European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - January 13, 1993, Darmstadt, Hesse Wednesday january 13,1993 commentary the stars and stripes b rage 15 action is the answer in Bosnia two men whose views must be respected stand in the Way of lessening the bloodshed in Bosnia Cyrus Vance the heroic . Diplomat who negotiates tirelessly for a peace settlement and Gen. Colin l. Powell the Brilliant War rior who argues relentlessly against . And Allied military intervention. Peace among serbs croats and muslims will almost certainly be impossible. For generations perhaps longer. The hatreds surpass All reason. What is possible is to create a balance of Power and perhaps a cease fire to contain the wars worst horrors. Even that will be Leslie h. Gelb unattainable unless outside forces and Aid Are brought in to redress serbian dominance a i Hope i m wrong about the prospects for peace. Vance is highly experienced and be is on the scene lie deserves time to play out his hand a to Divide Bosnia into autonomous provinces loosely linked to a Central government. But not much More Lime. Time is not on Vance s Side. Winters coffin is already encasing former yugoslavia., tens of thousands More will soon die or join More than a million of their countrymen and women As refugees. The peace process cannot just Drift on becoming an excuse for not taking decisive military action. Nor is history on the Vance Side. The Peoples of this tragic land have not been arguing for centuries simply about who among them should govern but Over who among them will live. Any Hope of burying this hatred vanished in the last nine months of War. Neighbors killing and raping their neighbors by the thousands will be neither forgotten nor forgiven. Revenge and fear of revenge will preclude anything resembling a peace agreement or even a viable cease fire. The Only kind of agreement that might work Ana last would have to be based on wrenching geographical separation. The three ethnic groups would need to be moved into separate enclaves or left in carefully mixed Safe havens. I a a but no political settlement cease fire or Mere slowing of the Slaughter is feasible until outside Powers put the serbs in Check. And there is no Chance of that until the kinds of arguments raised by Powell Are convincingly met. Powell like Many of his counterparts in Europe argues Tor All or nothing. Either use whatever Force is necessary to bring the adversary to his Knees or stay out militarily. What does it mean to do nothing in this Case it Means standing by while millions Are displaced and tens of thousands freeze and Are shot a thus abandoning civilized norms and self respect. It Means faking serious efforts to help the muslims thus fanning cynicism and undermining Faith in democratic leadership. It Means emboldening the serbs to turn against other neighbors in Kosovo and Macedonia with greater risk of a general Balkan War. It Means unsettling Germany with More refugees. Plainly doing virtually nothing or continuing the present policy of simply feeding victims while they die makes no sense. But if do Ingall would Lead to an open ended Vietnam like quagmire that makes no sense either. For months now it has been Clear that the Issue Boits Down to this can the West intervene militarily in ways that will not Lead to endless and inconclusive escalation i believe the answer is yes and hero s How first Western leaders must be honest with their people about the stakes and the risks of inaction and Clear about their limited goals and strictly limited Means. Second Western or certainly . Military involvement should be restricted to air Power. Either the serbs accept a full cease fire or nato aircraft attack serbian military targets in Bosnia and Serbia. Third and this is critical the muslims and croats themselves must Supply the necessary ground troops. Nato should Arm them appropriately and amply. Fourth these troops should concentrate on protecting Safe havens. And nato should provide food and shelter for the havens immediately. This plan for getting in does not guarantee a Way out. It docs offer a Way to reduce the Slaughter and limit the West a military role. Bosnian cannot wait for Vance a illusory peace. Nor can the West suffer Powell a olympian caution. Every action carries risks. Inaction is the most risky a and the least cons Conable c Tow now Yorac time Sharpens skills of support what is the army is it the combat cutting Edge so familiar to the american Public or is it the larger lesser known support elements that Supply and sustain those front line Force when it comes to War the question is moot for both Are essential to Battlefield Success but in peacetime Relief operations which some predict Are the wave of the future the question has a new significance. There support forces May Well play the Lead with combat forces if com mined at All operating in their support. That would Fly in the face of the accepted Wisdom of what the army is All about. From the film footage of world War i doughboy going Over the top to the movie newsreels of world War ii and Korea to the to pictures of Vietnam and the satellite feeds of army forces in the persian Gulf War and now in Somalia pictures of the army have invariably focused on its combat elements. Pictures they say do not lie. But when it comes to the reality of the Battlefield they Are the most consummate of liars. They distort the truth that War As Karl von Clausewitz explained More than a Century ago has two complementary dimensions. One is a the conduct of War proper Quot the actual fighting done by the combat elements. The other is what he called a preparation for War Quot the logistics infrastructure created by the support or percent of its civil affairs units 94 per a a. A it i of Ronij a animations that Arm equip provision Supply and sustain the combat elements and without which War could not be waged. Although it is much larger than the combat army this a other army Quot is almost invisible. According to official figures which grossly overstate the number of actual a trigger pullers quo about half the Active army consists of infantry Armor artillery Engineer special forces and aviation combat forces. The other half a including among others military intelligence and the medical signal quartermaster order Nance transportation military police and chemical corps a makes up the combat support and combat service support Side of the army. In addition these support elements make up Large parts of the army National guard and almost All of the army Reserve. Together they constitute 100 percent of the total army a Railroad units 97 Harry g. Summers cent of its Supply and service companies More than 70 percent of cargo and fuel truck units and More than half is Engineer units. Even on the Battlefield support forces far outnumber combat forces. Exact figures Are hard to come by but substantially less than 25 percent of soldiers deployed to Vietnam were engaged in direct combat. If my experience As an infantryman there in 1966-67 is any guide the real figure is More like 10 percent. But you would never know that if All you knew about Vietnam is what you saw on television. You a think almost everyone there was in front line combat. To did not mean to lie. But by its very nature television depends on action a what critics of Vietnam War reporting called a bang bang Quot journalism a and to that end the combat forces occupied Center stage. That a not surprising. No one can deny that the mundane tasks of the support forces cannot begin to compete with the a excitement of combat operations. After All who wants to watch engineers Grade a Road linemen stringing wires truckers behind the wheel of their rigs mechanics. Overhauling vehicles military police directing traffic or the quartermaster bagging Beans you can see All that taking place in your own neighbourhood. And therein lies the tale. The combat army has its own ethos. Unlike civilian society its Mission if need Beis to die. In peacetime much time and Effort is devoted to building the fighting spirit essential to Battlefield Success. Weakening that fighting spirit with non Mililay tasks jeopardizes its very reason for being and ultimately undermines our National Security. A but the a other army Quot does essentially the same things in peacetime that it does in War. Its ethos is much like that of its civilian counterparts. Unlike the combat army whose skills Are degraded by such missions assignment of the support army to humanitarian Relief operations actually exercises its Basic skills and enhances its wartime capabilities. Most Relief operations will not require such massive commitments of combat forces. Although More than Likely invisible to the Public Eye a just As the Mobile army surgical Hospital Mash now operating in Bosnia and Herzegovina is largely ignored by the Media a the a other army will play the Lead in future Relief efforts. And they will play the Lead in Somalia As Well once order there is restored. A of Ihlo an Metoi time
