The Argument Clinton Isn’t Making on Bosnia

By Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas J. Feith
The Wall Street Journal, 28 November 1995

Having committed an armored division of American “peacekeepers” for
Bosnia with little analysis and even less consultation, the Clinton
administration now contends that Congress has no responsible choice but
to concur. To be sure, if it repudiates the president’s troop
commitment, Congress would be blamed for bringing about resumption of
the war, a collapse of American leadership in NATO and perhaps of the
alliance itself, and a dangerous perception around the world of the U.S.
becoming isolationist and unreliable.

But even worse than not backing the president’s commitment would be
for Congress to approve uncritically a flawed policy that could fail
disastrously. Congress has a duty to try to force the administration to
define sensible goals for the mission. Americans remember Lebanon and
Somalia, where we managed to lose both men and credibility. We remain
dubious of the operation in Haiti, which may succeed in restoring
dictatorship rather than democracy. If U.S. troops end their Bosnia
mission without having achieved what they came to do, especially if they
take significant casualties, the consequences will be graver by far.

The administration acknowledges the problem by stressing that U.S.
troops will not be deployed unless there is a peace to enforce. But this
rather sensible condition for getting in gives little guidance for how
and when to get out.

There is one compelling rationale for U.S. participation in the
international peacekeeping force: Bosnia has been the victim of
international aggression and of crimes against humanity that the Bosnian
Serbs, supported by the Milosevic regime in Belgrade, have committed
against hundreds of thousands of predominantly Muslim Bosnians. The U.S.
and our European allies and others bear a large measure of
responsibility for these horrors because we have maintained an
international arms embargo on Bosnia. The Bosnian government’s troops
have numerical superiority over their enemies, but, as a result of the
embargo, they have remained inferior in equipment, especially heavy
armor and artillery.

The goal of U.S. policy toward Bosnia should be Bosnian
self-reliance. We should aim to make it possible for the Bosnian
government to defend its own country militarily. Congress should oppose
the deployment of U.S. forces to Bosnia unless the administration makes
a clear and binding commitment to create, by arming and training Bosnian
Federation forces, a qualitative military balance between
Bosnian-Croatian and Serb forces in the former Yugoslavia.

If the peacekeeping force is conceived as a means of keeping Bosnia
subject to unrealistic arms limitation schemes, and therefore doomed to
remain a ward of NATO or the U.S., Congress should oppose it. But if
peacekeepers are intended to deter aggression for the year or so needed
for the Bosnian government to move toward self-reliance in the defense
field, then the strategic and moral case for U.S. participation should
be easier for Americans to credit.

Unfortunately, the Dayton Accords lack clear commitments to equip and
train the Bosnian forces. Administration statements are disturbingly
ambiguous on this point. U.S. officials say they have assured the
Bosnians that federation forces will be equipped and trained, but that
assurance itself is hedged by a misplaced faith that new arms control
agreements might make it unnecessary. According to the accords, no
weapons will be delivered for 90 days and no heavy weapons for 180 days,
pending arms control talks. Also, U.S. statements make it clear that we
will try to get others to do the equipping and training. (It is not
reassuring that we still lack a good estimate of Bosnian requirements,
even though for three years the Clinton administration said that it
aimed to lift the arms embargo.)

These limitations imply that moving quickly or openly to arm the
Bosnians would be destabilizing, but the opposite is true. To ensure a
stable Bosnia and to be able to withdraw our troops on schedule, we must
be committed, publicly and resolutely, to a rapid equip-and-train
program. (Defensive systems not covered by the envisioned arms control
regime, such as anti-tank missiles and counter-battery radars, are
needed with particular urgency, given the precarious position of
Sarajevo.)

The administration’s hesitations seem to reflect a belief that
equipping and training federation forces would be inconsistent with a
“neutral” role for American peacekeepers.

It is important, however, to see clearly the purpose of the
peacekeeping force: It must uphold the peace agreement generally, but it
is intended also to deter the Serbs from taking advantage of their
current (temporary) advantage in armaments. It is not correct or
constructive to talk of the peacekeepers as “neutral.” They do not have
to be neutral to perform their mission any more than police have to be
neutral as between shopkeepers and robbers. In fact, pretending to be
neutral when none of the parties so regards us actually increases the
danger to U.S. forces at a tactical level, by making it more difficult
for them to decide how to respond to provocations or ambiguous
situations on the ground. It was this posture that helped produce the
inadequate security precautions taken by U.S. Marines in Beirut. The
best way to shore up the peace is through a policy that deters Serbian
aggression and secures Bosnian compliance through American support and
cooperation.

If the administration is to allay public and congressional skepticism
about the troop deployment, it must make clear that arming and training
Bosnian Federation forces is not only consistent with our role in the
peacekeeping force, it is also the key to the “exit strategy” for our
troops. If we are unable to help put the Bosnian government in a
position to defend itself, the administration will find, when it wants
to withdraw our forces after a year or so, that it cannot do so without
triggering a catastrophe.

Mr. Wolfowitz served as undersecretary of defense in the Bush
administration and Mr. Feith served as deputy assistant secretary of
defense in the Reagan administration.