ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1995, Roanoke Times
DATE: Sunday, December 17, 1995 TAG: 9512150067
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: F-3 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JESSE HELMS
PRESIDENT Clinton suggested in his address to the nation that those in Congress who oppose sending U.S. troops to Bosnia are isolationists who ``question the need for our continued active leadership in the world.'' He has it wrong. Congress has never questioned the need for U.S. leadership; for more than three years, Congress has pleaded for just that to resolve the Balkan crisis. The question is not whether the United States should lead, but how we must lead.
I do not believe that the president's plan to commit 20,000 U.S. troops is the best way to lead. Sending American soldiers to serve as human tripwires in Bosnia is a bad idea and will not ensure lasting peace in the Balkans. What will guarantee an enduring peace in Bosnia is a well-armed, well-trained Bosnian military. Our primary mission must be to create a military balance of power by helping the Bosnian government build such a deterrent.
Unfortunately, that possibility was forfeited by the president's disclosure in London that the United States will not participate in the arming and training of Bosnian government forces. Instead, he said, the United States will seek to enforce a complicated and unworkable arms-control regime in the Balkans that will seek to reduce the Serbs' weaponry while depending on others to arm the Bosnians in a limited fashion.
The president has his priorities backward. Arming and training the Bosnian Muslims is significantly more important in the long run than temporarily placing American forces between the warring parties or enforcing a random and haphazard arms-control program.
American troops cannot guarantee peace in Bosnia. We cannot secure the long-term viability of the Bosnian state with American soldiers. But we can help the Bosnians secure the viability of their own land with American arms, training and military know-how.
Furthermore, we cannot depend on others to do this arming and training. The military capabilities of other interested countries are nowhere equal to the U.S. armed forces. Having Americans do this sends an important message to anyone who might consider a future assault on the Bosnian state: The United States recognizes the difference between victim and aggressor and is siding with the victim. Should war resume because of renewed Serbian aggression, the Serbs must know that the United States will be firmly allied with the Bosnian government.
In Dayton, the Bosnians sought unsuccessfully to secure a U.S. commitment to arm and train their military as a deterrent. They view American leadership in training and arming their forces as essential to an enduring peace. They are right.
Some of us have argued from the beginning that the U.S. policy should have been to lift the arms embargo, arm the Bosnian forces and allow the Bosnians to repel Serbian aggression. By the time the Dayton talks began, the Bosnian government had clearly lost all hope that the United States and its allies would do this. Weary after fighting four years without arms or allies, the Bosnians saw no alternative to accepting the de facto partition of their nation as the price of peace.
A peace that requires 20,000 American enforcers to make it viable is, I suspect, not viable in the first place. This much is certain: The Dayton agreement will never be viable until we help the Bosnian government build its military deterrent to repel a renewed Serbian assault.
Jesse Helms, a North Carolina Republican, chairs the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
- Los Angeles Times
LENGTH: Medium: 69 linesby CNB