Constraints Of The U.s. Intervention In Regional Conflicts After The Cold War - A Case Study Of The War In Bosnia

After the end of the cold war, regional conflict bad become a very striking phenomenon in the world politics and attracted attention of international community. As the only superpower in the post-cold war world, the United States actively intervened in some maj or regional conflicts in accordance with its own national interest. Though the U.S possessed the greatest military strength in the world, it still encountered a lot of obstacles when meddling in regional conflict. U.S policy towards the Bosnia war was a typical case. When the Balkan crisis unfolded in early 1991, the Bush administration took a pessimistic view on any possible solution to the crisis. When the disintegration of Yugoslavia evolved into three conflicts and a brutal war broke out in Bosnia, Bush decided to stand aloof from the venue of the conflicts and shifted the burden of resolving crisis onto his European allies. Bush defined U.S role as an assistant to the EU and UN peace efforts and confined U.S activities to humanitarian ones. Despite that Bush exerted great diplomatic pressures on the Bosnia Serbs, he could not prevent the arising of some atrocities and was criticized severely by Mr. Clinton, his competitor during the 1992 presidential election campaign. When Clinton came into office, he decided, together with his European allies, to take a more active part in the handling of the Bosnia war. However, when Clinton administration put forward the scheme of ift and Strike it was strongly opposed by Russia, and found little support from British and France, two major participants of international communities peace efforts in the Bosnia, because both of them have ground forces in Bosnia. Due to these countries opposition, Clinton administration had to suspend the plan of air strike against Bosnia Serbs. The attitude of U.S intervention once again became the containment of the conflict and prevention of it from spreading. The sway of Clinton policy towards Bosnia was also criticized internally, and the policy vacillation seriously damaged US international prestige. How can this happen, in the view of the author, the following factors may help us to understand why US intervention policy failed. First, US action was restrained by the pattern of international relation. Out of the consideration of its national interest, Russia firmly objected to US pro-Muslim policy in Bosnia and took every opportunity to help their Yugoslav brothers. Second, the Multilateralism, the means adopted by US while dealing with the Bosnia war, had its inherent flaws. Third, the nature of the Balkan war was ethnic conflict, and this kind of conflict is very difficult for the outsiders to intervene and get a satisfactory solution. Fourth, when making the policy of Balkan war, other political forces in US, such as the congress, obstructed the administration decision-making process. And due to his lack of experience in foreign affairs, Clinton was not very skillful in handling such complicated case.