“I HAD HOPED THAT WE WERE hurling a wildcat onto the shore, but all we had got was a strandeded whale.” Thus, in typically pungent terms, did Winston Churchill assess the Allied landing at Anzio in early 1944, an operation marred by irresolute leadership and lost opportunities.
So too are supporters of the NATO military intervention in Bosnia coming to evaluate the progress of the American-led expedition dispatched late last year to implement the Dayton Peace Accords. In Bosnia, the issue of the moment has become the unwillingness of IFOR, the Dayton implementation force, to detain Radovan Karadzic and Ratko Mladic, the Bosnian Serb chieftains accused of genocide who continue to defy demands that they present themselves to the International War Crimes Tribunal. These men’s presence in Bosnia seems likely to kill prospects that elections scheduled there for September will produce genuine reconciliation. According to Bosnia hawks such as columnist Anthony Lewis, Karadzic and Mladic “are making the United States and its allies look like weakling fools.”
Yet the real issue goes beyond the fate of two thugs, however egregious their offenses. Whether or not IFOR’s mandate should extend to arresting war criminals touches on fundamental questions about the efficacy of the overall NATO mission. Less directly but more importantly, it raises issues that go to the heart of America’s ability to employ its power effectively.
Launched amidst high expectations and the fanfare of guidons waving gaily in the breeze, Operation Joint Endeavor was trumpeted by its advocates as an essential element in the implementation of the Dayton accords and an emphatic reassertion of American leadership in Europe. The arrival in Bosnia of the Yanks and their allies would put an end to U.N.-style pussy-footing by pusillanimous peacekeepers. The implementation force, said Secretary William Perry, would be the “meanest dog” around. This was NATO, after all, the most successful alliance in history, forged and led by the United States, its impressive capabilities built on the awesome might of the American military machine — whose leaders subscribed to the doctrine of massive force decisively employed.
In fact, America’s Bosnian adventure has confounded the expectations of both sponsors and skeptics. Having completed their deployment and separated the warring factions, NATO forces settled into a posture somewhere between detachment and timidity. In an enterprise originally motivated in large part by moral outrage, projecting an attitude of assiduous impartiality became an abiding consideration. Thus, for example, American commanders have not only deflected proposals to detain Karadzic and Mladic, they are wary even of inconveniencing the Bosnian Serb leaders. After all, as one American field commander recently noted, “to put up roadblocks to prevent free movement of war criminals would defeat the whole purpose of promoting freedom of movement. ”
On the other hand — and happily — predictions that NATO forces would provoke formidable resistance leading to continuing bloodshed have proven erroneous. Among American forces, the pregnancy rate rather than the casualty rate has become cause for concern. (As of late June, 62 female soldiers deployed to Bosnia had been evacuated because of pregnancy.) Indeed, according to a U.S. Army report, American troops in the Balkans are substantially healthier and safer than troops in the Army as a whole. Contributing to that record of good health — in addition to youth, general fitness, and a prohibition on alcohol — may well be the 32 weight rooms, 242 Stairmasters, and 149 Lifecycles provided to the troops, not to mention the 44 pool tables, 56 ping pong tables, and 78 Sega Genesis and 10 Super Nintendo video games. As to the impressively low rate of accidents and injuries, one American officer interviewed by the New York Times offered this explanation: “They’ve got us basically locked down in camp 24 hours a day. If you don’t have a life, you can’t get hurt.”
Far from incidental, such restrictions — and the assurance that America’s warriors remain in the very pink of health — are central to the military’s operational concept in Bosnia. That concept has been resoundingly successful, at least as U.S. commanders measure success. Yet their standards are largely irrelevant to the political situation on the ground. The ne plus ultra of U.S. operations has been force protection. As long as the risk to American soldiers is kept to a minimum and the force itself departs on schedule, Operation Joint Endeavor is on track.
In order to curb any inclination to wander off that track, senior American officers have from the outset exploited their status as NATO commanders — nominally responsible to the alliance as a whole rather than to the president as commander in chief — to prescribe their own limited interpretation of IFOR’s mandate. They have publicly and pointedly enumerated various tasks that they refuse to accept. When confronting the prospect of IFOR’s assisting efforts to investigate war crimes, for example, Admiral Leighton Smith, the NATO commander in Bosnia, announced emphatically: “We will not clear mines. We will not guard grave sites. We will not dig up grave sites, and we will not provide individual security.” As Admiral Smith was quick to note, such activities smacked of Mission Creep, the dirtiest words in the post-Cold War military lexicon. Indeed, on the very eve of Joint Endeavor, in outlining his objectives for the operation, General George Joulwan, Smith’s superior in the NATO chain of command, took pains to declare, “My goal as Supreme Allied Commander is . . . to prevent mission creep.”
The upshot of this preoccupation with confining IFOR to the narrowest possible mission has become increasingly evident: an American component that hunkers down in its base camps, treats perpetrators and victims with studied evenhandedness, and allows the troops to shoot pool and play Super Nintendo while they count the days until IFOR stands down sometime around Christmas. Churchill’s metaphor of the stranded whale may be a cheap shot. More aptly, IFOR — and particularly its U.S. contingent — has become an inordinately fretful thoroughbred, maintained at enormous expense but, however coaxed or cajoled, disinclined to venture from its stall.
The Clinton administration, chief sponsor of the Dayton peace agreement, has acquiesced in this military-imposed definition of IFOR’s mission. Indeed, the reticence with which U.S. forces have approached their task in Bosnia reflects a de facto bargain negotiated between the Pentagon and the White House. The bargain exists because it serves the immediate interests of each party: For the military, IFOR’s narrow mandate forecloses the prospect of a messy and protracted involvement; for the Clinton White House, increasingly preoccupied with the upcoming election, quiet on the Balkan front keeps Bosnia from dominating the headlines and protects the president from difficult decisions involving the potentially serious loss of American life. That this near-term benefit is purchased at the expense of both the long-term prospects for peace in Bosnia (probably remote in any event) and the long- term credibility of American power (a vital commodity) figures only marginally.
But it should be emphasized that the bargain is by no means one of equals. Nor is it the commander in chief who holds the stronger hand. Rather, in this arrangement, the Pentagon owns the trump cards, and it knows when and how to play them. In Bosnia, the military defines the parameters of policy; the White House — fearful of the dread mission creep — defers.
For this reason alone, the manner in which the American expedition to Bosnia plays itself out assumes an importance that supersedes questions regarding the wisdom of the original decision to intervene. Overlaid on Operation Joint Endeavor, the elaborate minuet between soldiers and statesmen deserves the careful attention not only of those concerned lest Bosnia slide back into civil war but of those who remain opposed to the U.S. mission in the Balkans. Indeed, the relevant question is no longer whether the United States can bring peace to Bosnia but whether and in what circumstances American military leaders will arrogate to themselves the prerogative to curtail, compromise, or veto basic policy objectives delineated by America’s elected leaders. In short, Bosnia further testifies to a civil-military relationship badly out of kilter and to problems with civilian control to which Americans can ill afford to remain oblivious. Perhaps the Clinton administration — obtuse as always in military matters — is itself oblivious to the problem it has tacitly encouraged. Such would be the most charitable interpretation.
Yet evidence suggests both awareness and a crippling inability to confront the issue. That, at least, is implicit in recent comments by the president’s national security adviser, Anthony Lake, published in USA Today on June 26. In an effort to justify IFOR’s narrow charter, Lake cited by way of comparison the debacle of Vietnam. There, explained Lake, “our civilian leaders gave our military a mission of nation-building that it could never accomplish. And then our whole nation tended to blame our military for its failure to accomplish that mission. We must never, ever do that again.”
In essence, Lake’s remarks endorse the “stab in the back” explanation for Vietnam that is still far too popular among serving military officers. That interpretation makes for bad history; it is simplistic, misleading, and ultimately phony.
Worse, Lake’s bad history encourages bad policy. At a minimum, such a view undercuts efforts to fashion a coherent response to the formidable obstacles to peace in the Balkans. Beyond that, by giving credence to notions of betrayal in Vietnam, it legitimizes military efforts, clearly evident in Bosnia, to encroach on the principle of civilian control. That is the height of irresponsibility and invites great harm to the nation and dishonor to its soldiers.
A. J. Bacevich is executive director of the Foreign Policy Institute at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies in Washington, D.C.
