Can Outsiders Help? Lessons for Third-Party Intervention in Bosnia
| Author | Walter C. Clemens |
| Published date | 01 December 1993 |
| Date | 01 December 1993 |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070209304800405 |
| Subject Matter | Article |
WALTER
C.
CLEMENS
JR
Can
outsiders
help?
Lessons
for
third-party
intervention
in
Bosnia
How
did
tiny
Serbia
and
Croatia,
and their
even
smaller
irre-
denta
in
Bosnia-Hercegovina,
successfully
defy
the
European
Community
and
the
United
Nations
and
almost
obliterate
a
United
Nations
member-state
-
Bosnia-Hercegovina?
How
could
the
Serb
and
Croat
leaders,
none of
them
experienced
in
inter-
national
forums,
talk
rings
around
the
experienced
mediators
from the
Community,
Lords
Carrington and
Owen,
and
the
United
Nations
envoys,
Cyrus
Vance
and
Thorvald
Stoltenberg?
Each
of
the
peoples
living
in
or
near
the
former
Yugoslavia
had
a
deep
interest
in how
the
Balkans
was
divided.
Not
so
the
would-be
interveners
-
the
European
Community,
the United
Nations,
and
some
United
Nations
members
with
special
con-
cerns:
the
United
States,
a
few
Muslim
states,
and
a
few
states
in
close
proximity
to
the
South
Slavs.
The
interveners
did
share
an
interest
in
curbing
the
law
of
the
jungle
and
upholding
some
vestige
of
a
new
world
order.
But
this
was
a
'public'
or
'common'
good
for
which
no
outside
party
was
willing
to
sacrifice
its
blood,
its
treasure,
or
even
its
limited
attention
span.
Third-party
intervention
in
the
Balkans
differed
from
the
mediatory
role
played
by
Norway
in
facilitating
contacts
and
Professor
of
Political
Science,
Boston
University,
and
Adjunct
Research
Fel-
low,
Harvard
Center
for
Science
and
International
Affairs;
author
of
Can
Russia
Change?
(199o),
Baltic
Independence
and
Russian
Empire
(1991),
and
Dynamics
of
International
Relations
(forthcoming).
The
author
wishes
to
thank
Ambassadors
Hermann
F.
Eilts
and Stephen
R.
Lyne
and
Professors
Eduard
Bustin,
David
Mayers,
and Deborah J. Gerner
for
comments on the
paper,
originally
presented
at
the
annual
meeting
of
the
International
Studies
Association
in
1993.
International
Journal
XLVIII
AUTUMN
1993
688
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
dialogue
between
Israel
and
the
Palestine
Liberation
Organi-
zation
in
1993.
United
Nations
and
Community
mediators
endeavoured
not
only to
bring
the
parties
together
but
to
pres-
sure
them
into
reaching
an
agreement and
living
by
it.
They
proposed
terms
and
possible
solutions;
they
hinted
at
rewards
and
punishments
for good
and
bad
behaviour.
But
what
good
did
it
do
for
a
mediator
to
'represent'
the
European
Community
or
the
United
Nations
if he
was
naked
and
his
closet
empty?
When
President
Jimmy
Carter
and
his
secretary
of
state,
Cyrus
Vance,
met
with
President
Anwar
Sadat
of
Egypt
and
Prime
Minister
Menachem
Begin
of
Israel in
1978,
the
United
States
was
well
supplied
with
both
sticks
and
carrots;
the
British were
equally
well
equipped
in
1979
when
Lord
Car-
rington
chivvied
the
Rhodesians
into
becoming
a
unified
Zimbabwe.
But
Carrington,
Vance,
Owen,
and
Stoltenberg
had
little
save
their
wit
and
words
when
they
sought
to
cajole
the
South
Slavs
in
1991-3.
It
is
a
paradox
that
defeats
any
materialistic
concept
of
power:
the
determined
few
can
repulse
the
lackadaisical
many.
The
explanation
resembles
the
tacit
principle
of
communism:
'What
no
one
owns,
no one
sustains.'
The
international
com-
munity
has
talked
big
but
done
little.
The
whole has
been
far
less
than
the
sum
of
its
parts. Instead
of
acting
as
a
unity,
that
community
has
acted
as
bits
and
pieces,
guided
by
the
parasitic
logic
of
collective
action.'
This
logic
seeks
to pass
the
buck.
It
says:
'Let
someone
else
do
it.'
As
a
result, no one did
the
nec-
essary
work.
Half-hearted
intervention
in
the
Balkans
has
been
worse
than
none
at
all.
And this
failure
threatens
to subvert
future
efforts
to
contain
violence
around
the
globe.
And
yet
third-party
intervention
did
help
bring
relative
peace
to
Egypt
and
Israel
in
1978
and
to
Zimbabwe
in
1979.
Why
did
these
interventions
achieve
more
positive
results
than
those
that
fol-
i
Mancur Olson,
The
Logic
of
Collective
Action
(Cambridge
MA:
Harvard
Univer-
sity
Press 1965)
and
The
Rise
and
Decline
of
Nations
(New
Haven
CT:
Yale
Uni-
versity
Press
1982).
CAN
OUTSIDERS
HELP?
689
lowed
-
especially since
some
of
the
same
individuals
were
involved
as
mediators?
Vance,
along
with
other
top
White
House
advisers,
had
helped
Carter
broker
the
1978
Camp
David
peace
accords
between
Egypt
and
Israel.
Vance
had
also
worked
with
the
Brit-
ish
foreign
secretary,
David
Owen,
in seeking to
negotiate
peace
in
Rhodesia
before
Owen's
Labour
party
was
turned
out
in
June
1979.
It
was
Owen's
successor,
Lord Carrington,
foreign
secre-
tary
in
the
newly
elected
government
of
Margaret
Thatcher,
who
eventually
negotiated
a
peace
accord
among
Zimbabwe's
factions at
Lancaster
House
late
in
1979.
Vance
did
not
attend
these
meetings
but
did
consult
with
Carrington
and
assure
him
of
strong United
States
support.
It
was
these
same
three
individuals
who
sought
to
mediate
the
Balkan conflicts
of
the
early
199os.
Carrington,
followed
by
Owen,
represented
the
European
Community;
Vance
repre-
sented
the
United
Nations secretary-general.
After
intense
nego-
tiations
with
most
of
the
warring
factions, Owen
and
Vance
presented
a
peace
plan
in
January
1993
that
would
have
divided
Bosnia-Hercegovina
into ten
districts,
nine
of
them
to
be
dom-
inated
by
either
Serbs,
Croats,
or
Muslims
and
the
tenth
a
multi-
ethnic
capital
-
Sarajevo.
Owen
and
Vance
defended
this
plan
as
the
best
available
alternative
to
continued
fighting.2
But
many
observers
saw
the
mediation
as
a
failure because
it
did
too
little,
too
late,
to
curb
the
fighting
and
genocidal
behaviour.
The
plan
was
also
faulted
because
its
cantonization
arrangements
re-
warded
the
Serbs
for
their
conquests.
3
2
'The
future
of
the
Balkans:
an
interview
with
David
Owen,'
Foreign
Affairs
72(spring
1993),
1-9.
3
See
criticisms
offered
by
Venezuela's
permanent
representative
to
the United
Nations,
Diego
Arria,
at
the
Security
Council
on
4
and
29
June
1993.
Vene-
zuela
worked
with
the
so-called
non-aligned
group
within
the
Security
Coun-
cil
-
Cape
Verde,
Djibouti,
Morocco,
and
Pakistan
-
to
win
adoption
of
resolutions
819
(1993)
and
824
(1993)
establishing
'safe
areas'
in
Srebren-
ica,
Sarajevo,
Gorazde, Zepa,
Tuzla,
and
Bihac.
Venezuela
campaigned,
in
vain,
for lifting
the
arms
embargo
against
Bosnia-Hercegovina.
Venezuela
opposed
using
the
existence
of
safe
areas
as
an
excuse
for
doing
nothing
more.
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