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WHO'S BLUFFING WHOM?
History, wrote Tolstoy, is the product of vast, impersonal forces, and not the cre- ation of individuals. Events in Bosnia this past week seem to prove Tolstoy wrong. In the three months since his arrival, General Sir Michael Rose, United Nations com- mander in Bosnia, has single-handedly altered the course of the war in the former Yugoslavia. Until now, western statesmen often proclaimed that Serbian aggression would not go unpunished, but never backed op their tough talk with military action. This week, General Rose took western rhetoric seriously for the first time. Gorazde is an appropriate site for this change in policy. The city lies in Eastern Bosnia, a majority Muslim area before the war, and the subject of intense ethnic cleansing ever since. Ensuring that Gorazde remains in Bosnian government hands is the least the West can do to right some of the wrongs of this war. Moreover, because of their political value, it is highly unlikely that the Bosnian government could ever be Persuaded to stop fighting if jurisdiction over Gorazde and the other cities of the region were taken out of its control.
But whatever the importance of Gorazde to the Bosnian government, the Bosnian Serb shelling of Gorazde was not strategi- cally significant. The Serbs had no hope of breaking the siege; to actually capture the City would have required far greater forces. Instead, the shelling was a deliberate provocation of General Rose, and an attempt to restart the war. The Bosnian Serb soldiers, it seems, were not at all pleased with the Sarajevo ceasefire which General Rose brokered a few weeks ago. By shelling Gorazde, and by recently expelling General Rose from the city, they hoped to exact revenge for their past humiliation. To allow the Bosnian Serb army to continue such behaviour would have been tantamount to agreeing that the UN has no legitimacy in Eastern Bosnia, and that the peace process is finished. Once he had decided to make a stand in Gorazde, General Rose was right to follow up his threats with military action. True, he is now, to a certain extent, bluffing. Once force has been used the threat of force will no longer be as potent. It will be difficult to continue the bombing raids indefinitely: military targets are not easy to pinpoint near Gorazde, and General Rose, backed up by six SAS men and a few hundred peace-keepers, is in no position to attack the Bosnian Serb army.
But General Mladic, the leader of the Bosnian Serb army, is bluffing as well. On the one hand, he knows that if he keeps up the shelling and threatens to shoot down UN planes, he might frighten the western powers into retreating again; he has good reason to believe this might happen, since that is how they have behaved in the past. On the other hand, General Mladic is well aware that his rag-tag troops are no match for Nato air power, and that the Bosnian Serb 'state' could hardly withstand pro- longed attack. The battle between these two generals will not be won using weapons alone. This is a war of morale, and the only question is who will break first. The stakes are quite high: the winner will be able to dictate the terms of the final legal settlement in Bosnia. General Rose can certainly win this bluffing game, but only if the western pow- ers remain united behind him. We must be prepared and willing to bomb targets like Pale, the Bosnian Serb capital, or the bridges over the River Drina, which the Bosnian Serb army use to get their supplies.
For the moment, the Foreign Office appear to be supporting General Rose, which is odd, given that his policies are dia- metrically opposed to everything they have stood for since the beginning of the war. It is worth asking whether the Foreign Office would behave the same way if General Rose were not British (and therefore an example of Britain 'punching above her weight');equally, it is worth asking whether they will quickly turn him into a scapegoat if he is seen to be failing, or if Russian objections grow too loud, or if the Bosnian Serbs call his bluff. Wavering support is not what General Rose needs: he needs back- ing from governments whose faith will not fade quickly at the first sign of trouble. Western weakness of will is, after all, what General Rose's opponents are counting on.
None of this is to say that the West should now send troops and begin fighting on the ground. From the earliest days of this war, The Spectator . argued against direct western military involvement, and believed that the war should be fought by the Bosnians themselves. Rather than stay- ing neutral, however, the West has been constantly involved. The presence of UN soldiers directly affected the course of the war in many ways; western participation in the Geneva peace negotiations gave all the participants a forum for international pos- turing. Most importantly, by maintaining an arms embargo on the Bosnians, we ensured that the battle was not an even one.
It is a mistake to believe that this week's bombing raid is the first evidence of west- ern intervention in Bosnia. Because our involvement has affected its course from the very beginning, its outcome is now our responsibility.
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