‘Preponderant Power’
2000; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 55; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1177/002070200005500102
ISSN2052-465X
Autores Tópico(s)Global Peace and Security Dynamics
ResumoTHE COLLAPSE OF SOVIET POWER in the late 1980s resulted in strategic realignments on a grand scale. The reorientation of the transatlantic alliance and the emergence of ethnonationalist conflicts in Europe were two key developments prompted by the demise of the cold war. They most prominently intersected in the wars that raged in the Balkans for five of the eight years between 1991 and 1999.The air campaign of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) and the subsequent deployment of peacekeepers in Kosovo made 1999 in many respects the most dramatic year of the decade. In Bosnia the failure of traditional peacekeeping in a non-traditional setting exposed European inability to deal with a crisis on its doorsteps. That failure subsequently made the outlines of a new transatlantic alliance gradually more visible. In Kosovo the new doctrine, as yet unarticulated, was put into action with some success.What do developments in the Balkans reveal about the contours of NATO's reorientation?(f.1) And what are the consequences for the future of regional stability in southeast Europe? To answer these questions, it is necessary to take a closer look at the nature of Western failure in Bosnia, for Bosnia foreshadowed Kosovo. But it is the difference between the two wars that is ultimately more instructive.BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA, 1992-1995Western failure in the Bosnian war was systematic and consistent rather than accidental and haphazard. Both Europeans and Americans shared the position that forceful intervention in the Balkans - either to support humanitarian operations or to end the bloodshed - was too costly. If senior administration officials let it be known on background that 'one of the lessons of Bosnia is not to let the Europeans struggle alone without [United States] direction,'(f.2) it should also be noted that the Americans found it rather convenient for the Europeans to struggle alone. When the United States finally did get involved in early 1993, it was to kill off a peace plan that might have stopped the slaughter on terms similar to, perhaps even better than, those of the Dayton accords of November 1995.Only dramatic strategic reversals in the summer of 1995 and domestic pressures from the approaching presidential campaign in the United States altered the equation; the humanitarian variable had remained fairly constant through 42 months of savage warfare. Western obfuscation over Bosnia was a policy choice rather than a diplomatic, military, or intelligence breakdown, unaltered by any humanitarian concern (such as might have been propelled by the slaughter at Srebrenica or the marketplace massacre at Sarajevo or the death of 79 teenagers in Tuzla, all of which occurred within a few months in 1995). Rather, the scale tipped when the Croats, strengthened by United States support and, since 1994, formally allied with the Bosnian government, grew restless and decided to retake territories held by the Serbs in Krajina and western Bosnia. Croatian and Bosnian government forces started a sweeping offensive, eventually assisted by NATO airstrikes, while the Bosnian Serbs overran two government-held enclaves in the east, which in turn made United Nations peacekeepers less vulnerable to Serb retaliation. This lowered the cost of intervention dramatically. What from the perspective of Paris, London, and Washington might have been desirable but too costly had suddenly become desirable and feasible, particularly as the tipping of the balance could be assisted by air power alone without involving any NATO ground troops. It became obvious that balancing the warring factions was indeed the game the West played when the United States ambassador to Croatia and the United States special envoy to the region encouraged the Bosnian government and its Croat allies to halt their advance on Serb-held territories when territorial control broadly coincided with the 51/49 per cent territorial distribution on which earlier negotiations had been based. …
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