Why was the summer of 1995 any different?

Why the emergence of a firm consensus on

a concerted strategy now when it had eluded the Clinton administration for over two
years? The answer, in part, lies in the horrors witnessed by Srebrenica—a sense
that this time the Bosnian Serbs had gone too far. That certainly proved to be the
case in the Pentagon, where Defense Secretary William Perry and JCS Chairman John
Shalikashvili took the lead in pushing for the kind of vigorous air campaign that
was finally agreed to in London. The real reason, however, was the palpable sense
that Bosnia was the cancer eating away at American foreign policy, in the words of
Anthony Lake, Clinton’s national security adviser. U.S. credibility abroad was
being undermined perceptibly by what was happening in Bosnia, and by the America’s
and NATO’s failure to end it. With presidential elections a little over a year
away, the White House in particular felt the need to find a way out.

It was a way out that the president demanded from his foreign policy team in June
1995. Spearheaded by the National Security Council staff and strongly supported by
Madeleine Albright (then the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations), America’s
first coherent Bosnia strategy was developed. This strategy for the first time
matched force and diplomacy in a way that would break the policy impasse that had
strangled Washington for so long. It was debate by the president and his senior
advisers over the course of three days in August and, when accepted by Clinton,
became the basis for the diplomatic triumph in Dayton three months later.

Lake Pushes the Process

Given the worsening atrocities in Bosnia and the growing discontent with U.S.
policy, how did the administration move from its paralysis of 1994 to its
constructive role in late 1995? In May ’95, Tony Lake first began to consider how
U.S. policy toward Bosnia might be changed in a more productive direction. He began
to meet informally with key people on his NSC staff (including his deputy, Sandy
Berger, and his chief Bosnia aides Sandy Vershbow and Nelson Drew) to consider how
the United States could help to change the tide of war.

It had long been clear that progress toward a negotiated settlement was possible
only if the Bosnian Serbs understood that not achieving a diplomatic solution would
cost them dearly. For nearly a year, the United States and its Contact Group
partners (Britain, France, Germany, and Russia) had sought to pressure the Bosnian
Serb leadership headquartered in Pale into agreeing to commence serious
negotiations by convincing Milosevic to cut off economic and, especially, military
assistance to the Bosnian Serbs. Despite being offered various incentives
(including direct negotiations with the United States and the suspension of U.N.
economic sanctions), Milosevic never followed through.

This left military pressure—the threat or actual use of force against the Bosnian
Serbs—as the only real lever to convince Pale that a diplomatic solution was in its
interests. Yet, more than two years of trying to convince the NATO allies of this
fact had led nowhere. At each and every turn, London, Paris, and other allies had
resisted the kind of forceful measures that were required to make a real impact on
the Bosnian Serb leadership. In their informal discussions, Vershbow and Drew
suggested that the only way to overcome this resistance was to equalize the risks
between the United States on the one hand and those allies with troops on the
ground on the other. This could be achieved either by deploying U.S. forces
alongside European troops or forcing the withdrawal of the U.N. force. Since the
president had consistently ruled out deploying American ground forces to Bosnia
except to help enforce a peace agreement, the only way significant military
pressure could be brought to bear on the Bosnian Serbs would be after UNPROFOR had
been withdrawn. Lake agreed with this assessment and proposed that his staff begin
to work on a “post-withdrawal” strategy—the steps that the U.S. should take once
UNPROFOR was gone.