Richard Holbrooke To End A War Summary

Introduction
Richard Holbrooke, a career diplomat, took on one of the most difficult international crises of his day. In his book, To End a War, He tells of how he was sent to Bosnia as the Chief Negotiator for the United States towards the end of 1995. As a negotiator, his moral values and reasoning ability was among the best. He had sincere passion to bring peace to the Balkans and risked life and limb in carrying out his mission. In the fourteen weeks that formed the core of his story, Holbrooke encountered conflict, confusion and tragedy in an unpredictably dangerous situation. Those involved, consisted of more than the team members who were with him and reached as far as President Clinton, Secretary of State Warren Christopher

and Vice President Al Gore.
Holbrooke’s decisive reasoning that lead him through the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement is unmatched. With ethnic cleansing as the centerpiece of Human Rights atrocities in Kosovo, in the southern province of the Yugoslavian Serb Republic, Holbrooke was adamant about finding a solution to end it. Dealing with the sly President Milosevic, Holbrooke shows his superior negotiation skills which included diplomacy and creativity, while demonstrating the loyalty of his team through words that paint a clear picture of each scene of each part and particle of his experiences. This includes the tragic loss of team members in an unfortunate accident in their first attempt to reach Sarajevo. They had taken the Mount Igman Route which was described as, “the most dangerous road in Europe.” With help from both French and Serbian soldiers, they were able to rescue some of the team members and retrieve the bodies of those lost.
He stated that many negotiating efforts of the United States and Europe had dealt with Bosnian Serbs as a separate entity but that the United States diplomatic presence in Belgrade was a unique situation in the world because it was a fully functioning diplomatic mission but gave no one credit. They maintained an Embassy in Belgrade even though the area was not formally recognized as a country.
Summary
Richard Holbrooke wrote “To End a War” after negotiating peace for Bosnia in 1995.

Leading the Dayton conference for several weeks they signed a peace treaty, but it took them three years to pull together constitutions, set up states and come to agreements. Deadlocks on principles occurred and the conference was to end at midnight. Holbrooke meant business and those whom he was negotiating with learned the hard way. Agreements were reached soon after. There was criticism of the way in which Dayton handled it, but it worked, and it worked well and put an end to the Bosnian war in 1995. He showed his capacity to resolve the crisis. The writer explained that NATO allies were unwilling to intercede and afraid of embarrassment because the area of concern was connected to Europe. It was also difficult to get support from home with the strategy that Holbrooke had created. After an attack on Sarajevo that killed several civilians, the United States Air Force carried out an air strike that stopped the Bosnian Serb military, allowing the Croats to take over part of the territory. This, coupled with sanctions against Serbia, forced Milosevic to negotiate with the United States along with getting an agreement with Prime Minister versus President, Bosnians, and parties to come to terms with unifying a

country.
“The negotiations were simultaneously cerebral and physical, abstract and personal, something like a combination of chess and mountain climbing.” (Holbrooke, 1999)

Critique
Holbrooke explains the reasons that caused the crisis in Yugoslavia with detail. He includes both failure and success as outcomes of different stake holders that were involved in negotiations. while trying to end the war. In chapter two of his book he examines the reasons for failure and gives five major factors that brought about the conflict starting with the situation being ignored. In an article that was published in “Foreign Affairs”, he was quoted as saying that the former Yugoslavia was the “greatest collective security failure of the West since the 1930’s”. In Holbrooke’s book, negotiations of the crisis in Yugoslavia covers how this crisis was completely ignored. He explains how the crisis started and continued, growing into a “web of animosity”, with media, disinterested Americans, a mediocre shift to American policy that was handled by European allies and what was believed to be caused by Balkan history, making the unrest unavoidable. Believing, “Yugoslavia’s tragedy was not foreordained. It was the product of bad, even criminal, political and financial gain.” Holbrooke continues his thoughts with, “violence-provoking nationalism” being one of the reasons that the media was partially to blame.
He brings us to understand that the Serbs were those who stretched out the war, committed atrocities and violated Human Rights. He puts Milosevic at the helm of responsibility. This “smart, charming, evasive” leader was responsible for this war because of his desire to gain power and control all Serbs. Milosevic supported the Bosnian Serbs while international sanctions were
deteriorating the economy of his country by applying sanctions. Holbrooke remained firm.
Holbrooke expressed that Yugoslavia represented a failure of historic dimensions. He felt that it was “the greatest collective security failure of the West since the 1930’s”.

Personal Response
“There will be other Bosnia’s in our lives.” This statement was written in the last paragraph of his book.

A wise statement by a wise man who tried his hardest to bring peace. I found Holbrooke’s writing style easy to follow. He uses his pen to paint each scene in a way that the reader feels as if they are on his journey with him, while explaining the political background. He laid out the situations that he had experienced in a way that one could easily follow and understand what he had been up against. One such example was the effect that author Rebecca West, who wrote a travel book called, Black Lamb and Grey Falcon, in 1941 had caused. Her pro-Serbian viewpoints were that Muslims were racially inferior. Holbrooke explained that this book had influenced a couple of generations of policy makers and politicians. She revisited her ideas in another book that was published in 1993, which was a best seller, called Balkan Ghosts: A Journey Through History, leaving readers to believe that nothing could be done by those outside of this region because there was so much hatred between the inhabitants of the region between one another. Words are powerful and according to Holbrooke, these books influenced President Clinton and members of his Administration, leaving them convinced that it was fruitless to get involved. All the while Serbs were committing heinous atrocities on the Muslims who were imprisoned in Bosnia. It is fascinating how impactful a book can be to both leaders of

a society and to entire societies.
Still with undeniable problems between ethnic groups, friction was inevitable. Differences had continued since the Turks on Kosovo Field had defeated the Serbs in 1389. Political leaders had encouraged bias for their own personal, political and financial gains. Not unlike what is common in the United States between ethnic and cultural differences steering back to the Civil War. Holbrooke’s opinion of this is something that is easily understandable. He traces tensions throughout history and ties it together for his readers to grasp the reasons why there was friction to begin with, starting with the “Rebecca West Factor”, explaining the results of the end of the Cold War, going on through the internal Yugoslav drama that incorporated Yugoslavian history of six republics, five nations, four languages, three religions, two alphabets and one party.
“Even as we made progress on a wide range of issues important to the shaping of America’s post-Cold War relations with Europe, notably NATO enlargement and relations with the former Soviet satellites of central Europe, Bosnia, continued to deteriorate, raising serious questions about the nature of America’s post-Cold War commitment to Europe.” (Holbrooke, 1999)

He educates his readers with the Post-Iraq American fatigue, which is simply Americans being tired from Desert Storm, where Policy makers did not wish to become involved in the Yugoslav crisis, waning only to deal with more than one crisis at a time. He took us to security issues that Washington DC had during the Atlantic confusion and with Euro-passivity. This is where we handed major security issues over to the Europeans. We were tired of shouldering the responsibility of the world’s security by ourselves. We wanted unified power.

Conclusion
To End a War has great strength in showing solid, comprehensive pathways to success in getting stakeholders to negotiate. Military force and diplomacy are a powerful combination. Holbrooke is passionate about peace and in saving lives. He shows how diplomacy coupled with threat of military might can be effective. Using military force against the Serbs, declaring war criminals in the process, lifting arms embargo’s and even promoting Tomahawk cruise missiles against the Bosnian Serbs, was not received well by the US and Allied forces. When the Pentagon wanted a limited and straight forward mission or a “mission creep”, Holbrooke steadfastly held onto a “maximalist” approach which leaves many questions unanswered.
The most interesting part of this book is how each cog of the political process in negotiations works. How joined together the world seems to be, even if we are at odds and how the system works and does not work. It is men like Richard Holbrooke who most people never hear of who are those individuals working behind the scenes who can impact life and death for a multitude of people, communities and nations.

References
Holbrooke, Richard. To End a War. New York: Random House, 1999.