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July
24, 2002 -- Historian
David Halberstom, who sometimes recounts slightly too much the left,
nonetheless writes detailed and readable “first drafts if history.” He
has outstanding sources for his works, and War
in a Time of Peace is a real insider’s read. Halberstam offers an
individual-eyed look into the hair-pulling and baffling dramas that
surrounded America’s reluctant involvement in the Balkans from the end
of George H.W. Bush’s presidency down through the end of Bill
Clinton’s. Along the way, the reader gets an education about a region
that is so wickedly twisted that it stumps long-time policy experts and
world-weary diplomats. The volume is also a valuable contribution to
understanding first, how not to make policy, second, how to finally arrive
at a policy, and finally, how to convince everyone that the policy is
correct. Despite this reviewer’s misgivings about the overall Clinton
Administration, War in a Time of
Peace describes a beguilingly complex problem President Clinton and
his team finally got their arms around. At least for now, given the
intransigent nature of the Balkan nations.
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The
book’s central canvas is the Clinton administration, and the many, many
players and their differing agendas as Serbia, Kosovo, Croatia and
assorted neighboring nations as they descend into super-nationalistic
hell, and ultimately genocide. It captures the frustrations of the Clinton
policy-makers as they struggle to balance domestic opinion (tepidly
interventionist), European considerations (wanting everything both ways),
the re-emergence of Russia following the collapse of communism, and the
vaunted American military (they’d fight, but there better be an “exit
strategy.”)
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"..captures
the frustrations of the Clinton policy-makers as they struggle to balance
domestic opinion (tepidly interventionist), European considerations
(wanting everything both ways), the re-emergence of Russia following the
collapse of communism, and the vaunted American military (they’d fight,
but there better be an “exit strategy.”).."
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In
telling the events, Halberstam describes the primary players. Richard
Holbrooke, the special negotiator of incredible ambition and ego, who can
claim victory in the end. America’s first female Secretary of State
Madeline Albright, who as an interventionist finally sees the bombing
start, only to have the episode sometimes referred to as “Madeline’s
War.” Colin Powell, America’s “First Soldier” who seeks to prevent
America’s military from becoming quagmired in “another Vietnam.”
Clinton’s two primary policy-wranglers, Sandy Berger and Anthony Lake,
career government officials who skillfully navigate the seemingly unending
obstacles to stopping the fighting and killing in the Balkans. And perhaps
the smoothest of the smooth among a smooth Clinton team, General Wesley
Clark, who happily jumps to the head of his class over more senior
generals, and comfortably adapts to his role as mad bomber and all-around
monkey-wrench bearer. Despite being the Commander-in-Chief, Clinton’s
role in War in a Time of Peace
is muted; he continually hopes his experts will carry the day, and they
largely do so.
The
history of the Balkans and the ethnic hatreds that still simmer are
centuries old, and one gets the impression not necessarily or by any means
entirely from this book, but from general exposure, that there will never
be a true peace in the region.
Still, if you could look back from many years hence, War
in a Time of Peace describes a time when a well-intentioned United
States stepped between multiple belligerents, slapped them around, and got
them to calm down for enough time for them to re-arm, re-equip, and start
another round of killing.
Let’s hope not.
--
Rich Sheppard
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