Civil-Military Relations and the Debate Over U.S. Involvement in Bosnia

The question of U.S. intervention in the conflicts surrounding the breakup of the former Yugoslavia from 1991 to 1995 was one of the most contentious foreign policy problems of the time. After the failure of diplomatic initiatives, the question came down to whether or not military force should be used in an effort to end the conflict. This thesis discusses the role of the U.S. military in this debate. The paper traces the outlines of the course of U.S. policy in the region starting with the Bush administration's unsuccessful efforts in 1991 to prevent the fighting from continuing and spreading to Bosnia and continuing with the Clinton administration's similar efforts. In the Clinton administration, these failures were a result of policy maker indecision, which was greatly compounded by U.S. military leaders exercising their political influence publicly--sometimes in opposition to administration policy--in the national debate over the issue. This hamstrung the policy-making apparatus both because of the huge prestige of the military and its leaders, and because of the relative political weakness of President Clinton vis--vis the military. When the decision was finally made to commit military forces to implement the Dayton agreement in 1995, the leadership of the military undertook the mission on its own terms, defined its own success criteria, and vetoed any cooperation with civil implementation authorities. As a result the implementation of the agreement has been much slower than it might have been and there have been other ill effects both in Bosnia and on the U.S. military itself.