From: trh@jack.sns.com (Al Trh)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish
Subject: A Bandage for the Balkans
Date: 25 Dec 1992 02:40:16 -0600
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
Reply-To: Turkish Cultural Program List <TRKNWS-L%USCVM.BitNet@pucc.PRINCETON.EDU>
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A bandage for the Balkans.
The Economist - December 12th 1992

The war has changed. So must the West.

It is usually wrong for governments to change their policies
just because public opinion is shouting at them to do so. If
the shouts come from unthinking emotion, and if the proposed
change points to manifest disaster, the governments should pa-
tiently explain to puzzled and worried people why it is better to
carry on as before. The real case for change arrives when the
price of carrying on as before grows manifestly larger, and the
price of trying a new policy starts to look bearable: in short,
when the terms of the calculation alter.

This point may have arrived in the long Euro-American
agonising over ex-Yugoslavia. The governments that have so
long resisted a larger intervention in this European horror
story now face a strong case for sending soldiers to protect Mac-
edonia and - on one hard condition - for a tougher military at-
tempt to rescue something out of the disaster in Bosnia.
The terms of the calculation have changed in two ways.
First, the cost of doing little has grown. As the war has dragged
on, the possibility of Bosnia's Muslims being completely dis-
possessed of land has increased, intensifying the prospect of a
new Palestinian problem in the heart of Europe. The countries
of the Islamic Conference Organisation said in Jeddah on De-
cember 2nd that if nobody else is helping ex-Yugoslavia's Mus-
lims by mid-January they may have to do it themselves. That
may mean nothing fiercer than some better-organised gun-
running but it could, without stretching the imagination too
far, lead to troops from Muslim countries taking up arms in
Bosnia and Kosovo--a huge widening of the war, and a sharp
blow to the hope of easier times between Islam and the West.
More generally, the longer the Serbs continue their expan-
sion unchecked. the likelier it is that would-be expansionists
elsewhere in the world will think that they too are uncheckable.
Maybe Kazakh warlords do not follow the stop-press news
from Sarajevo angry Hungarian and Slovak and Romanian
nationalists--and Russian ones--certainly do. The cost of inac-
tion also includes the cost to the principles upon which west-
ern democracies are built. The war is ever less obviously a civil
war in which outsiders are wrong to take sides and ever more
obviously a war of Serb aggression.

On the other side of the coin, the argument that any further
intervention would be unbearably expensive for the interven-
ers may no longer be true. Provided the United Nations gives
its authorisation--meaning provided Russia gives its consent--
two things can usefully be done, neither of which need cause a
large number of casualties among thesoldiers sent to do it.
One is to put a military force into Macedonia, and tell the
Serbs it will fight if they try to expand the war into that part of
ex-Yugoslavia. This has the technical snag that sending troops
to Macedonia is assumed to require recognizing Macedonia's
existence, and Greece still says the European Community can-
not recognize it under its present name. Perhaps Greece can be
calmed down. Perhaps the other members of the Community
will have to go ahead and recognize Macedonia separately. Pe -
rhaps the troops can be sent to "the former Yugoslav republic of
Macedonia". However the snag is dealt with, the protecting
force which can then be dispatched to Macedonia may not
have to fire a shot. There are not all that many Serbs in Macedo-
nia, and Serbia's President Milosevic is unlikely to risk a large
war for a small and uncertain goal.

But this will do nothing to stop the Serb advance in Bosnia,
and it may not deter the Serbs from extending their ethnic
cleansing into Serbia's Muslim-populated province of Kosovo.
The Macedonia show of force may not be enough; there may
also have to be a demonstrated willingness to use force. The
second possible new operation is therefore an expanded inter-
vention in Bosnia, to create a "safe haven" for at least some of
that country's harried, hungry Muslims. In practical terms, that
means sending enough troops to clear and hold a large stretch
of country to the north of Sarajevo, and including that city.

This would be a large operation. It would require two or
three divisions of infantry, enough artillery to silence the Serbs'
numerous guns, plenty of engineers to get roads open, and
abundant air cover.  There would be casualties, perhaps a lot.
But a force of this size, decisively deployed, would probably not
have to fight a prolonged war. This would not be an attempt to
force the Serbs back to where they were nine months ago (which
might indeed be bloody). The Serbs already control as much
territory as they have said they want. Mr Milosevic, if he rams
through his reselection as Serbia's president on December
20th, might prefer to settle for that much, rather than fight the
world for a little more. Although it would be foolish to under es-
timate the Serbs as fighters, a determined force from outside
would now be well placed to create a safe haven.

There has to be a goal

It would, however, be a politically pointless one if the world's
soldiers, having created the safe haven, could not think what to
do next. The necessary condition of an expanded intervention
in Bosnia is that it should help to bring about a settlement of
the war. To do this, it needs to be explained as follows.
The area taken under protection would not only be a place
where Muslins could be fed and shelterend: it would also be the
kernel of a continuing Muslim share in a three-sided Bosnia.
The leaders of the three groups that make up Bosnia--Serbs,
Muslims and Croats--all agree, in principle, that Bosnia
should be a loose confederation of semi-autonomous areas. Let
them now sit down, under a general cease fire, to put that prin-
ciple into practice. If the Serbs break the cease fire, the protect-
ing force will take military action against those responsible, if
necessary in Serbia. The force will remain in Bosnia while talks
proceed. Since sanctions against Serbia will meanwhile also
proceed, Mr Milosevic may think it in his interest to encourage
a constitutional agreement along these lines If despite every-
thing the negotiation fails, the intervention will at least have
kept part of Muslim Bosnia free firom Serb occupation.

Provided the soldiers act within a political plan, this has a
chance of working. Mr Milosevic may accept the terms, rather
than insisting on a Greater Serbia that could face years of quar-
antine. If he agrees, he can probably make sure the Bosnian
Serbs comply. The Muslims know it could be this or oblitera-
tion. And, if the plan does work, Europe will have shown that
what is intolerable in Somalia is intolerable in Europe too. It
has its risks but bringing order to chaos is never risk-free.
Newsgroups: soc.culture.turkish