There a few things here that I disagree with...
Firstly, the assumption that European nations are passive players:
- the country with the largest number of troops on mandated peacekeeping work is Germany - how does this sit with the supposed indifference of European countries?
- intervention in Rwanda, the worst genocide since Pol Pot, was blocked at the UN by the US - again, not really an example of European inaction?
- aid: European countries pay more toward the upkeep of the UN than the US both in absolute and per capita terms; they also pay more in foreign aid than the US on both premises, and some European countries (not all) have removed the linkage between aid and political or economic 'co-operation' that teh US pushes so hard and is causing real problems in places like Afghanistan.
- Sudan; Germany, at least, has been pushing very hard on Sudan - the Euro countries have certainly not been any less diligent than the US, they just haven't threatened the use of overt force.
So I think it is unreasonable to characterise the Euro countries as less decisive and less driven by moral precepts.
All that being said, the European performance in the Balkan crisis, especially at the outset, was utterly appalling, with the UK being particularly inept and weak. Certainly the UK and US were well aware of the Serb use of concentration camp and systematic rape as early as 1991 (out of interest, under Major in the UK and GWB senior and Lawrence Eagleburger in the US, the leadesr of the coalition that freed Kuwait just before) and actively covered it up.
The UN was also aware, with the UN rapporteur making frequent and damning reports to the Security Council and Boutros-Gahli, who chose to ignore it. In Boutros-Ghali's case, he dismissed it on the grounds that Europe and the US were only interested in the deaths in the first world and didn't give a damn about Africa, so why should the rest of the world bother about Bosnia. My contempt for this man is absolute....
The UK government characterised this as a civil war and consistently played down Serbian atrocities and tried to pretend that all sides were equally bad - the more I read up about this the more I am appalled at the actions of 'my' government who (along with Russia) were the most obstructive against intervention even when they knew what was really happening.
By pushing for, and getting, an arms embargo AFTER the Serbs had seized all the old Yugoslav armoury, they condemned the Bosnians to fighting with both hands tied behind their backs.
The UN got caught out badly from a military perspective - Serbia happily let peacekeepers into tight enclaves to 'protect' the local population - in practice these 'peacekeepers' were hostages to the serb artillerymen on the hillsides, with the UN high command unwilling to call in air strikes against serb positions for fear of retaliation, an advantage teh Serbs exploited to the full.
Almost all those 'safe havens' were then overrun, the massacres at Srebrenica finally forcing the reality of the situation on the public at the same time that the 'hostage' UN troops were effectively removed from the equation by being forced out .
Full credit to the US, this was the country which finally accepted that something really did have to be done, got off their backside and made it happen - an example of disinterested and moral leadership that they can be really proud of. Once they accepted the need for leadership, they acted decisvely and effectively to interdict the Serbs and repeated the lesson in Kosovo a while later.
So, in the Balkans the failure to act was down to a general wish to avoid being involved from all parties, with the UK government the most pusillanimous, and with the UN hamstrung by the reluctance of key players to take a lead, the emotional attachment to old alliances (Germany/Croatia v UK/Russia/Serbia), doubt over whether intervention was valid (was this a civil war, in which case intervention was not permitted unless genocide was being attempted?) and the most disgraceful leader the UN has ever had.
Ironically 'old' Europe - Germany & France - that are now condemned as cowardly, were the most willing to get up and do something....
