Making Bosnia Work: A Report From the Field

Charles G. Boyd

From Foreign Affairs, January/February 1998

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Summary:  The Dayton Accord is a bold attempt to create a nation in the face of ethnic hatred and fear, and it just may succeed-but only if U.S. troops stay and the coalition overseeing the peace puts the security of Muslims, Serbs, and Croats before their integration. For now, each group feels safe only with their own kind, and their self-created partition should be allowed to stand while the trauma of war fades. Material need and the desire for profit may bring the three peoples together in time. Meanwhile, the international community must rectify the gross disparity between the reconstruction aid and military supplies flowing to the Muslims and the crumbs and punitive attitude that are the Serbs' lot.

Charles G. Boyd, General, USAF (Ret.), was Deputy Commander in Chief, U.S. European Command, from November 1992 to July 1995.

Last summer, during the early stages of the debate on troop withdrawal, I returned to Bosnia for the first time in more than two years. Clinton administration officials were crafting talking papers describing the many achievements under the November 1995 Dayton Accord, while critics were busy marshaling evidence that an integrated, multiethnic Bosnian state was as far away as ever. Supporters of the administration's policy, with an eye on the congressionally imposed June 1998 cutoff date for funding of U.S. troops, were claiming that progress, though substantial, was still fragile and could be maintained only with the continued presence of U.S. forces. Some skeptics with a deep understanding of historical ethnic animosities in the Balkans were sharpening the case for partition. The problem, centuries in the making, was not about to be fixed in a length of time Americans would be willing to stay. For them, the smell of quagmire was in the air.

During late August and September, I reimmersed myself in the Bosnia affair. Inside the new Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina-whose constituent parts are the Federation, a Muslim-Croat entity that is really two entities, and the Republika Srpska, or Serb Republic-I interviewed a large number of Muslims, Croats, and Serbs, from presidents to taxi drivers and many in between. I met with senior military and diplomatic officials from the major countries of the coalition responsible for the implementation of Dayton and a wide range of key players from the international community engaged in various aspects of the implementation process. My goal was to take a fresh look at a landscape so polarized and fractured by internal hatreds and external manipulation as to be a virtual kaleidoscope of contradictory representations. Everyone has an agenda, and navigating through them all in an effort to make some sense of the whole was a formidable challenge.

WHAT DAYTON WROUGHT

It is often stated, incorrectly, that the Dayton Accord stopped the fighting in Bosnia. What it did, with the aid of 60,000 U.S. and coalition troops, was freeze in place an uneasy cease-fire and prevent a resumption of hostilities. With 34,000 troops on the ground, still well armed and possessed of robust rules of engagement, the peace is holding. Yet virtually no one familiar with Bosnia believes that peace will endure after June if the coalition force is withdrawn. People who participated in crafting the accord, as well as many who almost certainly have not read the document, assert with equal conviction that failure to implement it will surely result in a resumption of war. That assertion has a ring of truth, since not only is Dayton the centerpiece of U.S. policy but no alternatives seem to be under consideration. Yet during my recent Bosnia visit it became clear to me that continuing to implement the agreement in the current manner also may lead to a resumption of war or, at the very least, a protracted mission for the coalition troops who will have to hold this unhappy land ...

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