Getting to Dayton: The Making of America's Bosnia Policy by Ivo Daalder (review)

Abstract

I84 SEER, 8o, I, 2002 Daalder, Ivo. Getting toDayton.TheMakingofAmerica's BosniaPolicy.Brookings Institution Press, Washington, DC, 2000. XiX+ 204 pp. Notes. Index. $39.95; $I6.95. SOMETIMES books can surprise.This happened to me with Getting toDayton-and the surprise was positive. Despite Ivo Daalder's background - an academic who had become US National Security Council Co-ordinator on Europe during the I99OS under the second Clinton Administration I had anticipated'another'book on Bosnia. I was awareof Daalder and some of his otherwork,but thisveryusefulbook farexceeds his recordon the topic. It is a consistentand solidpiece of writingand offersmuch, even to those extensively versed in mattersinternationaland Bosnian and certainlyto me. This is a very usefulbook and willbe fruitfullyread by allwho do so. There are three main points of interest in the book. The first and most obvious iswhat it revealsabout US policy overBosnia, the policy processand, above all, the transformationof US policy thathad occurredby August I995. The second is the guerrillawarfarecampaign conducted against US Special Envoy Richard Holbrooke and his own account of events, ToEnda War(New York, I998). The third is the useful material presented on the war on the ground itself a surprisinglylittlecovered aspectof the war. The first point of interest is the most important. After years of hesitant moves -calls fora use of airpower, retractedin the face of the responsibilities that this would carry, both in practice and in the implications that it would have forNATO, one ofWashington'smostimportantforeignpolicy forums-therewas finallya commitment to fullengagement, the use of force supported by a reluctant readiness to deploy troops on the ground as peacekeepers. Daalder, suffusedwith theperspectiveof the insider-scholar,presentsthe story of this decision, structuringthe material into analytical segments within an overall chronological frame. He avoids the pitfallsthat often mar books that aredrivenby thechronologyof the author'sparticipationin events(something that marks the resource rich, but analytically deficient memoir accounts of David Owen and Richard Holbrooke). Here, Daalder outlines the main playersand theirperspectives. He rightly sees the policy change catalyzed by the events at Srebrenicain July I995, but even more rightly identifies that this was catalysis, not metamorphosis:the policy turn had already been made, beginning in June. The massacre at Srebrenica added speed to the process, mostly because it promptedDefense SecretaryWilliam Perryand Chairmanof theJoint Chiefs of Staff GeneralJohn Shalikashvilito go against the establishedview in the Pentagon and to accept the need for greater US engagement. This did no more than speed up a process already underway and driven by four imperatives: the very likely collapse of the UN mission in Bosnia (which despite some rhetoric,DC had alwaysbeen keen to see remain with UK and French troops at its core); the prospect of having to deploy troops on the ground to assist a UN withdrawal (the key US objective had been to avoid deployingtroopson the ground,let alone in a nightmarehumiliationof failure and withdrawal);the future of NATO (theAlliance was strainedto breaking point over the divisionsbetween the US and its European Allies);and, lastly, REVIEWS I85 the pressureon the Administrationcausedby a Congressionalvote mandating the Administration to break both international solidarity and international law that the US itself had made in binding UN Security Council resolutions. While these factorsshould be familiarto those vested in the subject(although this volume improves on my own, which to my own surprise,does not spell out the vital NATO issue), the real attractionis in the way Daalder presents the internal policy debate in response to this confluence of factors. The President himself and Daalder's boss, National Security Advisor Anthony Lakeemerge very favourably.Lake, especially,(and somewhatsurprisinglyto me) emerges as the key player - in Daalder's characterization, the 'policy entrepreneur'(p. I7 ), whose guileunderpinnedtheAdminstration'seventual policy success. The positive view of Lake connects with the second point of significant interest in the book - the footnote battle against Holbrooke. The campaign begins in footnote 2 to the introduction, where 'there is much about the US decision to change course, especially regarding policy formation in Washington that is not in Holbrooke's detailed account of his crucial negotiating role' (p. 3). The emphasis on the personal and limited aspect of Holbrooke's account is the firstthrust of several that lace the footnotes to come...