Toward Balkan disengagement

You could say that the apparently but possibly temporarily successful
resolution of the U.S.-China spy plane has shown that it is possible for
the Bush team to make up its foreign policy on the fly, in the midst of a
minor crisis, and get away with it.

Certainly, although he never said
anything especially insightful or profound, President Bush remained calm,
probably knew a lot more of the details than he was letting on but
maintained a schedule of other activities (unlike Jimmy Carter who became
consumed by the Iran hostage crisis) and achieved his main objective,
which was to get the 24 spy plane crew members returned.

So the Bush team, whether you believe it gave up too much or snookered the
Chinese, came out looking pretty good in its first major international … let's call it a "situation" or a "difficulty" rather than a crisis. But it
would do better if it established a reasonably coherent framework for
foreign policy before the next demi-crisis demands close attention --
preferably a fleshing out of the generalities about not being the world's
policeman or first resort in every situation that was a campaign theme.

It is possible to muddle through, of course; most presidents have done
little more, relying on the permanent foreign policy establishment to
handle the details. But an overarching set of guidelines as to when, how
and in what circumstances the United States will intervene in foreign
disputes or problems would be useful not just to those who have to
implement policy but to foreign friends and foes who would be better able
to calculate how the behemoth in Foggy Bottom might respond.
Predictability and reliability can be important aspects of avoiding
unnecessary conflict.

TRENDING: CNN's Cuomo: Police reform won't come until white kids are killed

For better or worse, Dubya is what he is. He seems much more adept at
day-to-day politicking and governing than most had predicted. But he does not
seem to be the most likely candidate to announce, articulate and implement
radical, far-reaching changes and sell them to the American people in the
way Ronald Reagan and only a few others in our history have.

His nuts-and-bolts management style might lead to more actually getting done
than a visionary could accomplish, but it would be unwise to expect
visionary thinking or inspiration from this administration.

As for the return of the airplane itself, you have to figure that the
Chinese have already stripped it of its most useful information or are in
the process of doing so, and will have achieved an intelligence coup that
might require serious reassessment of methods and machinery by the United
States. But while it is symbolically important to get it back and its
physical return would no doubt add important information, the intelligence
people have to have a pretty good idea already of just what has been lost.
So a certain amount of footsy-playing and dithering around might not do a
great deal of actual harm. That might allow some time to think about an
actual longer-term policy rather than a series of reactions to events and
provocations.

Unfortunately, on the other side of the world where events strongly
suggest a systematic rethinking of American commitments overseas,
conventional thinking seems to reign.

Ongoing conflicts between NATO "peacekeepers" and would-be Croatian
nationalists in Bosnia and between Croatian activists and Croatian police
in Croatia itself underline the difficulty of trying to impose a
settlement cobbled together by well-meaning outsiders on a part of the
world that has become a byword for irreconcilable differences. One may
hope that the tussles, in which according to news stories two Americans
were among 21 NATO troops slightly injured, will accelerate the process
of rethinking just what the American commitment in the Balkans should be.

While nobody could have predicted exactly what form tensions would take,
the current bouts of hostility were virtually inevitable from the moment
the Dayton Accords that created a U.S. and NATO-designed ruling system for
the small Balkan country of Bosnia were signed in 1995.

When most of the region was part of Yugoslavia, run by the charismatic
(and sometimes brutal) renegade communist dictator Tito, ethnic
differences were papered over or kept in check by authoritarian means.
Once former Yugoslavia began to break up, long-simmering tensions began to
bubble up -- often enough stirred by ambitious politicians like Slobodan
Milosevic, who made a smooth if opportunistic transition from communist
apparatchik to Serbian nationalist.

Although a great deal of mingling and intermarriage has occurred over the
centuries, there are three major ethnic/religious/nationalist groupings in
the Balkans -- the Serbs, the Croats and the Bosnian Muslims. (Well,
Montenegrins, Albanians, Armenians, Roma and Macedonians are part of the
mix as well, and some make an historical case for a separate Kosovar
identity -- all of which simply demonstrates how monstrously complex and
difficult the existing tensions in the region as a whole are, but the
focus today is on Bosnia.)

As Yugoslavia began to break up, Croatia and Bosnia were recognized as
independent countries, leaving a Yugoslavia consisting of Serbia,
Montenegro and Kosovo. A civil war among Muslims, Serbs and Croatians
developed over control of Bosnia and its once-lovely capital Sarajevo. It
was finally resolved after some NATO bombing and a grudgingly-signed peace
agreement.

It was almost as if the NATO and State Department experts whose desires
were backed by NATO troops viewed Bosnia as a pristine laboratory for
theories about democracy. The Western allies decreed a multi-ethnic state
with complex power-sharing arrangements. Although in theory anyone was
free to live anywhere in Bosnia, presaging a new day of liberal tolerance,
in practice, most Serbs and Croats gravitated to "their own" regions in
Bosnia, leaving the country virtually partitioned among ethnic groups in
all but formal institutions.

Bosnian Serbs occasionally agitate to be joined to Serbia proper, and
Bosnian Croats have talked about being annexed to Croatia. In recent
years, however, a group called the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ in
Croatian) has called for a Croatian mini-state inside Bosnia.

Last Friday NATO troops and Bosnian police raided a bank in Mostar that
NATO spokesmen said was being used as a headquarters for the HDZ. That
sparked a riot in which the 21 NATO troops were injured. On Monday a group
of Croatian "veterans and nationalists" tried to block a NATO military
base in Split, Croatia, that provides logistical support for NATO troops in
Bosnia. They were thwarted by Croatian police.

What all this conflict suggests is that the Western-imposed experiment in
Bosnia is not working out well.

Croats, Serbs and Muslims have gotten
along as neighbors at various times in the past and may do so again in the
future. But Bosnia is not a hermetically sealed laboratory in which
experiments in multi-ethnic cooperation can be conducted with impunity. It
is a region with a long history that includes ancient grievances stirred
up and exacerbated by modern politicians, close to neighbors with equally
troubled histories. Time might eventually heal some of those wounds, but
good will backed by NATO troops is unlikely to do so for the foreseeable
future. It is more likely to create new resentments.

To some it might seem callous to advise leaving the region to handle its
own problems. But the best hope for a relatively peaceful accommodation is
one worked out (or improvised day to day) among the people who actually
live there. Outside forces or powers might be useful at some point to help
formalize a peace-like arrangement. At this point, however, they make
matters more complicated and provide a focus for resentment.

When President Clinton first sent U.S. troops to Bosnia he promised they
would be out in six months -- then in a year, then in two years, then
after an indefinite period.

The Bush administration should reassess the situation and pull U.S. troops
out as soon as is feasible. The intentions might have been noble, but on
the ground outside forces are not playing a constructive role. They could
soon become targets to an even greater extent than they already are.

Unfortunately, after a few early feints in the direction of an early
reassessment of U.S. commitments in the Balkans, the administration -- or at
least Colin Powell -- seems to have reverted to the "international
community" conventional wisdom on open-ended commitments.

Speaking in
Paris on Wednesday, a day before his first trip to the region, he "renewed
a pledge … that the United States would remain committed to the Balkans,"
according to Reuters. Powell
also sought to alleviate fears from the French and others that the United
States might start getting unilateral on the "allies" and go off making
policy on its own.

It could be that compared to the potential -- shall we say -- challenges that
China might pose the Balkans are a minor irritant, consuming a predictable
but fairly limited quantity of resources and perhaps not doing much harm.
But the United States would be better served -- as Condeleezza Rice told me
months before the election -- to figure out what its core geopolitical
interests are and concentrate on those while cutting losses or reducing
commitments elsewhere.

To me that would mean, among other things, developing a rationale for a
swift exit from direct involvement in the Balkans combined with a
persuasive strategic vision. I would never expect the Bushites to go as
far as I would in reducing commitments, but it would be encouraging if
they talked about the topic more often and didn't get scared away the
moment some pipsqueak diplomat or consultant murmured a criticism.