it was worthwhile to Milosovic to force peace upon the Bosnian Serbs. Perhaps we must cynically consider that the Bosnian War became unacceptable, not because of the atrocities, but due to the damage inflicted upon NATO by the disagreements over Bosnia. For our own interests, the problem of Bosnia needed to go away. However, future peace is not assured and the scars of four years of war still leave us asking why - why did we allow it to last so long, why did we even allow the killing to begin? It is difficult to accept that it was not worth our trouble, so we must repeat the question again and again. The hundreds of thousands of refugees bear testimony to our collective failure, if we choose to accept moral guilt left by strangers we have never met, and the unmarked graves of untold thousands who we never will. Moral indignation was not enough; the post-Holocaust mantra "never again" gave way to a post-Cold War "not my problem." The indecision of what to do, and how to do it, resulted in bickering over who gets to hold the hose and how to use it while the house burned.
America failed to provide leadership because, without critical national interests demanding immediate action, the issue fell into political maneuvering. In 1994 before the congressional elections, Senator Dole pushed for the unilateral lifting of the arms embargo, but the Congressional leaders on foreign affairs refused, claiming such action would endanger peacekeepers, split NATO, and weaken the legitimacy of the Iraq embargo, all without any promise of military gain.28
Moral indignation is not sufficient motivation for international action. Only national interests can spur a coherent policy to force peace between hostile parties. In the cases of Bosnia, Cambodia, and Rwanda, the moral indignation was high but national self-interests were few, leading to slow, disjointed, and largely ineffective intervention, if at all. Contrast Kuwait where, albeit with fewer instances of genocide and moral indignation, ample national self-interests based on oil quickly led to forceful and unified opposition, with a powerful adversary, Iraq, decisively conquered. Clear policies must be developed, either within or without the UN, to deal with situations where the moral impact is not clothed in national self-interest besides the ethical mandate of humanitarianism.
There is hope. The United States continues to demonstrate that when national interests are at stake, problems can be solved, and even averted before they arise. U.S. policy in the Southern Balkans provides one such clear example. Macedonia, like Bosnia, lies at a cross-roads. Ethnic divisions separate the majority Slavs from minority Albanians, and religious differences tug the region between Eastern Orthodox and Islam. However, in spite of hostility from Greece and Serbia, as well as anarchy in neighboring Albania, Macedonia remains stable. The reason is the vital U.S. national interests in keeping peace between Turkey and Greece. Any destabilization of Macedonia could topple the first domino toward destabilization in the region. In response, the U.S. balances delicate internal and external Macedonian diplomacy, as well as stationing 500 marines in a unilateral action outside U.N. and NATO control. Macedonia has remained stable largely due to proactive U.S. policy, demonstrating the capability to sustain peace in volatile situations.29
Hopefully the historical debate on why Yugoslavia disintegrated into a humanitarian catastrophe will do more than just point out failure. We must assess the past to learn for the future. Unfortunately, the tentative conclusion of this study does not present an immediate answer, but as the question is difficult, so will be the search for an answer. Asking the question, "Why did we let this happen?", is not enough; it should provide a step toward answering the question, "How do we prevent this from ever happening again?" Once this question is answered, then we can truly say, "Never Again." Such a mantra should not be, cannot be, relegated to mere hope, or good intentions, or a profession of doubt that war is of the past. Rwanda, Zaire, the Kashmir Valley, Tajikistan, and countless other conflicts, currently seldom reported because we have lost interest, all bear witness that war still happens, atrocities still happen, and atrocities will continue to happen unless we decide to prevent them. This study should serve as a basis for discussion on how to solve the problem, how we can say, "Never Again", as a statement of fact. The ugly alternative is to decide, and consciously acknowledge, that averting atrocities, in and of itself, is not in our national interests and remains, ultimately, unworthy of the cost.
Blair Hedges
Spring 1997
Betts, Richard. "The Delusion of Impartial Intervention," Foreign Affairs, 73, No. 6, November/December 1994.
Cohen, Lenard. Broken Bonds: Yugoslavia's disintegration and Balkan politics in Transition. Westview Press, Boulder, Colorado, 1995.
Danchev, Alex and Thomas Halverson, Eds. International Perspectives on the Yugoslav Conflict. Macmillan Press Ltd., London, 1996.
Glenny, Misha. "Heading Off War in the Southern Balkans," Foreign Affairs, 74, No. 3, May/June 1995.
Lukic, Reneo and Allen Lynch. Europe from the Balkans to the Urals: The Disintegration of Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union. Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1996.
Luttwak, Edward. "Toward Post-Heroic Warfare," Foreign Affairs, 74, No. 3, May/June 1995.
McLean, Denis. "Peace Operations and Common Sense: Replacing Rhetoric with Realism," United States Institute for Peace, Washington DC, 1996. www.usip.org
The New York Times on the Web. "Chronology: 1990-1995." Bosnia: Uncertain Paths to Peace. http://www.nytimes.com/specials/bosnia/context/apchrono.html (1 May 1997)
Sells, Michael. The Bridge Betrayed: Religion and Genocide in Bosnia. University of California Press, Berkley, 1996.
Woodward, Susan. Balkan tragedy : chaos and dissolution after the Cold War. Brookings Institution, Washington, D.C., 1995.
Zimmerman, Warren. "Yugoslavia: 1989-1996" U.S. and Russian Policymaking with Respect to Use of Force. http://www.rand.org/publications/CF/CF129/CF-129.chapter11.html (1 May 1997).
1 Also the title of a book by Kenneth Jowitt, New World Disorder: The
Leninist extinction, University California Press, Berkley, 1992.
2 Lukic 310.
3 Woodward, 161.
4 Lukic, 311.
5 Woodward, 159-160.
6 Lukic, 313.
7 Lukic, 315.
8 The New York Times on the Web, http://www.nytimes.com/specials/bosnia/context/apchrono.html
10 The New York Times on the Web, http://www.nytimes.com/specials/bosnia/context/apchrono.html
11 Zimmerman.
12 Zimmerman.
13 Lukic, 317.
14 Zimmerman.
15 Zimmerman.
16 Lukic, 318.
17 Lukic, 319.
18 Zimmerman.
19 Woodward, 306. Many observations regarding the problems of peace-keeping are drawn from Ryan Krech's paper on the United Nations. See also Betts, "The Delusion of Impartial Intervention".
20 Lukic, 322.
21 The Christian Science Monitor, "Russia Vow to Side with Long-Allied Serbs", 11 February 1993.
22 The Christian Science Monitor, "Yeltsin Stands With West, Warning Serbs of `Rebuff'", 28 April 1993.
23 Lukic, 321.
24 Lukic, 323.
25 Lukic, 324.
26 The New York Times on the Web, http://www.nytimes.com/specials/bosnia/context/apchrono.html
27 The New York Times on the Web, http://www.nytimes.com/specials/bosnia/context/apchrono.html
28 Zimmerman.
29 Glenny, "Heading Off War in the Southern Balkans"