Forcing the Peace

More than 100,000 dead. More than four million refugees. Has it gone on long enough? After the Holocaust the world pledged "never again" to tolerate genocide. Now, fifty years later, we are again witness to abhorrent human rights violations: genocide, systematic rape and the menace of "ethnic cleansing." This time the United States and Western Europe should not stand by.

As students of draft age, we recognize the risks of war. We are wary of entering a conflict with an uncertain end. But we also recognize that there are sometimes compelling reasons for military intervention. The situation in Bosnia-Herzegovena justifies force.

Much has been broken in Bosnia over the last year: broken cease-fires, broken promises and broken lives. So it should have come as no surprise that the Bosnian Serb parliament shattered hopes by again rejecting peace last week. This after their leader, Radovan Karadzic, had signaled his willingness to support the Vance-Owen peace plan, a proposal that has already been accepted by both the Croats and the Bosnian Muslims.

The hard-line Bosnian Serbs are the only hold-outs on the peace plan. The Serbs' recent demand for time to conduct a "referendum" on the plan represents a blatant delaying tactic to forestall Western action.

Meanwhile, the situation on the ground in Bosnia is growing increasingly worse. After a year of aggression, Serbs now control roughly 70 percent of Bosnia. They are ruthlessly shelling the capital of Sarejevo and the besieged towns of Zepa and Srebrenica, intentionally directing artillery at hospitals, churches and schools. The forces surrounding these Muslim holdouts only sporadically allow access to humanitarian aid convoys.

The populations of these towns risk malnutrition and starvation. The current United Nations relief forces are at the mercy of the well-armed Serbs, and can offer only symbolic protection to the besieged populations.

The Serbian rejection now confirms what many have thought all along: the Serbs will not stop until they are forced to stop. It is now the job of the West to coerce them into accepting peace.

Air power is the method most often suggested as a relatively low-cost but effective means. President Clinton recently proposed a twofold solution: lifting the embargo on arms to the Bosnian Muslims and launching strategic air strikes aimed at knocking out Serbian artillery and tanks.

That would be a start; serious air strikes may force the Bosnian Serbs to agree to the peace plan. But they may not. Bombing may even prompt the Serbs to launch a last, desperate offensive. Troops must be on standby for this possibility--United Nations troops which include a U.S. presence, but are drawn predominantly from European countries.

The immediate goal of intervention is to stop the aggression and the bloodshed. Once this has been accomplished, implementation of a lasting peace can begin.

Moral issues can--and should--play a role in determining foreign policy initiatives in the post-cold war era. But the mere existence of moral issues are not enough to always justify military intervention. Moral wrongs and human rights abuses exist all over the globe. The cost (such as a nuclear war) should at times deter us from intervening, even when the offenses are egregious (as in Joseph Stalin's murder of some 20 million Ukranians as the result of his collectivization plan). In this case, we judge the moral wrongs in Serbia to outweigh the cost of righting them.

The U.S. and the world have interests in the Balkans other than righting moral wrongs and ending genocide. We care about the stability of Europe, and we fear the war, left unchecked, will spread to include Greece and Turkey. We also care about the moral standard that intervention will set for the world. We care that the world sees: "You just can't get away with that."

The intolerable situation in Bosnia-Herzegovina cries out for such a military response. The response must be collective and international. The leadership of the United States may propel the U.N. into action, but the U.N. must take overriding responsibility for the operations. Intervention will not be simple, quick or cost-free--the world has waited far too long for that. But it is necessary, right and long overdue.