An Invitation to Struggle - The Bosnia Deployment
Abstract
Why did President Clinton override Congressional opinion and send troops to Bosnia to support the Dayton Accords? How did he manage to obtain finding from the Congress for an operation which the majority did not support. We would prefer to believe that our senior leaders took a mature, problem-solving approach and, through rational debate, patriotic support, and humanitarian concern arrived at a consensus to support the deployment because it was in the best interest of the nation. Such was not the case. The decision to deploy troops to Bosnia and the subsequent funding battle was a complex affair, involving bureaucratic politics at every turn. Morton Halperin and Graham Allison have provided a framework that enables us to examine the Bosnia deployment in terms of the interaction between two branches of government. Policy games as well as decision games, permeated the process. Although the Department of Defense and the American public were involved, they had limited roles in this struggle. The two key players were the executive branch, represented by the President, and the legislative branch, represented by several members of Congress, the most prominent being Senator Bob Dole (R- KS). This paper will examine the historical context, conduct an analysis of the players and their positions (for/against sending troops to Bosnia), and provide a brief analysis of the high-level negotiations (i e, action games) that culminated in an agreement to fund the initial one-year Bosnia deployment.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 1998
- Accession Number
- ADA441829
Entities
People
- Peter M. Vangjel
Organizations
- National War College