New York Times Joins Center In Calling For US Leadership To Halt Serbian Aggression

Increasingly brazen Serbian efforts to broaden and consolidate communist control over a forcibly reconfigured Yugoslavia have prompted the New York Times and the Center for Security Policy to arrive in parallel over the past 24 hours at three common conclusions and recommendations about this crisis: (1) Serbian aggression must be thwarted; (2) Europe has proven incapable of effecting a resolution of the crisis, a fact with dangerous implications not only for the democratic elements in Yugoslavia but for Europe itself; and (3) assertive U.S. leadership is urgently required. For example, in a New York Times editorial today (copy attached) and a Center paper released yesterday, entitled For Whom the Bell Tolls: The Serbian Dress-Rehearsal for the Coming Crisis in Europe (No. 91-D77), the following points were made:

NYT: "Slobodan Milosevic, the communist leader of Serbia [is] out to expand Serbian frontiers, using a mix of political intimidation and crude military force."

CSP: "Slobodan Milosevic, is ruthlessly consolidating his control over the southern province of Kosovo and the central republic of Bosnia-Hercegovina, having already successfully imposed his will on the nominally autonomous northern province of Vojvodina as well as the republic of Montenegro."

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NYT: "European governments have tried and failed to broker a negotiated peace.

CSP: "Notwithstanding countless claims by European leaders that they could be relied upon to establish effective alternative security structures to NATO…when such structures were actually put to the test in the Yugoslav crisis they were found to be abysmally inadequate."

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NYT: "Now it is up to more powerful bodies — the United Nations — to act. And for that to happen, Washington will have to take the lead….Washington, which has not yet addressed the harsh new reality, needs to take a stand….The issue in Yugoslavia is the illegitimate use of armed force for political ends. The last time that happened, the President said such aggression could not stand."

CSP: "Tragically, the one nation that might have played an instrumental role in leading the alliance in the required direction both diplomatically and on the ground in Yugoslavia — the United States — chose to take a walk….If Western policy is to help avoid catastrophe in Yugoslavia and the debilitating repercussions for Europe, the Center believes that the United States must no longer defer to European "management" of the Yugoslav crisis….It must now begin to exercise leadership by…the immediate convening of the UN Security Council leading to a vote to authorize the dispatch of armed peacekeepers…[and] the simultaneous convening of a meeting of NATO foreign and defense ministers…."