CRANFIELD UNIVERSITY DAREN BOWYER JUST WAR DOCTRINE

Shawcross suggests that, with the benefit of hindsight, the Serb assault and capture of
the Croat town of Vukovar in November 1991 marked the last safe moment at which a
timely direct military intervention (by NATO) could have prevented ‘Yugoslavia’s fall
into the abyss.’ 81 What followed has been exhaustively reported and need not be
described in detail here. We can, though, identify in the Balkans many of the same
failings of UN peacekeeping as were evidenced by the operation in Cambodia. Unlike
the Cambodian case, though, there was – at least not for a further four years * – no peace
agreement at all. Moreover there was a serious lack of consensus between the would-be
peacemakers. Whilst the US initially handed-off the problem to Europe (US Secretary
of State James Baker famously insisting that ‘we don’t have a dog in that fight’ 82 ) they
also continued to appear to offer the prospect of alternative peace deals to the parties
when not content with what the EU negotiators had offered (thus undermining both the
Vance-Owen and Owen-Stoltenberg plans).
Not only was the UN over-stretched in its strategic planning capability, but on the
ground a relentless ‘mission creep’ created insurmountable problems. The UN
Protection Force (UNPROFOR) was established in 1992 to ensure the demilitarization
of UN Protected Areas (UNPAs) in Croatia. 83 As such it had a traditional consent-
based peacekeeping role. However, this rapidly expanded to include the protection of
humanitarian aid delivery in both Croatia and Bosnia, peacekeeping in Bosnia, and an
easily overlooked observer mission in Macedonia. It never had at its disposal the forces
required to do this effectively. For example, when UNSCR 787 of November 1993
established observers to monitor compliance of the arms embargo and of sanctions on
Serbia, the UN Secretary General asked for 10,000 troops for the mission. None were
provided so the mandate was never implemented. 84 As French General Francis
Briquemont, UNPROFOR’s commander, said there was a ‘fantastic gap between the
resolutions of the Security Council, the will to execute these resolutions, and the means
available to commanders in the field.’ 85
* The General Framework Agreement for Peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina was signed by Croatia,
Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in Paris in Dec 1995.
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