Ignore Moscow’s Explosions : NATO must press military effort in Bosnia, despite Russian protests

Among the latest explosions punctuating the Bosnian war are the political ones emanating from Moscow. The Russians are accusing NATO warplanes of unfairly targeting the Bosnian Serbs, their distant Slavic cousins and Orthodox Christian co-religionists. The noise has been sufficient to prompt Washington to send Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott to Moscow to hear it firsthand. What the Russians will hear in turn will be a Western demand that Moscow rein in the Bosnian Serbs, and convince the recalcitrant Serb leaders that their position is worsening.

Moscow is only non-Western member of the Contact Group, the five-nation delegation that has steered the efforts of political conciliation in the nearly four-year-old crisis. But since NATO--finally--unleashed its air power against the Serbs at the start of this month, after a crushing Serbian defeat at the hands of Croatia, Russian influence has taken a decided downturn.

Russia is a long way from Bosnia, and the post-Soviet government has its hands full at home. The relatively small war in Chechnya sapped what elan the military still had. There would be no popular support for Moscow sticking a military paw into Bosnia, despite the agitated complaints from President Boris N. Yeltsin against the use of NATO air power, and the raging of ultranationalists like Vladimir V. Zhirinovsky.

Moscow still can play an important role, however. There is a political plan on the table, a rough outline for postwar political control in Bosnia, agreed to last week by the governments of Bosnia, Croatia and Serbian-led Yugoslavia, whose foreign minister carried the brief for the Bosnian Serbs. It would create within the state of Bosnia two entities, one of Muslims and Croatians and the other of Serbians. It gives the Serbians control of nearly half the Bosnian territory. That’s a deal that Moscow should convince the Serbs to take.

Meanwhile, until Sarajevo is safe, NATO air raids and shelling by the Western Rapid Reaction Force should be continued, and focused on the Serb guns outside the city. The Western powers--and Moscow, if it sees its interests properly--must press home the political deal and stick to their guns.