THE PEACEKEEPING PARADOX

TWO LEADERS ADDRESSING THEIR troops last Saturday: in Germany Bill Clinton tells the 1st Armored Division, slated for Bosnia duty, "If you are threatened with attack, you may respond immediately and with decisive force." That line receives the loudest whoops and applause of the day. Meanwhile, in Vlasenica, a town 80 km northeast of Sarajevo, General Ratko Mladic, the military leader of the Bosnian Serbs, speaks at a ceremony inaugurating a new brigade. "We cannot allow our people to come under the rule of butchers," he says. "Those who bombed us have now infiltrated like lambs, saying they want to protect peace." Are these the words of two men involved in a peace, or of two men involved in war?

In a few weeks 20,000 U.S. troops will be in Bosnia. The most dangerous risk of their mission is that the Bosnian Serbs will consider them an enemy and then act accordingly. There is one specific element of the U.S. policy that gravely exacerbates this danger--the likelihood that the U.S. will provide arms and training to the Bosnian Muslims. In his speech on Bosnia last Monday, Clinton said that "the U.S. and others [will make] sure the Bosnian federation has the means to defend itself" once peacekeeping troops are withdrawn. The statement reflected the U.S. belief that a military balance of power among Muslims, Serbs and Croats is essential to the peace. Yet achieving such parity will be difficult and dangerous. How the U.S. deals with this problem will be crucial to whether the troops can be withdrawn after a year, as Clinton hopes, and whether they will come home in glory or in tragedy.

Throughout the war, the Bosnian Muslims have suffered from a terrible deficiency in weaponry when compared with their Serb antagonists. In 1991 an arms embargo was imposed on all of the former Yugoslavia. That worked to the Muslims' disadvantage, since the Bosnian Serbs were equipped with the help of Belgrade. For years a debate raged over the question of lifting the embargo, arming the Muslims and letting them fight with the Serbs on a "level playing field."

Now, even after the Dayton agreement, the Administration believes that peace cannot be sustained unless the Muslim and Serb arsenals are balanced so that neither side is tempted to attack. "We're committed to achieve a stable military balance within Bosnia and among the states of the former Yugoslavia," U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher told Congress, "so that peace will endure." The question is, How do you achieve such a balance in the face of Bosnian Serb resistance?