“Bosnia and American Foreign Policy: Finishing the Job”
Bosnia has significance far beyond the borders of the former Yugoslavia. It has turned out to be one of the most serious challenges for America’s foreign policy in the post cold war era. It has produced five years of debate in Congress. It is the centerpiece of any discussion about American military intervention around the world. In short, it has become a critical test of our foreign policy.
Rightly or wrongly, whether U.S. foreign policy in this era is viewed as a success or failure will depend in large part on the success or failure of our policy in Bosnia. So we better get it right.
At the outset, let me state the obvious: I have cared deeply about Bosnia for a long time, since the beginning of the war. Some would say I bring “historical baggage” to the issue. I care not just because of the strategic implications — as Bosnia goes, so goes NATO — but for humanitarian reasons.
Appalled by the naked Serbian aggression and genocidal attacks on Bosnian civilians, in September 1992 I called for a “lift and strike” policy. That was shorthand for lifting the illegal and immoral arms embargo against the Bosnian government, which was the victim of aggression, and launching air strikes against the Bosnian Serb aggressors.
My views were not widely shared at that time. As the war escalated — with massacres, “ethnic cleansing,” and rapes — a few other senators, including Bob Dole and Joe Lieberman, joined my call for action. But it took more than two years of failed diplomacy — and a quarter-million killed and two million homeless — before we finally came around to the “lift and strike” policy in the fall of 1995.
Guess what? The policy worked! The Serbian bullies sued for peace, and under the leadership of ambassador Dick Holbrooke we were able to hammer out the Dayton accords in November 1995. I’m leaving out the details — all the peace plans that didn’t work — but in a nutshell that’s what happened.
Honest people may disagree about the compromises that were made at Dayton. I think the accords accomplished as much as we could have hoped for, given the obvious reluctance of our government, and of our European allies, to get more deeply involved militarily.
And I wish I could say that even the modest results envisioned in Dayton had been achieved. But they have not. It’s true that conditions today are far better than the bloody mayhem that existed during the war. The killing has stopped. But we are only halfway to the full peace envisioned in the Dayton accords. The question is: “How do we get the rest of the way? How do we finish the job?
Having returned six weeks ago from my third trip to Bosnia, I am certainly aware of the contradictions, the ambiguities, the ironies, and the uncertainties of Bosnia today. Bosnia and Herzegovina might be labeled the classical land of “yes, but.”
Yes, there has been ongoing conflict among the various religious groups in Bosnia — the Orthodox Serbs, the Catholic Croats, and the Muslim South Slavs — for centuries.
But, for most of the time, these conflicts were kept under control, usually by an outside hegemon: first the Ottoman Turks, then the Austrian Habsburg, and more recently the communists under President Tito.
When violence broke out in the spring of 1992, a cosmopolitan society existed in much of Bosnia. Sarajevo, for example, had one of the highest rates of inter-marriage in all of Europe. What killed the “live and let live” character of Sarajevo were unscrupulous, ultra-nationalist politicians, many of whom were searching for a new “-ism” to replace communism, an ideology that had been discredited.
Yes, there were elements of civil war in Bosnia, but there was also blatant aggression from Serbia across an internationally recognized border. In fact, it was through the overwhelming advantage of the weaponry, the salaries, and the support services furnished by Slobodan Miloševi that the Bosnian Serbs perpetrated their systematic slaughter.
The “yes, but” dichotomy persists in Bosnia today. Yes there has been considerable progress in Bosnia since Dayton, but a huge amount remains to be accomplished.
Yes the fifty percent unemployment rate in the Bosnian Croat federation is huge, but it has come down from ninety percent in only one year. Incidentally, it still hovers at ninety percent in the Republika Srpska, which has been denied all but a trickle of international aid because it has refused to implement Dayton.
Yes, Bosnian Serbs regularly try to paralyze many of the institutions of national government created at Dayton, but the parliament has begun to meet, and even the three-member presidency shows signs of life.
Yes, the nationalist parties representing the Serbs, Muslims, and Croat are narrow-minded and corrupt, and in many ways resemble the characteristics of the old Yugoslav league of communists, which they supplanted.
But even in this cynical Bosnian political arena there is hope. In last month’s municipal elections a non-nationalist, multi-ethnic coalition triumphed in Tuzla, one of Bosnia’s largest cities.
A non-nationalist opposition also exists in the Republika Srpska. I met with three of its leaders in Banja Luka. They are confident that they — not Karad i and his thugs from Pale, not President Plavši — are the wave of the future.
Yes, more than two-thirds of the indicted war criminals remain at large — an international disgrace. But, ladies and gentlemen, just last week, under strong pressure from Washington, Croatia and the Bosnian Croat surrendered ten indicted Bosnian Croat to the Hague.
Virtually every observer of Bosnia believes that Dayton cannot be implemented until indicted war criminals are indicted and transported to the international tribunal at the Hague to stand trial.
The other major precondition for progress in Bosnia is the return of refugees and displaced persons that was mandated by the Dayton accords.
Yes, this will be the most difficult of all the Dayton tasks to accomplish. But, contrary to popular belief, even here there has been noteworthy progress. As many as 150,000 refugees have returned to Bosnia from abroad, and another 160,000 persons who were displaced within Bosnia have returned to their homes.
Most of these have returned to areas where their ethnic group is in the majority, but an “open cities” program has induced several towns — even a half-dozen villages in the Republika Srpska — to accept returnees from other groups in return for economic assistance.
On my last trip, I visited one of these sites in a suburb of Sarajevo occupied by the Bosnian Serbs during the war and returned to the federation by Dayton. The U.S. Agency for International Development and its subcontractor, Catholic Relief Services, are helping returning refugees to rebuild their homes. I was moved by the selfless dedication of the young Americans and Europeans working at this important task.
Finally let me address the issue of security in Bosnia today. In a country that has recently suffered some of the worst atrocities of the twentieth century, the citizens need physical security. For the Muslims and Croats, who were forced into an alliance in 1994 by the United States, this means guaranteeing their ability to deter renewed Serbian aggression in the future.
Toward that end, the “train and equip” program, led by retired U.S. military officers, is molding a unified force under joint command. We have supplied over three hundred million dollars worth of equipment. I visited the main training center in Had i i, near Sarajevo, and met with Muslims and Croats who are studying and training together.
On the local level, in the federation, multi-ethnic police forces are being formed. Believe it or not, joint Muslim-Croat police units are now patrolling Mostar, scene of some of the worst warfare in 1993 and early 1994. So there is progress here as well.
In citing these examples of progress, I do not want to suggest for a moment that conditions in the federation, let alone in the Republika Srpska, are rosy. They are not. But those to whom I spoke in Bosnia agreed on two things. First, significant progress has been made in the federation. Second, it is absolutely essential for the international military force to remain in Bosnia after June 1998 to guarantee that progress will continue.
So what should our policy be in Bosnia in the coming months? I believe we should redouble the efforts we are already making. Yes, I would like to see a multi-ethnic, multi-religious society re-emerge like the one that existed in Sarajevo before the war. But, I fear that too much blood has been shed and too many atrocities committed for that to happen in the near future.
More realistic, and politically feasible, is the development of a multi-ethnic state. Most likely that will mean a confederation with a good degree of de-centralization in all but foreign policy and defense.
Am I sure that we can achieve the goal of a democratic, decentralized Bosnia? No, I am not. Last year I would have rated the odds at about one in twenty. As a result of the progress made in the last twelve months, I would now put the odds of success at about fifty-fifty, if we stay the course.
But fifty-fifty looks good compared to the probable outcome if we followed the advice of those now calling for a re-negotiation of Dayton and a formal partition of Bosnia. “Snatching defeat from the jaws of victory” might be a slight exaggeration, but this policy prescription tends in that direction.
Those who favor partition seem unaware of the progress already made in Bosnia and blind to the calamities that would result from scrapping Dayton. Warfare would almost certainly erupt again, with even higher casualties, given the new military balance.
But renewed fighting would only be part of the tragedy. The vile ethnic cleansers and the war criminals would see their policies vindicated. Europe’s remaining anti-democratic rulers like Serbia’s Miloševi and Belarus’s Lukashenka would be emboldened.
Moreover, if we pulled the plug on Bosnia just as international efforts are beginning to bear fruit, we could kiss goodbye American leadership in NATO. In fact, the plan to enlarge NATO, I predict, would fail in the Senate.
And soon thereafter, even the future of NATO itself would be cast in doubt. After all, if Bosnia is the prototypical European crisis of the twenty-first century — and if NATO is unable to solve Bosnia — then why bother spending billions of dollars on NATO every year?
So, leaving Bosnia would be a fool’s paradise. Just as certainly as night follows day, an American abdication of responsibility and withdrawal from Bosnia would eventually cost us more in blood and treasure than we would ever spend in the current course.
Let me sum up: the tragedy in Bosnia and Herzegovina, although complex, ultimately boils down to old-fashioned oppression. It was preventable, and, with the requisite American and European steadfastness, it is solvable.
By continuing to lead the effort to put Bosnia and Herzegovina back on its feet and guarantee its citizens a chance to lead productive lives, the United States will be both living up to its ideals and furthering its national self-interest.
Thank you.