U.S. INVOLVEMENT IN BOSNIA DURING THE 1990S
This research paper traces the evolution of American involvement in and international strategy toward Bosnia during the period beginning with the outbreak of war among indigenous forces there in early 1992 and continuing to the present time.
1. 1991-1992. The United States failed to develop an effective international strategy for coping with the disintegration of Yugoslavia and the war in Bosnia in large part because after the Cold War, its senior policy makers during the Bush administration did not view the United States as having any vital national interests involved in that conflict and, was therefore, determined to leave the diplomatic initiative for its resolution to the Europeans and to avoid at all costs any use of American military force;
2. 1993-mid-1994. During the first year and a half of the Clinton administration, policy confusion characterized American strategy toward the war in Bosnia; however, the United States became increasingly more deeply involved in an attempt to achieve a diplomatic solution and was impelled to consider more forceful measures to end the fighting and associated humanitarian disasters. It failed, however, to match its more interventionist rhetoric with appropriate actions.
3. Mid-1994-1995. The United States eventually asserted foreign policy leadership in seeking a negotiated end to the war which involved the use of coercive diplomacy and NATO airpower against the Bosnian Serbs and their allies in Belgrade, which culminated in the Dayton Accords of late November 1995;
4. 1996-1997. The United States provided leadership of, and participated in, the NATO IFOR ground force which implemented successfully the military provisions of the Dayton Accords. Little progress, however, was then made in reshaping Bosnian civil society into a viable multi-ethnic state;
5. 1998-1999. The American military commitment in Bosnia (PFOR) was extende...