(Estimated Pub Date) the Challenge of Ethnic Conflict to National and International Order in the 1990S: Geographic Perspectives- October 1995

Approved for Release: 2018/06/01 C00123268
US Policy Perspectives:
A Conceptual Approach
Jon Gundersen
US Department of State
Americans are uncomfortable with ethnic politics.
Why shy away from distinction based on race, reli-
gion, or nationality——at least in our public rhetoric.
During the Cold War, ethnic conflicts were under-
standably ignored by Western policymakers. Forty
plus years of finely crafted and cleared NATO talking
points provided all the answers we seemed to need in
a bipolar world. In a brave new Europe, without an
identifiable enemy, we now have to think for a living.
The ethnic killing fields of Bosnia confronted the
West with a number of options-—all of them unattrac-
tive. Compassion fatigue set in when our initial
attempts to draw up convoluted ethnic maps were
rejected and scenes of starving babies became all to
commonplace on CNN. Was this fratricide not a
uniquely Balkan curse, Europeans silently wondered?
Could we not quarantine the carriers? This approach,
of course, provided a convenient rationale for Western
noninvolvement. It is also proved to be wishful and
dangerous thinking.
Setting aside the humanitarian rationale, there is a
compelling strategic argument for Westem engage-
ment. The nations of the East already perceive them-
selves in a political, economic, and security vacuum.
Without a sense of being part of a larger community-
govemed by accepted rules of behavior—neo-Com-
munist and ethnic nationalists may once again set the
rules. Already the unprecedented flows of refugees
from the East have spilled over even to prosperous
avenues of Paris and Frankfurt. Xenophobia and eth-
nic politics have become forces to be reckoned with
throughout the West.
Ethnic conflict will be on the international agenda for
the foreseeable future. This paper traces the historic
and philosophical reasons why Americans have been
so ill prepared to confront the issue and then suggests
a conceptual framework to deal with ethnic conflict in
Europe. First, it argues that we should look at the eth-
nic issue through the prism of individual and human
rights, not group entitlements. Second, it calls for a
Europe that is both more united and more autono-
mous. More autonomous in the sense that decisions
are made-—on a practical, not ideological basis—at
the lowest possible administrative level. At the same
time, autonomy can lead to anarchy and increased eth-
nic strife unless guided by universal, shared values.
Therefore, the paper suggests ways to create civil
societies in the East and to integrate these societies
into a democratic family of nations.
Ethnic Issues in Bipolar World
Since the end of World War II, we viewed our policy
in Europe through the optics of the Cold War. The pol-
icy of containment—with NATO as its operative man-
ifestation-—aimed at providing collective defense
against a real Soviet threat. In this regard, the policy
was extraordinarily successful. We deployed our
forces and accomplished our mission without a shot
being fired. In the process, we helped build viable
democracies and, ultimately, witnessed the systematic
and systemic defeat of our main adversary.
In a bipolar world, however, other issues, such as eth-
nic confiicts, were largely ignored by Western policy-
makers. In the West, the emphasis was on centrally
organized solutions to security and economic prob-
lems; for example, NATO and the EC. While these
organizations have fulfilled their primary Cold War
missions of uniting Western Europe, they have tended
to avoid, perhaps understandably, issues such as
national identity, regional autonomy, and ethnic con-
flict. Few commentators were prepared, for example,
for the anti-Brussels backlash following Maastrict. In
the East, more ominously, long-simmering ethnic dis-
putes remained submerged or suppressed by totalitar-
ian regimes controlled by Moscow. There was no
chance to resolve differences in an open and evolu-
tionary manner. Moreover, generations of Western
diplomats, scholars, and joumalists working out of
Moscow—and Belgrade—rarely journeyed to the
provinces. If they did, they were greeted by party loy-
alists who owed their positions to the central authori-
ties. In a sense, we tacitly accepted the Leninist
imposed view of the new man shom of ethnic identity.
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Approved for Release: 2018/06/01 C00123268