CAN WESTERN air strikes end the agony in Bosnia, or will their limited sting spark more hatred and killing?
That's the dilemma facing U.S., NATO and U.N. military planners, not whether laser bombs and missiles can silence Serbian artillery pounding Muslim Sarajevo into rubble."It's not hitting all or enough of those mobile guns. It's whether bombing will send the message to Serb forces or increase frustration, sniping at civilians and attacks on U.N. troops," said David Rowe of the Aspen Group think tank at Harvard University.
Moreover, asked Rowe and other private analysts, could the proposed raids by U.S., British, French and Dutch planes stall peace talks in Geneva and halt the essential feeding of civilians trapped in a civil war in the former Yugoslavia?
NATO ambassadors, meeting in Brussels last Monday, threatened the Serbs with air strikes if they continued their "strangulation" of Sarajevo. That would expand an earlier U.N. vow to use air power to protect its peacekeeping troops policing six Muslim safe havens in Bosnia.
"The West finally sees a need to act, and air power is a lot simpler than putting 200,000 troops in Bosnia. But the problem is limiting raids to keep Sarajevo from falling while claiming to be neutral in the war," said Tom McNaugher of the Brookings Institution.
Pentagon officials stress there is little doubt that Western warplanes can hit targets on the ground with laser-guided bombs while avoiding Soviet-designed SA-14, SA-7 and SA-2 anti-aircraft missiles in the Serbian arsenal.
"But is that enough?" worried a senior U.S. officer who asked not to be identified.
"Will the few targets you take out make a difference with the United Nations and NATO insisting that you carefully limit what you do from 15,000 or 20,000 feet?" the officer asked.
Diplomats in London told Reuters this week that NATO is expected to seek U.N. authority to bomb Bosnian Serbs if they block humanitarian aid convoys or attack civilians, but will not interfere in battles like those raging on mountains near Sarajevo.
The Serbs appear to have captured much of Mount Igman, a strategic peak overlooking the Bosnian capital, after a surprise offensive against Muslim-led government forces this week. Earlier they seized the nearby Mount Bjelasnica.
Ambassadors of the 16 NATO nations are due to meet again in Brussels Monday to study a report by the alliance's military committee on ways of carrying out the strikes, including forces needed and command and control arrangements.
Secretary of State Warren Christopher said in Amman, Jordan, on Thursday that he would travel to Italy to discuss contingency plans on allied air strikes in the former Yugoslavia.
The United States has nearly 40 attack planes and support aircraft stationed at Aviano and other Italian air bases. British and French Jaguars and Dutch F-16s also are poised in Italy for a final order from the United Nations and NATO.
Military experts say, however, that fewer than 100 allied jets may be far from adequate in a forested mountain land where Serb troops can easily hide weapons and where Western target spotters on the ground could be in great danger.
"The Soviet Union couldn't intimidate Yugoslavia into joining the Warsaw Pact," said retired U.S. Army Lt. Gen. Ernest Graves, now an analyst with the private Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.
"What makes everybody think that limited bombing can halt this war without either expanding the scope or admitting defeat?"