Saving Bosnia -- At What Price?

By GEORGE J. CHURCH

Multiple-choice test for global strategists: if Western military forces intervened in Bosnia, they would face a situation most like a) the Vietnam War, b) Desert Storm, c) Northern Ireland, d) none of the above. Since history rarely repeats itself exactly, the most likely answer is d. But there are enough points of similarity to a and c -- and of dissimilarity to b -- to give pause to the U.S. and Europe.

Western leaders are moving steadily closer to going ahead anyway. Public revulsion at the killing shown on television and a sense of impotence in the supposed new world order are beginning to build pressure in Washington, London, Paris and Bonn to do something. Economic sanctions against Serbia promise no quick solution. Even the airlift of supplies into Sarajevo that began last week seems likely only to stave off starvation.

But successful intervention requires strong leadership that sets clear and achievable political objectives and assembles sufficient forces -- conditions met in Desert Storm but not so far in the Balkans. The U.S., conspicuously, wants the European nations to take the lead. They have been just as conspicuously unwilling. Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney last week said American planes would supply air cover and support to an international expedition, but insisted that under no circumstances would American troops be sent into ground combat in what he calls "an internal civil war."

To some allies this sounds like an invitation for their soldiers to do the dying. According to a senior French official, George Bush last week telephoned President Francois Mitterrand to try out an idea for joint air strikes against Serbian positions around Sarajevo and along the road to Split, the Adriatic port from which relief supplies might be sent overland. Mitterrand, says the official, refused because that might expose the 250 French soldiers flown into Sarajevo airport last week to Serbian reprisals. White House officials snort that Bush proposed no such thing. But the story illustrates the unwillingness of Europeans to commit ground troops unless American G.I.s share the risks.

In any case, how much force would be required and how many casualties might be expected depends heavily on what political objectives the allies set. Even the minimum objective -- securing the area around the airport so that relief flights can land safely -- might require taking out Serbian gun positions and tanks in the surrounding hills. Guesses of the force needed range from 45,000 to 100,000. French Colonel Jean-Louis Dufour, author of a book on the gulf war, thinks that it would take 75,000 troops grouped in three contingents, each including two tank regiments and two artillery regiments.

Some experts doubt that a full-scale airlift could bring in enough food to do more than help Sarajevo's 400,000 residents survive. A genuine end to the - siege might require opening an overland corridor from Split. That would be a still more difficult task if relief convoys negotiating shell-pocked roads also had to shoot their way past Serbian roadblocks.

Even a decisive relief of Sarajevo while Serbian aggression raged on elsewhere in Bosnia would be no great victory. In Washington there is talk of establishing protected islands of security throughout the country. The extreme option would be reconquest of Bosnian territory already taken over by the Serbs. Some British sources estimate that would require at least 300,000 troops and up to a year of intense battle. "In the gulf war, the allies' high-tech stuff worked well," says Michael Dewar, deputy director of London's International Institute of Strategic Studies. But in mountain guerrilla warfare, "smart weapons are of little use. It would mean tough infantry combat from tree to tree."

Such predictions might turn out to be no more accurate than the early forecasts of a long and bloody ground war in Kuwait. But one parallel to Vietnam looks ominous: limited military actions succeed but the civil war goes on, so the U.S. and friends are drawn step by step into more extensive fighting. Or the allied forces might impose an uneasy truce but then be unable to leave lest the slaughter resume. Says John Steinbruner, director of international studies at the Washington-based Brookings Institution: "This has all the earmarks of Northern Ireland," where British troops have fought for more than 20 years.

There is still a moral basis for intervention, and the U.N. dare not flunk a test case of its ability to cope with the ethnic wars that increasingly loom as the greatest threat to world peace. So far, however, public opinion in the U.S. and Western Europe has not seen any strategic or humanitarian interests at sufficient risk to justify the sacrifice of one soldier's life. Even a carefully planned intervention that matches adequate force to clear and achievable political aims may not change that opinion. A slapdash expedition for unclear ends would have no chance at all.

With reporting by William Mader/London, Frederick Ungeheuer/Paris and Bruce van Voorst/Washington