The Bosnian Train and Equip Program: A Lesson in

Interagency Integration of Hard and Soft Power

by Christopher J. Lamb, with Sarah Arkin and Sally Scudder

Strategic Perspectives 15

Center for Strategic Research

Institute for National Strategic Studies

National Defense University
Institute for National Strategic Studies

National Defense University

The Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) is National 

Defense University’s (NDU’s) dedicated research arm. INSS includes 

the Center for Strategic Research, Center for Complex Operations, 

Center for the Study of Chinese Military Affairs, Center for 

Technology and National Security Policy, and Conflict Records 

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comprise INSS and its subcomponents execute their mission by 

conducting research and analysis, publishing, and participating in 

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The mission of INSS is to conduct strategic studies for the Secretary 

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perform outreach to other U.S. Government agencies and the broader 

national security community. 

Cover: President Bill Clinton addressing Croat-Muslim Federation Peace 

Agreement signing ceremony in the Old Executive Office Building,

March 18, 1994

(William J. Clinton Presidential Library)
The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

Institute for National Strategic Studies

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

Series Editor: Nicholas Rostow

National Defense University Press

Washington, D.C.

March 2014

By Christopher J. Lamb

with Sarah Arkin and Sally Scudder

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program:

A Lesson in Interagency Integration of

Hard and Soft Power
For current publications of the Institute for National Strategic Studies, please visit the NDU Press Web site at:

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Opinions, conclusions, and recommendations expressed or implied within are solely those 

of the contributors and do not necessarily represent the views of the Defense Department or any 

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First printing, March 2014
v

Contents

Executive Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Training and Equipping the Bosnian Federation Army: A Lesson in 

Interagency Integration of Hard and Soft Power. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

Context and Rationale. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3

The Origin, Purpose, and Resistance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11

Train and Equip Team Performance, 1995–1997. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Overcoming Problems: 1995–1997. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Program Transition: 1998 to the Present. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50

Analysis of Variables Explaining Performance. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Organizational-Level Variables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58

Team-Level Variables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Individual-Level Variables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85

Performance Assessment. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99

Conclusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

About the Authors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 155

1

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

Executive Summary

Military assistance to Bosnian forces was part of a complex plan to resolve what one former Secretary of State called “the problem from hell.” When Yugoslavia began to disintegrate in 

the early 1990s following the Soviet Union’s demise, it released a mix of nationalist and ethnic 

movements that led to civil war. Ill-disciplined combinations of regular and irregular forces 

struggled to control territory and protect civilians, sometimes herding them toward ethnically 

homogenous enclaves in a process widely referred to as “ethnic cleansing.” The intentional displacement of civilian populations, often encouraged by atrocities including mass murder and 

rape, was a tragic and complex foreign policy problem that defied simple and easy solutions.

The program to train and equip the Bosnian Federation Army after the signing of the 

Dayton peace agreement in 1995 was a key element of the U.S. strategy to bring a stable peace to 

Bosnia. Highly controversial at the time but obscure today, this program was implemented by a 

small interagency task force widely referred to as the “Train and Equip Program.” The small task 

force achieved all of its operational goals. It forged a rough military parity between previously 

warring parties, rid Bosnia of foreign extremists, and strengthened Bosnian Federation institutions and their pro-Western orientation. The program was simultaneously criticized for being 

too small and too much, which underscores how contentious it was and the inherent difficulties 

in assessing any military balance. The fact that the weight of the criticism shifted from the first 

half of 1996 when the program was more often criticized as anemic to the spring of 1997 when it 

was commonly criticized as being too robust underscored how fast the program made progress 

once it got going.

In less than 2 years the task force rectified the military imbalance between Bosnian Serb 

and Federation forces using only about half of the total resources originally estimated to be 

necessary. The program reassured the Federation, eliminated any misconceptions the Serbs 

might have had about the merits of renewing hostilities, and inclined all the former warring 

parties to treat one another as equals. Contrary to the concerns of the Central Intelligence 

Agency and other observers, the program did not embolden the Federation to initiate hostilities. Federation military leaders came to realize Train and Equip was not going to provide 

them with major advantages over the Bosnian Serbs. Both objectively in terms of actual military capability and subjectively in terms of perceived relative capabilities, the program did not 

overshoot its mark as so many worried it would. On the contrary, it diminished the influence 

of extremists and foreign meddling in Bosnian politics and moved the political mainstream 

to favor greater integration.
2 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

In short, the Train and Equip task force stands out as an unusually successful interagency 

small group effort that was able to accomplish its objectives while overcoming difficult technical, bureaucratic, and political impediments. It did so with a much recommended but seldom 

exercised multidimensional approach to complex security problems, integrating diplomacy, development, and defense capabilities. The United States managed the peace process the same way 

it helped bring the fighting to an end—by using an integrated military and diplomatic approach 

that stood in stark contrast to the Europeans’ ineffectual, one-dimensional reliance on arms 

control. The Train and Equip Program accomplished exactly what senior U.S. officials hoped, 

strengthening U.S. credibility and providing incentives for all parties to secure the peace and 

move Bosnia toward greater integration with the West.

Despite the Train and Equip Task Force’s record of success, the creative techniques it 

employed, and its high level of accountability, it has never been studied by the government 

or anyone else for its organizational lessons. Instead, the task force experience has been ignored and forgotten for the same reasons the United States quickly abandoned the innovative Civil Operations and Revolutionary Development Support organization it fashioned in 

Vietnam. In both cases, after creating flexible, agile, and productive interagency organizations 

that could solve complex national security problems, the United States abandoned and forgot 

the innovative models it fielded rather than institutionalizing them. It would be easier for the 

United States to meet the demands of the current and emerging security environment if the 

U.S. national security system had a systematic means to understand and recall what worked 

well in the past and why. 

This case study is intended to be a helpful contribution in that regard. It provides an authoritative history of the task force’s activities and accomplishments, and then an explanation 

for its performance based on 10 variables extracted from organization and management literature. Investigating and explaining the interagency group’s performance with these performance 

variables, and weighing the importance of each in light of the group’s historical experience, 

yields a compelling explanation for its outstanding performance. The results contribute to a 

better understanding of interagency teams and also demonstrate why a small, high-performing 

team can sometimes implement a security assistance program better than the larger national 

security bureaucracy does through established programs and procedures.
3

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

Training and Equipping the Bosnian Federation Army: A Lesson in 

Interagency Integration of Hard and Soft Power

We do not seek an offensive force [through the Train and Equip Program], but in the 

future if somebody wants a fight it will be more than fair. This war had an aggressor, and it had 

a victim. The program [seeks] to ensure that there will be no future victims and no easy prey for 

partisans of war.

1

—Ambassador James Pardew, Jr.

Washington’s program to train and equip the Bosnian Federation Army after the 1995 

Dayton peace agreement was an indispensable part of the U.S plan to bring a stable peace to 

Bosnia. Highly controversial at the time but obscure today, this program was implemented by a 

small interagency task force widely referred to as the “Train and Equip Program.” The task force 

executed a complex priority national mission well and quickly in difficult circumstances. It 

achieved all of its operational goals, forging a rough military parity between previously warring 

parties, ridding Bosnia of foreign extremists, and strengthening Bosnian Federation institutions 

and their pro-Western orientation. The small group’s performance is of historic importance 

not only because it played a major role in resolving what one former Secretary of State called 

“the problem from hell,”2

 but because it stands in stark contrast to the results achieved by most 

interagency groups tackling lesser problems. The task force’s experience deserves serious study, 

beginning with a description of the program’s context and rationale.

Context and Rationale

On the 15th day of Dayton a decision was also reached on the most controversial and criticized aspect of our policy: whether we should train and arm the Federation, or try to reduce the 

overall level of armaments in Bosnia. This was one of our greatest dilemmas.3

—Richard Holbrooke

Chief Negotiator, Dayton Peace Agreement

The war in Bosnia was a shock to those who thought, or hoped, that Europe was no longer 

capable of barbarism. When Yugoslavia disintegrated in the wake of the Soviet Union’s demise, 

it released a mix of nationalist and ethnic movements that fought one another with few constraints. Ill-disciplined combinations of regular and irregular forces struggled to control territory 

and protect or herd civilians toward or away from their locations in attempts to produce ethnically 
4 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

homogenous populations, a process widely referred to as “ethnic cleansing.” The intentional 

displacement of civilian populations, often encouraged by atrocities including mass murder and 

rape, was a tragic foreign policy problem for which there was no apparent consensus solution. 

Slovenia and Croatia, led by strong nationalistic leaders, successfully fought off the Yugoslav People’s Army and seceded from Yugoslavia in 1991 and 1992, respectively. Bosnia and 

Herzegovina (Bosnia for short) faced the same choice: remain in the Serb-dominated Yugoslavia or break off into an independent state with the high likelihood of armed conflict. For Bosnia, 

the stakes were particularly high since it was the most ethnically diverse region in Yugoslavia: 

44 percent Bosniak (i.e., Bosnian Muslims), 31 percent Serb, 17 percent Croat, and 8 percent 

Yugoslav or other groups.4

 Despite the risks, Bosnia officially declared independence on April 

5, 1992, and was recognized the following day by the European Union (EU). The stage was set 

for years of painful internecine struggle as the Bosnians (mostly Muslims but also non-Muslims 

committed to a multi-ethnic Bosnia), Serbs (Eastern Orthodox Christians), and Croats (Roman 

Catholics) fought for territory.

The Bosnian Serbs had declared a “Serb Republic” within Bosnia in January 1992 and were 

intent on removing non-Serbs from the areas they claimed. The Bosnian Serbs had created the 

Army of the Republika Srpska (VRS), but also paramilitaries that were active even before Bosnia officially declared independence. Most of the weaponry and commanders from the former 

Yugoslav People’s Army in Bosnia, which was dominated by Serbian officers, reordered into the 

VRS. The Bosnian Serbs were supported by Serbia and Montenegro, which had joined to form 

the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia with Slobodan Milosevic as its leader.

The Croats had already organized their own military force as well, the Croatian Defense 

Council (HVO), which was supported by neighboring Croatia. Croatian leader Franjo Tudjman was widely viewed as accepting partition of Bosnia so areas populated with predominantly 

ethnic Croats could merge with Croatia proper. Some HVO elements cooperated with the Bosnian forces while others concentrated on securing control over the self-proclaimed independent Republic of Herzog-Bosnia within Bosnia’s borders.5

 The Bosnians created the Army of 

the Republic of Bosnia Herzegovina (ARBiH) to safeguard their citizens and the concept of a 

multiethnic representative government, and to preserve their historic borders. Initially it was 

about one-third non-Bosniak, but over the course of the war it became predominantly Muslim.6

Assigning culpability for all the atrocities that accompanied the disintegration of Yugoslavia remains contentious. However, by late 1992 it was clear to the Western world that Serb 

forces were actively conducting a campaign of ethnic cleansing in eastern Bosnia.7

 Serb forces 

rounded up thousands of Bosniaks, placing many men in concentration camps and thousands 
5

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

of women in “rape camps.” Serb soldiers and irregular forces also destroyed non-Serb cultural 

and religious sites.8

 Non-Serb, mostly Bosniak houses were ransacked and burned. People were 

randomly detained and arrested and sent to detention camps. Better equipped and trained than 

the Bosnian and Croat forces, and backed by former Yugoslav military units, the regular and 

irregular Serb forces easily captured 70 percent of the country and laid siege to Sarajevo using 

artillery, tanks, mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and machine guns as well as Yugoslav-built 

fighter-bombers.9

Inter-ethnic alliances in Bosnia were fickle. In many places HVO and ARBiH forces fought 

alongside one another to stem the Serb tide, and Croats served in Bosnian units and Muslims 

in HVO units. However, relations between the two ethnic groups deteriorated when the HVO, 

with Croatian support, launched its own offensive along the Dalmatian Coast in Herzegovina 

(southern Bosnia), culminating in the siege of Mostar in May 1993. HVO and ARBiH forces 

had collaborated to force the Serbs out of the city in 1992, but only a year later HVO forces surrounded the city and forced the Bosniaks and ARBiH across the Neretva River into the eastern 

side of the city. Although apparently on a lesser scale than the Serbs, the HVO and irregular 

Croat forces were guilty of detaining, executing, and raping thousands of Bosniaks,10 and the 

ARBiH in turn was accused of “large-scale atrocities against Croat civilians in Central Bosnia.” 

Yet in Tuzla and northeastern Bosnia, the HVO, which at the start of the war formed part of the 

Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina, continued to fight the Serbs alongside the ARBiH.11

Pressure built for outside intervention in Bosnia as the fighting spread. The United Nations 

Security Council formed the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) in February 1992 

with the mission to facilitate a cease-fire in Croatia and secure conditions for peace talks. In 

June, the Security Council extended the UNPROFOR mission to cover the Sarajevo airport and 

later to provide protection of humanitarian aid delivery in all of Bosnia and Herzegovina. By 

February 1993, 9,000 UNPROFOR troops were protecting the delivery of humanitarian aid and 

six specifically-designated Bosnian “safe areas” or security zones: Sarajevo, Srebrenica, Goražde, 

Bihać, Žepa, and Tuzla. UNPROFOR, with North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) assurances of air support,12 was authorized to use force if necessary to protect these enclaves.13 Meanwhile, European diplomats struggled to find a political solution that would end the fighting.

Early on, European leaders made clear their intention to manage the crisis without U.S. 

help.14 The Bush administration, with its hands full managing Saddam Hussein, German reunification, and other major changes set in motion by the passing of the Soviet Union, was all too 

happy to have Europe take the lead for managing a crisis in its own back yard. But after two 

primarily European diplomatic initiatives (the Carrington-Cutileiro and Vance-Owen plans) 
6 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

failed to quell the fighting or stop atrocities against civilians, pressure built in the United States 

for intervention. Early on, the United Nations Security Council had imposed an arms embargo 

on all the former republics of Yugoslavia.15 The embargo grew increasingly unpopular in the 

United States. It froze Serb advantages in place and made it more difficult for Bosniaks and 

Bosnian Croats to defend themselves.16 Important members of the Senate condemned it, in particular Robert Dole (R-KS) and Joseph Lieberman (D-CT). An unusual combination of left and 

right-leaning political commentators and politicians began speaking out in favor of lifting the 

embargo or actually intervening with U.S. forces. Many moderate “realists,” on the other hand, 

were deeply skeptical of such involvement.17

During the Presidential campaign of 1992, Bill Clinton promised to commit his administration to resolving the situation in Bosnia by bombing the Serbs if necessary.18 Shortly after 

taking office in early 1993, President Clinton commissioned a high level review of the Bosnia 

policy and then chose a “lift and strike policy”—lifting the arms embargo and employing 

limited air strikes against Serb targets. Staunch opposition from European allies effectively 

reversed that decision a month later.19 Congressional skepticism about military interventions 

also constrained the administration. In October 1993 President Clinton suffered a major foreign policy reversal as the humanitarian intervention in Somalia degenerated into large-scale 

fighting with significant American casualties. Shortly thereafter, the United States suffered 

another embarrassment in Haiti when anti-democratic forces forced a U.S. vessel carrying 

civic action teams to withdraw from the country. These events reinforced reluctance to intervene in a situation as complex as Bosnia. With congressional support weak and European 

opposition strong, the United States and NATO settled for targeted, minor airstrikes against 

Serb positions in November 1994.

The Clinton administration also explored diplomatic options for conflict resolution and 

scored a success by brokering an agreement to end the Muslim-Croat conflict and create a 

Muslim-Croat Federation (see figure 1). In March 1994 the Washington Agreement formally 

brought the two warring ethnic factions together as a single political and geographic entity, 

divided into 10 cantons under the auspices of UNPROFOR.20 All government posts were to be 

split evenly between Croats and Bosniaks. A year later, however, President Clinton’s chief negotiator for Bosnia, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, observed that the Federation “existed only 

on paper” and that “friction between the Croats and the Muslims was enormous.”21

The conflict dragged on into the spring of 1995, at which point it had already claimed 

100,000 lives and produced more than a million refugees.22 On both ends of the U.S. political 

spectrum, concerns about the future of NATO as a strategic alliance and outrage over gross 
7

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

human rights abuses began to soften resistance to intervention. Foreign policy leaders such as 

Holbrooke believed “America’s post-World War II security role in Europe was at stake,”23 and 

news magazines with pictures of emaciated prisoners recalling Nazi concentration camps began 

to swing public sentiment in favor of some kind of intervention. In March the New York Times

reported that a CIA report had concluded that “90 percent of the acts of ethnic cleansing were 

carried out by Serbs and that leading Serbian politicians almost certainly played a role in the 

crimes.”24 Over time U.S. Balkans policy was influenced less by the impression that all sides 

bore some responsibility and more by the view that Slobodan Milosevic was a “new Hitler”25

promoting nationalist aggression. He appeared determined to form a greater Serbia by using 

Figure 1. Bosnia and Herzegovina Ethnic Enclaves
8 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

his superior military forces to annex territory in Bosnia and Croatia where Serbs lived and by 

“expelling or killing all inhabitants who were not Serbs, most egregiously [Bosniaks].”26 Increasing numbers of U.S. Government officials, members of Congress, and prominent newspaper 

editorialists called for action to help the persecuted Bosniak population.27

Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Richard Holbrooke and an interagency 

team conducted shuttle diplomacy in the Balkans to find a way forward toward a negotiated 

settlement, but Serb military advantages diminished incentives for compromises.28 One event 

in particular convinced Holbrooke and other Americans that more military force would be 

required to bring the Serbs to the negotiating table. In May 1995 NATO responded to Serb attacks on UN safe zones with “pinprick” air strikes as it did the previous year. This time, however, 

the Serbs took 350 UN peacekeepers hostage in response. Holbrooke encouraged the Clinton 

administration to increase the bombing, but the Europeans, particularly those countries whose 

soldiers were taken hostage, were opposed to using more airpower. The Clinton administration 

settled on a policy of containment and humanitarian relief while it worked other options quietly, including ways to shift the military balance among the three warring factions. 

While formally abiding by the UN arms embargo, which Clinton believed “unfairly and 

unintentionally penalized the victims in this conflict,”29 the United States tacitly allowed arms 

to flow to the Bosnians, mostly from majority-Muslim countries in the Middle East.30 U.S. diplomats made no effort to stop Croatia from allowing military supplies to reach Bosnia through 

Croatian territory, including transit of arms from Iran to Bosnian Muslim forces, thus circumventing the UN embargo and making an exception to the U.S. policy of isolating Iran.31 In addition the United States supported Croatia’s efforts to build up its military forces. The Department 

of State quietly approved nonlethal assistance to the Croatian Ministry of Defense through 

U.S. private sector military advisors. The U.S. company, Military Professional Resources, Inc. 

(MPRI), which was led by such notables as former U.S. Army Chief of Staff Carl Vuono, assisted 

the Croatian Ministry of Defense. 

During this period the United States lobbied its European allies for more forceful intervention, arguing that diplomacy would have to be supported by military force. Since Holbrooke’s 

mission took place against a backdrop of continuing violence, the United States could increasingly 

emphasize the moral case for intervention. Notorious mass killings of Bosniak civilians, including 

a mortar attack against the Markale marketplace in August 1995, increased support for intervention.32 The unquestionable tipping point, however, was the appalling massacre of more than 8,000 

Bosniak men sheltered in the UN “safe zone” of Srebrenica in July 1995. Amidst widespread outrage over the horrific event, U.S. policymakers argued that such merciless disregard for human life 
9

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

and contempt for international peacekeeping forces called the continuing relevance of NATO into 

question and jeopardized transatlantic security relations.

With European support for more forceful action growing, two August 1995 military developments finally pushed the Serbs to the negotiating table. First, with acquiescence from the 

United States and other allies, Croatia launched punishing offensives against the Serbs. The 

Croatian Army evicted Serb forces from the self-declared Republic of Serbian Krajina, producing a large number of Serb civilian casualties and refugee flows in the process. Then, operating 

in concert with Bosnian Army units around Bihac, Croatian forces routed the Serbs who were 

occupying other parts of Croatia and Bosnia. American leaders attempted to constrain Croatia, 

fearing the Croats, flush with success, would go too far and ignite a larger conflict.33 But both 

Holbrooke and Clinton would write in their memoirs that Serb military reverses were essential for bringing the Serbs to the negotiating table.34 In addition to the successful Croatian and 

Bosniak ground initiatives, NATO launched air strikes against the Republika Srpska and Serb 

targets on August 30 in Operation Deliberate Force. The Serbs stopped their attacks against Sarajevo after 11 days of air strikes.

Two months later, the United States hosted a peace conference at Wright-Patterson Air 

Force base in Dayton, Ohio. Having intervened to stop the conflict and putting the reputation 

of the NATO Alliance on the line, the United States and NATO had little choice but to actively 

engage with peacekeeping and reconstruction. President Clinton emphasized the high stakes 

to the public, noting, “The Balkans lies at the heart of Europe, next door to several of our key 

NATO Allies and to some of the new, fragile European democracies. If the war there reignites, 

it could spread and spark a much larger conflict, the kind of conflict that has drawn Americans 

into two European wars in this century.”35 The negotiations were dominated by American and 

European actors shuttling among various Balkan factions involved in the conflict. Promising 

security and aid, and working through innumerable contentious details, the diplomats successfully negotiated the “General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina.” The 

agreement, typically referred to simply as the Dayton Accords, was signed by Bosnian, Croat, 

and Serb leaders Alija Izetbegovic, Franjo Tudjman, and Slobodan Milosevic in Paris on December 14, 1995. 

From this historical overview of the U.S. intervention in the Balkans, it is possible to identify several factors that helped set the stage for the Train and Equip Program and the context in 

which it would be administered. The U.S. intervention took place reluctantly, under increasing 

pressure, and with high stakes for the Clinton administration; it thus had the sustained attention of the highest U.S. officials. The implementation of the Dayton peace agreement, and by 
10 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

extension the Train and Equip Program, benefited from this priority support rendered by the 

upper echelons of the national security establishment. 

It also is noteworthy that the United States brought an end to the conflict with a mix 

of diplomacy and military force. U.S. leaders had learned the futility of negotiating without 

forceful options for rectifying the Serb military advantages. The mix of advisory support to 

the Croats and then diplomacy to restrain their advancing forces, and the active use of military power to pressure the Serbs to the negotiating table, signaled U.S. intent to establish a 

balance of power among the protagonists rather than allowing any faction to have a significant advantage. Incorporating the Train and Equip Program into the peace process was a 

natural extension of this politico-military approach to conflict resolution based on a foundational balance of power.

Outrage over massacres of Bosniak civilians in “protected” enclaves inclined many in the 

United States to believe that providing the Bosniaks the means for self-defense was the right

thing to do as well as a pragmatic means of promoting stability; i.e., a moral obligation.36 This 

sense of propriety later translated into a deep commitment to success among the members 

of the Train and Equip Task Force. In contrast, America’s European allies were much less inclined to support any military measures, arguing that military force of any kind would only 

exacerbate the conflict. These divergent attitudes complicated the execution of the Train and 

Equip Program as the Europeans, particularly the British, tried to subvert the program.

Another notable aspect of the run-up to Dayton that shaped the Train and Equip Program was the U.S. investment in the Federation of the Croats and Bosniaks, not only as a 

counterbalance to the Serbs but as the first critical step in national reconciliation. U.S. leaders 

were determined to continue and reinforce their commitment to the Federation by insisting 

the Train and Equip Program be executed through that mechanism even though virtually all 

European experts, as well as most within the U.S. national security bureaucracy, considered 

the Federation impractical and doomed to failure. In this respect, as well as others involving 

the Dayton Accords, senior U.S. leaders were on a decidedly different course than the Europeans and the rank and file in their own national security bureaucracy.

Finally, the interagency team Holbrooke used for his Balkans peace initiative produced a 

knowledgeable and experienced leader to run the Train and Equip Program. Holbrooke notes 

in his memoirs that he and Secretary of State Warren Christopher chose “the best possible 

person to head [Train and Equip]–one of its authors, Jim Pardew.”37 Pardew was an expert 

on the Balkans, having served as the Vice Director for Intelligence on the Joint Staff from 

1992 to 1994 and heading the Pentagon’s Balkan Task Force. He also knew and had met with 
11

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

all the major Balkan personalities when travelling with Holbrooke’s interagency team as the 

senior Department of Defense (DOD) representative. Most importantly, Pardew was trusted 

by senior U.S. leaders in the Clinton administration, who choose him to lead a program they 

knew he advocated. 

The Origin, Purpose, and Resistance

Nothing the United States is doing in Bosnia today is so clearly destabilizing or unlikely to 

foster an enduring peace as this [Train and Equip] program.38

—General Charles Boyd, USAF (Ret.)

Former Deputy Commander, U.S. European Command

A military assistance program for the Bosnians had supporters inside the Clinton administration well before the summer of 1995. For example, as early as July 1994 a Department 

of State paper circulated arguing such an effort could be used to help heal the deep-seated 

suspicions between the Federation’s two hostile armies.39 However, it took congressional interest in lifting the arms embargo to elevate prospects for military assistance to the Bosnians. 

Members of Congress who believed the 1992–95 arms embargo disproportionately hurt the 

Bosniaks were supportive of Train and Equip.40 During the war Congress specified that U.S. 

Government funds could not be used to enforce the arms embargo against the Bosnian government41 and in the summer of 1995 voted to unilaterally lift the embargo if UN forces 

withdrew from Bosnia.

Fending off legislation mandating a unilateral lifting of the arms embargo was a major 

preoccupation of the Clinton administration,42 and President Clinton vetoed the bill Congress 

passed in August requiring this development. The administration worried that lifting the embargo would make the United States responsible for the conflict and eventually require an intervention by U.S. troops. As the National Security Council’s policy review of Bosnia in early 

1995 noted, withdrawing UN forces and lifting the embargo “would commit us to arming and 

training the Bosnians for an indefinite period.”43 Even so, the bipartisan effort led by Senators 

Dole, Lieberman, and Biden in support of arming the Muslims made an impact. Senator Dole 

in particular kept pressing the issue. His request that the administration consider a training program for the Bosnians stimulated some of the first analysis inside the executive branch on the 

size, shape, and advisability of a Train and Equip Program.44 Dole and other Senators wanted 

the United States to lead rather than support such a Program.45 Eventually, “Facing a defeat in 

Congress on this issue, President Clinton pledged that in the event of a peace agreement, the 
12 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

United States would lead an effort to equip and train the Federation in order to ‘level the playing 

field’ so that it could defend itself.”46 The President wrote to Senator Dole on December 10 assuring him that the United States would “coordinate an international effort” and then again on 

December 12 reassuring Dole the United States would lead the effort—expeditiously.47

The Train and Equip Program also calmed the concerns of some Congressmen about committing U.S. troops to peacekeeping duty in Bosnia. Creating a stable and functioning Federation Army that could deter Serb aggression had the prospect of allowing NATO and U.S. troops 

to withdraw from Bosnia within the original 12-month mandate, which the administration 

assured Congress was all it would take to stabilize the country.48 Thus the program was “linked 

in the minds of many in Congress to the Administration’s ‘exit strategy.’”49 Senator Dole, for example, argued on national television that “the president has got a way to get the troops into the 

area; we need a way to get them out . . . unless we arm and train the Bosnians, we are not going 

to be able to leave. . . .”50 For these and other reasons, including support for the Bosnian right to 

self-defense, Congress gave the President $100 million in drawdown authority to transfer U.S. 

military stocks to Bosnia in the FY96 Foreign Aid Appropriations bill. The legislation required 

the President to certify that the military aid “would assist that nation in self-defense and promote the security and stability of the region.”51

In addition to these domestic considerations, there was a major external catalyst for creating the program. Bosnian President Izetbegovic refused to sign the Dayton peace agreement 

without a U.S. commitment to train and equip his forces. President Clinton assured Izetbegovic 

that the United States would provide training and equipment, but only through the Federation 

and only if “foreign fighters”—considered extremists by the United States—left Bosnia and returned to their homelands, a message reinforced by Richard Holbrooke.52

Contrary to what many believed, however, the Train and Equip Program was not just a 

sop to Congress or the Bosniaks.53 Congress and Izetbegovic provided powerful incentives to 

launch the program but many senior leaders in the administration also came to view it as an 

integral part of the Dayton peace implementation process. It is true that senior leaders initially 

preferred to support rather than lead the effort, and that they wanted a modest and low-profile 

program (hoping weapons would be purchased from non-U.S. sources and that training would 

be conducted by a third party). However, after the fall of the Srebrenica and Zepa enclaves and 

the resultant large-scale mass murders, attitudes hardened to the point where officials considered letting the UN peacekeeping effort “collapse” so the United States could “help the Bosnians 

obtain the military capabilities needed to level the playing field.”54 The belief that “we can exercise control over the types of weapons provided to the Federation and limit the involvement 
13

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

of Iran and other radical states” convinced administration leaders that U.S. leadership of the 

program would be necessary.55 By the time the Dayton peace accords were finished, Secretary of 

Defense Perry was quite comfortable explaining that “to achieve a lasting peace in the Balkans, 

it will be essential to achieve stable and balanced force levels within Bosnia-Herzegovina and 

among the states of the former Yugoslavia.”56

Perry’s post-Dayton statement put a public face on the argument Madeleine Albright 

made to other senior Clinton officials in August, 1995, which was that “the one truth of this 

sad story” was that “our only successes have come when the Bosnian Serbs faced a credible 

threat of military force.”57 Consequently, she advocated immediately lifting the arms embargo 

and training the Bosnians until they could defend themselves and drive the Serbs to the negotiating table. Serious planning for a U.S.-led Train and Equip Program by the Pentagon picked 

up steam after her intervention,58 with the explicit goal of “ensur[ing] that there is a rough 

balance of power between the Federation and the Bosnian Serbs by the end of the 1-year 

peace implementation period.”59

After the Dayton agreement was signed, U.S. leaders remained cognizant of the need for 

incentives for compliance. The leaders of the Former Republic of Yugoslavia, Bosnia, and Croatia had agreed to recognize each other’s existence, address conflicts peacefully, and contribute 

to reconstruction and implementation of transitional justice, including the prosecution of war 

criminals.60 They also had agreed to continue the October 5 cease-fire and to withdraw more of 

their forces to specially designated zones. Yet these agreements were widely judged to be fragile. 

One or more parties could have used the respite from war to regroup and prepare for a renewal 

of hostilities. The Train and Equip Program was one of several mechanisms intended to dissuade such a course of action, particularly by the Serbs.

Another prominent means of dissuading a renewal of hostilities was the Dayton agreement’s provision in Annex 1-A for a multinational military Implementation Force (IFOR) under the command of NATO with UN authority to help enforce the military aspects of the agreement “with force if necessary.”61 Annex 1-B provided other stabilizing measures. It stipulated 

that under the auspices of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, the warring countries were to restrict arms imports and agree on rates for reducing arms stockpiles. The 

intent of the annex was to prevent an arms race and create a rough military balance between the 

formerly warring factions. When hostilities ended, the Bosnian Serbs had a major advantage in 

heavy weapons, so a balance could be achieved by some combination of arms reductions, arms 

control, and importation of weapons to the Bosnian Federation. U.S. leaders viewed Train and 

Equip as one key means to establish an enduring military balance that would facilitate stability 
14 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

and reconciliation. In that regard the informal name of the program—Train and Equip—communicated its content accurately, but the formal name better communicated its purpose: Task 

Force for Military Stabilization in the Balkans.

Most observers were skeptical about the chances for peace at the time. The initial 1-year 

duration for IFOR—strongly preferred by the U.S. military62 but considered a “waffle of the first 

order” by most other observers63—was considered impractical because it was a glaring signal 

that the U.S. commitment was limited. It was widely assumed the warring parties would renew 

fighting if NATO forces left. Even if they did not leave, no one could predict NATO’s willingness to enforce the peace if fighting broke out. Bosnian Serb hostility and IFOR passivity were 

demonstrated early in the peace implementation effort when Bosnian Serbs had to submit to 

the unification of Sarajevo under Federation control by March 18, 1996. IFOR stood by while 

Serbs burned abandoned homes and apartments and Serbian thugs terrorized any Serbs who 

wanted to stay in a multiethnic city. Such developments bode poorly for the peace process. In 

fact, many experts in the Intelligence Community expected the process to fall apart quickly after 

Holbrooke’s February 1996 departure from government and the loss of his unique access and 

knowledge of the parties, particularly in Belgrade.64

The precarious peace and short 1-year IFOR tenure underscored the sensitivity and urgency attached to the Train and Equip Program. The primary objective of the program was to 

create a military balance of power in Bosnia by offsetting Serbs advantages. The formal objective 

for the program approved by U.S. leaders was the following: “In one year, equip and train a Federation military force capable of deterring ground attacks on Federation territory by Srpska and 

successfully defending Federation territory from a revived Bosnian Serb Army, with no more 

than modest material support from Belgrade, should deterrence fail.”65 If IFOR was only going 

to stay a year, it was imperative that the program begin immediately and be executed rapidly. 

Secondarily, the United States intended to use the Train and Equip Program to strengthen 

the Bosniak-Croat Federation, so the program would be executed through the Federation with the 

intent to build and cement an integrated, NATO-backed, Bosniak-Croat Federation armed forces 

structure. A key assumption was that cooperation between the Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks on 

security matters would facilitate progress in other sectors. Certainly it was difficult to imagine 

much political progress in the Federation without agreement on security structures and processes. 

The sooner the Federation Ministry of Defense was integrated and working smoothly, the more 

likely it was that other aspects of postwar reconstruction would gather momentum. 

The third objective of the program was to orient Bosnia towards the West, first by eradicating the growing influence of radical Iranian-sponsored mujahideen, and second by instilling 
15

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

Western civil-military norms and NATO military standards. Congress made the availability of 

military and economic assistance to the Bosnian government contingent upon Iranian-supported foreign forces being expelled from Bosnia. U.S. leaders would not permit the program 

to deliver training or weapons until the President determined that the Bosnian government had 

arranged the departure of foreign fighters.66 Rapidly establishing the Train and Equip Program 

was meant to give the Bosniaks an incentive to take the politically painful step of dismissing 

their co-religionists who had flocked to Bosnia to fight with fanatical commitment. Another 

objective, implicit in the previous three, was “to provide incentives for all sides to comply with 

the Dayton Agreement and ensure that a secure environment exists upon SFOR’s departure.”67

Explaining the origins and purpose of Train and Equip from a select U.S. senior leadership 

point of view68 fails to communicate how controversial the program was at the time. Many (but 

not all) officials in the U.S. Government and most Europeans saw it as inconsistent with and an 

impediment to the international peacekeeping mission. Uniformed military leadership in particular feared the program would undermine the impartial peacekeeping image they needed to 

execute the IFOR mission successfully. How, they asked, can American soldiers serve as neutral 

peacekeepers while their country is supplying weapons and training to some of the previously 

warring factions? Military leaders worried the Serbs would view the program as blatant favoritism for the Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks and thus resent and attack U.S. peacekeeping troops. 

In Washington DOD simply insisted that the program be run out of the Department of State 

instead of itself. In Bosnia senior U.S. military leaders more openly distanced themselves from 

the program and sometimes seemed to impede its execution. 

The Europeans shared the U.S. military view that Train and Equip was a threat to peacekeeping forces. They refused to participate and opposed the program “indirectly.”69 Pardew 

would find the Europeans “feckless” and “useless” in helping Bosnia attain military stability.70 As 

Bosnian expert Susan Woodward argued, European opposition to Train and Equip represented 

a profound difference of opinion about “what was necessary to bring the conflict to an end and 

the method of obtaining peace and the goal of intervention.”71 For Europeans, introducing more 

arms into the region while trying to fulfill Dayton arms reduction provisions seemed contradictory. If a military balance was necessary, European diplomats thought it should be established 

through arms reduction and control.72

The European preference for arms control in lieu of Train and Equip was shared by 

many American diplomats. The Foreign Service Officer in charge of political-military matters 

for the European Bureau explained the Bureau’s skepticism about the Train and Equip effort 

when it was first forming in December 1995. In candid terms, he noted that no one in the 
16 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

Bureau believed in the elusive concept of “a military balance” or that any efforts to achieve 

one would contribute to stability. He said the common view in State was that the program was 

tolerated because it had been a necessary inducement to get the Bosnians to sign the Dayton 

Accords.73 He thought that arming and training the Federation would undermine the process 

of arms control and exacerbate tensions with Europeans participating in the implementation 

of the Dayton agreement.74

Most State Department officials, like DOD leaders, did not actively resist the program, 

which they knew had high-level support. On the contrary, they did their best to explain the 

program in terms of its contribution to stability and democratic processes.75 However, they 

often tried to use the program as leverage for what they considered more important objectives. 

From State’s viewpoint, the program was not important for any contributions it made to a military balance, but it was useful for keeping the process moving forward in other sectors. They 

frequently wanted to threaten to suspend Train and Equip if the Bosnian Croats or Bosniaks 

proved recalcitrant on unrelated peace implementation issues. 

Another objection to Train and Equip was that it would overcorrect the military balance in 

favor of the Bosniak-Croat Federation. Some NATO Allies harbored this concern (particularly 

the British),76 as did the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and some members of Congress.77

Even some officials in DOD and on the National Security Council78 disagreed with the introduction of heavy weaponry under Train and Equip. As the program got under way, the CIA 

became increasingly vocal in its assertion that a military balance already existed in Bosnia. 

Their military analysts argued that the Bosniaks had a manpower advantage and the Serbs had 

an equipment advantage, but in the end both sides were about equal. Therefore, they argued 

that arming the Federation would have the exact opposite of its intended effect, destabilizing the 

balance of power in favor of the Federation and leading to a renewal of hostilities. Others believed the same. A Washington Post reporter wrote that he drove 4 hours through a snowstorm 

to watch Train and Equip heavy weapons being offloaded at the Croatian port of Ploce because 

“when the next war in the Balkans erupts, I want to be able to say that I was there where it all 

began.”79 A few months later a New York Times reporter quoted a European commander as saying “the question no longer is if the Muslims will attack the Bosnian Serbs, but when.”80

Finally, a fair number of Balkan experts, journalists, and scholars thought the Train and 

Equip Program was misguided because the tenuous Bosniak-Croat Federation would be overcome with nationalist ambitions and crumble. Political scholars John Mearsheimer and Stephen Evera, typifying this perspective, wrote that the main problem with Dayton that would 

haunt the program was the “untenable” Croatian-Muslim Federation: “Like Bosnian Serbs, the 
17

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

Bosnian Croats want out of Bosnia. They accepted the Muslim-Croat Federation as an expedient . . . but they will surely move to destroy it someday soon.”81 Similarly, the U.S. Interagency 

Intelligence Task Force that tracked events in Bosnia, and the Department of State’s Bureau of 

Intelligence and Research, both believed the Federation was an “artificial construct” that would 

not last.82 The widespread view was that Federation leaders were so hostile to one another they 

would never cooperate. Europeans regarded the Federation as a “crazy idea.”83

The Serbs, of course, agreed that the Federation was not viable and that Train and Equip 

was destabilizing. They promoted the narrative that Bosniak forces were Muslim extremists 

who wanted to see the establishment of an Islamic state in Bosnia, and stoked the fear that the 

United States would end up arming and training an Islamic fundamentalist state. As the program progressed, Bosnian Serb leader Biljana Plavic complained, “There is obvious discrimination, particularly in an area [equipment] that is so very delicate,”84 and another Serb commentator warned that arming “Alija [Izetbegovich]’s mujahedeens in the middle of the peace 

process in former Bosnia-Herzegovina can only trigger a new war.”85 The Serbs were not alone 

in asserting that Washington was being duped by wily Muslims. Looking back on the events 

that led to Dayton and the Train and Equip Program, one former senior State Department and 

UN official would conclude the Muslims “bamboozled the world” and played the United States 

“like a fiddle.”86

In sum, other than the U.S. President, a handful of his top national security officials, some 

strong supporters in Congress who cared to follow the issue, and those directly involved in 

the Train and Equip Program, most informed opinion in the U.S. Government and European 

circles seemed to agree that Train and Equip was destabilizing and counterproductive. Nevertheless, the task force was ultimately able to sidestep or overcome such resistance and execute its 

program with the help of supporters inside and outside the U.S. Government. It did so in some 

interesting and creative ways that merit close inspection.

Train and Equip Team Performance, 1995–1997

Train and equip could start an arms race. It is inflaming a situation which is already inflammatory. That’s not what it was originally designed to do.87

—Former UN High Representative to Bosnia Carl Bildt, 1997

After the Train and Equip Program was in effect for a year or more, many observers considered it a juggernaut propelling the region toward renewed hostilities. Yet when the program began 

operations in December 1995, it seemed anything but a runaway success. Pardew started with no 
18 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

staff, no budget, no clear military requirements, and no committed international support. Armed 

only with a mandate and drawdown authority from Congress, Pardew went to work immediately 

after the Dayton peace agreement. Reflecting his sense of urgency, he told his small task force 

“every day is a work day”88 and proved it by working nonstop through the holiday period, an extended government furlough, and the early-January blizzard that shut down the Federal Government for a week by dumping two feet of snow on Washington, DC.89 Over the next 2 years Pardew 

and his interagency team, along with those they partnered with, maintained this level of intensity 

by traveling extensively, overcoming major setbacks, and beating back bureaucratic resistance to 

secure international donor funds and create a web of private and government sector entities that 

could implement the program. The first step was assembling the core team. 

Forming the Team

Shortly after the Dayton agreement, Jim Pardew was made U.S. Special Representative for 

Military Stabilization in the Balkans, given temporary ambassadorial status (which was later 

confirmed by the Senate), and housed in the Department of State’s main building. He began assembling a group to implement the Train and Equip Program. Pardew’s first recruit was Mark 

Sawoski, who had worked with Pardew on the DOD Bosnia Task Force and accompanied him 

to the Dayton negotiations. Pardew asked Sawoski to work on Train and Equip as a senior advisor.90 When Sawoski had to return to his position in academia during the summer of 1996 

Pardew secured the services of Chuck Franklin, a former Navy public affairs officer, who concentrated on task force public relations. 

Pardew, a former U.S. Army intelligence officer, also quickly arranged for someone to support the task force’s intelligence needs. The CIA loaned him someone to provide intelligence 

support but rescinded the action after a few weeks. Pardew requested a replacement who was 

knowledgeable about the Balkans and was given Guillermo Christensen, a CIA analyst then 

working in the DCI’s Interagency Balkan Task Force.91 When Christensen departed after a few 

months for his onward assignment, the CIA provided another replacement who stayed with the 

task force for the next several years.

Pardew also approached the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, Walt Slocombe, to 

ask for a senior executive to serve as one of his two deputies, with responsibility for working 

the details of the military training program and equipment deliveries. Slocombe made Chris 

Lamb available. Pardew also wanted someone from the Defense Security Cooperation Agency 

to manage the congressionally mandated $100 million drawdown of U.S. military equipment. 

That agency made Major Stuart McFarren, a former Special Forces officer, available to Pardew, 
19

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

believing it would be a short-term job.92 McFarren was originally assigned to Pardew for 2 

weeks but ended up staying with the program almost 8 years, longer than any other member. 

In order to maintain the U.S. military’s posture as an unbiased international peacekeeping force 

that was not “taking sides,” McFarren had to quickly retire from the Army and begin working 

for Pardew as a contractor to stay with the Train and Equip team.93

The Department of State supplied Pardew’s other deputy, Ambassador Darryl Johnson, to 

help work the international diplomatic agenda in support of Train and Equip. Johnson served 

as Pardew’s deputy from January through March 1996.94 He was supported by Angel Rabasa, a 

Foreign Service Officer who had worked Serbian sanctions on another interagency task force 

before joining Train and Equip during a normal department rotation.95 When Johnson was 

temporarily assigned to head the Embassy in Sarajevo for a few weeks before moving on to his 

assignment in Taiwan, Pardew had to find a replacement. After several months he recruited 

Ambassador Jon Glassman from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces at National Defense University. The Department of State also provided secretarial support and, in the summer 

of 1996, another senior political officer to assist the task force, John Klekas, a Foreign Service 

officer Pardew knew from working on the Balkan Task Force at DOD. 

So after several substitutions about 6 months into the program, the basic structure and the 

work regimen of the team remained stable over the first few years. The team met each morning in Pardew’s office to talk strategy and priorities, and then dispersed. An early priority for 

Pardew was securing his group’s authority to take action within the U.S. national security establishment. He needed a mandate that would answer the question of how much training and 

equipping would be necessary. A study was already under way for that very purpose.

Establishing Requirements, Getting a Mandate, and Beginning Operations

By August 1995 there was interagency agreement that a Train and Equip Program should 

be “modest” and concentrate on “defensive capabilities,”96 but the exact size and shape of the 

program was disputed. Both the CIA and Pentagon had made preliminary estimates of Train 

and Equip Program requirements for planning purposes. They agreed on some of the Bosniak 

force shortcomings, but disagreed about how capable Bosniak forces were and what it would 

take to create an effective military balance (with the Joint Staff being “more pessimistic about 

Muslim capabilities”).97 After the decision to train and equip the Bosnians was made, senior 

administration officials wanted a more detailed and deliberate assessment. So the Institute for 

Defense Analysis (IDA) was asked to travel to Bosnia and make a complete assessment of the 

military balance in order “to identify priorities for training and equipment improvements; and 
20 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

to develop alternative equip and train packages.”98 The IDA assessment team had drafts of its 

work ready in December but did not complete its assessment until February 5, 1996. 

The team recommended the creation of a unified Bosniak-Croat joint military staff and an 

integrated peacetime force of 55,000 active-duty troops composed of 14 brigades (10 Bosniak 

and 4 Bosnian Croat). The team found minimal cooperation between the Bosniak and Croat 

forces and widespread mutual animosity. The IDA report noted that the Croat HVO “behaves 

more as an extension of the Croatian Army than as a Federation partner of the predominantly 

Muslim Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina” and also remarked on the “ethnic bigotry among 

most HVO officers that we did not find in the ARBiH.” The IDA study group did not find 

“enthusiasm for resuming the war,” but did note the smoldering resentment in some quarters, 

especially among Croats, was a formidable obstacle to executing Train and Equip. Both sides 

were pleased to have U.S. support for the Federation Army, however. The ARBiH commander, 

General Rasim Delic, summed up the general sentiment when he told IDA researchers, “We 

survived before by courage and resourcefulness, but we paid a high price in lives and territory 

and we need America’s help to prevent that from ever happening again.”99

The IDA study team found the HVO and ARBiH armies in dire need of training and basic 

equipment. Both armies were comprised mostly of young, battle-hardened troops who suffered 

from a lack of formal training at all levels. Young commanders were under-trained and overwhelmed by their responsibilities: “At brigade and battalion level, many commanders have risen 

so fast that they are not yet adequately trained in staff operations or the coordination of maneuver and support.” Furthermore, neither army had noncommissioned officers above squad level, 

which meant junior officers were left to “plan, lead, supervise, coordinate, and requisition all 

forms of support in battle . . . leaders so overwhelmed with tasks cannot be fully attentive to any 

task, thereby degrading the quality of what they do. . . .”100

In taking stock of the HVO and ARBiH equipment, the report found that most of the 

weaponry in both armies was decades old and of “Soviet, Yugoslav or other communist block 

manufacture,”101 and that much of it had been worn out from “prolonged combat use.” The IDA 

team identified the major equipment shortfalls, and noted that, “If pooled, the combined military industrial capacity and logistical infrastructure of the ARBiH and HVO could significantly 

reduce the cost of defending the country, more readily standardize units, and reduce the cost of 

an externally-supported Train and Equip Program.” The IDA study was briefed to senior DOD 

leaders, who generally accepted the findings (table 1).102

With the draft103 IDA assessment in hand, Pardew arranged to have the Train and Equip 

Program considered in a Deputies Committee meeting, i.e., a National Security Council staff 
21

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

meeting attended by the second highest officials from all the major departments and agencies. 

The Deputies approved Pardew’s five-page paper laying out policy, goals, leadership, objectives, 

concept, and next steps for the Train and Equip Program on December 28, 1995, codifying 

the purpose and attributes of the program that had been debated and clarified in preceding 

months.104 The Deputies Committee stipulated that actual training and equipping could not 

begin until two conditions were fulfilled. Bosniak and Croat leaders had to prove their commitment to the Federation, and the Bosniak leaders had to sever ties with Iran and the mujahideen fighters in Bosnia. Pardew did not contest these stipulations but rather insisted upon 

Element Description Estimated Cost (in millions)

Training Unit training—company 

lane training and company 

combat training centers 

(CTCs), 2nd company CTCs 

and battalion CTCs

Individual training—NCO 

and junior officer courses, 

officer and battle staff 

training

$45 

Artillery Towed medium artillery (144 

tubes), counter battery radars 

(12), computers, trucks 

(2550)

$120–150

Infantry equipment Anti-tank weapons (318), 

heavy mortars (130), 

light weapons; engineer 

equipment, individual 

equipment

$195–210

Communications Tactical VHF and HF radios, 

radio-relay system and 

tactical telephone equipment

$65

Air defense Man-portable SAMs, early 

warning radars, radar SAMs

$155–190

Tanks and AVCs Tanks (45) and armored 

combat vehicles (80) for 

reaction brigade

$70–110

Helicopters Utility helicopters (20) $90–110

Approximate Cumulative Value: $740–860 Million

Table 1. IDA Study Recommended Train and Equip Elements
22 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

them. He “knew the consequences of being a pawn”105 for other Balkan agendas and wanted the 

leverage to put the program on a proper foundation. The paper also addressed Bosnian Serb 

participation. It noted that having separate military forces in Bosnia was “incompatible with 

the long-term goal of a peaceful, unitary Bosnian state,” so it explained that he would explore 

opportunities for greater integration with the Bosnian Serbs after appropriate conditions were 

met, including giving up indicted war criminals. It would be quite some time before the Bosnian 

Serbs were ready to accept such conditions. Meanwhile, Pardew used this Deputies Committee 

mandate to overcome resistance to the program within the U.S. national security bureaucracy 

and from U.S. military leaders in Bosnia.

Soliciting Support and Operating Funds

The immediate next step that Pardew had requested and received Deputies approval for 

was an “orientation trip” to the Balkans. He and his deputies, along with IDA’s chief analyst 

in charge of the requirements report, flew to the region the first week of January, 1996. In 

Zagreb, the Croatians were cautiously supportive on the condition that the program would be 

administered through the Federation. In Sarajevo the Bosniaks welcomed the team and readily agreed on the broad outlines of the program. In Belgrade Milosevic was cordial but adopted the European stance toward the program: no weapons should be introduced to Bosnia. 

Instead, a balance should be achieved through reductions alone.106 Whether meeting with 

Bosniaks, Croats, or Serbs, Pardew’s message was the same: the program would be implemented, it would be transparent, and it would be kept fully consistent with all other aspects 

of the Dayton Accords.

Pardew wanted to introduce his deputies, both of whom were new to the Balkans, to the 

key players in the region, but he also give them a chance to see the impact of the war up close. 

After arriving at Sarajevo’s bullet-ridden airport on the only flight they could find—an old Russian 

transport107 delivering frozen food—Pardew had his team tour the heavily damaged remains of 

Sarajevo, including the famous central library that had been gutted by fire.108 The orientation trip 

also established a pattern of regular travel for team members, who on average traveled 1 week in 

4, usually to Bosnia to do business with the Federation Ministry of Defense and the U.S. contractor responsible for program execution in the field, but also in search of resources and weapons for 

the program. The main purpose of this first trip, however, was to put the region on notice that the 

Train and Equip was real, solicit support, and underscore the transparent nature of the program. 

Once back in Washington, Pardew put Lamb, his Department of Defense deputy, to 

work on developing a training contract and determining what defense stocks could be drawn 
23

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

down for the Federation military forces. Most of the congressionally mandated $100 million 

in drawdown authority for Train and Equip would come from Army stocks, including rifles, 

machine guns, radios, tactical telephones, tanks, heavy artillery, armored personnel carriers, 

light antitank weapons, and utility helicopters. Other than this significant donation, the U.S. 

Congress was promised that no taxpayer funds would be used for the program execution. 

Thus Pardew had to look to other countries for cash and in-kind donations to finance the remaining $700 million of the estimated $800 million program,109 and he assigned Ambassador 

Johnson the lead on that effort. 

A common means of soliciting international financial support is to hold a donor conference, but U.S. leaders worried that it would focus too much attention on the program.110

After Saudi Ambassador to the United States Prince Bandar bin Sultan suggested the program 

pursue this course of action, the idea received renewed attention. Normally such events are 

convened after preliminary diplomatic work secures some hard pledges of support. However, 

Train and Equip was dependent on cash donations to pay for its training component and 

Pardew’s sense of urgency was growing. He wrote a memo to all the major national security 

Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, Ambassador Pardew, and other attendees at the “disastrous” Ankara 

donor conference
24 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

leaders in the U.S. Government in mid-February, reporting that Train and Equip so far had 

“no money, no equipment, and no training.” He noted the effort was “on the verge of criticism because we have not moved faster.”111 After some internal debate, the task force went to 

work on organizing a donor conference despite the absence of preliminary pledges. Turkey, 

“shrugging off ” complaints from the European Union,112 agreed to host the event in Ankara 

on March 15, 1996. The task force assumption was that raising money from sympathetic 

majority-Muslim countries would be easy, but that turned out not to be the case. 

In late February Johnson traveled to Southeast Asia with “tin cup in hand.”113 He went to 

Brunei, Malaysia, and Indonesia,114 preparing their governments for the conference in Ankara.115 At every stop Johnson was asked, “Why are you Americans here asking us? Why aren’t the 

Bosnians?”116 Implicit in the question was the possibility that the Bosniaks preferred to receive 

aid directly rather than sharing resources with the Bosnian Croats. It soon became clear that 

this was the donors’ perspective. Muslim countries were leery of contributing to an American 

program that included Bosnian Croats who had fought against Muslims.117 The Turks had similar sentiments but were more willing to sponsor the conference, cooperate with the program, 

and see how matters progressed. 

Warning signs notwithstanding, the actual conference was a shock. It started well. Some 

32 nations and 5 international organizations attended, including the United States, which was 

represented by Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott. Despite the notable absence of Russia and some other key European countries, the wide representation seemed promising. But 

the conference fizzled. The Europeans extolled the importance of arms control while Muslim 

countries asserted the right to self-defense. U.S. representatives made eloquent arguments 

about the fragility of peace and the need to support the victims of Serb aggression by helping build a deterrent force. In the end, concrete pledges of cash support did not materialize. 

Only the Turks pledged an unspecified training package they valued at $2 million. Pardew 

apologized to the Deputy Secretary, but Talbott reassured him that they would make the best 

they could out of the circumstances. The task force departed from Turkey dejected and empty 

handed, stopping in Istanbul to “lick its wounds.” In Pardew’s words, “The Ankara conference 

was a complete disaster.”118

Many of the potential Muslim donors feared that “most of the equipment provided 

would be diverted to Croatia or at least to the Bosnian-Croat portion of the Federation.”119

Pardew discovered that the Organization of the Islamic Conference had decided in a meeting 

in Islamabad earlier in the same week as the Ankara conference that “the Islamic world will 

support Bosnian Muslims on a bilateral basis rather than through the U.S. program which 
25

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

supports the Federation of Muslims and Croats.”120 There were also suggestions that countries 

like Saudi Arabia, which had provided $100 million for Bosnian relief during the war, were 

upset about the lack of Bosnian accountability for those funds. They had no idea where their 

money went and were leery of making more donations. For their part, Bosniak leaders played 

up both American and Muslim strategic ties by encouraging the Organization of the Islamic 

Conference to “retain bilateral relationships while supporting the U.S.” Following the Ankara 

conference, Bosnian UN Ambassador Mohammad Sacirbey added insult to injury by calling 

the Train and Equip Program “cheap and inadequate.”121

Left with nothing to show from the Ankara conference, with time ticking and criticism 

of the program splattered across newspapers as he had predicted,122 Pardew turned to the 

White House. He reminded all concerned that the program was a personal commitment 

from President Clinton. White House officials agreed that the President would make a personal appeal and dispatch his lifelong friend and counselor, Thomas “Mack” McLarty, to 

the Gulf to convey his request for assistance. McLarty, however, would not board the plane 

waiting at Andrews Air Force base until the task force obtained an ironclad assurance that 

the President’s personal request would be received favorably. The task force launched a 

frantic search for longtime Saudi Ambassador to the United States Prince Bandar, finally 

locating him through his American security detail. Bandar promised Saudi cooperation, so 

McLarty, Pardew, and regional experts departed for Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and Kuwait between April 14 and 15 to make the President’s appeal to the highest 

levels of government, netting $115 million in cash.123

With funding from the Gulf priming the pump, a second trip was made by Pardew and 

Glassman to Malaysia and Brunei that increased the cash pledges to $152 million. During 

these fund-raising trips, Pardew’s team stressed the moral dimension of their mission and 

was met with similar sentiments. The Emir of Kuwait, who initially agreed to give $30 million, told Pardew that “helping Bosnia is a duty . . . not because they are Muslims, but because they are wronged people.”124 In Brunei, Ambassador Glassman recalled that conversations on the “shocking and harrowing tale of slaughter” of Muslim innocents at Srebrenica 

strengthened resolve that such horrors could not be allowed to happen again. Although 

the $147 million was a far cry from IDA’s estimated program needs, the Train and Equip 

team doggedly pursued in-kind donations over the next 2 years, securing pledges from 14 

countries valued at another $129 million. In addition to the $100 million in U.S. military 

assistance, the total value of the program was over $400 million in cash, equipment, training, and technical support (see table 2).125
26 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

Establishing the Legal Regime for Managing Funds

The McLarty trip secured enough cash to launch Train and Equip but simultaneously presented an unforeseen and pressing legal matter: how to legally spend other countries’ money for 

an American-led foreign military program. Team members were acutely conscious of the need 

for a legally sanctioned method for administering donor funds. The team turned to Department 

of State lawyers. The Department had a major conundrum. Constitutionally, the Executive is 

Country Funds (in millions) Equipment (in millions)

Brunei $27

Egypt $3.8 worth of equipment

• 16 130mm field guns 

• 12 122mm howitzers and 18 23mm 

antiaircraft guns

Kuwait $50

Malaysia $10

Qatar $13 worth of equipment

• 25 Armored personnel carriers

Saudi Arabia $50

Turkey $2 worth of equipment

• 10 T-55 tanks 

United Arab Emirates $15 $120 worth of equipment

• 36 105mm howitzers

• 50 AMX30 tanks and 31 ML90 

armored vehicles

• 8 transport vehicles

United States $109 worth of equipment and services

• 45 M60A3 tanks, 80 M113A2 armored 

personnel carriers, 240 heavy trucks

• 15 UH-1H helicopters

• 116 155mm field howitzers and 840 

AT-4 light antitank weapons

• 1,000 M-60 machine guns and 46,100 

M-16 rifles

• JANUS and BBS Command and Staff 

simulation software

• 2,342 radios, 4,100 tactical telephones, 

binoculars

Total Value: $399.8 Million

Table 2. Train and Equip Program Donated Resources as of January 1997
27

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

not permitted to spend money without congressional approval, but McLarty had already come 

home with financial commitments. It took a unique legal construct and a joint State, Treasury, 

and Justice Department effort to allow those funds to be used consistent with U.S. law and the 

policy objectives of the Train and Equip Program.126

A winning formula was found after a number of false starts. Legal advisors reasoned that 

because the funds had been given to the United States for a specific purpose, the Department of 

State could create a common law trust for them. Setting up such a trust allowed the U.S. Government to administer the money but did not give it ownership rights or direct control over how the 

funds were to be used.127 Washington would hold the funds in the U.S. Treasury with an affirmative duty to protect the property on behalf of the donors, which meant ensuring the funds were 

allocated consistent with donor intent.128 Obtaining support from the Departments of Justice and 

Treasury ensured broad government support for the funding mechanism.129 After securing interagency and donor agreement for this novel approach, the Bosnian Defense Fund was established 

on April 22, 1996.130 Supporting arrangements for administering the funds then had to be created, 

including the documentation necessary to establish Ministry of Defense needs and donor intent, 

and whether the fund would be interest bearing and, if so, how that would be managed.131

When the Federation needed to pay a contract for either weapons or training services, 

they would submit a written request—prepared for them by the Train and Equip team and 

signed by both Bosniak and Croat Ministers of Defense—to the donors.132 This request 

from the Federation Ministry of Defense was forwarded through the team to the donors 

in the form of a diplomatic note, another of the innovative procedures developed for the 

program.133 Diplomatic notes, which had to be reported to Congress, allowed the whole 

process to stay transparent and on the record. The Train and Equip team would forward 

the Ministry’s request to a particular donor country that would then decide whether it 

would allow its donation, sitting in the trust fund, to be used for that request.134 To fulfill 

its fiduciary responsibilities as trustee, the team had to demonstrate that bids from vendors 

were good deals for the donors.135 Infrequently, donors would deny a request, preferring 

that their donations be used for other purposes, in which case Train and Equip members 

would pursue another donor.136 Upon donor approval, the State Department would then 

withdraw funds from the Treasury account and pay the contractor or supplier directly.137 In 

this manner the donor funds never passed through Bosnian hands, but always went directly 

for training and equipment that the Bosnian defense leadership agreed was necessary.

Exchanging diplomatic notes and other paperwork was “somewhat cumbersome”138 and 

frustrated Bosnian military leaders, particularly the Bosnian Croat Minister of Defense,139 who 
28 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

thought Bosnians should manage the funds more directly. However, the process allowed donor 

countries to know where their funds went and allowed Washington to ensure that every cent 

of the funds was spent legitimately. Moreover, it left the Train and Equip team in the middle of 

all transactions with an “appropriate level of leverage over the disbursement of funds.”140 Later, 

the team would reinforce accountability by having the Federation employ the services of a U.S. 

DOD auditor stationed in Sarajevo to monitor contracts and their implementation.141 Getting 

the Bosnian Federation Ministry of Defense and a donor to agree that funds should be spent to 

pay for a U.S. auditing function took some persuasion but added another layer of transparency 

and accountability. 

It was a “creative and ingenious”142 system of checks and balances that reassured Pardew. 

The Bosnians soon realized that no graft or corruption would taint the program,143 a conviction 

Pardew reinforced with key policy decisions. For example, after delivering rifles to the Federation, Pardew made it mandatory for every soldier issued a weapon to sign for it by serial number.144 Pardew also refused to support the use of donor funds for Federation military salaries, 

which he saw as a “bottomless pit” for the program’s meager resources and an unhealthy opportunity for funds to be “raked off at every level.”145 His position was that the Federation would 

provide the soldiers and his program would train and equip them. 

Finding Trainers

Even before funding was secured, the Train and Equip team had worked hard to put a 

contract in place for training Federation forces. Since DOD wanted to distance itself from the 

program, private contractors had to be engaged. Train and Equip staff used the IDA training 

assessment to develop requirements. The task force then invited private sector firms to submit 

bids. Three U.S. contractors responded, and the Train and Equip staff arranged for the Bosnians 

to hear their proposals in person. 

During the first Train and Equip visit to Sarajevo, the Bosnians had said they wanted the 

program to cooperate with their U.S. advisors,146 notably Richard Perle, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense and member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board; former Under Secretary 

of Defense Fred Iklé; former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Negotiations and Policy 

Doug Feith; Clarrisse Feldman; and others. This message was later reinforced by the Bosnian 

Embassy in Washington, DC.147 These advisors, particularly Perle and Feith, provided a great 

deal of pro bono assistance to the Bosnians. Later they formed the Acquisition Support Institute (ASI) headed by Mike McNamara148 to monitor Bosnian interests in Train and Equip on 

an ongoing basis. The Train and Equip team worked cautiously with ASI but soon learned their 
29

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

hard-nosed approach to saving the Bosnians money could benefit the program. ASI played a 

major role in negotiating the training contract. Later it conducted periodic in-country reviews 

of training and equipment use and reviewed all the training company’s vouchers before recommending payment by the Federation Ministry of Defense. ASI also pushed DOD to designate 

materials as Excess Defense Articles (EDAs) so they could be given to the Federation at no 

charge, further cutting costs.149 In essence, ASI provided another layer of accountability, particularly with respect to the administration of the training contract.

As it turned out, the Federation decision to award the contract to Military Resources Professionals, Inc. (MPRI), of Alexandria, Virginia, had unanimous support. Pardew and others 

felt that the company, comprised of former U.S. military personnel, was committed to the mission and also took pride in facilitating the execution of U.S. foreign policy. MPRI had an Army 

ethos and mission-minded mentality,150 experience working in the region, and understood the 

conflict as well as some of the challenges they would be facing. Finally, and of particular importance to ASI, which supported the choice of MPRI, they were the least expensive option. They 

offered a lean alternative compared to the other companies and had a great deal of credibility 

with the Bosnians and particularly the Croats. MPRI’s relationship with the Croatian army was 

perceived as playing an important role in the “blitzkrieg offensives” the Croatian forces used to 

recapture land from Serbs in late 1995. MPRI was also perceived by the Bosnians, ASI, and the 

Train and Equip team as eager to establish its reputation by securing and successfully implementing the training portion of the program. 

The decision to negotiate the contract with MPRI still left much to be done. Train and 

Equip personnel cajoled assistance from DOD contract specialists to create a draft contract that 

covered the range of envisioned activities, including individual soldier training, infantry unit 

training and integration, development of a noncommissioned officer corps, light and heavy 

weapons training, and training and integration of Federation Ministry of Defense and Joint 

High Command staff. The Train and Equip staff cut the turgid government-style draft from over 

200 pages to around 70. Then ASI, or more specifically Doug Feith’s law firm, weighed in and 

further simplified the contract, reducing it to about 30 pages of essential terms and conditions. 

Contract negotiations progressed slowly as every change had to be reviewed and endorsed 

by multiple parties. MPRI and the task force had to agree on what needed to be done, and the 

Bosnians would not approve the contract without ASI’s concurrence as well. When arrangements for funding the contract were finally established, the pressure to close the deal on contract provisions spiked. Lamb and McNamara worked all night at a borrowed office in the U.S. 

Embassy in Sarajevo to hammer out final details. On some changes McNamara conferred with 
30 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

Mike Poliner, the lawyer Feith had assigned to work on the contact. Poliner was in the firm’s 

Haifa, Israel, office at the time. Poliner, in turn, would confirm some language changes with the 

task force’s contract specialist, Gary Blasser. By then Poliner had such a close working relationship with Blasser that he felt free to wake him at 3 a.m. in the Washington suburbs to confirm 

that a wording change was helpful. By dawn ASI concerns were satisfied, and the task force explained the final product to MPRI, which found the modifications acceptable. The contract was 

ready on May 29. MPRI could move quickly once the Bosnians met U.S. Government requirements for initiating the Train and Equip Program. 

Obtaining Weapons

As soon as the program was established, the Train and Equip staff began negotiating with 

the Department of the Army on what material could be draw down from Army stocks. Ultimately Pardew and his team would secure a wide range of light lethal and nonlethal assistance 

through the drawdown authority Congress granted, including 45,100 M-16 rifles, 1,000 M-60 

machine guns, an assortment of field radios and telephones, and other key gear such as maps, 

binoculars, generators, and computers with simulation software. The heavy equipment included 

45 upgraded Vietnam-era M60A3 main battle tanks, 80 M113A2 armored personnel carriers, 

840 AT-4 light antitank weapons, and 15 UH-1H (Huey) utility helicopters.151 Other items such 

as ammunition and fuses for the weapons, batteries, smoke grenades, spare magazines, aviator helmets, artillery simulators, and military doctrinal publications also were provided. The 

drawdown authority provided the bulk of the U.S. equipment, but Train and Equip secured additional items by obtaining excess defense articles, most notably 116 155mm towed howitzers 

the task force had refurbished at the Army’s Rock Island Arsenal using Army drawdown funding. Ammunition and fuses for these and other weapons were also obtained through the excess 

defense articles program. 

In addition, team members went on “shopping trips”152 throughout Europe and the Middle East hunting for the best equipment at the best price. Lamb knew the Army’s National 

Ground Intelligence Center had expertise on foreign weapons systems and secured some 

of their experts to help Ambassador Glassman assess attractive buying options. These experts provided critical insights on the quality and reliability of alternative acquisition choices. 

Glassman was given free rein to cajole donations from friendly countries and negotiate attractive deals, and he made the most of the opportunity. One weapons expert accompanying 

Glassman as an adviser marveled at his negotiating skills. During a final session with the 

Romanians, he was surprised to see their subject matter expert resort to his calculator to see 
31

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

if all the concessions that had been agreed upon would allow Glassman to meet all his costs, 

deliver the weapons, and still make a profit.153 Later he advised Glassman to sell used cars 

when he retired.154

When possible and cost-effective, the task force looked to stimulate indigenous Bosnian 

defense industry. It let a contract for the production of Kevlar helmets and small caliber ammunition after ensuring the Bosnians could match a competitive price and obtained approval 

to buy Bosnian-produced 122mm towed howitzers.155 Most weapons had to be purchased elsewhere, however, either because Bosnia did not make the needed product or the relevant industry was destroyed in the war. Western European countries were opposed to the program, so it 

was more difficult to purchase equipment from their private sectors, and their disapproval also 

influenced some Eastern European countries. The Poles rejected overtures to provide tanks,156

and the Czechs, newly admitted to the European Union, would not even sell the Train and 

Equip Program a special stand needed to test the helmets produced by the Bosnians because 

they were concerned about the EU arms embargo against Bosnia.157 When Glassman found a 

trucking company in Holland with good prices and a willingness to sell, the Dutch government 

threw up barriers to exporting the trucks. After multiple task force members spent considerable time on site working directly with the Dutch seller, the truck order was completed and the 

trucks were delivered to Bosnia.

Former Soviet or East European countries proved to be much easier bargaining partners. 

Ukraine, Romania, Slovakia,158 and others were eager to offload some of their equipment for 

cash. Although there were insinuations that NATO membership would be withheld if they cooperated with the Train and Equip Program,159 these countries calculated that their interests 

were better served by selling to the program. In addition Egypt, which was initially assessed as 

an unlikely partner, seized the opportunity to be both a cooperative American ally and a provider to a largely Muslim army. 

Getting the equipment to Bosnia proved to be a major challenge. The program decided to 

make an initial symbolic shipment of U.S. arms to Sarajevo by air. The consignment, consisting 

of rifles, machine guns, and radios,160 precipitated the first active international resistance. It was 

blocked by a NATO general from the United Kingdom who refused to approve the landing even 

though it met all Dayton provisions and subsequent requirements imposed by the international 

community.161 Such harassment would become routine over time, absorbing much time and 

attention. The task force fought the decision and secured approval for the delivery. The material was airlifted to Bosnia and arrived August 29, 1996, with as much fanfare as Pardew’s team 

could muster. 
32 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

The rest of the program’s weapons were delivered far more economically by ship and rail. 

That required support from Croatian officials in Zagreb to use the Croatian port of Ploce, 

which controlled the most efficient means of entry for heavy articles. Croatian officials agreed 

early on that Ploce could serve as an entry point for Train and Equip weapons so long as they 

were managed in an integrated Federation military structure. Nonetheless, heavy weapons 

for the Bosniaks made them nervous.162 Securing logistical cooperation at Ploce, including 

sufficient security for the delivery of the controversial weapons, required a constant Train 

and Equip team member presence at the port for several months. Infuriating roadblocks and 

delays for unfathomable bureaucratic reasons had to be overcome, and then the U.S. ship 

delivering the weapons was held up off shore while Pardew negotiated final concessions from 

authorities in Sarajevo. Eventually U.S. equipment flowed through the port, and other donated material soon did as well. 

Annex IB: Article IV of the Dayton Agreement stipulates a 2:1 ratio between the Federation and the RS; RS 

accused of hiding artillery pieces throughout process

Figure 2. Artillery Arms Control Compliance

Estimated Levels

Pre-Dayton

December 1996

Phase I

October 1997

Phase II

Dayton Agreement

Levels

Artillery Pieces

776

Destroyed

1143

Destroyed

1731

Destroyed

45 Destroyed

Federation

4,000 Republika Srpska

3,000

2,000

1,000

Intel accusations of

RS underreporting

suggested that over 2,000

must yet be destroyed

OSCE verifies

Dayton comliance
33

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

The first non-U.S. donation to Train and Equip arrived at Ploce in December 1996: 36 

105mm howitzers with ammunition and spare parts from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) 

and 12 130mm field guns, 12 122mm howitzers, and 18 23mm antiaircraft guns with spare 

parts from Egypt. Shortly thereafter the UAE delivered 44 ML90 armored personnel carriers 

and 42 French-built AMX30 tanks, and in October 1997, the United States delivered 116 refurbished 155mm field howitzers. As arms flowed through Ploce, West Europeans diplomats 

and military leaders repeated their argument that Train and Equip was a “recipe for more 

war,” and that “one day American-made tanks will be rolling across Bosnia’s plains.”163 They 

also asserted the program was undermining the arms control negotiations mandated by the 

Dayton agreement.164

The reverse was a concern to members of the Train and Equip Task Force, who worried 

that arms control would impinge on their program. In internal State Department deliberations the task force argued against limits established from a false baseline for current holdings 

(i.e., that took declared levels at face value) and against any baseline that required deep cuts in 

Federation holdings, which would freeze Serb advantages in place and contradict the stated 

purpose of the Train and Equip Program.165 Federation negotiators made similar arguments 

in actual negotiations. When the Dayton Peace Accord follow-on agreement on arms limitations was signed in Florence, Italy, on June 14, 1996, it satisfied Train and Equip concerns. 

Thus, as one independent and detailed review concluded, the equipment delivered under 

Train and Equip did not violate arms control agreements, or for that matter, reverse Bosnian 

Serb equipment quantitative advantages:

[The Train and Equip] equipment is well below the arms control ceilings established 

at Florence, although it is far better than the equipment held by the Federation at 

the end of the war and is superior in quality and condition to most of the Bosnian 

Serb arsenal. In only one category, artillery, was the Federation obliged to destroy 

stock to stay under the Florence limits, whereas Republika Srpska had substantial 

“destruction liabilities” in tanks, armored personnel carriers and aircraft. This 

suggests that Republika Srpska will maintain numerical superiority in most 

categories of weaponry.166

Pardew and his public affairs spokesman frequently reminded the press that all arms shipments 

were well within agreed ceilings,167 whereas the Bosnian Serbs were viewed as slow to comply 

and more guilty than the Federation of hiding weapons168 (see figure 2169).
34 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

Provider Training Event/

Program

Important Milestones

Bangladesh Technical training No data available as of January 1998

Egypt Officer training Provided as of January 1998

Germany Completed in June 1998

Indonesia Medical and engineer 32 trainers sent to Bosnia by January 1998

Jordan

Armored Personnel 

Carriers operation and 

maintenance training

18 trainers in Bosnia as of January 1998

Malaysia Professional military 

courses for officers

Provided as of December 1997

MPRI

Leadership training for 

ministers and generals

Five senior leadership seminars conducted by 

November 1997, 225 senior leaders trained

Individual training 

for soldiers, 

noncommissioned 

officers (NCOs) and 

officers

• Federation Army School (FAS) opens October 

1996 to instruct commanders, company 

commanders, and NCOs

• 300 through FAS Command and Staff course by 

September 1997

• 400 through FAS Company Commander course 

by September 1997

• “RAPIDTRAIN” for 2,520 NCOs at FAS by 

September 1997

Unit training for 

brigades and battalions

• Local unit training begins in October 1996, 11 

brigades complete training by January 1998

• Combat Simulation Center (CSC) opens January 

1997 to provide computerized training scenarios to 

units

• 14 brigades, 36 battalions, Federation Reaction 

Force, and artillery units that support each corps 

trained in CSC by September 1998

• Combat Training Center (CTC) at Livno opens 

July 1998 to provide realistic combat and Multiple 

Integrated Laser Engagement System equipment 

training

• 703 soldiers trained at CTC as of June 1998

Staff training for corps, 

divisions, brigades, 

and battalions

• CSC opens January 1997 to provide leadership 

and battle staff training for armed forces, Ministry 

of Defense, and Joint Command

• Seven brigade staffs, 12 battalion staffs, and 400 

other Federation personnel trained by September 1997

• Four corps’ staff received training by September 

1998

Table 3. Major Train and Equip Program Training Contributions
35

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

Working with MPRI

The moment the Train and Equip team secured U.S. Government approval to begin 

training, MPRI moved to execute its contract, which “included provisions for integrating the 

Federation Ministry of Defense and organizational structure of the Federation Army, establishing training schools, and training the army on equipment that would be provided by the 

United States.”170 Among the top priorities for MPRI was Rapidtrain, a program to “provide 

a rapid operational capability during the first year of the Military Stabilization Program until 

the Individual (Institution) Training Programs [were] fully operational.”171 This task required 

Morocco Unspecified training No data available as of January 1998

Pakistan Technical training No data available as of January 1998

Qatar Technical training No data available as of January 1998

Turkey Tank and artillery 

training

500 trained on tanks and artillery by August 1997

United Arab 

Emirates Artillery training No data available as of January 1998

United States

International 

education for seniorand junior-level 

officers 

32 Federation officers trained in the International 

Military Education and Training program as of 

December 1998

Table 3. Major Train and Equip Program Training Contributions, cont.

Sources: “Appendix III draft—table IV.1: Train and Equip Pledges and Contributions, by Country as of January 

1998,” official document; “Bosnian Federation Train and Equip Update,” December 3, 1997. KEY docs binder; 

“U.S. Confirms Suspension of Bosnian Croat Military Aid,” Centre for Peace in the Balkans, May 1, 2000, available at <www.balkanpeace.org/index.php?index=article&articleid=11400>; Christopher J. Lamb, “Train and Equip 

Program,” PowerPoint presentation, December 1998; “International Program Review on Train and Equip Program,” 

Sarajevo, April 27–30, 1998, annotated briefing, MPRI, April 21, 1998; James Pardew, “Train and Equip—One Year 

Status Report,” memorandum, December 5, 1996; Joint Command AoF Training and Command Doctrine, Federal 

Ministry of Defense, “Information Briefing: Level of Achievement at CTC-Livno,” Sarajevo, June 1998; “MPRI 

Packet of Information,” September 5, 1997; MPRI, “Train and Equip Program Objectives and Accomplishments,” 

January 14, 1998; Office of Military Stabilization in the Balkans, “Train & Equip Fact Sheet, Military Training Provided to the Bosnian Federation,” August 13, 1997; MSP II Deliverable Statistics, January 1998, official document; 

Norman Kempster, “Bosnia Army to Get $100 Million From Gulf States,” Los Angeles Times, April 18, 1996, available at <http://articles.latimes.com/1996-04-18/news/mn-59950_1_gulf-states>; Report to the Chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. Senate, “Bosnia Peace Operation: Progress Toward Achieving the Dayton Agreement’s 

Goals,” Government Accounting Office Report, May 1997; “Status of Train and Equip,” point paper, September 10, 

1996; Steven Woehrel, Bosnia: The U.S.-Led Train and Equip Program (Washington, DC: Congressional Research 

Service, August 19, 1997); “Train and Equip Status Report,” January 8, 1997; “Two Year Training Plan for BosniaHerzegovina, FY 99-00,” April 21, 1998. All documents in author’s possession.
36 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

MPRI to prepare a defensive force within 90 days of the contract’s effective date.172 MPRI took 

a “train the trainers” approach173 and over the following year conducted small unit infantry 

training for most Federation Army units and unit training for three Federation brigades, 

opened the Federation Army school for officers and noncommissioned officers, and conducted regular seminars for senior leaders. 

By any standards, MPRI faced atough task. MPRI personnel had to augment their technical competence with deft diplomacy to keep meetings and training sessions on track. Initially, meetings were fraught with ethnic tension and occasional threats of violence. During 

the first high-level strategy meeting chaired by MPRI, representatives from the two sides of 

the Federation almost came to blows. The MPRI representative interposed himself, chastised 

the generals, and threatened to leave until they could work in a professional manner. The Bosnians requested that he stay, which he did after imposing a gag order so no one could speak 

without his approval.174 The tension diminished in the months to follow. Personal animosity 

was replaced by bureaucratic struggles and even mundane points of friction such as obtaining 

appropriate office furniture,175 all of which MPRI was expected to adjudicate daily. Eventually 

bantering and joking between the two sides became common, but not without a lot of MPRI 

coaching and after-hours socializing.

MPRI also had to prove itself in more substantive ways. Their Bosnian counterparts were 

not convinced they needed training and were not well prepared to receive it. The few Bosnians who had military experience in the former Yugoslav army had been indoctrinated in 

a Soviet- military style with little focus on coordinated movement and firepower,176 no noncommissioned officers, and in general little emphasis on training. MPRI stressed that, in line 

with the American policy outlined at Dayton, its aim was to build a “NATO-type” military. 

This meant not only the use of NATO standard weapons, but tactics and doctrines standard 

in advanced Western militaries.177 The trainees were in favor of moving toward NATO standards but had no idea what that entailed or why they needed the detailed training MPRI was 

contracted to provide. 

In addition to lingering enmity between Croats and Bosnians and general skepticism 

about the value of the training, MPRI faced enormous technical hurdles. It had to integrate 

the diverse used equipment donations the program provided, which arrived at different intervals, and ensure they were maintained. In addition the Train and Equip Task Force emphasized, in person and also through contract stipulations, that MPRI had to hit the ground running, starting the training program immediately. In particular, the Federation had to have its 

quick response force ready to respond to aggression by the time the IFOR mandate expired. 
37

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

Thus MPRI was given aggressive benchmarks for progress and could not “wait 6 months to 

try [out the] first platoon.”178

The logistical challenges of setting up quickly in an austere postconflict environment 

with a tight budget were daunting, particularly with the pressure to meet the demands posed 

by the Train and Equip Task Force. Just finding houses and offices in the war-torn country 

was difficult, as was basic navigation. As if to underscore how complex the environment was, 

early on two MPRI employees out for their morning run accidentally crossed into Serb territory and were arrested. After some false starts and weeding out ineffective personnel on all 

sides, MPRI put together a comprehensive training program. 

Within 7 months of hitting the ground, an integrated Federation Army School and 

Computer Simulation Center for both soldiers and officers opened, and brigade and battalion-level training began in earnest.179 By the end of the program’s second year, 5,000 

soldiers had concluded unit training and 2,500 had gone through the school and simulation 

center. Beyond their immediate functional purpose, the training centers helped promote 

cooperation and build trust between Bosniaks and Croats. Bosnian and American trainers 

agreed that Federation military personnel at lower levels often got along better than politicians at higher levels of government.180 MPRI also taught small unit tactics, conducted 

battle management training with U.S. computer systems at a combat simulation center near 

Sarajevo, and established live-fire tank and artillery training at ranges in western Bosnia 

and Turkey.181

MPRI provided the backbone for the entire Train and Equip effort, but some training 

conducted under the auspices of the program was performed by other sources (see table 3). 

Some Bosnian personnel travelled to Turkey for individual training as early as June 1996182 and 

later to other donor countries as well. The train and Equip staff also secured German agreement to provide flight and maintenance training for the pilots of the 15 U.S.-supplied utility 

helicopters and maintenance training for the M113 armored personnel carriers.183 Even though 

the German government maintained that its training assistance was separate and distinct from 

the U.S. initiative,184 their participation was a major political coup185 that went against the tide 

of Western European hostility toward Train and Equip. The Germans went “out of their way” 

to help the Bosnians pilots feel comfortable in Germany and trained the pilots for another 3 

months beyond the agreement.186 Train and Equip also augmented the MPRI training with U.S. 

International Military Education and Training Program (IMET) positions. By the end of 1998, 

32 Federation military officers either had or were scheduled to train at various U.S. military 

schools under the IMET program.187
38 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

Overcoming Problems: 1995–1997

The Train and Equip Program is like wrestling an alligator. We may have control, but we’re 

afraid of turning it loose.188

—Ambassador Pardew’s

personal journal

There were major obstacles as well as small impediments to implementing the Train and 

Equip Program. During its first year of operation, the program was attempting to reconcile 

former enemies, convince them of the value of a joint training program based on standards 

and concepts they had no knowledge of, and secure and integrate equipment from diverse 

sources with less than half the estimated resources necessary. Beyond the numerous administrative and technical challenges involved in such a complex enterprise, there were also major 

political and bureaucratic impediments to overcome, beginning with Bosniak and BosnianCroat relations.

Politics in the Federation

There were inducements for the Bosniaks and Bosnian-Croats to work together within 

the Federation. “For the Bosniaks, the Federation provides vital links to the outside world. For 

the Croats, it is a lifeline to their populations scattered throughout central Bosnia.”189 The U.S. 

special envoy and coordinator for the Bosnian Federation from 1994 to 1996, Daniel Serwer, 

labored hard to secure cross-ethnic cooperation. He succeeded more in some areas than others. 

Military integration was particularly challenging.190 Bosniaks were just interested in integration 

on the federal level, and the Bosnian Croats were skeptical about any integration at all. Just getting the Bosnian Croat Minister of Defense, Vladimir Soljic,191 and the Bosniak Deputy Minister of Defense, Hasan Cengic, in the same room was a challenge. The “fundamental problem,” 

Serwer noted, “was that the Croats were not prepared to give up a separate military force while 

the Muslims wanted a single army under Izetbegovic’s control.” These issues, he observed, were 

only resolved later by the Train and Equip Program.192

Yet progress was tough under Train and Equip as well. In the “marriage of convenience” 

between Bosniaks and Croats, political tension—at times described as “poisonous”193—was a 

constant challenge. Both factions were “suspicious of American commitment,” wondering if the 

United States was “in this for the long haul.”194 During an early meeting when anger escalated 

over minor Bosniak and Bosnian Croat language differences, the Bosnian Croat general drew 
39

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

his pistol and placed it on the table as a point of emphasis. Pardew departed, saying there would 

be no negotiations with guns on the table. The Bosnians chased him down and asked him to 

return.195 However, the incident underlined the reality that, “Initially, neither Bosniaks nor Bosnian Croats seemed to have much enthusiasm for unification. They simply wanted to receive the 

weapons, divide them up, and learn to use them.”196

For the first year of the program, much of Pardew’s energy went into forging a working 

relationship between the two previously warring groups and stating there would be no training 

or equipping without unified Federation institutions. He made this stipulation clear to MPRI as 

well. MPRI acknowledged that training would not commence without unified military structures but emphasized the leverage inherent in equipment deliveries. The MPRI program manager wrote to Pardew, “We must carefully orchestrate/control ALL equipment donations to the 

Federation” and “not allow follow-on contributions past the U.S. contribution . . . until we are 

convinced both sides fully intend to federate. This may be our only control mechanism.”197 Over 

the course of the program, Pardew repeatedly used the training and equipment as leverage to 

secure cooperation and forge deeper military integration for the Federation. 

A primary objective was convincing Bosnian political leaders to pass legislation so there 

would be a legal basis for the new Federation command structure. Getting the new Defense 

Law passed became a prerequisite for the approval and implementation of the program. Despite 

the Bosnian desire to begin the program, securing passage of the Defense Law proved to be 

the most difficult program prerequisite to satisfy. The issue of civilian and military command 

over forces was sensitive and was complicated by ethnic distrust and rivalry. American advisors 

brought in by Train and Equip to help write the law discovered the two entities’ ministers of defense and army commanders wanted to meet with them separately.198 Even after resources were 

secured and MPRI was selected as the primary training supplier, the program remained on hold 

into the summer of 1996 pending passage of the new Defense Law. 

U.S. officials considered the Bosnian Croats to be the major impediment to passing the 

Defense Law and appealed to authorities in Zagreb to encourage their cooperation.199 Yet they 

also thought the Bosniaks had to be more helpful. In a June 1996 meeting, Pardew told Bosniak 

President Izetbegovic that he was “deeply disappointed the Defense Law was not passed,” that 

commitment to the Federation was “not a matter of words, but a matter of will,” and that the 

law’s passage was a “fundamental test of a desire for a security relationship with the United 

States.”200 Weeks later, Secretary of Defense William Perry met with top Bosnian government 

officials to reemphasize the need for speed and that the Train and Equip Program would not 

be administered without a common defense structure.201 With Train and Equip hanging in the 
40 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

balance and pressure being applied in Zagreb and Sarajevo, the political process swung into line. 

The new Federation Defense Law was passed on July 9. President Clinton announced the start 

of the Train and Equip Program the same day, and a week later Federation officials signed the 

contract with MPRI. 

Innumerable small political issues continued to arise. Both sides leaned hard on the Americans to curry favor and protect their perceived interests. For example, Bosnian Croats were 

suspicious of any Bosniak security relations with Muslim countries outside the Train and Equip 

Program. They complained that the Bosniaks were working unilaterally with Pakistan. Pardew 

decided that such relations were inconsistent with the spirit of the new Defense Law and with 

the program. On March 26, 1997, he wrote a private letter to the Bosniak Commander of Federation forces, Rasim Delic, indicating that a recent “bilateral” training agreement between the 

Bosniaks and Pakistan was unacceptable. He suggested Delic should “personally decide” whether he was “committed to be a full partner in development of the Federation military or if [he 

wanted] to retain a separate identity.” The letter made clear that a decision for full partnership 

would ensure continued American support.

Pardew also used the media to exert pressure on the two presidents and the Minister and 

Deputy Minister of Defense. In one such case Bosnian media outlets reported in October 1996 

that Pardew expressed frustration about the lagging development of a Joint Command, as had 

been outlined in the defense law.202 Public pressure could make it easier for politicians to cooperate but also risked a popular backlash. Some Bosnian media outlets, for example, reacted 

negatively to the pressure, contending the United States was bluffing and could not stop support 

for Train and Equip since it was a cornerstone of U.S. policy in Bosnia.203 Yet after much deliberation and sidestepping of the issue, Izetbegovic and Bosnian-Croat co-President Kresimir 

Zubak signed the Agreement on Force Structure for the Federation Army in January 1997,204

and Pardew’s Joint Command became a reality that October. 

The presumption that the United States could not afford to suspend the Train and Equip 

Program proved wrong. Washington suspended the program twice and halted IMET funding 

once205 to extract concessions from the Bosnians. In a June 1, 1998 letter, Pardew informed the 

Federation Minister and Deputy Minister of Defense that the U.S. Government was suspending 

the contract with MPRI because of the continued use of “old Republic and national flags” and 

bluntly stated “We are at a point in the development of the Federation military where we must 

have concrete evidence that leadership is committed to the future and not the past.” He insisted, 

“The Train and Equip Program will not go forward without this concrete symbol of Federation 

military unity being implemented.” In addition to outlining the requirements for reinstatement 
41

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

of the training program, he insinuated that sanctions would “progress well beyond the [cessation of the] Train and Equip Program.”206

Pardew won this contest and the Federation adopted common flags and insignia. He also 

won similar struggles over greater integration, forcing an agreement on the division of staff positions between Croats and Muslims in the Ministry of Defense and Joint Command.207 He put 

a stop to harassment of civilian motorists, including those commuting to jobs in the new Ministry of Defense, by securing an agreement by both parties to prevent interference with civilian 

movement by military forces.208 The Train and Equip Program was desired by both the Bosniaks 

and the Bosnian Croats; certainly neither side wanted to be left out. However, there were limits 

to what either side would support, and Pardew had to exercise his leverage deftly, which required a sound feel for what local political conditions would permit at any point in time. 

If Bosnians could be too skeptical about U.S. willingness to suspend the program, it is 

also true that U.S. officials could be too confident of their ability to extract any concession by 

threatening suspension of the program. It seemed to Pardew that State in particular was too 

quick to resort to such threats. As he once wrote to State leadership, stopping the MPRI contract 

was “very powerful pressure” but it “should be reserved for vital issues.”209 On another occasion 

he sent a terse cable admonishing the Department not to use the program as leverage to make 

more demands on Izetbegovic. His subject line was “Don’t move the goalposts!” 

Firing Hasan Cengic and Forcing the Departure of Jihadis

Pardew considered one issue—the removal of the Bosniak Deputy Defense Minister Hasan 

Cengic—important enough to risk his entire program. Cengic, a former imam,210 was one of 

several figures, including future President Izetbegovic, sentenced to prison by communist Yugoslav courts in 1983 for various Muslim nationalist activities. During the war he travelled 

to foreign countries to arrange arms shipments to Bosniak forces, including Iran. Cengic and 

his father were responsible for Bosnian Army maintenance, supply, traffic control, transportation, and medical and veterinary services (the army relied heavily on horses).211 Their lucrative 

positions gave them great influence, which they exercised vigorously. Cengic favored the “buttoned-up collarless shirt familiar as the uniform of Iranians” and had a reputation for toughness. Once, when two Muslims were reported detained by Bosnian Croat forces, he had several 

Croats seized and threatened to dispatch them if the Muslims were not released unharmed. It 

turned out the Bosnian Croats had crossed into Serb territory by accident and were arrested.212

As a Muslim hardliner213 Cengic was perceived as close to but ultimately out of step 

with the more moderate Izetbegovic. His Iranian ties were well known; intelligence sources 
42 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

showed he was “clearly an agent of Iran.”214 During the war the United States had overlooked 

Iranian arms shipments,215 but in the postwar environment removing radical Iranian fighters 

and persons of influence was a nonnegotiable, congressionally and presidentially mandated 

prerequisite for the Train and Equip Program to begin.216 In 1995 there were hundreds of 

individual mujahideen from all over the Muslim world who came to Bosnia-Herzegovina to 

fight. Their military value was disputed, but many fought as “part of the 4th, 7th and 8th Muslimski brigade,”217 considered one of the Bosniak’s best units. In addition an estimated 1,500 

Iranian Revolutionary Guard fighters and advisors supported the Bosniak defenders during 

the conflict. The Iranians maintained a large embassy in Sarajevo with a “top notch ambassador,”218 provided direct financial support to the government, and had an active security assistance program including weapons and training in Iran for Bosnian soldiers.219 The media, 

who were critics of Train and Equip, and even NATO at times raised concerns about whether 

the United States was being duped into providing arms and training to Muslim extremists. 

Pardew and the rest of his team were aware that the credibility of their program hinged on 

purging Iranian influence from Bosnia. 

Cengic, for his part, was unapologetic about Bosnian connections to Iran and blunt in his 

criticisms of the United States. As Train and Equip progressed and occasionally stalled, Bosniaks sympathetic to Iran, including Cengic, compared the program unfavorably to more “reliable” Iranian support. The Croatian media reported that Cengic had launched an anti-American campaign, including the complaint that the weapons being delivered under Train and Equip 

were out of date.220 After a meeting with Iranian diplomat Seyyed Mohsen Rasidouleslami, the 

Sarajevo newspaper Ljiljan reported that Iran was waiting to train and equip the Bosniak forces 

if the United States failed to.221 If Cengic meant to urge the United States to greater efforts with 

these public remonstrations, he overplayed his hand. 

By June 1996, while trying to push the Defense Law through a lethargic political process, Pardew decided Cengic was a major liability to the program and a representative for 

Iranian influence. He informed Izetbegovic that keeping people like Cengic around “was 

not a strategy for security” but a “road to isolation and partition.”222 He also insisted that 

Izetbegovic ask all “mujahedeen oriented Iranians” to leave the country, telling him “If they 

lie to you and we find them, it will be a disaster for you. If they lie about their departure, 

I’m sure you will take harsh measures against their presence here.”223 At one point Pardew 

tasked Sawoski, who was already in Sarajevo on another matter, to meet with Izetbegovic to 

obtain his personal assurance that one foreign fighter of particular concern to the United 

States would depart Bosnia.224
43

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

With mounting pressure from journalists covering Iranian influence in Bosnia, and aware 

that the program could not proceed without the credible assertion that foreign fighters had 

departed, Pardew concluded Cengic also had to go. By June 26, he was able to make the case 

that the Bosnians had expelled Iranian and other foreign forces except for fewer than 70225 who 

had married locals. President Clinton agreed to their remaining and certified to Congress that 

with that exception and the few official Iranian Embassy personnel and representatives at the 

Islamic center in Sarajevo, the Iranians had departed Bosnia.226 Getting rid of Cengic, however, 

was more difficult.

The situation came to a head in October 1996 as the United States prepared to deliver over 

forty tons of weapons to Bosnia through the Croatian port of Ploce. Pardew insisted that a letter 

signed by Secretary of State Warren Christopher and Secretary of Defense William Perry be sent 

to Izetbegovic demanding that he remove Cengic as Minister of Defense.227 Pardew arranged a 

conference call involving Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian Affairs and 

then-Special Envoy to the Balkans John Kornblum, Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, 

and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Peter Tarnoff to explain the situation. They 

agreed to support the move to oust Cengic,228 but the task force worried that senior State officials would demur rather than take action. In general, the idea went against State proclivities. 

Removing ministers in other governments seemed extraordinary, inappropriate, and fraught 

with political risks. No immediate decision from Secretary Christopher was forthcoming, and 

Pardew needed quick action.

The task force learned one day that Secretary of Defense William Perry was in the main 

State building for a ceremony on the seventh floor (State’s highest level, inhabited by Secretary Christopher and other top officials). Accompanied by his political counselor from State, 

John Klekas, Pardew rushed upstairs to “crash” the event. He managed to buttonhole Secretary 

Perry, who asked him if everything was going well. After Pardew explained his problem, Perry 

responded, “Let’s go see Warren.” They went to the Secretary’s suite and walked past the astonished secretariat without a word and on into Christopher’s office, closing the door behind 

them. Christopher was indeed hesitant to demand Cengic’s removal, but with Secretary Perry’s 

encouragement he agreed and added his signature to the letter to President Izetbegovic.229

With the letter in hand, Pardew went to Sarajevo and delivered the ultimatum to Izetbegovic on September 22. The insistence on Cengic’s removal began a tense period of high political drama involving numerous senior leaders in the U.S., Bosnian, and Croatian governments. 

While Izetbegovic considered the implications of the ultimatum, the Train and Equip Program 

was put on hold, which meant the large U.S. merchant ship approaching the Croatian port 
44 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

of Ploce with U.S. weapons idled in the Adriatic from October 24 on, burning fuel and program dollars. For the task force, wasting drawdown dollars in such a fashion was agonizing, but 

Pardew knew that “once weapons arrive, we lose all leverage.”230 In subsequent weeks Pardew 

orchestrated support from U.S. leaders who, whenever they met with Izetbegovic or those close 

to him, encouraged the Bosnians to sever ties with Cengic. 

Izetbegovic was reluctant to break with his longtime associate. He tried to let Cengic down 

gently, saying they were both “soldiers” and would do what they had to do. It was reported that 

Izetbegovic would appoint Cengic to a new, more powerful post.231 However, as a man of considerable influence, Cengic did not make it easy for Izetbegovic. He fought back by publically 

accusing the United States of trying to dictate who could serve the country and implicitly raising questions about Izetbegovic’s character.232 His views were picked up by the Bosnian newspapers, which pushed aside diplomatic obfuscation and reported, “Washington had demanded 

[Cengic’s] resignation.”233

After considerable delay, Izetbgovic agreed to let Cengic go on the condition that Bosnian 

Croat Deputy Minister of Defense Soljic was also dismissed. Pardew accepted and then took 

the condition to Bosnian Croat co-President Zubak, who attempted to extract leverage from 

the situation,234 precipitating another round of high-level meetings and pressure on the Croats 

both in Bosnia and Zagreb. Eventually the Croats agreed and Soljic resigned on November 18.235

Several days later, when weather conditions permitted, the U.S. ship offloaded the American 

weapons at Ploce. Afterwards, Izetbegovic lamented, “America is like my wife. I love her dearly, 

and can’t live without her, but sometimes she makes me furious.”236 For the Train and Equip 

team, the firing of Cengic and Soljic had been a high-stakes gamble, but one that paid off. It sent 

a signal to Federation officials: no more games and no more playing both sides.237

Cengic was replaced by Sakib Mahmuljin, a moderate Bosniak who was more loyal to 

Izetbegovic. Cengic did not disappear from the scene, however. He was later put in charge of 

managing Bosniak refugee returns and conducted his duties with an eye to their positioning 

in case war broke out again.238 In August 1997 it came to light that ten T-55 tanks from Egypt 

were scheduled to arrive without the task force’s knowledge or approval. The delivery of the 

tanks, purchased by Cengic at the end of the war, revealed he was still collaborating with some 

Bosniaks, perhaps even in the Ministry of Defense, but again he overplayed his hand. The task 

force intervened and prevented the ship from docking and unloading the tanks. The news media heard about the tanks and stoked fears of secret arms shipments and Iranian interference, 

but the task force used the incident to demonstrate how the United States controlled the flow of 

arms to Bosnia and the vulnerability that Cengic represented for Bosniaks. 
45

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

Izetbegovic’s administration cooperated with the task force to limit the damage from the 

T-55 imbroglio by distancing itself from Cengic and tying itself closer to the Train and Equip 

Program. An advisor to Izetbegovic assured the media that, “A needle can’t get in here without NATO knowing about it,” adding that “Anyone who believes that stuff can be smuggled 

in here is a fool.” He also noted that “as far as training goes there is no military training of 

Bosnians in Iran or other countries. All training is done under Equip and Train.”239 Pardew 

asserted to U.S. officials that the program’s ability to “stop the delivery starkly demonstrates 

control over the flow of weapons to Bosnia.” To Presidents Izetbegovic and Zubak, Pardew 

cautioned that the incident “illustrates the vulnerability of the Cengic connection.”240 Cengic 

did not cause any further problems for the program, and the incident reconfirmed that the 

only Train and Equip Program in town was being run by the United States and its international partners.

Minister of Defense Soljic was replaced by Ante Jelavic, a hardliner from Herzegovina, the 

Bosnian Croat nationalist heartland near the border with Croatia. Believing the Train and Equip 

Program, the Federation, and even the Dayton process would fail, Bosnian Croats from Herzegovina initially did not participate much in Federation political processes. Instead Bosnian 

Croats from Central Bosnia, considered more moderate and more inclined to take orders from 

Zagreb than their ethnic compatriots farther south,241 represented the Bosnian Croats.242 For 

example, President Zubak and Soljic were both from central Bosnia. Jelavic, who would challenge Zubak for their party’s presidency in 1998,243 managed to secure the position as Soljic’s 

replacement. Jelavic’s appointment was a mixed blessing. It suggested the Bosnian Croats from 

Herzegovina were taking the Train and Equip Program and perhaps the Federation more seriously, but it also meant the program would have to deal with another hardliner in a key leadership position.

Livno: Coping with the British Military

Many West Europeans officials in international organizations and military positions 

opposed Train and Equip, but the British were by far the boldest and most adept at subverting it. They considered the program akin to “pouring gasoline on a fire,”244 and their 

opposition was apparent from the beginning.245 They could not overtly oppose an effort 

agreed upon at Dayton, but they tried to hamstring it at every opportunity.246 As Pardew 

was trying to get the program off the ground one British general in particular made a practice of thwarting him. He harassed MPRI, restricting their ability to get set up; disrupted 

meetings arranged with Bosnian Croat leaders; refused to meet with the U.S. Ambassador 
46 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

to NATO to discuss cooperation; and delayed the first delivery of arms by air. A U.S. official 

had to forcibly remove a British injunction to allow shipping through Ploce, an incident 

that precipitated a heated conversation between Pardew and the British general about their 

respective authorities.247

Other British flag officers expressed their dislike of the program in tangible ways. 

The British peacekeeping force commander barred Pardew from attending a meeting with 

other U.S. officials assigned Dayton implementation duties, a snub Pardew called “another 

outrage from SFOR and an affront to U.S. policy.”248 Later, peacekeeping forces confiscated 

474 tank rounds destined for the Federation.249 The seizure was apparently made in error. 

Rather than admitting it, the British Brigadier who made the decision asked MPRI to falsify a document stating that the Train and Equip shipment was 474 rounds over the official 

notification. He said that would “prevent embarrassment to the Malaysians,” who seized 

the shipment on his orders.250 British military and diplomatic personnel worked in lockstep 

to prevent the Train and Equip Program from getting necessary permits and approvals.251

They were particularly successful in delaying combined live-fire training at the new Combat Training Center outside of Livno, located in the sector of Bosnia controlled by British 

peacekeeping forces (see figure 3).252

The Livno training center was large, instrumented for simulated combat, and capable of 

brigade level training events including live fire exercises. Sparsely populated before the war, it 

was an ideal site for a state-of-the-art training center. Units rotating through the center would 

leave at the peak of unit readiness. It was intended to be the crown jewel in the Train and Equip 

Program. While such unit training is not unusual in Western militaries, the Livno center was to 

be spacious by crowded European standards and potentially an attractive venue for European 

militaries if Bosnia made it into the EU or NATO. The center was scheduled to open in early 

1997, but the British seemed intent on halting construction. They had a powerful ally in the U.S 

Principal Deputy High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, who in October 1997 halted 

construction on the recommendation of the British.253

A variety of reasons were advanced for delaying construction. International officials worried the training center would have Federation soldiers firing into Serb areas, potentially sparking more conflict. Ignoring previously agreed upon conditions for beginning construction, they 

imposed other requirements such as requiring a Bosnian Serb liaison at the facility.254 Some 

objected that the firing range was going to be built on land that had belonged to Serb families, 

which could exacerbate tensions, and that furthermore, those families should receive compensation.255 So at one point they stopped construction of the Livno training center on humanitar-
47

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

ian grounds after a handful of Bosnian Serbs were found who claimed residence in the training 

area. Given the Serb record on humanitarian concerns, this ploy struck the Train and Equip 

team as “the height of cynicism.”256

Pardew was not above publically upbraiding specific British flag officers when their interference got out of hand or privately complaining that the behavior of the Principal Deputy 

High Representative was “an embarrassment” to the United States.257 These criticisms made 

London and the Department of State’s European Bureau uncomfortable but temporarily produced better behavior. Senior officials such as the Principal Deputy High Representative and 

the British flag officers in the international peacekeeping forces wielded enormous authority 

with great autonomy. They were able to postpone full operating capability at the center for 

more than a year and a half, a significant delay given the tight timelines of the program. MPRI 

Figure 3. Map of UK Sector, Livno, and Ploce
48 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

found ways to conduct some unit training early on, but not the large, combined arms or livefire exercises the Livno Training Center was designed to support. 

Finally, after a complicated series of communications that involved Pardew, the U.S. Embassy, the Federation’s Minister and Deputy Minister of Defense, the Office of the High Representative, and international peacekeeping forces, approval was obtained for continuing construction. The Federation Defense Ministers agreed to compensation for displaced persons and 

the establishment of a commission to review related issues, but also demanded the right to 

prepare for self-defense: 

Our efforts to create that [self-defense] capability have been the subject 

of constant obstruction and often unjustified petty harassment by some 

international military forces and agencies in Bosnia who came here to 

assist in the implementation of the Dayton Peace Plan. These actions by 

the international community seriously disrupt the fundamental military 

training required to meet our minimum security needs. . . . Without the 

CTF (Federation Central Training Facility), our soldiers will not have the 

equipment proficiency and other training required for independent Federation 

self-defense should NATO depart.258

These appeals finally had their intended effects, and international authorities dropped their 

legal objections to the Combat Training Center at Livno.259 Construction was completed in 

summer 1998 and the first comprehensive live-fire brigade training exercises began that fall.260

Revalidating the Program

The view that the Train and Equip Program was upsetting the military balance gained 

credence in and out of government as it ramped up. The press repeated the charge, leading 

Pardew to lament that the program “provide[d] endless and irresistible press fodder for 

Balkan conspiracy theories spun by unnamed sources serving their own interests.”261 Inside 

the U.S. Government, resistance was also increasing. In February, over Pardew’s objections, 

an interagency decision was made to pay the Bosnian Serbs, but not the Federation, to 

stimulate compliance with their arms control obligations. In early March an interagency 

Bosnia policy review paper circulated that argued for further accommodation of the recalcitrant Bosnian Serbs. It recommended cutting Train and Equip weapon deliveries in 

exchange for more arms control compliance from the Serbs. In response Pardew fired off 
49

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

memos to senior officials encouraging them to hold the line of full implementation of Dayton provisions, including Train and Equip.262 Pressure in favor of backsliding continued to 

mount, however. 

The following month Pardew noted in his journal that “the interagency environment is becoming more problematic,” adding “the CIA is writing paper after paper about hostile Muslim 

intentions and weak Serbs,” with the Department of Defense “making a run at Train and Equip 

to stop the equipment element.”263 “The military,” he wrote, “sees an opportunity as it is trying to 

shift emphasis from Dayton implementation to regional stability,” and in that context it wanted 

to “cut Train and Equip to training only.” Worse, the NSC staff appeared to being shifting their 

support to the DOD position. On top of that, two of Pardew’s key supporters, Defense Secretary 

Perry and Deputy Secretary John White, were leaving the administration.264

After one critical CIA assessment in April 1997, a Deputies Committee was convened to 

reconsider the Train and Equip Program. Pardew’s view was that the United States would have 

to stay the course and insist on full implementation of all Dayton’s provisions. Trying to mollify the Serbs would exacerbate rather than ameliorate the situation. He defended the Train and 

Equip Program as a key component of U.S. policy in the region,265 and the Deputies declined 

the opportunity to revise the program or its goals. Even so, the hitherto reliable NSC staff was 

beginning to waver, looking for a strategy that preferably “lets us out in June 98.”266 NSC staff 

thought compromises to Dayton that facilitated this goal might be worth considering, and there 

were worrisome signs that this view, along with the CIA argument that Train and Equip was 

altering the military balance in favor of the Federation, was beginning to affect President Clinton’s perspective as well.267 The issue was elevated to the Principals Committee where Pardew 

again was persuasive and victorious. The Principals reaffirmed the commitment to Dayton and 

safeguarded Train and Equip for the time being. 

While critics who thought the program was too large grew more numerous and vociferous, supporters had long complained about its slow start. The program was criticized for 

being underfunded, and Pardew had to admit in February 1996 that “no government—including ours—wants to be the first to step forward on the Train and Equip Program.”268 Six 

months later Senate Majority Leader and Republican nominee for the 1996 Presidential election Bob Dole wrote to the President to complain that “the program of arming and training 

of the Bosnian Federation is late and far short of what it should be.” He concluded, “Putting 

the arm and train program back on track is . . . critical.”269 The fact that the program was simultaneously criticized for being too much and too little underscored how contentious it was 

and the inherent difficulties in assessing any military balance. The fact that the weight of the 
50 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

criticism shifted from the first half of 1996 when the program was seen as anemic, to spring 

1997 when it was commonly criticized as too robust, underscored how fast the program made 

progress once it got going (see figure 4).

Program Transition: 1998 to the Present

The Train and Equip Program began to wind down after more than 2 years of frenetic 

activity. The last shipment of U.S. weapons, the 155mm howitzers, was delivered in October 

1997,270 and the final MILES equipment (lasers for simulated combat) shipment for use at the 

Livno training center arrived the following month.271 Other military stabilization components 

of the Dayton Agreement had also been implemented with 6,780 (mostly Serb) heavy weapons 

destroyed as part of the arms reduction agreement between the Federation and the Republika Srpska.272 The large wartime armies had also downsized. Initially the apprehensive Bosnian 

populace did not support reductions in security forces. By June 1997 only 12,000 soldiers had 

Figure 4. Trends in Military Cooperation
51

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

been dismissed. However, by February 1998 over 200,000 Federation soldiers had been demobilized to re-enter civilian life273 and the remaining 45,000 active duty troops were trained and 

organized based on NATO standards.274

By the end of 1998 donor funds were beginning to run out.275 MPRI staff in country had 

fallen from a high of 223 in 1996 to 112 in 1998.276 Pardew, wanting to sustain this progress and 

U.S. influence in Bosnia, tried to secure support for another $100 million drawdown authority 

from Congress,277 and when that failed, for a $10 million follow-on support package for maintaining donated equipment. There was no political support for either initiative, and additional 

resources never materialized.278 The program conducted an “international program review” in 

April 1998 to demonstrate to U.S. partners that it had been well managed and successful and 

to solicit additional contributions.279 The event was attended by 20 current and potential donor 

countries and an air of satisfaction prevailed. However, like the United States, potential donors 

were preoccupied with other challenges in the Balkans and not at all inclined to put more resources into the Train and Equip Program. 

The absence of any major outbreak of violence during the year following the Dayton Accords made it easier to extend the mandate for international forces to remain in Bosnia. After 

IFOR’s 1-year mandate expired in December 1996, international forces were relabeled stabilization forces (SFOR) and settled in for a long mission, which reduced the pressure on the Train 

and Equip Program to produce Federation forces capable of defending Bosnia. Meanwhile, U.S. 

attention was turning to other Balkan hot spots such as Macedonia and Kosovo, where Pardew 

was asked to assist with crisis management. 

With no further equipment deliveries scheduled and limited funds to obligate, team 

members began to return to their parent agencies and move on to other assignments. Four 

members left in the summer and fall of 1998 and only one was replaced.280 Not long after, 

Pardew was assigned as Deputy Special Advisor to the President and Secretary of State for the 

Balkans during the Kosovo conflict. He officially left the Train and Equip Program in 1999, 

taking a senior advisor with him.281 McFarren continued to shepherd the details of the dwindling program, providing continuity and accountability. As Train and Equip wound down, 

the United States transitioned to normal bilateral military cooperation with Bosnia, emphasizing IMET training and organizational support for the Federation government (see figure 

4, which depicts the MPRI drawdown of personnel, increases in IMET, and the arrests of war 

criminals over time282). Department of State teams, with support from MPRI staff, were in the 

country to support continuing political-military reforms, most notably the integration of the 

Serbs into the Bosnian military. 
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Defense reform benchmarks such as full democratic control of the armed forces and transparency in defense spending were prerequisites for entry into NATO’s Partnership for Peace 

program and further EU integration.283 Acceptance into these Western institutions was a major 

goal for most Balkan countries,284 but it was not until May 2001 that the Bosnian presidents 

could agree to declare their intent to join the Partnership for Peace.285 By then the Republika 

Srpska had begun to consider the value of merging its military with the Federation’s. That same 

year, the U.S. Senate lifted restrictions preventing Serb officers from participating in IMET and 

Serb forces from receiving U.S military sales.286

Two scandals convinced international authorities the Bosnian Serb military required more 

immediate reforms. Revelations of secret Bosnian Serb arms sales to Iraq became public knowledge in November 2002, and in early 2003 allegations of Bosnian Serb military intelligence 

spying on NATO and international officials arose. Both incidents suggested to the international 

community a pressing need for greater civilian control of the Serb military as well as national 

control of all military forces287 and accelerated a political push to integrate the Bosnian Serb 

and Federation militaries under a unified, national-level Bosnian Ministry of Defense. High 

Representative Paddy Ashdown established the Defense Reform Commission of Bosnia and 

Herzegovina in May 2003 for that purpose. The commission was tasked with drafting the legal 

and constitutional changes necessary to make Bosnia and Herzegovina a credible Partnership 

for Peace candidate, which included introduction of a state-level, civilian-led command and 

control structure for the Ministry of Defense; democratic parliamentary control and oversight 

of the armed forces; transparency in defense plans and budgets; development of a Bosnian security policy; and common doctrine, training, and equipment standards.288

James R. Locher III, a renowned U.S. expert on military reform who had been brought in 

under the Train and Equip effort to counsel Federation Ministry of Defense leaders on civilmilitary relations in 1996,289 returned in 2003 to head up the first Defense Reform Commission. 

On his second day in Sarajevo in a meeting with the ambassadors from EU members, each of 

them told him the task would be impossible. SFOR officers, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) officials, and others in the international community shared this 

dismal assessment. As Locher later noted: 

Defense reform was a highly emotional issue. Each ethnic faction was clinging 

to its army for protection should fighting break out. Bosnian members of the 

Defense Reform Commission were warned that they would be viewed as 

traitors if they failed to preserve their ethnic army. Beyond these explosive 
53

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

politics, on the substance of reforms, Bosnian leaders, coming from the old 

Socialist system, really didn’t have a good grasp on democratic politics, 

Western processes or self-initiative.290

Indeed, the structure the Federation and the Republika Srpska inherited from their communist 

forbears “included highly politicized command elements, weak civilian control below the head 

of state, almost no connectivity or communication between the Defense Ministries and general 

staffs, lack of transparency in budgeting and administration, and weak parliamentary oversight.”291

The Defense Reform Commission endured a grueling process but yielded a remarkable 

success. In addition to five internationals, the commission was made up of two Croats, two 

Bosniaks, and three Serbs who “were all former communists [asked] to make courageous decisions” to build trust and take ownership of “their” process. The Peace Implementation Council 

had given the commission 4 months to reach agreement, which had to be unanimous given the 

ability of any faction to block an initiative. The commission met this deadline with sweeping 

proposals that would amend the Federation’s and Republika Srpska’s constitutions, prescribe 

a new Defense Law and another new law, and amend five existing laws.292 The Defense Law of 

2003, authored by the commission, created a single unified Ministry of Defense and Joint Command among all three ethnic entities, and prepared the way for consolidation of the Federation 

Army and the Army of the Republika Srpska into a single entity called the Armed Forces of 

Bosnia and Herzegovina. Such dramatic reforms were not popular at first. The Serbs on the 

commission “actually disobeyed instructions from their National Assembly in agreeing to the 

initial compromises.”293

Within 18 months of the commission’s creation, 40 percent of active forces were reduced, 

the reserve forces were scaled back, half of the conscripts were released, and the defense budget 

was cut by 20 percent.294 The reforms were “comprehensive, deep, demanding and successful, 

chang[ing] the reality of [Bosnia’s] security and constitutional organization.”295 The first tangible 

and symbolic success for military integration of the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina 

came with the formation of a Ceremonial Honor Guard at the end of 2004.296 That same year the 

Train and Equip Program officially closed. By then it was running on fumes and had little to do 

except ensure a close accounting of all funds expended. The donor countries were thanked for 

their support and the small sum left over was transferred to a bilateral cooperation account for 

foreign military sales in Bosnia.297

But military reform in Bosnia continued. In 2005 Raffi Gregorian succeeded Locher as the 

international cochairman of the second Defense Reform Commission. Gregorian had moved 
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up in State from his position as Pardew’s executive assistant, taking responsibility for the Bosnia 

office and oversight of the military stabilization effort in 2001.298 He also later served as the Principal Deputy High Representative and Brčko District Supervisor in Bosnia, where he was “very 

mindful of how Pardew and [his team] did Train and Equip.”299 He used his authority, as Train 

and Equip had, to improve integration, strengthen ties to the West, and get rid of extremists, 

only this time the extremists were Serbian nationalists protecting General Mladic.300 Leading 

the second Defense Reform Commission, Gregorian negotiated the replacement of the entity 

armies with a smaller unified Bosnian Army. A symbolic success occurred in 2005 when a 37-

man unit consisting of Serbs, Bosniaks, and Croats was deployed to Iraq on a mine-clearing 

mission.301 Shortly thereafter, in March 2006, the second Law on Defense of Bosnia and Herzegovina was passed and ratified. It dissolved the entity-level armies and transferred the rights of 

the Federation and the Republika Srpska to the state level.302

As the Bosnian Serbs decided to integrate their forces as part of the unified Bosnian military and work more closely with NATO, cooperation with apprehending war criminals increased (see figure 4). One prerequisite for entrance into NATO’s Partnership for Peace program was full cooperation with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia 

(ICTY), which meant assisting in locating and arresting war criminals. In 2004 and 2005, the 

EU and NATO pressured Bosnia to be more cooperative in arresting war criminals by barring 

access to Western economic and defense programs. This resulted in an increase in arrests and 

transfers of indicted people to The Hague. Many of those newly arrested came from Serbia and 

the Republika Srpska, which had the “greatest number of suspects and the weakest cumulative 

record of cooperation with ICTY.”303 This was a marked turnaround from 1997 when 66 of the 

74 people “publicly indicted by the war crimes tribunal remained at large, some openly serving 

in official positions and/or retaining their political power.”304 By the end of 2007 the tribunal 

had completed proceedings for 111 of 161 indicted suspects. 305 In 2008 and 2011 respectively 

top wartime Bosnian Serb leaders Radovan Karadzic and General Ratko Mladic were captured 

in Serbia and turned in. Finally in 2011, almost 16 years after the Dayton peace agreement was 

signed, the last Yugoslav war fugitive was arrested.306 In another sign of reconciliation progress, 

by 2010 the Bosnian armed forces had chaplains of all faiths who were visiting with one another,307 a development that “was impossible to think of even a few years ago.” Yet another sign 

of reconciliation is that public opinion polls indicate that the unified Bosnian Army is the most 

popular public institution.308

Currently, the Bosnian Armed Forces constitute an 8,000 light infantry force,309 a significant decrease from the heyday of the Train and Equip Program when 1st Corps alone had 
55

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

16,000 troops310 (see figure 5311). Most of the equipment provided under the program in the 

mid-1990s was discarded over the following decade and a half. In a move that upset donors, 

some of the heavy equipment was sold to other countries, including a deal that sent armored 

vehicles to Francophone countries in Africa.312 By one assessment, “90% of the equipment 

received is no good today; it can’t be used because it is too old or the maintenance was too 

difficult.”313 As of 2010, no armored personnel carriers or helicopters still worked,314 and many 

U.S. donations were eliminated from the Army’s inventory, including almost 30,000 rifles and 

the 155mm howitzers.315

America’s military presence in Bosnia declined as its interventions in Afghanistan and 

Iraq escalated. The last U.S. peacekeeping troops left Bosnia in 2004 and SFOR was replaced by 

“EUROFOR Althea” later that year.316 After Bosnia’s leaders came to a preliminary agreement 

on police reforms, the EU opened Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) negotiations for economic development in the region in late 2005.317 Although NATO granted BosniaHerzegovina entrance to the Partnership for Peace Program in late 2006, bringing it closer to 

Figure 5. Downsizing the Armed Forces
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Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

full NATO and EU membership, it has yet to gain access to either. Recently the United States 

has decided to let the Europeans take the lead on further reform and reconstruction in Bosnia. 

Many Bosnians are apprehensive about the departure of U.S. leadership. Former Bosnian military leaders interviewed for this research agree that Europeans are not trustworthy partners for continuing the reconciliation process.318 The reasons most cited are the 

failed European peace negotiations during the war and the European resistance to the Train 

and Equip Program. A common observation was that only Americans have the muscle 

and willingness to use it in pursuit of cooperation. Without strong U.S. leadership many 

Bosnians worry there will be major backsliding on reforms.319 They often assert the United 

States should not abandon the region until Bosnia-Herzegovina becomes a NATO member320 and express surprise at Washington’s willingness to give up its considerable influence 

in Bosnia-Herzegovina.321

As things stand, progress in Bosnia remains slow and uneven. The long-term prognosis 

for the country is at best uncertain, which discourages investment322 in what was already a poor 

economy. Worse, there has been political “backsliding” on integration in recent years.323 Yet 

concern about Bosnia’s future should not cloud an evaluation of the past. The Train and Equip 

Task Force achieved its operational goals from 1995 through 1998. It rectified the military imbalance between Bosnian Serb and Federation forces, reassuring the Federation and sobering 

the Serbs. It made the Federation military a match for the Bosnian Serbs by providing basic 

training and equipment, and by forging a degree of unity in the Federation that would enable 

its forces to act in concert. In the following section we explain the factors that allowed the task 

force to achieve these difficult objectives.

Analysis of Variables Explaining Performance

The task force accomplished its assigned mission with a handful of people, overcoming 

formidable political and bureaucratic opposition with creative methods not typical of small 

interagency groups. To better explain how the task force succeeded, we examined its inner 

workings and attributes using 10 variables (see table 4) extracted from a review of organizational and management research on small crossfunctional teams. Each variable is identified 

in the research literature as a significant determinant of performance by small crossfunctional teams, which is what interagency teams are.324 Although the Train and Equip Program 

continued for the better part of a decade, here we focus on the first few years when it was 

doing its most innovative and challenging work. We conducted in-depth interviews with the 

team leader, his two deputies, and all primary team members during the first 2 years of the 
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The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

program with one exception,325 as well as others who worked or were associated with the program. We also benefited from access to extensive documentation, including Pardew’s journals 

and the author’s spiral notepads containing notes from daily meetings when he served as one 

of the deputy directors of the task force.326

The 10 performance variables can be grouped by their scope. The first three are organizational-level variables: purpose, empowerment, and support. Some higher authority in the larger 

Level Variable Defined

Organization

Purpose

The broad, long-term mandate given to the team by 

its management as well as the alignment of short-term 

objectives with the strategic vision and agreement on 

common approaches within the team.

Empowerment

Access to sufficient high-quality personnel, funds, and 

materials, and an appropriate amount of authority, to 

allow for confident, decisive action.

Support

The set of organizational processes that connect a team 

to other teams at multiple levels within the organization, 

other organizations, and a wide variety of resources the 

team needs to accomplish its mission.

Team

Structure The “mechanics” of teams—design, mental models and 

networks—that affect team productivity.

Decisionmaking

The mechanisms that are employed to make sense of and 

solve a variety of complex problems faced by a crossfunctional team.

Culture

The shared values, norms and beliefs of the team, 

manifested in behavioral expectations, level of 

commitment and degree of trust among team members.

Learning

An ongoing process of reflection and action through 

which teams acquire, share, combine, and apply 

knowledge.

Individual

Composition

The mixture of characteristics that individual members 

bring to the group in terms of skill, ability, and 

disposition.

Rewards

Material incentives and psychological rewards to direct 

team members towards the accomplishment of the 

team’s mission.

Leadership

The collection of strategic actions that are taken to 

accomplish team objectives, to ensure a reasonable level 

of efficiency, and to avoid team catastrophes.

Table 4. Postulated Determinants of Effectiveness
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organization usually determines what the team should accomplish (its purpose), what resources 

and authority (empowerment) the team will be provided, and how the team will be sustained by 

the larger organizational context in which it operates (support). These variables explain why any 

crossfunctional team’s effectiveness is, in part, attributable to organizational factors beyond its 

immediate control. Teams typically have more control over the four team-level variables: their 

structure, decisionmaking, culture, and learning. These characteristics regulate day-to-day group 

operations. Finally, three individual-level variables—composition, rewards, and leadership—capture individual team member attributes that may or may not be representative of the team as a 

whole but nonetheless affect its performance. We consider each of these 10 variables in turn.

Organizational-Level Variables

Purpose

All Train and Equip Task Force members agree the group benefited from a “strong sense 

of purpose”327 instilled by official decisions and informal guidance. As one member noted, “We 

had a very clear mandate . . . there was never any doubt in any of our minds about what we were 

trying to accomplish. We were trying to train and equip the Bosnian Federation forces so that 

if, God forbid, war broke out again they could defend themselves.”328 All members of the task 

force understood this basic mission when they accepted their positions, and in that sense there 

was a consensus on the task force about what it was trying to achieve.

From the beginning the task force interpreted its mission to provide a defense capability 

to the Bosnian Federation as requiring what some call “end-to-end” mission management. The 

task force did not believe it was established just to make policy on what constituted a Bosnian 

military balance, or simply to plan the activities required to achieve a military balance, or merely to monitor progress toward a military balance. Instead it believed it was responsible for all 

these needs. It would assess the security environment and its evolution; develop policy, strategy, 

and accompanying plans for creating a military balance; execute or oversee execution of every 

aspect of the program; and then monitor results and adjust accordingly. The purpose of the task 

force was to actually create a military balance, and it set about doing so immediately. Within 

days of its creation, it was collecting information on the operating environment, drafting policy 

and strategy documents, investigating training contract options, and preparing for program 

development and execution. 

The task force consensus on its basic purpose was reinforced and deepened by common 

agreement on major mission parameters, all of which were codified early on in task force policy 
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The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

and strategy documents. The most important corollary of the President’s commitment to train 

and equip Bosnian forces was that it would be done in a manner that created a military balance329 and helped stabilize Bosnia. Among other things, this meant the program would be both 

transparent and defensive so as not to unduly alarm the Serbs. 

Pardew regularly spoke to the domestic and international press about the program and 

all its major developments. He informed the Serbs directly when circumstances permitted, and 

Serb leaders in Pale and Belgrade had his cell-phone number. “It drives everyone who opposes 

it mad,” he wrote in his journal in 1997, “because everything we do is above board.”330 Pardew 

believed it was harder to criticize the program as a Bosniak manipulation or any other nefarious plot if it was completely transparent and conducted out in the open. The program was also 

configured as an international effort, which reinforced its transparency and legitimacy. The task 

force made every effort to solicit and use support from other nations, particularly non-Muslim 

nations, to broaden its appeal. 

The emphasis on stability also meant Train and Equip would focus on “deterrence and 

defense” rather than offensive capabilities.331 A cynical quip has it that a weapon is offensive 

or defensive depending on which end of the barrel one is standing at, but some distinctions 

in military plans and programs can be made based on offensive or defensive purposes. During its execution, the task force took pains to underscore the program’s defensive nature. That 

was a tough sell to America’s NATO Allies,332 but those implementing the program were still 

enjoined to respect the defensive orientation and did. MPRI took a “deter and defend” approach to all its training, from “strategy to rifle squads.”333 Thus, inasmuch as it is possible 

to distinguish offensive from defensive military programs and capabilities, the Federation 

force structure, military plans, equipment purchases, and training programs were designed 

to provide the Federation with the ability to defend itself and not to project military power 

into neighboring entities. 

These program characteristics were codified in a “founding document” that provided 

even more detail on the program objectives and conditions. Pardew’s briefing to the Deputies 

Committee in December 1995 laid out the program goals, the broad training and equipping 

objectives the task force would try to achieve, and the conditions the Bosnians had to meet 

before the program would be executed including the need to create Federation military institutions and eliminate extremist elements.334 As Pardew noted, the Deputies’ approval of his 

briefing became “our charter.”335 All task force members understood the charter and often 

referred to it as their mandate, a justification for their activities, and a means to encourage 

cooperation from departments and agencies.336
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The team’s commitment to its charter went beyond organizational license and the normal desire to succeed at an assigned task. The strong sense of purpose was reinforced by the 

conviction that providing self-defense capabilities to the victims of Serb atrocities was a moral 

imperative. Ambassador Glassman, for example, noted that task force members believed “We 

were doing something right . . . we were arming the underdogs, we were on the right side . . . we 

were benefiting the victims.”337 Group members were “disgusted by others who made realpolitik

arguments against the task force in the aftermath of Serb massacres. The sense that the task 

force was combating “evil” fueled a sense of commitment that went far beyond any bureaucratic 

norms.338 As another member noted, “We did not see ourselves as neutral.”339 The team had a 

strategic consensus that it was involved in a “moral cause.”340

Moreover, “there was a sense of urgency about the mission.”341 The planning horizon was the 

initial IFOR mandate of 1 year. Even though most observers thought this timeframe was realistic, it 

had been enshrined in interagency planning at the request of the Joint Staff and codified by senior 

leader decisions.342 The task force believed “it had to make enough progress so that in the event 

international forces left Bosnia, these people could defend themselves.”343 The urgency was also reinforced by the belief that if the program was quickly implemented and Federation forces had the 

means to defend themselves, there would be no incentive for the Serbs to initiate hostilities again.

In summary, the task force never lost sight of its original clear and simple purpose, which 

was to provide self-defense capabilities to the Bosnian Federation up to the point that a Bosnian military balance was achieved. It never abandoned the understanding that this purpose 

made the task force responsible for end-to-end management of the desired outcome, or that 

the program had to be stabilizing, transparent, international, and defensive. It managed to forge 

a de facto strategic concept for program execution with the Deputies Committee early on that 

defined the scope and content of the program and helped the task force explain its objectives 

to other parties. Task force members were deeply committed to achieving this purpose on an 

urgent basis, which focused and energized their efforts. 

Moreover, the most important organizations cooperating with program implementation, 

most notably ASI and MPRI, understood and also supported the program’s purpose; for them 

“the sense of mission was important.”344 Other partners were less committed or even skeptical 

but either supported the task force because it was their duty or because they came to believe 

the effort was justified. For example, contract specialist Gary Blasser pointed to the top priority 

placed on the program by the Clinton administration as the reason for his initial commitment; 

eventually, however, he became committed to seeing his job through due to the Train and Equip 

team’s own urgency and his belief that lives were at stake.345
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The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

Empowerment (Authority, Resources, and Confidence)

Looking back, Pardew believes the amount of authority he received was unusual, even 

“unbelievable.” He kept the Deputies Committee informed346 but did not report to anyone on a 

day-to-day basis, and the team members were not responsible for reporting to their home organizations. Glassman agrees, noting “we were an empowered group.”347 Klekas, in retrospect, 

does not “recall a time the U.S. Government ever defied anything the task force wanted to do. 

They sometimes moved too slowly for us, but we were clearly seen as the authorized entity in 

charge of the program.”348 As the history of the task force makes clear, there were many challenges to operations, but in short order Pardew and his task force were well established as the 

single U.S. authority for all matters relating to Train and Equip. 

The task force was empowered by external authorities in several respects. Pardew’s one 

condition349 for accepting the top position was that he be given ambassadorial rank and a suitable title, which was done. He believed the team would not be taken seriously overseas or within 

the U.S. Government unless it was headed by someone with the institutional rank to work quasi-independently of the U.S. Government and directly with foreign officials. In addition to his 

title and position, Pardew obtained a formal mandate from the Deputies Committee meeting in 

December 1995 that defined the scope and conditions for program implementation.

De jure authority conferred upon Pardew by his superiors did not guarantee de facto 

control of the program, however; particularly not with so many senior officials and elements 

of the bureaucracy involved in implementing the peace agreement in Bosnia. Pardew had to 

coordinate his activities with other senior officials who were also assigned responsibilities for 

implementing the Dayton Accords and who controlled resources required by the Train and 

Equip Program. In addition, a few parent organizations that supplied personnel tried to share 

responsibility for program execution. Members were not sent to the task force with specific 

instructions; the general mission was well understood and the specifics were too uncertain for 

that.350 However, DOD Assistant Secretary-level officials did try to maintain influence on the 

task force, and on one rare occasion Lamb received direct guidance from a senior defense official while working a sensitive issue at the port of Ploce. Yet it soon became evident that it was 

impossible for those physically removed from the task force to keep pace with its activities. 

The team was working around the clock and moving too fast for DOD to keep well informed, 

much less to try to control any day-to-day decisions.351 After a few months attempts to exercise 

“shared” oversight within the government stopped, and Pardew’s singular authority for defining 

and implementing the Train and Equip Program was well in place. 
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Beyond his formal position, title, rank, and mandate, Pardew exploited a number of advantages that reinforced the authority of the task force, beginning with unambiguous senior 

leader endorsement of the program. The program had a Presidential seal of approval. Clinton 

made a commitment to Congress and to President Izetbegovic at Dayton to implement Train 

and Equip. When the program ran into roadblocks team members evoked Clinton’s commitment to Izetbegovic to give the program presumptive legitimacy,352 leaving team members free 

to concentrate on the details of implementation. More generally, everyone knew that Bosnia 

was a major preoccupation of the administration. As one DOD participant noted, it was hard 

to say no when the task force argued, “ [Bosnia] is the highest foreign policy initiative from the 

Clinton administration, and you are not going to help?”353

The task force was also empowered by the law. Section 38(c) of the Arms Export Control 

Act gives the government broad authority “to provide foreign policy guidance to persons of the 

United States involved in the export and import of such articles and services.” This authority 

includes approving licenses for export of defense articles and services, and stiff penalties for 

violation of approved services. Thus the Department of State, and by extension the task force, 

could suspend MPRI’s license at any time, which made the task force voice primus inter pares

in contract performance. The task force had de facto contract approval authority, so MPRI and 

ASI had to partner with it on contract details. 

The fact that the task force also had its own pot of resources further reinforced Pardew’s 

authority. As U.S. Envoy to the Federation Daniel Serwer later noted, “There was no way I could 

compete with Pardew, who had several hundred million dollars of the arms and training that 

the Muslims and the Croats wanted.”354 He returned to Washington and took another job. The 

Train and Equip team’s $100 million drawdown authority was a huge advantage compared to 

most other interagency teams, which must appeal to parent organizations for resources. The 

funds were an immediate and concrete asset for the task force, ensuring it would be taken seriously in Sarajevo and in the U.S. Government. The resources signaled the support of Congress. 

Some members had qualms, but as a whole Congress had already voted to provide a substantial 

drawdown authority, so program adversaries in the bureaucracy knew there was little point in 

challenging Train and Equip on Capitol Hill.355

The $100 million was not sufficient for meeting the program needs estimated by the Institute for Defense Analyses. Thus the task force was “always fighting to get a small percentage 

of the resources going into the Balkans”356 and looking for ways to increase or stretch available 

resources. Pardew recalls that resources were his biggest challenge and a continuous worry. 

Privately and publicly, he often expressed frustration to upper government echelons that the 
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The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

program was underfunded.357 The White House did intervene to obtain cash donations from 

Muslim allies when it appeared the program was floundering but otherwise left the task force 

to fend for itself. 

Many observers were unconcerned by the limited resources because they believed the program was robust enough to accomplish its purposes. In part this was because the task force engineered some major advantages for resource management. The team was able to influence what 

the cash donations were used for and keep funds away from illegitimate or manipulative hands. 

The task force “controlled the resources that nobody else could touch—couldn’t understand—

much less touch.”358 As a result, the resources could be used to the benefit of the program and 

not towards other political priorities unrelated to program objectives such as soldier salaries or 

inefficient domestic defense industries. In addition the accountability controls instituted by the 

task force as part of this regime were so tight there was no leakage. Not a dime went missing.359

Moreover, the task force had the flexibility and creativity to do a lot with a little. Glassman 

notes, “for the resources we had there were huge returns” and argues that the ability to purchase 

equipment anywhere in the world at the most favorable prices was a great help. Lamb agrees, 

noting the resources available were leveraged to the maximum extent as the team found ways 

to augment and combine them with other programs such as Excess Defense Articles and IMET 

training funds. For example, the task force obtained 155mm howitzers from Excess Defense 

Article stocks but refurbished them with operations and maintenance funding from its drawdown authority. In addition ASI squeezed MPRI so hard for efficiencies360 that the contractor 

was rumored to have not made a profit its first year on the job. ASI also pressured the task force 

to work an agreement with Treasury so donated funds held in trust would accrue interest, which 

generated more than $4 million in additional resources.361

With a powerful mandate, a leader with ambassadorial stature, legal authority to approve 

MPRI’s overseas training activities, and its own resources, the task force could aggressively pursue its objectives. This level of empowerment, combined with initial success, contributed to 

what organizational theorists refer to as psychological empowerment, which occurs as team 

members come to believe the team is capable of accomplishing its mission and act accordingly. 

In the case of the Train and Equip Task Force, confidence varied by member but in general grew over time. Sawoski was attracted to the effort because it had senior leader support, 

something that he knew from personal experience improved chances of success.362 For others, 

conviction preceded confidence. Klekas recalls members were proud of their mission and confident of the abilities of their colleagues, and he personally was cautiously optimistic the task 

force would succeed “despite opposition from our own bureaucracy.”363 Rabasa remembers 
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Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

believing from the beginning of his tenure that it was a special program and would work.364

Pardew was keenly aware the President had given his word to Izetbegovic and believed the 

credibility of the United States was on the line.365 That fueled his determination to succeed, 

but he did not realize how difficult it would be.366 Franklin, who worked in close proximity 

to Pardew, notes there were times “when Jim was so disillusioned that I thought we’d never 

go much further. However, he always seemed to pull out of it and push on forward. I grew to 

believe and be very confident in his personal abilities to accomplish [the mission].”367

The confidence of all members grew as success reinforced itself. Progress in one area encouraged the team to push harder in other areas. Klekas observes that as Federation leaders 

came to appreciate the value and credibility of the program, Pardew was able to secure their 

cooperation on broader measures that enhanced Federation unity, such as a integrated joint 

staff and training program.368 Lamb agrees, noting that the combination of Presidential support 

and initial successes generated a sense of momentum and encouraged members to pursue their 

tasks aggressively. 

The way Klekas managed the clearance process on Pardew’s cables exemplifies the pushy 

approach adopted by task force members who felt empowered. Normally a Department of 

State communication is coordinated with all interested offices, but that risked watering down 

Pardew’s positions. Klekas felt, “if he had taken that typical Foreign Service Officer approach 

and solicited a bunch of clearances then they would have nibbled us to death; Jim was not interested in that crap.”369 Instead he pushed out cables with minimum clearances, only bothering to 

solicit clearance from those he thought appropriate for an Under Secretary-level communication. “Nobody’s cleared on this!” someone in State once complained after viewing the paucity of 

coordinating offices on a typical Pardew cable. Klekas shot back that “it wasn’t his job to worry 

about that” and pressed on. Similarly Lamb recalls the task force built such a muscular position 

for itself that he thought it could intervene on any issue related to program execution. When 

one partner organization chaffed under his heavy-handed approach and complained the task 

force needed to “stay in its lane,” his rejoinder was that the team “owned all the lanes in the road” 

for the Train and Equip Program. McFarren is even more emphatic: “We felt Teflon-coated. We 

were empowered. I felt invulnerable.”370

The sense of empowerment was resented by some but accepted by those who shared its goals. 

MPRI leaders, for example, appreciated the fact that Pardew’s authority was so well established 

that MPRI did not have to deal with multiple competing authorities, which was both invaluable 

and rare in the firm’s experience.371 The contract and artillery specialists engaged by the task force 

for their expertise were both impressed that task force members believed they would succeed.372
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However, some Train and Equip partners resented the aggressiveness of the small team, which 

could border on arrogance. Lamb, for example, believes his aggressive manner and belief that all 

U.S. Government entities ought to support the task force complicated relations with the Defense 

Security Cooperation Agency and Army Material Command. These two organizations did not 

fully support the program or agree on how it should be achieved.373 They were not alone, an issue 

taken up in the following section.

Organizational Support

Individual views on the controversial Train and Equip Program varied in the U.S. Government, but in general it received strong support from the most senior officials and much less 

support from lower levels of the national security establishment. The President’s general support was recognized and he occasionally intervened to assist in raising funds and shoring up 

international support for implementation.374 His deputy national security advisor Sandy Berger 

monitored and supported the task force375 as did Secretary Perry and Deputy Secretary White. 

President Clinton receives briefing in Situation Room from Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, Joint Chiefs of Staff 

Chairman General John Shalikashvili, Secretary of Defense William Perry, Vice President Al Gore, and others, 

February 20, 1996 (William J. Clinton LIbrary)
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Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

Strobe Talbott, Deputy Secretary of State, helped support the Ankara conference, and later Secretary of State Madeleine Albright (who early on had advocated for a Train and Equip Program) 

publically praised the effort.376 In addition there were individual leaders in the Department of 

State, particularly some serving in or close to the Balkans, who were quite supportive. Ambassador Peter Galbraith in Zagreb, Croatia, backed the task force’s activities, as did John Menzies, 

the U.S. Ambassador in Sarajevo when the program began. Nick Burns, the spokesman of the 

Department of State, helped Pardew get settled in and participate in State’s daily public affairs 

activities.377 The task force also benefited from the political endorsement of such ASI leaders as 

former Under Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and former Assistant Secretary of Defense 

Richard Perle, who had influence with Republicans on Capitol Hill. 

While acknowledging that the President and other senior national security leaders approved the Train and Equip Program, task force members also believed Pardew’s personal 

connections with many of those senior officials and adroit management of his relations with 

them reinforced the task force’s authority.378 Team members believed Pardew was well regarded by senior leaders. As McFarren observes, in addition to bolstering confidence and 

collegiality on the task force, this belief “gave us the sense that we had top cover for whatever 

we did.”379 Glassman agrees that “we were an empowered group”380 but also thought support 

was more tenuous than most members appreciated. Still, he observes that Pardew made the 

most of his authority. Pardew thought he was backed by the White House and acted like it.381

In interacting with other senior officials, if push came to shove, Pardew would simply say “I 

report to the [Deputies Committee].”382

Lower-ranking officials in the bureaucracy were aware that the program enjoyed congressional, Presidential, and other senior support.383 Nonetheless, organizations do not like giving 

up personnel to perform novel tasks. Not surprisingly, those that contributed people to the 

task force were quick to ask for them back. In some cases they succeeded. For example the CIA 

pulled Christensen back after several months, which Pardew was “not happy about” but could 

not reverse.384 DOD officials tried to recall Lamb periodically and to terminate Defense funding for the contractor positions.385 Pardew was able to fend off such initiatives, at least for the 

first couple of years when task force activity was at a peak. Even those offices that had bent over 

backwards to support the team on a temporary basis suffered “donor fatigue” over time. For 

example, the office that had permitted its contracting officer to help the task force grew disillusioned the longer he remained at State working on task force issues.386

Beyond the reluctance to give up people and other resources, the mid-level bureaucracy 

was skeptical about the team and its mandate. As the task force intelligence representative not-
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The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

ed, “Train and Equip was fighting against the tide.” 387 A lot of people thought the effort “would 

fail from the outset” and “there was a general skepticism about the task force.”388 Most believed 

Bosnia would fall apart again after a year or so, a view that was strong in DOD.389 Defense, and 

especially the uniformed side of the Department, also worried that Train and Equip would 

compromise the reputation of U.S. forces as neutral peacekeepers and make them “targets.”390

Army leaders in particular were opposed391 and treated MPRI personnel—almost all of whom 

were former U.S. military—as pariahs, refusing to talk with or respond to them.392 The Army 

very much wanted a clear distinction between the private contractors training Federation forces 

and their uniformed personnel who were there to impartially enforce the Dayton Accords.393

They realized that from the Serb point of view, the distinction between U.S. uniformed soldiers 

and former soldiers working for a private company might not seem compelling and thus were 

bothered by the program. In light of senior leader decisions, DOD could only distance itself 

from the task force as much as possible, insisting that it be housed in the Department of State, 

where it was officially ensconced in the European bureau.

CIA supported the task force well with briefings and materials,394 and State backed it logistically. It helped that the team was a Presidential directive, but that did not guarantee cooperation. State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, for example, dragged its feet on allowing 

the team access to information resources and spaces. Initially the CIA member traveled each 

day to CIA headquarters to assemble Pardew’s morning briefing, “even though the Bureau of 

Intelligence and Research (INR) had access to the same resources in their shop.”395 However, 

State’s European Bureau provided Pardew and his staff with office space,396 an experienced 

secretary,397 coveted parking passes,398 and extensive travel funds, which were critical given 

the heavy travel schedule the task force maintained.399 Sustaining this support required effort. 

Franklin recalls that there was always a reluctance to give the team travel money and other 

resources, but it usually got what it needed “after a lot of jawboning and arm-twisting, most 

of the time by Jim [Pardew].”400

Otherwise the State offices involved were focused on the civilian side of Bosnia reconciliation and reconstruction401 and thus inclined to ignore Train and Equip. On occasion some offices in State would try to “insinuate themselves into the process by demanding the prerogative 

to grant or refuse clearances on our outgoing cables or briefing papers for senior officials.” As 

Klekas recalls, “We ignored them when we could, and acceded to such demands when we had 

to. Because we were not formally and fully integrated into State’s regular channels we were often 

able to ‘get away’ with more. It also helped that [Train and Equip] was inherently more technical 

and operational than standard State Department activities.”402 Klekas believed the autonomy of 
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the task force was in part its own choice and in part a lack of interest on State’s part. State was 

“not helpful” but also not inclined to interfere as long as the task force remained “out of sight, 

out of mind.”403 In other words, because there were many other political and economic efforts 

under way, and Train and Equip did not threaten those programs, it could be largely ignored. 

When the program did come up in diplomatic discourse, personnel in the European Bureau expressed the European view that it would be destabilizing rather than the reverse.404 State’s 

Bureau of Political-Military Affairs, which might have seemed like a potential ally, was skeptical 

about the program’s merits. One of its members infuriated Klekas by telling him Pardew was 

not “a real ambassador” and warning he was being too pushy and “getting ahead of himself.”405

Rabasa, another Foreign Service Officer serving on the task force, also noted that the common 

view in State was that the task force was “only creating problems” and “jeopardizing negotiations.”406 State personnel made it clear they considered the program a political necessity to be 

endured but not embraced.407 As one party in State who ended up cooperating concluded, “The 

Department of State does not like you guys.”408

As time passed and the program picked up momentum, bureaucratic resistance increased and 

became more of a problem. For example, the Central Intelligence Agency became insistent that Train 

and Equip was upsetting the military balance.409 CIA analysts thought that because the Bosniaks had 

a manpower advantage providing them with weapons and training would by definition upset the 

equilibrium. Occasionally they issued reports with satellite photos of Train and Equip weapons en 

route to Bosnia and the tag line that the delivery “tips the balance in favor of the Federation.”410 Task 

force personnel working feverishly to get the basic program in place considered these intelligence 

assessments ludicrous, not least because the program was transparent and the team would have provided close up photographs if asked. After a few futile attempts to convince young agency analysts 

that their assessments needed more balance, the task force shrugged off the CIA reports and just 

referred to the Institute for Defense Analyses assessment as the authoritative document on the topic. 

Nevertheless, the team had to work hard to convince senior leaders that the program was making 

progress but not so much that it threatened the peace.411

State also paid unwanted attention to the program as it picked up steam. The Department 

began to suggest with increasing frequency that Train and Equip should be used as leverage to 

extract compliance whenever the Bosniaks or Bosnian Croats were being recalcitrant on other 

matters. Sometimes these interventions developed into real threats to the program. Pardew 

would counter that the initiative was already heavily leveraged and its influence was needed 

to obtain progress on really significant issues such as removing Cengic and getting Muslim 

extremists out of Bosnia. The Train and Equip members knew the Bosnians were unhappy with 
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The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

the size and sophistication of the program and were only slowly coming to realize the training 

they were receiving was more valuable than the equipment. In other words, the perceived value 

of the program to the Bosnians was not as great at some believed; thus it was not an inexhaustible source of leverage.412

The Department of Defense also complicated execution of the program. In the field SFOR interference was a persistent irritant. Not long after the program began, Pardew recorded his frustration with his former uniformed brethren in a personal journal entry: “US military resists at every 

turn over this fictitious issue of a threat to evenhandedness.”413 The task force complained about 

such obstructionism, providing catalogues of objectionable behaviors and incidents to DOD leaders and directly to SFOR leaders as well. The subject of SFOR interference with Train and Equip 

generated tense meetings and frosty communications. A September 15, 1997 task force information paper entitled “SFOR Interference with the Train and Equip Program” catalogued a series of 

SFOR actions to impede the program. It prompted a strong response from the SFOR commander, who also sent a copy of his rebuttal to Deputy Secretary of Defense White.414 A month later 

Pardew notified State Department officials that SFOR had just approved a multicorps exercise by 

the Bosnian Serbs even though one of the Serb corps was in violation of SFOR demining requirements. Pardew noted that, in contrast, “SFOR stops even routine, low-level Federations exercises 

for the most minor infractions.” In a summary comment about SFOR “obstructionism,” he closed 

with a clear warning: “No one should expect me to certify that the Federation can defend itself as 

justification for NATO departure under these conditions.”415

Pardew also wrote to the Department of Defense task force director responsible for Bosnia 

to complain about SFOR and the Department’s attitude more generally, which he characterized 

as “one of low level foot-dragging and obstructionism.” He cited DOD reneging on its decision 

to approve transfer of 426 trucks as Excess Defense Articles as “an outrage and an embarrassment” and requested help in changing the Department’s attitude from “‘can’t do’ and ‘don’t want 

to’ to ‘can do.’”416 The Army, which had to absorb the vast brunt of Train and Equip demands 

for assistance, was a problem in particular. Initially the Service cooperated with the program 

(and the law) by providing lists of materials that could be offered up under Train and Equip’s 

drawdown authority. The Army was willing to pass along items it no longer had use for, but 

did not like parting with operations and maintenance dollars that were fungible and more useful—for example, to pay for transporting materials to Bosnia. Lamb recalls that Army resistance 

increased as the task force became more creative about ways to use its drawdown authority, 

forcing major bureaucratic battles to get even small things accomplished, such as finding Army 

experts to debug the old simulation software donated to the Bosnians.417
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McFarren, the team expert on security assistance, recalls how his work required burning 

bridges with friends and contacts in the security assistance community. When he arranged for 

Army pilots to fly task force helicopters from the port of Ploce, Croatia, to Sarajevo for safety 

reasons,418 he engineered one of the last major drawdown equipment deliveries but also destroyed his relations with old Army friends who were furious that uniformed personnel had 

been cajoled into active participation in the Train and Equip Program.419 His contacts in the 

Defense Security Assistance Agency, Army staff, and other offices with responsibilities for security assistance were all ultimately alienated.420

America’s European allies replicated the U.S. bureaucracy’s distaste for the program. 

Initially Pardew spent time in European capitals on the way to and from Bosnia trying to 

raise support, but it was soon apparent that such efforts were futile. As Pardew lamented 

in his journal after a visit to The Hague, not even the Dutch, “who should feel guilty after Srebrenica,” offered assistance.421 European diplomats were so negative that task force 

members came to suspect that aversion went beyond substantive policy differences and 

was fueled in part by anti-Muslim prejudice.422 In Bosnia the European allies kept their 

distance and ignored the program. The exception was the British, who were active in their 

opposition and turned out to be the most formidable adversary. They slowed the program 

by raising artificial barriers, denying IFOR/SFOR permissions, and poisoning the well with 

unhelpful comments to the press. 

Looking back at the travails with the bureaucracy and allies, Pardew notes the Train and 

Equip Program was “beaten down by constant criticism. . . . There was never any buy-in institutionally.” The program was only implemented through “sheer stubbornness” on the part of the 

task force.423 To determine why members would make such a commitment and doggedly pursue 

their objectives, it helps to look more closely at “team-level” variables, beginning with structure.

Team-Level Variables

Structure (Location, Size, Tenure, Task)

The small size of the task force, collocation, and full-time work status of the members all 

facilitated communication, collaboration, and focus on team tasks. The entire group was located 

in the main building of the Department of State. Office space in Main State was quite limited, 

so locating the entire group there was a major advantage. Pardew and his State deputy and 

public affairs person had adjoining offices. State members with lower rank fended for themselves, staying in the offices they had before joining the task force. Non-State members Lamb 
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The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

and McFarren were assigned a windowless room on a lower floor. Given the accommodations, 

they referred to themselves as the blue-collar element of the task force and took pride in their 

“get-’er-done” approach to program administration. The separate locations in the building did 

not impede teamwork and may have contributed to the decentralized activities of the task force. 

Team structure concerns more than the size, location, and tenure of the group. It covers the 

“mechanics” of teams including how they organize for their task and the special expertise they develop or get access to by partnering with external parties. The basic design of the Train and Equip 

Task Force was established early on, but the work patterns and relationships with external entities 

took longer to develop. Pardew assigned tasks, but there was some natural division of labor based 

on member backgrounds. The CIA representative supplied intelligence; the former public affairs 

officer handled public affairs; the DOD representatives worked the training contract, drawdown 

authorities, and administration of equipment purchases and deliveries (except for Sawoski, who 

worked primarily on passage of the Defense Law);424 the senior State representative solicited international donations and negotiated arms procurement deals; and the other State representatives 

worked internal Department of State coordination issues. Johnson supervised Rabasa during his 

MPRI trainer supervises after action review for Federation exercise using sand table model of operating area
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short tenure on the task force425 and Lamb supervised McFarren, although the two partnered on 

almost all their activities.426 Later Rabasa and Ambassador Glassman also worked closely together. 

Otherwise all members reported directly to Pardew.

Pardew’s daily meetings provided the venue for receiving direction and also made it possible for all the members to understand what problems were being solved by whom and how on 

a day-to-day basis. Team objectives were clear, but how to accomplish them was not. The team 

knew it needed donations but not how to get them. It knew it needed a draft contract for training, but the contents of the contract had to be worked out. It needed to work Federation political 

processes to get a defense law passed, but how to do that was not evident. As different individuals on the team worked these issues, sharing progress and reverses daily, they developed expertise on the problems they were solving and shared the broad outlines of their solutions with the 

entire team. Pardew reinforced shared understanding by having the team travel together even 

when it was not necessary. Both deputies accompanied Pardew on the first trip to Balkan capitals to explain the program and its principles, the entire team went to the Ankara conference, 

and Pardew made sure everyone went to Sarajevo occasionally if not regularly. 

Over time the small team developed a common understanding of how it was accomplishing its objectives. Those working the political issues in Bosnia and the interagency did not know 

the details of training contract and donor fund management, but all members knew resource 

commitments had to follow a precise set of steps. Similarly, those developing the contract and 

pursing agreement on its clauses did not always know the latest political developments affecting passage of the Federation defense law, but all the members understood the contract could 

not be implemented without a law establishing joint military institutions. The knowledge team 

members built up on the details of the Train and Equip Program was shared as necessary with 

entities the task force partnered with to achieve objectives. 

Train and Equip partners constituted a useful, and in some cases indispensable, extended 

structure for the program. Much of the task force’s energy went into cultivating and protecting 

these relationships. Most immediately, the group worked to secure support in the embassies 

that controlled the team’s ability to get in and out of countries,427 particularly the U.S. Embassies in Zagreb and Sarajevo. It made a point of keeping the embassies well informed, and never 

entered their countries without paying courtesy calls on the senior embassy official available. 

The team needed local embassy support to engage the military and political leaders in Bosnia, 

who were the key partners in executing the program. In Zagreb, Pardew used his established 

relationship with the Croatian Minister of Defense to ensure support, including pressure on 

Bosnian Croats to cooperate. Pardew, Lamb, McFarren, and others spent an average of a week 
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The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

a month in Bosnia to conduct program business and meet with the Bosniak and Croat leaders, which allowed Pardew to assess their commitment to the program and work with them to 

resolve problems. He was able to encourage the ascension of Bosnian leaders willing to look to 

the future rather than the past, and in the case of Deputy Minister Cengic, concluded it would 

be necessary to take the extraordinary step of engineering his removal.

The single most salient and critical partnership was with MPRI. Its leaders were confident 

in their ability to deliver what they promised,428 but the company was in a delicate position. It 

had to generate both customer satisfaction and confidence in MPRI. At the same time it could 

not operate without U.S. Government approval. The Department of State could revoke its license to provide security assistance services at any time. One of its senior leaders noted, “We 

knew we worked for Pardew but our customer was the Federation.”429 The train and equip team 

decided early on that it liked MPRI’s military mindset and no-nonsense mission focus. After a 

few months, task force members were working closely with MPRI representatives at all levels. 

Generally MPRI wanted to be seen as supporting U.S. policy for good purposes and cooperated 

accordingly,430 and the task force came to trust and rely on it.

For their part, MPRI leaders appreciated the close working relationship they had with 

Pardew, who always let them know the state of play in the U.S. Government and when he was 

going to Bosnia and what he would be looking to accomplish. The company reciprocated with 

an equal degree of trust and transparency, authorizing its in-country representatives to give 

Pardew the unvarnished truth (i.e. “no BS briefings”).431 MPRI’s Program Manager did not have 

to clear his message or briefing slides with headquarters, but rather could “give chapter and 

verse where it has not worked.”432 Company leaders believed their relationship with Pardew 

and his task force was based on integrity and good communications that engendered trust and 

that it “wouldn’t have worked” otherwise. They felt Pardew listened and comprehended what 

they told him and that he had “a capable team.” Occasionally they found Pardew and his people 

“stubborn,” but respected the fact that Train and Equip was clear about its goals and understood MPRI’s issues.433 Moreover, the team treated MPRI “like Americans.”434 In an environment where Train and Equip was not supported by the uniformed military, the respect the team 

accorded MPRI went a long way toward establishing a mutually beneficial partnership. 

ASI was another important partner. Its basic role was to stretch donation dollars. ASI 

played an early and critical role in crafting the final contract with MPRI, monitored MPRI’s 

performance, and also assessed the task force’s performance. The contract negotiations were 

a bit bruising, but all parties figured out they could not bypass any of the others. Although 

initially skeptical, the team concluded that ASI could be quite useful. Its leadership lobbied 
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for support of the program on Capitol Hill and provided helpful “pressure on the administration to follow through on its commitments.”435 Pardew was savvy enough to call Richard 

Perle, the only ASI leader to remain engaged over time, and keep him informed on task force 

developments.436

At the working level, the group also discovered that ASI provided added value. Mike McNamara, the officer manager, was a knowledgeable former Army colonel and “attention-todetail” guy. He respected the ex-military personnel who made up MPRI. As a matter of course 

he deemed them honorable and trustworthy and found them to be so.437 However, it was his job 

to verify performance and recommend areas for improvement and cost savings.438 Given the 

nature of ASI’s job, its relationship with MPRI relations was prone to conflict. When MPRI and 

ASI could not agree, the task force was in a strong position to arbitrate or make final rulings. 

Over time the group concluded that having a competent group like ASI checking on the details 

of MPRI’s work reduced the burden on the team and transferred some of the inescapable friction involved in such oversight to the MPRI-ASI relationship. As long as ASI did not squeeze 

MPRI or vendors supplying equipment so hard it created an incentive for poor performance, 

the task force believed ASI could be helpful. Lamb forged a close relationship with McNamara 

and they freely shared information. 

The task force maintained a wide range of supporting relationships within the U.S. Government beginning with the senior leaders who created and empowered the Train and Equip 

Program. Pardew kept himself and the principal supporters of the program informed with personal briefings and telephone calls. He gathered information from his contacts both to receive 

up-to-date information and obtain different perspectives from players in positions of influence. 

For example, he kept in contact with Bosnian Ambassador Mohammed Sacirbey in order to 

better understand what President Izetbegovic was thinking.439 He also monitored the agendas in 

the hierarchy of National Security Council staff meetings, from the principals to the deputies to 

lower-level interagency meetings. All this outreach took time, but it was essential that the task 

force remain cognizant of how evolving policy positions might affect Train and Equip.440

Pardew’s subordinates worked hard to develop other useful relationships. Lamb reached out 

to contacts in the Institute for Defense Analyses for help on identifying Federation military requirements and training contract particulars. The Institute recommended one of their adjuncts, 

Lieutenant General Frederic J. Brown, who was reputed to be the Army’s best mind on training 

systems, particularly rapid training. Brown interrupted his holiday schedule in December 1995 to 

educate Lamb and later received McNamara for the same purpose.441 Lamb also reached out to 

DOD contract specialists for help, convinced the Defense Contract Management Command442 to 
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The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

station an overseer in Sarajevo to ensure accountability, and tapped expertise from the Army’s National Ground Intelligence Center, perhaps the Nation’s best repository of knowledge on foreign 

military hardware. While maintaining a low profile, National Ground Intelligence Center personnel traveled with the task force to assess the quality of weapons systems being considered for 

purchase. Similarly, McFarren used his extensive contacts in the security assistance community to 

get drawdown authorities executed and Excess Defense Articles for the program.

Franklin tried to generate positive press coverage about task force activities, which 

was easy in Bosnia where Pardew was “a rock star,” but almost impossible anywhere else 

where skepticism about the program reigned, particularly in Europe. The task force was 

only slightly more successful with the U.S. press. Franklin’s efforts were almost always an 

exercise in limiting damage from doubting foreign policy experts and a generally negative 

press, and making sure the bureaucracy was not surprised by any program developments.443

To keep ahead of the curve and tamp down negative reports, he worked with the public 

affairs offices in Defense and State and maintained close contact with U.S., Bosnian, and 

international media organizations and representatives. He also partnered with the head of 

public affairs for the Federation Army, the Embassy Sarajevo political-military officer, a 

U.S. Information Agency representative in Sarajevo, and Rick Kiernan, who handled the 

same duties for MPRI.444 Kiernan recalls keeping in touch with Franklin on a daily basis, 

and Franklin notes that he learned a lot from Kiernan about how a private company works 

and manages its public relations.445

Perhaps the most difficult and rewarding partnership was with the Department of State 

legal advisors assigned to work on Train and Equip issues. Initially State representatives on 

the task force approached Department lawyers to secure agreement on how the funds from 

donors would be managed. Glassman had in mind a system similar to the Saudi foreign military sales account, whereby they pump money into the account and draw from it as needed. 

State legal advisors saw problems with that model, and for whatever reasons relations quickly 

soured, with both sides concluding they could not work with the other.446 However, the task 

force had to have some legal basis for managing its funds. It considered appealing to higher 

authorities in State to induce more cooperation from the lawyers, but that was considered 

difficult and messy. Instead, Lamb was dispatched to reason with them. He recalls “spending a lot of time in [the legal] office, having moral, philosophical, and historically-informed 

discussions on what might happen if IFOR pulled out after a year. We tried to impart the 

moral sense of obligation that those of us on the task force felt.”447 Ultimately this relationship 

proved fruitful, and what began as an absolute roadblock to program execution evolved into 
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the program’s most important example of creativity and accountability: the legal regime for 

managing donor funds. 

Team Decisionmaking

By definition cross-functional (i.e. interagency) teams combine diverse expertise and often 

equally diverse perspectives, which can be a source of strength if the conflict they engender is resolved productively. In the case of the Train and Equip Program, the variance in member views 

was subdued by several factors. The task force participants shared a common commitment to 

program goals and the principles codified in its charter approved by the Deputies Committee. 

They did not have many preconceived notions about how to achieve task force objectives. As 

Senator Dole’s legislative aide pointedly observed when the team visited early in the program, 

none of its members had personal experience training and equipping a foreign army. The effort 

to train and equip the fragile Federation was a “voyage of discovery.” 

There was never any question but that Pardew was the key and final decisionmaker, but 

there were some task force decisionmaking characteristics that contributed to debate and more 

productive decisionmaking. The team was small and its decisionmaking process was informal. 

McFarren, the junior ranking member by grade, observes that team members “knew who the 

[senior executives] were” but also that Pardew’s style was free flowing without a lot of emphasis 

on structure. Everybody was on a first name basis.448 Pardew had the team meet daily and solicited advice from all members on all subjects.449

The entire team convened in his small office each morning. By then he had digested the daily 

intelligence and sometimes had news for the group. “Pardew was very open, sharing what had 

happened and what he had heard, so we felt like part of the team.”450 He would raise key issues 

for group discussion that were on his mind and invite others to do likewise. He made it clear he 

was not interested in minutiae. He wanted to discuss strategy issues: “It took me a while to get the 

message, but what he wanted in his morning meetings was strategic thinking, what next steps were 

important, what minefields to watch out for, the pros and cons of any course of action.”451

Team members recall great discussions in Pardew’s office.452 One member notes they were 

“some of the longest staff meetings I’ve been in and some of the most interesting.”453 Pardew 

acknowledged his role as the final decisionmaker but thought “the team needs to be a team.” He 

believed talking frequently about the project and where it was going “helps unify the team” and 

“makes you feel like you’ve all reached a corporate decision.”454

Thus everyone on the task force was invited to discuss major strategy issues as well 

as program execution issues. Pardew encouraged open discussion by all members, regard-
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The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

less of who was primarily responsible for the topic at hand, so the team debated a wide 

range of issues, e.g., the best choice among the three companies bidding for the training 

contract; how to manage partners like ASI; whether the Ankara donor conference should 

be convened without advance pledges of support; how to pressure the Bosnian Croats to 

support new defense institutions; how to establish donor accounts and avoid “leakage” of 

funds; who might be approached for in-kind donations if not cash; how to beat back efforts 

to undermine the program objectives by various elements of the bureaucracy; what to buy; 

and how to get into Bosnia. 

There were occasional differences about how to pursue an objective or solve a problem, but 

they were resolved amicably. For example, members disagreed on whether there was any chance 

Egypt would contribute. Some task force members thought there was no point in even engaging Egypt, but another member argued the alternative. Pardew listened, and decided to make a 

run at Egypt, which paid off. Another example was the value of buying helmets. One view was 

that the Bosnians had got along without helmets so far and buying them now would be a waste 

of scarce resources. The countervailing view was that they had an important symbolic value 

as protective equipment for the individual soldier and contributed to a common professional 

appearance. In addition, after the task force determined that the helmets could be produced in 

Bosnia, it was understood that their purchase would stimulate domestic production. Pardew 

handled all such intra-team debate without questioning anyone’s motives, undermining their 

credibility, or encouraging internecine competition. 

Even though team members knew Pardew would make all the major decisions, they voiced 

their opinions and made their cases for alternative courses of action. They spoke openly for 

several reasons. Some believed being attached to the task force and unsupervised by parent organizations encouraged free discourse.455 Glassman points out that all participants were responsible for bringing their own perspectives and abilities to the mission and were focused on that 

mission rather than institutional agendas. Rabasa agrees and adds that the temporary nature of 

the enterprise empowered individuals. Because members could always pack it in and leave, they 

felt free to voice their opinions honestly.456

Even more importantly, Pardew listened and weighed member arguments, which made it 

worthwhile expressing them. Pardew “always listened to what others said,” and as he hoped, the 

members “felt invested in the decisions.”457 That was even true for those who had sporadic contact with the task force. George Norris, an expert on howitzers who traveled with and advised 

the team on donations and possible purchases, recalls that he was asked his opinion. “Sometimes the task force took it and sometimes not.” However, he observed that people often ask for 
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your thoughts and you know they are just going through the motion and intend to do what they 

want. “Not Pardew; he was really open and listened to you.”458

Yet another reason team members contributed to the decision process was that they knew 

once major decisions were made, Pardew would delegate the details of implementation to them. 

He “had total confidence in the team”459 and believed they did not need extensive supervision. 

Normally he enumerated objectives and let the team members find a way to accomplish the 

task. Glassman notes Pardew allowed individual members “a lot of freedom in our sphere”460

and believed he had total freedom of action once Pardew tasked him. He used that freedom 

to seek out competitive bids from diverse sources, leverage the competition, and obtain better 

deals for the task force.461 For example, Glassman obtained a prospective agreement for surfaceto-air missiles from Ukraine that were expensive, and reliability was an issue. He used experts 

within the U.S. Government to better assess reliability, but also negotiated a stipulation that four 

out of the 300 purchased would be tested by a live-fire demonstration to determine reliability. 

Ultimately the deal did not go through because of concerns the purloined missiles might be 

misused.462 However, Glassman made the most of the flexibility to negotiate the best deal.463

Rabasa also believed he had a lot of latitude to solve problems with international partners 

and that there was no micromanagement.464 Similarly, Lamb and McFarren emphasize the latitude Pardew gave them to achieve results in developing procedures for money management, 

contracting, and partnering with supportive organizations.

[Padew] asked you what we needed to do and that let you figure out how to do 

it. . . . We had a lot of interaction and head-butting sessions with ASI and even 

MPRI . . . about the way we were going to do things and they came to understand 

that we did speak for Pardew. They could call him and try to get us reined in but 

he would not do that, except on rare occasions. He would talk to us about it, hear 

why we did what we did, and back us up. This was very empowering and people 

learned to take us seriously.465

McFarren adds that Pardew “was very willing to trust in our judgment and our professionalism. . . . 

Once Pardew decided to give you a task he would trust you with the decision-making process . . . he 

kept his eye on the big picture.” On occasion, that meant Pardew would make a strategic decision to 

compromise on an issue while his team was still pursuing some agreed course of action. Lamb and 

McFarren, for example, might be fighting hard for some objective only to be told by ASI or MPRI 

that Pardew had reached an out-of-court settlement with their superiors. They would verify the in-
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formation with Pardew, ask him to “let us know when our position has been overrun,” and go back to 

work. Pardew’s subordinates tended to follow his example in decisionmaking when partnering with 

other organizations. For example, Gary Blasser, the contract expert from Defense who worked for 

months on the MPRI and MILES contracts, recalls that Lamb acted as a program manager “keeping 

everyone coordinated, but gave guys like me great autonomy.”466

Pardew’s delegated authority came with an unspoken guarantee that he would back up his 

subordinates—or at least not reprimand them—for taking initiative even if the results were less 

than optimal or required adjustment. For example, a Dutch vendor in Holland selling trucks to the 

program offered to throw in a lot of German “Mungo” vehicles at a nominal price if the program 

acted quickly. Lamb discussed the opportunity with an MPRI contact and the Bosnian representative on the scene. They decided the vehicles would be easy to maintain and useful for the Livno 

training center where more mobility assets were needed. Later some criticized the decision saying the vehicles weren’t that useful and added to the sustainment woes of Federation forces, but 

Pardew never chided Lamb for seizing the opportunity. Similarly, Pardew backed up his subordinates when they cut corners in State’s laborious coordination process to move Pardew’s communications quickly or otherwise ensure that the task force was not bogged down by State’s processes. 

The sense of unified purpose, respect for Pardew, and appreciation for his inclusive decision 

style all ensured that Pardew’s decisions were aggressively implemented by the whole team once 

he decided on a course of action. After everyone had a say on key issues in the morning meeting, 

the team members would disperse and work on their tasks, using their own judgment on how to 

solve problems. Typically the group would not reconvene as a whole until the next day, although 

individual members pursuing a task could drop by Pardew’s office during the day to obtain supplementary guidance. Thus, unlike some small interagency groups, differences of opinion among 

members never complicated decision implementation on the Train and Equip Task Force. The 

decision process was inclusive and decentralized and yet authoritatively in Pardew’s hands. 

Team Culture

The task force had several salient behavioral norms that members agree reflected Pardew’s 

character and professional habits.467 Perhaps the most commonly cited norm was its work ethic. 

One member recalls Pardew was “almost relentless about moving forward on initiatives, even 

when things were not going the right way.”468 Even by Pentagon standards where 12-hour days 

and weekend work are not unusual, the pace Pardew set was zealous. His view was that the clock 

was ticking on IFOR’s commitment and Train and Equip was already behind schedule. The team 

worked long hours 7 days a week. It traveled frequently, particularly in the beginning. As major 
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milestones in program execution were achieved, the pace fell off a bit and the team often only 

worked a short Saturday and took off on Sunday.469 Others partnering with the task force often 

commented on its work ethic, noting it “couldn’t have been more dedicated,”470 was “driven,”471

and went to work immediately upon arriving in Sarajevo after an all-night flight. A member 

recalls, “On all the trips I went on with Pardew you worked from the moment you started until 

the end.”472

The task force also was action and results-oriented. Christensen recalls the team was a 

“good group of very mission-focused people.”473 Glassman agrees the group had “an operational-action mentality.” It was “an operational entity. . . . We were not policy-formulating.”474 The 

fact that the team was implementing a program rather than making policy and that the program 

had on-the-ground elements and consequences inclined the group to think in concrete terms 

about its objectives. McFarren also remarked on the task force’s focus on action, saying that 

what struck him most about Train and Equip “was that it was ‘real time.’” Pardew gave his subordinates license “to go out and break the China. We moved fast, we saw results.”475

Following dismissal of Bosniak Minister of Defense, Ambassador Pardew announces arrival of U.S. equipment at 

Port of Ploce, Croatia
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Pardew reinforced the action orientation in several ways. He let members know failure 

was not an option. Rabasa noted Pardew’s attitude reinforced a pronounced “can-do spirit.”476

That determination to persevere set the tone for the team.477 McFarren recalls Pardew goodnaturedly referring to the DOD personnel fighting his bureaucratic battles as his “attack dogs,” 

encouraging them to pursue their tasks.478 One reason Pardew made an effort to get all team 

members into country frequently was because he wanted everyone to see that their work had 

real world consequences.479

Those who partnered with the task force were impressed by its determination to drive results. 

The Defense contract specialist noted the group was singularly focused on its objectives “to the 

exclusion of everything else” and they “didn’t take no for an answer.”480 The artillery specialist who 

advised the Train and Equip Program was also impressed with the task force’s mission focus, and 

it affected his own attitude. When the Bosnians were late in showing up for a test demonstration of 

Romanian rockets, Glassman pushed him out front and said “you’re it.” Suddenly he was pressed 

into duty as the one to select the launcher and rockets to be tested and render a verdict on behalf of 

the Bosnian Ministry of Defense as to whether they were acceptable.481 It was “make things work . 

. . no matter what.”482 For program leaders, delays were unacceptable.

Those working on or with the team considered this aggressive pursuit of concrete results 

exemplary, “the way government ought to work.” However, others noted that the task force “getit-done” ethos clashed with some cultural norms in the Department of State. In State, process 

and ambiguity are valued because they can generate opportunities, but in DOD concrete ends 

and details are valued. Holbrooke foresaw problems in that regard. When he offered Pardew the 

job of leading Train and Equip in State he warned him, “They’ll drive you crazy over there.”483

The reverse was equally true. State had trouble understanding the task force’s aggressive can-do 

mentality. Klekas once phoned State’s Operations Center to ascertain whether a Pardew cable 

had been distributed. The officer on duty replied that it was held up by the chief watch officer, 

who was shocked by the strident tone. It did not look like a State Department telegram and he 

wondered whether there was some mistake. Klekas “corrected his misapprehension with unState Department-like fury.”484

The decision to demand removal of Hasan Cengic as the Bosniaks’ senior representative in 

the Ministry of Defense is an even more telling example of how the task force violated State norms. 

After Pardew and Perry barged into Secretary Christopher’s office to convince him to sign the letter demanding Cengic’s removal, Klekas, waiting outside for the verdict, had the riot act read to 

him by Christopher’s irate guardians, who were outraged by the end-run around staff.485 Klekas 

observes, “our proclivity was to press ahead to do what was necessary without seeking permission 
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unless we perceived it was absolutely necessary.” Because “delay was potentially fatal for the program,” the task force asked permission as seldom as possible and coordinated with “as few offices 

as possible.”486 Such high-handedness carried risks, and Klekas acknowledges that sometimes he 

“would get caught” and reprimanded by senior State officials intent on preserving the Department’s normal processes. 

The team’s action orientation and bureaucratic autonomy reinforced cohesion. Members 

knew their mission was not popular with regional analysts at the CIA, Pentagon, and State. The 

relative isolation reinforced morale and encouraged a bit of an “us against the world” attitude. 

Team “relationships were formed in the middle of battle,” said McFarren, and strengthened by 

shared experiences like working through a record snowstorm in the opening days of the task 

force, or bonding at a restaurant on the Bosporus after the disappointing Ankara conference.487

Some members noted that the team also enjoyed a common sense of humor, a droll perspective 

that “took the bite out of air.”488 The slightly black humor no doubt reflected the sense that all the 

members were in the same boat, and a leaky one at that.

Isolation did not stop the task force from searching for partners. When it found people in 

the larger bureaucracy willing to support its activities, it enrolled them as ex officio members 

of the cause. The task force could not have accomplished its objectives without help, and supporters were genuinely appreciated.489 That was true for MPRI and ASI, which had their own 

reasons for supporting the effort, but especially for those like Blasser and Norris who partnered 

with the task force when they were not obliged to. 

Mutual respect and trust also strengthened cohesion, as did the stable tenure of the core 

team once it was established. As members saw one another demonstrate their ability to solve 

problems their confidence in and respect for one another increased.490 Mutual trust was a concomitant fact reflecting cohesion, especially after the core membership gelled. Everyone working on the team believed other members worked toward the same goals and that they could 

speak freely. If the members did not develop the intense trust indicative of some high-performing small teams, it was because they worked separate agenda items and their personal fates 

were not as intertwined with one another’s results. Those members who worked most closely 

together on a sustained basis—Glassman and Rabasa, and Lamb and McFarren—developed the 

strongest intra-team trust relationships. 

Members quickly transferred their loyalty to the task force. As Pardew notes, “The people 

on the team were not playing the institutional game.” Instead they focused on the mission and 

not pressing for their particular institution’s agenda.491 Agreeing with this assessment, another 

member noted that the CIA participant represented the task force and its interests to the agency, 
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and that was true for all members who interacted with their parent organizations. He believed 

the mark of any successful interagency team is that the members all turn and represent the team 

to the parent organizations “rather than the other way around.”492

In summary, some task force cultural norms like a strong work ethic, action orientation, 

and a penchant for independence reflected the leader’s own behavior. The team also developed 

a proclivity for taking the initiative, being entrepreneurial, and partnering with sympathetic 

parties who could help them solve problems. All of these behaviors, along with a commitment 

to the mission, reinforced cohesion and performance. Some of these team norms, particularly 

the focus on results and willingness to partner, were linked to another key team variable that 

explains high team performance: learning. 

Team Learning

High performing teams learn quickly, obtaining new knowledge from experience and outside sources and sharing and applying them within the team. They can exploit existing knowledge from formal knowledge programs, experiment with alternative ways to solve problems, 

and explore knowledge networks and cross-organizational alliances. As Glassman notes, there 

was no formal learning process for Train and Equip493—no training for team members or established repository of knowledge to guide the task force. The mission was being conducted under 

unique and difficult circumstances, and the right way for everything from soliciting foreign 

funding to forging cooperation among Bosnians had to be figured out. 

Members learned from one another. For example, the State representatives helped other 

members less familiar with State to navigate the institution,494 and Franklin coached Pardew 

on how to interact with the media and even arranged formal training for television appearances.495 For the most part, however, the members had to learn on the job and share their insights. Pardew’s daily meetings and management style facilitated such information exchange, 

as did the small size of the task force and the general willingness of members to assist one 

another. Even though the team worked long hours, everyone made time for one another when 

the need arose.496

Task force circumstances encouraged risk-taking and creativity. The program was underresourced, which encouraged an “entrepreneurial” spirit,497 and opposed by many in the bureaucracy, which encouraged outreach to nontraditional partners. The team thus had incentives 

to experiment and explore .

498 As the program progressed, the task force would take risks (like 

the Ankara conference), investigate possibilities, try alternatives, improvise when something 

went wrong, and repeat what it learned from experience would work. 
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Most immediately, the mission required unconventional partnerships with the private sector and foreign authorities. The task force began working on those partnerships as soon as it was 

created. Within the first month of operation, the State representatives were searching for donors, and the Defense representatives reached out for help on building a training contract. The 

group needed insights from subject matter experts and cooperation from a range of partners. 

Having U.S. Government officials work with the private sector encouraged entrepreneurship,499

and partnering with others encouraged learning. 

Pardew and his subordinates learned from their countless working group meetings, dinners, and visits.500 Sometimes the hard work on outreach led to useful partnerships.501 Other 

times it just provided useful information. For example, the task force visited Rock Island arsenal in Illinois to see how the program’s 155mm howitzers were being refurbished. The workers 

seldom received attention from officials in Washington and were happy to be supporting the 

program, a sentiment reinforced by the visit. The Rock Island professionals presumably would 

have done a fine a job without the visit, but it was still educational. Team members learned more 

about the quality of the weapons and the timetable for their delivery and confirmed that those 

in DOD who were skeptical about Train and Equip were not trying to delay or sidetrack the 

refurbishment of the howitzers. 

The mission encouraged partnership, but the problems it tackled also required considerable improvisation.502 Some problems were solved through sheer hard work, persistence, and 

political pressure, such as the passage of the new defense law in Bosnia and finding a U.S. supplier of Kevlar (and related approvals) for helmet production in Bosnia. But other problems 

the team confronted required solutions that were creative if not unprecedented for the U.S. 

Government, such as the task force’s new legal regime to manage donor money; use of intelligence experts to assess the commercial market for weapons; combining government and private 

sector contracting expertise; cooperation with ASI and the Defense Contract Audit Agency to 

ensure accountability; use of drawdown services to refurbish Excess Defense Articles; exploitation of outdated Army simulation software and computer equipment for Federation training 

and education in NATO symbols, standards, and tactics; and promises to consider commercial 

purchases to leverage in-kind donations. 

Once the task force learned how to accomplish something, it often repeated the model.503

For example, bringing in a contract expert for the MPRI agreement helped, so the team did 

it again for the MILES contract. Bringing in weapons experts for advice on arms purchases 

worked well, so the task force repeated that in subsequent purchases. ASI proved beneficial 

for evaluating activity and ensuring accountability for the training program as a whole, so the 
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group arranged for a representative from the Defense Contract Audit Agency to ensure that all 

train and equip accounts and contracts were in order. Despite hostility from “middle management” and career officials in the Washington bureaucracy, the task force learned many individuals at the working level would back it and used these relationships. 

In summary, the train and equip approach to learning was a classic case of “on-the-job 

training.”504 With the exception of the media training for Pardew, there was no formal training 

for anyone. Neither was there any effort in the national security system or on the task force to 

record and share lessons from their experience. The members explored different ways to accomplish their tasks, and when they completed their mission they moved on to other jobs. In the 

more than 20 years since, this is the first formal attempt to learn from the experience.

Individual-Level Variables

Composition

Several performance variables at the individual level of analysis cover the ways individuals are motivated and able to contribute to team performance. One is team composition, or 

“what individual members bring to the group in terms of skill, ability, and disposition.”505 It 

covers characteristics that research indicates affect team performance including attitudinal, demographic, and functional diversity,506 along with selection criteria and socialization of team 

members, and the propensity of individuals to contribute to team performance. For example, 

researchers believe individuals who are agreeable, extroverted, emotionally stable, and open to 

experience contribute better to teams.

All the members brought what they learned from previous experience, but some skill sets 

were more pertinent than others. Pardew’s time with Holbrooke’s team was directly relevant to 

managing Train and Equip and was partly why he was chosen as leader. Holbrooke told Pardew 

to do it and he agreed. He considered his time on Holbrooke’s small team that negotiated peace 

in Bosnia between August and December of 1995 a “crash-course in diplomacy” that introduced him to the major protagonists in the region. The experience convinced him that a small 

team could tackle a tough problem if the entire group was committed and pursued an interactive decisionmaking process.507 Before that, he was a senior executive running the Pentagon’s 

Balkan Task Force, where he worked with Sawoski and Klekas. 

Sawoski was an academic on a leave of absence from Roger Williams University. He was 

an international relations theorist and Russian specialist, but also had experience in the Department of State where he served as staff assistant to Department spokesman Hodding Carter III 
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during the hostage crisis with Iran. Because he had accompanied Pardew to Dayton, he was intimately familiar with U.S. Bosnia policy and regional personalities. Klekas had left the Pentagon’s 

Balkan Task Force before Dayton to take a year-long assignment at State as Special Assistant 

for Europe for the Under Secretary for Policy. He knew how Defense and State worked at high 

levels and had substantive knowledge about the delicate situation in Bosnia. Rabasa also served 

a tour in the Pentagon and knew the DOD culture. He had also worked Serbian sanctions on an 

interagency task force at State.508

Other members also used their skills sets directly to the benefit of the task force. The CIA 

representative handled all the intelligence needs, and Franklin, the former Navy public affairs 

officer, managed public relations. Similarly, McFarren was borrowed and then stolen from the 

Defense Security Cooperation Agency and appropriately handled security assistance matters. 

Glassman and Lamb, however, had only generally relevant and senior executive management 

experience. Glassman was an experienced diplomat and Lamb came from the Pentagon office 

responsible for oversight of special operation and low-intensity conflict. 

Yet in terms of selection, no one other than Pardew—and by extension Sawoski—was really hand-picked to ensure the task force would succeed. Pardew asked Sawoski, his colleague 

on the Pentagon’s Bosnia Task Force, to join the group shortly after finding out he would be 

tapped to lead the program. Sawoski believed it was important and would be rewarding since 

the administration gave it a high priority.509

The CIA assigned a representative to the task force after Pardew told them he would keep 

them informed of his activities if they furnished someone to provide intelligence support.510

When that representative was promoted away from the position after a short stint, Pardew 

asked for someone more knowledgeable about the Balkans and was given Guillermo Christensen. Christensen interviewed with Pardew “very briefly.”511 Pardew liked the fact that he 

had experience in the Balkans and only seemed hesitant about Christensen’s lack of exposure 

to military issues until their initial face-to-face meeting.512 Christensen convinced him he was 

familiar with military terminology and concepts from CIA paramilitary training and Pardew 

accepted him on the team.513 Yet he too stayed only briefly before being replaced by someone 

who did not have experience in the Balkans but who was available to work with the task force 

for an extended period.

Darryl Johnson joined by happenstance. Holbrooke bumped into Johnson in a hallway at 

State. Holbrooke could be quite persuasive, and Johnson was “on his good guy’s list.”514 Holbrooke 

discovered Johnson was waiting for his position in Taiwan to open up in a few months, so he 

asked Johnson to serve as Pardew’s deputy during the interim. Three months later Holbrooke told 
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The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

Johnson to relieve Ambassador Menzies in Sarajevo for a few weeks and the team was left without 

a senior State representative.515 The task force recruited Glassman a few months later. Rabasa was a 

friend of Glassman’s and he recommended him to Pardew.516 Glassman had served as the last U.S. 

Ambassador to Afghanistan before the Embassy closed as Soviet forces left the country in 1989.517

He was no stranger to irregular conflict, having also worked on Central American issues during 

the Reagan administration (where he met Rabasa), but he had fallen out of favor with the Clinton 

administration. Rabasa wanted to help him get back into action.518 Glassman was quickly accepted 

after a brief interview.519

Defense allowed Pardew to select a deputy but made recommendations. Pardew asked 

Walter Slocombe, then Under Secretary of Defense for Policy, for candidates. Slocombe recommended Lamb, so Pardew interviewed him. After 5 years in his office director position, Lamb 

was ready for a different challenge and wanted the job. Lamb recalls the interview was brief 

and chiefly consisted of one question apparently designed to determine whether he was on the 

right side of the policy debate: Do you agree the United States should intervene to bring peace 

to Bosnia? McFarren’s interview with Pardew was also concise. Pardew asked him one question 

about his ability to perform the task and took him on board. McFarren notes there was luck 

involved. He was relatively junior—a major—and believes if more senior officers had known the 

job was located in State instead of the Army staff and might be more than a 2-week stint to familiarize the task force with security assistance options he would never have gotten it.520 Pardew 

just asked, “Can you wear a suit?” He didn’t want anyone in a military uniform working for the 

program and would not allow McFarren to travel to Sarajevo while on active duty.521

Some individuals came to the task force by their own initiative. Klekas and Franklin approached Pardew522 and were quickly accepted. What Franklin recalls most about the interview 

was its brevity.523 When he departed the task force in late 1998, Pardew’s hiring interviews and 

process remained cursory. Raffi Gregorian, who replaced Franklin (albeit with a broader portfolio), saw the job advertisement when the McFarren and Franklin slots were being renewed as 

contractor positions. He called Lamb, whom he knew, and inquired about opportunities. Franklin 

was not going to continue with the task force so Lamb checked with Pardew and told Gregorian to 

“come today.”524 Pardew told Gregorian, “Chris says you’re a good guy” and asked if he wanted the 

job. It was a 5-minute interview, so brief that Gregorian reversed the process and queried Pardew 

to determine if the position was really one he would want to leave a good job to take.525

In retrospect, Pardew seemed to appreciate the importance of capable team members 

more. He told a colleague when starting his task force for Kosovo that the important thing was 

to “pick the right people and everything else will fall in place.”526 Much later, when interviewed 
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for this research, he said he had “really capable people” on his Train and Equip Task Force 

and that he was a “big believer in small organizations of very capable people.”527 Perhaps the 

appreciation for able team members was a lesson learned from the Train and Equip experience. In any case, all the evidence indicates that at the time Pardew was content to take the 

individuals who made themselves available as long as they believed in the mission. Events 

then validated a modest team member’s assessment that “we may not have been the cream 

of the crop [but] we were all savvy people who knew how to make things happen and get 

the job done.”528

In truth, it is hard to find anything exceptional about the careers of most task force members529

that would explain their performance with one exception. Most of those attracted to the team were 

bureaucratic risk takers. Rabasa, Klekas, and Lamb were all Foreign Service Officers who chose to 

work in the Department of Defense because they found the opportunity interesting, even though it 

would most likely retard rather than help their careers. Lamb liked the results-oriented culture in 

Defense better and stayed there, while Rabasa and Klekas returned to their nontraditional career 

paths at State. McFarren was a Special Forces officer used to international exposure and unconventional problem solving who was happy to leave the military to work on an exciting special project like 

Train and Equip. Some others who partnered brilliantly with the task force were not on the fast track 

to promotion in their offices but were willing to buck the system to help out.

In addition to placing job satisfaction over advancement, some personalities had an 

iconoclastic bent. One member recalls Klekas was a “bit of a bomb thrower; very creative, 

an out of the box guy.”530 Klekas agrees that he was no ordinary State careerist. It was more 

important to him to work on interesting subjects than to advance. He also notes that both 

he and Glassman were motorcycle riders, not the norm in the staid Department of State.531

People with unconventional mindsets seemed disproportionately attracted to the task force. 

They were independent thinkers who did not fit easily in the State mold. That proved true for 

most members and certainly for the team as a whole.

Rewards

Organizations often use material and psychological incentives to improve crossfunctional 

team performance. The rewards can be used to attract individuals to join teams and to encourage performance. Sometimes the team experience itself becomes a form of psychological 

reward that deepens the emotional commitment of members and extends their period of high 

performance on the team. Train and Equip members agree there were no formal incentives to 

draw them to the team or encourage their performance, but there were psychological rewards. 
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The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

Ultimately there was also formal recognition for some task force performance but it played little 

role in motivating members. 

“Attractive rewards” are incentives sometimes used to encourage qualified people to move 

from comfortable and often safer organizational positions onto teams that are riskier career 

choices. That happened for those who served on the task force briefly after it stood up. Christensen recalled that his supervisor at CIA gave him an informal assurance that his career path 

would not be penalized by taking on a rotation outside the organization, which he was happy to 

do.532 Holbrooke made Johnson an offer he could not refuse, but the association with a dangerous and high-profile issue area like the Balkans was useful later in Johnson’s career. In neither 

case was the task force allowed to disrupt the individual’s normal career progression for long. 

After the early temporary participants departed, the team solidified around its core members 

(see figure 6), all of whom were drawn by a desire for a new assignment within the Federal 

Government, a personal commitment to the mission, or both. With a couple of possible exceptions, expectations of career enhancement played no role in decisions to join the team. On the 

contrary, most believed the experience would retard their career prospects.

Sawoski was on leave from academia where he was a tenured professor. He was happy to 

take the job but did not believe it would be career-enhancing.533 Glassman and Lamb were both 

in career holding patterns and ready for new challenges but did not believe Train and Equip 

would help them advance. McFarren thought his military career had stabilized and notes it was 

not a hard decision to leave the military and join the task force as a civilian contractor. Pardew 

encouraged this decision, telling him he would have fun and it would “change his life.”534 Franklin was retiring from the Navy and looking for a position in the DC area. At the time he was the 

Bosnia desk officer in Defense public affairs. When the massacre at Srebrenica happened, he 

recalls radio reports from Dutch peacekeepers and was horrified, determined that if he could 

“ever do anything to help those people” he would. At that point he knew nothing about the Train 

and Equip Program, but later when the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs) 

told him about the opportunity with Pardew, Franklin jumped at the chance to “help the Muslims” defend themselves. He contacted Pardew and was interviewed and offered the position.535

All core members agreed with the task force mission, but those with more experience in the 

Balkans joined out of deep conviction. Like Franklin, Rabasa notes that helping victims of aggression had an impact on his desire to serve on the team.536 Klekas felt even more strongly that it was 

a question of preserving honor. He had participated in high-level meetings on the DOD Balkans 

Task Force in the Department of Defense and heard senior Europeans fight against lifting the arms 

embargo. They argued it would only “add fuel to the fire” and the Bosnians would be “defeated 
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Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

anyway.” After 3 years of hearing that kind of cynicism and seeing the Bosnians still holding out, 

it felt increasingly dishonorable to him not to protest or intervene. Serving on the task force was 

his chance to personally contribute to what he believed should have been done earlier.537 When 

the team started up, Klekas was ending a year-long tour as special assistant to the Under Secretary 

of State for Policy. He appealed to Pardew to bring him on board so he could pursue “a mission I 

strongly believed in.”538 Similarly, Raffi Gregorian had just returned from a voluntary active duty 

tour with SFOR when he joined the task force, and he believed in the Train and Equip mission. 

He was willing to leave a solid job in the private sector. Pardew himself had the greatest amount of 

personal experience with Bosnia and the strongest commitment to rectifying the military imbalance there. 

“Active incentives” refer to means to motivate members once they are on the team. In 

government such incentives typically include evaluations of individual performance and the 

Figure 6. Task Force Membership
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The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

possibility of recognition for a job well done. For several reasons, no one on the team had high 

expectations for such rewards. Parent agencies that were generally hostile to the task force were 

not expected to reward those who worked on it,539 and any glowing personal evaluations written by Pardew would likely be discounted. This was particularly true for State people. Rabasa 

notes that because of institutional prejudices, Pardew with his Defense background would have 

little influence on a State career.540 Klekas summarized the thoughts of many members: “As for 

me, I simply assumed the mission would be its own reward. I did not expect participation in 

the program would be ‘career enhancing’ because it was unconventional and outside of the State 

Department’s organizational structure.”541

Lamb recalls the same feeling, and it was not long before he received reminders that the 

task force’s work was outside DOD’s purview and interests. He began receiving periodic calls 

from the Department’s policy offices reminding him he needed to “come home.” The messages 

were mixed, congratulating him for doing well but also warning that he had been away too long 

and would soon be forgotten and out of the running for a career-enhancing job.542

Another reason expectations for rewards were low was that Pardew did not put much emphasis on such matters. He had developed a dislike for producing the standard inflated government evaluation after a career full of such responsibilities and typically let members draft their 

own evaluations.543 He was not personally impressed by recognition awards and not inclined to 

work to obtain them for others. Neither was he sentimental about task force relationships. Much 

later, after most of the original team members left, an award was presented to McFarren. After a 

few minutes of congratulations, a bemused Pardew told McFarren to “get back to work.”544 When 

asked about rewards on the team, Pardew said there were “no big rewards” in his own case, and 

when it was time to move on he moved on.545 Pardew’s parsimonious praise subtly reinforced the 

results orientation of the task force. There were no “attaboys” for working late, long activity lists, 

or expressions of loyalty. Only results elicited approval, an approach that kept the focus on team 

progress rather than individual achievement and reinforced the sense of professionalism. 

Members thus agree they were far more motivated by personal satisfaction than formal 

evaluations and awards. The common observation from members was their reward was the 

satisfaction of doing the job well and seeing clear results.546 Elaborating, some cited the opportunity to travel, learn, solve problems, and see a worthy cause progress, all amplified by proving 

the skeptics wrong. 

Some ardent supporters had doubts about whether those chosen to execute it were up 

to the task. News trickled back to the task force that Richard Perle told Perry that “Pardew is 

not up to the job”547 and ASI in general “did not believe Pardew would go to the mat for the 
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program.”548 These sentiments reinforced his determination to succeed.549 Similarly, Senator 

Dole’s acerbic legislative aide questioned the competence of each member of the task force 

when they met. Pardew took it in stride, but the episode fueled the determination of others 

to succeed.550 Operating under bureaucratic criticism seemed to reinforce the “rebel with a 

cause” esprit de corps the team felt, but being criticized personally really accentuated the 

satisfaction members felt when the program overcame opposition and other impediments. 

However, the task force took a different approach to rewards for those who partnered with 

it. Lamb and McFarren made a habit of sending letters of appreciation to offices that worked 

with them, which Pardew signed and forwarded. They made a point of being particularly effusive about supervisors, emphasizing that the program was a Presidential priority and detailing 

the contributions their personnel made.551 Blasser’s experience is a case in point. Initially he and 

a colleague, Sue Hildner, helped the task force with contracting, but there was no way to justify 

the absence of both from a four-person office. Thus only Blasser stayed on for an extended 

period, but he called on Hildner when work demanded her particular expertise, like an analysis of source selection methods. After months of their support, the task force sent a carefully 

crafted letter to the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition, which he read and sent down 

the chain to Blasser with an accompanying note of praise.552 As Blasser pointed out, the political 

appointees at the head of his organization were delighted to see such a letter documenting their 

support for a Presidential initiative they knew little about. However, his immediate superior, a 

career official responsible for day-to-day output, was far less enthusiastic. “You’re a no show,” 

she told Blasser, emphasizing how much Blasser’s absence cost their little office. Even so, the 

letter encouraged the senior people Blasser worked under to be cooperative and allowed him to 

continue to support the task force.553

Despite expectations to the contrary, the bureaucracy was more generous in recognizing 

performance than many expected. Klekas received a Superior Honor Award for his work on the 

team and State promoted him a grade to FS-01 at end of his assignment.554 Lamb received an 

award from his parent organization, and a year after returning to Defense, an award from State 

as well. McFarren finally received an award 5 years into his 8-year tenure. Pardew was awarded 

follow-on assignments in the region. He led another small task force in a successful effort to 

prevent conflict in Macedonia and was later appointed Ambassador to Bulgaria. 

Long before it became clear that anyone on the task force would receive recognition, members had already decided the experience was deeply satisfying on a personal level. They still 

feel that way more than 20 years later, concluding it was one of or the best experiences of their 

careers. Sawoski said his time on the task force was “very positive” and Rabasa considered it “on 
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the high side of his government experience.” 555 Glassman recalls, “Those days were among the 

happiest of my life . . . it was a thrill to do it.” To him, the team “didn’t need rewards” because the 

biggest reward was “personal satisfaction.”556 McFarren said “It was the most enjoyable [working] experience in or out of government I’ve ever had. . . . I enjoyed going to work. . . . There’s 

nothing I’ve ever done in government that’s been anything like it; that fast, and that comprehensive.”557 Lamb also considered it his “single best experience in government” and noted that 

seeing the results of the task force’s work materialize in the field was invigorating: “The reward 

was job satisfaction.”558

Those who partnered with the task force for short periods also considered the experience rewarding. The first CIA representative concluded, “For me, personally, it was a very 

good experience. . . . I saw a small team come together, saw Pardew build it in face of adversity, and I learned and applied this later on.”559 Another partner with the task force on a 

temporary basis said, “It was for me an incredible experience, educationally, professionally, 

and personally. . . . In my period of government service, it was a highlight.”560 He also added, 

as did many others, that it “was rewarding to work for Pardew” because of his extraordinary 

leadership qualities.561

Leadership

Leadership is sometimes emphasized to the point of excluding other factors that affect group performance. In the case of Train and Equip, however, task force members believe 

Pardew’s leadership was critical to success. “Jim was an inspirational person to work for,” one 

recalls.562 Others note, “Pardew was a great leader . . . superb,”563 and he was “the one indispensable member of the team.”564 Another member concludes, “While it definitely took a team of 

people committed to the cause, without him we would not have succeeded.565 Yet another summarized the entire experience as “the story of how one imaginative and indefatigable individual, 

Jim Pardew, was able to assemble a small team that operated quasi-independently from the 

conventional bureaucracy, preserving our nation’s honor in the face of relentless opposition at 

home and abroad.”566 Often those not on the team but who partnered closely with it also saw its 

leader as the key element: “Pardew was for me the most impressive and important part of the 

thing.”567 MPRI leaders doubted “you could have found a better guy.”568

Pardew’s leadership style was traditional; top-down and directive, but with a lot of collegiality. 

While all members agree that Pardew made all the major decisions and directed task force activities, 

they also agree he did it collaboratively. For example, Johnson notes that although Pardew would 

make his own decisions and not always follow advice, “he wanted to hear everyone’s viewpoints; his 
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style was not ‘dominating’ but very ‘collegial.’”569 McFarren agrees Pardew was “collaborative”; “He 

had a good idea of what he wanted to do but took so much feedback.”570

Some members believe Pardew exercised a “coaching style” of leadership because he was so 

open to hearing member views and encouraging initiative (“He didn’t micromanage,” says Rabasa571). Franklin concluded, “Jim was more of a coaching leader”; he was an “inspirational person to 

work for and, while he listened carefully to everything we had to say, he always made the decision 

as to which way we would go on any given issue.”572 Another periodic observer also concludes the 

leader had “kind of a coaching style. . . . Pardew and Glassman would explain the context and how 

I could help and I would work within that. It was not top-down directive, nor ‘team’ decision making; you could influence things but once Pardew decided, that was it; it was done.”573 Sawoski concurs, noting Pardew delegated well but also “listened well” and “was willing to change his mind.”574

For these reasons Pardew’s traditional leadership seemed collaborative to his subordinates. 

In further explaining what made Pardew such an effective traditional leader, task force 

members and Train and Equip partners identify several attributes that were critical to success. Sawoski considered Pardew “one of the smartest and most politically astute people I ever 

met.”575 He also was well connected with senior leaders at the time. As McFarren notes, “he had 

the juice,”576 and the other members appreciated the value of Pardew’s connections. Klekas had 

seen him interact with Secretary of Defense Perry and knew the Secretary was “our most important champion [and] had enormous respect for Pardew.”577 Pardew’s connections to the upper 

echelons of the Clinton administration were also well understood by MPRI and the Bosnians. 

Bosniak Deputy Minister of Defense Sakib Mahmuljin’s memory of Pardew was that “he had 

good intentions” but also “real force.” He adds that Minister of Defense Ante Jelavic “thought 

the United States was behind him.”578 It was clear to all concerned that Pardew was in control 

and representing the Clinton administration on Train and Equip.

Pardew was well regarded by Perry and other leaders in part because of his strategic vision. 

Lamb notes that before he ever met Pardew he was acquainted with his reputation as a keen 

strategic observer of complex security problems. Pardew’s missives back to his superiors in the 

Pentagon while traveling in the Balkans with Holbrooke were widely admired for their succinct 

and trenchant analysis of the current situation. He continued the habit of supplying leaders with 

exceptionally clear, forceful reports from the field while managing the Train and Equip Program. His penetrating assessments of political developments in Bosnia and the Balkans more 

broadly, and his reports following meetings with Bosnian, Croat, and Serb leaders were pithy, 

opinionated, persuasive, and written in earthy and easily comprehended prose. 
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Klekas accompanied Pardew on his trips to Bosnia and Croatia, where one of his main 

duties was drafting cables conveying Pardew’s views to Washington. He recalls that the 

first draft he did for Pardew was based on the normal Department of State format: a summary, followed by the detailed body, and a concluding comment. “As I handed it to Jim he 

recoiled. ‘What’s this?’ he asked. I explained the format. He replied, ‘John, the summary is

the cable.’”579 Pardew’s communications reflected his thinking: clear, concise, and always 

aimed at the heart of the matter. They were interesting to read and influential in the upper 

echelons of the Clinton administration.580

Lamb sees a connection between Pardew’s clear-eyed strategic assessments and his penchant for delegating details. Pardew “did not seem to care how you got things done as long as 

you got them done,” but he “really excelled at thinking strategically about the program. . . . I 

grew to respect him greatly for the fact that he kept his eye on the big picture.”581 As a result, 

Pardew always “had a really good sense of what he wanted to do.”582 He also had a solid sense 

of what could be done and how. His incisive strategic assessments were routinely on display in 

his leadership of Train and Equip. He made difficult decisions, such as refusing to pay military 

salaries, look simple in retrospect, but at the time he was under pressure from knowledgeable 

President Clinton holds impromptu meeting with Bosnia negotiating team after memorial service for three U.S. 

negotiators who died while traveling to Sarajevo. Ambassador Pardew in upper right corner next to Madeline 

Albright, August 21, 1995 (William J. Clinton Presidential Library)
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experts to give in, which he refused to do. Other decisions, such as firing Cengic, were inherently high risk, but Pardew always emerged from them with his choices validated.

Klekas notes, for example, that Pardew made several “strategic decisions” where he “put 

the very survival of the [Train and Equip] program at stake. . . . He was willing to risk everything 

by threatening to terminate [the program] in order to foster true unity within the BosniakCroat Federation and to preserve the integrity and effectiveness of the program over the long 

term.”583 Lamb agrees, saying he always kept his eye on his goals and the key factors affecting 

his ability to achieve them. Even in the intra-task force debates, his views were proven correct 

repeatedly. Some decisions did not work out well. For example, the Ankara conference was a 

bust and Pardew chastises himself for not asking certain countries for more funds, believing 

after the fact that they likely would have given more.584 But as Franklin notes, whether he agreed 

or disagreed with his colleagues, “Almost always, he was right.”585

Another attribute was toughness. Pardew was both tough-minded and forceful in his 

behavior. Lamb found him “unsentimental,” which he thought “helped him see things clearly” 

and make tough calls correctly. In daily meetings Pardew was relaxed, informal, and low-key 

with his subordinates, but if he was concerned about something he could issue instructions 

that left no room for misinterpretation.586 He could be equally hard-edged with others, always 

giving priority to program success. One of many examples was his treatment of the Bosnian 

military attaché to the United States, Selmo Cikotic. When Cikotic was smeared with allegations of war crimes, Pardew cut him off completely, refusing to take his calls protesting his 

innocence, and agreed to his removal from the Army Command and General Staff College 

at Fort Leavenworth. Even though Pardew was quite fond of Cikotic, and found the allegations hard to believe, he immediately gave priority to protecting the program’s reputation.587

Pardew knew he would only tarnish the program if he tried to interfere with the war crimes 

process. Train and Equip was promoting a new generation of Bosnian military leaders, and 

it could not afford to have it alleged that extremists or war criminals from any ethnic group 

were associated with the program. 

Another example of toughness was Pardew’s reaction to Cengic’s last-ditch charm offensive in hopes of forestalling the demand that he be replaced. Pardew listened as Cengic was 

exceptionally cordial and cooperative and then, after telling a subordinate to handle the rest 

of the meeting, got up and walked out as if Cengic were a leper. The cold message to everyone 

was clear. Later Izetbegovic agreed to remove Cengic but only if the Bosnian Croat Minister of 

Defense Vladimir Soljic was also removed. Izetbegovic wanted it to appear as if both failed in 

their duties rather than singling out the Bosniak. Pardew, receiving the call in the Holiday Inn 
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lobby, immediately acceded. Hanging up, he said, “Two for the price of one. I love it when a plan 

comes together.”588 He did not hesitate or ask for guidance. He knew the removal of Soljic served 

the purpose of eliminating Cengic and also sending the signal that the United States wanted 

more dedicated, forward-looking leaders in place. 

Pardew was “all business” when focused on a program objective, particularly when dealing with those outside the task force. Because his “wrath” rained down on both parties of the 

Federation in a nondiscriminatory manner, it seemed to have the effect of drawing them closer 

together. His pressure on the two ethnic groups to cooperate became a subject of public commentary (see cartoon) and even humor. On one trip, task force members heard from MPRI 

that Bosniak and Croat generals were making jokes about Pardew’s torrential wrath during his 

monthly visits.589 The earthy humor was consistent with the general ambiance in post-war Sarajevo, which was infused by the lack of illusions among those who had risen to the top of their 

demanding profession during a prolonged and gruesome war. 

Pardew fit that environment. His “down-to-earth personality worked well.”590 He was unpretentious and quick to laugh while also projecting a “no nonsense” demeanor. On rare occasions, when it was clear he was being given a sales pitch rather than honest information, 

he abruptly left meetings with Federation military leaders. A task force member recalls he 

“spoke his mind” and “had tremendous credibility.” He “managed difficult people” in Bosnia 

well. As Rabasa concludes, “A Department of State guy, being nonconfrontational, would not 

have worked well in that context. Pardew’s tirades in Bosnia were effective.”591 He was equally 

tough on anyone standing in the way of the program. He publicly identified problems and even 

problematic people including British generals who were zealously interfering with the program. 

“The way he fought with SFOR” to protect the program impressed Train and Equip supporters. 

“He was steadfast. . . . It was impressive; much more than I ever expected to see out of a government employee.”592

Pardew was as demanding on himself as he was with others. He took full responsibility 

for the program. He never blamed subordinates when something went wrong: “I don’t ever remember him coming to us and saying you did that wrong; I’m unhappy.”593 Pardew believed, “If 

a person takes on a job like Train and Equip, they should take responsibility for its success.”594

Glassman notes that after 30 years in State and another 10 in the private sector, he had little 

presumption of leadership left, “but Jim Pardew still thought he was a leader!”595 Lamb agrees: 

Pardew was a “no excuses” leader. When Klekas first arrived on the task force and discussed 

bureaucratic resistance to the program in State and Defense, Pardew said, “If they didn’t want 

us to succeed they shouldn’t have put me in charge of the program.” Guillermo Christensen 
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notes that Pardew “knew from the beginning that he was facing some serious odds . . . but that 

did not translate into thinking he couldn’t get things done.”596 Pardew didn’t like to fail,597 and 

his conviction that he could succeed was “an attitude he pushed down to the rest of the team.”598

Thinking back on the Train and Equip experience, Pardew downplays his leadership. 

He said the task force had capable people, a clear vision, and adequate resources. He thought 

with all that, “you would have to be a pretty poor leader” to fail.599 Everyone else on the team 

disagreed. They believed Pardew’s leadership was critical. With regard to Pardew’s impact 

on Federation unity, Franklin cited “intense resistance and distrust. . . . Jim had to cajole, 

threaten, entice, encourage, push them forward and sometimes pull them back. His keen 

Cartoon from Oslobodenje newspaper shows irate Uncle Sam being ignored by the ABiH (Bosniak) and HVO 

(Croats) military as he holds a “Train and Equip Program” sign (Courtesy of Rick Kiernan)
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insight, resourcefulness, and commitment to the cause were single-handedly responsible for 

much of the success of this.”600 Other members felt Pardew’s leadership was just as critical 

for other task force achievements. He was, Glassman noted, “a great, talented leader; the U.S. 

Government needs him. . . .”601

Performance Assessment

The Bosnian military today is considered a leading influence in the country’s unification and 

push toward NATO membership. That’s a remarkable journey.

602

—Derek Chollet, 2013

With the benefit of the task force’s history and a detailed assessment of its primary performance factors, we can now assess the operational and strategic significance of its performance 

and provide a net explanation for that. First, however, it is necessary to establish performance 

criteria. Unlike many small interagency groups, the Train and Equip Task Force was expected 

to do much more than just share information or facilitate cooperation among departments and 

agencies. As Glassman notes, the task force was not just a policymaking body; it was expected 

to achieve real results in the field.603 In this respect its performance can be assessed on the basis 

of output—or whether it achieved desired outcomes.

Output and Outcomes

In terms of output, the history of the task force demonstrates it was highly productive. 

Space constraints preclude enumerating all its administrative, technical, and political achievements, but for every major milestone covered in its history, such as obtaining interest for donor 

funds and securing $27 million from the Sultan of Brunei, the task force racked up many smaller 

successes. For example, it arranged for duty-free shipping through Croatia; secured agreement 

on symbols to unify Federation forces (not just rank, insignia, and flags, but language, license 

plates, and uniforms); obtained office space and housing for Bosnian Croats so they could work 

in Sarajevo; acquired liability insurance for Bosnian helicopter training in Germany; provided 

technical assistance to set up a Chaplains Corps for the Bosnian Federation military; secured 

multiple SFOR clearances for delivery but also storage of equipment shipments; countered 

spurious disinformation and sensationalized reporting on alleged improprieties; received certification that MPRI was not violating Dayton provisions for exclusion of “foreign forces;” arranged licensing of MILES equipment to the Bosnians; etc. Some of these achievements were 

unremarkable, but many were considered unlikely and exceptional at the time. The Train and 
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Equip Program output was also notable for its transparency and accountability. No money or 

equipment was ever diverted away, and the program never violated other provisions of the Dayton Accords. If there had been any major flare-ups between Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks or 

scandals to sully the program, the effort could have been sidetracked or even collapsed. Instead, 

it rapidly picked up momentum (see figure 7). 

Task force output did not guarantee desired outcomes. From the team’s point of view, the 

minimally successful outcome for its effort was fulfilling the President’s promise to provide 

enough training and equipment that Bosnian Federation forces could defend themselves from 

Serbian attacks.604 By this criterion the program could only be considered a success if it achieved 

its most immediate operational goal of creating a rough military balance in Bosnia. Additional 

goals were ridding the country of foreign extremists, strengthening the Federation, and orienting formerly communist Bosnia toward the West. 

The most immediate goal of securing a military balance so the Bosnian Federation could 

defend itself was widely assessed as a success and, as noted earlier, almost too successful. It is 

also important to recall that the program was supposed to provide a rough balance between 

the Federation and the Republika Srpska, not between the Federation and the Former Republic of Yugoslavia. Observers, particularly in the press, sometimes missed this point.605 NATO 

forces would deter conflict among regional powers. The point of the Train and Equip Program 

was local military stability in Bosnia, which reduced demands on the program and also meant 

it was unlikely to precipitate a regional conflict because it was not a threat to Croatia, Serbia 

proper, or other regional powers. It was intended to deter the Bosnian Serbs, and since the 

Serbs never attacked, there is a plausible primae facie case to be made that the program was 

a successful deterrent. 

The major counterpoint to this view is that the presence of international forces in the 

country constrained the Bosnian Serbs (and Bosniaks for that matter) and would have done 

that without the program. Perceptions of the deterrence value of Train and Equip and international peacekeeping forces, respectively, shifted over time. As years of peace went by, the 

value of Train and Equip seemed to diminish and the deterrence value ascribed to peacekeeping 

forces grew. For example, 5 years after the Dayton Accords a Center for Defense Information 

assessment noted, “On one level, Train and Equip was a success” inasmuch as “Bosniak troops 

have not been challenged by any of the other armed factions in the republic.” But it continues, 

“This is mostly due to the deterrent effect of IFOR/SFOR forces in the area.”606

Five years earlier, however, the perceived deterrence value of Train and Equip and international peacekeeping forces was judged much differently. To begin with, no one had much 
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The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

confidence that peacekeeping forces would easily deter another round of fighting. On the 

contrary, virtually no one assumed the presence of international peacekeeping forces guaranteed peace. The fear of renewed hostilities was so great it limited the initial IFOR mandate to 

1 year and also led the Pentagon to refuse any clause in the draft peace accords that had IFOR 

playing an enforcement role for arms control or other military limitations.607 If the peace had 

been secure rather than fragile, the program could have been overlooked as a minor irritant 

needed to reassure understandably nervous Bosniaks. Instead, it was “the most controversial 

of all programs for Bosnia”608 precisely because the situation was considered volatile despite 

the presence of international peacekeeping forces. 

Because peacekeepers stayed and the Serbs never attacked and tested Federation defenses, 

the practical military impact of the program remains speculative. However, the broad consensus is that it made Federation forces capable of defending themselves. Even the outside observers who were most critical of the program for being underfunded and anemic ultimately 

Figure 7. Train and Equip Milestones
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agreed that it made the Federation military forces “prickly,”609 i.e., sufficiently strong to deter 

the Republika Srpska. Inside Bosnia both Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks believe the program 

compensated for Serbian military advantages. 

Military leaders such as Vahid Karavelic, one of the most respected Bosniak generals and 

one of the Bosniaks’ few former Yugoslav army officers, believe the Federation’s army was “quite 

improved compared to Republika Srpska” as a consequence of Train and Equip.610 Esad Pelko, 

another former military leader who participated in the program, agreed, asserting that by the 

mid-2000s the small Federation Army was one of the best in the region: “We exercised with 

the new equipment, and it was clear that we were ready.”611 When SFOR held competitions, the 

Federation military would take the honors. In fact, many Bosnians believe the Federation Army 

of 1997 was more capable and ready than the current Bosnian military, in part because it was 

better trained. 

Bosnian Serb behavior supports the assessment that Train and Equip strengthened Federation military capabilities sufficiently to deter the Bosnian Serbs. They fought the program 

through arms control venues, making political arguments about the state of the military “balance,”612 but from 1997 on they began to realize their forces were losing ground as Train and 

Equip matured.613 Ironically, some speculate that sensational media reports on Train and Equip 

delivery of heavy weapons,614 but especially about unit training at Livno that had to be monitored by SFOR because of its scale and sophistication, intimidated the Serbs.615 So did growing 

cooperation between Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats, which was increasingly perceived as the 

Federation’s “advantage in integration.”616

Like many other observers, the Serbs initially did not believe the two sides of the Federation could forge a working relationship. The Serbs were well informed on political progress inside the Federation military, however, and surprised when they saw Federation unity improving and Federation forces growing stronger as a result. As the program picked up momentum, 

they had to reassess its significance and recognize that it gave them greater incentives to avoid 

hostilities. A Federation military leader who participated in the joint military commission 

that monitored implementation of the Dayton agreement under IFOR supervision says the 

Republika Srpska representatives expressed real fear of MPRI and the improving Federation 

Army. He believes fear of the Federation Army was a primary motivation for the Republika 

Srpska to join the unified Bosnian military.617 Locher’s assessment is more reserved. He notes 

that in 2003 the Serbs “saw themselves as being roughly equal to the Federation Army” but 

“were somewhat envious of the training and equipment the Federation had received.”618 It 

has also been argued that the actual military capability delivered under the program was not 
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as influential in changing Bosnian Serb attitudes as the psychological impact of a major U.S. 

program being implemented with alacrity, which encouraged the Serbs to participate in a 

unified military structure rather than watching their advantages continue to erode.619

Opinions differ on how difficult it was to get the Serbs to the negotiating table for further 

defense reforms. Despite reasons for integrating, they clearly deplored the thought of merging their forces with those of former enemies. Some insist they were conflicted and the United 

States “had to show its teeth” to get them to budge.620 Others note that the Bosnian Serbs had 

multiple reasons for joining the unified Bosnian military.621 They saw that international troops 

were going to stay, integration was a path to better training and access to the world’s best military,622 maintaining a large army was expensive, and they could offset the erosion of their comparative military advantages if they focused more on their police forces.623 Integrating their 

forces reduced political pressure, gave the Serbs a voice in downsizing the increasingly powerful 

Federation military forces, and allowed them to pursue security competition by strengthening 

their police forces, which were less monitored and subject to international controls.624 Whatever 

the precise Serb calculations, it is clear that the program was a strong incentive for the Bosnian 

Serbs to reassess their options. 

Thus it became clear to most international and local observers that the Train and Equip 

Program achieved its operational objective of a rough Bosnian military balance. The question 

for many then shifted from whether the program would deter the Serbs to whether it would 

embolden the Bosniaks to the point they would attack after the peacekeepers left. The CIA was 

particularly worried that the program was overshooting the mark. While the intentions of the 

Bosniaks cannot be determined with certainty, there were several good reasons why the program was unlikely to stimulate them to strike.

The Federation Army was “by no means capable of mounting ‘combined operations’ at the 

battalion level,”625 which would be needed to conduct a successful offensive against the Serbs. 

They were not projected to have that capability for years.626 Another constraint was the fact that 

the program stored heavy weapons on Bosniak territory and ammunition in Croat areas, and 

the Bosniaks knew they had an unreliable partner in the Bosnian Croats. More importantly, 

and in some measure because of Train and Equip, Izetbegovic had linked the security of Bosnia 

firmly to the United States and Europe. He could not afford to alienate those parties by reinitiating hostilities. One reason the Bosniaks were so beholden to larger parties for their security was 

that the Train and Equip Program ramped down as quickly as it ramped up. 

Both the equipment and training the program provided were designed to make a quick impact on the military balance but ultimately were of ephemeral value. Federation military leaders 
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initially focused intently on the equipment and its import.627 They were convinced they only needed equipment to rectify Serb advantages.628 The common view was that they had fought bravely 

and there was not much that training could do for them, which, some mused in retrospect, demonstrated how little they actually knew about military operations at the time.629 Reflecting these 

attitudes, General Delic famously opined early on that he only wanted the equipment and didn’t 

need the training.630 Indeed, the Bosnians in general were dismissive of the training program, 

which they considered a “jobs program” for U.S. citizens.631 Yet within a year he admitted he was 

mistaken,632 and soon most of the Bosnian generals agreed. Within 2 years the view that only the 

equipment mattered disappeared and was largely replaced by its polar opposite for two reasons: 

Federation leaders came to realize the equipment would not be as valuable as originally expected 

and the training would be of far greater value than previously believed. 

Federation military leaders were disappointed with the equipment they received. Some 

began with unrealistic expectations of being outfitted across the board to U.S. (or NATO) military standards, and others simply expected a larger program ($800–$900 million).633 The first 

air shipment of rifles still in their original packing and other equipment was impressive, but as 

the Bosnians began to see the refurbished equipment that followed and understand the limits of 

donor funds, they were disillusioned. Some “began to doubt the sincerity of the United States, 

which undermined the U.S. reputation.”634 The equipment was “not at the level of a NATO country” said one general.635 “To be honest,” said another, “the equipment wasn’t that great; the tanks 

and armored personnel carriers were not so good.”636 The tanks and personnel carriers were 

particularly disappointing because they were “too old and too heavy”637 and could not navigate 

Bosnian roads and bridges well.638

Expectations dropped as it became clear the program was too small to fully outfit the forces with state-of-the-art equipment. Disappointment followed and was eventually replaced with 

a sober assessment of relative value. The Bosnians realized that although much of the equipment was not new, it was “of a higher quality” than the Serbs possessed. If fighting had resumed 

soon after the Dayton Accords, the equipping portion of the program “would have been more 

important.”639 But as training got under way, the value of the equipment and training merged 

“like hand and glove,” with each enhancing the other as soldiers trained with the new equipment.640 As one participant notes in retrospect, “We did need equipment since ours was old and 

outdated,” but “the training was better” because it made the equipment more valuable.641 Thus in 

the early years of the program when the equipment was new (or newly refurbished), operational, and integrated into Federation forces with supporting maintenance and training (with the 

help of MPRI), it was a potent contribution to Federation military capability and rectified the 
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imbalance between the two forces in heavy weapons.642 However, as more time passed, it also 

became apparent that it would be difficult to maintain the older, diverse equipment provided. 

When no follow-on packages for sustainment and modernization were authorized (admittedly 

in part because the CIA and others argued so vehemently that the program was upsetting the 

military balance),643 the readiness of the equipment declined significantly. Today, almost all the 

gear provided under the program is gone, abandoned, or unusable. 

Consequently, General Delic and most other Federation military leaders, both Bosnian 

Croat and Bosniak and increasingly the Serbs and other Balkan military leaders, came to realize 

that the MPRI training provided by the program was more important for net military capability 

than the equipment. Looking back, Federation military leaders candidly admit they desperately needed expertise and professionalism, adding “We didn’t have many professionals in the 

field.”644 Some thought the training at the lowest levels was the most useful645 and training at the 

Ministry of Defense and Joint Staff level could have been better,646 while others argued that the 

training at the higher level had the “biggest political impact.”647 But almost all agree the training 

was more important than the equipment648 and the Federation needed and wanted “to get the 

most out of it.” 649 This view took time to settle in, but as Federation forces “really grew in professionalism and took pride in it,”650 they came to value the training.

While Federation military leaders grew to appreciate the training, they also realized over 

time that, like the equipment, its impact would be ephemeral. Federation forces had difficultly 

absorbing the training quickly because it was alien to their previous experience and doctrine.651

Moreover, the skills taught were perishable and had to be sustained, but limited funding following the height of the Train and Equip Program saw a large withdrawal of MPRI trainers. Finally, 

many of those who were trained by MPRI left the force as it was gradually reduced. That was not 

only true for the rank and file, but for many of the leaders with wartime experience who were 

destined for retirement (and even for most of those who went for IMET training as well652). As 

one participant ruefully noted, the program “trained people at the end of their careers, which 

didn’t make sense.”653

Pardew agrees: “We spent a lot of money up front but [the recipients] didn’t have the capacity to utilize or exploit it.” In other words, a large portion of the program’s scarce resources 

was paid for comprehensive MPRI training in the first year or so, even though Federation forces 

could not usefully absorb the training and many who received it would be demobilized.654 By 

one assessment, of 22,000 Federation Army personnel trained, only about 5,000 remain in the 

army today.655 General Budimir, the senior Bosnian Croat officer and current president of the 

Federation, now believes it was “clear from the beginning that only a small number of soldiers 
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would remain and we should focus on them.”656 In the abstract it would have been more economical to ramp up training slowly, not only so it could have been better absorbed, but to concentrate the bulk of it on those remaining after demobilization. The program then could have 

made a more efficient contribution to transforming Federation forces from a large volunteer 

army into a smaller, professional force. 

This critique benefits too much from hindsight, however. No one could guarantee the 

peace would hold at the time. Renewed fighting around flashpoints such as Brcko was a constant concern in the immediate aftermath of Dayton, when IFOR’s initial 1-year mandate compelled Train and Equip to produce quick results. Early planning asserted the need for the Federation to have “enhanced its capability to defend its territory against Bosnian Serb aggression 

by 31 December 1996.”657 Even after the mandate for NATO forces was extended, it was not clear 

how long it would last. In March 1997, a couple of months after his confirmation, Secretary of 

Defense William Cohen said en route to Bosnia that U.S. forces would be leaving the following 

year. He asked rhetorically, “Are they going to go back to slaughtering each other? That’s going 

to be up to them.”658 In May 1997, NATO forces had to intervene to prevent Bosnian Serb police 

controlled by hardliner Radovan Karadzic from killing the more moderate and democratically 

elected Bosnian Serb President Biljana Plavsic. Such events and the uncertainty of the U.S. commitment underscored the fragility of the peace and the need for a Train and Equip Program 

frontloaded for quick results. Gross inefficiency was one of the major disadvantages associated 

with the urgency to achieve fast results. 

In addition to the uncertain security environment, there were political reasons for frontloading the training. A rapid and large training effort had more immediate deterrent effects and assisted Federation politicians with downsizing their wartime forces. Reducing the size of Bosnian 

defense forces was a sensitive political issue in the immediate aftermath of the war. International 

and domestic representatives alike knew large wartime forces were unaffordable and unsustainable if peace held.659 However, civilians traumatized by atrocities wanted security at any price, so 

reductions in military forces were unpopular.660 Veterans were also reluctant to return to a civilian economy where job prospects were bleak. They wanted severance packages the economically 

crippled government could not meet. Political leaders thus worried about popular resentment as 

well as the possibility of rioting veterans if they made quick and large reductions.661

In the face of these political difficulties, the Train and Equip Program made downsizing 

the Federation military more palatable. Bosnian military leaders believe the program enabled 

a dramatic reduction in forces in multiple ways. As one leader noted, the Federation needed 

a “visible” U.S. engagement because the situation was so fragile. Equipment from the United 
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States, which was considered “the only relevant player,” reinforced the perception of a political 

link to the “powerful, determined, and committed”662 United States. The view that Washington 

“would not let this program fail” had a “big psychological impact.”663 Train and Equip gave the 

Federation population confidence their security was safeguarded, which made it easier to resist 

neonationalism as well as politicians who wanted war by other means.664

Other Bosnian sources note the practical value of the program for demobilization. It provided “a rational way” to downsize a Ministry of Defense budget that was more than four times 

larger than all others.665 Still others note that the step-by-step process of downsizing the military 

under Train and Equip defused the anger and made the sensitive process of force reductions possible.666 Along with the reassuring presence of international peacekeeping forces, the psychological, 

political, and military impact of Train and Equip allowed Federation politicians to reassure their 

constituents while agreeing to a more than 75 percent reduction in forces from a wartime high of 

over 200,000 to fewer than 45,000 within 2 years of the program’s implementation.667

The program also gave the Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats positive reasons for agreeing to 

more unity, beginning with the equipment, which held out the prospect of greater military capability for both Federation parties. As one participant said in retrospect, the new equipment 

helped stimulate cooperation within the Federation. It was an immediate concern of the generals, who focused on it much like children do toys: “We played with it and came together—it 

occupied us.”668 Similarly, MPRI’s training also facilitated Federation cooperation. Its diplomacy 

defused early tensions and its personnel exuded the professionalism associated with American military norms the Bosnians wanted to emulate.669 MPRI personnel modeled a baseline of 

professional comportment and promoted “ethnicity neutral” training standards that facilitated 

cooperation across Federation forces.670 The company translated over 150 unclassified NATO 

(and when those were not available, U.S.671) manuals and doctrinal publications at all levels of 

instruction.672 These training standards were seen as a possible gateway to entry into the Alliance. As Bosnians, who were former communists, studied these materials, they were socialized 

to Western norms for a professional military and proper civil-military relations. Both Bosniaks 

and Bosnian Croats wanted a highly capable Western-style military, valued the prospect of 

greater integration in European institutions, and saw their future tied to the West.673 As both 

sides came to value the MPRI training, tensions subsided and Federation military personnel 

began concentrating on getting what they could out of the program while it lasted. Two years 

into the effort, Pardew would write in an internal assessment that “MPRI is the real instrument 

of progress on integration. They started with very little, but have made great strides at the lower 

tactical levels.”674
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With MPRI doing the hard day-to-day work on the ground, Pardew constantly pushed 

the Federation military parties toward greater cooperation and insisted on common symbols, closer proximity, and tighter working relationships. This was not accomplished easily. 

Just getting the basic Defense Law in place took 9 painful months. Also, Bosnian Croats 

commuted through Bosniak roadblocks to the Ministry of Defense in Sarajevo until Pardew 

obtained housing for them in Sarajevo. He likewise secured license plates so cars could travel 

freely between the enclaves along with common insignia and other symbolic and substantial 

changes that allowed the former antagonists to work together in the same buildings on the 

same issues with some degree of rapport if not rapprochement. There were many succeeding 

challenges, but cooperation slowly picked up momentum, particularly among the younger 

military personnel. Pardew never allowed the Bosnians to settle into a new norm once some 

painful element of cooperation was achieved. After a period of adjustment, he always insisted 

on taking the next step. 

How deep the reconciliation in the Federation went is debatable. Train and Equip 

Task Force members believe the program achieved the least success in this area. Pardew’s 

sober assessment in spring 1998 was that “military integration in the Federation is a 

slow and painful process and is far from complete, although it is significantly better than 

the situation 2 years ago.”675 Some Bosnians appreciated the program’s contributions to 

Federation unity while it was underway.676 Looking back they are even more charitable. 

Military leaders now emphasize its political and psychological value. It restored the Federation military and population’s confidence they would “survive”677 and provided the 

“crucial” impetus for cooperation by the two sides, which were “forced together” under 

pressure from Train and Equip.678

The Bosnians came to realize the program provided a vehicle to explore and work on 

the future of the Federation. As one Bosnian military leader notes, there was no plan for the 

future of the Federation after the war, especially since there were no financial resources to 

sustain the army.679 It was “very motivating” and “a good feeling to know someone wanted 

to equip and train us to provide a military balance.”680 It was an even better feeling when it 

became evident the program was facilitating reconciliation.681 The “best” thing about the program “was that it brought two sides together” and led to a “tremendous improvement in trust 

and cooperation.”682 Another Bosnian participant gives the program a score of “4.5 out of 5” 

precisely because it drove down ethic tension between the two militaries, which he believes 

ceased being a major problem after a couple of years.683 Yet another called the reconciliation 

between Bosniak and Bosnian Croats “very good, but not perfect”684 because it succeeded on 
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a personal level but led to relatively modest constitutional reforms.685 MPRI leaders on the 

ground who stayed on as advisors for more than a decade saw reconciliation take root within 

the military but agree more progress was made among military members than politicians.686

Another Train and Equip objective was to help orient Bosnia toward the West. Narrowly 

construed, that meant expelling foreign forces and detaching the Bosniaks from their relationship with Iran. That largely happened. The Train and Equip Program reduced foreign influence 

in the Federation, which helped remove impediments to reconciliation and integration in Bosnia. Croatia and Serbia, seeing Washington’s determination to support Train and Equip, became 

more inclined to support Bosnian military integration.687 Pardew repeatedly prevailed upon 

Croatia to stop supporting the Bosnian Croats so they would be more willing to work out their 

future in the Federation, and over time he succeeded. Croatia cut back on its financial support 

to the Bosnian Croats and pressured them to cooperate with the program,688 which was satisfying to the Bosniaks.689

Similarly, Pardew was emphatic that the Bosniaks must sever their ties with Islamic radicals, and he forced the dismissal of Cengic to accelerate that process. Train and Equip ended 

bilateral military assistance programs from friendly Muslim countries to the Bosniaks unless 

they were extended to both sides of the Federation and acceptable to the Bosnian Croats. As a 

condition for starting the program, hundreds of Iranian Revolutionary Guards and mujahideen 

forces were expelled from Bosnia. In later years the Bosnian government continued to cooperate with the United States in identifying and expelling extremists. In October 2001 six Algerians 

were arrested by the Bosnian police and sent to Guantánamo Bay. In 2007 the government revoked the citizenship of over 420 individuals connected to “foreign forces.”690 Despite extremist 

attempts to gain a foothold in the Balkans, Bosnia has not been associated with terrorist attacks 

on the United States or other civilian targets in Europe and Asia. Close observers have argued 

that Washington has largely succeeded in thwarting al Qaeda influence in Iraq.691

Broadly construed, orienting Bosnia toward the West meant imparting Western norms on 

civil-military relations and forging ties with Western leaders and institutions, which most would 

conclude is still a work in progress. Some participants in Train and Equip believe this happened, 

asserting the program proved the Federation could integrate its militaries and professionalize them, which inclined military leaders to be increasingly apolitical.692 An International Crisis 

Group report in December 1997 supported this assessment, observing there was more evidence 

of cooperation in the Federation Ministry of Defense than in other sectors, and that the program 

provided transparency for Federation military developments. Because Train and Equip helped 

Westernize postwar Bosnia, the report concluded it “would be foolish to scrap this asset.”693
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More ambitious political reforms followed the Train and Equip Program (see figure 8).694

Locher, Gregorian, and others who engineered these subsequent reforms deserve great credit, 

as do the Bosnians themselves. Without detracting from the difficulty and independent effort 

required to secure each reform advance, it is important to note that Bosnian participants in 

Train and Equip are virtually unanimous in their belief that the program was a necessary precondition for these later developments.695 They believe Train and Equip “served as a role model 

of where to go” for subsequent defense reform efforts, which in turn helped generate “a new 

mindset” that facilitated “reconstruction of civil, political, academic and economic society.”696

In this respect the political value of the program helped compensate for its shortcomings 

in size and scope697 and the inefficient way it managed its scarce resources.698 It was, as one participant noted, “crucial to success even if it wasn’t totally satisfactory to anyone.”699 Federation 

forces needed time to imbibe the new ideas and concepts that bore fruit over the succeeding decade.700 Initially Train and Equip “gave us greater negotiating leverage over the Republika Srpska.”701 Later, it “set the stage”702 and was the “foundation”703 for larger defense reform that led to 

military integration with the Bosnian Serbs: “Like a house, as soon as you have the foundation, 

the rest will be easier to build.”704 Gregorian agrees that one major reason integration worked 

at the national level was because “it was the Train and Equip model one level up.”705 Some even 

note that the inclusion of the Bosnian Serbs was easier than the original integration of the Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats.706 Federation integration demonstrated to the Serbs that it could be 

done707 provided there were common standards and doctrine708 and gave them incentives to 

join the unified Ministry of Defense.709 The Bosnian Serbs were not allowed to fully integrate 

without making concessions including more cooperation on the arrest of war criminals, which 

further eroded ties with extremists and ultranationalists. 

It is beyond the scope of this research to assess the longer-term political significance of 

the Train and Equip Program fully or attempt to weigh and assess its particular contribution 

to subsequent progress on reconciliation. The more modest assessment that the program was 

a necessary first step suffices for our purposes. To demonstrate how true this is we can conduct a “thought experiment” by asking what would have happened if the U.S. Government had 

abandoned the Train and Equip Program after the Ankara conference, claiming there was no 

international support. Bosniaks who participated make it clear they would have felt betrayed 

and would have reinforced their relations with Iran,710 just as the HVO would have strengthened its ties to Croatia. The public would have felt less secure, and those exerting foreign influence and undermining reconciliation would have been more influential. Wartime competition would have been carried on by other means. The Federation would have been ignored, 
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or it would have collapsed, as many predicted would happen even with the program. Without 

progress in the Federation, the Serbs would have had little incentive for integration. Violence 

over contested territory such as Brcko would have been more likely. If fighting had resumed, 

peacekeepers would have had to impose martial law, freezing in place the injustices wrought by 

ethnic cleansing during the war. Progress toward a unified Bosnia would have stalled and likely 

been reversed. 

Even if we leave the merits of Train and Equip’s strategic impact to later historians and 

other experts on Bosnian politics and culture, there is no doubt the program was successful 

in achieving its operational goals. In less than 2 years, the task force rectified the military 

imbalance between Bosnian Serb and Federation forces, using only about half of the total 

resources originally envisioned. The program reassured the Federation and eliminated any 

misconceptions the Serbs might have had about the merits of renewing hostilities as well as 

inclining the former warring parties to treat one another as equals. Just as importantly, the 

Figure 8. Program Transition and Defense Reform
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Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

program did not embolden the Federation to initiate hostilities. Federation military leaders 

(with help from MPRI711) came to realize Train and Equip was not going to provide them with 

major advantages over the Bosnian Serbs. If Federation leaders ever harbored illusions about 

renewing hostilities, those ambitions diminished as the program’s limited scope and duration 

became clear. Thus both objectively in terms of actual military capability and subjectively 

in terms of perceived relative capability, the program did not overshoot its mark as so many 

worried. On the contrary, it diminished the influence of extremists and foreign meddling in 

Bosnian politics and moved the political mainstream to favor greater integration.

The task force can be criticized for only obtaining about half of the estimated resources 

necessary to implement the program and for underestimating how much the United States 

could have asked for and obtained from countries that eventually provided cash donations. But 

considering the program accomplished its objectives, the fact that it was underfunded actually 

serves as a testimony to the efficiency and creativity of the task force. It short the team stands out 

as an unusually successful interagency small group effort that was able to accomplish its goals 

while overcoming difficult technical, bureaucratic, and political impediments. 

Task Force Performance Explanation

Given task force productivity, we need to identify the factors that explain how a group 

of seven individuals from multiple departments and agencies performed so well. Three of the 

ten performance variables examined previously for their ability to explain the behavior and 

success of the Train and Equip Task Force stand out: purpose, empowerment, and leadership. 

In explaining the success of the team, Pardew emphasizes the importance of its empowerment 

while the other members emphasize his leadership. The team’s strong sense of purpose is agreed 

upon but largely taken for granted. The argument here is that all three factors, like the legs on a 

three-legged stool, are mutually supporting and critical. 

If there is a first among equals, Pardew is probably correct in emphasizing the empowerment of the task force. The group had presumptive authority to pursue its mission, 

which was approved by senior authorities in the U.S. Government including the President 

and Congress. For the first year at least, no one directly challenged the task force’s mandate. 

Although the team encountered bureaucratic resistance, and some only cooperated because 

it was seen as acting on Presidentially delegated authority, essential cooperation was forthcoming. State cooperated on donor fund management and Defense supported the team’s 

execution of drawdown authority well enough to conduct the program. Without the presumption of Presidentially delegated authority to pursue the mission, Pardew’s team would 
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not have been allowed to roam freely throughout the Balkans and elsewhere negotiating 

deals for weapons and their delivery. 

In addition the provision of resources by Congress and the intervention by the White 

House to secure donations empowered the task force. Many small interagency groups run 

aground when their parent organizations try not to get stuck with the tab to pay for their activities, but the Train and Equip team had funding set aside, which greatly facilitated its credibility 

and freedom. It did not have to get the approval of parent government organizations to spend 

resources, and that allowed quick and creative resource management. 

Pardew argues that any leader blessed with such empowerment should be able to succeed. 

All of his members disagree and consider his leadership exceptional and essential. The truth 

probably lies in between. Anyone assigned the task probably would have executed a portion of 

the program in some form, but it is difficult to imagine another leader approaching the level 

of success Pardew engineered. In fact, under different management, the program could have 

been sidetracked on any number of issues. It could have ground to a halt after Ankara, over 

intransigence on the Defense Law by politicians, as a result of stubborn resistance from Bosnian 

military leaders, by State abusing the program for leverage on minor issues, through frittering 

away resources on lesser military capabilities, by poor resource management, through lack of 

accountability, or because of a scandal involving foreign forces. Navigating these minefields required someone who thoroughly knew the Balkans, the U.S. Government, and military matters, 

possessed a clear strategic mindset and great political acumen, and was willing to risk a lot if not 

everything at the right moments. 

Among those with experience at a high level in the U.S. national security system, only a 

few knew the Balkans like Pardew. For years he had monitored its leaders, the respective military forces, and their history, and he knew the Bosnian conflict at the tactical and strategic level 

as well as all the major U.S. players directly involved in making and executing U.S. policy for 

Bosnia in the Clinton administration. Among the few who might lay claim to something close 

to Pardew’s level of expertise, it is doubtful that any had his combination of political acumen, 

tough-mindedness, management drive, and will to succeed. In short there were good reasons 

why he was hand picked for the mission, and he proved that his superiors were wise in their 

choice. He made the absolute most of the empowerment he was given, milking everything possible from his relatively modest funds and evoking his independent authority freely. He may 

have been considered an “out-of-control” renegade by a few U.S. officials who were assigned 

other Dayton tasks, but the highest authorities in the administration almost always backed him 

up when he was challenged.712
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The third variable, purpose, is noted by task force members, but its significance is perhaps 

underappreciated. Pardew notes that it was important to have “a strong team unified around a 

central goal.” Certainly the lack of ambiguity about what was supposed to be achieved helped 

focus the team’s energy, making it more productive. Equally important, the group interpreted its 

clear mandate in a sweeping manner, assuming responsibility to make policy, strategy, and plans 

and then execute them and monitor the results. Taking responsibility for end-to-end management of the entire program and holding itself accountable for achieving preferred outcomes inclined the task force to take action. Here its sense of purpose intersects with Pardew’s leadership 

and the way the group was empowered. Having been granted unusual authority and resources 

to accomplish a clearly defined goal, the members simply assumed they would be held accountable for carrying out their mission. That was particularly the case for Pardew. His leadership 

style was to take total responsibility for achieving results. Whenever political and bureaucratic 

difficulties emerged, he made clear his intention to solve the problems. If it were beyond the 

power of the task force to resolve a particular issue, Pardew would take it upon himself to solicit 

and secure the necessary support. The rest of the team soon adopted that demeanor, taking 

personal responsibility for achieving results in their assigned tasks.

Other members also note that their unified purpose contributed to harmonious relations. 

They believed their mission made sense both for pragmatic and moral reasons. They believed 

order would be strengthened by a military balance so the Bosnians could defend themselves if 

the peace broke down. Most members were passionate about the right to self-defense, which 

might seem theatrical after 20 years of relative calm but was heartfelt then (see textbox on 

Americans and ethnic conflict). In one iconic conversation, members wondered whether the 

results they were achieving reduced ethnic tensions. They consoled themselves with the observation that, “At least Train and Equip ensured the Bosnians would not have to stand by 

while fellow citizens were marched off to the woods to be shot.”713 The clear mission and deep 

commitment allowed the group to expend more time and energy finding solutions and getting 

things done than debating what should be done.

The importance of a strong sense of purpose and commitment to achieving task force 

objectives can be underscored with another thought experiment. We might consider what the 

group would have been like if its members had not transferred their loyalty to their mission but 

instead had seen their primary responsibility as representing their parent organizations’ views 

on Train and Equip. If that had been the case, the skeptical views of many influential career officials in the CIA, Department of Defense, and Department of State would have been represented 

within the task force. They thought a military balance either existed or was not important—or 
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Americans, Ethnic Conflict, and the Federation

The United States has not experienced anything like the internecine violence in Bosnia 

since the American Civil War, so it was difficult for Americans to understand how fellow 

citizens could turn on one another in such a vicious way. Public opinion polarized about 

whether the United States could or should do anything about it. Those supporting U.S. 

intervention were hopeful about reconciliation in a reunified Bosnia, while those arguing 

against intervention were pessimistic that a multi-ethnic Bosnia would ever work. U.S. policy chose a middle road between these two positions, insisting intervention was necessary 

but would be complex and difficult. The most controversial portion of the solution pushed 

by American policy was the Train and Equip program: “To many people . . . to build up the 

strength of the Federation [and] to build down the overall military forces in the country 

seemed contradictory.”1

 Many more were astounded that American policy assumed different ethnic groups could ever coexist in the same army. The iconic cartoon Blondie gently 

poked fun at this notion.

While reconciliation looked unlikely in the immediate aftermath of a civil war, one 

only has to consult a historical atlas to realize that most countries undergo periods of integration into multiethnic states or disintegration into separate ethnic and national entities. 

Many forces influence whether states integrate or disintegrate, but it is clear both outcomes 

are possibilities. Most would agree that any semblance of reconciliation must begin by finding common ground and shared values.2

 In Bosnia U.S. policy was based on pushing the 

Federation’s ethnic entities to find greater common ground, and the Train and Equip Program was a major tool for pursuing that objective by promoting cooperation based on the 

shared desire for greater security.

Only time will tell whether U.S. policy was unrealistic. Twenty years after Dayton, it is 

clear that reconciliation has not gone nearly far enough. Yet it is equally evident that it has 
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gone much better than anyone expected at the time. In January 1995 the Federation “existed 

only on paper, and the friction between the Croats and the Muslims was enormous.”3

 Reconciliation was fraught with peril when MPRI began its difficult training mission, which 

forced both sides into the same rooms together.4

 In February 1997 Pardew still considered 

the “poisonous atmosphere”5

 between the sides to be apparent. Yet over time there was a 

lessening of tensions and some semblance of cooperation.

The improvement began with forced proximity and then communication. A Bosnian 

Croat would say many years later his best memories of the program were the loud debates 

and agreements the two sides reached with MPRI as the moderator; “a healthy process” for 

all involved.6

 After a few months, MPRI reported that the generals who had been prepared 

to draw guns in their first meeting were now drinking and laughing together during seminars on the Dalmatian coast.7

 By 1998 the special ID cards signed and issued by both Ministers of Defense for different ethnic members to travel in pursuit of the Train and Equip 

Program were no longer needed. Movement between the enclaves was easy by then.8

Eventually the Bosnian Serbs were also integrated into a working relationship on defense and security as well. One Bosniak recalls an experience with integration. After he 

lectured on the Bosnian military in Germany, a Bosnian Serb army major stood and flatly 

announced, “We’ll never accept integration.” The Bosniak replied, “One day, we will be one.” 

Five years later the officers crossed paths again. The Bosnian Serb had risen in the ranks and 

accepted a position in the newly integrated Bosnian Ministry of Defense where he was the 

Bosniak’s immediate supervisor.9

Bosniaks tend to be more appreciative of the “spirit of togetherness”10 forged by 

Train and Equip and subsequent reforms and hopeful that Bosnian unity will continue to 

strengthen. They point to instances of spontaneous reconciliation and surprising generosity, such as the decision by retired soldiers from the Federation to donate part of their 

pensions to poverty-stricken Serb counterparts whose own pensions have gone unpaid.11

“High praise to those people,” a Bosnian Serb said. “The wounds [from war] are healing 

and we have to look forward.”12 Others remain pessimistic about the long-term prospects 

for unity. For some, the fighting may be over, but “the Cold War still rages here.”13 Bosnian 

integration is not assured, but neither has it been proven to be an unrealistic hope, as 20 

years without war attest.
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worse, that trying to establish one would increase the likelihood of conflict. There would have 

been a lot more pressure on Pardew to accommodate these views, compromise with them, or 

cut deals to secure cooperation to achieve lesser effects. Instead of keeping a sharp focus on 

strategic matters, Pardew would have had to wrestle with his own team to get even small matters resolved. He would have been left alone to swim against the tide. Instead the task force was 

united in purpose and pursued its mission with single-minded determination. 

In summary, the task force’s single, coherent, and well-understood purpose was almost as 

critical to team performance as empowerment and Pardew’s exceptional leadership. All three 

were mutually reinforcing and often shaped the other seven performance factors. For example, 

the authority and resources the team commanded facilitated partnerships, as well as making 

collocation possible. Similarly, the team’s decisionmaking, culture, and penchant for learning 

from experience were very much a reflection of Pardew’s leadership style and habits. 

Two other factors stand out for lesser contributions to task force performance. The support 

the force received from senior leaders in the Clinton administration and on Capitol Hill was a 

1 Richard Holbrooke, To End a War (New York: Random House, 1998), 278.

2 Osabuohien P. Amienyi, Communicating National Integration: Empowering Development 

in African Countries (Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 2005); Karl Deutsch, Nationalism and Social Communication (Cambridge: MIT Press, 1953); Robert Bideleux and Richard Taylor, eds., European 

Integration and Disintegration: East and West (London: Routledge, 1996).

3 Holbrooke, 61.

4 Interview with David Wilson, MPRI, September 14, 2010.

5 Pardew Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in the 

Balkans, February–July 1997, February 22, 1997.

6 Interview with Ivica Zeko, Bosnian Croat, September 15, 2010.

7 Christopher J. Lamb, interviewed April 26, 2010.

8 Interview with Niko Jozinovic, Bosnian Croat, September 15, 2010.

9 Interview with Esad Pelko, Bosniak, September 15, 2010.

10 Interview with Zoran Sajinovic, Bosnian Croat, September 14, 2010.

11 Aida Cerkez, “Anger and Poverty Unite Former Enemies in Bosnia,” Associated Press 

Foreign, January 31, 2012.

12 “Bosnian Veterans Donate Across Ethnic, Historical Divide,” Radio Free Europe/Radio 

Liberty, January 12, 2012.

13 Interview with General Vinko Lucic, Bosnian Croat, September 14, 2010.
118 

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critical enabler, but was mostly passive and usually elicited by Pardew. When he engaged senior 

leaders, they made their support clear, which allowed the team to pursue its purpose. Otherwise 

they rarely intervened to make task force work easier. The other notable factor is the composition of the group and the members’ backgrounds. Most had experience in unconventional 

political-military affairs, which arguably prepared them to understand their work better. Many 

also had an iconoclastic bent with a demonstrated penchant for taking risks and working across 

departmental boundaries in their careers. Pardew generally accepted whoever was made available to the team and no doubt could have succeeded with different members. However, much of 

the panache and verve for which the team was known might have been lost with personnel who 

were more wedded to normal career paths. 

Conclusion

If these rather generalized lessons seem like restating the obvious, one need only recall how 

little we actually practiced them.714

—Ambassador Robert Komer, 

commenting on organizational lessons from Vietnam

There is a lot to learn from the Train and Equip experience both substantively and organizationally. National security experts routinely advise multidimensional approaches to complex security problems that integrate diplomacy, development, defense, and other elements of 

national power. In practice Washington finds such integration difficult. It is often criticized for 

over-reliance on military force and for poorly coordinated and executed foreign interventions. 

Bosnia is an exception. There the United States combined diverse elements of power, managing 

the peace process the same way it helped bring the fighting to an end: with an integrated military and diplomatic approach.715 It was complicated, but effective.716 In contrast the Europeans 

adopted one-dimensional approaches that were ineffectual, first relying on diplomacy without 

military force and later promoting arms control without security assistance. 

The Train and Equip Task Force facilitated the integrated approach the United States 

pursued in Bosnia, proving remarkably adept at implementing its controversial security assistance program. Despite dire predictions to the contrary from European allies and others, 

the team accomplished what senior U.S. officials hoped for: strengthening U.S. credibility and 

providing incentives for all parties to preserve the peace and move toward greater integration 

with the West. Private contracting for military assistance often receives poor reviews,717 but 

the unarmed and experienced MPRI personnel in Bosnia performed superbly and were most 
119

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

responsive to U.S. policy guidance as administered by the Train and Equip Task Force. With 

MPRI’s assistance, a small interagency team and its diverse partners were able to implement 

an effective security assistance program in challenging circumstances better than would have 

been possible or advisable through established programs and procedures. 

It might seem surprising that there has not been a concerted effort to mine the Train and 

Equip experience for policy, strategy, and technical insights applicable to the interventions 

in Afghanistan and Iraq over the past decade.718 In all these cases the United States wanted 

to quickly train and equip multiethnic armies despite formidable technical, political, and bureaucratic impediments. Yet there is always the question of how much one situation resembles 

another and whether solutions that worked well in one case will work again. Leaders want to 

avoid being trapped by past experience and often believe they need a fresh look at new and 

emerging problems. 

More puzzling is the failure to extract enduring organizational lessons from the task force 

experience. The team was a low-cost, high-proficiency organization capable of managing a 

complex and dynamic security problem, which is just what so many of our national security 

leaders say the country needs. Then-Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Michele Flournoy’s 

2010 comment on the national security bureaucracy is a case in point:

We’re trying to face 21st century threats with national security processes and tools 

that were designed for the Cold War, and with a bureaucracy that sometimes seems 

to have been designed for the Byzantine Empire, which, you will recall, didn’t end 

well. We’re still too often rigid when we need to be flexible, clumsy when we need to 

be agile, slow when we need to be fast, focused on individual agency equities when 

we need to be focused on the broader whole of government mission.719

The Train and Equip Task Force exhibited precisely the attributes Flournoy says are 

most needed. It was flexible, agile, fast, and focused on the interagency mission it was 

assigned rather than individual agency equities. Despite its success and high level of accountability, it has not been studied previously by the government or any other entity for 

its organizational lessons. 

This penchant for ignoring notable interagency organizational successes has been explained previously. In his classic analysis of the American experience in Vietnam, Robert 

Komer attributes poor performance to slow adaptation. The Ambassador built and led a 

unique hybrid civil-military structure in Vietnam and used it to great effect, albeit too late 
120 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

to make a decisive difference. He blamed the failure to adapt on “institutional inertia,” the 

“built-in reluctance of organizations to change preferred ways of functioning,” and a “shocking lack of institutional memory.” He also cited the “notable dearth of systematic analysis of 

performance, again because of the inherent reluctance of organizations to indulge in selfexamination.”720

Twenty years later, Pardew built and led the Task Force for Military Stabilization in the 

Balkans, which made a major contribution to stabilizing Bosnia. But as proved true following 

Vietnam, the system jettisoned memory of this successful interagency experience. After creating flexible, agile, proficient interagency organizations, the United States abandoned and forgot 

the innovative models it fielded rather than institutionalizing them. Perhaps this type of collective amnesia explains the element of truth in Churchill’s famous quip that, “You can always 

count on Americans to do the right thing—after they’ve tried everything else.” 

It would be easier to do the right thing the right way and right away instead of too late to 

make a difference if the national security system had a systematic means to understand and 

recall what worked well in the past and why. But as others have noted, knowledge management 

is a critical deficiency in the U.S. national security system. Some individual departments and 

agencies have well-established learning systems, but there is no advocate for interagency learning other than the National Security Council staff. To date that staff has been too busy with 

day-to-day issue management to assume responsibility for improving institutional memory or 

tackling other broad system management challenges.721 As long as that remains the case, interagency successes such as the Train and Equip Program are likely to be as rare in the future as 

they have been in the past.
121

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

Notes 1 Colin Woodard, “Backup Plan in Bosnia: US ‘Equip and Train,’” The Christian Science Monitor, September 18, 1996, available at <www.csmonitor.com/1996/0918/091896.intl.intl.1.html>.

2 Warren Christopher, cited in Ivo H. Daalder, Getting to Dayton: The Making of America’s Bosnia Policy (Washington, D.C: Brookings Institution Press, 2000), 36.

3 Richard Holbrooke, To End a War (New York: Random House, 1998), 276. 

4 Susan L. Woodward, Balkan Tragedy: Chaos and Dissolution after the Cold War (Washington, 

DC: The Brookings Institution, 1995), 33.

5 For a helpful account of shifting loyalties over time, see Marko A. Hoare, How Bosnia Armed, 

London: Saqi Books in association with the Bosnian Institute, 2004.

6 Ibid.

7 Judgment, Dragoljub Kunarac, Radomir Kovac, and Zoran Vukovic (IT-96-23& IT-96-23/1-

A), Appeals Chamber of the ICTY, June 12, 2002, §1.

8 Samantha Power, A Problem from Hell: America in the Age of Genocide (New York: Harper 

Collins, 2002). 

9 John Burns, “Pessimism Is Overshadowing Hope in Effort to End Yugoslav Fighting,” The 

New York Times, May 12, 1992. 

10 International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, “PRLIĆ et al. (IT-04-74),” Case 

Information Sheet, 3, 4, 6, 7, available at <www.icty.org/x/cases/prlic/cis/en/cis_prlic_al_en.pdf>. 

11 Hoare, 108–109.

12 “Final Communique issued by the North Atlantic Council in Ministerial Session,” NATO 

Press Communique M-NAC-1(93)38, June 10, 1993.; See, for example Jane Boulden, NATO and the 

United Nations During UNPROFOR, EPAC/NATO Fellowship 1999-2001, Final Report, available at 

<www.nato.int/acad/fellow/99-01/f99-01.htm>.

13 UN Security Council, Resolution 836 (1993), adopted by the Security Council at its 3228th

meeting, June 4, 1993, S/RES/836 (1993).

14 Daalder, 6.

15 UN Security Council, Resolution 713 (1991) adopted by the Security Council at its 

3009th meeting, on September 25, 1991, S/RES/713 (1991), available at <www.unhcr.org/refworld/

docid/3b00f16f1c.html>.

16 Ibid.

17 For example, Johnson recalls that Larry Eagleburger, a former Ambassador to Yugoslavia he 

greatly respected, was firmly against U.S. intervention: “Damn it, this war isn’t ours. It’s in the Europeans’ domain and they should be taking care of it.” Ambassador Darryl N. Johnson, interviewed November 9, 2012.

18 Derek Chollet, The Road to Dayton Accords: A Study of American Statecraft (London: Palgrave/MacMillan, 2005), 4.

19 Daalder, 18.

20 Hoare.

21 Holbrooke, 61.
122 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

22 “The Bosnian Book of Dead,” Norveska.ba, The Royal Norwegian Embassy in Sarajevo, June 

21, 2007, available at <www.norveska.ba/News_and_events/Society-and-Policy/rdc_bbd/>.

23 Holbrooke, 67.

24 Roger Cohen, “CIA Report on Bosnia Blames Serbs for 90% of the War Crimes,” The New 

York Times, March 9, 1995, available at <www.nytimes.com/1995/03/09/world/cia-report-on-bosniablames-serbs-for-90-of-the-war-crimes.html>. For the now declassified CIA report, see “Ethnic Cleansing in Bosnia-Hercegovina [Redacted],” Declassified Intelligence Memorandum, CIA Directorate of 

Intelligence, April 29, 1994, available at <www.foia.cia.gov/collection/bosnia-intelligence-and-clintonpresidency?page=10>.

25 Woodward, 7.

26 Ibid.

27 Power, 251.

28 Holbrooke, 82. Holbrooke’s team is described in Susan Rosegrant and Michael Watkins, Getting to Dayton: Negotiating an End to the War in Bosnia (Cambridge, MA: Kennedy School of Government Case Program, Harvard University, 1996), 17; Daalder. 

29 Bill Clinton as quoted in August 11, 1994, by Hanna Rosin, “I did the best I could,” The New 

Republic, August 7, 1995.

30 See, for example, U.S. Congress, “U.S. Actions regarding Iranian and Other Arms Transfers 

to the Bosnian Army 1994–1995,” Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence, U.S. Senate, together 

with additional views, November 1996.

31 Ibid.

32 Senior UNPROFOR leaders and other neutral observers still debate whether the Serbs 

were responsible for the Markale attacks or whether the Bosnian government itself caused the attacks 

in an attempt to urge the international community to intervene against the Serbs on their behalf. 

See, for example, Jim Fish, “Sarajevo massacre remembered,” BBC News, February 5, 2004, available 

at <http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3459965.stm>. At the time, however, the United States and 

the international community believed the Serbs executed the attack, and that is still the considered 

opinion of many.

33 Repeated efforts had been made to restrain Croatia prior to its offensive and now additional 

efforts were undertaken to ensure Croatia’s military would not go so far it would ignite a larger regional 

war. On the multiple efforts to restrain the Croats throughout 1995, see the many summaries of the 

Principles Committee and Deputies Committee meetings in the CIA document collection: Bosnia, 

Intelligence, and the Clinton Presidency: The Role of Intelligence and Political Leadership in Ending the 

Bosnian War; available at <www.foia.cia.gov/collection/bosnia-intelligence-and-clinton-presidency>. 

On the special intervention during the offensive, see interviewee 2, April 6, 2010. 

34 Bill Clinton, My Life (New York: Knopf, 2004), 541.

35 Bill Clinton, “Remarks on the Balkan Peace Process and an Exchange with Reporters,” Government Printing Office, October 31, 1995.

36 Steven Woehrel, “Bosnia: the U.S.-Led Train and Equip Program,” Congressional Research 

Service (August 19, 1997).

37 Holbrooke, 278.
123

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

38 General Boyd argued “the program has taken on a life of its own, propelled by the congressional requirement that launched it, the bureaucratic momentum that sustains it, and the business it 

brings to the American contractor that executes it.” Charles G. Boyd, “Making Bosnia Work,” Foreign 

Affairs 77, no. 1 (January/February 1998), 49.

39 See Department of State Paper, “Measures to Assist the Bosnian Federation,” Declassified 

Confidential Paper, Document No. CO5323077, available at <www.foia.cia.gov/collection/bosnia-intelligence-and-clinton-presidency>. 

40 See, for example, International Crisis Group, “A Peace, or Just a Ceasefire? The Military Equation in Post-Dayton Bosnia-Herzegovina,” ICG Bosnia Project Report No. 28, December 15, 1997, 20.

41 This measure, the Nunn-Mitchell Amendment to the Defense Appropriations Act, captured 

the attention of senior Clinton administration officials. See Declassified Memorandum for Director of 

Central Intelligence C05917036, Subject: Principals Committee Meeting on Bosnia November 7, 1994, 

dated November 4, 1994, from Bosnia, Intelligence, and the Clinton Presidency: The Role of Intelligence and Political Leadership in Ending the Bosnian War; available at <www.foia.cia.gov/collection/

bosnia-intelligence-and-clinton-presidency>. 

42 Memorandum for the President from Anthony Lake, Subject: Principals Review of Bosnia 

Policy, dated December 13, 1994, from Bosnia, Intelligence, and the Clinton Presidency.

43 “Former Yugoslavia Policy Review,” Declassified NSC paper C05955905, dated February 27, 

1995, from Bosnia, Intelligence, and the Clinton Presidency.

44 The Pentagon recommended a very limited effort that included training a small number 

of Federation officers at U.S. military schools. Declassified NSC Memorandum, C05955936, Subject: 

Discussion Paper for March 17 Principals Committee Meeting on Bosnia and Croatia, dated March 17, 

1995, from Bosnia, Intelligence, and the Clinton Presidency.

45 Anthony Lake explained to Clinton in a December 7 note that “In particular, we will want 

to scale back Dole’s efforts to commit us to “lead” rather than “coordinate” international efforts to 

equip and train Bosnian forces.” However, by December 12 the Principals Committee agreed to draft 

a letter for President Clinton to Senators Dole and McCain agreeing that, “the United States will take a 

‘leadership role’ in coordinating an international effort to ensure that the Bosnian Federation receives 

the assistance necessary to achieve an adequate military balance when IFOR leaves. Memorandum for 

the President from Anthony Lake, Subject: Conclusions of December 5 Principals Committee Meeting on Bosnia, Declassified Document C05740371, dated December 7, 1995, and NSC Memorandum, 

“Summary of Conclusions for meeting of the NSC Principals Committee,” Declassified Document 

C05962611, dated December 12, 1995, from CIA Web site, Bosnia, Intelligence, and the Clinton Presidency.

46 Holbrooke, 277, also notes that the 27 individual members of Congress who traveled to the 

Balkans invariably came back “in favor of the policy” of sending troops to implement the Dayton Accords. 

47 Letter, President Bill Clinton to Senator Robert Dole, December 10, 1995; Letter, President 

Bill Clinton to Senator Robert Dole, December 12, 1995, in the author’s possession.

48 Steven R. Bowman, “Bosnia: U.S. Military Operations,” Congressional Research Service, December 16, 1996.
124 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

49 International Crisis Group, “A Peace, or Just a Ceasefire?” 20.

50 Federal News Service, Senator Majority Leader Bob Dole on CBS-TV Face the Nation, December 3, 1995.

51 Senator Dennis DeConcini (acting for himself and Senator Joseph Lieberman) introduced a 

bill on February 10, 1994, recognizing the Bosnian right to self-defense and authorizing the President to 

transfer $50 million in defense articles to the government of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The measure passed, 

and the Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 1995, provided 

the $50 million in drawdown authority with the proviso that the President certified its use would assist the 

nation in self-defense and that allies would join the military assistance effort. The following year, Congress 

provided $100 million in drawdown assistance to Bosnia in the Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and 

Related Programs Appropriations Act, 1996, passed January 4, 1995 for fiscal year 1996. It did not require the 

participation of allies; only the certification by the President that the military aid “would assist that nation in 

self-defense and thereby promote the security and stability of the region.” Congress extended the drawdown 

authority in Foreign Operations, Export Financing, and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 1997, so the 

Train and Equip Program could continue to be executed in fiscal year 1997. For the 1995 legislation, see H.R. 

3540 Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs Appropriations Act, 1997, available at 

<http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/z?d104:HR03540:@@@D&summ2=m&>. 

52 Holbrooke, 320.

53 Train and Equip Task Force members were frequently told this by officials in the Department 

of State, and to a lesser extent the Department of Defense. Other sources make the same point. General 

Boyd concludes the Train and Equip Program was “born of political expediency, not military necessity,” 

and Chollet reports that Holbrooke considered the program necessary to woo the Bosnians and appease pressure from Congress to “level the playing field” problematic. Charles G. Boyd, “Making Bosnia 

Work,” Foreign Affairs 77, no. 1 (January/February 1998), 48–49; Chollet, 164.

54 NSC Memorandum, “Summary of Conclusions for meeting of the NSC Principals Committee,” Declassified Document C05960887, dated May 23, 1995, and NSC Memorandum from Sandy 

Berger, Declassified Document C05960733, Subject: Bosnia Strategy, dated July 20, 1995, both from 

Bosnia, Intelligence, and the Clinton Presidency.

55 NSC Memorandum, “Summary of Conclusions for meeting of the NSC Principals Committee,” Declassified Document C05962151, dated October 4, 1995, from Bosnia, Intelligence, and the 

Clinton Presidency.

56 Prepared statement of Secretary of Defense William Perry, Hearing of the House Foreign 

Relations Committee, The Deployment of Troops to Bosnia, November 30, 1995. Perry made the same 

point privately to President Izetbegovic. Chollet, 169.

57 Memorandum for The National Security Advisor from Ambassador Albright, dated August 

3, 1995, from Bosnia, Intelligence, and the Clinton Presidency.

58 A detailed proposal entitled “Multilateral Equipping and Training of the Bosnian Federation” was submitted to the Deputies Committee for consideration on August 18. NSC Memorandum, 

“Deputies Committee Meeting on Bosnia,” Declassified Document C05956129, dated August 18, 1995, 

from Bosnia, Intelligence, and the Clinton Presidency. See also Declassified Documents C06053657, 

C05956141, C05961540, C05961555, C05961554, and especially “Equipping and Training the Federa-
125

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

tion,” Tab C, September 29, 1995 Deputies Committee Meeting, Declassified Document C05961572, 

dated September 21, 1995, from Bosnia, Intelligence, and the Clinton Presidency.

59 NSC Memorandum, “Summary of Conclusions for meeting of the NSC Principals Committee,” Declassified Document C05962151, dated October 4, 1995, from Bosnia, Intelligence, and the 

Clinton Presidency.

60 U.S. Department of State, “Summary of the Dayton Peace Agreement on Bosnia Herzegovina 

State Department Fact Sheet, Released November 30, 1995,” available at <www.state.gov/www/regions/

eur/bosnia/bossumm.html>.

61 Ibid.

62 Memorandum for the President from Anthony Lake, Subject: Your Participation in Principals Committee Meeting on Bosnia, September 25, 1995, 2:45–3:15 p.m., from Bosnia, Intelligence, and 

the Clinton Presidency.

63 David Halberstam quoted in Chollet, 196.

64 Interviewee 35. This skepticism was indirectly acknowledged in late 1996 by the head of 

the Interagency Intelligence Task Force that produced most of the intelligence assessments read by 

senior leaders. He wrote a personal memorandum for the Director of Central Intelligence that was 

startling because it actually identified some reasons to hope for less than disaster in Bosnia. Declassified Memorandum for Director of Central Intelligence from Chief, DCI Interagency Balkan Task Force 

C05951838, Subject: Some Reason For-Optimism About Bosnia, dated October 27, 1996, from Bosnia, 

Intelligence, and the Clinton Presidency.

65 NSC Memorandum, “Summary of Conclusions for meeting of the NSC Deputies Committee,” Declassified Document C05962614, dated December 28, 1995, from Bosnia, Intelligence, and the 

Clinton Presidency.

66 Foreign Assistance Act, Section 503, Presidential Determination certifying eligibility of Bosnia to receive U.S. military goods and services.

67 This fourth objective is noted explicitly in a Train & Equip Fact Sheet, “Purpose and History 

of the Train and Equip Program,” #004-97, March 4, 1997; July 16, 1997. As Pardew notes in another 

context, however, there was no explicit link between the program and a “U.S. exit strategy” for SFOR. “It 

all boils down to the belief that after all we have put into achieving peace in Bosnia, we cannot in good 

faith leave without correcting the military imbalances that created the tragic war in the first place.” Jim 

Pardew Note for Jamie Rubin, Subject: Train and Equip and Exiting Bosnia, October 9, 1997.

68 Interviewee 2; Pardew Train and Equip Notes, Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in the Balkans, February1997–July 1997, May 5, 1997; Office of Military 

Stabilization in the Balkans, “Train & Equip Fact Sheet, Purpose and History of the Train and Equip 

Program, #004-97, March 4, 1997; July 16, 1997. 

69 International Crisis Group, “A Peace or just a Cease-Fire?”

70 Rabasa.

71 Woodward, 6.

72 Ambassador Greg Schulte, interviewed May 6, 2010. Between 1992 and 1998 AMB Schulte 

served on the NATO International Staff in Brussels, where among other things he was Director of the 

Bosnia Task Force and familiar with European attitudes toward Train and Equip.
126 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

73 The author participated in the Train and Equip Program. To preserve as much detachment 

as possible and treat his input on the same basis as other interviewees, the author had his research assistant at the time, Ms. Sarah Arkin, interview him using the standard interview protocol and questions. 

Christopher Jon Lamb, interviewed April 26, 2010.

74 He was not alone in this concern. See Jeffrey McCausland, “Arms Control and the Dayton 

Accords,” European Security 6, no. 2 (1997), 18–27, available at <www.informaworld.com/smpp/content

~content=a783188590&db=all>.

75 A 2002 Department of State Foreign Policy Paper provides the standard justification for military assistance: “A peaceful, democratic and stable Bosnia and Herzegovina that respects international 

human rights standards is a key part of maintaining peace and stability in Europe and promoting U.S. 

national security. U.S. government policy in Bosnia, and therefore U.S. government assistance, including its assistance in military training, is targeted to full implementation of the peace accords and the 

development of democratic institutions and respect for human rights. In addition, U.S. assistance helps 

to leverage funding from other donors.” Department of State Foreign Policy Papers, “Foreign Military 

Training and DoD Engagement Activities of Interest: Joint Report to Congress,” Bureau of PoliticalMilitary Affairs, March 2002.

76 Schulte. 

77 Bowman notes that during hearings in both chambers members raised a variety of issues, 

including how the “seemingly contradictory missions of contributing to a neutral peace implementation 

force and simultaneously arming and training Bosnian government troops [could] be reconciled.” 

78 John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen Van Evera, “When Peace Means War,” New Republic, December 18, 1995, 16–21.

79 John Pomfret, “Waiting for the War Next Time,” The Washington Post, June 1, 1997, C2.

80 Chris Hedges, “Bosnian Muslims Said to Intensify Efforts to Rearm in Secret,” The New York 

Times, October 3, 1997. This particular article elicited a riposte from Representative John Murtha (DPA), who inserted text in the Congressional Record discounting the article’s allegations and defending 

the Train and Equip Program. John Murtha, “Arming and Training Bosnian Federation Forces—Maintaining a Balance of Power,” CR Page E-2144, Thursday, October 30, 1997.

81 Mearsheimer and Van Evera, 17.

82 There were very few people from the Intelligence Community who had been on the ground 

in Bosnia, particularly outside of Sarajevo, so understanding of the Federation “was very immature.” 

Interviewwith an intelligence professional who worked on the Balkans. For Intelligence Community 

skepticism about the Federation, see also “Muslim-Croat Federation: More than a Cease-Fire?” Declassified Intelligence Memorandum, DCI Interagency Balkan Task Force, November 22, 1994, available at 

<www.foia.cia.gov/collection/bosnia-intelligence-and-clinton-presidency?page=10>.

83 Interviewee 35. The exception was some German diplomats. See note 184.

84 “President wants US weapons with no conditions attached,” Demokratiya Belgrade, in SerboCroatian, November 4, 1997.

85 Dragan Marcetic, “Alija Between Tehran and Washington (op-ed),” Banja Luka Glas Srpski, 

in Serbo-Croatian, March 23, 1996. See also Miroslav Lazanski, “US Arming Muslims, Mistake to be 

Paid by Bosnians,” Banja Luka Nezavisne Novine, October 22–28, 1997.
127

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

86 Interviewee 1, March 5, 2010.

87 James Drake, “Old GI’s fade Away—To Bosnian Consultants,” Baltimore Sun Journal, November 12, 1997.

88 Interviewee 2.

89 Despite the furlough, the team members designated themselves “essential personnel” and 

stayed on the job. Saworksi notes the furlough and weather might have aided the task force. There 

were fewer people around to object to Pardew’s presentation to the Deputies Committee when it was 

approved on December 28. For details of the unusual storm see Kevin Ambrose, Dan Henry, and Andy 

Weiss, “The Blizzard of 1996,” n.d., available at <http://www.weatherbook.com/1996.htm>; “Blizzard of 

1996 Begins,” History.com, A&E Television Networks, November 29, 2012, available at <www.history.

com/this-day-in-history/blizzard-of-1996-begins>.

90 Mark Sawoski, interviewed October 17, 2013. Sawoski joined the DOD Bosnia Task Force 

while working European security issues on the Policy Planning group established by Assistant Secretary 

of Defense for International Security Affairs Joseph S. Nye, Jr. 

91 Guillermo Christensen, interviewed November 13, 2012.

92 Stuart McFarren, interviewed May 6, 2010.

93 Ibid.

94 Johnson.

95 Rabasa.

96 These and other attributes were repeatedly mentioned in discussions of the program and 

codified in the NSC documents. See, for example, “Equipping and Training the Federation,” Tab C, 

September 29, 1995 Deputies Committee Meeting, Declassified Document C05961572, September 21, 

1995, Bosnia, Intelligence, and the Clinton Presidency.

97 Memorandum for Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, Declassified document 

C05956124, from Chief, DCI Interagency Balkan Task Force, Subject: Deputies’ Committee Meeting on 

Bosnia and Croatia, 18 August 1995, dated August 17, 1995, from Bosnia, Intelligence, and the Clinton 

Presidency.

98 Institute for Defense Analysis, “Assessment of Military Stabilization Options for Bosnia-Herzegovina,” Report Summary, January 1996, 1. Also, NSC Memorandum, “Summary of Conclusions for 

meeting of the NSC Deputies Committee,” Declassified Document C05962049, dated October 6, 1995, 

Bosnia, Intelligence, and the Clinton Presidency.

99 Institute for Defense Analysis, 6.

100 Ibid., 12.

101 Institute for Defense Analysis, 2.

102 Ibid.

103 The final product came out almost a month later.

104 The paper stated that it was U.S. policy to achieve military stabilization with a 

combination of arms limitations and provision of training and equipment to Federation forces; 

argued the United States had to lead the train and equip effort to properly control it; noted the 

two major goals were to achieve a stable military balance and eliminate radical fundamentalist 

influence in Bosnia; emphasized that a deterrence and defense capability “must be in place to 
128 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

the extent possible over the coming year”; established the IDA assessment as the basis for the 

program’s requirements; and emphasized the program would be executed in an overt fashion. 

See NSC Memorandum, “Summary of Conclusions for meeting of the NSC Deputies Committee,” Declassified Document C05962614, dated December 28, 1995, Bosnia, Intelligence, and the 

Clinton Presidency.

105 Interviewee 2.

106 James Pardew Memorandum to AMB Holbrooke and AMB Kornblum, Subject: Train & 

Equip (T&E) Meeting with Milosevic—January 8, 1996, in the author’s possession.

107 Pardew Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in the Balkans, December 1995–March 1996, January 3, 1996.

108 Pardew Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in the Balkans: December 1995–March 1996, January 6, 1996.

109 The IDA recommended program was estimated at approximately $800 million. Albrecht 

Schnabel, Southeast European Security: Threats, Responses, and Challenges (New York: Nova Science 

Publishers, 2001), 178.

110 At the Principals Committee meeting on October 4, 1995, a donor conference was ruled 

out in favor of “quiet bilateral approaches to potential contributors.” NSC Memorandum, “Summary of 

Conclusions for meeting of the NSC Principals Committee,” Declassified Document C05 962151, dated 

October 4, 1995, Bosnia, Intelligence, and the Clinton Presidency.

111Pardew Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in the Balkans: March 1996–February 1997, February 11, 1996.

112 Nazlan Ertan, “Ankara Ready for Bosnia Conference Despite Difficulties,” Turkish Daily 

News, March 14, 1996, A5.

113 Johnson.

114 Ibid.

115 “Discussions on Military Balance in Balkans,” New Straits Times, February 26, 1996, 1. The 

article was based on a press release from the U.S. Embassy in Kuala Lumpur. 

116 Johnson.

117 A few months later Johnson heard a diatribe in Sarajevo from Malaysia’s visiting Prime Minister, Mahathir Mohamad, who lambasted the West for abandoning Bosnia’s Muslims. Johnson.

118 Pardew Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in the Balkans: March 1996–February 1997, March 15, 1996.

119 McCausland, 18–27.

120 Pardew Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in the Balkans: March 1996–February 1997, March 15, 1996.

121 Ibid.

122 For example, Chris Hedges, “U.S.-Led Aid for Bosnian Army Is in Jeopardy,” The New York 

Times, March 22, 1996.

123 Jane Morse, “Key Arab States Support U.S. Train and Equip Program for Bosnia,” 

U.S. Information Agency, April 17, 1996, available at <www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/

news/1996/11451478-11456284.htm>.
129

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

124 Pardew Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in the Balkans: March 1996–February 1997, April 15, 1996.

125 “Train and Equip Status Report,” January 8, 1997; “Disbursement from Bosnia Federation 

Defense Fund,” unclassified memo from John C. Kornblum to Larry Eisenhart, August 5 1996; “Train and 

Equip Program Major Equipment and Training Donations, as of April 21, 1998,” April 24, 1998; Steven 

Woehreal, “Bosnia: U.S.-Led Train-and-Equip Program,” CSR Report, August 19, 1997; David Isenberg, 

“Soldiers of Fortune Ltd.: A Profile of Today’s Private Sector Corporate Mercenary Firms,” Center for 

Defense Information Monograph, November 1997; “Train and Equip Program for Bosnia: Deliveries of 

Equipment and Services as of February 10, 1998,” official document; “Appendix III draft—table IV.1: Train 

and Equip Pledges and Contributions, by Country as of January 1998,” official document.

126 John C. Kornblum, “Interim Procedures for handling the Bosnia Federation Defense Fund 

Account,” unclassified memo to Richard J. Greene, May 16, 1996. Train and Equip Program Official 

Documents; Office of Military Stabilization in the Balkans, “Train & Equip Fact Sheet, Management of 

the Bosnia Federation Defense Fund #003-96,” March 4, 1997; Interviewee 3, May 6, 2010; Interviewee 

4, April 26, 2010.

127 Train and Equip Program, “Command and Control of the Equip and Train Program,” n.d., 

Train and Equip Program Official Documents; Kornblum, “Interim Procedures.”

128 Embassy of the United Arab Emirates, “Support to Assist the Federation of Bosnia and 

Herzegovina,” Diplomatic Note to the U.S. Department of State, July 18, 1996, Train and Equip Program 

Official Documents; Office of Military Stabilization in the Balkans, “Train & Equip Fact Sheet”; “U.S. 

Mechanism for Regulating Contractor Performance,” Information Paper, 1996.

129 Lamb, interview.

130 John C. Kornblum, “Interim Procedures,” unclassified memo to Richard J. Greene, May 16, 

1996, Train and Equip Program Official Documents.

131 Train and Equip Program, “Command and Control”; Larry J. Eisenhart, Deputy Chief Financial Officer, U.S. Department of State, “Establishing an Interest Bearing Account,” letter to Miroslav 

Nicolic, Federation Contract Administrator, August 7, 1996, MS, United States Department of State, 

Washington, DC.

132 For example, see Ante Jelavic, Minister of Defense, and Sakib Mahmuljin, Deputy 

Minister of Defense, “Purchase of 50,000 Helmets,” letter to Ambassador James W. Pardew, April 

14, 1997, MS, Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina Ministry of Defense, Sarajevo, Bosnia and 

Herzegovina.

133 Office of Military Stabilization in the Balkans, “Train & Equip Fact Sheet”; Ambassador Jon 

Glassman (Ret.), interviewed May 6, 2010; Lamb, interview.

134 Office of Military Stabilization in the Balkans, “Train & Equip Fact Sheet.”

135 Glassman; Lamb, interview.

136 Ibid.

137 Office of Military Stabilization in the Balkans, “Train & Equip Fact Sheet.”

138 James Pardew, “Management of International Donor funds,” Memorandum to Deputy Secretary of Defense White, August 22, 1996.

139 Lamb, interview; McFarren.
130 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

140 “U.S. Mechanism for Regulating Contractor Performance,” Information Paper, 1996.

141 Pardew requested these services as part of his $100 million drawdown authority, but instead they 

had to be paid for from donor funds. Pardew memorandum to Walter Slocombe, August 5, 1996, Subject: 

Drawdown of Contract Administrative Services for Bosnia, unclassified, in the author’s possession.

142 Pardew Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in the Balkans: July 1997–Decemer 1997, mid-December 1997.

143 Lamb, interview.

144 Interviewee 2.

145 Ibid.

146 James Pardew Memorandum to AMB Holbrooke and AMB Kornblum, Subject: E&T Meetings in Sarajevo, January 6, 1996, in the author’s possession.

147 James Pardew, Declassified United States Department of State cable, available at <http://intelfiles.egoplex.com/1996-05-21-perle-mpri.pdf>.

148 Mike McNamara is a retired U.S. Army Colonel who worked closely with Perle in the Pentagon on relations with Turkey while serving as the desk officer for Yugoslavia. 

149 Blasser, a former senior procurement analyst from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, 

interviewed October 16, 2012.

150 Lamb, interview. 

151 International Crisis Group, “A Peace, or Just a Ceasefire?” 18.

152 Glassman.

153 George T. Norris, interview, October 17, 2012.

154 Ibid.

155 “Bosnian Firms Produce Artillery with U.S. Aid,” Reuters, October 17, 1997; “Bosnian 

Military Factories Produce First 122-mm Howitzer,” Sarajevo, Televizija Bosne I Hercegovine in SerboCroatian, October 17, 1997; Nedim Dervisbegovic, “U.S. Envoy Visits U.S-Aided Bosnian Army Factory,” Agence France-Presse, September 5, 1997; Pardew Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for 

Military Stabilization in the Balkans: February 1997–July 1997, April 12–18, 1997. 

156 Raymond Bonner, “Poland Is Resisting U.S. Call That It Sell Tanks to Bosnia,” The New York 

Times, international version, September 3, 1996.

157 Pardew Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in the Balkans: July 1997–December 1997.

158 Glassman; U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in the Balkans: February 

1997–July 1997, April 12–18, 1997.

159 Pardew Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in the Balkans: February 1997–July 1997, March 20–22, 1997.

160 John Pomfret, “1st American Arms Shipment Arrives in Bosnia,” The Washington Post, August 30, 1996.

161 Pardew Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in the Balkans: March 1996–February 1997.

162 James Pardew, Memorandum to AMB Holbrooke and AMB Kornblum, Subject: Equip and 

Train Discussions in Zagreb, January 5, 1995 (the actual date was 1996), in the author’s possession.
131

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

163 John Pomfret, “U.S. Starts Delivery of Heavy Weapons to Bosnia’s Muslim-Croat Forces,” 

The Washington Post, November 22, 1996, A44. Pomfret was transparent in arguing that he believed 

European officials were correct. See John Pomfret, “Waiting for the War Next Time,” The Washington 

Post, June 1, 1997, C2.

164 Arms control provisions agreed upon in Florence established ceilings for battle tanks, artillery pieces, combat aircraft, attack helicopters, and armored combat vehicles. 

165 Memorandum, Chrisropher J. Lamb (EUR/TMS) to George Glass (EUR/RPM), May 2, 

1996, in the author’s possession.

166 International Crisis Group, “A Peace or just a Cease-Fire?”

167 Ibid., 18.

168 In a letter to Secretary of Defense William Cohen, the Bosnian ambassador to the 

United States called attention to Srpska Republicka “contempt for its arms control obligations,” 

citing as an example their declaration of 15 tanks subject to destruction when the actual number 

was around 400. News reports indicate that both sides hid material to circumvent arms control 

limits, but that “U.S. officials consider the Bosnian Serbs the greater culprits in the underreporting 

of materiel . . . having hidden about 2,000 combat vehicles, heavy artillery and other equipment.” 

AMB Sven Alkalaj letter to Secretary of Defense William Cohen, March 19, 1997, in the author’s 

possession; Tracy Wilkinson, “U.S. to Provide Bosnia 116 Heavy Cannons,” The Washington Post, 

May 10, 1997, A22.

169 Report to the Chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. Senate, “Bosnia Peace Operation: Progress Toward Achieving the Dayton Agreement’s Goals,” Government Accounting Office Report, 

May 1997; International Crisis Group, “Dayton: Two Years On”; Zdzislaw Lachowski, “Conventional 

arms control in Europe,” A Future Arms Control Agenda: Proceedings of Nobel Symposium 118, 1999,

ed. Ian Anthony and Adam Daniel Rotfeld, 243–266 (Stockholm: Oxford University Press, 2001); Mike 

O’Connor, “US is Supplying Army in Sarajevo with 116 Guns,” The New York Times ̧ May 10, 1997.

170 Report to the Chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. Senate, “Bosnia Peace Operation: Progress Toward Achieving the Dayton Agreement’s Goals,” Government Accounting Office 

Report, Washington, DC, May 1997, Appendix II.

171 MPRI Task Order #0007 to Contract for Military Stabilization Program, July 16, 1996, 0007-

1, 0007-3. 

172 Ibid., 0007-3. 

173 Eric Schmitt, “Retired American Troops to Aid Bosnian Army in Combat Skills,” The New 

York Times, January, 15, 1996.

174 David Wilson, interviewed September 14, 2010.

175 For example, a Bosnian Croat leader serving in the Ministry of Defense in Sarajevo highlighted the fact that he had no office or desk by inviting MPRI representatives to meetings. Interview 

with Zeljko Siljeg, Bosnian Croat, September 16, 2010.

176 James Drake, “Old GI’s fade Away—To Bosnian Consultants,” Baltimore Sun Journal, November 12, 1997.

177 International Crisis Group, “A Peace, or Just a Ceasefire?” 12.

178 General Carl Vuono, USA (Ret.), interviewed August 12, 2010.
132 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

179 “Train and Equip Program Objective and Accomplishment,” worksheet from Christopher J. 

Lamb files.

180 See for example Antonio Prlenda, “Together Toward the Common Goal,” Oslobodjenje, 

translated in Serbo-Croatian, November 1, 1996.

181 International Crisis Group, “A Peace, or Just a Ceasefire?” 11.

182 John Pomfret, “US Operation in Turkey Seeks to Train, Unite Croats and Muslims,” The 

Washington Post, June 6, 1996.

183 Kornblum, “Train and Equip Program Major Equipment and Training Donations.”

184 International Crisis Group, “A Peace, or Just a Ceasefire?” 11.

185 According to the U.S. envoy to the Federation, Daniel Serwer, Germany had a longstanding 

interest in the Federation and was not as skeptical about it as most other West Europeans. He worked 

closely with German diplomat Michael Steiner, whose “instincts were more American than European—

he truly believed a multiethnic Bosnia could be created despite the war.” This alone might explain German willingness to provide the military training. Another observer notes, however, that Holbrooke may 

have helped secure the German cooperation. After stepping down from his Assistant Secretary of State 

position, he continued to serve as a senior advisor and Presidential envoy. In this capacity he tried to 

persuade Europeans, especially the Germans, to support the Federation. See Daniel Serwer, “A Bosnian 

Federation Memoir,” Herding Cats: Multiparty Mediation in a Complex World, ed. Chester A. Crocker, 

Fen Osler Hampson, and Pamela R. Aall, 550, 585 (Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace, 

1999); Interviewee 35.

186 McFarren. With task force encouragement, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright sent a 

cable to Germany’s Minister of Defense, Volker Ruehe, personally thanking him for the assistance once 

the training was complete. UNCLAS STATE Cable 144714, Subject: Thank you letter to Defense Minister Ruehe, August 7, 1998, in the author’s possession.

187 “Status of Train and Equip,” Point Paper, September 10, 1996; “Train and Equip Status Report,” January 8, 1997; see also “Two Year Training Plan for Bosnia-Herzegovina, FY 99–00,” April 21, 

1998; Lamb, “Train and Equip Program,” Powerpoint and worksheet.

188 Jim Pardew, “Train and Equip—One Year Status Report,” memo, December 5, 1996.

189 James A. Schear, “Bosnia’s Post-Dayton Traumas,” Foreign Policy, no. 104 (Autumn 1996), 

86–101. Others, including members of the Intelligence Community, also believed there were incentives 

in the Dayton Agreement to keep the Federation from falling apart, but nevertheless they were skeptical 

about the long-term success so long as the Bosnian Serbs remained outside the framework, according to 

an intelligence professional who worked the Balkans, November 13, 2012.

190 John Sewall, a two-star general, was a military advisor to AMB Serwer. Much later he would 

put his knowledge of the Federation to good use as an MPRI in-country program manager.

191 Soljic had been the defense minister of Herzeg-Bosna during the war.

192 Serwer, “A Bosnian Federation Memoir.” 

193 Pardew Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in the Balkans: February 1997–July 1997, February 22, 1997.

194 Pardew Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in the Balkans: December 1995–March 1996, January 7, 1996.
133

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

195 Sawoski.

196 International Crisis Group, “A Peace, or Just a Ceasefire?”

197 William M. Boice, handwritten notes in James Pardew, “US Policy and the Future of the 

Federation,” Pardew Policy Paper, Close Hold Binder, October 22, 1996, 5.

198 Pardew asked Deputy Secretary John White to fund a team to assist the Federation in 

writing its defense law. White agreed, and James R. Locher III, Karl Lowe, and Michael Donley were 

brought in to do the work. Pardew joined them for their sessions with the Bosniak and Croat leaders 

during which many of the necessary compromises for the new defense law were achieved. James R. 

Locher III, email to author, November 11, 2012. 

199 Michael Dobbs, “Last of Iran’s Military Units Out of Bosnia,” The Washington Post, June 27, 

1996, A22. Assistant Secretary of State John Kornblum met with Croatian leaders in Zagreb on this 

point, as did Pardew and others. 

200 Pardew Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in the Balkans: March 1996–February 1997, June 14, 1996.

201 “Perry Pushing for Common Defense Law,” Associated Press, July 3, 1996.

202Fahrudin Djapo, “In Their Letter to Izetbegovic Christopher and Perry Demand that Hasan Cengic Be Removed from Office,” Ljiljan, translated from Serbo-Croatian, October 2, 1996.

203 Sead Numanovic, “Ship with Weapons Waiting for a Signal,” Dnevni Avaz, translated from 

Serbo-Croatian, September 27, 1996. 

204 Military Stabilization Program (MSP) for the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, “Ambassador Pardew Update,” March 10, 1997 Powerpoint.

205 Wade Boes, “Belgrade Suspends Implementation of Sub-Regional Arms Accord,” Arms 

Control Association, April/May, 1999, available at <www.armscontrol.org/print/488>; Pardew official 

letter to Minister Jelavic, June 4, 1998; “Alliance’s Bosnian Train and Equip Project will Resume,” U.S. 

Defense Weekly, June 17, 1998; “U.S. Confirms Suspension of Bosnian Croat Military Aid,” Centre for 

Peace in the Balkans, May 1, 2000, available at <www.balkanpeace.org/index.php?index=article&article

id=11400>. 

206 Letter from Pardew to Ante Jelavic and Sakib Mahmuljin, June 1, 1998.

207 Pardew Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in the Balkans: February 1997–July 1997, February 22, 1997.

208 Ibid.

209 James Pardew, “MPRI Contracts,” memo to Bob Gelbard, November 3, 1997. Pardew had to 

make the same point to international officials who were reported in the Bosnian Croat press as having 

asserted unilateral suspension of portions of the Train and Equip Program due to lack of Croat compliance.

210 Cengic had headed up the Islamic Center in Zagreb prior to the war. John R. Schindler, Unholy Terror: Bosnia, Al-Qa’ida, and the Rise of Global Jihad (London/New York: Zenith Imprint, 2007), 

290; Serwer, “A Bosnian Federation Memoir.” 

211 Institute for Defense Analysis, 7

212 Serwer, “A Bosnian Federation Memoir.” 

213 He made it clear to Serwer that he did not agree with Izetbegovic’s decision.
134 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

214 Pardew Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in the Balkans: March 1996–February 1997, September 19, 1996.

215 Tom Hunter, “The embargo that wasn’t: Iran’s arms shipments into Bosnia,” U.S. Intelligence 

Review, December 1997.

216 Presidential Determination 96-34, “Bosnian Compliance on Withdrawal of Foreign Forces 

and Terminating Intelligence Cooperation with Iran,” June 26, 1996.

217 J.C.H. Blom, Rapport Srebrenica, S.l.: Ned 2, 2002, Appendix II: Intelligence and the war in 

Bosnia, 1992–1995, the role of the intelligence and security services, available at <www.nlpwessex.org/

docs/Dutchreport4.htm>.

218 Philip Smucker, “NATO officials dispute Iranians’ exit from Bosnia,” Washington Times, June 

14, 1996; Interviewee 2. See also the CIA estimate that puts the mujahideen numbers more modestly 

between 300 and 1,500. Declassified NSC Paper, “Dealing with the Terrorist Threat to U.S. Forces,” 

C05962603, dated December 4, 1995, prepared for discussion at December 5 Principals Committee 

meeting, Bosnia, Intelligence, and the Clinton Presidency.

219 Interviewee 2.

220 Goran Rosic, “They Trust Turkey More,” Hrvatski Obzor, translated from Serbo-Croatian, 

October 21, 1996.

221 Esad Hecimovic, “The U.S. Initiative and the Iranian Alternative,” Ljiljan, translated from 

Serbo-Croatian, April 3, 1996.

222 Pardew Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in the Balkans: March 1996–February 1997, June 14, 1996.

223 Ibid.

224 Sawoski. This was Sawoski’s last trip to Bosnia before returning to academia.

225 Hoare, 132, notes that about 70 received Bosnian citizenship during the war, some but not 

all through marriage. He asserts a couple of hundred more might have stayed on illegally. 

226 President Clinton issued Presidential Determination 96-34 as required by Public Law 

104-122 certifying the Federation had complied with Article III of Annex 1-A of the peace agreement. See also Michael Dobbs, “Last of Iran’s Military Units Out of Bosnia,” The Washington Post, 

June 27, 1996, A22.

227 Interviewee 2.

228 Pardew Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in the Balkans: March 1996–February 1997, June 14, 1996.

229 Interviewee 30, March 21, 2012. The letter was signed on September 19.

230 Pardew Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in the Balkans: March 1996–February 1997.

231 Samir Krilic, “Bosnian President Dismisses Defense Official Suspected of Links to Iran,” Associated Press, November 3, 1996.

232 “Ouster of Federation Deputy Minister of Defense Hasan Cengic: Chronology,” James 

Pardew Notes on Hasan Cengic, November 16, 1996.

233 Krilic.
135

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

234 Zubak, sensing he had some leverage, initially refused to sign off unless “other, unrelated 

government issues” were resolved in his favor. Kurt Schork, “Bosnian officials are sacked/President’s action opens door to delivery of American arms,” Reuters News Service, November 11, 1996.

235 Pardew Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in the Balkans: Book II, March 1996–February 1997.

236 Pardew Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in the Balkans: February 1997–July 1997.

237 Interviewee 2.

238 John Pomfret, “Waiting for the War Next Time.” 

239 Hedges, “Bosnian Muslims.”

240 James Pardew, “Discussions with Izetbegovic and Zubak,” memo, August 15, 1997.

241 Serwer notes this was the case with Zubak, for example. Serwer, “A Bosnian Federation 

Memoir,” 558–559.

242 Interview with Niko Jozinovic, Bosnian Croat, September 15, 2010; Serwer, “A Bosnian 

Federation Memoir,” 549–588.

243 International Crisis Group, “Changing Course.”

244 Norris. As early as 1992 a CIA assessment noted, “the UK appears to be the most leery among 

West Europeans of any military involvement in Bosnia.” “European Views on the Use of Force in Bosnia 

and Herzegovina,” Declassified Intelligence Memorandum, DCI Interagency Balkan Task Force, August 

10, 1992, available at <www.foia.cia.gov/collection/bosnia-intelligence-and-clinton-presidency?page=10>.

245 In a harbinger of intense British opposition to come, a senior British flag officer told Pardew 

during the team’s first visit to Sarajevo that in his view Train and Equip violated the Dayton Accords. 

James Pardew Memorandum to AMB Holbrooke and AMB Kornblum, E&T Meetings in Sarajevo.

246 Lamb, interview.

247 Interviewee 2.

248 Pardew Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in the Balkans: February 1997–July 1997, April 12–18, 1997. 

249 Steven Woehreal, “Bosnia: U.S.-Led Train-and-Equip Program,” Congressional Research 

Service (August 19, 1997).

250 Pardew Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in the Balkans: February 1997–July 1997, and supporting sources.

251 Lamb, interview. 

252 Ibid.

253 The letter sent to the Federation Ministry of Defense, which was drafted by the British, 

included two pages of conditions for lifting the injunction on construction ranging from the reasonable, such as providing technical briefings on safety procedures, to the outlandish, such as providing 

assurances that the training center “would not deter would-be returnees to the general area.”

254 Ante Jelavic, Minister of Defense, and Sakib Mahmuljin, Deputy Minister of Defense, “The 

Right of Self-Defense,” Memo to Jacques Klein, OHR, Vladimir Kuznetsov, OSCE, Martin Barber, 

UNHCR, January 1998; Philip Smucker, “With Program Stalled, Fast U.S. Departure is Unworkable,” 

Washington Times, December 19, 1997.
136 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

255 “Commander Delic Discusses Federation Army Problems, Plans,” Dnevni Avaz, translated 

from Serbo-Croatian, July 9, 1998.

256 Pardew Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in the Balkans: February 1997–July 1997, October 30, 1997.

257 Jim Pardew note for Bob Gelbard/Jock Covey, subject: OHR Obstacles to Train and Equip, 

November 24, 1997, in the author’s possession.

258 Jelavic and Mahmuljin.

259 Letter from Ambassador Jacques Paul Klein, Principal Deputy High Representative, to General Eric Shinseki, January 24, 1998, in the author’s files.

260 Jelavic and Mahmuljin. See also Joint Command AoF Training and Command Doctrine, 

Federal Ministry of Defense, “Information Briefing: Level of Achievement at CTC-Livno,” Sarajevo, 

June 1998.

261 James Pardew, “Iranians and Train and Equip,” memo, December 1, 1997.

262 Pardew Memorandum to Assistant Secretary Kornblum, March 18, 1997, Subject: Bosnia 

Policy Review; Pardew memorandum to Deputy Secretary Talbott and Deputy Secretary White, March 

24, 1997, Subject: Bosnia Policy Review—Train and Equip. 

263 Pardew journal April 12–18, 1997.

264 Pardew journal May 5, 1997.

265 Interviewee 2; Pardew Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in the Balkans: February 1997–July 1997, March 22–26, 1997.

266 Pardew Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in the Balkans, February 1997–July 1997, May 5, 1997.

267 Pardew memorandum to Sandy Vershbow, Jock Covey, and John Feeley, May 29, 1997, Subject: Clinton-Solana Meeting.

268 James Pardew, “Jump-Starting Train and Equip (T&E),” Memo, February 11, 1996.

269 Bob Dole, “Letter to President Clinton Urging the Postponement of Elections in Bosnia 

and Herzegovina,” August 29, 1996, available at <www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=85162>.

270 Office of Military Stabilization in the Balkans, “Train & Equip Fact Sheet: Train and Equip 

Program Objectives and Accomplishments #01-98,” February 20, 1998; James P. Rubin, “US Delivers 

Military Equipment for Bosnia,” U.S. Department of State Press Release, October 28, 1997.

271 “Bosnian Federation Train and Equip Update,” December 3, 1997. 

272 “Dayton Implementation: Progress Toward a Sustainable Peace,” Department of State paper, 

January 17, 1998.

273 Office of Military Stabilization in the Balkans, “Train & Equip Fact Sheet.” 

274 Ibid. 

275 By April 1998, $22 million in drawdown remained and a believed $47 million was needed 

to complete the third year of the Train and Equip Program. See “Train and Equip Funds Available,” 

spreadsheet, Pardew Eyes Only binder, April 24, 1998.

276 MPRI had a peak authorization of 235 personnel in country, but many of them were being 

quickly replaced; see Vuono. According to an MPRI history, their peak number of personnel in country 

was 223. Dzemal Najetovic, Geopolitical Location of Bosnia and Herzegovina in Euro-Atlantic Integra-
137

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

tion of West Balkans, DES Sarajevo, 2007; MPRI, “History of MPRI in Bosnia 1996–2003,” Draft Report, 

August 2009.

277 James Pardew, Memorandum to Under Secretary Slocombe and Tarnoff and AMB Kornblum, June 27, 1996, Subject: Value of U.S. Equipment for Train and Equip, in the author’s possession.

278 James Pardew, “Supporting US Equipment in Bosnia,” Memo, August 11, 1998.

279 “International Program Review on Train and Equip Program,” Sarajevo, April 27–30, 1998, 

annotated briefing, MPRI, April 21, 1998, in the author’s possession.

280 Raffi Gregorian, interviewed September 3, 2010.

281 By then Raffi Gregorian had replaced Chuck Franklin, taking on the much diminished public affairs duties but really serving as a senior advisor. Gregorian, interview.

282 See: “Bosnian Federation Train and Equip Update,” December 3, 1997. KEY docs binder; 

“U.S. Confirms Suspension of Bosnian Croat Military Aid,” Centre for Peace in the Balkans, May 1, 2000, 

available at <www.balkanpeace.org/index.php?index=article&articleid=11400>; “DRAFT–Appendix 

III, Table IV.1: Train and Equip Pledges and Contributions, by Country as of January 1998.”; “FY 2001 

Function 150 Budget Request—IMET,” Federation of American Scientists, February 7, 2000, available 

at <www.fas.org/asmp/profiles/aid/fy2001_table_imet.htm>; Claude Jorda “The Major Hurdles and 

Accomplishments of the ICTY,” Journal of International Criminal Justice no. 2 (2004), 572–584; “International Military Education and Training Account Summary,” U.S. Department of State, June 23, 2010, 

available at <www.state.gov/t/pm/ppa/sat/c14562.htm>“; “International Military Education and Training Account Summaries,” U.S. Department of State Archive, July 18, 2008, available at <http://2001-

2009.state.gov/t/pm/ppa/sat/c14562.htm>; Julie Kim, “Balkan Cooperation on War Crimes Issues,” Congressional Research Service, December 18, 2006; “Military Assistance: International Military Education 

and Training, Foreign Military Financing, Peacekeeping Operations,” Federation of American Scientists, 

2002, available at <www.fas.org/asmp/profiles/aid/fy2002part6.pdf>; Najetovic, Geopolitical Location 

of Bosnia and Herzegovina; Report to Congressional Committees: Chairman, “International Military 

Education and Training: Agencies Should Emphasize Human Rights Training and Improve Evaluations,” Government Accounting Office Report, October 2011; Steven Woehrel, “Bosnia: Current Issues 

and US Policy,” Congressional Research Service, August 27, 2009; Woehrel, “Bosnia: Current Issues and 

US Policy,” Congressional Research Service, April 12, 2010; Woehrel, “Bosnia: Current Issues and US 

Policy,” Congressional Research Service, February 29, 2012.

283 Defense White Paper on Bosnia and Herzegovina, June 2005.

284 James R. Locher III, interviewed May 24, 2010.

285 Kenan Dautović, “Security Policies in the Western Balkans: Bosnia and Herzegovina,” 

Security Policies in the Western Balkans, ed. Miroslav Hadžić, Milorad Timotić, and Predrag Petrović 

(Belgrade: Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, 2010), 36. 

286 Interview with Esad Pelko, Bosniak, September 15, 2010.

287 Locher, interview; James R. Locher III and Michael Donley, “Military Matters: Reforming 

Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Defense Institutions,” NATO Review (Winter 2004), available at <www.nato.

int/docu/review/2004/issue4/english/military.html>.

288 Locher and Donley.

289 Locher was accompanied by Michael Donley.
138 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

290 Locher, interview.

291 Locher and Donley.

292 Locher, interview.

293 Ibid.

294 Locher and Donley.

295 Interview with Selmo Cikotic, Bosniak, July 2, 2010.

296MPRI, “MPRI in Bosnia and Herzegovina: 1996–Present,” Draft, August 11, 2009.

297 Interviewee 14, September 3, 2010.

298 Gregorian, interview.

299 Gregorian notes he “learned at the feet of Pardew” how to carefully weave military and political incentives and disincentives to pursue U.S. foreign policy goals. Gregorian, interview.

300 Ibid.

301 Jane’s World Armies, “Bosnia-Herzegovina,” IHS Global Limited, August 15, 2012, available 

at <https://janes.ihs.com/CustomPages/Janes/DisplayPage.aspx?DocType=Reference&ItemId=+++1319

189&Pubabbrev=JWAR>; Nedim Dervisbegovic, “Bosnia’s first unified army platoon deployed to Iraq,”

The San Diego Union-Tribune, June 2, 2005, available at <www.utsandiego.com/uniontrib/20050602/

news_1n2bosnia.html>.

302 Hélène Harroff-Tavel, “Speaking with one voice on defense issues in Bosnia and 

Herzegovina,” Organization for the Security and Cooperation of Europe, May 15, 2006, available at 

<www.osce.org/bih/57490>; Public Affairs Office, BiH Ministry of Defense, “Ministry of Defense and 

Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” brochure, April, 2011; Kenan Dautović, “Security Policies 

in the Western Balkans: Bosnia and Herzegovina,” Security Policies in the Western Balkans, ed. Miroslav 

Hadžić, Milorad Timotić, and Predrag Petrović (Belgrade: Belgrade Centre for Security Policy, 2010). 

303 Kim.

304 Report to the Chairman, Committee on Foreign Affairs, U.S. Senate, “Bosnia Peace Operation: Progress Toward Achieving the Dayton Agreement’s Goals,” Government Accounting Office 

Report, May 1997.

305 Kim.

306 Julian Borger, “Serbia arrests Goran Hadzic, the last Yugoslav war fugitive,” The Guardian, 

July 20, 2011, available at <www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/20/goran-hadzic-arrest-serbia-war>.

307 Interview with Sakib Foric, Bosniak, September 15, 2010.

308 Ibid.

309 Gregorian, interview; Interview with General Dzemal Najetovic, Bosniak, September 14, 

2010.

310 Pelko.

311 Defense White Paper of Bosnia and Herzegovina, June 2005; Massimo Moratti and Amra 

Sabic-El-Rayess, “Transitional Justice and DDR: The Case of Bosnia and Herzegovina,” International 

Center for Transnational Justice, Research Brief, June 2009; Tobias Pietz, “Demobilization and Reintegration of Former Soldiers in Post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina: An Assessment of External Assistance,” 

The Institute for Peace Research and Security Policy (IFSH), University of Hamburg, March 2004. 

312 Najetovic, interview.
139

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

313 Siljeg.

314 Ibid.

315 Interview with Zoran Sajinovic, Bosnian Croat, September 14, 2010.

316 Steven Woehrel, “Bosnia: Current Issues and US Policy,” Congressional Research Service

(February 29, 2012).

317 Kim.

318 Najetovic, interview; Interview with Sakib Mahmuljin, Bosniak, September 14, 2010; 

Interview with General Vinko Lucic, Bosnian Croat, September 14, 2010; Pelko; Foric; Interview with 

Nedeljko Obradovic, Bosnian Croat, September 16, 2010; Interview with General Zivko Budimir, September 16, 2010.

319 Najetovic, interview; Mahmuljin, interview; Lucic; Pelko; Foric; Obradovic; Budimir, interview, September 16, 2010.

320 Foric.

321 Budimir, interview, September 16, 2010.

322 Obradovic.

323 Interview with General Enes Becirbasic, Bosniak, September 14, 2010; Sajinovic. One observer 

even felt there was more open and honest cooperation between the HVO and ARBiH 15 years ago than 

today. Lucic. Another believes the backsliding began sometime after 2006. Gregorian, interview.

324 James Douglas Orton with Christopher J. Lamb, “Interagency National Security Teams: Can 

Social Science Contribute?” PRISM 2, no. 2, March 2011, 47–64.

325 We were not able to contact the second CIA representative on the task force, but we did 

interview the original representative, Guillermo Christensen.

326 We want to express particular appreciation to Ambassador Pardew for making all of his 

personal materials available for this research effort and to the National Defense University library.

327 Rabasa.

328 Lamb, interview.

329 Rabasa.

330 Pardew Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in the Balkans: July–December 1997, December 1997.

331 McFarren notes it might have been better if this point had been emphasized more by the 

task force, but at least some audiences understood the emphasis. See “Bosnia Peace Operation Pace 

of Implementing Dayton Accelerated as International Involvement Increased,” United States General 

Accounting Office, Report to the Chairman, Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, Appendix 2, 

June 1998, available at <www.gao.gov/archive/1998/ns98138.pdf>. 

332 Schulte.

333 Vuono.

334 Before the Dayton Peace Accords were signed, Holbrooke “told Izetbegovich we would withhold our support for the Equip and Train program unless the Iranians and the mujahedeen left.” Holbrooke, 320. For program objectives, see NSC Memorandum, “Summary of Conclusions for meeting of 

the NSC Deputies Committee,” Declassified Document C05962614, dated December 28, 1995, Bosnia, 

Intelligence, and the Clinton Presidency. 
140 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

335 Interviewee 2.

336 Ibid.

337 Glassman.

338 Ibid.

339 Rabasa.

340 Ibid.

341 Lamb, interview.

342 For example, on October 4, 1995, the Principals Committee “reaffirmed that our goal [for 

military stabilization] should be to ensure that there is a rough balance of power between the Federation and the Bosnian Serbs by the end of the one-year peace implementation period.” NSC Memorandum, “Summary of Conclusions for meeting of the NSC Principals Committee,” Declassified Document 

C05 962151, dated October 4, 1995, Bosnia, Intelligence, and the Clinton Presidency.

343 Lamb, interview.

344 Vuono.

345 Blasser.

346 He would periodically call or visit them individually, particularly the Deputy Secretaries of 

State and Defense, and only appeal to them collectively in a formal meeting when absolutely necessary.

347 Glassman.

348 Lamb, interview.

349 Interviewee 2.

350 Sawoski notes he was sent to do a good job and not protect Department of Defense equities. 

The other members agreed that was the case. Sawoski.

351 Lamb, interview.

352 Glassman.

353 Blasser.

354 Daniel Serwer, “A Bosnian Federation Memoir,” 583. 

355 Lamb, interview.

356 Christensen.

357 Interviewee 2; Pardew journal, February 11, 1996.

358 Interviewee 2.

359 McFarren took pride in keeping his spreadsheets on task force expenditures balanced 

down to the penny. When a “four cent” discrepancy went unexplained for a while, he worked tirelessly to resolve it. When he finally succeeded, he confessed the error to the Department of State 

financial officer handling the Train and Equip accounts. The financial officer laughed, saying, “Get me 

security.” McFarren.

360 ASI, and particularly Richard Perle, sometimes pushed MPRI so hard that the task force 

considered it counterproductive. There is no doubt, however, that under Mike McNamara’s sustained attention ASI achieved major efficiencies. By ASI’s own assessment it generated more than $18 million for 

the program. For a catalogue of ASI efficiency initiatives, see “ASI Financial/Contract Management Cost 

Savings,” September 13, 2000, and “Acquisition Support Institute: Past and Present,” both in the author’s 

possession.
141

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

361 Befitting the prudence of a trustee, the funds were held in secure low-interest bearing accounts. However, by March 3, 1998, they had accumulated $4,770,117 in interest. Train and Equip Task 

Force, “Train and Equip Funds Available (as of April 24, 1998),” task force document in the possession 

of the authors.

362 Sawoski.

363 John Klekas, interviewed March 21, 2012.

364 Rabasa.

365 Interviewee 2 felt that because it was well known in the Balkans that President Clinton had 

made the commitment to Izetbegovic, American credibility was on the line. 

366 Interviewee 2.

367 Charles Franklin, Commander, USN (Ret.), interviewed September 6, 2012.

368 Klekas.

369 Ibid.

370 McFarren.

371 Vuono.

372 Blasser; Norris.

373 From Lamb’s point of view, they needed to get in line with a program that was a Presidential 

priority; from their point of view, they had many customers to please, and particularly the Army, which 

was providing almost all the Train and Equip drawdown items.

374 Some of the declassified documents on Bosnia from the Clinton administration suggest the 

President was more comfortable with achieving stability through arms control, but he actively engaged to 

keep his commitment to Congress to train and equip the Bosnians. In addition to sending McLarty to the 

Gulf States to raise funds, President Clinton sent letters and made calls encouraging support from donor 

countries. He also intervened to encourage passage of the Federation Defense law. Pardew Memorandum 

to Assistant Secretary Kornblum, March 18, 1997, Subject: Bosnia Policy Review; President Clinton, letter 

to Friends of Bosnia, April 24, 1998, in the author’s possession. A June 21, 1996, letter from Clinton apparently encouraging passage of the Federation Defense law is referenced in a letter from President Izetbegovic. Translation of Alija Izetbegovic letter to President Clinton, undated, in the author’s possession. 

375 Samuel R. Berger note to Bill Perry, John “Shali,” Richard Holbrooke, December 6, 1995, in 

the author’s possession.

376 For Albright’s argument for a Train and Equip Program, see Memorandum for The National 

Security Advisor from Ambassador Albright, dated August 3, 1995, from Bosnia, Intelligence, and the 

Clinton Presidency; for her praise of the program, see Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright, Comments prepared for delivery, Annual Fleet Week Gala, New York, NY, May 22, 1997.

377 Interviewee 2.

378 Lamb, interview.

379 McFarren.

380 Glassman.

381 Ibid.

382 Interviewee 2. It is noteworthy that recently declassified documents indicate the Deputies 

several times asked the Principals to reconsider the program because of “the difficulties of equipping 
142 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

and training Federation forces in the context of peace implementation” but they refused. The Principals 

simply ordered that the program be modest and low-profile and use contractors rather than uniformed 

U.S. personnel. NSC Memorandum, “Summary of Conclusions for meeting of the NSC Deputies Committee,” Declassified Document C05962531, dated November 1, 1995; NSC Memorandum, “Summary 

of Conclusions for meeting of the NSC Deputies Committee,” Declassified Document C05740379, dated 

November 13, 1995; NSC Memorandum, “Summary of Conclusions for meeting of the NSC Deputies 

Committee,” Declassified Document C05962535, dated November 14, 1995; and NSC Memorandum, 

“Summary of Conclusions for meeting of the NSC Principals Committee,” Declassified Document 

C05962542, dated November 16, 1995, all from CIA Web site, Bosnia, Intelligence, and the Clinton 

Presidency.

383 Johnson agrees that the decision to intervene in the Balkans was quite controversial but does 

not recall the debate over Train and Equip being “rancorous.” The Department of State reaction to Train 

and Equip initially was muted by senior leader support for the program. Johnson.

384 Christensen.

385 Pardew appealed to Under Secretary Slocombe for help in retaining McFarren’s services as 

a contractor and even turned down requests for Lamb to attend his Department of Defense parent organization’s brief offsite conference. AMB Pardew memorandum to Slocombe, May 15, 1996, and AMB 

Pardew memorandum to Assistant Secretary Holmes, May 30, 1996, Subject: Christopher J. Lamb; both 

in the author’s possession.

386 Blasser.

387 Christensen.

388 Ibid.

389 Ibid.

390 Sawoski.

391 Interviewee 2. The Army’s reluctance to entertain visits by Federation military personnel to 

its combat training centers was considered particularly obstinate and inconsistent with U.S. Government policies. Letter from Ambassador James W. Pardew to LTG Claude M. Kicklighter, Deputy Under 

Secretary of the Army (international Affairs), July 15, 1998, in the author’s possession.

392 “Military Personnel Replacing the Iranians” was one derogatory SFOR reference to MPRI, 

according to a former SFOR staff member. In the author’s experience, uniformed personnel typically 

consider former colleagues who retire and work for private industry suspect. On the general Army attitude toward MPRI, see Vuono. 

393 Lamb, interview.

394 Interview with an intelligence professional familiar with the Balkans. 

395 Ibid.

396 Office space in Main State was quite limited. State is also rather status conscious when it 

comes to assigning office space. Pardew received a small office with a window and adjoining offices for 

his deputy from State and public affairs person. Lamb and McFarren were relegated to a windowless 

room on a lower floor. State members without ambassadorial status fended for themselves, usually staying in the small offices they had before joining the task force.

397 McFarren. Pardew’s secretary knew State well and was a great source of advice.
143

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

398 Sawoski. 

399 On occasion Pardew had to fight to retain a sufficient travel budget, but the Bureau always 

relented.

400 Franklin.

401 Glassman.

402 Klekas.

403Ibid.

404 Lamb, interview.

405 Klekas.

406 Rabasa.

407 Klekas.

408 McFarren.

409 Lamb, interview. Even though the CIA always preferred a modest program, early on it saw 

some advantages to a Train and Equip effort. For example, it noted that, “the absence of such a program 

could diminish U.S. leverage among the Bosniaks, increase Bosniak susceptibility to radical Islamic 

influence—mainly from Iran—and further reduce prospects for a unified Federation military structure.” 

Over time the CIA view that the program was upsetting the military balance hardened. See “Prospects for 

Bosnia and Herzegovina Over the Next 18 Months,” National Intelligence Estimate, May 1996; President’s 

Summary, Declassified document CO5922077; and Declassified Memorandum for Director of Central 

Intelligence from Chief, DCI Interagency Balkan Task Force C05951838, Subject: Some Reason for Optimism About Bosnia, dated October 27, 1996, both from Bosnia, Intelligence, and the Clinton Presidency.

410 Interviewee 14.

411 Lamb, interview.

412 Ibid.

413 Pardew Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in the Balkans: December 1995–March 1996, February 5, 1996.

414 Admiral Joseph Lopez, letter to AMB James Pardew, October 29, 1996, in the author’s possession. 

415 Pardew note to Bob Gelbard, October 10, 1997, Subject: Military Training in the Republika 

Srpska, in the author’s possession.

416 Pardew note to Tom Longstreth, April 25, 1997, Subject: T&E Issues with the DoD, in the 

author’s possession.

417 Pardew letter to Lt. General Claude M. Kicklighter, April 25, 1997, in the author’s possession.

418 The plan had been for the Bosnians to fly them, but with the poor weather (strong wind 

gusts on the coasts and stronger up the valley through the mountains to Sarajevo) it was not deemed 

wise for untrained Federation pilots to try it. 

419 McFarren.

420 Ibid.

421 Pardew Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in the Balkans: March 1996–February 1997, August 25, 1996.
144 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

422 After yet another stop in Brussels to cajole the Europeans, Pardew lamented the fruitless 

effort, noting he had a hundred debates with the Europeans on the program and never lost one; yet he 

never changed a single mind either. Pardew Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for Military 

Stabilization in the Balkans: February 1997–July 1997, February 7–8, 1997. 

423 Interviewee 2.

424 Sawoski.

425 Johnson.

426 Klekas.

427 Glassman.

428 Interviewee 13, August 12, 2010.

429 Vuono.

430 Mcfarren.

431 Vuono.

432 Ibid.

433 Ibid.

434 Ibid.

435 Pardew journal, July 4–5, 1997.

436 Klekas.

437 Mike McNamara, interviewed August 5, 2010.

438 Ibid.

439 Franklin.

440 Interviewee 2.

441 McNamara. McNamara had commanded a mechanized infantry battalion under Brown when 

he was a brigade commander. Captain W.L. Boyd, who had been working the issue for the Pentagon’s Assistant Secretary of Defense Strategy and Resources, also provided initial assistance to the task force. 

442 While working through the Defense Contract Management Command (now an agency) 

for approval, the author’s recollection is that the auditor stationed in Sarajevo came from the Defense 

Contract Auditing Agency, which consults with the Defense Contract Management Command but does 

not report to it.

443 Franklin. A typical example was his intervention with a U.S. Institute of Peace special report 

on the program, one of the few reports dedicated to the topic. Franklin represented the task force with 

the study and managed to make an impact. When the report came out it was balanced and only mildly 

skeptical with a “we’ll have to wait and see” bottom line. U.S. Institute of Peace, Dayton Implementation: 

The Train and Equip Program, Special Report (Washington, DC: U.S. Institute of Peace, 1997).

444 Franklin.

445 Ibid.

446 Interviewee 3; Interviewee 7, May 7, 2010.

447 Lamb, interview.

448 Mcfarren.

449 Interviewee 2.

450 Lamb, interview.
145

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

451 Ibid.

452 Franklin.

453 McFarren. 

454 Ibid.

455 Glassman.

456 Rabasa.

457 Franklin.

458 Norris.

459 Interviewee 2.

460 Glassman.

461 Ibid.

462 All the early planning documents from both the CIA and Pentagon noted the need for manportable air defense missiles. 

463 Glassman.

464 Rabasa.

465 Lamb, interview.

466 Blasser.

467 Lamb, interview.

468 Christensen.

469 Klekas. Not all members were in on weekends; one State representative “rebelled at that.”

470 McNamara.

471 Blasser.

472 Norris.

473 Christensen.

474 Glassman. Johnson agrees, noting the program was focused on implementation so discussion was on “how to get it done.” Johnson.

475 Mcfarren.

476 Rabasa.

477 Klekas.

478 Mcfarren.

479 Lamb, interview.

480 Blasser.

481 Norris.

482 Ibid.

483 Interviewee 2.

484 Klekas.

485 Interviewee 31, March 21, 2012.

486 Klekas.

487 McFarren; Pardew Personal Journal; U.S. Special Representative for Military Stabilization in 

the Balkans: March 1996–February 1997, March 15, 1996.

488 Franklin.
146 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

489 Blasser.

490 Rabasa.

491 Interviewee 2.

492 Rabasa.

493 Glassman.

494 Franklin. Interviewee 6 made the same point. Mcfarren.

495 Franklin.

496 Ibid. The interviewee notes his experience in the Pentagon was quite different, and finding 

time to discuss substance with colleagues was rare.

497 Glassman.

498 Ibid.

499 Ibid.

500 Gregorian, interview.

501 Lamb, interview.

502 Mcfarren.

503 Lamb, interview.

504 Mcfarren.

505 Greg L. Stewart, “A Meta-Analytic Review of Relationships Between Team Design Features 

and Team Performance,” Journal of Management, Issue 32, 2006, 29–54.

506 F.J. Milliken and L.L. Martins, “Searching for Common Threads: Understanding the Multiple Effects of Diversity in Organizational Groups,” Academy of Management Review, no. 21 (1996), 

402–433; K.Y. Williams and C.A. O’Reilly, “Demography and Diversity in Organizations,” Research 

in Organizational Behavior, 20, 77–140; S.E. Jackson, A. Joshi, and N.L. Erhardt, “Recent Research on 

Team and Organizational Diversity: SWOT Analysis and Implications,” Journal of Management 29 

(2003), 801–830.

507 Interviewee 2.

508 Rabasa.

509 Sawoski.

510 Interviewee 2.

511 Christensen.

512 Ibid.

513 Ibid.

514 Johnson.

515 Ibid.

516 Glassman.

517 Rabasa.

518 Ibid.

519 The first and only memorable thing Pardew asked Glassman was whether he could find a 

way to get donations into the task force coffers so they could purchase training services and equipment. 

Glassman.

520 Mcfarren.
147

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

521 Ibid.

522 Interviewee 2.

523 Franklin.

524 Gregorian, interview.

525 Ibid. Later the Department of Defense cut the two contractor positions, which were then 

picked up by the Department of State. 

526 Raffi Gregorian, email to author, February 24, 2013.

527 Interviewee 2.

528 Franklin.

529 This is not to suggest task force members did not go on to complete successful careers in 

government or private industry. Christensen, who observed the team in its initial operations observes, 

“No one on the team was there because no one wanted them.” Later in his career he found that this 

was often the case with interagency groups and that it paid to be careful about who you accepted on an 

interagency ad hoc group. But, he said, that was not the case with Train and Equip. Christensen. 

530 Rabasa.

531 Klekas.

532 Christensen.

533 Sawoski, interview, notes that practical experience in government does not count for much 

at most universities.

534 In retrospect he believes both promises came true. Mcfarren.

535 Franklin.

536 Rabasa.

537 Klekas.

538 Ibid.

539 Rabasa.

540 Ibid.

541 Klekas.

542 Lamb, interview.

543 Ibid.

544 Mcfarren.

545 Interviewee 2.

546 Franklin; Rabasa; Glassman; Lamb, interview.

547 Lamb, interview.

548 McNamara. 

549 Interviewee 2.

550 Lamb, interview.

551 Ibid.

552 Letter and accompanying note in our possession.

553 Blasser.

554 Klekas.

555 Sawoski; Rabasa.
148 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

556 Glassman.

557 McFarren.

558 Lamb, interview.

559 Christensen.

560 Norris.

561 Ibid.

562 Franklin.

563 Glassman.

564 Lamb, interview.

565 Franklin.

566 Klekas.

567 Norris.

568 Vuono.

569 Johnson.

570 McFarren. 

571 Rabasa.

572 Franklin.

573 Norris.

574 Sawoski.

575 Ibid.

576 McFarren. 

577 Klekas.

578 Mahmuljin, interview.

579 Interviewee 31.

580 A survey of Pardew’s many succinct strategic assessments reveals they were delivered to a 

wide range of senior officials, and from the responding notes they elicited that they were appreciated 

and influential. 

581 Lamb, interview.

582 Norris.

583 Klekas.

584 Interviewee 2.

585 Franklin.

586 Lamb, interview. Although Pardew delegated a lot and almost never reproached subordinates, Lamb remembers that on one occasion Pardew gave him the sharpest corrective guidance he 

ever received. Not only was Pardew right, but it was the most helpful feedback Lamb ever received, 

and he thought better of Pardew for it. Similarly, Franklin recalls that those who went on trips to solicit 

funds or weapons sometimes were given quite explicit guidelines when Pardew thought they might be 

inclined to go beyond certain task force limits.

587 McFarren. Selmo was exonerated and became Bosnian Minister of Defense.

588 McFarren.

589 Lamb, interview.
149

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

590 Rabasa.

591 Ibid.

592 Norris.

593 McFarren.

594 Interviewee 2.

595 Glassman.

596 Christensen.

597 Interviewee 2.

598 Christensen.

599 Interviewee 2.

600 Franklin.

601 Glassman.

602 Derek Chollet, the current Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, quoted in Kevin Baron, “From Dayton to the Pentagon, Derek Chollet reflects on Bosnia,” and a 

“remarkable journey,” The E-Ring, Foreign Policy, Thursday May 16, 2013, available at <http://e-ring.

foreignpolicy.com/posts/2013/05/16/from_dayton_to_the_pentagon_derek_chollet_reflects_on_bosnia_and_a_remarkable_journ>. 

603 Glassman.

604 As McFarren notes, “The measure of success is what we ultimately accomplished. The mission was to create military stability parallel to IFOR/SFOR. There is military stabilization. We got done 

what we needed to get done.” 

605 Franklin.

606 “Bosnia: Five Years Later,” Center for Defense Information, December 1, 2000, available at 

<www.cdi.org/friendlyversion/printversion.cfm?documentID=1660>. It is hard to assess how prevalent this view is because almost nothing has been written on the effectiveness of the Train and Equip 

Program per se. 

607 Holbrooke, 278ff.

608 Ibid., 277.

609 This was Richard Perle’s expression and assessment. Lamb, interview.

610 Interview with General Vahid Karavelic, Bosniak, September 13, 2010.

611 Pelko.

612 Becirbasic.

613 Pelko; Foric.

614 Mike O’Connor, “U.S. is Supplying Army in Sarajevo with 116 Big Guns,” The New York 

Times, May 10, 1997, 1. The article cites a senior European officer who said the delivery of the howitzers “will make the Serb military very scared,” which “could really hurt their compliance with the 

arms reduction treaty.” He believed that even though the addition of the howitzers did not exceed the 

1,000-piece ceiling on Federation artillery imposed by arms control agreements.

615 Foric.

616 Pelko.

617 Ibid.
150 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

618 Locher, interview.

619 Some believe the actual equipment delivered under the program was not as influential in 

changing Bosnian Serb attitudes as the psychological impact of a major U.S. program being implemented with alacrity. Sajinovic.

620 Mahmuljin, interview.

621 Siljeg.

622 Gregorian, interview.

623 Siljeg.

624 Ibid.

625 International Crisis Group, “A Peace or just a Cease-Fire?”

626 The General Accounting Office, probably based on Train and Equip sources, noted in June 

1998 that “the troops require years of additional training and sustainment support, and the force is not 

projected to have a fully integrated defensive and deterrence capability until beyond the year 2000.” “Bosnia Peace Operation: Pace of Implementing Dayton Accelerated As International Involvement Increased,”

Report to the Chairman, Committee on Foreign Relations, U.S. Senate, Washington, DC, 1998, 55. 

627 Sajinovic.

628 Ibid.

629 Ibid. Many former Bosnian military leaders now acknowledge how little they and their colleagues knew of the military profession at the time. Becirbasic.

630 Interestingly, the Bosnian Serbs felt the same way when contemplating entry into the Train 

and Equip Program. See International Crisis Group, “A Peace or just a Cease-Fire?”

631 Budimir, interview, September 16, 2010.

632 Vuono.

633 Interview with general Zivko Budimir, Nedjeljna Dalmacija, September 6, 1996: 16, 33; 

translated by FBIS.

634 Budimir, interview, September 16, 2010. 

635 Karavelic; Siljeg.

636 Interview with Ivica Zeko, Bosnian Croat, September 15, 2010.

637 Sajinovic.

638 Obradovic.

639 Karavelic.

640 Ibid.

641 Jozinovic.

642 One source notes that even early on it was clear that maintenance would be a major challenge. He asserts that some of the American tanks were missing parts when they arrived at Ploce. 

Karavelic.

643 Admittedly, this was not initially part of the plan or clear to all task force members. Lamb 

and McFarren sometimes speculated that if all the program objectives were achieved and continued, 

the Federation might build up a considerable military advantage. They referred to this possibility as 

the “Hagia Sophia” scenario because they first discussed the possibility at that famous site on their way 

through Istanbul following the disastrous Ankara conference.
151

The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

644 Many former Bosnian military leaders now acknowledge how little they and their colleagues 

knew of the military profession at the time. Becirbasic; Siljeg; Sajinovic.

645 Siljeg.

646 Budimir, interview, September 16, 2010.

647 Siljeg.

648 For example, Mahmuljin, interview; Zeko; Jozinovic.

649 Zeko.

650 Ibid.

651 Former Yugoslavian Army veterans had a hard time adopting NATO standards. Becirbasic.

652 Returning IMET graduates were initially used as liaisons and interpreters rather than placed 

in positions where they could use the skills they learned in the United States, and a large percentage 

soon departed the Federation military rather than advancing to positions of responsibility, which was a 

concern for U.S. authorities. Some observers saw in this trend a “hidden agenda,” presumably the influence of politicians who wanted to slow the inculcation of Western norms in their military forces. Major 

Jack Wallace, Security Assistance Officer, U.S. Embassy Sarajevo, “Two Year Training Plan for BosniaHerzegovina, FY 99 and 00,” unclassified; from the author’s files; Obradovic.

653 Zeko.

654 Some participants who benefited from MPRI training and believe they were “personally enriched” by it wanted to stay in the military. They were disappointed, if not disillusioned, about the way 

the decisions were made on who stayed and who left. Budimir, interview, September 16, 2010.

655 Foric.

656 Budimir, interview, September 16, 2010.

657 “Equipping and Training the Federation, Tab C, 29 September 1995 Deputies Committee 

Meeting, Declassified Document C05961572, dated September 21, 1995, Bosnia, Intelligence, and the 

Clinton Presidency.

658 Cited in George A. Joulwan and Christopher C. Shoemaker, Civilian-military Cooperation in 

the Prevention of Deadly Conflict: Implementing Agreements in Bosnia and Beyond (New York: Carnegie, 

1998), 52.

659 From the beginning of the program, Bosnian leaders agreed that a higher quality and 

smaller force was preferable. James Pardew Memorandum to AMB Holbrooke and AMB Kornblum, 

Subject: E&T Meetings in Sarajevo.

660 Becirbasic.

661 Sajinovic.

662 Ibid.

663 Ibid.

664 Becirbasic. Selmo Cikotic, who went on to become Bosnia’s Minister of Defense, also notes 

the psychological impact of Train and Equip, and that many Bosnian politicians at the time of Dayton 

were looking for ways to continue the struggle through political venues (inverting the old axiom so that 

“politics was just an extension of war by other means”). Cikotic.

665 Lucic.

666 Ibid.
152 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

667 Some consider the estimate of 200,000-plus Federation soldiers inflated and believe a more realistic figure is 90,000 Bosniak and 35,000 Croat soldiers. Still in a population estimated at 2 million, these 

are large standing forces. Downsizing to 50,000 in less than 2 years was politically difficult both because 

the population did not feel secure and there were few jobs for veterans returning to civilian life. Ibid.

668 Zeko.

669 Pelko.

670 Siljeg.

671 In MPRI’s experience, if there was any difference between U.S. and other NATO standards 

(e.g., the Belgian vs. the U.S. model for noncommissioned officers), the Balkan militaries wanted to 

emulate the United States. Vuono.

672 Pelko.

673 Mahmuljin, interview.

674 Pardew note to Bob Gelbard, May 14, 1998, Subject: The Train and Equip Effort in Bosnia—

Status and Future.

675 Pardew note to Bob Gelbard, May 14, 1998, Subject: The Train and Equip Effort in Bosnia—

Status and Future, in the author’s possession.

676 Bosnian Ambassador to the United Nations Mohammed Sacirby commented that there 

likely would have been no cooperation or reconciliation between the Croats and Bosniaks. F. Cardzic, 

interview with Muhamed Sacirbegovic, counselor of the presidency, President of the Republic of 

Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Bosnian Ambassador to the United Nations, “The United States Thinks There 

Can Be No Peace Without the Federation,” from Dnevni Avaz in Serbo-Croatian, April 26, 1996. 

677 Pelko.

678 Zeko.

679 Lucic.

680 Foric.

681 Zeko.

682 Siljeg.

683 Ibid.

684 Karavelic.

685 Ibid.

686 Zeko.

687 Becirbasic.

688 The funds were substantial, by one account as much as $700 million in 1997, which dwarfed 

the entire Federation government budget of $450 Million. The money from Croatia did not stop flowing entirely until Croat Minister of Defense Susak left in 1999. When the funds stopped, it was a major 

incentive for Bosnian Croats to support integration. Jozinovic.

689 Former Bosniak Defense Minister Sakib Mahmuljin recalls how AMB Pardew told Croatia it 

would have to stop interfering with Bosnia in this regard. Mahmuljin, interview.

690 Nicholas Wood, “Bosnia Plans to Expel Arabs Who Fought in Its War,” The New York 

Times, August 2, 2007, available at <www.nytimes.com/2007/08/02/world/europe/02bosnia.html?_

r=1&pagewanted=all>.
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The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

691 Dick Clarke surveys extremist influence in Bosnia and concludes Bosnia was largely a failure 

for al Qaeda and a success for the United States. Richard A Clarke. Against All Enemies: Inside America’s 

War on Terror (New York: Free Press, 2004), 136–140. For another informed discussion that finds little 

evidence of any remaining threat of Muslim extremists in Bosnia, see “Bin Laden in the Balkans? The 

Bosnian Army and the Mujahedin,” an appendix in Hoare, 131ff.

692 Najetovic, interview.

693 International Crisis Group, “A Peace or just a Cease-Fire?” 

694 Cikotic; Pelko; Karavelic; Mahmuljin, interview; Lucic.

695 Budimir, interview, September 16, 2010. Budimir had one of the more negative assessments 

of the program’s military value but believed the progress toward reconciliation of the HVO and ARBiH 

was valuable. 

696 Cikotic.

697 Everyone interviewed thought the program was useful, but assessments varied. One observer thought “the equipment wasn’t that great and the training wasn’t that sophisticated” but the program 

still accomplished a lot by way of restoring a balance and encouraging reconciliation. Siljeg.

698 General Vahid Karavelic, for example, believed too much was spent on equipment. Karavelic.

699 Cikotic.

700 Karavelic.

701 Pelko.

702 Becirbasic.

703 Sajinovic.

704 Jozinovic.

705 Gregorian, interview.

706 Cikotic.

707 Mahmuljin, interview.

708 Klekas.

709 The commission was chaired by James R. Locher III, who also had advised Federation Ministry of Defense leaders in 1996 under the Train and Equip Program.

710 Holbrooke relates what a sensitive subject the removal of foreign forces was for Izetbegovic. 

He only agreed to their removal “if there is peace.” Holbrooke, 320.

711 MPRI had no illusions about the impediments to creating a world-class fighting force in 

Bosnia. Their leaders avoided any misleading hyperbole and just used the term “capable” to describe 

the forces they were training. MPRI was well aware of program limitations given the failure to secure 

follow-on funding from donors and Federation politics. Vuono; MPRI, “History of MPRI in Bosnia 

1996–2003,” Draft Report, August 2009, 10–11.

712 On occasion senior leaders did not support the team. For example, they agreed to suspend 

training at one point over task force objections, and they did not approve funding a follow-on sustainment package for the program.

713 A conversation between Pardew and Lamb. Lamb, interview.

714 R.W. Komer, Bureaucracy Does Its Thing: Institutional Constraints on U.S. -GVN Performance 

in Vietnam (Santa Monica, CA: Rand, 1972).
154 

Strategic Perspectives, No. 15

715 Chollet attributes the breakthrough in peace negotiations to a combination of successful 

military operations and diplomatic breakthroughs, rendered in part by Holbrooke’s “talented shuttle 

team,” which was an interagency construct. The point here is that the same combination ensured that 

the peace held. Chollet, 186. For a description of the interagency negotiating team, see 75–76.

716 In response to National Security Council staff desires for an early exit from Bosnia in 1997, 

Pardew commented that “They want a simple solution. There isn’t one.” He was right; there was no 

simple solution for such a complex problem. 

717 For a recent example of the large literature on this topic, see Molly Dunigan, Victory for Hire: 

Private Security Companies’ Impact on Military Effectiveness (Stanford, CA: Stanford Security Studies, 

2011), 91–100. Dunigan dwells on the small MPRI presence and brief experience in Croatia leading up 

to “Operation Storm” and pays scant attention to MPRI’s much larger, longer, and more prominent role 

in Bosnia.

718 However, Mike McNamara of ASI did a two-page paper for policy officials in the Department of Defense outlining the Train and Equip effort and its possible relevance for U.S. operations in 

Afghanistan and Iraq. Provided to author, courtesy of Mike McNamara.

719 Jim Garamone, “Flournoy Calls for Better Interagency Cooperation,” American Forces Press 

Service, June 11, 2010, available at <www.defense.gov/news/newsarticle.aspx?id=59601>.

720 Komer.

721 See Project on National Security Reform, Forging a New Shield (Washington, DC: Project on 

National Security Reform, November 2008).
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The Bosnian Train and Equip Program

About the Authors

Dr. Christopher J. Lamb is a Distinguished Research Fellow in the Center for Strategic Research, Institute for National Strategic Studies, at the National Defense University. He 

conducts research on national security strategy, policy, and organizational reform, and on 

defense strategy, requirements, plans, and programs. In 2008, Dr. Lamb was assigned to lead 

the Project for National Security Reform study of the national security system, which led to 

the 2008 report, Forging a New Shield. Prior to joining INSS in 2004, Dr. Lamb served as the 

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Resources and Plans where he had oversight of war 

plans, requirements, acquisition, and resource allocation matters for the Under Secretary of 

Defense (Policy). Previously, he served as Deputy Director for Military Development on the 

State Department’s Interagency Task Force for Military Stabilization in the Balkans; Director 

of Policy Planning in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Special Operations 

and Low-Intensity Conflict; and from 1985 to 1992 a Foreign Service Officer in Haiti and Ivory Coast. He received his doctorate in International Relations from Georgetown University in 

1986. Dr. Lamb has received the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joint Distinguished Civilian Service Award, the Presidential Rank Award for Meritorious Senior Executive Service, 

the Superior Honor award from the Department of State, and Meritorious Civilian Service 

awards from the Department of Defense.

Ms. Sarah Arkin worked with Dr. Lamb from January to August 2010. She is now working as a Senior Legislative Assistant on Capitol Hill. She has a Master’s degree in Conflict 

Resolution from Georgetown University.

Ms. Sally Scudder worked at the Institute for National Strategic Studies from July of 2011 

to December of 2012 and is currently working for the U.S. Marine Corps. She earned a Bachelor of Arts from Wellesley College in 2011.

Center for Strategic Research Senior Fellows

Col kris bauman, USAF

Senior Military Fellow

Mr. John A. Cope

Senior Research Fellow

Dr. T.X. Hammes

Distinguished Research Fellow

Mr. Frank G. Hoffman

Senior Research Fellow

Dr. Christopher J. Lamb

Distinguished Research Fellow

Dr. Andre Le Sage

Senior Research Fellow

Dr. Thomas F. Lynch III

Distinguished Research Fellow

Mr. Leo G. Michel

Distinguished Research Fellow

Dr. denise natali

Senior Research Fellow

COL richard outzen, usa

Senior Military Fellow

Dr. James J. Przystup

Senior Research Fellow

Dr. Nicholas Rostow

Senior Director

Dr. Phillip C. Saunders

Distinguished Research Fellow

Dr. Christopher Yung

Senior Research Fellow

For a complete list of INSS researchers and staff, please visit http://inss.dodlive.mil.