‘Preponderant Power’
| Published date | 01 March 2000 |
| Author | Tobias K. Vogel |
| DOI | 10.1177/002070200005500102 |
| Date | 01 March 2000 |
| Subject Matter | Comment & Opinion |
TOBIAS
K.
VOGEL
'Preponderant
power'
NATO
and
the
new
Balkans
THE
COLLAPSE
OF
SOVIET
POWER
in
the
late
1980s
resulted
in
strategic
realignments
on
a
grand
scale.
The
reorientation
of
the
transatlantic
alliance
and
the
emergence
of
ethnonationalist
conflicts
in
Europe
were
two
key
developments
prompted
by
the
demise
of
the
cold war.
They
most
prominently
intersected
in
the
wars
that
raged
in
the
Balkans
for
five
of
the
eight
years
between
1991
and
1999.
The
air
campaign
of
the
North
Atlantic
Treaty
Organization
(NATO)
against
the
Federal
Republic
of
Yugoslavia
(FRY)
and
the
subsequent
deployment
of
peacekeepers
in
Kosovo
made
1999
in
many
respects
the
most
dramatic
year
of
the decade.
In
Bosnia
the
failure
of
tradi-
tional
peacekeeping
in
a
non-traditional
setting
exposed
European
inability
to
deal
with
a
crisis
on
its
doorsteps.
That
failure
subsequent-
ly
made
the
outlines
of
a
new
transatlantic
alliance
gradually
more
vis-
ible.
In Kosovo
the new
doctrine,
as
yet
unarticulated,
was
put into
action
with
some
success.
What
do developments
in
the
Balkans
reveal
about
the
contours
of
NATO's
reorientation?'
And
what
are
the
consequences
for
the
future
of
regional
stability
in
southeast
Europe?
To
answer
these
questions,
it
is
necessary
to take
a
closer
look
at
the
nature
of
Western
failure
in
Bosnia, for
Bosnia
foreshadowed
Kosovo.
But
it
is
the
difference
between
the
two
wars
that
is
ultimately
more instructive.
Research
associate,
International
Center
for
Migration,
Ethnicity
and
Citizenship,
New
School
for
Social
Research,
New
York;
currently
with
the
International
Rescue
Committee,
Sarajevo.
The
author
would
like
to
thank
Phil
Triadafilopoulos
and
Ted
Perlmutter.
The
opinions
expressed
are
the author's alone.
1
Much
the
same
question
was
asked
with
less
restraint
by
John
F.
Harris: 'Is
the
use
of
American
military
power abroad
guided
by
a
larger strategy,
or
simply
by
a
grab
bag
of
good
intentions,
haphazardly
pursued?'
See
'Despite
"lessons,"
Clinton
still
seen
lacking
strategy,'
Washington
Post,
27
March
1999.
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Winter
1999-2000
Tobias
K.
Vogel
BOSNIA
AND
HERZEGOVINA,
1992-1995
Western
failure
in the
Bosnian
war
was
systematic
and consistent
rather
than
accidental
and
haphazard. Both Europeans
and Americans
shared
the
position
that
forceful
intervention
in
the
Balkans
-
either
to
support
humanitarian
operations
or
to
end
the
bloodshed
-
was
too
costly.
If
senior
administration
officials
let
it
be
known
on
background
that
'one
of
the
lessons
of
Bosnia
is
not
to
let
the
Europeans
struggle
alone
without
[United
States]
direction,'2
it
should
also
be
noted that
the
Americans
found
it
rather convenient
for
the
Europeans
to
strug-
gle
alone.
When
the United
States
finally
did
get
involved
in
early
1993,
it was
to
kill
off
a
peace
plan
that
might
have
stopped
the
slaugh-
ter
on
terms
similar
to,
perhaps
even
better
than,
those
of
the Dayton
accords
of
November
1995.
Only
dramatic
strategic
reversals
in
the
summer
of
1995
and
domes-
tic
pressures
from the
approaching presidential
campaign
in
the
United
States
altered
the
equation;
the
humanitarian
variable
had
remained
fairly
constant
through
42
months of
savage
warfare.
Western
obfuscation
over
Bosnia
was
a
policy
choice
rather than
a
diplomatic,
military,
or intelligence
breakdown, unaltered
by
any
humanitarian
concern
(such
as
might
have
been
propelled
by
the
slaughter
at Srebrenica
or
the
marketplace
massacre
at
Sarajevo
or
the
death
of
79
teenagers
in
Tuzla,
all
of
which
occurred
within
a
few
months
in
1995).
Rather,
the
scale
tipped
when the Croats, strength-
ened
by
United
States
support
and,
since
1994, formally allied
with
the
Bosnian
government,
grew
restless
and decided
to
retake
territories
held
by
the
Serbs
in
Krajina
and
western Bosnia.
Croatian
and
Bosnian
government
forces
started
a
sweeping
offensive,
eventually
assisted
by
NATO
airstrikes, while the
Bosnian
Serbs
overran
two
government-held
enclaves
in
the
east,
which
in
turn
made
United
Nations
peacekeepers
less
vulnerable
to
Serb
retaliation.
This
lowered
the
cost
of
intervention
dramatically.
What
from
the
perspective
of
Paris,
London,
and
Washington
might
have
been desirable
but
too
costly
had
suddenly
become
desirable
and
feasible,
particularly
as
the
tipping
of
the
balance
could
be
assisted
by
airpower alone
without
involving any
NATO
ground
troops.
It
became
obvious
that
balancing
the
warring
factions
was
indeed
the
game
the
West played
when the United
States
ambas-
sador
to
Croatia
and the United
States
special envoy
to
the
region
encouraged
the
Bosnian
government
and
its
Croat
allies
to
halt
their
2
Quoted
in
ibid.
16
INTERNATIONAL
JOURNAL
Winter
1999-2000
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