NEWS ANALYSIS : Overhaul Needed for U.N. to Keep Areas ‘Safe’ : Bosnia: Peacekeepers will have to go to war with rebel Serbs to protect Muslim enclaves, some say.

Emboldened by their swift takeover of the Srebrenica “safe area,” Bosnian Serbs will now be tempted to mop up the rest of eastern Bosnia-Herzegovina, and there seems to be little the West can or will do to stop them, analysts say.

United Nations officials, stinging from their most humiliating defeat in the 39-month war, said Wednesday that they were examining what they might do differently to better safeguard the remaining enclaves--especially the most vulnerable eastern pockets of Zepa and Gorazde, home to the last Muslim presence in eastern Bosnia.

But the basic impotence of the U.N. mission--clearer now than ever before--means these areas could easily face the same fate as Srebrenica. Only a radical, costly overhaul of the mission involving the deployment of thousands of international troops could shift the balance, U.N. officials say.

And no one here expects that.

“Given the number of troops available and the force on the ground, the level of protection we can give [the enclaves] is very limited,” U.N. military official Lt. Col. Gary Coward said.

Defending Srebrenica would have required the U.N. forces--in this case a mere 450 lightly armed Dutch--to engage in a kind of combat for which peacekeepers are not prepared, against a much larger, battle-hardened army ruthlessly committed to a nationalistic cause. “To change from peacekeepers to peace enforcers requires not only time but the political will,” Coward said. “It would require a sea change in our posture, in the way we are configured and in our equipment.”

In short, it would mean making the decision to go to war with the Bosnian Serbs.

The fall of Srebrenica has military, political and dire psychological consequences for the people of Bosnia.

On the battlefield, the loss of the enclaves would free up Bosnian Serb troops who have held positions surrounding and enclosing each pocket. These troops could be moved and regrouped to fight off a simmering government offensive launched last month to break the siege of Sarajevo, or they could be used to step up attacks on the capital.

If all the eastern enclaves fall into Bosnian Serb hands, international diplomatic efforts to end the war will be thrown for a loop. The current, most active channel of negotiations is the five-nation Contact Group--consisting of the United States, Russia, Britain, France and Germany. The group sets as its basis for peace a map partitioning Bosnia among the warring parties. The map would immediately become moot.

Capturing Srebrenica gives momentum to the Bosnian Serbs, while Bosnian Muslims are now terrified of a domino effect in which one enclave falls after the other in rapid, bloody succession.

Bosnian Serb troop movements and shelling have been reported around Zepa and Gorazde in recent days. The Bosnian government says it has received reports of enemy troops preparing attacks from two sides of Zepa, although there has been no U.N. confirmation of this.

“I’m afraid the scenario for Zepa and Gorazde is the same as Srebrenica,” Prime Minister Haris Silajdzic said.

More than 75,000 mostly Muslim refugees and residents live in the two pockets. Zepa, despite its people’s legendary toughness, would not pose much of a military challenge to the nationalist Serbs. It is just nine miles southwest of Srebrenica, geographically close to Serbia and “guarded” by 90 Ukrainian peacekeepers.

Gorazde is another matter, military analysts say. The Bosnian government army has built up within the enclave in the past year and is now armed with some heavy weapons thanks, in part, to a weapons factory that is up and running. This may not be enough to stop the Bosnian Serbs, but they would have a battle on their hands, the analysts say.

Many here thought that defense of a safe area was the logical job for the much-touted rapid-reaction force, a 12,500-member British, French and Dutch outfit established by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the European Union to give more muscle to peacekeepers.

But U.N. officials said the force is still not ready and is too “heavy”--not airborne--to be useful in the enclaves, which can only be reached by crossing Bosnian Serb-held land.

Of the force’s three components, a 3,000-strong multinational brigade under a French general is in the area and training, but members of a 4,700-man British 24th Air Mobile brigade are only just arriving in the Balkans and won’t be ready until the end of the month, U.N. officials say.

Until an adequate supply of helicopters is available, the rapid-reaction force would have to reach the remote enclaves over land, including nationalist Serb-held territory.

“It would require the consent of the Bosnian Serbs to reach the enclaves, or they [the force] would have to attempt it without [Serb] consent,” Coward said. “Given the distance involved, it would be a very risky operation.”

In its showdown with the United Nations over Srebrenica, the Bosnian Serb army followed its classic pattern of testing, pushing, each time getting away with more and more. Where NATO air strikes actually intimidated the Bosnian Serbs when they tried to occupy the Gorazde enclave last year, NATO now seems feeble. The rebel Serbs have learned how to call the NATO bluff by taking hostages and threatening to kill them or by massing refugees. It seems to work every time and gives the West less and less leverage to influence Bosnian Serbs’ behavior.

“The Bosnian Serbs will not look the same at NATO,” said a U.N. official. “They know now what backs it up--not a lot.”