The costs of peace.

Peacemaking is not peaceful. In Somalia violence dogged every peacemaking step, finally driving the United States to withdraw from what began as a humanitarian mission to feed the hungry. Haiti has been more complicated and the outcome more ambiguous. Shortterm peace has prevailed--more or less: political agreements have been kept and elections were quiet. Still, development and real peace exist only in an elusive future.

No doubt sending U.S. troops to Bosnia is a risk, not the least because the very presence of Americans may invite terrorist attacks from all of the belligerents: recalcitrant Bosnian Serbs; the Islamic fighters whose presence helped to fortify the Bosnian army, but whose future plans remain obscure; the Croats, should their territorial hopes be thwarted; and the unofficial militias who have operated outside of official chains-of-command. As 60,000 NATO troops, including 20,000 Americans, move to impose a rough calm on a still-simmering Bosnia, simply enumerating the potential terrorists begins to suggest the explosive costs of peace.

In Bosnia, 2 million people are displaced from their homes, 250,000 killed, 200,000 wounded. Yielding, negotiating, repenting, and reconciling all demand more of us humans--spiritually, psychologically, and materially--than most of us have much experience at giving. How much more it asks of those who have raped, tortured, murdered, burnt, and pillaged, those who have been victims, and those who have been witnesses of these crimes. Healing these wounds, of course, is not the mandate of NATO, which has been given a year to separate armies, patrol borders, provide security. Armies can only protect a peace that the belligerents themselves must pursue. This in the midst of a devastated economy in which infrastructure, homes, schools, businesses have been ruthlessly destroyed and international funds for resettlement and reconstruction are in short supply. A year seems pitifully brief.

Thus, the chief source of uneasiness about NATO troops in Bosnia: Are they guarding a peace that will take hold or enforcing a cease-fire that Serbs and Croats will use to prepare a final offensive against the vulnerable remains of Bosnia? Neither Franjo Tudjman of Croatia nor Slobodan Milosovic of Serbia, signers of the Dayton Peace Accord, is to be trusted. Many Americans, certainly many in Congress, do not trust that President Bill Clinton and his chief negotiator Richard Holbrooke know what they are getting into--and more critically know how to get out. Every possible argument against sending American soldiers to Bosnia has been made; some are plausible, some reek of mere political calculation.

All things considered, one thing is clear: In Bosnia, a year of peace is better than another year of war. A cease-fire is better than slaughter. The Bosnians did not start this war; they resisted defeat and international indifference; now they are ready to pursue peace despite the looming threat of a greater Croatia and a greater Serbia. For them, the cost of war has been enormous, and peace, if it is achieved, will exact a further price. The cost to the United States, in contrast, seems relatively modest. We should pay it.