The war in the former Yugoslavia has shamed the leading nations of the world. Unspeakable crimes against humanity have been committed in Bosnia, Croatia and Serbia, yet American and European policymakers have cravenly stood aside while whole villages and communities were erased from the face of the earth.Americans are appalled by the images on their television screens of the carnage, but most o…
Yugoslavia was well positioned at the end of the cold war to make a successful transition to a market economy and westernization. Yet two years later, the country had ceased to exist, and devastating local wars were being waged to create new states. Between the fall of the Berlin Wall in November 1989 and the start of the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina in March 1992, the country moved toward disinte…
When President Clinton sent Richard Holbrooke to Bosnia as America's chief negotiotor in late 1995, he book a gamble that would eventually redefine his presidency. But there was no saying then, at the height of the war, that Holbrooke's mission would succeed. The odds were strongly against it.