THE PROPER RESPONSE TO BENITO MILOSEVIC: REAL ‘SHOCK THERAPY’ — ‘LIFT AND DEEP STRIKE’

(Washington, D.C.): A singularly
efficient Serb attack on the civilian
population of Sarajevo last weekend holds
promise of shaming the West into taking,
at long last, military action in Bosnia.
Unfortunately, at this writing it remains
to be seen whether that action — if it
occurs at all — will be so circumscribed
by national and international authorities
as to be of exceedingly limited value.

Downside Risks of Doing the
Bare Minimum

NATO’s decision to establish an
ultimatum which, if not met by the
Bosnian Serbs within the next ten days,
will precipitate Western air strikes is a
welcome one — as far as it goes.
Assuming the Serbs will continue to play
games with the international community
and the threatened action has to be
executed, NATO must be prepared to do far
more: Only when Serbia proper
is punished for its aggression will there
be any real prospect of lasting peace in
Bosnia.

Absent such punishment, Serbia will
remain fully capable of conducting its
genocidal campaign in Bosnia. Worse yet,
if the allied attacks amount to little
more than “slaps on the wrist,”
they will serve simply to intensify the
nationalist impulses (both those of the
Serbs and those of others with ethnic,
political or religious ties to Belgrade)
that fuel that campaign.

The latter is particularly true if,
thanks to the cynical emplacement of many
of these artillery tubes in Bosnian Serb
communities, there are significant
civilian casualties arising from Western
air strikes on these artillery
emplacements. An emerging
“Iron Triangle” between Russia,
Greece and Serbia can be expected to
respond with shrill denunciations,
blocking actions in the U.N. and NATO
aimed at preventing further Western
attacks and intensified military support
for the Bosnian Serbs and Belgrade from
their friends in Moscow and Athens.

What Has Needed To Be Done
— For Two Years

The Center for Security Policy has
contended from the moment when
declarations of independence by Slovenia
and Croatia on 25 June 1991 were met by
Serbian aggression that the West
must act decisively in response.⁽¹⁾
Such action has clearly always had to
have an effective military component.

To do so, the Center has argued that Serbia’s
own war-making potential has to be
attrited — not just those Serb
and Serb-backed forces fighting elsewhere
in the former Yugoslavia. Toward this
end, the following military steps, among
others, were recommended as early as
10 August 1992⁽²⁾:

• Deny the use by Serbian
  warplanes and helicopters of the
  airspace of the entirety of the
  former Yugoslavia;
• Disrupt the Serbian
  communications, command and
  control infrastructure
  supporting combat operations in
  Bosnia and Croatia;
• Destroy 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;
• Use 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.).
• Use Radio Free Europe’s
  assets vigorously to inform the
  Serb people that the conflict is
  not with them but with their
  totalitarian ruler. They
  should be advised that an 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.

The Center has long recommended⁽³⁾
that these steps be taken in conjunction
with military strikes aimed at silencing
the guns of Sarajevo and those
assailing other Bosnian enclaves and
refugee centers (e.g., Zepa, Tuzla,
Gorazde, Galanec, Srebrenica, etc.) It
has noted that none of these
actions would require the United States
to deploy large numbers of ground forces
in the former Yugoslavia, if any.
They could be accomplished, instead, with
reasonable confidence of success by
employing aircraft, naval and missile
assets. The Center also observed that:

“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.'”

Time Is Not On Our Side

Subsequent to the enunciation of these
recommendations a year and a half ago,
the political impediments to such a
course of action have grown. Russia and
Greece have held elections that brought
to the fore rabid nationalists —
individuals like Vladimir Zhirinovsky and
Andreas Papandreou — who have exploited
popular sympathy for their brothers in
Serbia to accrue power in their
respective nations.

Matters have been made worse by the
unravelling of the internationally
mandated economic sanctions against
Serbia. To be sure, these sanctions have
had a very deleterious impact on the
Serbian economy, notably inducing
hyperinflation.

Still, the Serbs have succeeded in
coopting the highest levels of the
Macedonian government into wholesale
sanction-busting. Romania and Bulgaria
have proved unwilling — or unable — to
enforce the embargo. And the recent
announcement that Hungary intends to
“normalize” relations with
Belgrade, combined with clear signs that
Russia and Ukraine are determined to
continue illicit trade with Serbia, gives
rise to conditions that will essentially
eviscerate what remains of the sanctions
regime.

No Time Like The Present

In short, as with the North Korean
nuclear crisis, each day that is allowed
to pass without taking effective action
against Serbia brings with it new
disincentives to doing so. In these
present cases — as in the past, the
West’s pursuit of appeasement policies
prevents it from intervening when the
costs of doing so would be low and the
benefits high. Indeed, the collapse of
the sanctions against Belgrade, renewed
Russian militancy and the cumulative
effects of years of ethnic cleansing and
destruction are rapidly closing the
window for doing anything useful in the
Balkans at a reasonable cost.

Accordingly, the West must act swiftly
in the ways listed above to punish Serbia
for its aggressive behavior by destroying
those assets most valued by the Milosevic
regime — and most critical to its
continued hold on power. If Western
nations do so, they stand an excellent
chance of ending the misrule of the
Mussolini-like Butcher of Belgrade,
Slobodan Milosevic, and creating
conditions essential for peace in the
Balkans.

Specifically, notice should be given
to Milosevic that the United States and
allied nations will settle for nothing
less than lifting of the siege of
Sarajevo and other Muslim-held cities in
Bosnia. This means an end to the sniper
fire, infantry deployments and artillery
bombardments that have wrought such havoc
on these communities and their
populations.

If such steps are not taken within forty-eight
hours (vice ten days), it should be
made clear that Western air power will be
used to attack not just remaining
artillery emplacements around Sarajevo
but other priority Serb targets in Bosnia
and Serbia, itself: oil refineries,
depots, airfields and aircraft,
communications, electrical grids and
other parts of the military-industrial
complex — together with priority
national projects funded by Western joint
ventures and international resources.

Unlike lesser military options, these
measures are likely to give the Serbian
people both ample cause and a real
opportunity to accomplish Slobodan
Milosevic’s overthrow. Against a
hyperinflationary backdrop, a
multi-billion dollar loss of assets and
revenue streams would represent a
bridge-too-far for a despot who has
brought his nation to ruin.

Of course, Moscow can be expected to
object to such a course of action. But
they are strenuously objecting to the
prospect of even far less significant
strikes. And deadly
incrementalism — the petri dish of
bilateral conflict — and accompanying
delay pose a greater risk to U.S.-Russian
relations than do the swift and decisive
measures enumerated here. In the end, the
West must be prepared to stand up to the
Kremlin’s menacing bluster and mete out
appropriate punishment to the Serbs for
their genocidal aggression, or face much
more of both.

In taking this step, the West should
also serve notice on Croatian President
Franjo Tudjman that he is being given one
last chance to avoid a similar fate by
pulling his forces out of Bosnia and
refraining from further “ethnic
cleansing” there.

The Bottom Line

Should the United States and its
allies fail to meet continued Serbian
recalcitrance and duplicity with nothing
more than extended diplomatic
negotiations — or even unduly
circumscribed ineffectual military
actions like the air strikes being
contemplated for targets near Sarajevo —
the consequences are predictable: (1) An
intensification of the conflict as
Serbian and Croatian regulars and Russian
volunteers are increasingly brought to
bear. And (2) an odious Western decision
to dictate surrender terms to the
Bosnians. Under the circumstances, such a
dictated “peace” will be
tantamount to an unconditional surrender
for the victims of Serbian aggression.

With characteristic eloquence and
fortitude, Lady Margaret Thatcher last
weekend on ABC New’s “This Week With
David Brinkley” described why such
an outcome cannot and must not be
tolerated:

“Two hundred thousand deaths.
Two million ethnic cleansing, and the
West says soft words and empty
threats. It will not do. All
it does is encourage an aggressor.
Everyone can watch now and say the
Serbs have gotten away with
aggression and they’re now saying
[to] the Bosnian Muslims: ‘You must
negotiate and you must accept that
you’ve lost some land.’ That’s not a
very good example for other people
who are would-be aggressors.”

– 30 –

1. 1. The Center
has produced some forty Decision
Briefs concerning the crisis in the
former Yugoslavia over the past two and a
half years, starting with Freedom
Over Yugoslavian Integrity: Recognize New
Confederation of Sovereign Republics,
(No. 91-P
55, 25 June 1991).

2. See the
Center’s Decision Brief
entitled, “What Can Be Done
In Bosnia?” ( href=”index.jsp?section=papers&code=92-D_91″>No. 92-D 91).

3. See, for
example, the Center’s Decision Brief
entitled The Moment of Truth:
The U.S. Must Stop Serbian Aggression Now,
(No. 93-D
38, 6 May 1993).