Justified Invasion of A Country?

[AdrienIer]

Just war theory
1) Is going to war better then not going to war

Better for who ?

 

[r16]

like ME ! There is nothing like personal interest of decision makers . To end up in the deaths of so many others .

 

[bene_legionary]

That's what the UN thought in 1993 in Bosnia; too bad it resulted in the UN's complicity - if not de facto support for - Serbian and Croatian ethnic cleansing.

About that – I did a school report on Srebrenica where I argued that the UN and the international community's hesitation to efficiently approve and carry out airstrikes against the Bosnian Serb Army led to the Dutch troops there being taken hostage and perhaps a lot more Bosniak deaths, given that the Bosnian Serbs didn't appear to be committed to taking all of Srebrenica until they realised the UN and the Dutch weren't going to stop them. In that case, action via airstrikes WAS in my opinion justified – it had worked previously in situations like Goradze – but the UN not only hesitated because it did not want to be seen as a belligerent acting on Bosniak interests against Serb and Croat interests (a stupid view given sheltering Bosniaks against the other two IS acting in the Bosniak national interest, for the next reason), it hesitated because the UN did not understand then you cannot negotiate or reason with a side whose clear statement is to ethnically exterminate a country for themselves, yet the UN continued doing so as if the Bosnian Serb Army was rational and altruistic.

At the same time, the UN was in a 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' situation. They committed a reasonable amount of resources to a 'peacekeeping' operation that was originally a very well-running humanitarian aid operation (a diplomat I interviewed for the report talked about the 'well-fed refugees' of Sarejevo during the war). Then someone had the bright idea of 'impartial' safe zones that had no real strategic goal or purpose to ending the war, and suddenly the humanitarian mission found itself short 14k men or something of peacekeepers to enforce the safe zones. They also couldn't decide whether calling it 'enforcement' was too interventionist and decided it was, so fewer peacekeepers were deployed on the ground as a result and the peacekeepers themselves were told not to engage anyone in case they broke the peace they were enforcing, never mind the fact that a BSA army was headed their way. But airstrikes were meant to make up for that, so it was all supposed to even out... except the UN didn't want to use airstrikes except as 'a last resort' (Guess what? In Srebrenica the planes weren't sent until past the last minute and then were sent back because the BSA threatened the peacekeepers and Dutch gov't told the UN to call the strikes off). So I guess the UN just sent in a bunch of soldiers into Bosnian towns and hoped for the best. But if the peacekeeping operation failed after Srebrenica, the Bosniaks would be doomed and the Serbs and Croats would have had their day because there were other towns after Srebrenica that had more adequately 'enforced peace' but were vulnerable to the BSA if the peacekeepers left. But the peacekeeping operation couldn't keep continuing because the UN would be complicitly helping the ethnic cleansing by evacuating the citizens from the safe zones as they were attacked, and because the international community were sick of their troops being taken hostage all the time. I believe that at one point US offered to withdraw from Bosnia with 20k US troops being deployed to facilitate the UN withdrawal (laughable after the shortage of 14k peacekeepers; but not all soldiers can act like peacekeepers I guess). In this way, force was a waste of time and human life, but more force was needed to ensure less innocent lives were taken.

But then again, it is morbidly fortunate to say that Srebrenica might have actually helped the Bosniak cause. The Bosnian war probably ended sooner because it helped the international community recognise the genocidal actions of the Bosnian Serbs (up to then not really recognised as it should have been – it was all going well for the BSA until they messed up by murdering 8k civilians in cold blood, but what do you know) and it led to the NATO intervention that did end the war, which used the force that might have prevented Srebrenica. On the other hand, Bosnia's dire situation today comes from the fact that the Dayton deal was just crap because the UN rushed it and the Bosnian Serbs got leverage diplomatically, undoing the military leverage the UN had to enforce a more fair deal. There were about 5 different peace deals offered during the war and despite the fact that BSA-controlled land was at its smallest extent they got more land out of the Dayton agreement than the previous 4 deals.

Or, Milosevic and Tujdman could have stopped their nationalist and hawkish rhetoric from the start...

 

[r16]

the Bosnians had no right to conduct attacks from the "safe zones" under the so called protection of the UN . And if they had decided to fight they should have done so , somewhat different from the way they did . The Western insult against the Russians was "avenged" , the same would happen to Gorazde , but ı hear that Sea Harrier went down in a beautiful arc and good old Brits either had to move out or do some real action . It would do nothing in the end , but the French were unhappy with the way all the tree-huggers hated them for nuclear tests , so , like they were willing to fight the Serbs . Who had actually given up ideas of genociding everybody else in former Yugoslavia by 1998-99 but ces't la vie .