A SOLUTION IN THREE PARTS

By Michael Kramer

Unable to talk the warring factions into ending their slaughter and unwilling to use force to stop them, the allies are sending additional troops to protect those already in Bosnia. It is a prescription for paralysis, and possibly disaster.

Strengthened and redeployed to fewer enclaves, the so-called peacekeepers will do ... what? They are already ineffective at shielding and feeding innocent civilians; if they merely hunker down in the six existing misnamed safe havens, it will become impossible for them to fulfill those missions. Worse, they will continue as prime targets of the Serbs, because the Bosnian Muslims use those very same areas to rest, retrain and plan counterattacks. If, to render themselves less vulnerable, they retreat to more remote locations, they will be safer but almost wholly irrelevant-unless they become combatants, which is the last thing their governments want.

Is a successful strategy still possible? Perhaps. Where the remaining hostages are concerned, the message should be clear: harm them, and you will suffer a pounding even Saddam Hussein might deem impressive. For the long term, the beginning of wisdom is to cease denying the reality that there is no peace to keep, while pursuing a three-pronged plan.

1. The goal of a serious policy, says Council on Foreign Relations president Leslie Gelb, "should be a settlement along the lines of the territorial division already approved by" Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic. That scheme contemplates a roughly fifty-fifty split of Bosnia. "There's no hope for a nice, multiethnic society," says Gelb. "The parties will keep fighting till they're together" with their brethren. "So, up front, we should propose that the Serbs in Bosnia confederate with Serbia and move people so they're living in areas contiguous to Serbia itself."

2. In the service of this negotiated division, large economic sticks should be brandished. Right now, despite sanctions, the Serbs import whatever they need. Failure by both Belgrade and the Bosnian Serbs to ratify an equitable land split should prompt an end to all international air traffic and the sinking of ships carrying forbidden cargo.

3. If that doesn't work, the old "lift and strike" proposal should be revived. That means "the coming redeployment should be a prelude to getting the U.N. troops out altogether," says Democratic Senator Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut. The Muslims would then be provided with heavy weapons, and air strikes would be employed while they learn to use them. Targets would include Serb military headquarters, munitions depots, arms factories, oil-storage facilities and bridges.

It is not a pretty -- or a bloodless -- solution. But continued dithering will further erode the West's credibility, produce a huge refugee crisis in Europe and encourage others to conclude that aggression carries no price. Avoiding such outcomes-particularly the last-is the very definition of a vital Western interest. If a strategy like the one suggested here doesn't work, at least the Bosnian Muslims will have been given what they want: the chance to fight on a leveled killing field. If a serious strategy isn't tried, then as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke says, history will confirm the verdict so far: "The failure to respond properly in this tragedy is the greatest collective failure of the West since the 1930s."