CHECKMATE: RUSSIAN IMPERIALIST GAMBIT IN BOSNIA PROTECTS SERBS, DOOMS NATO INITIATIVE

(Washington, D.C.): Yesterday’s
surprise announcement by Vitaly Churkin,
Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia and
skillful flack for successive communist
rulers of the Kremlin, was a master
stroke for Moscow: By declaring Russian
troops would be inserted into Bosnian
Serb positions around Sarajevo, Russia
has effectively foreclosed whatever
(slim) chance there was of NATO air
strikes against those positions. Needless
to say, it has also precluded the more
strategic military blows against Serbian
assets in Bosnia and Serbia proper that
are clearly required. href=”#N_1_”>⁽¹⁾
More importantly, it has also given
tangible expression to the emerging
Russo-Serbian alliance — with ominous
implications for the Balkans and beyond.

Despite the pathetic bleating from UN
Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali,
the Clinton Administration and several
allied capitals “welcoming”
this Russian gambit, it in no way
represents a constructive contribution to
satisfactorily ending the crisis in
Bosnia. As the Bosnian Ambassador to the
United Nations put it yesterday, this
move is, instead, calculated to protect
the Serbian aggressors in Bosnia, not to
protect Sarajevo. This reality will not
be altered by the fact that the 800
troops involved will be wearing the UN’s
blue helmets and will nominally be
subordinated to its local commander,
Lieutenant General Sir Michael Rose.

Fact vs. Fiction

In fact, in their present deployment
in Croatia, these Russian
“peacekeepers” have shown
themselves to be anything but impartial.
Instead, they have routinely engaged in
conduct that worked to the advantage of
Serb partisans there, including
collaboration in Serb military and
economic efforts to garrotte non-Serb
populations in areas under their
jurisdiction — a key component of the
Belgrade-backed “ethnic
cleansing” campaign. There have also
been persistent reports of Russian
involvement in gun-running, extortion and
the forced employment of Croatian and
other women in brothels frequented by
U.N. and Serb forces.

Under Russian protection, it seems
inconceivable that a genuine end to the
siege of Sarajevo is in the offing. Even
if a significant portion of the Bosnia
Serb artillery deployed around the city
is relocated to more distant firing
positions — which is by no means clear
at this writing — such weapons will
hardly have been rendered unusable or
turned over to the UN’s safekeeping, as
envisioned in the NATO ultimatum.

Unfortunately, statements from Clinton
Administration spokesmen in recent days
have already made it clear that the
United States would not insist upon
Serbian forces’ fulfillment of this
requirement. Instead, the Serbs were told
it would be satisfactory if they unloaded
their guns, removed their firing pins
and/or reoriented them so as not to point
at Sarajevo. Since all of these
conditions could be altered at a moment’s
notice, such pronouncements serve simply
further to discredit the UN, and make a
mockery of its “ultimatum.” href=”#N_2_”>⁽²⁾

The Bottom Line

It seems highly unlikely that any good
will come from the Russian intervention
into Bosnia. Far from ending the conflict
there, it will almost certainly result in
a consolidation of Serbia’s position and
a significant new inroad for Moscow as it
seeks to reassert its domination over its
traditional sphere of influence.

The United States and other Western
powers are being very shortsighted in
endorsing the Kremlin’s new gambit.
Seductive though it is as an excuse for
calling off air strikes (and other
military intervention that might have
flowed from those attacks), this step
will have adverse repercussions well
beyond Bosnia. Even if it paves the way
for a dictated settlement imposed upon
the Bosnian government — one that gives
the ephemeral appearance of a peace
settlement — the net effect will, over
time, be to add to the instability of
this already too volatile region.
Specifically, it will be tantamount to
acceding to Russo-Serbian aggression and
will involve a drawing of new and highly
charged political lines in Europe.

The risks involved in such
line-drawing are brilliantly elucidated
by Karen Elliott House in an op.ed.
article that appeared in yesterday’s Wall
Street Journal. The Center for
Security Policy believes that this href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=94-D_19at”>article,
which is attached, should be required
reading for the entire security policy
community.

– 30 –

1. See in this
connection the Center’s Decision
Brief entitled The
Proper Response to Benito Milosevic: Real
‘Shock Therapy’ — ‘Lift and Deep Strike’,
(9 February 1994, No.
94-D17).

2. Indeed, the
international community’s sorry record in
the on-going tragedy in the former
Yugoslavia has reduced such threats to a
similar, sorry status enjoyed by
Washington’s Cold War diplomatic protests
— or “demarches” — concerning
Moscow’s malevolent behavior. They had so
little effect that they came to be known
derisively as “demarshmellows.”
Perhaps NATO’s ultimatums will
correspondingly be known henceforth as
“ultomatoes.”