Word: nato
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Minutes after the attack, the commander of the Bangladeshi battalion in * Bihac requested an air strike by NATO planes under the standard rules of engagement. Despite the fact that the U.N. Security Council would shortly condemn the assault as "a heinous act of violence," U.N. commanders in Sarajevo refused to pass the request on to NATO. As the Serbs continued to harass U.N. forces, holding peacekeepers hostage and closing down the Sarajevo airport, U.N. commanders did nothing. "The U.N. is never going to fight back," remarked one American official, in an attempt to explain the commanders' conviction that air strikes...
...response and calling off the whole show, the allies' simultaneous pursuit of both alternatives leaves them hamstrung. On one hand they fear that a more assertive approach in Bosnia is likely to entangle them more deeply in the war. Yet admitting defeat and pulling out would not only humiliate NATO but also allow the conflict to widen...
...exchanges in Budapest joltingly escalated the tensions to the heads- of-state level. This time it was Presidents Bill Clinton and Boris Yeltsin who dropped the big-grin, buddy-buddy act of their previous six face-to-face meetings and traded barbs. Clinton chided Russia indirectly for opposing NATO's plans to define the criteria for admitting Moscow's former satellites Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary by the end of 1995. NATO is the "bedrock" of European security, said Clinton, and expanding it will make "new members, old members and nonmembers" safer. And if Russia thinks otherwise? Well...
Yeltsin responded by voicing fear that Europe was about to split again into hostile blocs, this time consisting of everybody else vs. Russia. Expansion of NATO, in his view, would push what many Russians still see as an anti-Moscow alliance right up against the borders of the old Soviet Union. Said Yeltsin: "Europe, not having yet freed itself from the heritage of the cold war, is in danger of plunging into a cold peace. Why sow the seeds of mistrust?" The Russian President also accused Washington of overweening arrogance in playing the role of sole superpower. In his words...
...problem is one of psychology. Despite, or because of, current military and economic weakness, Russians of every political opinion yearn to see their country once again treated as the great power it historically has been. Instead, they think, it is being brushed aside. Russian fears of an expanded NATO may be exaggerated but are not totally paranoid. Fear of Russia is indeed a factor driving Moscow's former satellites to seek full NATO membership. Russians tend to forget their country's long history of aggressive expansion under czars as well as commissars. Worse, Russians think the U.S. and other Western...