Redefining position - United States of America during Yugoslav Wars (1991 -1995)
By Łukasz Domurat
Characteristics of the region
The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was the state that existed from the end of World War II until 1992 when the formal dissolution took place. It was a communist state that consisted of the territory of todays independent states of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Slovenia. SFRY dated back from post-World War II Kingdom of Yugoslavia which main aim was to unite all of the southern Slavis in one country.
In the beginning of the Cold War period, Yugoslavia's Communist regime allied with the Soviet Union. During its first years after creation it became strong supporter to USSR. United States have became no.1 enemy. Two American airplanes flying over Yugoslav airspace were shot down on August 9 and August 19 of 1946 which was the first aerial shootdowns of western aircraft during the Cold War and caused United States calls for military intervention against Yugoslavia.
The strong position of Yugoslavia's leader Josip Broz Tito and his unwillingness to subordinate to Stalin's conception caused the breakup with USSR. The country formed its own form of communism, informally called „Titoism”. Refusal of taking part in communist military alliance „Warsaw Pact” made Yugoslavia choose neutral stance in the Cold War and became a founding member of the Non-Aligned Movement. Not being a part of any side in the Cold War promoted a non-confrontational policy towards the United States.
The political regime hold well until Tito's death in 1980. Tito's plan of Brotherhood and Unity was to ensure that no single ethnic group could ever be in the position to dominate Yugoslavia and that forcing the necessity of cooperation of the different nationalities would reduce the ethnic tensions. After Tito's death main political roles had become gradually dominated by the Serbs. Ethnic tensions grew especially among the Croats and Slovenians, being the economic leader of the country, whilst Albanians from Kosovo felt opressed with not being given the autonomy they aspired to. Finally in 1991 Croatia and Slovenia held a referendum in which the inhabitants voted for independence of their republics. That meant de facto dissolvation of the country as it had no leaders to represent it. The decision of Slovenes and Croats was followed by the republics of Macedonia in September of 1991, and Bosnia and Herzegovina, republic with most complex ethnical diversity, in March of 1992.
Although Yugoslavia conducted a non-confrontial policy, the U.S. perceived socialist Yugoslavia just as another communist country. During the Cold War period United States had its own strategy regarding Yugoslavia. It was partially discovered on XI Sociology Congress in swedish town of Uppsala by Zbigniew Brzezinski. The main part of the strategy aim was to eliminate communist government regardless of its form and shape. The objective was not easy to achieve and it had to be persisted in a long run. Main step to achieve the aim was, according to Brzezinski, giving support to nationalist and separatist groups as natural enemies of communism.
After the collapse of socialist regimes in Eastern Europe, America somewhat changed their stance to Yugoslavia. In policy statement published in May 1991 new American objectives in Yugoslavia, beside freedom, independence and territorial integrity, were stated. Among them „support for the interrelated objectives of democracy, dialogue, human rights, market reform and unity”. Dialogue would mean disputes between republics, ethnic groups or individuals, that should be resolved only through peaceful means. U.S. would not settle to „any use of force or intimidation to settle political differences, change external or internal borders, block democratic change, or impose a nondemocratic unity.”
Undecisive response to Slovenian and Croatian rebellion
United States were undecisive regarding Slovenia's and Croatia's independence. Before the conflict emerged various American politicians had given statements regarding the future of Yugoslavia as a united country. In June 1991 Secretary of the State James Baker visited Belgrade to try to persist leaders of 6 Yugoslavian republics to stay unite. Mr Baker presented the wiev of the U.S. government saying, that the United States would not recognize the republics if they were to unilaterally break away from Yugoslavia and that they should not expect any economic assistance. Main American concern was the possibility of the military conflict, and the memory of World War I igniting in the Balkans region. After the fedaration army attacked Slovenia, U.S. position had to be changed. In the beginning of July, 1991 Washington has changed its emphasis, telling the Yugoslavs that while the United States still believes continued federation would be in the best long-term economic and political interest of their country, they can reshape however they want, including the creation of independent republics, so long as they do it peacefully.
In the beginning of the secession, United States put the pressure mostly on the seccesionists - Croatia and Slovenia, but as the conflict grew, especially in Croatia, Washington started, joining west-european community, to reprimand Serbs of being the side that wants to hold Yugoslavia together by force. That, eventually, didn't force the Americans to recognize new states along with Vatican and EC countries in January, 1992. United States stood firmly up till April, when they recognized both Croatia and Slovenia, and Bosnia in addition. The decision was made with a major doze of frustration from not being able to solve the conflict. That was EC who got the main role of conducting the conflict the way, that was profitable for, above all, German-speaking countries who from the start took a role of the leaders. American policy was really cautious and it seemed that they let the problem down to Europeans to solve it on their own.
3. War in Bosnia - New World Order problems.
Bosnia case has turned out to be one of the most serious challenges for America's foreign policy in the post cold war era. U.S. in the early stages of the conflict, tried to influence the problem discretly, through UN, by forcing the Vance (former U.S. Secretary of State) -Owen plan of dividing Bosnia into separate ethnic cantons. Although all fighting sides were tired and encouraged to sign peace treaty United States torpedoed Lisbon conference by persuading Bosnian leader Alija Izetbegović reject Carrington-Cutileiro plan that proposed ethnic power-sharing on all administrative levels and the devolution of central government to local ethnic communities. The plan was the last chance to stop the war before it broke out in a major way.
Mass-scale war crimes against the civilian population and "ethnic cleansing" reported in detail by the Western media as being committed solely by the Serbian side aroused the American public, which strongly pressured Congress "to do something" to stop further civilian suffering. Under such pressure the view prevailed in Washington that the war was caused by "Serbian aggression against the internationally recognized state", despite the fact that it was indisputably a civil war between three ethnic communities in Bosnia-Herzegovina and that that its international recognition was doubtful from the legal point of view.
Since the Bosnian Serbs rejected the Vance-Owen peace plan in spring 1993, the US administration became for the first time trapped by its own policy towards Bosnia, since the only logical answer to the Serbs' decision would be NATO military intervention in Bosnia. Secretary of State-designate Warren Christopher told air attacks on Serbian positions may be the best idea of solving the situation and furthermore tried to give the Bosniak's side possibility to buy arms abroad, which was contradictory with embargo put on Yugoslavian republics in the begining of the conflict. It appeared years later that Americans helped Muslims, this includes arming Bosnian units.
After non-agreement by EC leaders on that case United States temporarily withdrew from the international mediating efforts while the EC reassumed the leading role. It was nearly the same situation as in the conflict between Croats and Slovenians and Yugoslavia. Do-it-yourself attitude once again showed the neutral stance of United States and lack of patience to steer the conflict into peace treaty.
What made Americans back to the Bosnian scene was intervention of Russian politicians and danger of steering the situation to the wrong end of U.S. policy. international mediation in Bosnia became a trilateral effort, reflecting the new balance of power in Europe, since the International Contact Group included diplomats from the USA, Russia and the EU. The turning-point in the international mediation in the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina came with the Washington Agreement which ended the war between the Bosnian Muslims and Croats in spring 1994. The matter between Serbs and Bosnians was not yet arranged due to conflict inside the Contact Group between Americans who supported Bosnians and Russians supporting Serb arguments. The old Cold War rivalry interfered final maintaning of the conflict.
The war continued through most of 1995. America used NATO and UNPROFOR trying to stop the Serbian offensive. During August 1995 NATO performed air attacks on various Serbian positions in Bosnia. During September and October 1995 the Contact Group, applied intense pressure to the leaders of the three sides to attend the negotiations in Dayton, Ohio, which resulted in later assignment of the agreement in Paris. United States was represented by President Bill Clinton. The war was over and a two-states-in-one formula was implemented that satisfied both Bosnian insistence on territorial integrity and Serb separatist ambitions.
In the USA the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina occasioned the first significant debate over foreign policy in the post-Cold War period. The debate over the American role in the civil war in Yugoslavia stirred the emotions of the participants, who thought that the U.S. failure to intervene on the Muslim side would be equal to the defeat of all the values on which the USA wanted to base the new system of international relations after the collapse of bipolarism. United States promised to stay in Europe after the Cold War in order to help keep peace and sustain the democratic revolution; but a war of aggression has been waged and won by a most undemocratic regime. The United States proclaimed the principles of peaceful change for a new era but those principles have been wantonly disregarded. American presence in the conflict of Balkan wars was more an extension of Cold War race of leadering in areas, that aren't, by any means, American spheres of interest, than real intent to solve the situation. Throughout the conflict America was searching a way to firmly establish its new position in new world order.
I. Marinković, Wojna w Jugosławii. Dlaczego?, Paneuropa e.m., Warszawa 1991, s. 112.
D. Binder, United Yugoslavia Is U.S. Policy's Aim, , „The New York Times”, 01.07.1991
T. L. Friedman, Baker Urges End to Yugoslav Rift, „The New York Times”, 22.06.1991
E. Sciolino, Urgent Calls for Action Against Serbs, „The New York Times”, 20.04.1991
R. J. Aldrich, America used Islamist to arm the Bosnian Muslims, „The Guardian”, 22.04.2002
S. Wojciechowski, Wojna w Bośni i Hercegowinie, (in:) Zbrojne konflikty i spory międzynarodowe u progu XXI wieku, Atla 2, Wrocław 2003, s.333.
D. Gompert, How to defeat Serbia, „Foreign Affairs” July/August 1994