Word: nato
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Bosnia flares like a midsummer forest fire, defying the West's wavering attempts to contain it. On Friday, July 21, the NATO allies announced a bold new plan to deter Serb aggression. In the days that followed this call to arms, Ratko Mladic, the commander of the rebel Bosnian Serbs, seized and "ethnically cleansed" one "safe area," Zepa, and intensified a brutal assault on another, Bihac. Meanwhile, an eventuality that the U.N. and NATO had dearly hoped to prevent--a widening of the Balkan war--seemed by Friday to have occurred, as Croatia joined the fighting. Not a very good...
...Given NATO's apparent resolve, why weren't the Serbs deterred, and how did all this happen? First of all, at the emergency meeting in London on the 21st, the allies simply wrote off Zepa, even though it remained in Bosnian Muslim hands. Then it became clear, despite what Washington was suggesting, that the agreement reached at the London meeting was only an outline. The NATO plan contained no specifics, and U.N. Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali had made no promise to delegate his control over air strikes until he heard the full details of what the alliance proposed...
...consensus on those details came later and after long debate. NATO's generals and ambassadors met over the weekend and into last week in Brussels, winding up with a 13-hour marathon session that ended only at 4 a.m. Wednesday. If the Serbs showed signs of massing for a full-scale attack on Gorazde, the last safe area in eastern Bosnia, NATO planes would pre-emptively attack the Serb air defenses, troop formations, armor and artillery in the area. If the Serbs still pushed on, allied fighter-bombers would range farther, taking out ammunition and fuel dumps and Serb supply...
...podium, U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher agreed that the policy was to deter the Serbs. But he insisted that an attack on Gorazde would be met with decisive air strikes on Serb forces and supply lines. "Any air campaign will include significant attacks on significant targets," he said. nato already has plans for such air raids, ranging from close support of troops on the ground to a "regional" bombing campaign, although the relevant U.N. resolution authorizes strikes only in and around a safe area. It was still unclear just who would make the decision to launch those strikes...
...will have to be spelled out soon. As the ministers sat down in London, one safe area -- Srebrenica -- had already fallen and another -- Zepa -- was about to fall. Gorazde was surrounded, under artillery fire. If the Serb commander, General Ratko Mladic, presses ahead with his assault, the U.N. and NATO will then be pledged to strike...