WAR ON ALL FRONTS

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NATO was now determined to go beyond such pusillanimity and asked Boutros-Ghali to hand his key over to the U.N.'s uniformed commanders in the former Yugoslavia, on the theory that they would be less timid than civilian officials. Boutros-Ghali agreed to delegate his authority over air strikes around safe areas and close air support for the U.N. Protection Force (UNPROFOR), to the commander of all peacekeepers in the region, General Bernard Janvier of France. Janvier thus has the authority to order air strikes to protect safe areas. He cannot, on his own, call in the kind of wide-ranging air attacks against civilian economic targets like power stations and ports with which the Americans have wanted to threaten the Serbs, and that many believe would be necessary to bring them to the negotiating table.

Because Janvier has been given a carefully designed NATO plan to protect Gorazde, he may have little choice but to call in air strikes if the Serbs attack, no matter how reluctant he has been in the past--and he has a reputation for caution almost equal to his civilian U.N. colleagues. "He's willing to go along," says a NATO official in Brussels. "He put our minds at rest." How long he would allow such an air campaign to continue, once peacekeepers and civilians begin taking casualties, is another matter. Tough talk at NATO and in the Security Council has usually been followed by climb-downs because the French and British put the safety of their peackeeping troops first. London, Paris and Washington have all blamed the dual-key system and U.N. representative Yasushi Akashi for too-little, too-late air strikes. But Akashi's instructions came from Boutros-Ghali and the Security Council, where France and Britain have been intent on playing the military card with utmost caution.

Now, say the allies, that has changed. They vow to persevere even if their soldiers on the ground are endangered. The signal, says U.S. Ambassador to NATO Robert Hunter, is that "grabbing hostages is not a turnoff to what NATO does." So far this stance applies only to Gorazde, where Serb shelling ceased last week. But as the Bosnian government predicted, the Serbs decided to concentrate their violence on Bihac. The U.S. is pushing to extend the agreement to Bihac and the other two remaining U.N. safe areas, Tuzla and Sarajevo. Says U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke: "We believe the rules of engagement we are now applying to the Gorazde area should be applied nationwide." In order to do that, however, NATO must go back into conference. The North Atlantic Council, the civilian representatives of the 16 member states, will have to agree to such an extension; it is scheduled to take it up this week. One U.S. planner says somewhat different options may be chosen for each safe area.