 By 1995 the conflict had become intolerable. The siege of Sarajevo had become the longest in the century's history. Some 700,000 refugees had fled to Western Europe and North America. Worse, more than 200,000 people had died, a high percentage of them civilians, amid growing evidence of war crimes ranging from systematic rape to mass executions. Finally, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke tackled the problem of peace with threats and inducements that brought the warring parties together in Dayton, Ohio, to hammer out an agreement that finally stopped the fighting. Europe's role was embarrassingly marginal.
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Yet somehow the Continent manages to move ahead. For all its failures, the E.U. remains the world's most attractive economic club. Austria, Sweden and Finland have rushed to join, and others, including most of the former communist countries of Eastern Europe, have put their names on a long waiting list. The Dayton Agreement has proved that NATO can become an effective peacemaker in regional conflicts. France has rejoined the military portion of the alliance after almost 30 years, and nearly all the former Soviet-bloc countries are clamoring for membership. Even a suspicious Russia has acceded to the alliance's "Partnership for Peace" arrangement and has cooperated with NATO in implementing the Dayton accords.
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But peace is far more than the absence of war, and civilization more than the pronouncements of parliaments. It is art, music, cuisine and fashion, all the qualities that transform the monotony of existence into the joy of living. In those qualities, the Europe of the coming millennium is richer, both materially and
