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player ready...Conventional wisdom about Bosnia lasts about a week. The latest is this: If only we had bombed the Serbs three years ago the way we are bombing them now, the whole bloody war could have been prevented. This bit of guilty, wishful thinking is based on two subsidiary pieces of wisdom: (1) The Serbs are sissies, not the fierce mountain fighters of World War II reputation, and (2) sustained bombing will bring them to heel.
If we are to have any rational Bosnia policy, we had better start by clearing away the underbrush of illusion. The first, and worst, is that the Serbs, as revealed by their humiliating defeat at the hands of Croatia last month, are pushovers. This view is as naive as the view it replaced, that the Serbs are invincible guerrilla fighters.
Of course the Serbs are beatable. They always have been. And they were indeed driven out of the Krajina region of Croatia last month in disarray. But let’s remember what drove them out: a disciplined, 100,000-man, Croatian army of invasion, four years in preparation.
Those who oppose Western intervention in Bosnia never denied that the Serbs could be driven out of Krajina or Bosnia or anywhere else. They claimed only that it would take not bluffs or threats or just air power, but a serious ground intervention involving a massive number of troops–precisely what happened in Krajina. Who is for sending 100,000 Americans to liberate Serb-held Bosnia?
No need, say the interventionists. Bombing alone will do it. Well, sustained bombing, like the three-day assault of last week (Aug. 30- Sept. 1), is certainly an improvement over the absurd, worse than useless, pinprick air attacks of the last year and a half.
Nonetheless the idea that sustained bombing will bring real results is as yet but a hope. And it would have had no hope of working if not for the Croatian defeat of the Krajina Serbs. That was the crucial turning point in the war. That is what broke the string of Serbian victories going back to 1991. That is what has demoralized the Serbs and made them realize that they might soon be bargaining from weakness, not strength.
NATO bombing is a useful adjunct for concentrating Serb minds on the wisdom of compromise. But alone, three years ago, against Serbs on the march? Not a chance.
There is a chance now, however, because U.S. policy on Bosnia is finally on track. Its most important feature is an end to the moralism that had characterized it since Clinton’s inauguration. When the Vance-Owen peace plan was offered up in February 1993, the Clinton administration frowned on the map that gave the Muslims and Croats only 57 percent of Bosnia. Too stingy to the victims, sniffed Clinton, who then stood by watching as the victims lost (until Krajina) more and more ground. It is now three years later and the Muslims and Croats will be lucky to get the 51 percent now being offered in the latest American peace plan.
Our negotiator, Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke, has said that all sides now agree on the 51-49 split. The only question, the difficult question, is which pieces of territory will constitute the 51 and the 49. The administration has now wisely made clear that it does not care a fig who gets which pieces. The United States has no particular interest or investment in any map, so long as it gets the parties to a settlement.
The other element of the new Clinton policy is its apparent recognition of the futility of diplomacy not backed by force, real force. The tactical pinprick appears finally to have given way to the strategic air campaign. (Appears, because one can never predict where this president will be in two weeks.)
It might work. Not because the Serbs are sissies, but because, after Krajina, they must for the first time seriously contemplate the possibility that they could lose this war. NATO bombing increases that possibility.
Which is why it should continue until (a) the Serbs have made concessions at the bargaining table that we deem significant enough to make a deal possible or (b) we run out of serious targets. The bombing should not end merely when the Serbs remove their heavy weapons from around Sarajevo. After all, they did that last year, then brought them back.
We should not mistake the ostensible objective of this campaign for the real one. Teh Sarajevo market massacre was the excuse. The real reason was to make the newly pliable Serbs even more pliable at the bargaining table.
The purpose of bombing is not to express moral outrage but to achieve strategic goals. The goal here is to end the fighting. That would be the highest moral achievement of all.