Bosnian Security after Dayton

Michael A. Innes

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2006
• ISBN:
  9781134148714
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: History

Featuring fresh contributions from leading scholars, this new volume considers a varied range of post-war, post-Dayton and post-9/11 problems and issues, reminding readers that Dayton is not the only challenge to the safety, stability, and long-term viability of the post-war Bosnian state. Drawing together all the latest research, this book covers new ground in its discussion of post-9/11 security concerns, and in its leading-edge analyses of crime, corruption, and terror in a transitional state. It takes Bosnia-Herzegovina seriously as a subject of regional and international affairs, and is a critically important contribution to scholarship, showing how redefined global security concerns have heavily altered international and domestic security priorities in Bosnia-Herzegovina, with corresponding implications for post-war justice and identity politics, foreign intervention, and state-level institution building.

This is essential reading for scholars of the Balkans, peacebuilding and reconstruction, European politics and of security studies in general.

1
NATO, THE BALKAN CRISES, AND EUROPEAN SECURITY AND DEFENSE POLICY¹

Thomas Mowle

The legacy of the 1990s’ Balkan crises is not yet fully formed, but it may well be as revolutionary as the legacy of the crises that began the twentieth century. Gavrilo Princip’s bullet in the name of Serb nationalism led to the fragmentation of European empires, the creation of new international diplomatic structures, and the staged insertion of the United States into European security. While the direct effect of modern Serb nationalism was less bloody than World War I, its legacy seems to be nearly as dramatic. The Balkan wars, Bosnia in particular, have highlighted weaknesses in international diplomacy, in the United Nations itself, and in its relationship with other security and political organizations. The crises coincided with a new wave of nationalist fragmentation in Europe. Not all legacies are parallel, of course. The United States has reached a pinnacle of relative power, and is also beginning a staged withdrawal from Europe. Both trends have catalyzed European unity, leading to expansion of both NATO and the European Union and a new focus in the EU on developing its own voice in foreign and security policy. This chapter looks at the EU–NATO relationship; other parts of this book address other legacies.

Sarajevo in 1992 was no more the cause of these changes than it was in 1914 – it was rather a focal point. While this chapter maintains a Balkan emphasis, one must remain aware of the larger European and global context. 1991, the year of Croatian and Slovenian secession, also saw the conclusion of the first coalition war against Iraq, the breakup of the Soviet Union, NATO’s Rome Summit on the future of NATO, and the completion of the Treaty on European Union that would be signed in Maastricht a few weeks into the next year. From 1947 to 1991, European security had been a subset of the Soviet–American rivalry, and non-NATO security efforts languished. With the Soviet threat gone, NATO could either break camp or reposition itself as a Western security organization rather than a security organization for the West. The interventions in Bosnia and Kosovo did not match NATO’s original mission of collective self-defense, but the wars were near NATO members’ borders. By 2004, NATO was securing Kabul, Afghanistan, and training Iraqi security forces; far from the North Atlantic, the alliance was redefining its area of concern to Nearly Anywhere Terrorists Operate.

American dominance in Iraq and its behavior in Bosnia forced European leaders to recognize both their relative weakness and the ease with which the United States could undermine their diplomacy. They could either accept subordinate status or they could redefine European security structures. Slowly, they chose the latter, following the Bosnian war, with the British and French declaration at St. Malo in December 1998 that they would try to develop a European Security and Defense Policy (ESDP) within the EU. Kosovo, as well as ongoing disagreements with the Clinton Administration over the International Criminal Court, the Kyoto Protocol, and many other multilateral processes reinforced this decision. Europe moved to develop a Rapid Reaction Force and more closely coordinate its Common Foreign and Security Policy. This trend continued under George W. Bush, whose focus on Afghanistan and Iraq created the opportunity for Europe to use its forces to secure Bosnia and Macedonia with less and less American assistance.

This chapter provides the overview of how the Bosnian jigsaw has rearranged the relationship among the UN, NATO, EU, and the United States. Other chapters zoom in on specific aspects of the Bosnian war and peace – human rights, terrorism, trans-Atlantic cooperation, democratization, and many others – all of which also reflect the larger context of post-Cold War and post-9/11 international politics. It begins with a discussion of the relationship between NATO, the Western European Union, and the European Community during the Cold War and immediately after. It follows this with a discussion of the Bosnian war from the perspective of the diplomatic and military interactions among these organizations, their members, and the United Nations. Finally, it describes the legacy of the Balkan wars on NATO and the EU, a legacy that of course is not yet complete.

European security structures through 1991

As long as American and European security interests coincided within NATO, purely European security institutions seemed superfluous. The European Defense Community, an adjunct to the European Coal and Steel Community, would have combined all military forces larger than a brigade, but France ultimately voted against its own proposal.² The European Economic Community did not formally incorporate foreign and security policy.³ The Western European Union (WEU) predated NATO by a year, but once the trans-Atlantic organization was founded, the primary role left the WEU was to “monitor German rearmament.”⁴ France, after it drifted away from NATO in 1959–1966, became the WEU’s prime advocate.⁵

The WEU languished until the Single European Act (SEA) of February 1986. The SEA provided a formal basis for European Political Cooperation, which evolved into the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). The WEU’s Hague Platform of 27 October 1987 called for an additional European defense identity, represented by a more active WEU working with NATO.⁶ This had already begun, as the WEU carried out a minesweeping mission in the Persian Gulf in 1987–1988, during the Iran–Iraq war. This operation was out of the NATO area; perhaps the United Kingdom and France would have acted on their own, but it seems unlikely that Belgium, Italy, and the Netherlands would have joined the mission without the WEU authorization.⁷ During the 1990–1991 Gulf War, the WEU provided three-quarters of the naval forces used to monitor the arms embargo against Iraq.⁸ This activity masked the lingering incongruity in the WEU’s role: what was its relationship to NATO and the European Union – and, by extension, what was the relationship between NATO and the European Union? In September 1990, Italy proposed having the European Community (EC) absorb the WEU as its defense arm. France and Germany endorsed the idea, but the United Kingdom and the Netherlands led European opposition. The United States shared this opposition, unless the WEU would act merely as a European “pillar” within NATO. By the next year, the Italians had joined the United Kingdom in suggesting that the WEU would be “a bridge between NATO and the European Community.”⁹ Where the French and Germans proposed “an EC army operating outside the existing NATO alliance,” the British and Italians proposed that the WEU act as “the means to strengthen the European pillar of the alliance.”¹⁰

NATO had its own questions about its purpose and identity. NATO was founded to defend its members; now its key opponent had imploded. From the first weeks after the Berlin Wall fell, the United States pressed to maintain NATO, eventually arguing that NATO was needed to keep Europe at peace, to defend against any lingering military threat, and to manage the relationship with Russia.¹¹ The United Kingdom strongly supported this vision of a strong NATO with a strong U.S. role. In May 1991, a Rapid Reaction Corps was set up under UK command to address non-Article 5 (non-defense) contingencies; France opposed using such a force in the former Yugoslavia.¹²

By the end of 1991, these questions had been papered over: the WEU, meeting in parallel to the Maastricht Summit, suggested that it be both “the defence component of the European Union and . . . a means to strengthen the European pillar of the Atlantic Alliance.” NATO’s November 1991 Rome Summit endorsed the idea of “interlocking institutions,”¹³ and its call for a “European security identity and defense role,” which became known as ESDI within NATO, met both U.S. and French preferences.¹⁴

The WEU more closely refined its role in June 1992 at its summit near Bonn. These “Petersberg tasks” included “humanitarian and rescue tasks; peacekeeping tasks; [and] tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peacemaking.” The WEU also instituted a military planning cell, but not a situation center or other operational command facilities. The French and Germans had expanded their Cold War brigade-level cooperation into a Eurocorps in October 1991. This would grow to include forces from Belgium, Spain, and Luxembourg, and was integrated into the NATO command structure in January 1993, just after France agreed to let NATO play an official role in Bosnia. In January 1994, at Brussels, ESDI was given shape in the form of Combined Joint Task Forces (CJTFs), which would be “coalitions of the willing” operating under European command.¹⁵

The Bosnian crisis

Europe led the initial security response in the Balkans, as the EC sent a few dozen observers to monitor the cease-fire it negotiated to end the Slovenian conflict. ¹⁶ The Community could not agree, however, on further action. While France, with German and Dutch support, proposed either sending the WEU to Croatia or authorizing a UN intervention, the British led opposition to both – and both the United States and Soviet Union opposed UN action at this time.¹⁷ When widespread fighting broke out in Croatia in September and the Yugoslav National Army (JNA) attacked Dubrovnik and Vukovar in October, the EC responded with arms and trade sanctions that were matched by the United Nations Security Council (UNSC). In March 1992, 14,000 UN peacekeepers began monitoring a UN-brokered cease-fire.¹⁸

The EC also took early steps to try to prevent the war in Bosnia. Between 23 February and 18 March 1992, EC mediator José Cutileiro developed a plan that would have created three autonomous regions within a unitary republic. This plan was accepted in principle by the leaders of Croatia, Bosnia, and Serbia, but rejected in its details (as would many later plans) by both the Bosnian (Muslim) government and the leaders of the Bosnian Serbs.¹⁹ The EC also extended the previous year’s UN arms embargo to cover all trade with Serbia and Montenegro; the United Nations endorsed this policy on 31 May. This was followed by UNSCR 776 on 2 September, which allowed the use of NATO airpower to protect aid shipments – protected on the ground by the United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) – and UNSCR 781 in October, which imposed a nofly zone over Bosnia. Both the European Community and United States supported these steps. The WEU monitored the arms embargo in the Adriatic Sea and the Danube River in 1992–1993 (after which the operation was merged into NATO), and also conducted a policing operation in Mostar from 1994–1996 and mine-clearing in Croatia.²⁰

The outcome of this peace process, and the validity of continuing the arms embargo against Bosnia, would be two of the main factors separating the European Union and the United States. The main goal of George H. W. Bush’s administration seemed to be to get involved only to the minimum extent needed to avoid having the war spread. They feared a Vietnam-like quagmire and believed that the war was a manifestation of ethnic hatreds.²¹ During the first two years of the Clinton Administration, U.S. policy toward Bosnia had two major elements, each irritating to the Europeans. The first was its negative approach to every peace proposal; the other was its advocacy of lifting sanctions and striking Serb positions.

The U.S. opposed European peace proposals on the general grounds that they rewarded Serb aggression and threatened the unity of the Bosnian state. Following this lead, the Bosnian government often rejected the plans, and the Bosnian Serbs were even more reliable on that score. This pattern had begun with the Cutileiro Plan, and continued with the Vance-Owen Peace Plan of 1992–1993, the Owen-Stoltenberg Peace Plan of 1993, and the Kinkel and Juppé European Action Plan of 1993.²² When peace was finally achieved at Dayton in November 1995, Alain Juppé, French Prime Minister said, “Of course, it resembles like a twin the European plan we presented eighteen months ago.” His Foreign Minister, Hervé de Charette, said, “One cannot call it an American peace . . . The fact is that the Americans looked at this affair in ex-Yugoslavia from a great distance for nearly four years and basically blocked the progression of things.”²³

European leaders were even more displeased with American advocacy of “lift and strike.” This policy was driven by the perceived inequity of the arms embargo, which was locking in place a severe material disadvantage against Bosnia, a recognized member of the United Nations. While Bosnian troop strength outnumbered Serb forces once the JNA retired from the field (an imbalance which would increase after the Croat-Muslim Federation was negotiated in Washington in March 1994), the Bosnian Serbs had 400 tanks and 500 artillery pieces at their disposal while the government had very few.²⁴ The United States recommended lifting this embargo and using air power to strike Serb forces until the government had built up its strength. In May 1993, Secretary of State Warren Christopher toured European capitals to sell this plan, but was rebuffed. President Clinton then promoted a policy of protecting six safe havens in Bosnia, but the threat of unilateral lift and strike would continue to be raised by Congress.²⁵ Europeans put forward two objections to this proposal, one moral and one practical. British Foreign Secretary Douglas Hurd described the policy as “leveling the killing field.”²⁶ More arms would only undermine chances for a negotiated peace by giving the government f...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contributors
• Preface
• Introduction: Security in Between
• 1 NATO, The Balkan Crises, and European Security and Defense Policy
• 2 Power-sharing or Partition?: History’s Lessons for Keeping the Peace in Bosnia
• 3 Democratic Ends, (Un)Democratic Means?: Reflections on Democratization Strategies in Brčko and in Bosnia-Herzegovina
• 4 The Clandestine Political Economy of War and Peace in Bosnia
• 5 The North African Mujahideen Network of the Western Balkans
• 6 Environmental Security in Post-Dayton Bosnia and Herzegovina
• 7 Media and Security After Dayton
• 8 Overcoming the Failings of Dayton: Defense Reform in Bosnia-Herzegovina
• 9 The Limits of Post-conflict Police Reform
• 10 Crossing Boundaries: State Border Services and the Multidimensional Nature of Security
• Select Bibliography