The third Balkan war: Yugoslavia's history shows both the prudence and the danger of staying out of the way.

JUDGING from the hesitant American response to the Yugoslav crisis, Washington's foreign policy continues to be plagued by the Vietnam syndrome, thought to have been cured once and for all by the Gulf War victory.

In his June 1991 trip to Belgrade, then-Secretary of State James Baker sided with the Serb-dominated Yugoslav regime by warning the non-Serb republics not to expect U.S. recognition of their secessions. This tragic blunder gave the proponents of Great Serbian chauvinism carte blanche to unleash a war of aggression which has so far cost the lives of more than fifty thousand civilians in Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The United States has been at a loss to respond. High-level statements have indicated that the official U.S. policy is still to give UN sanctions a chance to eliminate the need for American intervention.

But economic sanctions have not deterred Serb forces from overrunning a third of Croatia and most of BosniaHerzegovina. In fact, the ineffectiveness of the sanctions has been underscored by recent reports of the inability of Rumanian and Bulgarian border patrols on the Danube to prevent Serbian-flagged barges from delivering embargoed crude oil to Belgrade. Similarly, neither the London peace conference of last summer nor the now collapsed Geneva negotiations have put an end to the Serbian campaign of terror.

Words, Words, Words 

SO FAR, STERN words from Washington have not been matched by action on the ground. To justify their inaction, highranking officials from the Bush Administration indicated that since no compelling U.S. interest seemed to be at stake in Yugoslavia, there was no need to risk American lives in military action against Serbia's war machine.

President Clinton has yet to follow up on his suggestion during the campaign that U.S. air power be used to halt Serbian atrocities. Nor has Secretary of State Warren Christopher disclosed what the direction of the new U.S. policy is going to be. But he has wisely distanced the United States from the peace plan hatched by Cyrus R. Vance and Lord Owen. The peace plan divides Bosnia-Herzegovina into ten semi-independent regions--three mostly Serb, three mostly Croat, three mostly Mushm, and one mixed tied together by a loose central government in Sarajevo. It is not only unfair, since it legitimizes Serbian territorial gains, but also unworkable, as shown by recent clashes between Bosnian Muslims and Bosnian Croats over contested land. It has even been rejected by the Bosnian Serbs, who are its obvious beneficiaries.

It was understandable that the Bush Administration preferred to stay out of the conflict in such a complicatod part of the world, and yet ignoring an escalating crisis in an area long known as the "tinderbox of Europe" is to court disaster in the long run. After all, it was the Serbian-sponsored assassination  of Austrian Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo that sparked World War I with all its tragic consequences.

However, a more appropriate historical parallel to the current dangerous situation is the two Balkan wars of 1912-13 which historians have described as a dress-rehearsal and a prelude to World War I. In the First Balkan War, Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, and Bulgaria captured the Balkan possessions of the Ottoman Empire. But when Serbia refused to give up parts of Macedonia assigned by the peace treaty to Bulgaria, the Second Balkan War broke out among the exallies. Rumania also joined the fighting, and so did the Turks, defeated the first time around. Serbia and Greece occupied and partitioned most of Macedonia, whose predominantly Slavic population is closely related by ties of blood, language, and culture to neighboring Bulgarians. Later, after the end of World War II, the entire nonGreek population of the part of Macedonia seized by Greece was forcibly evicted--a precursor of the infamous "ethnic cleansing" practiced by the Serbs.

Now the bitter conflict in what was formerly Yugoslavia threatens to escalate into a Third Balkan War. And if history repeats itself, as it sometimes does, Macedonia may once again be the apple of contention.

Although Macedonia declared its independence of 1991, the Belgrade government has yet to withdraw the Yugoslav Army from the republic, nor has it agreed to recognize the existing boundaries, claiming that to do so would strand over 400,000 Serbs (in fact, a recent census shows that fewer than 40,000 ethnic Serbs live on Macedonian territory).

Given the now familiar scenario of predatory Serbian claims backed by the massive use of force, the Macedonian government fears that once Milosevic is done carving up BosniaHerzegovina, Macedonia will be next.

However, a Serbian assault on Macedonia could draw Bulgaria into the fray. Apart from Turkey, Bulgaria is the only country in the world that has recognized Macedonia's independence, and the Bulgarian president has publicly warned that Sofia would not stand idly by if Macedonia is attacked. Last year it was disclosed that Bulgaria had secretly negotiated to supply weapons to Macedonia in violation of the UN arms embargo on all former Yugoslav republics.

Since Macedonia is also home to a large and militant Albanian minority, Serb violence there could spill over into neighboring Kosovo, a Serbian province which is 90 per cent ethnic Albanian and largely Muslim. An antiAlbanian ethnic-cleansing campaign, which Serb extremists have already started in the province, could then turn into genocide. Or violence could first erupt in volatile Kosovo, where there have been sporadic attacks by Albanian gnerrillas against Serbian targets, and then spread to Macedonia. In either case, that could provoke a military response from Albania and its ally Turkey.

Turkey, which has been the most vocal critic of Serbian actions in the Bosnian conflict, signed a military and economic treaty with Albania last June. Under the treaty, the Turkish government has provided military uniforms for the Albanian armed forces, and Albanian officers have been sent to study at the military academy in Ankara. However, the Albanian government reportedly turned down a Turkish request to station two tank divisions on Albanian territory next to the border with Bosnia-Herzegovnia, obviously out of fear of Serb and Greek retaliation. Turkey has also mended fences with Bulgaria, once an enemy, as evidenced by the close contacts between their military establishments. Both Ankara and Sofia have, however, denied a report that the Turks asked the Bulgarians late last year to provide a land and air corridor for Turkish troops to cross Bulgaria if outside military help was requested by the Bosnian government.

Already facing a hostile Hungary in the north, which is resentful of the mistreatment of ethnic Hungarians in Serb-held parts of Croatia and in the Serbian province of Voivodina, Belgrade has become sufficiently worried by the prospect of an anti-Serbian coalition involving Albania, Turkey, and Bulgaria, that last summer then-Yugoslav Federal Premier Milan Panic traveled to Athens to seek closer ties with Greece. He also tried to cultivate better relations with Rumania, whose government, in an attempt to distract public attention from mounting economic problems at home, has voiced veiled territorial claims against Bulgaria.

As expected, Panic received a sympathetic hearing from the Greek government, which is deeply apprehensive not only of the reopening of the Macedonian question, but also of the diplomatic advances of its archenemy, Turkey. Athens has used the name of the Republic of Macedonia as a flimsy pretext (the northernmost province of Greece is also called Macedonia) to denounce the Macedonian declaration of independence and to work successfully against its recognition by the European Community and the United States. When the Bulgarian foreign minister blasted this effort as having "destabilized" the Balkans, the once-cordial relations between Bulgaria and Greece soured.

Given these ominous diplomatic moves and counter-moves, the dangers of continued American inactivity obviously outweigh the risks of possible military intervention. If the neo-Communists in Belgrade are allowed to attack and dismember their non-Serb neighbors, East European confidence in Washington's global leadership could disappear overnight. Moreover, U.S. acquiescence in a Serb victory would greatly embolden the ousted Communist elites of Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union, whose hopes for a political comeback have been revived by the severe economic downturn in the entire region, as well as by recent political reversals in Lithuania and Bulgaria.

NATO--already seen by many of its members as an anachronism and a relic of the Cold War--could become another casualty of a Balkan war pitting Greece against Turkey. Such a war would certainly spread to the contested Aegean Sea region and the divided island of Cyprus. However, outside powers could also be drawn in. Germany, Italy, and Austria would, no doubt, support the anti-Serb coalition.

So would most Muslim countries. During the visit of the president of Bosnia-Herzegovina to Teheran last fall, his Iranian counterpart darkly warned of a jihad against Serbia if the Serb slaughter of Bosnian Muslims does not stop. It would hardly be in the interests of the West if the Bosnian conflict should escalate into a holy war between Muslims and Christians.

On the other hand, China and the few other surviving Communist states would predictably rally to Belgrade's side. Given its historical links to the region and especially to Belgrade, Russia could find it equally hard to remain neutral. Serbia's war against Bosnian Muslims and Croatian Catholics has strong appeal for Russian hard-line Communists and ultra-nationalists. Obviously as a result of this, Yeltsin's foreign minister has attempted, repeatedly though so far unsuccessfully, to have the UN economic embargo against Serbia and Montenegro lifted at least for the winter; while the Russian UN ambassador, a Communist-era holdover, has shrilly demanded economic and other UN sanctions to punish Croatia for aspiring to restore sovereignty over a sliver of its Serb-occupied territory. However, it is unclear whether Milosevic could hope to receive from his Russian and Chinese backers anything more than limited diplomatic and economic support.

What Could We Do?

WITH THE non-Serb population of Bosnia-Herzegovina being decimated by winter cold, starvation, mass executions, and daily Serbian shelling, the least the United States should be doing is ship critically needed weapons to the beleaguered Bosnian government. And if, as Mr. Vance and Lord Owen have warned, Serbian forces retaliate by blocking humanitarian supplies to the republic, protective air cover provided by U.S. aircraft from carriers based in the Adriatic and the Mediterranean would be the next step. Washington also needs to recognize Macedonia, in spite of Greek protests. But, above all, the Clinton Administration must act quickly and decisively to thwart the Hitler-like designs of Milosevic, who is said to be determined to blow up the entire Balkans and even Europe if he does not get his way.

It is this mentality in Belgrade that makes the Bosnian government so skeptical about the Vance-Owen plan. And so should be the U.S. State Department. We have already seen how the Serbs have been manipulating the UN-arranged ceasefire to consolidate their territorial conquests in Croatia. The peace plan may be equally unenforceable. And if it is rejected by the warring parties, or if it fails to bring about the end of hostilities, the United States must be ready to consider other available options.

Serb militants have repeatedly warned that Washington could face a defeat worse than Vietnam, should U.S. forces become involved in the Bosnian fighting. High-ranking Pentagon officials echo Belgrade's bluff and bluster by raising the specter of a 'Vietnam-like quagmire." The top brass, particularly General Colin Powell, insist that more than 100,000 U.S. ground troops would be needed just to separate the warring sides in BosniaHerzegovina. The advantage of the Vance-Owen peace plan is that, if successfully implemented, it would avoid the pitfalls of American military intervention.

Nevertheless, any parallels with the debacle in Vietnam are completely groundless. Not only can Serbia not rely on anything remotely like the massive military and economic support which the Soviet bloc and China provided to Hanoi, but its underdeveloped economy, further weakened by the sanctions, is in shambles, while its war-weary population and squabbling politicians are deeply divided over Milosevic's barbaric little war and the international condemnation it has brought upon their country.

But if all peace-making efforts fail, a devastating air campaign similar to Desert Storm would no doubt break the back of the Serb military in a matter of weeks, if not days. Carried out from air bases in Europe, such an operation would be--logistically speaking, at least--far less challenging for the U.S. military than the Persian Gulf War. Given the difficulty of the Bosnian terrain, an air war would be a far preferable alternative to injecting U.S. ground forces into the area. And the rout of the Serbs, which U.S. war planes would start from the air, could be easily finished by the Bosnians and Croats on the ground. This fact, of which the paranoid Milosevic regime, surrounded as it is by enemies on nearly all sides, is not unaware, gives Washington a leverage which it should not fail to exploit diplomatically in order to correct Jim Baker's disastrous blunder.

And, finally, it must be emphasized that the proper historical parallel against which to evaluate the advisability of a more assertive U.S. stance is not the Vietnam conflict, but an earlier war provoked by similar madness and similarly sickening atrocities, namely, the war against Hitler's Germany. Unlike any peaceful solution along the lines of the Vance-Owen peace plan, war is a rather painful remedy, but a remedy that may have to be considered nonetheless, if the patient is to survive.