Triumph of the Lack of Will

Review
"The best treatment yet of the interplay between the international players and the events on the ground. The book would be useful in any classes dealing with Bosnia, Yugoslavia in general, the UN and peacekeeping, ethnic conflict, and the foreign policy of the EU and its members." -- Warren Zimmerman, editor of Origins of a Catastrophe


Warren Zimmerman editor of Origins of a Catastrophe
The best treatment yet of the interplay between the international players and the events on the ground. The book would be useful in any classes dealing with Bosnia, Yugoslavia in general, the UN and peacekeeping, ethnic conflict, and the foreign policy of the EU and its members.


Book Description
This book examines how and why the United States, Britain, France, and Germany failed to cope with the collapse of Yugoslavia and its descent into a savage civil war.


Card catalog description
Why did the major Western powers fail to resolve the War of Dissolution in Yugoslavia? Why did the killing continue, even as diplomats, UN peacekeepers, and world leaders desperately negotiated agreements? James Gow evaluates the range of attempts to find a workable peace and identifies four factors that helped subvert the peace process: bad timing, bad judgment, poor cohesion, and above all, the absence of political will, especially concerning the use of force. Gow analyzes the individual perspectives and roles of major states in Europe after the Cold War - Germany, France, the United Kingdom, the Russian Federation, and the United States - all of which constituted the Contact Group attempting to establish a unified international policy toward the war. Analysts, policymakers, scholars, and general readers need to understand the world's response to Yugoslavia's bloody collapse to build effective policies and prevent future wars in the Balkans. At a time when the failure of cooperation among Western powers shatters faith in the UN, NATO, and the EC to deal with such crises, this book's accessible, balanced perspective provides essential guidance.


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Gow has written about the Yugoslavian crisis before, and here evaluates the range of international attempts to find a workable peace. He credits their failure to bad timing, bad judgement, poor cohesion, and the absence of political will. He accuses the governments comprising the Contact Group of subverting each other's strategic and diplomatic goals in order to pursue their own interests, behavior unbecoming leaders of the New World Order. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.


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