President Clinton contends that the Bosnian conflict lies at the heart of Europe and threatens to destabilize the entire continent. He has said that "the conflict in Bosnia is the most dangerous threat to European security since the end of the Second World War", and that "there is the very real risk that it could spread beyond Bosnia, and involve Europe's new democracies as well as our NATO allies." This argument misconstrues both geography and history. Bosnia and the rest of the Balkans are Europe's hangnail, not its heart. Developments there may be disgusting and tragic, but they have meager potential to disrupt even the European, much less the global, strategic environment. Indeed, Britain's ambassador to the United States, John Kerr, has conceded that "the war in Bosnia could rumble on for years without directly impinging on the security of Western Europe." President Clinton notwithstanding, the Balkans have little potential to roil post-Cold War Europe--unless, that is, the United States and the major European powers choose to make it once again an arena for great power rivalries.
The dismaying fact is that U.S. policy is proceeding in a direction that is likely to have that effect. In a haphazard fashion, we are moving toward making that volatile region a zone of extensive U.S. influence--perhaps ultimately a virtual American protectorate--with the goal of containing Serb power. We are developing an ever more extensive network of political and military relationships with Belgrade's neighbors. Begun as no more than a provident effort to prevent the Balkan War from spreading--at a time when it was assumed that there would be no major dispatch of U.S. combat troops to the Balkans--this policy has since acquired a momentum and a logic of its own now that tens of thousands of U.S.-led NATO troops are there.
