Bosnia: Why the United States Should Finish the Job

One of the most important foreign policy issues facing the Congress in the coming months is continued American involvement in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Helping Bosnia to create a viable multi-ethnic, free-market democracy sends a critical message to other would-be “ethnic cleansers” that a repeat of such carnage will not be tolerated elsewhere in Europe. Progress in Bosnia also sends an important signal that America continues to play the leadership role in European security affairs.

Last December, President Clinton announced his decision that the United States should maintain ground troops in an international force that will replace SFOR, whose mandate expires in June. Soon, he will ask the Congress for the funding to support this operation.

Rightly or wrongly, the question of whether U.S. foreign policy at the end of this century is viewed as a success or failure will depend in large part on the success or failure of our policy in Bosnia; and our success in Bosnia depends largely on what we do now.

Six years ago, following the breakup of Yugoslavia, Serbian aggression in neighboring Bosnia sparked a conflict that engulfed the country in genocide and chaos. Hundreds of thousands of Bosnians were raped, tortured, and killed. From the beginning of the conflict, I urged our own government and those of our Western allies to take action to end the atrocities. As early as 1992, I advocated lifting the United Nations arms embargo and conducting air strikes against Bosnian Serb military positions. In the early years of the conflict, however, the United States stayed on the sidelines, leaving it to UNPROFOR, the so-called UN protective force, to try to contain the spread of violence. But in 1995, U.S. policy changed course. U.S. air strikes against Bosnia Serb posts, combined with a Croatian offensive, induced the parties to begin the negotiations that resulted in the Dayton Peace Accords.

Since then, a tenuous peace installed by the Accords - and enforced by NATO-led military forces - has gradually stabilized Bosnia, allowing it to begin rebuilding the political, social, and economic systems necessary if it is eventually to become and remain a multi-ethnic, free market, confederal democracy. This future for Bosnia, however, is far from guaranteed.

Peace in Bosnia Is in the U.S. National Interest

The decision to keep U.S. troops in Bosnia beyond June 1998 is critical to ensuring the success of the Dayton Accords. It also lies squarely in the national self-interest of the United States. The stability of southeastern Europe depends on the ability of the Bosnians, working with the international community, to create a self-sustaining, peaceful, democratic system in their country.

Failure to maintain the peace needed to achieve this goal would inevitably restart the violence that produced the worst bloodletting in Europe since World War II, and would almost certainly ignite the ethnic tinderbox now smoldering in neighboring countries.

Staying the course in Bosnia is also a litmus test of American leadership - in European security in general, and in NATO in particular. It was American military involvement in the fall of 1995 and American diplomatic leadership in crafting the Dayton Accords that ended the carnage in Bosnia and created the stability necessary to begin creating an integrated, multiethnic nation capable of sustaining democracy. Should NATO fail in its response to Bosnia, the United States will have difficulty arguing for the continued existence of a security alliance that appears incapable of responding effectively to this kind of regional conflict.

The Objectives of Dayton

The task in Bosnia is complex, involving political and economic, as well as military elements. It will take several more years to complete. Our commitment to Bosnia, however, is not open-ended. Instead of linking U.S. withdrawal to an artificial deadline, which would turn our troops into lame ducks as a given date approaches, we have linked withdrawal to the completion of clearly defined criteria. These include:

• • Military stability - the establishment of military parity between the Muslim-Croat Federation and the Republika Srpska

• • Police and judicial reform

• • Functioning national government and other national...