NEWS ANALYSIS : Why a War in Bosnia? Because Its Many Armies Want to Fight : Balkans: The country’s ethnic hatreds are matched by multiple combatants. They seem more intent on avenging affronts than protecting the citizens.

Armies ricochet in hatred across the dusty, bleeding countryside of the Balkans. They fight, they kill, they burn. Then they are gone, trailed by streamers of disconsolate new refugees.

Who are they?

Their victims know all too well.

But to most outsiders, they are as obscure as their cause.

In Bosnia-Herzegovina, in this bloody summer, you can’t tell the armies without a scare card.

Six armies are fighting in Bosnia. Most are also poised for combat in neighboring Croatia.

It can seem as if all creeds are present: Orthodox Christians, Muslims and Roman Catholics. They have their own armies, their own goals, their own chaplains, their own perpetrators of the practice of “ethnic cleansing.”

The ethnic armies are monitored--but hardly ever contained--by international armed forces of three distinct elements, each with its own difficult mandate. In the wings, a 10th force, the army of the rump Yugoslavia, could rewrite the entire tortured Balkan equation with the roll of a tank.

At heart, war rocks Bosnia and now has spilled into the Serb-held Krajina region of Croatia because the ethnic armies want to fight. Peace is not an idea whose time has come to the shards of what once was Yugoslavia. Neither, the international community is learning, is it a concept that can be imposed without great loss to the peacemakers.

What is remarkable to outsiders is that the goals of governments, civilians and soldiers alike here are often more wed to avenging yesterday’s slights than to addressing tomorrow’s community needs.

And so the armies fight.

The Bosnian Serbs

In the midst, the best known and most notorious is the Bosnian Serb Army--the most blatant aggressor and most flagrant practitioner of terror.

Bosnian Serb forces, the mailed fist of a secessionist government based in the Bosnian mountain town of Pale whose civilian and military leaders are under international indictment for war crimes, control 70% of multiethnic Bosnia.

Known in the acronymic world of international war-speak as the BSA, the Bosnian Serb Army is a major beneficiary of troops, training and equipment from the days when the former Yugoslav federation had one of the biggest armies in Europe. The Bosnian government claims--notwithstanding denials from Belgrade, the Serbian and Yugoslav capital--that Serbia continues to dispatch a steady stream of men and materiel to the Bosnian Serb Army.

Before the breakup of the Yugoslav federation four years ago, Serbs made up only a third of the national population but two-thirds of the officers in the armed forces. Weapons and know-how that were a legacy of the federal Yugoslav army enabled rebel Serb communities to seize nearly three-quarters of Bosnia and a third of Croatia.

Today, with veteran officers, around 80,000 troops and more than 300 tanks and 700 artillery pieces, the Bosnian Serb Army is proving more than a match for the lightly armed and inexperienced forces fielded by the Muslim-led but secular Bosnian government. Yet, analysts say, the nationalist Serbs are badly stretched, with more territory to defend than force to defend it.

The Croatian Serbs

The Bosnian Serbs, who besiege the Bosnian capital of Sarajevo and last month captured the Muslim enclaves of Srebrenica and Zepa, are allied with their separatist cousin Serbs in the Krajina region of Croatia, which adjoins Bosnia. The two forces have promised to fight the invasion of Krajina by Croatia and are appealing for the support of the rump Yugoslavia, now made up of Serbia and Montenegro.

For their part, the Croatian Serbs, who control about a fifth of Croatian territory in the Krajina region, field a well-equipped army of 50,000 troops led by a general sent from Belgrade. From its self-declared capital in the town of Knin, the ARSK, as the Krajina Serb army is known, dreams of a Greater Serbia extending from Krajina through Bosnia and into the Serbian heartland.

The Rebel Muslims

In its battle against Croats and Muslims, the ARSK has become the unlikely godfather to a force of 5,000 rebel Muslims in northwestern Bosnia, led by a chicken magnate turned warlord. He is named Fikret Abdic and he wants to declare his own state in a slice of northern Bosnia adjoining Croatia.

Last month, Bosnian Serbs, Krajina Serbs and Abdic forces all attacked the rural Muslim region of Bihac in northwestern Bosnia. This week, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization warned it would use air strikes against any attacks on the town of Bihac, the capital of the Muslim pocket and a U.N.-declared “safe area.”

The Bosnian Army

Initially, the rebel Serbs and Abdic made good progress in Bihac against its defenders, the 5th Corps of the Bosnian government army.

The Bosnian government army, with its 150,000 troops, has performed poorly in the field since the war for Yugoslav splinters began. Its offensive to lift the siege of Sarajevo spluttered this spring and its defense of Srebrenica, where about 40,000 people were subsequently displaced, was lackluster, U.N. military sources say.

In Sarajevo, the Bosnians say they have been betrayed by an international community that promised to protect them and hamstrung by an international arms embargo that did not allow them to keep pace with their enemies. This week, in a move that faces presidential veto, the U.S. Congress voted to unilaterally lift the American embargo on the sale of arms to Bosnia.

The Bosnian Croats

Serbian forces have had it mostly their way on the battlefield. But the seeming Bosnian Serb-Krajina Serb-Abdic juggernaut that was advancing in Bihac has been stung recently by a mixed force of Croatian army troops and Bosnian Croat forces, which are known as the HVO.

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The Bosnian Croats, who look to Zagreb for leadership, can field about 50,000 troops and 100 tanks, U.N. analysts say. In the past, they have fought Muslims in Bosnia but now are valuable allies against the Serb enemy as part of a shaky Muslim-Croat federation formed last year under American aegis.

The Croatian Army

Hard-pressed, the Bosnians can also count on another new ally, following a military accord reached last month with neighboring Croatia, whose army is termed the HV.

Soon after the signing, HV and HVO units totaling 10,000 or so troops entered Bosnia with Bosnian government permission to successfully relieve pressure on Bihac. They captured the Serbian towns of Bosansko Grahovo and Glamoc. This cut supply lines to Knin from Serb-controlled areas of Bosnia.

While the United States and European powers chose not to see arms embargo violations, Roman Catholic Croatia is thought to have spent $1 billion last year modernizing its forces.

Today, its army of 115,000 troops, including 65,000 conscripts, boasts more than 200 tanks and 1,000 artillery pieces and is backed by an air force with modern jets and attack helicopters, by U.N. estimate.

Perched on Croatia’s disputed eastern border, the army of the rump Yugoslavia is a shadow of its former self but still the biggest on the block in the Balkans. Belgrade’s army, known as the JNA, has about 125,000 troops with more than 600 tanks, 1,500 pieces of artillery and almost 200 attack aircraft.

The worst nightmare here is that Croatia and the rump Yugoslavia stumble into war. The toll that has convulsed Bosnia so far would pale by comparison, analysts warn.

More than 40,000 U.N. peacekeepers in blue helmets and white vehicles from 38 countries observe, monitor and report, and protect humanitarian aid convoys.

Last month, there were 19,172 members of the U.N. peace forces in Bosnia and 12,425 in Croatia. The only American troops are 554 of 1,108 assigned to a U.N. unit in the so-far peaceful former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, far to the south of current travails.

In Bosnia, where there is no peace to keep, there are U.N. soldiers from, among other countries, Spain and Canada, Turkey and Malaysia. Lightly armed and potential hostages, they offer a reassuring presence. But their role is often humiliating. When the chips are down, the peacekeepers are pushed aside; often their guns are stolen.

Sterner stuff is found in the 12,500-member rapid-reaction force being assembled by Britain, France and the Netherlands. Formally, the force is under U.N. sponsorship as a supplement to protect other U.N. troops. But the reaction force wears its own uniforms and carries a big stick. It has a base in central Bosnia, strong artillery positions around Sarajevo and a penchant for vigorous action.

The third international element, and the only one in which Americans are dominant, is the NATO air force, at bases in Italy and on carriers in the Adriatic Sea. About half of 180 planes from 12 countries are American. Their job is to carry out air strikes and provide close air support at the request of U.N. military officials on the ground.

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Who’s Who in the Balkans

Six armies are now fighting in Bosnia. Most of them are also likely to become involved in a new war for the Krajina area of neighboring Croatia. In addition, three international forces figure in the Balkans, and rump Yugoslavia exerts a powerful off-stage influence.

Bosnian Serb Army: About 80,000 troops whose excesses have drawn international condemnation. Controls 70% of Bosnia from its capital at Pale. Well-equipped, it besieges Sarajevo, recently captured Muslim enclaves of Srebrenica and Zepa, is attacking Bosnian government forces in the Bihac pocket.

Army of West Bosnia: Around 5,000 men. Force of rebel Muslims under warlord Fikret Abdic, who wants to create his own state inside Bosnia. Supported by the Krajina Serbs. Has been attacking Bihac from the north.

Army of the Republic of Serb Krajina: Around 50,000 troops. Consists of rebellious Serbs who occupy around a fifth of Croatia. Crossed into Bosnia to join Bosnian Serbs in attacking Bihac.

Army of Bosnia-Herzegovina: About 150,000 troops. The forces of the mostly Muslim government in Sarajevo. Lightly armed, and on the defensive almost everywhere.

Army of Croatia: Around 115,000 troops. The fast-modernizing army of the Catholic republic, with its capital at Zagreb. Well trained and armed after a $1 billion modernization despite an international arms embargo. Around 100,000 men, including reservists, are currently massed on the border with Krajina.

Croatian Defense Council: Around 50,000 troops. The forces of Croats living in western and central Bosnia who look to Zagreb for leadership. Fought Bosnian government troops until a cease-fire last year and creation of a Bosnian-Croat federation; nominally now part of the federation army.

Sources: Forces estimates from United Nations and International Institute for Strategic Studies; compiled by WILLIAM D. MONTALBANO / Los Angeles Times