Tim Ripley - Operation Deliberate Force: The UN and NATO campaign in Bosnia 1995 By Tim Ripley

Twenty years on the momentousevents the summer and autumn of 1995 the former Yugoslavia now has the image ofbeing a sleepy hollow, which attracts little interests from the internationalpoliticians, diplomats and the global media. Croatia and Slovenia are nowmembers of the European Union. Bosnia, Serbia and Macedonia seem destined tojoin the family of European nations soon. Countries that were once torn apartby war, ethnic strife and brutal atrocities now appear to boring andnormal. This can only be a sign of progress and is a fitting testament tothose brave men and women of the brought peace to the former Yugoslavia 20years ago.

Currently, the only time thatthe Bosnia war gets any profile in the international media is when the ramblingwar crimes trials in The Hague of former Yugoslav leaders reach occasionalcritical points or at the time of a major anniversary of significant events inthe wars.

Fittingly, the verbaljousting between the former United Nations Protection Force (UNPROFOR) commander,General Sir Rupert Smith, and his old adversaries Bosnian Serb militarycommander, Ratko Mladic, and his political boss, Radovan Karadzic, continuedduring the latters trials at The Hague. The former president of the BosnianSerb mini-state conducted his own defence and cross examined General Smith inFebruary 2011, generating some fireworks. Not surprisingly, the former UNcommander easily shot down attempts by the Bosnian Serb leader to re-write thehistory of the war that devastated his country.

Karadzic tried to use GeneralSmith's book, The Utility of Force, against him and attempted to twisthis words to portray the Bosnian Serbs as victims of an internationalconspiracy led by the United Nations. Karadzic expressed incredulity at howGeneral Smith could consider the Bosnian Serb president and two other politicalleaders, to respectively to be the mad, the bad, and the loony.

In a deadpan putdown, GeneralSmith, stuck to his line that Karadzic was delusional. Yes, that's what Ithought. I decided that -- my definitions were based largely on the film of"The Good, The Bad and The Ugly." And the "mad" is Ithought that you, as I've said, and we've seen other bits of evidence, mightappear completely rational, but you were basing it on a world that wasn'tshared by anybody else.

More than anything else, thisconfirms the essential nature of the Bosnian conflict in 1995 it was a clashof rationality against delusion. Fortunately, rationality won through in theend. In no small part due to the leadership of General Smith and his colleaguesin the United Nations Protection Force and NATO air forces, backed byinternational diplomats, who took risks for peace and put their lives on theline on numerous occasions in the course of 1995.

As this book goes to print,the trials of Mladic and Karadzic are still on-going but few observers areputting any money on them being acquitted and walking free from Scheveningen prison in the Netherlands.

A year ago, I begun to updateOperation Deliberate Force, which was originally published in 1999, totry to bring material from the ICTY proceedings and other investigations in theBosnian and Croatian wars of the 1990s. Thankfully, the majority of my originalresearch has proved to be sound. I was particularly, refreshed to find that OperationDeliberate Force is quoted as an original source in a number subsequentbooks, television documentaries and the 2002 Netherlands Institute for WarDocumentation investigation into the fall of the Srebrenica safe area.

The main area for updatinghas been the conclusion and I have included new accounts of the subsequentcareers of key players in the events of 1995. I hope this brings the story ofOperation Deliberate Force up-to-date.

Tim Ripley

Lancaster

July 2015