THE PEACEKEEPING PARADOX

By Mark Thompson/Washington

TWO LEADERS ADDRESSING THEIR troops last Saturday: in Germany Bill Clinton tells the 1st Armored Division, slated for Bosnia duty, "If you are threatened with attack, you may respond immediately and with decisive force." That line receives the loudest whoops and applause of the day. Meanwhile, in Vlasenica, a town 80 km northeast of Sarajevo, General Ratko Mladic, the military leader of the Bosnian Serbs, speaks at a ceremony inaugurating a new brigade. "We cannot allow our people to come under the rule of butchers," he says. "Those who bombed us have now infiltrated like lambs, saying they want to protect peace." Are these the words of two men involved in a peace, or of two men involved in war?

In a few weeks 20,000 U.S. troops will be in Bosnia. The most dangerous risk of their mission is that the Bosnian Serbs will consider them an enemy and then act accordingly. There is one specific element of the U.S. policy that gravely exacerbates this danger--the likelihood that the U.S. will provide arms and training to the Bosnian Muslims. In his speech on Bosnia last Monday, Clinton said that "the U.S. and others [will make] sure the Bosnian federation has the means to defend itself" once peacekeeping troops are withdrawn. The statement reflected the U.S. belief that a military balance of power among Muslims, Serbs and Croats is essential to the peace. Yet achieving such parity will be difficult and dangerous. How the U.S. deals with this problem will be crucial to whether the troops can be withdrawn after a year, as Clinton hopes, and whether they will come home in glory or in tragedy.

Throughout the war, the Bosnian Muslims have suffered from a terrible deficiency in weaponry when compared with their Serb antagonists. In 1991 an arms embargo was imposed on all of the former Yugoslavia. That worked to the Muslims' disadvantage, since the Bosnian Serbs were equipped with the help of Belgrade. For years a debate raged over the question of lifting the embargo, arming the Muslims and letting them fight with the Serbs on a "level playing field."

Now, even after the Dayton agreement, the Administration believes that peace cannot be sustained unless the Muslim and Serb arsenals are balanced so that neither side is tempted to attack. "We're committed to achieve a stable military balance within Bosnia and among the states of the former Yugoslavia," U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher told Congress, "so that peace will endure." The question is, How do you achieve such a balance in the face of Bosnian Serb resistance?

In Dayton the parties agreed to enter into negotiations to attain "balanced and stable defense-force levels," and if those talks do not bring results by next summer, the agreement calls for reversing the Bosnian Serbs' edge in weaponry. Under ratios specified in the pact, the Bosnian Serbs' arsenal would shrink to half of the Muslim-Croat federation's (its smaller military is an acknowledgment of ally Serbia's military might). Today the Serbs possess 10 times as many heavy artillery pieces as do the Muslims. And the Serbs have some 400 tanks compared with the Muslims' 100. How likely is it that the Serbs will ever really relinquish their advantage, either in negotiations or by accepting the 2:1 ratio called for if talks fail? After all, the Bosnian Serbs did not even sign the Dayton agreement--the President of Serbia, Slobodan Milosevic, represented them, and he is forcing the accord down their throats.

If the Bosnian Serbs refuse to disarm, the U.S. has a solution: it will pour sufficient arms into the Muslim military to make it twice as powerful as the Serbs'. The U.S. is prepared to make this effort on its own, and it may have to, since its allies are unenthusiastic. But how can the U.S. maintain its peacekeeping neutrality and at the same time build up the Bosnian army? With some justice, the Serbs already consider the U.S. to be a foe. It has been sympathetic to the Muslims; it led the bombing campaign against the Serbs last summer; and it gave an "amber light" to the Croats' brutal expulsion of Serbs from the Krajina. If the Serbs become still more convinced that the U.S. is their enemy, it could mean trouble for American troops.

"It's a major concern," says U.S. Army Chief of Staff General Dennis Reimer of the rearmament plan. "Our soldiers are going to be out there trying to enforce the peace agreement, and we have to be careful that we're not perceived as being on one side or the other." Representative Ike Skelton, a Missouri Democrat highly respected in military circles, says, "Taking sides in previous peacekeeping efforts--1983 in Beirut, 1993 in Mogadishu--brought tragedy to Americans in uniform."

As a way around the problem of giving the American peacekeepers contradictory roles, U.S. officials have suggested contracting out the work of training the Muslims. There are consulting firms made up of retired U.S. army officers who have done this sort of work for various countries (including Croatia). But as Skelton says, no matter how it is arranged, "the effort to equip and train [the Muslims] will have red, white and blue painted all over it."

Aside from the danger, there are practical obstacles to strengthening the Muslim army, although these are not insurmountable. While some of the training could be done inside Bosnia, for large-scale exercises the U.S. might have to invite Bosnian troops to practice on two huge U.S. bases in Germany. Just how the Bosnian military would be outfitted remains uncertain. While some Pentagon officials suggest they might be supplied with older U.S. Army gear, General John Shalikashvili, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, notes that this could cause problems. "The training is not that easy if you give them U.S. or Western arms," he says. "They are now trained on and employ mostly former Soviet equipment." It may be smarter, defense officials say, to equip the Muslims with Soviet weaponry. (In the cold war's wake, Europe is awash in it.) Finally, the effort is likely to cost several hundred million dollars.

U.S. Defense Secretary William J. Perry and Shalikashvili are confident that the rearmament program will work. The American forces, they repeat, will be very well armed and will hit back hard if they are attacked. "We are the pre-eminent military force in the world," says Perry when asked about the threat posed by the Serbs. As for the 12-month deadline, Shalikashvili says simply, "One year is sufficient time to create this military balance. Therefore, I am convinced that we will be able to leave in about a year." That may be true, but providing arms to one side in a centuries-old conflict and then promising to respond ferociously if the other side retaliates is behavior that doesn't look like peacekeeping--it looks like fighting a war.