That was no simple paper shuffle. Only weeks before, Clinton had raised expectations of tough American-led action against the Bosnian Serbs. But after Europeans slapped down the approach, a chagrined White House traded in “lift and strike” for “constrict and contain,” steps designed not to roll back Serbian aggression, but to keep it from spreading to neighboring countries. Clinton, in effect, ceded Bosnia to the Serbs-and policymaking to the Russians and Europeans: last week Moscow seized the initiative, trying to build an international consensus around the French idea of safe havens. The initial result was confusion-and a fresh sense of American drift. “We would have been wiser to keep our mouth shut publicly,” former secretary of state Lawrence Eagleburger told a California audience last week. “If we mouth a lot of threats … and then decide we can’t do them, we may persuade some potential aggressor and the world that we are the paper tiger they thought we were.”

The administration had spent the past three months fitfully arguing how important Bosnia was to American interests. To reverse course required a series of renunciations, which Christopher provided during his Capitol Hill testimony last week. First, he leveled the distinction between aggressor and victim, Serb and Muslim, deflating any moral imperative to intervene. “You have atrocities by all sides, which makes this problem exceedingly difficult to deal with,” he told astonished legislators. Then he distanced the United States from the crisis by insisting, “At heart, this is a European problem.” From there, it was relatively easy for Christopher to announce yet another shift in U.S. policy: “Containing the conflict in the Bosnian area is one of the prime goals of President Clinton.”

The constrict-and-contain option is a hash of measures already in place, old ideas never implemented and proposals the administration once found unacceptable. It preserves the no-fly zone and sanctions against Serbia and renews the threat of a war-crimes tribunal. In addition, it aims to:

Press Serbia to accept U.N. monitors or troops along the Serbia-Bosnia border to police Belgrade’s blockade of Bosnian Serb territory, and to place monitors on the Bosnia-Croatia border.

Establish six or seven safe areas in Bosnia, guarded by U.N. ground troops. The forces, but not necessarily the havens, would be protected by U.S. air power.

Strengthen, perhaps with U.S. troops, U.N. forces in Macedonia.

Beef up U.N. monitors in the Serbian province of Kosovo.

Threaten Croatia with sanctions unless it cuts off support to Bosnian Croats.

At the weekend, Christopher announced the constrict-and-contain plan as a major foreign-policy breakthrough. Christopher held a press conference with the foreign ministers of Russia, France, Britain and Spain to demonstrate solidarity and purpose. In fact, the steps amounted to a tactical retreat in the face of Serbian intransigence-allowing Bosnian Serbs to keep the territory they’ve gained by force as long as they’re able to withstand U.N. sanctions.

The new U.S. approach startled some congressional supporters. Only days before details of the plan unfolded, Clinton had assured Republican Sens. Richard Lugar and Bob Dole that he was firmly committed to lift and strike, telling them “it would be a real service if we could go out and give that impression” to their colleagues. But the president neglected to tell them he had changed his mind. Instead, he went west to sell his economic program. “First, Washington calls for war-crimes trials,” a dismayed Lugar told NEWSWEEK. “Now, suddenly, they’re saying it’s a muddled moral predicament … I think the president is on the verge of losing the leadership position.”

Into the breach stepped two unlikely policymakers-Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic and Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev. After more than 1 million fellow Bosnian Serbs rejected a United Nations-European Community plan that would have required them to give back 40 percent of the territory they had seized, Karadzic offered to initiate fresh negotiations. “We are ready for a new round of talks,” he said last week in Pale. “The Vance-Owen plan is dead. But the peace process is going to go on.” His suggestion: expel the tens of thousands of Muslims in eastern Bosnia.

Kozyrev took a different tack. Ignoring the unambiguous results of the Bosnian Serb referendum, he set off to sell European leaders on the idea of implementing the Vance-Owen plan by stages. Kozyrev proposed beginning with safe areas in Bosnia which, he postulates, would prosper under foreign aid. By contrast, Serb-held areas would atrophy because of international isolation and eventually long to join a reunified Bosnian republic. Never mind that the premise ran counter to the centuries-old facts of Serbian nationalism; the plan was enthusiastically received in Europe. “We’re talking about pragmatic solutions,” says Col. Michael Dewar, deputy director of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. “For Americans, that’s a tremendous jump.” Washington wasn’t leaping. Christopher had derided the idea of safe havens, telling French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe, “Wouldn’t we be creating six Dienbienphus?”

What does Clinton think of the idea? “The United States is skeptical,” he told reporters late last week. A White House aide says the president views safe havensvirtual ethnic ghettos-as only an interim measure to protect lives while negotiations proceed. But clearly the political advantages of getting Bosnia off the front pages for a time overcame any personal objections by the president. What’s more, by refusing to embrace the Russian idea of implementing the Vance-Owen plan by force, the administration was able to postpone indefinitely its Feb. 10 commitment to enforce the plan by sending up to 20,000 peacekeepers to Bosnia-a highly unpopular option with Americans.

A year ago the Bosnians turned to the United States for help. “Americans aren’t cynical like Europeans,”, Haris Siladjzic, Bosnia’s foreign minister, noted last summer. That judgment may have been premature. American officials were determined to reach agreement with their allies. They did-but when it comes to stopping Serbian aggression, acting in concert may turn out to be a cover for not acting at all.

Serbs attack Muslims in Brcko (ART ZAMUR–GAMMA-LIAISON)

< b>ABOUT FACE! TRACKING THE ADMINISTRATION STRATEGY

As candidate and president-elect, Bill Clinton advocated airstrikes against the Bosnian Serbs “to turn up the heat a little”; during his Senate confirmation hearings, Warren Christopher derided the VanceOwen plan.

In February, the administration unexpectedly chose to embrace the Vance-Owen plan, “bringing the full weight of American diplomacy to bear,” and decided to airdrop humanitarian supplies instead of weapons or paratroopers.

As the Serbs renewed their assault on eastern Bosnia in March and April, Clinton again threatened airstrikes and a lifting of the arms embargo against the Muslims, saying, “I haven’t ruled out any option for action.”

After Christopher failed to get allied backing for the lift:nd-strike program in early May, the administration changed course again to a policy of containment, coding leadership to the Russians. Said Clinton: “We are not vacillating:'