(International Herald Tribune, January 15-16, 1994)

by Stephen W. Walker

[The writer resigned from the U. S. State Department over policy toward Bosnia. He is currently executive director of the American Committee to Save Bosnia. He contributed this comment to The Washington Post.]

Washington - Bosnia got plenty of attention at the NATO summit in Brussels this week, but the main effect has been to point up the sad inability of the Atlantic alliance to deal with post-Cold War threats - immediate ones and those that loom over the horizon.

The United States and its allies continue to make clear that they have no response to Serbia's strongman, Slobodan Milosevic, or to his attempts to carve a Greater Serbia out of Croatian and Bosnian territory, using genocide as his primary weapon.

This failure raises serious doubts as to the resolve and options that NATO would have in facing Russia's potential Milosevic, Vladimir Zhirinovsky. Western capitulation in the Balkans emboldens Mr. Zhirinovsky and others like him.

The NATO allies have made the wrong choices in the former Yugoslavia by enforcing an unjust, lopsided arms embargo against the Bosnians that allowed the Serbs to commit genocide, and by supporting negotiations that encouraged aggression and "ethnic cleansing".

They also have failed to live up to their commitments - to enforce the no-flight zone against the Serbs, ensure delivery of humanitarian assistance, and use air strikes to stop the shelling of civilians.

It is time to ask what the United States and NATO could or would do differently to prevent or stop Mr. Zhirinovsky's attempts to restore the Soviet empire or "protect" Russian minorities in Ukraine and the Baltics. If a local Balkan thug can stand up to NATO and the world's last superpower, what might a Russian fascist with a nuclear arsenal feel confident enough to try?

President Bill Clinton can contain the hemorrhaging of U. S. and NATO credibility. He should recognize NATO's recent shortcomings and make clear that it must live up to prior commitments and confront present-day threats before it can think about expansion and future challenges. He must lead his NATO colleagues in taking concrete steps to right the wrongs of Bosnia.

The necessary steps are clear and have been part of U. S. policy at one time or another this year: lift the arms embargo against the Bosnian government, enforce the no-flight zone, use air strikes to silence Serbian artillery, and use "all necessary means" to ensure delivery of humanitarian aid.

The State Department has said that more than 4 million lives are at stake this winter in the former Yugoslavia. NATO can ease, if not stop, the suffering.