Bosnian Exercise

By John Isaacson, 7 January 1980

Hello: The rationale for the United States to be Bosnia and the Balkans makes some sense when also related to the economic interests we have in Europe and western Asia.

1. The fact that the war in Bosnia had become so destructive to people, and the television watched it all and reported it all raised feelings of frustration in the United States to a point that the President could intervene with a reasonable hope of some popular support for ground troops to separate waring forces and participate in the peacekeep process.

2. Only NATO had the force necessary—with US force at the center of it—to challenge the conflicting parties for superiority, but that challenge wouldn’t work until the public relations damage was dramatic if the United States did not participate.

3. The concept that the war could have spread was more probably true early in the conflict—but the introduction of fundamentalist Islamic forces from the Middle East meant serious trouble as 1995 neared an end. They added the capacity for Bosnian forces to challenge everybody successfully or at least with new blood everywhere.

4. The United States interests did not stop with bad public relations and the fear of outside Islamic force—the United States access to Europe, to the Balkan area, and to the southern states of the old Soviet would be enhanced by a major United States presence in Bosnia. It was a strategic and economic strategm to move our forves in at this point the exercise.

5. Access to the old East European countries is deeply enhanced for United States political and economic interests by our presence in Bosnia.

6. The same economic forces that caused the Romans to hold the area 2000 years ago as a trade access to the region applies just as clearly to the United States now.

Point: The present US presence makes excellent economic, strategic and political sense for the United States in its judgement that we cannot be isolated from the area by the continued presence of only European forces—France and England—whose economic interests there compete with our own. The opportunity for access came in a limited time window—and that time was now.