Above the rocky plains of northern Iraq and over the fog-shrouded mountains of Bosnia–Herzegovina, North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) fighters roam the sky in an effort to impose peace on belligerents driven by ethnic hatred. The conflict in Kurdistan and the Balkans is representative of the new international security environment where ethnic, religious, and territorial tensions once constrained by the pressures of the cold war now spawn armed struggles throughout much of the world.¹ These localized conflicts are generally internal and often pose no direct threat to United States (US) vital interests. However, the international community feels an ever-increasing...

In the future the US military could very likely find itself enforcing peace on belligerents who are willing to fight to the death over deeply rooted ethnic or religious differences. Indirect threats to national interests and public outrage over human rights violations necessitate and justify some form of intervention in an increasingly interdependent world. Intervention is a risky and complex endeavor in an environment that defies a political solution and often elicits less than the necessary response from the international community. Air operations over Iraq and Bosnia suggest that US leaders will increasingly turn to coercive airpower as a means...

The Kurdish people of the Middle East are the region’s fourth largest national group and the largest ethnic minority in the world without a homeland of their own. Although their early history is shrouded in mystery, they lived in the region known as Kurdistan long before the Turks, Persians, and Arabs inhabited the area.¹ Throughout much of the last 500 years, the Kurds have enjoyed a certain degree of autonomy under the nominal sovereignty of Turkish and Persian empires. However, in the midnineteenth century, frontier control became more important; and Kurdish self-determination gave way to centralized authority. The Kurds became...

The former Yugoslavia is a hotbed of ethnic, religious, and political conflict. The passionate strife is the result of centuries of varying political domination that brought about the confluence of Christianity, Orthodoxy, and Islam. Following World War I, with little popular support, the League of Nations artificially created Yugoslavia by combining Orthodox Serbia, Montenegro, and portions of the former Austro–Hungarian empire including Muslim–Slavic Bosnia–Herzegovina. In the aftermath of World War II, Joseph Broz Tito held the inextricably mixed minorities of the Yugoslav federation together under communist rule. However, communist attempts to promote a Yugoslav consciousness through forced...

A SCAP approach to peace enforcement can impose a cease-fire, create a tenable environment for a short land campaign, and maintain long-term regional stability by engaging and threatening a belligerent’s strategic-level value systems. SCAP, along with economic sanctions, supports the overarching diplomatic process that attempts to reach a long-term political settlement. Operation Deliberate Force demonstrated that a compellent air campaign against the correct strategic-level value system conducted at an appropriate tempo can force a belligerent to make reasonable political concessions. OPC demonstrated that an enduring air presence that threatens strategic-level value systems and polices infractions at the tactical level can...