File: 9506-4

BOSNIA: DOES PEACE SUPPORT MAKE ANY SENSE?

Lawrence Freedman, Professor of War studies, King's College, London

In Bosnia, UNPROFOR's objectives were described in the traditional language of UN peacekeeping which is dependent on the consent of the local parties, obtained by remaining strictly impartial, but the UN could no longer rely on consent and impartiality once it was seen as a party to the conflict. Thus, a new, more limited, concept of operations is required which could be described as 'stability support'. Even this type of operation, however, requires local superiority. The paradoxical lesson of recent conflicts is that the costs over the long-term can be minimized the more that they are accepted in the short term.

The many unique features of the Bosnian imbroglio should warn against drawing too many lessons from this experience. Nonetheless, the direct roles played by NATO countries in trying to influence the course of the war as well as alleviate its most shocking effects suggest that we need to start thinking differently about the purposes and methods of this sort of military intervention.

The mission of the UN Protection Force (UNPROFOR), and the associated attempts to enforce the embargo through sea power and the safe areas by air power, did not, at least until recently, seem sufficient to get a grip on the conflict. Politicians have always balked at the sort of force levels military commanders say they need for an imposed solution by the international community. Thus, the outside forces have become another party to the conflict, responding to the battlefield decisions of others rather than taking the initiative, and this has rendered the experience even more frustrating. With the ebb and flow of the conflict beyond their control, politicians can neither offer military commanders the sort of precise objectives they favour, nor can the commanders guarantee to the politicians that their liabilities will be limited in time and space.

The thinking about such wars must be different from the type which concerned NATO up to 1990 - a war of survival governed by overriding strategic imperatives, against a known enemy that was susceptible to deterrence. If the conflict in the former Yugoslavia represents the future, then NATO countries will face choices about getting involved in wars where there may be no direct threat to primary interests, and for which appropriate military provision could not have been identified and set aside in advance. These developing crises are harder to deflect by threat-based diplomacy, in part because external involvement is a matter of choice: until the decisions are taken, nobody can be sure, including potential adversaries, whether any action is going to be taken.

While wars of survival are likely to be prompted by the rise of strong states with the capacity to challenge the status quo, wars of choice tend to reflect the problems of weak states, with fragile political institutions, fragmented social structures and feeble economies. The problems faced as a consequence of such cumulative weakness can take the form of communal violence, civil war, gangsterism and drug trafficking, plus temptations to local bullies and predators.

Stung by negative experiences in the former Yugoslavia and Somalia, Western governments have become increasingly wary about choosing to get involved in other peoples' quarrels or to bring order to what appear to be chronically disorderly parts of the world. They fear the economic and military burdens of a series of commitments and operations undertaken for short-term expedience, perhaps reflecting media pressure, turning into long-term obligations. The viciousness of such conflicts often seems to be matched only by their inherent intractability.

Any government or faction which needs to call on outside assistance may never be able to survive independently. It is far easier to send troops in than to extricate them at a later date when the hopelessness of their task has become painfully apparent. By then, the credibility of the intervener and probably the sponsoring institution - the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), European Union, United Nations or NATO - will have been invoked. Reputation, or saving face, becomes an extra interest. As we have seen in Bosnia, the agonizing over a decision to admit failure and withdraw can be extremely intense.

Casualties caused by a war of survival, a war to protect core values, to spare one's homeland devastation or occupation by an alien power, might be an unavoidable necessity and even a source of pride. Casualties for obscure political purposes, especially if these purposes appear impossible to achieve, appear as criminal.

Stimulus to involvement

It may be that weighed against interests such as these, the dangers connected with military intervention will always argue against choosing to get involved. Nonetheless, experience suggests that these interests, especially in combination, will continue to be difficult for political leaders to ignore - even if, and, most dangerous of all, they choose to make only a half-hearted response or to define their role in an unrealistic way.

In Bosnia this was done through the attempt to describe UNPROFOR's objectives in the traditional language of UN peacekeeping operations, dependent upon consent from the local parties gained through a commitment to strict impartiality, and thus not requiring the most advanced units. This has been contrasted with enforcement operations which tend to be against an identified transgressor, with a victim unable to survive without external support. However, in the former Yugoslavia this distinction has broken down.

Safe areas

However, the real problem did not lie in the mixture of roles. The humanitarian operation was compromised from the start by the fact that it was being undertaken in the middle of an ongoing war. The original assertions by UN commanders that they could exercise the right to self-defence on behalf of their own troops sat uneasily with an unwillingness to exercise this right on behalf of the war's victims.

There was nothing intrinsically preposterous about adding on safe areas to UNPROFOR's task if only extra forces had been provided at the time. What was preposterous was trying to handle a demanding new role without extra forces. Srebrenica was the first town to be adopted as a safe area in April 1993. The next June this formula was applied to another five areas. After this, the UN Secretary-General asked for - but failed to receive - 7,500 new troops.

General Michael Rose was, nonetheless, able to give the concept some meaning when, in February 1994, by exploiting the threat of NATO air strikes, he was able to gain some control over the artillery pieces which had been bombarding Sarajevo. But he, too, wanted extra troops to reinforce this success and failed to get them.

Then, in Gorazde in April 1994, the Serbs demonstrated that without proper defences none of the safe areas was really safe. The UN was left floundering. NATO offered air strikes but not in a form which could actually protect the town, while punitive strikes risked retaliation against the vulnerable UN troops elsewhere as they went about their humanitarian mission. Later, the UN was left looking equally pathetic as the Serbs turned round a Muslim offensive which had been launched from Bihac and set upon this particular safe area.

Thus, even before the fall of Srebrenica and Zepa in July 1995, the fragility of the concept had been exposed. However, by that time, in response to the previous month's hostage crisis, the UN had already taken steps to reduce the vulnerability of its units, and to pack a more powerful punch with the introduction of the rapid reaction force. When combined with Croatia's recapture of Krajina, which eased the pressure on the Bosnian enclave at Bihac, the UN was able to take a tougher stand and call in NATO in response to the second 'market place' bomb in Sarajevo in late August.

The UN now understood the limits to consent and impartiality. In effect, since the adoption of the safe areas concept in 1993, it had become a party to the conflict with its own distinctive interests and agenda, and was as dependent as the other parties on its presence on the ground to influence the course of events. The recent NATO attacks against Serb positions around Sarajevo reflected the freedom gained by reducing vulnerabilities on the ground, but also the need to separate a campaign designed to enforce a UN mandate from the ebb and flow of a civil war.

New concept of operations

A promise to support peace or even 'restore hope', even 'comfort', may make for good public relations, but a better category might be 'stability support'. Such a non-inspirational term has the advantage of avoiding exaggerated promises, as well as directing attention to the sources of instability, and thus the political context, rather than a hoped for outcome.

When the International Monetary Fund (IMF) acts to help countries in desperate economic straits, it normally claims to be stabilizing a situation to enable a government to introduce long-term structural measures which make possible sustainable development. It does not herald its operations as 'restore growth' or 'employment support' and must recognize that in the short-term it will be associated with unpopular policies, at least amongst some sections of the population (and by no means always the least deserving). It also understands that unless it makes a serious commitment, it is unlikely to get the necessary response from the local players. This may be a useful way to respond to violent conflicts as well, providing an opportunity for action to resolve disputes and build robust political institutions, to ease suffering and prevent further deterioration.

Though military officers will naturally yearn for a precise definition of the aim against which they can plan and judge success, and that will tell them when they are allowed to go home, these are unlikely to be conflicts with clear-cut, let alone happy, endings. Most can be understood as power struggles, with one group seeking to improve its position vis-a-vis one or more other groups, and with external forces having to be seen as representing external interests. Whether these push in the direction of containing the conflict, setting rules for its conduct, easing suffering or brokering a settlement, there will be a dynamic interaction with the interests of the local parties.

Thus, intervention has to be recognized not as being directed at a specific end but as being part of a process, though undoubtedly a process with defined stages. Military action can never be sufficient: at best, it can create conditions for a more favourable political outcome. This is the essence of the stabilizing mission.

The intervening power unavoidably becomes part of the political process, and only by making durable changes to this process can a successful withdrawal be organized. That can mean addressing the fragility of local institutions, infrastructure and economic activity. By definition, a country which can only be stabilized by outside intervention is no longer fully self-governing. The very fact that military means have had to be employed will imply that some parties whose consent may be essential to the viability of a political solution will feel bitter and cheated. By the time military action has become necessary, it must be assumed that satisfactory solutions based on harmony, justice and consensus are no longer possible. The options will all involve a degree of coercion.

Such operations cannot be undertaken without adequate strength on the ground. If, as has been the case in Bosnia until the recent introduction of the rapid reaction force, the units available have been deployed in a non-provocative, lightly-defended, thinly-spread, manner in conditions where they are likely to encounter well-armed and determined opponents in struggles over territory and local influence, then their vulnerability to harassment, hostage-taking and direct action will impose a constant constraint and inhibit all freedom of manoeuvre elsewhere.

Limits to air power

The temptation in contemporary conditions is for crises which are not seen to be critical enough to Western interests to warrant the introduction of ground troops - which governments rightly take to be a dramatic step - to prefer the use of air power. But the basic lesson of the Gulf War still applies - the most effective indirect strategies, which limit casualties while achieving basic objectives, require local superiority. You do not limit risk by inserting only limited forces. Nor can you stabilize the local situation. It may be that this conclusion will inhibit future interventions. This may be for the best. It is dangerous to dabble in local conflicts by means of half-measures. Bosnia is more than an eloquent demonstration of the dangers of such a course. Because the conflict is about territory, the ability to shape its course has long depended on presence on the ground.

Though they have endorsed the broad political objective of denying Serb aggression its rewards, Western countries were always reluctant to commit ground troops to combat roles. The UN never had enough troops available to sustain any consistent policy other than to supply food and medicine to the civilian population with the consent of the warring parties. When Serb consent was withdrawn because of anger at support for the Bosnian government, the UN troops became hostages. This fundamental constraint on policy inhibited all initiatives, including air strikes on the one hand and a full-scale evacuation of the UN forces on the other, until it was eased by the rapid reaction force.

The risks of stabilizing missions are increased, the more half-hearted the response. It is as difficult to have a marginal intervention as it is to have a marginal pregnancy. Just putting in a few troops as a token force leaves them vulnerable and at best will provide local relief while diverting the fighting elsewhere. These are normally matters for divisions and not platoons (and so probably requiring a substantial multinational force). The paradoxical lesson of recent conflicts is that the costs over the long-term can be minimized the more that they are accepted in the short-term. If the objectives are worthwhile and human life is precious, then resources will have to be found. Those who expect to fight wars on the cheap - even wars of choice - must be prepared to squander human life, or else not achieve their objectives.