Word: balkanizing
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
RICHARD HOLBROOKE Infuriating but effective, he bullied the Balkan bosses into signing a fragile peace in Bosnia...
...diplomat and a dealmaker. Still, some found it surprising that he should be picked for this critical assignment. Over the years, he had won a reputation for fierce ambition and abrasive self-promotion. His ego and aggressiveness, it was said, did not suit the delicate job of constructing a Balkan peace settlement. As one colleague put it, Holbrooke is like "a bull who takes his own china shop with...
...however, the very qualities that aroused such antipathy among Holbrooke's rivals in Washington equipped him ideally for browbeating the men who were running the Bosnian war--Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, Croatian President Franjo Tudjman and Alija Izetbegovic, the President of Bosnia and Herzegovina. At times the ruthless Balkan bosses--especially Milosevic--probably saw something of themselves reflected in Holbrooke. He stroked their egos, he laughed at their jokes, he drank their plum brandy--Milosevic praised his skill as a "bulls------ artist." But Holbrooke was also tough. Once, when Izetbegovic was hesitating over a cease-fire agreement, he barked...
...could often be found roaming the corridors of his hotel in bare feet, hoping to buttonhole an aide into conversation or a reporter into doing yet another story on him. After Croatia's army overran the Serb-held region of Krajina in early August, he shuttled feverishly from one Balkan capital to another. He was pulled up short on Aug. 19 when three aides, including Robert Frasure, who prepared the way for Holbrooke's diplomacy, were killed in a road accident near Sarajevo, but that tragedy only made Holbrooke more determined. When the Bosnian Serbs lobbed a shell into...
...Target Attack Radar System) planes will keep watch over Bosnia while flying eight miles above either the Adriatic Sea or Hungary. Their computers can distinguish personnel and troop movements, even though they cannot, unaided, tell a tank from a car. According to plans, the locations of all concentrations of Balkan armor will be entered into the computer memory banks so the j-stars can track movements out of those areas. Apache helicopters will keep constant watch near U.S. troop units when the fog so common above Bosnian snowbanks lifts enough to permit the choppers to fly. Anti-sniper teams, equipped...