Extended Bosnia Campaign Carries Risks for West

As NATO air strikes against Bosnian Serb targets around Sarajevo continued in their second week Thursday, analysts were studying the political and military risks of a prolonged alliance campaign in the Balkans.

The potential dangers are considerable.

The air strikes, for example, have already placed major strains on the West’s sensitive relationship with Moscow.

With the attacks stoking deep-seated mistrust of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization among ordinary Russians, President Boris N. Yeltsin on Thursday released his toughest statement to date on the crisis in Bosnia-Herzegovina, warning that Russia may re-evaluate its stance toward the Atlantic alliance if the bombing continues.

“Europe is reverting to a battlefield,” Yeltsin later told Jacques Santer, the visiting European Union Commission president. “This is inadmissible.”

Yeltsin’s comments came a day after the Duma, the lower house of Russia’s Parliament, demanded that Russia withdraw from the North Atlantic Treaty Organization’s Partnership for Peace, a program established to allow the alliance to develop close military and political ties with non-member nations. The program has long been opposed by Russian nationalists as a stalking horse for NATO expansion.

Russian lawmakers are scheduled to hold an emergency session Saturday to debate “the unleashing of war by NATO in the Balkans.” They are expected to ask Yeltsin to sign bills to lift economic sanctions against Serbia and impose them against Croatia.

In an interview, legislator Alexei G. Arbatov, a military affairs expert who has consistently been one of the most pro-Western voices in the Duma, blasted NATO’s “extreme bias” against the Serbs and called the bombing campaign “outrageous.”

“Even devoted liberals and democrats and partisans of good relations with the West like myself will not be able to vote against strong actions by Russia in response,” he said.

*

On Aug. 12, when the Duma voted overwhelmingly in favor of Russia unilaterally lifting sanctions against the Serbs (in response to Congress voting to lift the arms embargo against Bosnia), Arbatov cast the only dissenting vote.

Yeltsin has paid political homage to these concerns but has stopped short of threatening to break Russia’s links with the West. On Thursday, he insisted once again that Russia must not be isolated or excluded from the post-Cold War security architecture.

“How can one imagine pan-European security without Russia’s participation?” Yeltsin asked Santer. “This cannot exist at all.”

In Washington, White House spokesman Mike McCurry denied that the Russians had been sidelined in U.S.-led efforts to end the Balkan conflict. He called Russia’s contribution “very important” and said the United States has taken note of Yeltsin’s remarks.

But damaging ties with Russia is only one of the potential risks of a prolonged NATO air operation. There is also concern about a possible erosion of Western public support for the air strikes.

A week into the alliance operation, the mood in Western Europe remains uneasy, but there is virtually no organized opposition here to the air strikes.

“We have a very pacifist public, but support here is holding,” commented Lykke Friis, a Copenhagen University political scientist. “People were fed up seeing atrocities every night [on television]. They wanted something done.”

*

Even in Germany, where tens of thousands paraded through the streets four years ago to protest the U.S.-led Persian Gulf War against Iraq, the air attacks have hardly been debated, let alone the object of protest. In part, this is because the country’s pacifist Greens are busy opposing the French nuclear tests. Even the first combat role for the Luftwaffe in half a century has failed to stir public protest.

Despite this calm, however, analysts warn that public backing for strong military action is neither deep nor stable in Western Europe and could shift quickly.

Among other potential dangers:

* The possibility of major accidental damage. A disaster in which a NATO air strike leads to major civilian casualties could dramatically shift public opinion and undercut the diplomatic momentum by creating sympathy for the Bosnian Serbs.

“The public believes this is supposed to be a quick strike where no one gets hurt and everyone gets back to talking,” summed up Paul Cornish, a research fellow at the Royal Institute of International Affairs in London. “If it drags on or if there’s civilian collateral damage, it’s going to be a problem.”

* A slide into greater violence. The longer the NATO air campaign lasts against the Serbs, the harder it will be to restrain Bosnian government forces from launching their own attack against a weakened enemy in hopes of making quick military gains ahead of peace negotiations.

* A weakening of alliance solidarity. The decision to launch the air strikes brought the 16 members of the alliance closer than at any time in recent memory; during an informal chat Wednesday, Robert Hunter, the U.S. ambassador to NATO, said internal tensions had “dropped by 90%” since the bombing began. But a prolonged campaign could divide them again.

Well aware of these pitfalls, NATO officials say they are eager to end the campaign as quickly as possible.

“Nobody’s getting queasy yet, but we’re anxious to get this thing wrapped up,” noted one official who declined to be identified. “No one wants to be bombing at Christmas.”

Marshall reported from Brussels and Efron from Moscow.