The Moment Of Truth: The US Must Stop Serbian Aggression Now

The self-styled Bosnian Serb assembly’s decision last night to put the question of accepting the Vance-Owen peace plan to a popular referendum is a transparent bid for another ten more days to continue Serbian genocide and territorial consolidation. No one should be surprised at the "parliament’s" cheeky disregard of the international community’s desire for a swift endorsement of the U.N./EC-brokered accord. After all, this outcome was made virtually inevitable by the Europeans’ unwillingness over the past week to implement or enforce what the United States hoped would be the three basic pillars of allied action — the lifting of the arms embargo against Bosnian Muslims, air strikes and a total shut-down of the Danube and other essential supply lines for the Serbian war machine and economy.

The Serbs’ maneuver was made the more diabolical, however, for its being cloaked in the garb of a legitimate exercise of democracy — a proposition calculated further to undermine the prospects for unified Western action during the interval. Never mind that the perpetrators of this gambit have heretofore exhibited no attachment to democratic practices or principles. To the contrary, the Bosnian Serb "parliament" has never stood for election; its membership is virtually entirely comprised of communist/nationalist thugs who have no more interest in genuine democracy than does their sponsor in Belgrade, Slobodan Milosevic.

To his credit, Secretary of State Warren Christopher swiftly rejected the proposition that the "referendum" represented anything other than an illegitimate "stalling tactic." This morning in Brussels he said:

"I would not be inclined to invest [the referendum] with any legitimacy. I think its another ploy to gain delay, and I for one, will not be thrown off-track….The voting population of [ethnically cleansed Serb-controlled Bosnia] it seems to me has no right to determine the future of Bosnia, no right to receive the approbation of the international community. It’s a group of aggressors voting to decide what they want to do about the future."

 

Milosevic’s Latest Jujitsu Maneuver

The Bosnian Serbs are not the only ones who should "not be vested with any legitimacy." Milosevic’s efforts, for example, to differentiate his position from that of his proxies in Bosnia should be treated with no less contempt. After all, this gambit is not only of a piece with previous duplicitous actions by the Serbian tyrant; it is also reminiscent of a ploy another communist dictator, Mikhail Gorbachev, used when he tried to disassociate himself from crackdowns in the Baltic states — crackdowns that were being conducted by his surrogates under orders from Moscow.

Unfortunately, instead of the condemnatory treatment he deserves, the Serbian dictator has recently won effusive praise from Lord Owen for Milosevic’s eleventh-hour embrace of the Vance-Owen plan. Indeed, the EC negotiator has opined that, in the wake of the latest Bosnian Serb decision, new importance must be attached to securing Milosevic’s help.

In short, Milosevic has reason to believe that — by obscuring the continuing, direct relationship between Serb policy and the Bosnian Serbs’ malevolent activities — further progress can be made toward his goal of establishing a "greater Serbia" even as he seeks relief from international sanctions against Belgrade and protection of Serbia proper from Western military strikes, should they occur.

Over to You, Mr. President

The pressure on President Clinton to acquiesce to the Milosevic/Bosnian Serb stratagem will, of course, be intense. In the absence of a presidential decision around which U.S. public opinion can be marshalled, polls will continue to reflect an understandable unease on the part of the American people about becoming embroiled in a Balkan conflict. Their elected representatives will similarly be divided, with some sure to become increasingly shrill in their opposition to any action. And the international community — notably the United States’s key European allies and the Russians — will continue to block any consensus on coordinated military responses.

Still, Mr. Clinton must understand that his options will only be made worse by further postponing military measures aimed at: punishing the Serbian aggressors; protecting their victims; creating conditions on the ground that are conducive to genuine, constructive peace negotiations — as opposed to the charade presided over by Messers. Vance and Owen; and, in their absence, establishing territorial arrangements in Bosnia-Hercegovina that are defensible and sustainable (something that cannot be said for the Vance-Owen gerrymandered arrangements).

The President’s continued insistence upon coordinated multilateral action and allied consensus as the sine qua non for U.S. intervention against Serbian aggression — a position reiterated in the aftermath of the Bosnian Serb "parliament’s" action in a speech this morning to the U.S. Export-Import Bank — will inevitably translate into a consolidated and irreversible Serb victory, with ominous implications for the region and beyond.

What the United States Should Do Now

The Center for Security Policy believes that the United States must act now — if necessary unilaterally — to achieve these objectives. Ironically, if the U.S. does so under present circumstances and outside of an effort to "enforce" the hapless Vance-Owen plan, suchobjectives actually stand a much better chance of being achieved and with less loss of American lives.

Toward these ends, the Center recommends once more the following, specific military and other steps(1):

• Silencing the guns of Sarajevo — the powerful artillery pieces on the hills above the city that have been the principal instrument for its devastation — and those currently assailing other Bosnian enclaves and refugee centers (e.g., Zepa, Tuzla, Gorazde, Galanec, etc.)

 

• Denying use of the airspace of the entirety of the former Yugoslavia to Serbianwarplanes and helicopters;

 

• Disrupting the Serbian communications, command and control infrastructure supporting combat operations in Bosnia and Croatia;

 

• Destroying loading ramps, oil reserves, arms depots and other logistic nodes employed by Serbian and/or former Federal forces in support of their combat operations and those of their proxies in Bosnia and Croatia;

 

• Immediately severing the rail links used by Serbian forces to move prisoners of war,hostages and others to concentration camps and employing special operations or other forces necessary to liberate and destroy those facilities as soon as possible;

 

• Using naval and air assets to deny the importing by Serbia of war materiel and related equipment and technology (for example, to bomb key bridges over the Drina river, etc.); and

 

• Immediately begin using Radio Free Europe’s assets to inform the Serb people that the conflict is not with them but with their totalitarian ruler. They should be informed that an early end to the sanctions against Serbia and Montenegro can be achieved and further punishment dispensed with if: Milosevic is removed from power and turned over — along with other identified war criminals like Radovan Karadzic — to an international tribunal for crimes against humanity and if Serbian support for Bosnian Serb aggression is terminated.

None of these actions would require the United States to deploy large numbers of ground forces in the former Yugoslavia. They could be accomplished with reasonable confidence of success by employing aircraft, naval and missile assets.

Ground combat can, and should be, left to the Bosnian and Croat forces who are more than ready to defend their homelands and to secure the liberation of those areas currently under brutal Serbian occupation once the current disparity between the firepower available to the aggressors and to their victims is corrected. Toward this end, Bosnia and Croatia should be given access to military equipment currently being denied them and necessary for their defense and the liberation of Serb-occupied territories. In light of the continuing Serb-induced carnage and devastation, these military actions should be undertaken at once.

Most importantly, the foregoing steps must be accompanied by an ultimatum warning Serbia and its surrogates that a failure promptly to cease hostilities and begin immediate disengagement from Bosnia and Croatia will result in strikes against military and economic targets in Belgrade and other rear areas in Serbia. Carrying — for the first time — the costs of brutal aggression to Slobodan Milosevic’s power base may help produce the end of his tyrannical regime. At the very least, it will significantly complicate, and perhaps confound the Butcher of Belgrade’s continuing aspiration to complete the rape of Bosnia and Croatia and consolidate his quest for a "Greater Serbia."

The Bottom Line

The Center for Security Policy recognizes that the costs of such actions are not inconsequential. Unfortunately, the dangers involved are almost surely smaller than allowing the present flash fire in the Balkans once again to set alight a larger, and far more costly conflict in the region — and perhaps beyond. In this regard, the Center strongly endorses the attached editorial entitled "Stop Serbia Now," which appeared in the current edition of The New Republic.

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1. This list is a slightly updated version of recommendations originally advanced in a Decision Brief published by the Center for Security Policy on 10 August 1992 entitled, "What Can Be Done in Bosnia?" (No. 92-D 91).