Can NATO, under American command, make the peace stick? Ending a war between people who still hate each other means a lot of messy, thankless police work. American troops, trickling into their zone of northeastern Bosnia around the town of Tuzla, were ready to flex their superpower muscles. “We don’t expect trouble from the Serbs around Tuzla,” says a U.S. intelligence officer in Bosnia. “We could destroy every important asset they have in about 90 seconds–and they know it.”
Understandably, there’s considerable gloom about the mission. Reflecting a distrustful American public, Congress gave only grudging support to President Clinton’s decision to send 20,000 U.S. soldiers on a yearlong NATO operation to separate the warring factions, oversee elections, and control the flood of returning refugees. “We cannot guarantee the future of Bosnia,” the president himself admitted at the Paris ceremony.
The current truce is expected to hold at least through winter. It will take nearly that long to complete the slow NATO deployment, starting with the U.S. Third Battalion of the 325th Parachute Infantry Regiment and the 502d Engineering Company, which will rebuild roads and bridges to carry the First Armored Division and its Abrams tanks. Those narrow, icy roads may cost the first casualties of the peace, but not the last.
