European intervention in the Yugoslav conflict, 1991-1995.

Abstract

The aim of this thesis is to analyse the extent to which European intervention in the breakup of Yugoslavia was a success or a failure. The prevailing historical narrative is that it was a failure, largely due to the fact that the US apparently resolved the conflict. However as this thesis will show the reality was far more complex and without the various European diplomatic and economic interventions, US strategy in the region would have had no basis on which to function. What the US ultimately brought to the resolution of the conflict was something Europe could not, a willingness to use military force. It is in this context that it is important to re-evaluate the process the Europeans created throughout the conflict. It is also important to revisit this issue given subsequent European involvement in conflict, as Yugoslavia was in many ways a turning point for Western models of intervention – the apparent failure of diplomacy and the subsequent use of military force created a precedent for military intervention in Kosovo and Iraq. However was the war in Yugoslavia really a diplomatic failure? Could diplomacy have prevented the war? Did US interests undermine the Europeans diplomatic efforts? These are some of the questions analysed throughout the thesis.