Balkans need new U.S. policy

By James A. Baker III

NEW YORK: The most recent crisis in Bosnia, precipitated by the Bosnian Serb's seizure of UN peacekeepers, has ended -- predictably -- with a Serb victory.

Despite tough, though empty, talk from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and ritual condemnation by the Group of Seven leaders at the Halifax summit, the crisis has been resolved on Serbian terms -- with a UN abandonment of its promise to protect Sarajevo from artillery bombardment.

It is time for a complete reassessment of U.S. policy toward Bosnia aimed at developing a strategy that stops the drift toward chaos in the Balkans.

The first step to such a policy begins with a sober assessment of U.S national interests. Does the United States have an interest in stopping the humanitarian nightmare in Bosnia? Without a doubt. Does the United States have an interest in supporting the territorial integrity of Bosnia? Of course. But are our interests in either sufficiently vital to warrant the introduction of U.S. ground forces into a potential military quagmire? The answer is clearly no -- as it has been from the beginning.

The United States cannot be, and should not be expected to be, the policeman of the world, ready and willing, for example, to sacrifice American lives to prevent ethnic cleansing in Bosnia or genocide in Rwanda.

All interests, to put it bluntly, are not equal. This is a fact too often ignored by the armchair generals who profess expertise in the current uproar over Bosnia, though not by the American people -- who are rightly skeptical of the Clinton administration's flirtation with involvement in a Bosnia ground war.

The United States does, however, have one true vital interest in the Bosnian conflict: containing it. Should the war spread to neighboring countries, it risks a conflagration that could draw in Serbia, Macedonia, Alabania, Bulgaria, Greece and even Turkey. A broader war in the Balkans would create general instability in Europe. The United States has a compelling interest in averting such an outcome, because history teaches us that the United States cannot avoid involvement in broader European Conflicts.

What would it take to move from chaos to containment and make a containment strategy work?

As a first step, UN peacekeepers should be withdrawn from Bosnia. The UN peacekeeping mission there has not been the unmitigated disaster that some observers say it is. For example, the presence of UN peacekeepers has clearly helped reduce civilian casualties from the horrifying levels of 1991 and 1992.

But the Bosnian Serb seizure of peacekeepers has revealed the extent their utility has diminished. Today UN peacekeepers have become unwitting tools of Serbian aggression. The Bosnian Serbs, in total disregard of international law, have seized peacekeepers before. And they will do so again, unless peacekeepers are removed.

The United States should be prepared to assist in their extraction though not, as President Bill Clinton has suggested, in "reconfiguring" or "strengthening" them. It is time for the United Nations to cut its losses in Bosnia -- not reinforce failure. And it is time for the United States to think twice about embarking on a policy of creeping escalation without clearly defined objectives or exit strategy.

The rescue of downed pilot Scott O'Grady is a reminder that bad U.S. policy can put good American lives at risk. How could we sent our O'Grady to enforce a "no-fly zone" without knowing about hostile missile batteries or under rules of engagement that did not permit our forces to fire on those batteries?

The international arms embargo must also be lifted. Like the UN peacekeeping force, the embargo is an instrument that has outlived what usefulness it might once have possessed. Conceived as a measure to lower the overall level of violence in the area, the embargo has instead strengthened the hands of the Bosnian Serbs and their masters in Belgrade. By diminishing the Bosnian government's ability to defend itself, the embargo encourages Serbian aggression. Like the UN peacekeepers, the embargo should go.

But not by unilateral U.S action. To do so in the face of opposition by allies risks the further fracturing of an already divided NATO. Moreover, unilateral U.S. action would represent an open invitation for other countries, notably France and Russia, to ignore similar UN sanctions against Iraq. More is at stake here than any idealistic commitment to multilateralism. The United States has hard-nosed interest in maintaining NATO and isolating Iraq. Both would be undermined by a unilateral lifting of the embargo.

Would our Western allies and Russia be prepared to work with us in the United Nations to lift the embargo? I believe they would, but only in the context of a full withdrawal of UN peacekeepers and a broader strategy of containment.

Of course, any policy of containing the conflict in Bosnia must be backed up by force if it is to be credible. And only NATO has the military capacity to provide that force. That means the United States must take the lead. And we should. European leadership has hailed. But that also means no more empty U.S. threats. Our resolve must match our rhetoric or containment and deterrence will not work. But if we are serious and committed, containment can work.

This means, at a minimum, the placement of a substantial NATO contingent in Macedonia -- likeliest flash point for the spread of war. These troops should be heavily armed, supported by air power and under NATO, not UN, command and control. There are already 500 U.S. soldiers in Macedonia acting as monitors. They should be heavily reinforced as part of an expanded NATO force.

The presence of heavily armed NATO troops on the ground would permit the alliance to counter decisively any Serbian move into Macedonia or a spread of violence from the contested Serbian province of Kosovo. It would also deter other countries from adventurism in Macedonia, as well as lessen the likelihood of ethnic conflict in Macedonia itself.

Clearly, a containment policy would require a redefinition of NATO's mission to permit military action anywhere under circumstances that threaten peace and stability in Europe. That redefinition is long overdue. But if NATO's mission is not to act to prevent general war in southeastern Europe, one is justified in asking, four years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, what is its mission?

A policy of containment would clearly not satisfy critics who would like the United States either to wash its hands of the Balkans entirely or wade waist-deep into the Bosnian morass. But it would give Bosnians a fighting chance, without involving the United States on the ground in a situation where it is too late for deterrence and the possibility of enormous casualties is high. Even more important, a containment strategy would directly promote our real interest in the region: Prevention of a broader Balkan war and, with it, general instability in Europe.

The latest round of Bosnian Serb outrage and feeble Western response has prompted comparison with the appeasement of Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. The analogy is misleading. Unlike Hitler's Germany, Serbia does not threaten to dominate the continent. Even a "Greater Serbia," however evil its provenance, would be a relatively weak and poor country on Europe's periphery.

The better comparison is 1914, not 1938. In 1914, a single act in an unimportant country -- the assassination of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo -- spread to become a continent- wide conflict. An admittedly lesser, though similar, risk exists today. Hand wringing and finger pointing will do nothing to avert it. Nor will a continuation of the current Western policy in the Balkans. Only a substantial containment strategy, resolutely led by the United States and an overwhelming NATO force, can do so.

James A. Barker III served as U.S. secretary of state from 1989 to 1992.

-- The Yomiuri Daily