Exit SFOR: Peace in Bosnia Herzegovina? Sean M Maloney, PhD 
Optimism doesn’t sell. It is natural, easy, and even intellectually lazy to be pessimistic about the Balkans. After all, if you ask anyone in a local bar in North America, they will wonder why the West bothers with the former Yugoslavia since “they’ve been killing each other for thousands of years anyway.” Earlier in 2004, we saw Kosovo erupt into an orgy of ethnic violence in the volatile Mitrovica region, disturbances that have not been seen since 2000. Newspaper reports emerged in the summer that Bosnia was an Islamist terrorist base area prepared for an assault on Europe. “JFK”-like assassination plot stories have emerged in the organized crime shooting gallery called Belgrade, while Milosevic gloats in the dock at the Hague. Like those who told us last year that Afghanistan was becoming “Vietnam,” international commentators (and even elements in the local population) warn us that the Balkans will explode again, that the international community is wasting its time and so on. It is disheartening to see the wave or shall we say veritable flood of unqualified and unrestrained negativity and pessimism presented outside of the context of what is happening on the ground today and how that compares to where we were in, say, the dangerous years of 1991-1995. It is hard to believe, but in the summer of 2004, there is peace in Bosnia. I will reiterate this statement for the mildly shocked: In the summer of 2004 there is peace in Bosnia. And, even harder to believe, this peace is quite possibly a very real foundation for a lasting peace. One can quibble with this assessment: indeed, one can argue that, given the historically cyclic nature of the patterns of violence and the level of carnage in the region, such a statement is patently naive. For the time being, however, it is accurate. And it must be placed in context. How did we get there? What worked? And why is declaring peace in Bosnia so important? An even bigger flood of criticism is inundating the commentary community, particularly in the United States. American policy and its implementation in Iraq is an abject failure. The Iraq problem is not solvable. Ethnic violence cannot be suppressed, it can only be contained: Exactly the same things said in 1994-95 about the West’s attempts to deal with Bosnia. Clearly, Iraq is not Bosnia. It is a unique environment with unique external and internal dynamics. However, qualified success in Bosnia gives us the hope that we can succeed in Iraq and elsewhere. With Bosnia, we must accept success, despite what the critics assert, and learn what we did right as much as what we did wrong. Such analysis operates at a practical level as well as a psychological level: Bosnia was not the futile exercise that it was portrayed to be and we have succeeded there. Where We Were: 1994-95 It is by now almost a cliché: a failed United Nations, impotent Western military forces, ruined diplomatic careers, an international community in disarray, all bested by heavily-armed racist thugs occupying a mountainous and nearly inaccessible stronghold all up to their necks in the blood of massacred civilians. The incremental and slow means used by Western nations to avoid a massive troop commitment (ie: war) to stabilize the Balkans was shown to be folly. Pin-prick airstrikes, partially-mechanized UN troops with a confused mandate and no logistical means to carry out fighting for peace, coupled to a multitude of peace efforts which worked at cross purposes, were all manipulated by cagey adversaries who used every opportunity to achieve their personal, nationalistic, and even economic aims. UN personnel were held hostage, deep in Bosnia. Attempts to use diplomatic subtlety backfired badly, especially for the population of Srebrenica. There were no ‘good guys,’ it turned out, despite attempts by the Bosnian government to play the victim. All sides had concentration camps, all sides ethnically cleansed, all sides committed atrocities. Bosnia was a turgid mess as we watched it unfold on television. As the international community was drawn into the Balkans morass, other tragedies unfolded in Somalia (1993) and Rwanda (1994). The optimistic New World Order was ruined and Bosnia was the prime symbol of that failure. Croatia was split into two fronts: Croatia forces were opposite Krajinan Serb forces in the west, and Slavonian Serbs in the east. Both groups of Serbs were supported by Bosnian Serbs, various paramilitary groups and Yugoslav National Army forces provided by Belgrade. In Bosnia, there was a multidimensional war: The Bosnian government forces (which were predominantly Muslim, but which also had Serbian and Croatians fighting for it); the Bosnian Serbs who were supported but not controlled by Belgrade; and the Bosnian Croat forces which were supported but not controlled by Zagreb. In the anomaly called the Bihac Pocket, the forces of businessman Fikret Abdic created an autonomous zone and wheeled and dealed with all sides, even getting Bosnian Serbs to shell Krajinan Serbs, and flaunted Bosnian government control. Bosnian Croat pockets were besieged by Bosnian government forces, while at the same time, predominantly Muslim pockets were besieged by Bosnian Serb forces.[i] In an effort to avoid a substantial American military deployment, the Clinton administration initiated a covert support programme for the Bosnian government forces. At the same time, certain European allies and private military corporations were encouraged to provide support to Croatia. A crash programme implemented late in 1995 after the failures at Srebrenica and Gorazde, inserted more iron into the spine of the UN forces in Bosnia: this included the deployment of part of the NATO ACE Rapid Reaction Corps to Sarajevo, the deployment of NATO-member special operations forces, and the deployment of forward air controller teams throughout UN forces.[ii] The combination of these three factors tilted the balance of power against the disparate ethnically Serbian forces. Croatia’s Operations LIGHTENING, FLASH and then STORM was unleashed on the Krajinas and western Slavonia which resulted in the largest numbers of ethnically-cleansed civilians of the conflict: STORM pursued the Krajinan and then the Bosnian Serb populations deep into Bosnia. NATO and the UN conducted Operation DELIBERATE FORCE to relieve pressure on Sarajevo, while the Bosnian Croat and Bosnian Government forces, working together as the Bosniak Federation, started to roll back the Bosnian Serb forces. In time, the belligerents were forced to the bargaining table and the Dayton talks, which were the basis for the current peace, were conducted in October-November 1995. In 1995, Bosnia-Herzegovina was completely shattered. The entire infrastructure of the region was damaged: water, power, industry. Hundreds of thousands were dead, and hundreds of thousands were homeless. The international community was humiliated and the NGO’s exhausted. There was a real danger that the Dayton agreement might be used by the belligerent forces to buy time and breathing space, re-arm, and continue fighting which in turn would more likely than not spill over into other parts of the former Yugoslavia. Where We Are and How Did We Get There: 1996-2004 By 2004, the situation was completely transformed. Though the dead could not be brought back to life, nor could the obsolescence of Yugoslavia’s socialist industries be suddenly made profitable, the belligerent armed forces and the paramilitary groups no longer exist. The territorial tensions and ethnic flashpoints which emerged in late 1995, specifically Brcko, Drvar, and Mostar, no longer command anywhere near the attention they used to back in 1999-2001. The Inter-Entity Boundary Line does not physically resemble the East-West Germany-like division which is still evident on the island of Cyprus after thirty years: Sarajevo is by no means Nicosia. The Bosnian peoples do not love each other, but they are no longer killing each other in the ways, means, and numbers of the early 1990s. Nor are they likely to in the near future. To understand how we got from 1995 to 2004, it is best to view the situation in Bosnia as an evolutionary process. From 1992-94, there were three entities fighting each other. In 1994, the Bosniak Federation was created from the Bosnian government forces and Bosnian Croat forces to fight the Bosnian Serb forces. The immediate purpose of the 1995 Dayton agreement or, the General Framework Agreement for Peace (GFAP) was to stop the war and prevent further armed violence. The extended purpose of Dayton, (which had some preliminary thought directed to it by certain diplomats before 1995) was to convert the three wartime para-states into a functional political entity called a “nation” or “state.” Finally, the international community’s objective has recently evolved into integrating that state into the European Community and NATO. Keep in mind that Bosnia Herzegovina was not set up as an independent nation-state before the 1992-95 war. It was an administrative division of a larger country in every respect, the declaration of independence in 1991 notwithstanding. Converting Bosnia from a Yugoslav province to a European country remains an ambitious undertaking and would be even if the war had not been fought. Compare the time it has taken for other former Communist eastern European countries, like the Baltic states for example, to enter NATO and the EC. Even during the war, these para-states had questionable legitimacy despite what their expatriate champions, spin-doctors, and media proxies asserted. They were virtually totalitarian; they employed a variety of security forces to coerce their populations; they incorporated organized criminal activity into their government structures to circumvent international sanctions and carry out unattributed and unsavoury covert activities; they had only loose control of the security forces due to geographic separation, infrastructure damage, and dispersion; and they were forged under wartime tensions that they were not ready to dispense with in peacetime. As the international community’s objectives evolved, so did its strategy and the means to implement it. Again, this was an evolutionary process. One expression of this is a progression of acronyms: UNPROFOR (1992-95), IFOR (1995-1996), SFOR (1996-2004), and then EUFOR (2004- ). Or, to some, UNPROFOR (failure), IFOR (success), SFOR (we don’t know but we’re optimistic), and EUFOR (we really don’t know yet). To suggest that there was an international community strategy in the 1992-95 period would not be merely generous: it would defy reality. In effect, the deployment of the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) was the deployment of a force of last resort: NATO was unable to undertake such a mission at the time and the WEU was unwilling to contemplate a force deployment. The UN, still struggling to emerge from the myopia of the Cold War, was singularly ill-equipped for the job, but UNPROFOR served as a containment mechanism to forestall spillover effects. In this it was successful for at least the 1992-1994 period. At one point, there were multiple military operations ongoing conducted by several international organizations in the Balkans: WEU, EC, NATO, UN plus various independent national military operations. The politico-diplomatic effort was only loosely centralized in the Contact Group in 1994-95-and even then it remained a ‘talk-shop’ with no executive, let alone command authority or linkages to forces on the ground. NGO activity was completely uncoordinated with military and political activities. There was no such thing as “information operations” as we know it today, tens years later. The UN Secretary General’s Special Representative had a poor relationship with the various UN military components and virtually none with the NATO and national components.[iii] This started to change in 1995: NATO-UN collaboration as exemplified by Operation DELIBERATE FORCE was a start, as was the group of NATO-UN contingency plans which served as the conceptual basis for the NATO-led IFOR. With NATO eventually in the lead, the deployment of over 50 000 IFOR combat troops in 1995-96 under the auspices of the General Framework Agreement for Peace dictated that international community coordination would be mandatory. At this time, however, the question of who specifically should be empowered with the coordination effort was left ambiguous as IFOR set out meeting the immediate security-oriented milestones of the GFAP. Legal mechanisms, Euro-American political and personality issues interfered with the creation of an effective link between the newly-created Office of the High Representative and IFOR in the early months: the OHR was restricted to coordinating the “civilian” components of the international community effort.[iv] What did eventually emerge, however, was what became known as the “pillar” concept: each international organization accepted responsibility for tasks established under the GFAP. Security and military tasks, for example, were a NATO responsibility. The UN handled humanitarian aid and reconstruction issues, while the OSCE took on the development of governance and institution building. Policing was the responsibility of the International Police Task Force. The OHR coordinated the non-NATO pillars and then affected liaison with IFOR (and later SFOR).[v] Not surprisingly, the relationship tended to be personality dependent. As personalities changed and IFOR drew down to transform into SFOR, the role of the OHR became increasingly important in the effort to stabilize Bosnia. Between 1997 and 2000, a document emerged within SFOR and later in the OHR called the Multi-Year Road Map (MYRM). Essentially a synchronization matrix, the MYRM lined up the pillars and established milestones for each ranging out to ten years. The areas included Economy, Good Governance, Rule of Law, Social Advancement, War Recovery, General Security, Peace Support, Entity Armed Forces Reductions, the Civil-Military Establishment and Training. The end-state was labeled “Stability and Potential,” the definition of which was an OHR prerogative but was established in conjunction with SFOR input. Views on the end-state differed: should Bosnia return to its pre-war state? Was that in fact feasible given the trauma? In any event, obstacles to the progress of the MYRM remained and they had to be dealt. The focus of SFOR activity well into 2001 was directed towards dealing with those obstacles. [vi] The MYRM was the visual depiction of a strategy for the stabilization and reconstruction of Bosnia. The OHR coordination position, however, increasingly resembled a international community governor imposed on Bosnia, with SFOR acting as the ‘muscle’ to deal with security-oriented problems. This perception was exploited by information campaigns directed against the international organizations operating in Bosnia by what became known as “anti-Dayton” elements, but the reality was that the OHR and its operating methods was necessary to implement the MYRM strategy at that time given the conditions on the ground. By 2003-04, the MYRM had served its purpose and was replaced by the Mission Implementation Plan (MIP). The MIP recognized that certain Dayton goals had been achieved, particularly in the defence and security areas and in areas relating to property law. In effect, the MIP reorganized the international community’s priorities to focus on new ones:[vii]
It was a departure from the MYRM in a number of areas, but a departure which was consistent with the changing times. With the MIP, a clearer end-state has emerged than was possible during the early days of the MYRM: Bosnia is to eventually join the European Community and NATO.[viii] The international community in Bosnia essentially had four broad challenges from 1996 to 2004. First, there was the immediate and high level of damage to Bosnia in all spheres: human, economic, and infrastructure. Second, there were the “anti-Dayton” elements, which by 2004 evolved into “obstructionist” elements. Third, there were the third and fourth order effects of the war and the peace: For example, the destruction of rural culture by ethnic cleansing propelled the youth into urban areas as refugees. With the deaths of fathers, mothers, and uncles, why go back to an obsolete and unexciting way of life? Fourth, the complexity of the power-sharing arrangements of the so-called “Dayton state” left the system open to criticism, interference and exploitation of a variety of “anti-Dayton” and opportunistic elements. The international military structures deployed to Bosnia, however, could not be used to meet all of them and had to be used with some care. The IFOR deployment in late 1995-early 1996 set the tone for the international community effort in Bosnia: ritual humiliation of the international community would no longer be tolerated in Bosnia. IFOR had just over 50 000 troops: unlike UNPROFOR, IFOR had complete freedom of movement, had robust rules of engagement and was equipped for combat operations. The force included tanks, attack helicopters, mechanized infantry and special operations forces. IFOR divided Bosnia into three multinational division areas of operations and set out immediately to establish a buffer zone between the belligerent forces that had been in contact; the implement the cantonment of heavy weapons; ensure non-indigenous forces withdrew from Bosnia; and the marking out of the Inter-Entity Boundary Line between the Republika Srpska and the Bosniak Federation. Initial relief efforts were handled by the NGO’s and the UN, in conjunction with IFOR CIMIC activity. IFOR’s purpose really was the immediate transformation of the situation in the ground vis-à-vis the belligerent forces: it was not reconstruction. IFOR was big, heavy, and coercive.[ix] IFOR’s tenure was one year: the Clinton administration and other US government elements of the day were allergic to anything that looked like “nation building” or anything that might result in a protracted American presence in Bosnia. However, it was clear at the end of 1996 that an international force with IFOR-like capabilities was necessary so that the belligerents did not just use the time to regroup and ponder their next move. The recognition amongst the NATO members, including and particularly the United States, that one year was not enough may prove to have been the wisest decision on the road to peace next to the decision to deploy IFOR. The emergent force was called Stabilization Force. That said, SFOR has evolved three times since it was established. In the first years of its existence (1996-1999) , SFOR was reduced in size to half that of IFOR or around 30 000 troops. With the MYRP and the OHR relationship evolving, SFOR continued to provide a coercive presence but used the solid IFOR base to move beyond immediate humanitarian and coercive tasks towards selective engagement with the other “pillars.’ For example, SFOR advised the OHR on tasks related to the creation of entity armed forces (EAF) with the ultimate aim of working towards an integrated Bosnian army. The EAFs essentially legitimized and professionalized the belligerent armies. It also permitted SFOR to monitor equipment levels and personnel which made edging out paramilitary elements easier. SFOR then embarked on operations designed to strip the Bosnian communities of hidden arms caches and to respond to geographical flashpoints, like the Brcko salient.[x] Between 1999 and 2002, SFOR reduced again to around 16 000 personnel. Those opposing Dayton by this time realized the futility of openly confronting SFOR. The EAF’s were in the process of becoming legitimate and a governmental structure to control them was in place, though it was not fully functional. Anti-Dayton elements, however, shifted tack. The information war against the international community never really stopped when the fighting ended in 1995. Extremely provocative agitation continued to pour forth from radio and TV stations, particularly those in the Republika Srpska, with potential negative consequences for civil peace. In time, SFOR and the OHR had enough and moved in to shut these elements down as part of a comprehensive and evolving information operations campaign designed to decouple the population from anti-Dayton elements dominating the news media.[xi] At the same time, Bosnian Croat elements sought the split the Federation and form a state of their own. The Third Entity Movement was a serious threat to the peace in that it combined political moves at all levels with the possibility of weapons collection point seizure. SFOR and the OHR used a coordinated campaign to physically coerce and economically and politically undermine the Third Entity in order to shut it down.[xii] By 2003, SFOR reduced again to 7000 personnel. The three multinational divisions gave way to three multinational brigades and then down to three multinational task forces. The operating concept for SFOR had shifted yet again. By 2003, SFOR no longer had to coerce in the comprehensive way it had since 1996. Local and cantonal police were now asking SFOR to assist them in dealing with obstructionist elements rather than supporting obstructionists themselves. The EAF’s were on the path to becoming interoperable and integrated: several multi-EAF exercises with SFOR were held by 2004, something unthinkable four years before. Anti-Dayton elements had been militarily coerced by IFOR, politically outmaneuvered by the OHR-SFOR combination, and by now the threat morphed more and more into organized criminal behavior. This corrupt behavior, however, could not be completely separated from the governmental structures at all levels. As a result, increased corruption in the government which in many cases is being conducted by those with blood on their hands from the early 1990s, is the primary threat to long-term peace in Bosnia. In this form, however, it is not something SFOR can target. Only the Bosnian institutions built and supported by the OHR can do that: the police forces, the legal system, and the judiciary. SFOR and the OHR shifted from coercion to empowerment and this is the basis for the future peace in Bosnia. It is a process that the Bosnians have come to themselves within the framework provided by the international community.[xiii] Provocations: Why There is Peace in Bosnia One of the more compelling explanations as to why humans wage war was distilled by Donald Kagan in his On the Origins of War. In effect, war is the armed competition for power. Peoples go to war out of honour, fear, and interest. Human will drives this process which is activated by certain combinations of events.[xiv] It was thus so in Bosnia in the early 1990s. Bosnian Serbs, Muslims, and Croats all feared a loss of power which was in turn a threat to their interests and honor. This situation was aggravated from without, particularly by those in control in Belgrade and Zagreb. How has SFOR and the OHR succeeded in removing or alleviating these causes of war in Bosnia?
The Future In fundamental terms, SFOR ‘disarmed’ the armed competition for power and shifted that competition into legitimate economic and political means provided by the OHR. As for “fear”, there was a significant threat reduction which occurred over time: Operation HARVEST removed weapons; paramilitary gangs were indicted, arrested, or otherwise deterred from activity; the armed forces were reduced and are being integrated; and People Indicted for War Crimes (PIFWC) are being hunted down. Increased confidence in the legal and policing systems remains under development. As for “interests”, the power sharing and governance systems coupled with increased entrepreneurial and rural agrarian economic activity is the best means to continue to undermine the old ways. The biggest threat to all of these gains is corruption. And corruption is not a just problem endemic to Bosnia, as we well know, and there is no purely military solution to corruption. As for the “honour” component, the solution is not clear. What is to prevent cyclical violence emanating from a disenfranchised, disaffected, displaced youth activated by the right leader? Will we some day see this population take on what they may view as a corrupt kleptocracy? Or will they simply leave Bosnia for better opportunities elsewhere? Will the descendants of the Krajinan Serbs want their land back someday? A more dire scenario which appeared in media outlets in 2004 postulated that Bosnia is a terrorist base, that radical Islam might find a home or lurk in the darker corners to feed of disenfranchisement and disillusionment, though facilities raided by SFOR in 2004 recovered no evidence that Jihadi immigrants from the early 1990s are running training camps for Bosnia’s youth. To what extent this could develop into a mass movement remains unknown. This is certainly something to keep a close eye on: Multinational Task Force (North West) seized 20 shoulder-launched SAM systems in 2004. There was some concern that they were destined to be sold to terrorist organizations which have a global reach. For the West, the Bosnian Experiment successfully reduced and even reversed the intense international humiliation it suffered through its mishandling of the events of 1992-95. The NATO experience in Bosnia has reduced and perhaps eliminated the possibility of war in Europe and will serve to validate the some methodology for the establishment of peaceful coexistence in a multi-ethnic environment. This construct is and will continue to be tested by radical Islam and the Al Qaeda War. Endnotes [i] . Sean M. Maloney and John Llambias, Chances for Peace: Canadian Soldiers in the Balkans 1992-1995 (St Catharine’s: Vanwell Publishing, 2002) Ch. 1.[ii] . See Tim Ripley, Operation DELIBERATE FORCE: The UN and NATO Campaign in Bosnia 1995 (Lancaster: CDISS, 1999). [iii] . This was exposed during the Srebrenica affair when the Dutch UN contingent had problems accessing NATO air support at a critical juncture. See Jan Honig and Norbert Both, Srebrenica: Record of a War Crime (New York: Penguin Books, 1996). [iv] . Carl Bildt, Peace Journey: The Struggle for Peace in Bosnia (London: Weidenfield and Nicholson, 1998) Chapters 10 and 11. [v] . “SHAPE and IFOR-Putting Theory into Practise,” NATO’s Sixteen Nations No. 2/96, pp. 14-22; Michael Portillo, “Bosnia-Implementing the Peace Agreement,” RUSI Journal February 1996 pp. 277-30. [vi] . SFOR briefing given to the author, Sarajevo, June 2001. [vii] , MNTF(NW) briefing given to the author, Banja Luka, August 2004. See also http://www.ohr.int, “OHR Mission Implementation Plan.” [viii] . MNTF(NW) briefing given to the author, Banja Luka, August 2004. [ix] . “SHAPE and IFOR-Putting Theory into Practise,” NATO’s Sixteen Nations No. 2/96, pp. 14-22; Leighton Smith, “The Arduous Climb to Peace,” NATO’s Sixteen Nations No. 2/96, 26-32. [x] . SFOR briefing given to the author, Sarajevo, June 2001. [xi] . As discussed in Wesley K. Clark, Waging Modern War (New York: Public Affairs, 2001) Chapters 2 and 3. [xii] . SFOR briefing given to the author, Sarajevo, June 2001. [xiii] . MNTF(NW) briefing given to the author, Banja Luka, August 2004. [xiv] . Donald Kagan, On the Origins of War (New York: Doubleday, 1995).pp. 6-8. |
