Neither War nor Not War: Army Command in Europe during the Time of Peace Operations: Tasks Confronting USAREUR Commanders, 1994–2000 by Richard M. Swain. Strategic Studies Institute (http://www.carlisle.army.mil/ssi/ index.cfm), US Army War College, 122 Forbes Avenue, Carlisle, Pennsylvania 17013-5244, May 2003, 283 pages.

This first-rate study examines how the US Army in Europe (USAREUR) had to adapt to the post–Cold War peacekeeping and peace-enforcement operations in the Balkans. The manner in which commanding generals (of USAREUR; the commander of Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers, Europe; and individual division commanders) adapted and shaped their forces, headquarters, and staffs says volumes about their personal leadership skills and personalities.

In the late 1990s, the US military was drawing down from the 350,000 troops it had stationed in Europe during the Cold War and first Gulf War. The Balkans, actually the former Yugoslavia, had exploded into a brutal civil war. Until 1994, involvement by the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) had remained minimal, but as the brutality increased, the Clinton administration began contemplating a more interventionist foreign policy and, by default, military intervention. Apprised of the situation, US Army commanders did not wait until the signing of the complex Dayton peace accords but started training and planning for an eventual operation in Bosnia. In that country, three ethnic groups vied for control of the province: Serbs allied with Serbia itself, Croats allied with Croatia, and Muslims seeking independence from the other two groups. Both Serbia and Croatia forcibly moved outside ethnic groups to gain territory, with Bosnian Serbs killing entire Muslim populations of villages and cities in the process. The peace accords divided the province into three separate ethnic areas with a federation presidency. The US Army, together with its NATO and overseas allies, set up military sectors and zones of separation to implement the treaty.

Before this could happen, however, hundreds of American soldiers, along with their equipment and logistical support, had to be shipped from Germany to staging bases in Hungary to facilitate a December entry into Bosnia. Army commanders had to train their troops in mine clearing, route security, and crowd control. The author effectively discusses organizational changes in terms of the events in Bosnia, allowing readers to understand the influence of Washington, NATO, and the United Nations (UN) on the day-to-day operations of the US Army. The command structure in Europe—always complex because of NATO and US command channels—became further frayed when representatives from the European Union and UN high commissioners intervened in the operations of the Bosnia Stabilization Force and Implementation Force.

The US Army confronted violence against returning refugees, dealt with protests resulting from its apprehension of human-rights violators, and attempted to keep the Pale hardliners from overthrowing the Serb government located in Banja Luka. Jealousy over prerogatives by various officials ultimately compounded the situational and political difficulties. Ethnic differences and foot-dragging by international agencies forced the extension of the mission—originally designed to last one year—as the US Army and its international allies sought to pacify the region. Another conflict in Kosovo in 1999 would finally mark the end of Serbian—provoked war in the Balkans. However, ethnic strife continued to fester, and the US Army was forced to deploy troops to two theaters.

Swain also details the complexity of the staffs that US Army generals had to rely on to manage daily operations in Bosnia, USAREUR operations in Germany, and the variety of international staffs—none of which were colocated but maintained headquarters throughout Bosnia and Europe. Gens. Eric Shinseki and Tommy Franks both specu-lated about what kind of changes in leadership training the Army would have to make to prepare its personnel for future peace-implementation missions that undoubtedly would confront the Army worldwide. The 1999 war in Kosovo would bring its own challenges to Gen Montgomery Meigs, commander of the Bosnian Stabilization Force and V Corps. The activities and responsibilities of US Army commanders shifted as US, international, and Bosnian political contexts changed. The tasks in Bosnia evolved from conducting simple separation and demobilization to serving as the instrument of coercion to impose a political regime on all ethnic groupings located in Bosnia.

Neither War nor Not War is an excellent study of post–Cold War military operations that Air Force officers should read in conjunction with Col Robert C. Owen’s Deliberate Force: A Case Study in -Effective Air Campaigning (Air University Press, 2000). I recommend it highly to anyone studying or researching Balkan military operations as well as NATO and UN operations during this time.

Capt Gilles Van Nederveen, USAF, Retired
Fairfax, Virginia

Disclaimer

The conclusions and opinions expressed in this document are those of the author cultivated in the freedom of expression, academic environment of Air University. They do not reflect the official position of the U.S. Government, Department of Defense, the United States Air Force or the Air University.

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