Time to Admit Defeat in Bosnia? : Perhaps, but even now air power could change the outcome

If Secretary of Defense William J. Perry means to declare victory on behalf of Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and his Serb allies in Croatia and Bosnia, then he should do so plainly and soon.

“The Serbs have occupied 70% of (Bosnia-Herzegovina),” Perry said on Sunday. “There’s no prospect, as I see it, of the Muslims’ winning that back.” His comments came as Croatian and Bosnian Serbs closed in on Bihac, a U.N.-declared “safe area” in northwest Bosnia-Herzegovina that the peace plan had assigned to the Muslims. Could NATO air strikes yet save Bihac? Perry didn’t think so: “Air strikes cannot determine the outcome of the ground combat.”

ALL-IMPORTANT EMBARGO: Perry may be mistaken about the impact of air strikes in defense of Bihac. Eleventh-hour NATO aerial intervention was spectacularly effective in bringing a Serb assault on Sarajevo to a sudden halt. Bosnia has always been prepared to provide the ground troops for its own defense if only the West would lift the embargo that prevents it from arming those troops. NATO air intervention against strategic Serb targets coupled with an active arming of the Bosnian troops for their own defense could turn back Serb aggression even now.

The stopping of that aggression would send a clear message worldwide: Borders may not be revised by force; the world’s major military powers will not permit that to happen. Even at this late time, concerted action could halt the aggression and send such a message. Bob Dole, soon to be the Senate majority leader, has flown to Brussels to press this point home.

If the Kansas Republican fails, however, and if the opposite message is to be sent, then the transmission should be delayed no longer. The Western allies may differ bitterly over why the U.N. mission in the Balkans has been a failure, but there is no quarreling with the fact that U.N. forces are coming under steadily escalating Serb attack. Hundreds of UNPROFOR troops are in Serb detention, and some of the most brutal and insulting attacks have been directed against the British UNPROFOR contingent. If there is to be no military intervention, the first order of business must be an expedited UNPROFOR evacuation.

On the diplomatic front, the “Contact Group” of four European powers plus the United States has hastily drafted a new peace plan that allows the Serbs not just to keep much or all of the conquered territory but also to annex it to Serbia proper. As a sweetener, economic sanctions on Serbia are to be further lightened.

Tragically, this appeasement will only whet the Serb appetite for further conquest. One recalls that the opening attack of the Balkans conflict was directed not against Bosnia but against Slovenia. Slovenia, Croatia, Kosovo and Macedonia can count on no more support than Bosnia has had. Whatever the Contact Group says, its actions by now have made it clear that Serb arms will dictate the political and military future in the Balkans.

A DREADFUL MESSAGE: The United Nations’ presence has failed to deter Serb aggression. It has succeeded in deterring only NATO intervention. What falls with Bihac is the ability of the United Nations to offer itself as a credible alternative to bloody local conflict anywhere on the globe. Outside Europe, the United Nations does not have a NATO to call on. The message of Bosnia is that even with the support of a NATO, the United Nations is utterly ineffective.

Sen. Dole warns that “the President is going to have to stop relying on the United Nations and start looking at whether we are going to be a part of NATO.” Stern words, but Dole merely anticipates the conclusion that will be drawn worldwide, not least on the Russian right wing, which will take the victory of Slobodan Milosevic as an invitation to deal with the West with similar “firmness.” The fall of Bosnia to the Serbs may yet be seen as, far more than the Gulf War, the defining military event of the post-Cold War era.