AMERICA: WHAT PRICE GLORY?

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THE TROOPS OF TASK FORCE LION are convinced that they will be the first Americans into Bosnia to police the peace. For weeks the advance unit's 1,000 soldiers have prepared at the vast Hohenfels training center in northern Bavaria. They have parachuted out of Air Force transports, clattered to landing zones aboard Chinook helicopters and roared over the countryside in Bradley fighting vehicles. Their exercises, code-named Mountain Shield, were tightly coordinated with the U.S. 1st Armored Division and 3rd Infantry Division, which subsequently conducted operation Mountain Eagle 95 with 10,000 troops earmarked for Bosnian peacekeeping duty.

If NATO contingents are sent into action, says task force commander Colonel James McDonough, "we're going in first. Just give us the word." The troops are ready to fight, but they have also been mastering crowd control, learning the skills of dealing with civilian authorities, soothing ruffled residents. "My guys want to do what we train for," says Sergeant-Major Gerald Parks, his face painted green and black. "If people are dying in Bosnia and we can help out, let's go."

Whether they go depends on the peace talks in Dayton, but if those negotiations succeed, the U.S. Army could move fast. NATO plans, still secret, call for immediate American help in setting up a communications and logistics headquarters in Bosnia. Close on their heels, the Implementation Force, or I-FOR, of 60,000 troops--20,000 American--would stream into Bosnia. The provisions of the peace agreement now being discussed would give NATO's military peace force a license to throw its weight around throughout Bosnia. They could also involve the I-FOR in a fire fight the first time it crashes a Serb roadblock or seizes artillery pieces from the Bosnian army. Once the peace is shattered and American forces begin taking casualties, voices will be raised in the U.S., loudly demanding answers: What makes Bosnia worth dying for? What vital national interest is involved? In fact, the questioning has already begun, as Congress sends signals to Clinton that it will fight him vigorously on any deployment in which it has no say.

Answering the questions is no easy assignment, as the sometimes floundering efforts of official Washington demonstrate. The activist consensus of the cold war, which made every foot of turf on earth a prize to be won or lost, has evaporated. At the same time the venerable formula that U.S. forces are to be used to protect vital interests and key allies seems less than adequate to guide the country in a violent world of fluctuating priorities. Will America's $260 billion-a-year military machine be sent into action to fight only aggressors like North Korea, Iran or Iraq, as the Pentagon's conventional strategy suggests? Those are the least likely contingencies: cross-border invasions and highly visible aggression are increasingly rare. Civil wars, ethnic violence and disintegrating states now produce most of the bloodshed and agony that shock viewers on the evening news programs. Will America duck the new, more common battles? The answers that emerge from the Bosnia debate are likely to set precedents that will channel America's course for years to come.