It did not act swiftly enough or robustly enough, but it did in the end prevail. The same was true in Kosovo, where NATO intervened to stop a massive 'ethnic cleansing' operation. When at last NATO intervened in Bosnia, it brought the war to a halt and saved countless lives. or NATO interventions and he has characterized the Clinton administration's efforts as failures. Coexistence, not enmity, was the historical truth.įor Bush, 'Balkan Ghosts' may only confirm what he already seems to believe. Glenny maintains that the various ethnic groups-Serbs, Croats, Muslims-traditionally got along with each other. Holbrooke, like the Balkan expert Misha Glenny, insists the hatreds are not ancient but are in fact the product of relatively recent events-World War II, for instance. Richard Holbrooke mentions the Kaplan book in his own Bosnia book, 'To End A War.' He deems it dead wrong. It helped convince me, for one, that it would be a monumental mistake for the United States to get involved in Bosnia. The book says the Balkans are afflicted with ancient, intractable hatreds that no outsiders can understand, never mind control. Two different writers, Richard Reeves and Elizabeth Drew, have said 'Balkan Ghosts' was instrumental in shaping-or maybe confirming-Clinton's initial preference to steer clear of the Balkans. It certainly has fallen into the hands of the wrong people.īill Clinton was one. Kaplan is either consistently misread or just plain wrong. One is 'Lenin's Tomb,' which won a Pulitzer Prize for its author, David Remnick, and is worthy of memorization. As a result, a public tutorial is being conducted by various Republican foreign affairs experts-some of the same people who botched Bosnia-and Bush is uncharacteristically doing some reading. In foreign affairs, Bush early on showed he had a way to go, by mangling the names of countries and people-Grecians for Greeks, for example. The combination suggests another saying: A little knowledge is a dangerous thing. If you can't judge a book by its cover, can you judge a man by the book he reads? The book in question is 'Balkan Ghosts' and the man is George W.

Robert d kaplan balkan ghosts