Word: nato
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...August 1995, when the U.S. at last stepped in and took the lead, the war in the former Yugoslavia had been raging almost four years. The U.N. "peacekeeping" force--a totally unsuitable arrangement for intervention in a full-scale war--was floundering. Through NATO, the U.S. found itself committed, apparently (and astonishingly) without President Clinton's knowledge, to dispatching 20,000 troops if called on--not an attractive option on the eve of a presidential campaign. Holbrooke's mission was to come up with a more acceptable course. His aim--nothing less than "a comprehensive peace agreement, not another weak...
...major figures, only U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali bears the full brunt of Holbrooke's contempt, especially for his early opposition to NATO bombing. Nearer home, he has little patience with the commander of NATO's Southern Forces, Admiral Leighton Smith, who opposed the bombing that Holbrooke believed to be indispensable to the start of a serious negotiating process. Later, NATO troops under Smith's command, reflecting his narrow view of IFOR responsibilities, simply looked on as the thugs of Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic forcibly evicted the Serbs who wished to remain in Sarajevo and then burned their...
...intends to spend almost $1 billion on new jet fighters. Can Poland be far behind? These countries don't need top-of-the-line warplanes and tanks, but the hardware is part of a plan to achieve "interoperability" with the Western allies. Ukraine, Russia and other states left outside NATO will be sure to react...
...that expansion is happening, what does it do? The first issue it raises is credibility. Advocates of NATO expansion agree that the Central and East European states face no military threat; so to them, the whole thing looks risk-free. But if in a few years Poland gets into a scrape with Ukraine, say, or Hungary with Romania, would the U.S. be willing to send American forces or nuclear weapons to defend the new allies? Such spats will never happen, say the proponents...
...itself. Russian officials from Boris Yeltsin on down swear they absolutely, positively will not tolerate Baltic membership in the Atlantic alliance. This stage, two or three years from now, could mean a return to some form of East-West cold war. And since nuclear weapons are the only way NATO could defend the Baltic states against a threat from Russia, it could also mean a return to the terrible days when thermonuclear missile forces confronted each other across European borders. The dream of a generation could turn out to be a recurring nightmare, and the Senate voted...