Now, finally, Clinton appears ready to do something to stop the bloodshed. On Saturday, after a four-hour morning meeting between the president and his top military and diplomatic advisers, Secretary of State Warren Christopher flew to Europe to consult the allies on options for getting tough that, he said, included “military steps.” Clinton sources confirmed that they included bombing raids to halt the Serbs, and lifting the U.N. embargo on arms shipments to the Muslims. Just that aggressive talk-and a warning from Russian President Boris Yeltsin to Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic-was enough to drive the Serbs back to a bargaining table in Athens to consider the Vance-Owen plan for partition of Bosnia that they had rejected just a week before. Clinton’s aides still hoped the mere threat of U.S. intervention would be enough to keep them there. But the Serbs have cynically stalled for time before. Christopher stressed that the Serbs would have to respond with “deeds, actions on the ground.” If they didn’t, the sources said, America was prepared to go in.
Why should America take a stand in the Balkans? Moralists say the answer is easy: the Serb campaign of “ethnic cleansing” of Bosnian Muslims amounts to a new form of genocide, and challenges the world to make good on its pledges of “never again.” Realists say it’s a tougher call: American interests aren’t really at stake, since Serbs don’t threaten U.S. territory and Bosnian oil doesn’t fuel American cars. But are the two standards really at odds? Doesn’t the United States have a larger national interest in offering global leadership and reminding the world that it can act as a force for good? Americans derive tangible benefits from the perception that we’re a country that stands for more than its own petty self-interest; it enhances our authority to call for free trade in Tokyo, or to help dictate the economic future of the Third World and former Soviet bloc. Yet we can’t enjoy the benefits of that role without bearing the costs. To be seen as standing for a higher good, we have to be willing to fight for a higher good.
Our stature as the last true superpower also demands that we be prepared to use force not only in our own defense but in defense of international law and democratic values. After the gulf war, Panama and Grenada, no one could doubt our ability to do just that. But there must have been doubts about this particular president’s will to send Americans into combat. A product of the Vietnam era who never served in uniform, avoided the draft and has clashed publicly with the Pentagon brass-would he be able to play commander in chief convincingly’.? The Kaddafis and Saddams of the world were watching and might have drawn ominous conclusions if they judged he couldn’t. All the more reason that having threatened the use of U.S. force, Clinton has to make good if the Serbs don’t comply. This isn’t another campaign promise on which Clinton can fudge and waffle, without worrisome consequences for American credibility.
Once engaged, Washington also can’t just settle for a cease-fire that would only ratify the results of ethnic cleansing. It has to push for Serb acceptance of an independent Bosnia-perhaps smaller than before the Serb onslaught, but big enough to provide security and international legitimacy to Muslims and other Bosnians who wish to remain independent of Serbia. Does that mean wading into a quagmire? Not necessarily’ The Bosnian Serbs who have done most of the fighting are neither Tito’s partisans nor the Viet Cong; they’re a nucleus of trained and committed ideologues at the command of a rag-tag army of opportunists who should have little stomach for standing up to U.S. firepower. Airstrikes alone may be enough to send them scurrying and compel the Serb leaders to continue negotiating. But if ground troops are required to keep the pressure on, public squeamishness about casual-ties shouldn’t keep Clinton from considering that option. It would take more than the 25,000 who went to Somalia, but probably nowhere near the half million sent to the Persian Gulf. Some lives would be put on the line. But the casualty risk in Bosnia is a far cry from the daily body bags that returned to Dover Air Force Base from Vietnam.
Historical analogies have done more harm than good in the Bosnia debate. This isn’t Vietnam, where the enemy was unified, disciplined and had captured the hearts and minds of civilians. It may not be the Sudetenland, either, for that matter; Milosevic, as ruthlessly intent as he is on creating a Greater Serbia, does not have the global appetite of Hitler. Still, more than enough crimes have been committed to justify America’s stepping in to do as much good as it can. International law governing sovereign borders, treatment of prisoners of war and safe passage of civilians has been flouted. U.N. forces have been openly defied. Millions of refugees have been created in an unstable and impoverished corner of the world. The Pentagon is rightly cautious about sending its men-and now women-into combat, and historically the American public has always been slow to warm to the notion of foreign entanglement. But that’s why the Constitution makes the president commander in chief. Bosnia has proved a test for Clinton, after all. This time, the topic is leadership.
