NATO’s Peace Support Interventions in the Balkans Since 1995 (Phase 1 Bosnia)

Abstract

Mulchinock provides a critical overview of NATO’s first out-of-area mission in Bosnia. The initial section considers the effort that NATO made to devise hypothetical peace support operations outside of the treaty area in the years after 1989. He then shows how this was finally realised with the deployment of the IFOR operation to post-conflict Bosnia in 1995. The major duties that are taken on by the IFOR and SFOR peace enforcement missions between 1995 and 2004 are then addressed. What were NATO’s roles in relation to the return of displaced persons, the conduct of elections, counter-terrorism operations and the apprehension of war criminals? What mistakes were made by the alliance? In the latter section, he deals with the civilian policing and defence reform duties taken on by the SFOR mission from 1998 onwards, along with the transition of peace enforcement duties from NATO to the EU at the end of 2004.