Viktor Pregel US Foreign Policy and Serbia: Failed Containment The signing of the Dayton Peace Accord seems to have brought an end to the fighting in the Former Yugoslavia. Unlike other proposed peace accords, such as the Vance-Owen plan, the US-brokered Dayton Accord was acceptable to all factions in that countrys civil war. Throughout the conflict, the EC tried various solutions to the war, involving both coercion and deterrence, with a spectacularly dismal success rate. The central question then, would appear to revolve around the issue of why did American deterrence and coercion eventually succeed in getting Serbia to agree to an end in the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina while attempts by the European Union to achieve the same failed? At the heart of American success in the Former Yugoslavia rests the issue of coercion and deterrence. At first, American efforts to change the behavior of the Bosnian Serbs met with the same dismal success rate as the efforts by the EC. In the early stages of the conflict, the United States Government failed to back its demands to the Serbs with any meaningful form of action or even any threat of action. That is to say, the United States demanded that the Serb government in Belgrade cease sending support to the Bosnian Serbs and come to the negotiating table, but the United States Government did not offer Belgrade any incentives to do so nor did it suggest that there would be negative consequences if it did not. Though there are many disagreeing views on how to deter and coerce effectively, all deterrence wonks would agree that demands without the threat of punishment or the promise of reward are a singularly ineffective way to influence the behavior of an opponent. A major problem for American attempts at deterrence during the early period of the Yugoslavian civil war revolves around the low level of American commitment in regards to the use of force. Clearly, the American military could make short work of any Serb military forces. However, the United States Government rarely showed the resolve to use force in any meaningful manner. Though US forces, under the NATO banner, made symbolic air strikes several times during the early part of the conflict, the half-hearted nature of these attacks undermined the credibility of American resolve. The irony of all this is that the Serbs themselves did not have a particularly high level of resolve. When the US and its allies showed their willingness to use a large amount of force against Serb troops, such as after the breadline massacre in 1995 when NATO jets flew over 3500 sorties against the Bosnian Serb military, the Serbs quickly changed their behavior. 1 The critical risk of the Serbs was surprisingly low, but the threat credibility of the United States Government was even lower. Unfortunately, the United States Government was rarely willing to back its words with action. Thus, its words were rarely heeded. Many deterrence wonks believe that misperception is a major cause of deterrence and coercion failure. If one side misinterprets the words or actions of the other, conflict can result. However, in the case of the United States Governments dealings with the Serbs, there was little misperception. From the start, the United States Government made it fairly clear just how much action it was willing to take when dealing with the Serbs (little or none). As a result, the Serbs knew they could get away with much without having to worry about an American response. American officials, such as Colin Powell made it clear that they were hesitant to use force. For example, Powells statement that I do deserts, not mountains," 2 referring to the terrain of Bosnia-Herzegovina, went a long way towards informing the Serbs just where the United States Government stood. Cyrus Vances deputy, Herbert Okun said that Diplomacy without the threat of force is like baseball without the bat. 3 Eventually, the United States Government came to understand this, but several hundred thousand people died in the meantime. American foreign policy vis a vis Serbia during the early stages of the conflict was an example of a failed containment policy simply because the United States had few, if any, effective outlets for action. The government in Belgrade was, and still is, a nearly unitary actor. It did not fear world opinion and it did not have to consider the opinions of its allies, since it had none. Furthermore, the Serb leader, Slobodan Milosevic, held a monopoly on power and controlled all major sources of information within that state. 4 As a result, he had no political enemies and the majority of the Serb people supported him. Also, the economic embargo imposed on Serbia, though crippling to the economy, was not effective in changing the actions of the Serbian government because the Serb leadership simply did not care about the effects of the embargo on the Serb masses. Finally, the French and British-supported weapons embargo was actually a boon to the Serb government because it prevented the Croat and Bosnian governments from arming themselves effectively. 5 On the other hand, the American government, especially the presidency, was hampered by its inability to act in a unitary manner. On the domestic level, various American intelligence services painted the Serbs as much more formidable than they actually were. 6 As a result, the media created the impression that any military involvement in Yugoslavia would result in heavy American casualties. This greatly undermined any warnings or threats by the United States Government, as the Serbs knew that American public opinion was against the use of force. Furthermore, the United States Government also had to take into account the actions of its NATO allies. Many NATO member-states, most notably France and the UK, were uncomfortable with the prospect of using force. 7 Their reticence was understandable, seeing as both these countries had troops working as UN peacekeepers on the ground in Bosnia. However, this unwillingness by NATO to present a united front took away much of the impact of American attempts at coercion and deterrence. The relationship of rationality to coercion and deterrence in the Serbian situation is an interesting one. The actions of the Serbian strongman, Slobodan Milosevic, rank high on the rheostat of rationality. Milosevic hoped to expand his power within the Balkans by gaining control over a larger portion of the territory of Former Yugoslavia. This calculated, ruthless quest for power is clearly a rational, if immoral, act. As a rational actor, Milosevic was susceptible to coercion and deterrence. As the US found out after the massive NATO airstrikes of 1995, Milosevic could easily be coerced if the proper methods were utilized. However, the United States Governments unwillingness to use the proper coercive methods resulted in Milosevics continued immoral behavior. A baffling view held by the United States Government was that the perpetuators of the atrocities in Bosnia were somehow irrational. The United States Government felt that airstrikes would be useless because these supposedly irrational men did not understand the threat of force and therefore could not be deterred. 8 Though there was no evidence that the Serb soldiers were irrational, the United States Government continued to cling to this attitude for much of the war in Former Yugoslavia. Such a bizarre misunderstanding of the Serbs probably had much to do with the United States Governments inability to contain Serbian aggression. HISTORICAL OUTLINE American attempts at containment of the Serbian threat began in April of 1992 when the United States Government recognized the independence of the Bosnian state. This recognition was meant to discourage Serbia from attacking Bosnia by giving the Bosnian government a legitimate standing in the international community. However, in a ridiculous move, the US also supported the ban on weapons sales to all parts of the Former Yugoslavia. This was a self-defeating stand because the US denied Bosnia the right to defend its newfound independence. 9 In a sense, this told the Serb government that the US was not too serious about staving off war in the Former Yugoslavia. This tendency to undermine the strength of its own actions continued throughout the course of American involvement with Serbia. Though the United States Government repeatedly attempted to find an alternative solution to the conflict in Yugoslavia and tried various tactics to persuade the Serb government to end the war, these efforts were met with limited success. The United States Government searched for a compromise that would suit all sides in the conflict. Even though many of the United States Governments offered solutions made sense, the Serb government was unwilling to listen until it was confronted with force. On May 20, 1993, the UN, with American support, imposed economic sanctions on rump Yugoslavia (composed of Serbia and Montenegro, with Serbia as the dominant partner). 10 However, this was another failure in containing Yugoslavia. Sanctions imposed on Iraq before and after the Gulf War did little to change the behavior of Saddam Hussein. Similarly, economic sanctions against Libya have been ineffective while the 1987 airstrike did wonders to quiet down Qaddafi. The United States Government must have known that economic sanctions would not work against Serbia. Furthermore, the Serbian government probably knew that the United States Government knew that sanctions were ineffective. Therefore, the Serbian government could realistically deduce that the US was not heavily committed to changing the Serb governments behavior. 11 Another example of the United States Governments undermining its own message occurred in October of 1992 when the UN imposed no-fly zone took effect in Bosnia. Unfortunately, the US and its allies did not enforce this no-fly zone until February of 1994 when US fighter jets shot down four Serb MIGs over Bosnia. 12 Once again, the US made a strong statement, but failed to back that statement up with any meaningful form of action. The United States Government did consider using airstrikes. In fact, the Clinton administration threatened to bomb the Serbs several times, such as after the January 1993 bombing of a water queue in Sarajevo by Serb forces. Unfortunately, the repeated claims by the UN that air strikes were out of the question because they threatened the lives of UN peacekeepers on the ground canceled out the credibility of these claims. Also, repeated threats to use air strikes without actually using air strikes soon lowered the United States Governments threat credibility. Similarly, the United States Governments and NATOs timidness after such Serb excesses as taking UN peacekeepers hostage and chaining them to tanks only served to embolden the Serbs to even greater violations of the international order. When the US and its allies finally decided to use force, in the form of airstrikes, they ignored the effectiveness of such a policy. For example, when NATO planes first bombed Serb targets in May of 1995, the Serbs backed down and withdrew their heavy artillery from the hills surrounding Sarajevo. Despite this success, the US and its allies continued to downplay the effectiveness of air strikes. The UN still played up the danger to its peacekeepers in the region. This is a good example of the aversion to losses principle. UN officials worried so much about potential loss of life among peacekeepers that they did not think of the potential gains that bombing the Serbs would create. Surprisingly, the US and its allies were eventually able to get their act together and confront the Serbs in one fell swoop. After years of foot-dragging and avoiding actually taking any action to back up their (mostly meaningless) demands, the US and its NATO allies were forced, by the powerful hand of public opinion, to resort to air-strikes in September of 1995. When Serb forces dropped a heavy artillery shell into downtown Sarajevo, killing 39 and wounding over 80 13, NATO responded by flying 3500 sorties against Bosnian Serb targets such as heavy artillery, munitions bunkers, tanks and supply lines. The assault lasted for over a week. In the end, the Serb leader, as well as his Bosnian Serb crony Radovan Karadjic, decided that negotiation was in their best interests. The NATO airstrike of September, 1995 would eventually lead to the Dayton Accord which brought about the end of the war in Former Yugoslavia. LEGALITY American involvement in the war in Former Yugoslavia was regulated by several levels of legality and bureaucracy. First off, American commitments to NATO prevented the US from playing an independent role in the war. Secondly, various UN measures, such as the arms embargo and the economic sanctions imposed on Yugoslavia limited American initiatives. Though the US supported eliminating the arms embargo in order to arm the Bosnian Muslims, the UNs hesitancy to do so kept the US from following its desired policy. Surprisingly, domestic legal factors played the smallest part in shaping United States Government actions against the Serbs. Actions in Bosnia fell under the auspices of the Executive branch of the American government and neither Congress nor the Supreme Court played any real part in effecting the outcome. There were few, if any, laws or constitutional requirements that affected the actions of the United States Government in its dealings with Bosnia. CONCLUSIONS AND POLICY IMPLICATIONS For the most part, American attempts at containing Serb aggression during the course of the war in Bosnia are a prime example of how not to practice deterrence theory. Furthermore, they also illustrate the importance of resolve and how it relates to deterrence. Eventually, American action did bring about an end to the fighting in the Former Yugoslavia. Unfortunately, many died unnecessarily before American policy came to its fruition. The United States Government made many attempts to search for a solution to the war in the former Yugoslavia. Also, the American government made countless efforts to persuade Belgrade to change its behavior. However, the United States Government was slow to realize that such tactics were useless when dealing with the Serb government. That is to say, for search and persuasion to be effective, the initiator of such actions must convince his target that altering his behavior is in that actors best interests. However, the highly rational Serb leaders had no incentive to agree to the United States Governments suggestions. They felt that the highest payoff was in expanding their power over the territory of what used to be Yugoslavia. The relationship between the United States Government and Belgrade is interesting because the leaders of both sides were fairly high up on the rheostat of rationality, yet they could not come to a mutually agreeable solution. Hindsight, as the clichi states, is always 20/20. However, in the case of the United States Governments policy towards the Serbian government, it is useful to go back and look at why American deterrence and coercion efforts failed. As proposed earlier in this work, this case is a good example of how a Great Power should not act if it wishes for its deterrence attempts to succeed. The United States Government found itself faced, in early 1992, with a regime in Belgrade that backed forces in Bosnia which were responsible for a host of atrocities. Though there was no lack of nationalist and religious propaganda to explain the actions of the Belgrade regime, the core of their motivations rested on gaining territory and power. The ruthless actions of the Belgrade regime would suggest that they are hard-core rationalists, concerned only with the loss-gain equation, rather than with morality or international opinion. Clearly, attempting to reason with such a regime, as the United States Government attempted to do, is pointless. Rather, the United States Government should have relied on a system of threats and rewards. Furthermore, the American government should have been ready to use military force when its demands were not met. The empty threats of the United States Government did little to change the behavior of Belgrade. The Serb government was quite deterrable, as the United States Government and its NATO allies found after the massive 1995 airstrikes. Slobodan Milosevic and his clique of cronies were fully aware that they could not stand up to American military muscle. However, for most of the conflict in Bosnia, they did not have to. The United States Government was unwilling to use force until public opinion made it nearly impossible to continue its policy of spinelessness. A large part of the failure of American policy in the Former Yugoslavia can be attributed to the lack of resolve on the part of the United States Government to back its words with action. In the future, American policy-makers must understand that simply making demands of a rogue regime without backing those demands with military power is an exercise in futility. Certainly, there is a place for search and persuasion techniques in international relations. Allied, friendly and neutral nations are usually susceptible to such tactics. However, when dealing with one of the pariahs of the international community, it is better to rely on the stick and carrot approach rather than rational discussion. 1 Peter Maass, Love Thy Neighbor, (New York: Alfred A. Knopff, 1996), 271 2 Edgar OBallance, Civil War In Bosnia, 1992-94, (London: St. Martins Press, 1995) 154 3 David Rieff, The Lessons of Bosnia: Morality and Power, World Policy Journal, Volume 12, No. 1 (Spring 1995) 84. 4 Christopher Bennet, Yugoslavias Bloody Collapse, (London: Hurst & Co., 1995) 95-6 5 Sabrina Petra Ramet, Balkan Babel, (Boulder:Westview Press, 1996) 244-5 6 Bosnia at http://personal.eunet.ll/pp/yuamba/hystory/html 7 Bennet, 223-4 8 Ramet, 309 9 Ramet, 246 10 Yugoslavia at http://www.yugoslavia.com 11 Maass, 264 12 David Rieff, Slaughterhouse: Bosnia and the failure of the West, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995) 101-2 13 New York Times (29 August 1995) p. A1