NATO’s military intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo between 1990 and 1995 is a favorite of the United States and their European allies. NATO supporters claim that the West’s efforts in both cases brought an end to bloody conflicts, rampant abuses of human rights, and helped put the countries back on the path to democracy and stability.
This is an oversimplified and grotesquely distorted version of history. After decades of military intervention, both political entities remain dysfunctional foreign wards. NATO troops continue patrolling two political and security environments that are becoming increasingly fragile. Recent events in Bosnia and Kosovo have highlighted the volatile nature of both environments.
These thankless, ultimately useless missions are far from NATO’s original goal–to protect a war-ravaged Europe that was democratic from Soviet intimidation and even conquest. Washington’s efforts to create a transatlantic alliance dominated by the United States in order to face Moscow are debatable. NATO had at least a geostrategic goal that was credible and substantive.
When the USSR disintegrated in December 1991, Western leaders did not proclaim “mission accomplished”, but instead began searching for alternative missions to replace the suddenly outdated alliance. It was at times like grasping for straws. Robert Hormats , Assistant Secretary of State, suggested NATO should concentrate on such issues as student exchanges or environmental initiatives. As if a powerful military coalition was necessary for such purposes.
The U.S., and European leaders did not wait long to devise a mission with at least a military component. Slowly unraveling Yugoslavia caused turmoil in Bosnia – one of the new successor states – and then in Serbia’s secessionist province of Kosovo. NATO took advantage of the situation to launch airstrikes against Bosnian Serbs and Serbia in 1999. In both cases the Alliance’s military intervention was followed by peacekeeping missions.
However, the political settlements imposed by the West have never been stable and are under increasing pressure. Washington and its allies created in Bosnia, with the Dayton Accords of 1995, two semi-autonomous states – one dominated by Muslims and the other – the Republika Serpska – dominated by Serbs – within a single country. The leaders of Republika srpska and its population have both been unhappy with the arrangement since the beginning. Bosnian Serb leader have repeatedly threatened declaring full independence.
The latest episode began on April 2023 and produced yet another spike in tensions. NATO responded by sending 2 B-1 bombers to Bosnia on May 30, in an attempt to intimidate Republika Srpska Leader Milorad Dodik. The planes not only flew directly over Sarajevo, but also other major cities. They also took part in a joint exercise with U.S. Special Forces to the northeast. U.S. officials said that the flights demonstrated “a rock-solid dedication to Bosnia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity”. Ambassador Michael Murphy stated.
At the same time, tensions are also rising between NATO’s long-time client Kosovo. Western powers created tension when they ripped Kosovo from Serbia in 1989 and then pushed for its independence in 2008. The majority of Serbs in the northern part of Kosovo wanted to return to Serbia rather than be a powerless, despised ethnic minority in a newly independent Kosovo which was 90 percent Albanian. has refused to even consider or support this option. They have instead steadfastly supported the national government in Pristina.
The Serb minorities in the north are still dissatisfied. Indeed, anger at Pristina’s attempts to establish suffocating controls over the region has led to the eruption of violence on several occasions—especially over the past two years. On May 29, NATO peacekeepers caught up in a melee involving Serb demonstrators and Kosovo Security Forces . More than two dozen peacekeepers were injured . NATO announced that it would send another 700 troops and place another battalion in high alert to be deployed.
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The United States and their allies have finally directed the majority of their anger at Kosovo, rather than at the Serb minority. Jeffrey Hovenier confirmed Washington’s intention to impose sanctions. Hovenier said at a press briefing the first sanction will be to cancel Kosovo’s participation the upcoming U.S. led Defender Europe 2023 exercise. He also said that the United States will “cease any efforts to help Kosovo gain recognition from countries that haven’t recognized Kosovo (roughly half the members of United Nations) and in the integration process into international organizations.”
It is a geopolitical farce that B-1 bombers are used to intimidate an ethnic group in a small country, which is strategically and economically irrelevant, to force them to accept a forced union. They want their own state, not to be a part of an unworkable alliance with other ethnic groups. This is exactly what’s happening in Bosnia.
The same is true when NATO troops have to enforce a de facto border between an ethnic minority in a country that is, or should be, economically and strategically irrelevant to both the United States as well as the European powers. NATO’s endless, petty missions to keep peace in the Balkans could be funny if they weren’t so sad. It is unlikely that NATO’s founding fathers could have imagined this outcome, no matter what one may think of NATO’s original mission during the Cold War.
