The United States' involvement in the Bosnian war

Table of contents

1. Introduction

2. From Tito to Milosevic

3. The tries to stop the war

4. The Dayton Negotiations

5. Conclusion

6. Bibliography

1. Introduction

Since the end of the Cold War, new sources and types of conflict have emerged that challenge the common definition of mediation as a process in which „a third party helps the parties [to a conflict] find a solution which they cannot find by themselves”.^[1]

Within intra-state conflicts that involve a number of military and paramilitary groups, even identifying the authorities that direct the warring factions can pose a problem. A mediating approach that focuses on bringing rational actors to the negotiating table is likely to fail in such a situation. Furthermore, the last decade has seen various conflicts where the parties may indeed have found a solution by themselves, but where the solution was unacceptable to the international community.

In the case of the Bosnian war, which will be analyzed later in this essay in greater detail, it cannot be said that the Serb President Slobodan Milosevic and the Croat President Franjo Tudjman could not find a solution to the conflict by themselves, and therefore needed the United States’ mediating assistance. Rather, their “solution”, namely the partition of Bosnia and the creation of a Greater Croatia and a Greater Serbia, was seen as unacceptable by the United States, since it entailed a violation of the rights of the third party, the Bosnian Muslims. Of course, one can argue that the Serbs’ and Croats’ proposal would have settled the conflict, not solved it –but the same can be said for the peace settlement that was eventually negotiated after the US had acted as a “mediator with muscle”^[2].

The case studied in this essay exposes two important controversies within the mediator’s role in conflict resolution.

Firstly, in order to be successful, mediation is usually expected to engage the parties in constructive dialogue, to facilitate an exchange that incorporates the different interests and to work towards an outcome acceptable to all sides^[3]. The US employed military force to bring the warring parties to the negotiating table, thereby contradicting these notions. The controversial issue here is whether it is legitimate for a third party to coerce parties into peace negotiations, and whether such an action can be called successful mediation.

Secondly, recent evidence shows that the United States broke the arms embargo imposed on former Yugoslavia by the UN by supplying weapons to the Bosnian Muslims. This policy, in combination with NATO air strikes, aimed at raising the costs of conflict for the Serbs and thus reaching a hurting stalemate that would facilitate mediation. It is questionable whether such involvement is still within the boundaries of mediation, or whether the US left these boundaries by becoming a fourth party to the conflict.

In the following, the background to the United States’ involvement in the Bosnian war, their motive and mode of mediation, and the legitimacy of their interventions as mediators shall be analyzed with special focus on the controversial issues identified above. From these case-specific findings, some general conclusions shall be drawn with regard to the role of mediation in conflict resolution.

2. From Tito to Milosevic

After the death of the communist dictator Josip Broz Tito in 1980, Yugoslavia plunged into an economic and political crisis. While economic conditions worsened, the weak central state was unable to undertake the necessary reforms and respond to demands for greater regional autonomy^[4]. As a result, secessionist movements got out of control and from 1990 onwards, Yugoslavia began to break apart, with Croatia and Slovenia being the first republics to declare independence. Bosnia-Herzegovina, a multiethnic republic with a population made up of Bosnian Muslims (44%), Serbs (31%), and Croats (17%)^[5], left the federation in 1992, following a referendum in favor of independence that was boycotted by the Bosnian Serbs.

The subsequent violent conflict that broke out as Bosnian Serbs and Croats fought over the control of Bosnian territories where their ethnic groups formed a majority, or where there was no clear dominance of one group, can be analyzed on several levels. At the personal level, it was not inherent ethnic hatred or religious tensions that led to the bloodshed, but rather the manipulation and encouragement of nationalism by elites who sought to exploit the economic and political disorder in order to gain and extend power and influence^[6].

For instance, the Serb president Slobodan Milosevic, often pictured as a fanatic nationalist, probably held no personal belief in nationalist ideology, but rather instrumentalised it and stirred up Serb fanaticism to consolidate his power base^[7].

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^[1] Zartmann (1996): S. 446.

^[2] Crocker (1999): S. 29.

^[3] Bartole (1999): S. 248.

^[4] Stedman (1998): S. 179.

^[5] CIA fact book.

^[6] Brown/Rosecrance (1999): S. 26.

^[7] Holbrooke (1999): S. 330.