We must remain engaged, and focused on our long-term goals of building lasting peace in a region that has suffered too much from its absence. NATO's engagement in Bosnia was the first clear manifestation of that change of thinking. NATO's air strikes helped end the war itself, by backing diplomacy with measured military pressure. In rallying all major powers, including Russia, behind a common political strategy and even into a common military operation, NATO also broke the fateful cycle of great powers siding with their traditional client states in the Balkans. But NATO demonstrated that this notion was outdated.
Engagement can influence European security dynamics for the better.
This was not a campaign fought for NATO's own sake, as some revisionists now claim. There was much more at stake than NATO's credibility. The security of the region was at stake. Indeed, it is worth taking a moment to contemplate the implications of not taking action against Milosevic and his thugs. We would have undermined security in South-East Europe for years, if not decades.