Is There Any ‘Right’ Bosnia Policy for Clinton?

In the wake of new Bosnian Serb transgressions, President Bill Clinton vowed on Wednesday to “make the Serbs pay a higher price for continued violence so that it will be in their own interest more clearly to return to the negotiating table.” But is it possible for the United States to bomb a way to peace in Bosnia?

The Administration and its critics, who want more intense bombing, are misreading the nature of the challenge in Bosnia. They confuse the diplomatic and military tools of the Cold War with those required to cope with ethnic or religious conflict. Unless the Clinton Administration recognizes this misperception, it will continue to suffer grave diplomatic setbacks. In the Balkans, it may even help to trigger a wider war.

For decades, U.S. leaders have lived with the doctrine of deterrence, particularly valid in cases of interstate conflict. In such conflicts, governments, led by a handful of accountable individuals, negotiate with one another through pressure and persuasion, using the tools of diplomacy, bribery or force. It is assumed the leaders are in control--that is, they calculate the costs and benefits of the use of force. If they judge the price is too high, they avoid the conflict.

It is worth noting that in traditional international conflict, communication among states is straightforward. The designated leaders give orders. Others obey them. National leaders tell their troops to fight or to lay down their arms. The troops obey. This fact dramatically influences international efforts at preventive diplomacy. The United Nations or regional organizations attempt to bring pressure on leaders so they will adopt a conciliatory policy. The efforts may or may not be successful, but there is no doubt where the pressure must be directed. This is the approach Washington is taking toward North Korea.

How different the problem is in civil conflicts in places like Bosnia or Somalia. There, the world is dealing with internal disorder fueled by class, ethnic or religious hatred.

There are several characteristics of such conflicts that make settlement far more difficult. First, the actors are often not rational. Conflicts take place because of deeply rooted hatreds. Leaders may rise up to exploit these hatreds but their leadership resembles that of a man running ahead of a stampeding herd. Even if directing them, he is not controlling them.

Throughout the Bosnian conflict, Belgrade may have supported the conflict but was probably not controlling it. When one cease-fire after another was violated, the West’s response was to conclude that Belgrade had lied. But the more probable culprits were hundreds of local commanders throughout Bosnia.

In the Bosnian conflict, the traditional diplomatic tool of deterrence is unlikely to work because passions rule, not calculation. Leaders are not in charge. Orders are not necessarily obeyed. Each side is ruthless--the Bosnian Serb side particularly so--because each fears that if the other prevails, it will not only suffer, it may be destroyed.

The Bosnian Serbs believe they are in danger of extermination if they are a minority in a Bosnian state dominated by Muslims and Croats. During World War II, such a political arrangement led to a slaughter of Serbs that the “Encyclopedia Britannica” describes as “surpassed (in World War II) in its savagery only by the mass extermination of the Polish Jews.”

This harsh memory of World War II is fueling the current conflict, while the indifference of the West to this history makes a settlement ever more difficult. Thus, the West passively watched as Croatia revived the political symbols of the World War II fascist regime and began to rehabilitate the memory of war criminals who had slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Serbs. It did not press the Bosnian president, Alija Izetbegovic, to repudiate his “Islamic Declaration: A Programme for the Islamization of Muslims and the Muslim People,” in which he spoke of the “incompatibility of Islam with non-Islam systems.”

Croatian and Muslim mistakes, of course, do not justify the murderous conduct of many Bosnian Serb units. Indeed, they are in the process of creating a rival paranoia among the Muslims. But if the outside world wants peace in Bosnia, it cannot just rely on bombs. It must recognize the collective memory of the people.

Just as we would understand hysteria in parts of France, Israel and Poland if Germany began to revive Nazi symbols and name public squares for Adolf Hitler, we have to understand the Serb reaction to events that seem to the outside world harmless rhetorical excess.

The war in Bosnia is thus Chapter Two in a civil struggle that began in World War II. It is so communally rooted that no outside power can expect to determine its course through a combination of threats from the air and the assumptions of deterrence diplomacy. But if deterrence supported by bombing will not work, what will? In civil conflicts, three approaches can--victory, compellence or balance of power.

The world could simply let the Bosnian Serbs bring the conflict to an end. The problem is Bosnian Serb conduct. which has been atrocious. Although they have some historical basis for their fears, the Bosnian Serbs have offended the common decency of most observers.

Under compellence, the world could send ground troops to force the three parties to cease fighting. This could be what the Serbs most fear--but it is also what Americans most resist.

The third option is a balance of power achieved through more fighting by the parties at war. That would call for an end to the arms embargo. The West might also prevent any party from using air power, though it would not itself bomb. This approach, however, runs the risk that the conflict will spin out of control and bring on a Balkan war, or even a conflict, that will draw in Europe’s larger powers. That path led to World War I.

No option is attractive. The last might be the least objectionable if the international community were able to avoid giving the Muslims a blank check, as well as arms. Then the goal would become a settlement short of complete Serb victory but not a continuation of the war to a point that the Muslims themselves could claim victory.

For such an approach to work, the international community would have to bring greater pressure on all sides. It would have to balance the military odds by ending the embargo. But it would also have to balance the political odds by bringing pressure on the Croats and Muslims, even at this late date, to repudiate their more offensive symbolic actions. Even as we armed the Muslims, we would regulate the flow to promote a settlement. We would try to indicate to the Serbs that we want their legitimate interests protected as much as we would want to see the lives of the Muslims and Croats spared. If the Muslims continued losing even with the new arms, we would have to have the courage to concede a Serb victory.

Every effort would be made to work with the Russians rather than against them. It would be better to agree to a partition of Bosnia and unification of the Serbian areas with Serbia--a powerful incentive for all Serbs, provided that the Bosnian Serbs disgorged some of their gains rather than moving to a situation where the U.S. exclusively supported the Muslims and the Russians exclusively supported the Serbs in a civil war. Boris N. Yeltsin’s statement last week critical of Bosnia Serb actions gives hope that some common agenda can be developed.

As we press ahead, we must focus on our main goals. We want to avoid steps that extend the war outside Bosnia. We want to discourage great-power rivalry that evokes memories of pre-World War I. We want to avoid making things worse. Clinton must move carefully.*