Foreign Policy-Making
in the Clinton
Administration
Reassessing Bosnia
and the “Turning Point” of 1995
Sébastien Barthe &
Charles-Philippe David
Chaire Raoul-Dandurand
en études stratégiques et diplomatiques
Raoul-Dandurand Chair
of Strategic and Diplomatic Studies
Occasional paper 2 published by the
Center for United States Studies of the
Raoul Dandurand Chair of Strategic
and Diplomatic Studies
Occasional Papers
Foreign Policy-Making in the Clinton Administration:
Reassessing Bosnia and the “Turning Point” of 1995
Sébastien Barthe &
Charles-Philippe David
Occasional Paper n°2
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Foreign Policy-Making in the Clinton Administration:
Reassessing Bosnia and the “Turning Point” of 1995
1
Sébastien Barthe & Charles-Philippe David
2
Introduction
The conflict that ravaged Bosnia-Herzegovina from 1992 to 1995 was one of the
central international problems that the Clinton White House had to face during its
first term. The “issue from hell”, as Warren Christopher famously dubbed it in 1993
3
,
was emblematic of the Clinton administration’s failure, during the period of January
1993 to late summer 1995, to formulate foreign policies that could produce the results
desired by the policy-makers in the West Wing.
Bosnia caused the administration many headaches during those two and a half
years, but it also illustrates Clinton’s comeback on foreign affairs. On the surface, a
dramatic change in the administration’s handling of the Bosnian question can be
observed starting in late August 1995, when the administration adopted a policy that
3
———————
1. This paper was presented at the International Studies Association Conference in Montréal, Canada,
March 17-20, 2004. It is a follow-up to “’Foreign Policy Is Not What I Came Here to Do’ — Dissecting
Clinton’s Foreign Policy: A First Cut”, presented by Charles-Philippe David at the joint CEE/ISA
Conference in Budapest, June 2003 and at the IPSA Convention in Durban, June-July 2003. The papers
are part of a three-year research program on the evolution of foreign policy-making under the Clinton
Administration, funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.
2. Charles-Philippe David is Raoul Dandurand Professor of Strategic and Diplomatic Studies, and Director
of the Center for United States Studies, at the University of Québec at Montréal. Sébastien Barthe is
PhD Candidate in Political Science and a research assistant at the Center. The authors wish to thank
Joseph Grieco, from Duke University, for his helpful comments, as well as Karine Prémont and Chris-
tian Geiser for their invaluable assistance in locating documentation for this paper.
3. Ivo H. Daalder, Getting to Dayton: The Making of America’s Bosnia Policy, Washington, Brookings
Institution Press, 2000, p. 36f.
proved successful. Strategic bombing by NATO forced the Bosnian Serbs to the
negotiating table and a peace accord was struck under American leadership at Dayton,
Ohio, the following November. The Dayton Accords, officially signed by the parties on
December 14 in Paris, formalized the cease-fire and provided for the deployment of
American ground troops as part of the IFOR mission, ending the war in Bosnia.
The resolution of the Bosnian war is usually (and justly) attributed to renewed US
resolve to bring its full military and diplomatic might to bear on the problem in the
Balkans
4
. It is also considered a major turning point in Clinton’s eight-year tenure in the
Oval Office. While the Clinton team was generally perceived to be weak on foreign affairs
for the best of three years
5
(from 1993 to the end of 1995), the President bounced back
with Bosnia and made foreign policy one of the most successful dimensions
6
of his second
term in office, boosting his stature and public approval, and paving the way for a reasses-
sment of his entire foreign affairs record by the time he left the White House in 2000.
The question of the need for US involvement to achieve a settlement in the Bosnian
conflict and broker the ensuing peace will not be addressed here, as it has been given ample
treatment elsewhere
7
. Rather, we will assess the relationship between the breakthrough on
Foreign Policy-Making in the Clinton Administration:
4
———————
4. Major books and articles on US involvement in Bosnia include Ivo H. Daalder, op. cit.; Richard Holbrooke,
To End a War, Revised Edition, New York, The Modern Library, 1999; David Halberstam, War in a Time
of Peace: Bush, Clinton, and the Generals, New York, Simon & Schuster, 2001; Madeleine Albright (with
Bill Woodward), Madam Secretary, New York, Miramax Books, 2003, p. 177-193; Robert C. DiPrizio,
Armed Humanitarians: U.S. Interventions from Northern Iraq to Kosovo, Baltimore, Johns Hopkins
University Press, 2002, p. 103-129; Jane M.O. Sharpe, “Dayton Report Card”, International Security, 22,
Winter 1997/98, p. 101-137; Misha Glenny, “Heading Off War in the Southern Balkans”, Foreign Affairs,
74, May/June 1995, p. 98-108; Charles G. Boyd, “Making Peace with the Guilty”, Foreign Affairs, 74,
September/October 1995, p. 22-38; International Commission on the Balkans, Unfinished Peace: Report
of the International Commission on the Balkans, New York: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace,
1996; Bob Woodward, The Choice, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1996; Wayne Bert, The Reluctant
Superpower. United States’ Policy in Bosnia, 1991-1995, New York, St. Martin’s Press, 1997; Elizabeth Drew,
The Clinton Presidency, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1994, p. 138-163; Samantha Power, “A Problem
From Hell”. America and the Age of Genocide, New York, Basic Books, 2002, p. 293-327; David Gompert,
“The United States and Yugoslavia’s Wars”, in Richard Ullman (ed.), The World and Yugoslavia’s Wars, New
York, a Council on Foreign Relations Book, 1996, p. 122-144; Fouad Ajami, “Under Western Eyes: The
Fate of Bosnia”, Survival, 41, Summer 1999, p. 35-52;
5. See the special issue of Foreign Policy, January/February 1996, for a critical appraisal of Clinton’s
accomplishments on the international stage during his first term, particularly William G. Hyland, “A
Mediocre Record”, p. 69-75, and Richard H. Ullman, “A Late Recovery”, p. 76-79.
6. We are aware that there is no decisive way to ascertain what constitutes a “success”, as opposed to a “failure”,
in (foreign) policy, as this categorization can only remain a matter of scholarly interpretation. However, for
the sake of our argument, we will limit ourselves to considering a “success” as a situation in which the results
obtained match the expectations of the decision-makers. Bosnia, after August 1995, clearly fits this
description.
7. See Jane M.O. Sharpe,
loc.cit., p. 113. The importance of America’s role in settling the conflict is also
discussed by Steven L. Burg and Paul S. Shoup,
The War in Bosnia-Herzegovina: Ethnic Conflict and
International Intervention, Amonck, M.E. Sharpe, 1999, p. 320; Mark Pecenny and Shannon Sanchez-
Terry, “Liberal Interventionism in Bosnia”,
Journal of Conflict Studies, 28, Spring 1998, p. 15-19; and
Leonard J. Cohen, “Bosnia and Herzegovina: Fragile Peace in a Segmented State”,
Current History, 95,
March 1996, p. 104-107.
Bosnia in mid-1995 and the course of the Clinton presidency. To do so, we will exa-
mine the genesis of the changes that led to the salutary shift in American policy in the
second part of 1995. We will therefore revisit the explanations that have been proposed
for the shift, such as the changing situation on the ground in Bosnia during the spring
and summer of 1995, concern about the presidential election of 1996, and a clash with
Congress over the President’s authority to set the foreign affairs agenda. We believe
these analyses lack depth, for the factors they advance cannot, in and of themselves,
explain why the shift took place at the time it did.
These explanations neglect the decision-making process per se, which was in fact
of the utmost importance, as Ivo H. Daalder has argued in an article entitled “Decision
to Intervene: How the War in Bosnia Ended”
8
, and subsequently in his book, Getting
to Dayton: The Making of America’s Bosnia Policy
9
. The settlement of the Bosnian
problem in the second part of 1995 was due in large part to two important changes in
the policy-making process that took place prior to that date, mainly in the spring and
summer of 1995. Without Anthony Lake’s emergence as an effective leader of the
system
10
, which ultimately produced the new policies of mid-1995, and without
stronger presidential leadership in the foreign policy decision-making process, the
other aforementioned factors probably would not have been enough to so dramatically
improve the effectiveness of the administration’s Bosnia policy.
We will expand on Daalder’s thesis by examining the impact of decision-making
factors not only in the case of Bosnia but on Clinton’s foreign policy as a whole. Only
by considering the importance of the decision-making process in a wider context can
we understand Bosnia as the first instance of a new, more effective approach to foreign
policy-making by the Clinton administration. Bosnia finally became a success story in
late 1995 because the foundations of a functioning system had been laid earlier in the
year. This explains why Bosnia did not prove to be an “island of success in an ocean of
blunders” but rather a major turning point for the administration
11
. Once an effective
system was in place, other issues could be addressed successfully.
Clinton’s Bosnia policy, 1993-1995
During his campaign for the presidency, Governor Clinton had criticized the
incumbent Bush administration for its deferential attitude towards the Europeans and
the United Nations
12
. In July 1992, he came out in favour of using force against Serbia,
Reassessing Bosnia and the “Turning Point” of 1995
5
———————
18. Ivo H. Daalder, “Decision to Intervene: How the War in Bosnia Ended”, Foreign Service Journal, December
1998, available on the Brookings Institution website at www.brookingsinstitution.org/dybdocroot/Views/
Articles/Daalder/1998FSJ.htm (page consulted on February 28, 2004).
19. Ivo H. Daalder, op.cit.
10. This is David Halberstam’s assessment, op. cit., p. 360.
11. For an assessment of the importance of foreign issues in Clinton’s 1992 campaign, see George Szamuely,
“Clinton’s Clumsy Encounter with the World”, Orbis, Summer 1994, especially p. 373-383.
12. See Power, op. cit., p. 316.
which was labeled the main culprit in the wars tearing apart the former Yugoslavia.
Following the advice of Anthony Lake
13
(who would become his National Security
Adviser), Clinton supported air strikes, to be used primarily to keep the roads open for
humanitarian aid convoys
14
. The following month, candidate Clinton proposed the
lifting of the international arms embargo against the Bosnian Muslims,
15
establishing
the framework of the “lift and strike” policy (lift the embargo and conduct air strikes)
which the Clinton team would pursue in the White House.
During its first half-year in power, however, the Democratic administration was
forced to backtrack on those promises. Various factors explain the about-face. First, the
French and British governments took a firm stand against the “lift and strike” policy in
May 1993
16
. In their opinion, as long as the Americans were unwilling to commit
ground troops in support of their military option, partially lifting the embargo would
only risk prolonging the war, while NATO air strikes would be risky to their own
troops on the ground
17
.
Secondly, confronted by the real-world difficulty of trying to convince the foreign
powers on the ground of the merits of the American proposal, the President’s staff
seems to have quickly come to the conclusion that Bosnia could put Clinton on
dangerous political terrain domestically
18
. Unless there were a quick and easy win,
Bosnia could become a liability to the President. Clinton and his staff therefore tried
to keep Bosnia out of the spotlight. As DiPrizio observes, “determined to get Bosnia
out of the public eye, the Clinton team adopted a hands-off policy and abdicated
leadership to NATO and the United Nations.”
19
Following the advice of his political
strategist at the time, Dick Morris, Clinton steered clear of Bosnia, wary of repeating
Lyndon Johnson’s mistake and becoming entangled in a foreign war that would hamper
his ability to push forward his domestic agenda
20
.
Thirdly, Clinton did not want to devote much time to international matters in any
event. Fulfilling his campaign promise to focus on the economy “like a laser beam”
21
,
the President kept his distance from the decision-making process on foreign policy in
general and Bosnia in particular.
Foreign Policy-Making in the Clinton Administration:
6
———————
13. Daalder, Getting to Dayton, p. 82.
14. “Statement by Governor Bill Clinton on the Crisis in Bosnia”, July 26, 1992. See Ivo H. Daalder,
Getting to Dayton, p. 6; also, Reneo Lukic and Allen Lynch, “La paix américaine pour les Balkans”,
Études Internationales, 27, September 1996, p. 560.
15. DiPrizio, op. cit., p. 120.
16. See Albright, op. cit., p. 180.
17. Daalder,
Getting to Dayton, p. 6, 12; DiPrizio, loc. cit., p. 120; Lukic and Lynch, loc. cit., p. 560;
Albright,
op. cit., p. 180.
18. DiPrizio, op. cit., p. 120 and 213f; Ajami, loc. cit., p. 45.
19. DiPrizio,
op. cit., p. 120.
20. Ajami,
loc. cit., p. 45.
21. Interview with Clinton on Nightline: ABC News, November 4, 1992.
Fourth, the “Principals”
22
were divided between differing and sometimes contra-
dictory positions. Without a consensus, the decision-making process would then usually
come to a halt
23
. In the meetings at which the “lift and strike policy” was thrashed out,
for example, the more hawkish Al Gore, Anthony Lake and Madeleine Albright favored
air strikes, while the dovish Warren Christopher and Les Aspin supported a diplomatic
solution to the war and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell (soon to
be replaced by John Shalikashvili), argued that air strikes should be carried out only if
coupled with a ground effort (something Clinton would not approve) and a sound exit
strategy
24
. Daalder comments: “In the absence of a consensus among his advisers – or
even majority support for a single option – Clinton deferred a final decision on what to
do.”
25
These four factors ultimately converged. Inability to convince the United States’
Western allies of the soundness of the American strategy (the Clinton team had always
insisted that any intervention in Bosnia needed to be multilateral
26
), aversion to the
political risks entailed by any forceful engagement in Bosnia, intermittent attention to the
problem by the President and internal strife among the key players prevented the
administration from reaching consensus on what to do and how to implement a workable
strategy. For 30 months, equivocation and indecisiveness were the hallmark of Clinton’s
Bosnia policy, giving it the appearance of an ongoing damage control operation
27
.
Events in Bosnia provided a series of opportunities during this period, but American
policy failed to focus effectively on the problem. Early in 1994, Albright, Lake, and the
new Defense Secretary, William Perry, reached a tentative consensus among the Principals
in favor of renewed US diplomatic leadership, to be exercised through threats against the
Serbs and an alliance with the Bosnian Croats and Muslims
28
. The shelling of the market
in Sarajevo on February 5 could have triggered the execution of the new American
Reassessing Bosnia and the “Turning Point” of 1995
7
———————
22. The members of the Principals Committee constitute a formal body of the NSC system. During the
period covered by this paper, the “Principals” were President Clinton; Vice President Al Gore; National
Security Advisor (NSA) Anthony Lake; UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright; Secretary of State Warren
Christopher; Secretary of Defense William Perry; CIA Director James Woolsey, succeeded by John
Deutch; Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Colin Powell, succeeded by John Shalikashvili; Deputy
NSA Sandy Berger; and National Security Advisor to the Vice President Leon Fuerth. For a detailed
description of Clinton’s national security apparatus and the Principals Committee, see Ivo H. Daalder,
Getting to Dayton, p. 86, and Elizabeth Drew, On the Edge, p. 145.
23. Holbrooke, op. cit., p. 81.
24. Daalder, Getting to Dayton, p. 11-19.
25. Idem.
26. Notably in Clinton’s news conference explaining his decision to dispatch Anthony Lake and Warren
Christopher to London and Paris to try to convince the Europeans of the merits of “lift and strike”. See
“The President’s News Conference; May 14, 1993”, in Public Papers of the Presidents: William J. Clinton,
Vol. I,
National Archives and Records Administration, 1994, p. 660.
27. Ajami,
loc. cit., p. 45.
28. Daalder, Getting to Dayton, p. 24.
strategy. However, the necessary conditions for such a decision do not appear to have
existed at the time. Doubts about the real perpetrators of the shelling made Clinton
hesitate. He tasked Albright to work out a response through the UN, and sent Christopher
to consult with the Allies
29
. No forceful engagement in Bosnia ensued.
During the fall of 1994, fighting around the “safe area” of Bihac opened a rift
between the US and its allies, sparking a major crisis within NATO
30
. In the end, the
administration abandoned the idea of ending the conflict by conducting unilateral
bombardments in order to preserve NATO unity. At the end of 1994, there seemed to
be no winning scenario for American involvement in Bosnia.
External, electoral and political factors in the policy shift of 1995
It is clear that an important change in the Clinton administration’s conduct of foreign
policy in relation to Bosnia occurred in the course of 1995. After two and a half years of
alternating hesitation and frustration, a breakthrough came in the third quarter of the year.
The contrast was startling. Many factors can and have been advanced to explain the shift.
Authors who treat the question attribute varying degrees of importance to each, and often
consider them to be intertwined. We will look at the shortcomings of analyses that focus
primarily on external, electoral or political factors to explain Clinton’s comeback concern-
ing Bosnia.
External factors
One understanding of the matter is that Serb military actions left the West (and the
US) with little alternative but to intervene forcefully at the end of the summer of 1995
31
.
That shift [the American policy reversal of late 1995] stemmed from a decision,
reached by the Bosnian Serb leadership in early March [1995], that the fourth year of the
war would be its last. The Bosnian Serb objective was clear: to conclude the war before the
onset of the next winter. The strategy was simple, even if its execution was brazen. First, a
large-scale attack on the three eastern Muslim enclaves of Srebrenica, Zepa, and Gorazde
— each an international ‘safe’ area lightly protected by a token U.N. presence — would
swiftly capture these Muslim outposts in Serb-controlled Bosnian territory. Next, attention
would shift to Bihac — a fourth, isolated enclave in north-western Bosnia — which would
be taken over with assistance from Croatian Serb forces. Finally, with the Muslims on the
run, Sarajevo would become the grand prize, and its capture by the fall would effectively
conclude the war.”
32
Foreign Policy-Making in the Clinton Administration:
8
———————
29. Ibid., p. 25.
30.
Ibid., p. 33.
31. In her memoirs, Madeleine Albright identifies the Serbs’ “campaigns of brutality” in Bosnia, supposedly
orchestrated by Slobodan Milosevic, as an important factor that prompted the administration to act; see
p. 177, 178, 185.
32. Daalder, “Decision to Intervene”, (p.1-2).
The Bosnian Serbs implemented that plan and launched a frightful campaign as
soon as the weather turned warm in May 1995. In a brutal act of ethnic cleansing, the
Serbs overran the “safe area” of Srebrenica from July 6 to 16, killing almost 8,000
people, including 7,000 men of all ages
33
. According to Daalder, the fall of Srebrenica,
[…] was the West’s greatest shame. […] Guilt led senior representatives of the
United States and its key allies to agree in London a few days later [July 21] that NATO
would make a strong stand at Gorazde by defending the town’s civilian population.
[…] The allies agreed that an attack on, or even a threat to, Gorazde would be met with
a “substantial and decisive” air campaign. […] A few days later [August 1], the North
Atlantic Council worked out the final operational details of the air campaign and
passed the decision to NATO’s military commanders on when to conduct the strikes.
34
Sharpe also draws a direct link between the course of the war and the decision by
the White House to intervene at last: “The Western powers’ impotence to prevent the
massacre of some 8,000 Muslims in one of the so-called safe areas convinced Clinton
of the need to engage the Serbs militarily.”
35
This view is echoed by David Halberstam,
who says that “The crimes of Srebrenica finally pushed the West over the brink”
36
.
Those who focus on this set of external factors argue that, after the fall of
Srebrenica, the US and its Western allies, driven by a newfound resolve to stop the
Serbs and end the war, were prepared to enter the fray in response to any triggering
event. Although Zepa did fall on July 25 and a Croat-Muslim offensive was launched
on August 4,
37
the watershed event turned out to be the shelling of the Sarajevo market
on August 28, which killed 37 and wounded 80
38
. At that point, all was in readiness
and NATO’s Operation Deliberate Force began on August 30.
Electoral considerations
The Clinton administration has been called a “permanent campaign presidency”
39
and it has been suggested that Clinton pursued a “minimalist” foreign policy that was
responsive mainly to issues that had domestic impact
40
. Discussions of the factors that
Reassessing Bosnia and the “Turning Point” of 1995
9
———————
33. Daalder, Getting to Dayton, p. xvi; “Decision to Intervene”, (p. 2); Albright, op. cit., p. 187; Halberstam,
op. cit., p. 294-297; Holbrooke, op. cit., p. 69.
34. Daalder, “Decision to Intervene”, (p. 2).
35. Sharpe, loc.cit., p. 112.
36. Halberstam, op. cit., p. 297.
37. See Daalder, Getting to Dayton, p. 120-124, and Holbrooke, op. cit., p. 72-73.
38. Elizabeth Drew, Showdown: The Struggle between the Gingrich Congress and the Clinton White House, New
York, Simon & Schuster, 1996, p. 254.
39. Stanley Renshon, High Hopes. The Clinton Presidency and the Politics of Ambition, New York, New York
University Press, 1996, p. 272.
40. James McCormick, “Clinton and Foreign Policy: Some Legacies for a New Century”, in Steven Schier
(ed.), The Postmodern Presidency. Bill Clinton’s Legacy in U.S. Politics, Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh
Press, 2000, p. 60-83; Michael Cox, US Foreign Policy after the Cold War. Superpower Without a Mission?
London, Pinter, 1995, p. 8-20.
led to the NATO air strikes of September 1995 have noted that electoral considerations
were very important to the President and his political staff at the time. As DiPrizio puts
it, “In the end, the administration’s biggest fear was that Bosnia would explode in
Clinton’s face during his upcoming reelection campaign”
41
. New York Times reporter
Stephen Engelberg reported at the time:
Mr. Clinton’s senior advisors have come to see the Bosnia issue as a political time bomb
that could go off in the 1996 campaign. Some fear the administration’s entire foreign-
policy record will ultimately be judged on the outcome of the Bosnia crisis.
42
Bob Woodward, cited by DiPrizio, concurred: “[Bosnia] had long been a “cancer
on Clinton’s entire foreign policy — spreading and eating away at its credibility.”
43
On this view, electoral considerations prompted Clinton to pressure his foreign
policy staff to devise an effective policy on Bosnia:
Frustrated and exasperated by a policy that “wasn’t working”, Clinton ordered his staff
to find a way out of the Bosnian impasse. Dick Morris reinforced the message, telling
the White House staff that if Bosnia was not settled it would threaten the 1996
campaign. Nevertheless, it would not be easy. A political success in Bosnia would
probably mean an American commitment of troops — a risky option for a president
facing reelection. On the other hand, if successful in ending the fighting, Clinton
would go into the election campaign with a major foreign policy gain […] Clinton
gambled, and it paid off. He launched a new, and ultimately successful, initiative to
settle the war in Bosnia.
44
In the environment of permeability between domestic and foreign issues, it was
feared that Clinton’s image of helplessness on Bosnia would make him “look bad” on
foreign affairs in general and present an easy target for a Republican candidate, costing
Clinton valuable votes in 1996. Some observers therefore believe that the quest for an
effective policy was, first and foremost, a matter of domestic political calculation.
The clash with Congress
The mid-term elections of 1994 were disastrous for Clinton and the Democratic
Party. In what was termed a “conservative revolution”, both chambers of Congress fell to
Republican control in November 1994. Starting in January 1995, the 104th Congress
fought the President on almost every issue that Clinton considered important. In the late
Foreign Policy-Making in the Clinton Administration:
10
———————
41. DiPrizio, op.cit., p. 126.
42. Stephen Engelberg, “How Events Drew the US into Balkans”, New York Times, August 19, 1995,
p. 1-2. This argument was also taken up by Lukic and Lynch,
loc. cit., p. 563.
43. Bob Woodward,
op.cit., p. 255, cited in DiPrizio, op. cit., p. 125.
44. William G. Hyland, Clinton’s World: Remaking American Foreign Policy, Westport, Praeger, 1999, p. 143.
spring and summer of 1995, Bosnia became another step in a series of clashes between
the executive and the legislative branches of the federal government.
On June 8, the House of Representatives voted 318-99 to partially lift the across-
the-board international arms embargo against all the warring parties in Bosnia
45 46
. The
move was based on a “balance-of-power” argument: the war in Bosnia had dragged on
because the UN-imposed embargo was preventing the Bosnian Muslims from
defending themselves. While the Bosnian Serbs were backed by the Yugoslav army (that
is, the armed forces of Serbia) and the Bosnian Croats by the Croatian national army,
the Bosnian Muslims were hamstrung by the indiscriminate arms embargo, which
appeared to penalize only them. Since the Muslims were widely perceived as the main
victims of the war, support for the embargo was a tenable position only if one were
ready to assist them militarily. If the Clinton White House was not ready to do so (and
members of Congress were not in favour of such a commitment in any event
47
), then
lifting the embargo made sense, argued supporters of the bill
48
.
It is important to note that the lifting of the arms embargo was part of an
aggressive Republican House bill on the larger issue of foreign aid, which would have
slashed the aid program, reduced the importance of USAID, USIA and ACDA (by
“downgrading” them from agencies to bureaus within the State Department), and
called for a tougher stance against, notably, Cuba, China, and North Korea
49
. Clearly,
the bill was an attack on Clinton’s conduct of foreign policy. The President had already
vowed, on May 23, to veto any such bill
50
. On July 25, the Senate started debating the
Dole-Lieberman resolution, which similarly called for the lifting of the embargo. It
passed by a 69-29 vote
51
and, true to his pledge, Clinton vetoed it on August 11
52
.
The battle over the arms embargo can be seen as an episode in the wider war between
the President and Congress over what was to be done in Bosnia. As Drew writes,
Reassessing Bosnia and the “Turning Point” of 1995
11
———————
45. Drew, Showdown, p. 248. After the spectacular failure of “lift and strike”, the Clinton administration
had reversed its position on the embargo and decided to support it, partly to preserve unity with its allies.
46. Efforts in the Congress to lift the embargo were led largely by Senate majority leader Bob Dole, who,
already in 1995, was considered a likely presidential candidate for the Republican Party. See Halberstam,
op. cit., p. 302-303.
47. See Ryan C. Hendrickson, The Clinton Wars: The Constitution, Congress, and War Powers, Nashville,
Vanderbilt University Press, 2002, p. 83-85.
48. Elaine Sciolino, “Clinton’s Policy on Bosnia Draws Criticism in Congress”, New York Times, June 8,
1995, p. A1; Melissa R. Michelson, “How Americans Think about Foreign Military Involvement: The
Case of Bosnia”, International Studies Notes, 23, Spring 1998, available online at http://csf.colorado.edu/
isa/isn/23-2/108401bmichelson.htm (page consulted on February 23, 2004).
49. Drew, Showdown, p. 248-249; Katharine Q. Shelve, “House Votes to Lift Bosnia Arms Ban: But
Measure, Part of Foreign Aid Bill, May Doom Entire Package”, New York Times, June 9, 1995, p. A12.
50. Drew,
Showdown, p. 251.
51.
Idem.
52. Ibid., p. 253.
The President’s decision to get more involved [in Bosnia], one official said, had a lot to
do with the more confrontational Congress. An adviser said, “He was about to lose
control of foreign policy on a fundamental issue.” He added, “The passage of the Dole
bill made the President and others more aware of the political danger, that Congress
could do real damage to American foreign policy […] The administration knew it had
to get back on the offensive.
53
This was an important factor, some believe, in bringing Clinton to focus on a
workable solution for Bosnia.
Shortcomings of the external, electoral and political explanations
While the three sets of factors outlined above undoubtedly contributed to the
process that led to the reversal in America’s handling of the war in Bosnia, they cannot,
by themselves, give us a clear understanding of the policy shift. This conclusion stems
from a simple observation: all the factors we have mentioned were already in play at
various points prior to August 1995, yet they evidently were not sufficient to produce
effective policy.
First, as far as the situation on the ground is concerned, it could easily have
justified US action much earlier than the summer of 1995, especially given Clinton’s
stated resolve during the 1992 campaign. A string of appalling events that aroused
alarm in Western democracies – the siege of Sarajevo, which was almost a year old
when Clinton entered the White House, the shelling of the town’s marketplace in
February 1994, which killed 68 and wounded 200, the campaign against Bihac during
the fall of 1994, the various assaults on Muslim enclaves during the spring of 1995
(during which some UN peacekeepers were held hostage by the Serbs
54
) – provided a
series of “opportunities” that could have legitimated an intervention on humanitarian
grounds. It is true that the situation deteriorated further in the spring and summer of
1995, but how can we explain the fact that the US acted after the shelling of Sarajevo,
and not a week or a month earlier? There is no conclusive evidence that it was the
accumulation of horrors alone that pushed the US to act at the time it did.
Secondly, electoral considerations were certainly taken into account by the
Clinton team, but deeper analysis suggests that this was a peripheral factor in the
“turning point” of 1995. For one thing, there does not appear to be any reason why
Clinton’s political staff, who for two and a half years had been urging the President to
steer clear of Bosnia as far as possible, would have supported a change in attitude
during the summer of 1995. A confused and “wimpy” image on foreign affairs could
have been expected to loom over Clinton’s 1996 campaign no matter what, as his
record up to that point was disastrous. Given the approach to foreign policy as “all
Foreign Policy-Making in the Clinton Administration:
12
———————
53. Ibid., p. 252.
54. See ibid., p. 245.
politics”, Clinton’s negative approval ratings on Bosnia up to the fall of 1995
55
should
have led the President’s advisers either to propose a tougher stance earlier on (to maximize
the chances of reversing the trend) or to stay the course and keep the President away from
Bosnia. Therefore, while public opinion was indeed taken into account, it does not
appear to have been decisive in shaping policy. Moreover, there was no indication that a
policy shift would necessarily lead to a foreign affairs, and for that matter to a domestic,
success. The risks associated with the deployment of American ground troops in Bosnia
remained high, and a disaster in Bosnia, which remained possible, could have been costly
to the President during his reelection campaign.
Thirdly, the clash with Congress was over an issue which, as we have observed,
reached well beyond Bosnia alone. It is hardly possible to disentangle the role of the
Bosnian question and determine the specific role it played in the positions taken by the
535 congressmen and women, or in Clinton’s thinking in relation to the larger issue of
presidential control over American foreign policy. But this was a matter in which Clinton
had shown little interest until the summer of 1995, so it is questionable whether fear of
losing control to Congressional Republicans would have so shaken the President that it
induced him to reform his decision-making style. To account for such a dramatic change
in conduct over legislative-executive separation of powers, one that entailed a complete
transformation of the president’s modus operandi, this should have been an issue about
which Clinton cared deeply. Clinton, however, had shown no evidence of that prior to
June or July 1995. We would conclude that a desire to retain some control over foreign
policy did exist but was not powerful enough, by itself, to trigger a major shift in the
handling of Bosnia.
The importance of process
We concur with the general conclusion reached by many observers that the decision-
making process appears to have been largely the key in the policy shift of 1995.
Specifically, two factors can be considered of utmost import: first and foremost, Anthony
Lake’s newfound dynamism, which led to a “revolution” in policy-making and imple-
mentation, coupled with Clinton’s positive and sustained involvement in the policy-
making process
56
, mainly by giving Lake his full support and by attending the meetings
of the Principals.
As Daalder
57
, Holbrooke
58
, Halberstam
59
, and Drew
60
have argued at length, the
overhaul of US policy on Bosnia did not “pop out of nowhere” at the end of the
Reassessing Bosnia and the “Turning Point” of 1995
13
———————
55. See Michelson, loc. cit.
56. This is what Madeleine Albright calls in her memoirs “Bill Clinton’s willingness to lead”, which she
identifies as a critical factor in ending the Bosnian war. See
op. cit., p. 189-190.
57. Daalder, “Decision to Intervene”, (p.3-6); Getting to Dayton, chap. 2 and 3, p. 37-116.
58. Holbrooke,
op. cit., chap. 5, 6, 7, especially p. 63-111.
59. Halberstam,
op. cit., chap. 26, 27, 29, especially p. 309-318 and 332-340.
60. Drew, Showdown, chap. 19, p. 243-255.
summer of 1995. There is general agreement on the course of events at the White House
starting in late 1994 and culminating in the launch of Operation Deliberate Force on
August 30, 1995.
According to Daalder’s research, things started moving after the Bihac debacle, when
[…] Lake contended that the majority’s preference for muddling through was
unacceptable in the long run. Sooner or later the administration would have to make a
decision. Lake believed that doing so after a careful review of the options and their
consequences was better than reacting to the ebb and flow of daily events, as most of his
colleagues seemed to prefer.
61
In early spring 1995, therefore, Lake turned to his NSC staff
62
to draft a report on
how the US could work towards a resolution of the Bosnian war
63
. They came up with a
paper that proposed lifting the embargo and embarking on a limited effort to arm the
Bosnian Muslims
64
. It also argued that UNPROFOR was becoming an obstacle to any
peace initiative, since support for the force by France and the United Kingdom prevented
them from supporting more “convincing” military measures, namely air strikes. Madeleine
Albright strongly supported the effort
65
, and indeed wrote a memo that helped bring
Clinton around to the view that a Bosnia policy could work if it were well orchestrated
66
.
The options developed by the NSC staff clashed, however, with the preferences of both
the State
67
and Defense Departments. Foggy Bottom wanted to “keep the UN in” at
almost any cost, including deferring to the allies’ wishes to avoid strategic bombardment.
Defense balked at the plan, which would have honoured the administration’s half-hearted
promises of 1993 and 1994 to commit troops to relieve UNPROFOR
68
.
This was a critical juncture:
Given the State and Defense Departments’ position on the issue, Anthony Lake faced a
critical choice. He could accept that there was no consensus for anything beyond
continuing a policy of muddling through, or he could forge a new strategy and get the
president to support a concerted effort seriously to tackle the Bosnia issue once and for all.
Having for over two years accepted the need for consensus as the basis of policy and, as a
Foreign Policy-Making in the Clinton Administration:
14
———————
61. Daalder, Getting to Dayton, p. 88.
62. According to Daalder, two aides, Sandy Vershbow and Nelson Drew, were given the lead roles on the
project. See “Decision to Intervene”, (p. 3), and Getting to Dayton, p. 88-89.
63. Halberstam, op. cit., p. 312.
64. Daalder, Getting to Dayton, p. 89.
65.
Ibid., p. 92-93. Halberstam contends that this was the first time that Lake really worked in “close
alliance” with Madeleine Albright. See
op. cit., p. 312.
66. Idem; see also Albright, op. cit., p. 186.
67. On the diverging views of the staffs of the NSC and the State Department, see Halberstam,
op. cit., p.
311.
68. Daalder, “Decision to Intervene”, (p. 4).
consequence, failed to move the ball forward, Lake now decided that the time had come
to forge his own policy initiative.
69
Lake took matters into his own hands, abandoning the role of “honest broker”
70
which he had played since he was appointed NSA in 1993. He became a “policy
entrepreneur”. He used his access to the President to organize a meeting with the Chief
Executive and select members of the Principals Committee on the Bosnian problem on
June 2. Warren Christopher, who had been one of the loudest voices against the strategy,
was simply not invited
71
. Clinton, who had already started showing concern with the
policy-making quagmire
72
, encouraged Lake to pursue his quest for an effective
solution
73
.
On June 24 1995, Lake held a four-hour meeting with his NSC Bosnia advisors
74
,
during which the basic principles of an “endgame strategy” were worked out
75
. Vershbow
was tasked with drafting a formal paper
76
. Meanwhile, Lake made sure he had Clinton’s
support; he ran some of the ideas raised on June 24 past the President, who showed
interest and again gave Lake encouragement
77
.
The final discussions leading to the decision to intervene in Bosnia took place from
mid-July to early August 1995. Daalder reports that Lake kept Clinton informed of
progress on the drafting of his endgame strategy paper throughout the first half of July
and, when it was completed, gave Clinton a copy before anyone else outside the NSC
78
.
On July 14, Clinton nevertheless became enraged over the Allies deep divisions over
Bosnia and his own team’s inability to devise a working policy
79
, especially as the news
Reassessing Bosnia and the “Turning Point” of 1995
15
———————
69. Ibid., (p. 4-5).
70. Samantha Power describes Lake’s role thus: “Although he chaired a lot of meetings and generated a dense
paper trail, he coordinated more than he led. […] Lake personally favored intervention [in Bosnia], but
did not recommend it to the president because he could not get consensus within the cabinet.”; see op.
cit., p. 316.
71. Drew, Showdown, p. 247; Holbrooke, op. cit., p. 73.
72. See Halberstam, op. cit., p. 307.
73. Daalder, Getting to Dayton, p. 91, 93.
74. Sandy Berger (Deputy National Security Advisor), Sandy Vershbow (Senior Director for European
Affairs), Nelson Drew (Director of European Affairs), and Lake’s executive assistant Peter Bass. See
Daalder, Getting to Dayton, p. 94.
75. Daalder discusses the endgame strategy in detail in “Decision to Intervene”, (p. 5), and Getting to Dayton,
p. 94-95. Briefly, the strategy called for NATO to replace the UN in peacekeeping operations, and
threatened both the Serbs and Muslims with negative consequences (air strikes against the Serbs, a cut-
off of support for the Croats and Muslims) if they made no effort to find a political solution to the
conflict. It also entailed a show of military force and sustained diplomatic engagement by the United
States to accomplish these goals, whether the allies agreed or not.
76. Daalder, “Decision to intervene”, (p. 5).
77. Daalder, Getting to Dayton, p. 95; Halberstam, op. cit., p. 313.
78. Daalder,
Getting to Dayton, p. 98.
79. Later known by the White House staff as the “Putting Green Day”, Clinton’s rage that evening is related
by Halberstam,
op. cit., p. 316-317.
coming from Srebrenica showed the extent of the destruction wrought on the region and
as reports of the massacre of the male population were being widely disseminated. On
July 17, Lake held an informal meeting with Perry, Albright, Shalikashvili and Berger in
his office. There, he laid out the particulars of his endgame strategy. Albright was
supportive, while Perry and Shalikashvili were less than enthusiastic
80
. Lake had arranged
for Clinton to “drop by” during the meeting, which the President did towards the end.
Clinton took the opportunity to state his deep dissatisfaction with the paralysis of policy
on Bosnia, and pressed those present for “new ideas” to get the US out of the rut
81
. On
July 18, it was Vice President Al Gore’s turn to press for a breakthrough on Bosnia.
During that meeting of the Principals, Clinton hinted that the United States should
consider using airpower
82
.
The meeting of July 17 led to the creation of an interagency group, chaired by
Lake’s deputy Sandy Berger, that was asked to come up with “real policy options” for
the President
83
. During this process, which took about two weeks, it remained clear
that neither the Department of State nor Defense would give the endgame strategy
their full-fledged support. Things came to a head in early August. Warren Christopher
was unable to attend a meeting between the President, the Vice President, and the
Principals scheduled for August 7. He phoned the President, stressing that the endgame
strategy was not the best option available to the US. Lake was aware of the call and used
his access to Clinton to try to tilt the balance back in favor of his policy. Before the
Principals’ meeting began, he talked privately with Clinton, emphasizing both the
importance of presidential leadership, if a decision was to be made, and the merits of
his preferred option
84
. This seems to have produced the desired results. On August 8,
the President declared, at another meeting of the Principals, that he thought the
endgame strategy was the way for the US to go
85
. On August 9, it became the adminis-
tration’s policy
86
. Now that a comprehensive strategy had been decided upon
87
, Lake
and Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Peter Tarnoff were sent to Europe to
Foreign Policy-Making in the Clinton Administration:
16
———————
80. Ibid., p. 100-101.
81. Woodward, op. cit., p. 261; Halberstam, op. cit., p. 317.
82. Ibid., p. 330-331.
83. Daalder, Getting to Dayton, p. 102.
84. Ibid., p. 106-107.
85. Although she does not single out any precise date, it was at that meeting that Clinton declared “I agree
with Tony [Lake] and Madeleine [Albright], […] we should bust our ass to get a settlement within the
next few months. We must commit to a unified Bosnia. And if we can’t get that at the bargaining table,
we have to help the Bosnians on the battlefield.”; quoted in Albright, op. cit., p. 190.
86. Daalder, Getting to Dayton, p. 111.
87. To be sure, there was nothing in the endgame strategy that guaranteed it would be more successful than
its forerunners. It was basically a resurrection of “lift and strike”, with the added threat of unilateral
action by the US if the allies did not agree to the plan and a more pragmatic, less moralistic approach
to achieving a political solution: any party that accepted the plan would be rewarded, and any party that
resisted it would face negative consequences. The success of the strategy indicated to the Clinton
administration that the US could achieve better results by exercising political leadership and backing it
up by force.
“sell” it to the allies
88
, a mission which proved successful
89
. Meanwhile, a negotiating
team was assembled around Assistant Secretary of State for European and Canadian
Affairs Richard Holbrooke
90
. Everything fell into place, diplomatically and militarily,
when the Serbs shelled the Sarajevo market on August 28, prompting an almost
instantaneous military response by NATO. As Holbrooke contends:
The August 28 mortar attack was hardly the first challenge to Western policy, nor the
worst incident of the war; it was only the latest. But it was different because of its
timing: coming immediately after the launching of our diplomatic shuttle and the
tragedy of Igman
91
, it appeared not only as an act of terror against innocent people in
Sarajevo, but as the first direct affront to the United States.
92
The legacy of August 1995
As we have seen, external, political and electoral considerations were indeed
important dimensions of the decision making process, but not the key factors in the
development of a winning US strategy in Bosnia. It is true that by mid-1995 Clinton
and his team were troubled by the progress of the war in the Balkans, that Clinton
viewed Bosnia as a potential liability in 1996, and that the foreign policy team did not
appreciate the Congressional attempt to take the lead in policy-making. But these
considerations would not have moved the US in a new direction had Clinton not
become more involved in the policy-making process
93
, and had the NSC system
94
under Lake not emerged as the administration’s main policy-development instrument.
This helps explain why, in mid-1995, Bosnia became the first in a series of foreign
policy successes for the Clinton administration, rather than a never-to-be-repeated
Reassessing Bosnia and the “Turning Point” of 1995
17
———————
88. They were accompanied by Vershbow, Bass, Robert C. Frasure (Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for
European and Canadian Affairs), Lieutenant General Wesley Clark (JCS), and Joseph Kruzel (Office of
the Secretary of Defense). See Daalder, Getting to Dayton, p. 112.
89. Holbrooke, op. cit., p. 73, and Albright, op. cit., p. 190. Holbrooke points out that by sending his NSA,
Clinton probably wanted to convey the seriousness of the endgame strategy to the Allies, as “[…] the
real, and perhaps last, American push for peace”; see op. cit., p. 74.
90. This team would be composed of Holbrooke, Wesley Clark, Robert Owen (a lawyer, who was a
consultant for the State Department—not to be confused with David Owen, who had been the EU
mediator of the Vance-Owen Plan for peace in Bosnia negotiated in 1992), Christopher Hill (State
Department), Brigadier General Don Kerrick (NSC), James Pardew (Office of the Secretary of Defense),
and Rosemarie Pauli. For details on the formation of this team at the State Department, see Holbrooke,
op. cit., p. 79-83. For details on the selection of Holbrooke as main negotiator for the United States, see
Daalder, Getting to Dayton, p. 115, and Woodward, op. cit., p. 268.
91. On August 19, the light armored vehicle shuttling Frasure, Kruzel and Drew plunged into a ravine near
the town of Igman in Bosnia, killing all three diplomats. See Christiane Amanpour, “Frasure’s Loss Is a
Tragic One”, 19 August 1995, available on CNN’s website at http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/Bosnia/
updates/august95/8-19/ (page consulted on April 14, 2004).
92. Holbrooke, op. cit., p. 93.
93. This view is explicitly conveyed by Richard Holbrooke,
op. cit., p. 81-82.
94. As opposed to the NSC
per se, which was ignored by Clinton. It met only once during his eight years at the
White House, on March 2, 1993.
anomaly: the triumph of the NSC system over the departments, and Clinton’s reali-
zation that this way of operating yielded positive results, constituted a turning point.
Anthony Lake (and later Sandy Berger, when he was appointed NSA in 1997) and the
NSC staff had the full support of the President in formulating policy. With more
effective organization, leadership and support, the NSC system could finally operate as
it was intended to.
The systemic changes in the months preceding the American military intervention
in Bosnia would go beyond the immediate issue of peace in the Balkans. The collegial
approach to problem-solving
95
that Clinton had favored from his inauguration in 1993
could work only if the President showed sustained interest in foreign matters and an
ongoing engagement in policy debates. For the various reasons explained in this paper,
Clinton finally began to do so in mid-1995. He would not regret it. With a functioning
NSC system, he would more easily achieve an effective foreign policy that yielded
results abroad and enhanced his stature at home.
Foreign Policy-Making in the Clinton Administration:
18
———————
95. See Alexander L. George, Presidential Decisionmaking in Foreign Policy: The Effective Use of Information
and Advice
, Boulder, Westview Press, 1980, especially chapter 12, “The Collegial Policymaking Group”,
p. 209-216.
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20
