ENOUGH ALREADY: IT’S TIME TO ‘LIFT AND STRIKE’ AGAINST SERBIA

(Washington, D.C.): President Clinton
and his counterparts in Western European
capitals have evidently become so inured
to the experience of wiping Serb spittle
from their faces that — if left to their
own devices — they would clearly be
inclined to ignore the latest display of
Serbian contempt for the
“international community.” If
that community is ever to command respect
in the future, however, the most recent
outrages at the hands of Serbia and its
proxies in Bosnia must be made the last
straw.

Among these outrages include:

• the Bosnian Serb’s rejection of
  what the so-called “Contact
  Group” (comprised of the
  United States, Germany, Britain,
  France and Russia) announced was
  its final, take-it-or-leave-it
  bid to broker a peace treaty
  between the Bosnian Serbs and the
  Bosnian government-Croatian
  federation;
• the resumption of the Serb
  blockade of Sarajevo;
• the continuing Serbian supply of
  material and troops to the
  Bosnian Serbs; href=”#N_1_”>⁽¹⁾
• attacks on U.N. aircraft bringing
  food and medicine into Sarajevo
  airport; and
• most recently, deliberate and
  murderous attacks on U.N. forces
  operating near Sarajevo.

So Much for the
Inviolability of U.N. Forces

Even Sir Michael Rose, the commanding
general of U.N. forces on the ground in
Bosnia and a man of considerable
self-restraint and understatement, was
livid over this Serb attack on 27 July —
and the bald-faced lie with which the
Serbs tried to excuse it. He responded to
the explanation that the ambush of a
10-truck fuel convoy manned by British
peacekeeping forces occurred when Serbian
troops mistook its white paint and U.N.
markings for a Bosnian civilian operation href=”#N_2_”>⁽²⁾
by observing caustically: “This
assertion subsequently proved wholly
worthless, given the fact that [Serb]
fire later was opened up on a French
military unit that was attempting to
recover the vehicles.” Sir Michael
added that close air support might have
been employed “had a suitable target
been employed.” He concluded:
“If [the Serbs] continue to behave
in this very, very negative fashion
towards the peace process, its quite
clear the statement that they’re making
to the world is that they’re no
longer interested in pursuing the path to
peace.”

Now that the Serbs’ brazenness has
reached the point where they are willing
to undertake direct assaults against U.N.
peacekeeping units, the last pretext has
evaporated for opposing U.S. proposals
first tabled over a year ago — namely, to
lift the arms embargo against
the Bosnian government and to use NATO
air power to strike Serbian
targets. If the safety of U.N.
troops on the ground is no longer
assured, they should be removed and the
way cleared for measures that would
radically change the correlation of
forces and, in so doing, give peace a real
chance.

In a brilliant exposition of the utter
futility of recent international efforts
to broker an agreement between the Serbs
and their victims in Bosnia on the basis
of redrawn maps — maps that would reward
the Serbian aggressors for their ethnic
cleansing and inevitably set the stage
for a wider war in the Balkans href=”#N_3_”>⁽³⁾
— Dr. Albert Wohlstetter has offered the
Contact Group a blueprint for action at
its meeting tomorrow in Geneva. In an
article in the 1 August edition of the New
Republic entitled “Creating a
Greater Serbia,” Dr. Wohlstetter
(the 1993 recipient of the Center for
Security Policy’s “Freedom
Flame” award) has called for the
immediate lifting of the Bosnian arms
embargo and U.S.-led air attacks against
strategic targets in Serbia proper. Key excerpts of
Dr. Wohlstetter’s essay are attached.

The Bottom Line

The Center for Security Policy has
long believed that the sorts of steps
recommended by Dr. Wohlstetter were the
only hope for bringing the horrific
genocide in Bosnia to an end on terms
that would be both justifiable and
sustainable.⁽⁴⁾
The utter bankruptcy of the alternatives
— and the growing risks for Western
interests of continued pussilanimity in
the face of Serbian outrages and defiance
— argue for using tomorrow’s
Contact Group meeting to authorize an end
to the arms embargo and air strikes
against Serbia.

It is, of course, highly improbable
that the Contact Group will be able to
achieve a consensus on such a response —
not the least reason being that the
Russians will oppose it.

In recent days, the Kremlin’s double
game⁽⁵⁾
has once again been in evidence as
Russian Defense Minister Pavel Grachev
and Special Envoy Vitaly Churkin have
signalled solidarity with the Serbs and a
determination to oppose efforts to
pressure Belgrade and its proxies.

Grachev conveyed this message publicly
when he said, according to the 27 July
editions of the New York Times,
“NATO is not a peacekeeping
organization. Only the United Nations
military force can fulfill the mission in
Bosnia.” For his part, Churkin said
in an interview with the Washington
Post on 27 July:

“The Serb side of the story
was quite often forgotten.
If you simply say that the Serbs are
the aggressors and operate on that
premise, well, first this does not
reflect the actual world,
which is much more complex…and
second, you lose a lot of
opportunities. It is a way to prepare
yourself for fighting the bad guy,
but you cannot find a political
solution.”

The Center for Security Policy
believes that, in light of such
statements, the United States must cease
to harbor any illusions that Moscow is
playing a constructive, to say nothing of
indispensable, role in the Balkans.
Further delay in taking already overdue
steps — aimed at 1) allowing the Bosnian
government to arm its forces and 2) to
level the military “playing
field” by destroying facilities and
assets crucial to the Serbian campaign of
aggression and ethnic cleansing in Bosnia
— will only aggravate the situation in
the region and increase the costs of
the corrective action that will
ultimately have to be taken.

– 30 –

1. According to
some reports, this supply has included at
times — for example, in connection with
the 6 April 1994 Bosnian Serb attack on
Gorazde which killed 700 people and
wounded 1,970 others (mostly civilians)
— tank battalions, heavy artillery,
troops of volunteers, demolition squads
and armed police. For more on the
“Serbian connection,” see
“Serb Economy Stays Afloat With the
Help of Criminal Network” which
appeared in the Wall Street Journal
of 7 June 1994. While this article is
principally concerned with the illegal
supply networks that are keeping Serbia a
going concern, it also provides useful
data concerning the supply from Serbia
to its proxies in Bosnia and Croatia.

2. It is a potent
reminder of the depravity of Serb conduct
throughout this genocidal conflict that
an official excuse for an attack on U.N.
personnel is that the Serbs had meant
to attack civilians.

3. The prospects
that as yet unsated ambitions for a
Greater Serbia will shortly translate
into a further broadening of the conflict
were discussed on 19 July 1994 at a press
briefing sponsored by the American
Enterprise Institute entitled,
“Kosova: the Next Balkan
Flashpoint?” The featured
participants included three distinguished
members of the Center for Security
Policy’s Board of Advisors, Amb.
Jeane Kirkpatrick, Paula
Dobriansky and Patrick
Glynn and a former State
Department Bosnia Desk Officer, Marshall
Harris.

4. See, for
example, For Whom the Bell
Tolls: The Serbian Dress-Rehearsal for
the Coming Crisis in Europe
(No. 91-D77,
13 August 1991) and ‘Say It
Ain’t So, Secretary Cheney: Atrocities in
Bosnia — Like Aggression in Kuwait —
Must Not Be Allowed to Stand
(No. 92-D
86, 4 August 1992).

5. For analysis of
earlier Russian mischief-making in
Bosnia, see the Center for Security
Policy’s Decision Briefs
entitled Checkmate: Russian
Imperialist Gambit in Bosnia Protects
Serbs, Dooms NATO Initiative
(No. 94-D 19,
18 February 1994).