GOOD NEWS, BAD NEWS ON GORAZDE: BRAVO ON ATTACKING SERB AGGRESSORS; OPERATIONAL ASPECTS TROUBLING

(Washington, D.C.): NATO’s use of air
assets against Serb forces engaged in
genocidal attacks against Gorazde is a
welcome development. It conforms with the
Center for Security Policy’s longstanding
judgments that:

• The Serbs are the
  aggressors in Bosnia and should
  accordingly be subjected to
  appropriate military punishment.
  The moral equivalency that has
  been used to justify Western
  inaction to date should now be a
  thing of the past. It is,
  consequently, exceedingly
  unhelpful for President Clinton
  now to be professing that
  “the U.S. is not taking
  sides.”
• There is abundant legal
  basis for the United States and
  its allies to use air power to
  effect such punishment.
  New U.N. resolutions,
  consultations, votes, etc. are
  not required. That goes for
  defending “safe havens”
  as well as providing close air
  support for U.N. monitors in
  Bosnia.
• The objects of such
  punishment should not be confined
  to the Serb weaponry actually
  engaged in attacks for
  “ethnic cleansing,”
  genocide or other purposes.
  The principle of striking Serb
  command posts — rather than just
  the tanks and howitzers raining
  death down on Gorazde — has now
  been firmly established.
• The risks to NATO forces
  inherent in accomplishing
  retribution and to U.N. forces on
  the ground in its aftermath are
  — at least thus far — de
  minimus. It is
  imperative that the Western
  tendency to follow a show of
  force by promising future
  restraint be resisted. The
  present momentum should instead
  be seized upon to compel Serb
  pullbacks lest worse punishment
  be meted out.
• Russia is not going to
  play a constructive role
  in pursuing even U.N.-mandated
  retribution against Serb forces,
  let alone the more decisive
  action that could actually
  improve the chances for an
  equitable and durable end to the
  conflict. Western leverage should
  be brought fully to bear to
  persuade Moscow that it will pay
  dearly should it still more
  closely align itself with the
  Serb perpetrators of genocide in
  Bosnia.

The Bad News

Having said the foregoing, several
aspects of these strikes — and American
policy statements issued in their wake —
are sources of concern:

• The U.N. command
  structure is unwieldy and
  unresponsive. It is likely to
  continue to inhibit actions when
  they should be taken and
  complicate them unnecessarily
  when they are. The
  mission has effectively been
  subcontracted to NATO; the
  U.S.-dominated alliance command
  structure should now be
  substituted for that of the
  United Nations.
• The United States and
  NATO forces should not be
  automatically at the disposal of
  the U.N. A further
  downside of the present command
  arrangements is that they
  effectively oblige the U.S. to
  perform such missions as the U.N.
  authorities dictate and when they
  order them. This is, as a
  practical matter, the sort of
  subordination of American forces
  to multilateral commanders that
  has been roundly opposed by
  Congress and supposedly stricken
  in the wake of that opposition
  from the draft of the soon to be
  released Presidential Decision
  Directive 13.
• It is almost certainly not
  the case that, as Secretary of
  State Warren Christopher put it
  today, “the Russians and we
  share the same goals [in
  Bosnia].” The
  truth of the matter is that
  Russian policy — aimed primarily
  at protecting the Serbs and their
  ill-gotten gains — has been ever
  more transparently at variance
  with that of the United States
  and its Western allies.

Coming on the heels of
Secretary Christopher’s statement
yesterday on “Meet the
Press” (to the effect that
“I haven’t seen any
sign” that Russian
nationalists and the military are
shaping policy in an array of
areas), it would appear that Mr.
Christopher is hopelessly — and
possibly dangerously — out
of touch with the true direction
of and impetuses behind the
Kremlin’s behavior.

The Bottom Line

The real tragedy is that the steps
taken by the West in Bosnia over the past
few days could have been decisive
two years ago. They could have been
exercised at negligible cost then; they
might well have prevented virtually all
of the carnage and mayhem that has ensued
during the intervening period.

Unfortunately, there is no guarantee
that such actions will prove effective
now. The chances of them doing so will be
enhanced, however, if the Center’s advice
is now taken. In any event, the West
should be prepared to take much more
decisive action against Serbia proper and
its proxies in Bosnia-Hercegovina so as
to prevent still worse outcomes from
eventuating.