Conflict Resolution: Lessons from the Dayton Peace Process

On October 11, 1995, the late American diplomat, Richard Holbrooke, brokered a cease‐fire between the warring factions of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). This was the thirty‐fifth cease‐fire since 1992 when the war broke out—all previous agreements had unraveled (Chollet 2005: 113). Holbrooke's cease‐fire set the stage for comprehensive negotiations in Dayton, Ohio in November 1995. These negotiations continued for twenty‐one intense days and ended with the Dayton Accords, which marked the end of the war.

According to one of the key American participants, General Wesley Clark (2005), Holbrooke used to ask, “Are we negotiating or are we mediating?” This ambiguity is understandable. Strictly speaking, negotiation is defined as “the process whereby parties seek to settle or resolve their conflicts” (Ramsbotham, Woodhouse, and Miall 2011: 32). In other words, negotiators are by default parties to the conflict. Mediation is also a conflict resolution tool. It is closely related to negotiation, and for the most part, mediators make use of negotiation to achieve their goals. I. William Zartman and Saadia Touval (1996: 446) stated that “mediation is best thought of as a mode of negotiation in which a third party helps the parties find a solution which they cannot find by themselves.” Given the interconnectedness between mediation and negotiation, this article employs the terms interchangeably, except when the conflict resolution lesson is—strictly speaking—related only to mediation.

A mediator's primary goal, assuming his or her intentions are pure, is to manage a conflict situation. The mediator is generally considered to be nonviolent and neutral and not a party to the conflict (Starkey, Boyer, and Wilkenfeld 2005). In practice, there are examples of biased and coercive mediators who successfully brokered peace. This was the case with regard to the role of the United States in Bosnia where the superpower simultaneously engaged in mediation and military intervention. The Bosnian conflict developed in different stages, allowing the roles of the United States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to be fluid.

This is an appropriate time to focus on the Dayton peace process as 2019 marks the seventieth anniversary of NATO, while next year will be the tenth commemoration of Holbrooke's death and the twenty‐fifth anniversary of the Dayton Accords. This case study aims to highlight thirteen conflict resolution lessons related to the Dayton peace process. The lessons are largely drawn from a close reading of Holbrooke's To End a War and interviews with some of the key participants in the Dayton peace process; historical accounts that have surfaced in recent years also have been explored.

Several quantitative studies have concluded that conflicts ended through negotiated and mediated settlements are more likely to recur than conflicts that ended with military victories (Licklider 1995; Beardsley 2011). Military victories are, however, hard to achieve (Jones and Libicki 2008; Sisk 2009) and where they do take place, there is a high risk of genocide (Licklider 1995). It is thus important to identify lessons for mediating successful resolutions of conflicts.¹ Soon after the Dayton Accords were reached, conflict resolution expert Saadia Touval (1996: 568) posited that it “appears doubtful” the Dayton “settlement [will] endure.” Today it is clear that while BiH continues to deal with serious ethnic divisions, the Dayton process ended the Bosnian War. This was significant, not only because of the complexity and intensity of the conflict, but because the Bosnian War, as argued by Peter Galbraith, former United States ambassador to Croatia, threatened to escalate beyond the borders of the Balkans (Galbraith 1997).

With the end of the Cold War and the rise of nationalism Yugoslavia rapidly collapsed, giving rise to a series of large‐scale conflicts. On May 12, 1992, the then United States Ambassador to Yugoslavia penned his final cable to Washington, DC. He argued that “[i]t was nationalism that put an arrow in the heart of Yugoslavia” (Zimmermann 1999: 245). He further noted that although there were many “grave diggers” responsible for the breakup of Yugoslavia, the main culprit was Slobodan Milošević, the then president of Serbia (Zimmermann 1999: 249). The vile form of Serbian nationalism that he had promoted since 1987 made it virtually impossible for non‐Serbs to stay in Yugoslavia, which was until then multicultural.

The Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia consisted of six republics—BiH, Croatia, Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia, and Slovenia. Croatia and Slovenia declared independence on June 25, 1991, followed by Macedonia later that year on September 25, and BiH on March 3, 1992. Rump Yugoslavia thus consisted of Serbia and Montenegro.

Although Macedonia remained fairly peaceful following independence, the breakup of the former Yugoslavia spawned a number of conflicts, including the Slovenian Ten‐Day War (1991), Croatia's war of independence (1991 to 1995), and the Bosnian War (1992 to 1995).² European powers initially claimed that the Yugoslav wars represented a “European problem” to be handled by Europe (Chollet 2005: 3). The United States, first under George H. W. Bush and then under Bill Clinton, initially happily obliged.

The Bosnian War was one of the most brutal European conflicts since the end of World War II, claiming the lives of approximately 100,000 people. Almost 82 percent of those who were killed were indigenous Slavic Muslims, also known as Bosniaks (Sito‐Sucic and Robinson 2013).

Contrary to what is suggested by the term, the “Bosnian War” was not a clear‐cut civil war. Rump Yugoslavia and Croatia were actively involved in the conflict from early on. On March 25, 1991, Milošević and the then president of Croatia, Franjo Tuđman, met at Karađorđevo, where the two leaders allegedly agreed to partition BiH according to ethnic lines. Milošević desired a greater Serbia, while Tuđman wanted a greater Croatia, each ethnically pure. Despite the arbitrary nature of ethnicity, it became a defining feature of the Yugoslav conflicts. It took on the form of čišćenje terena (cleansing of the terrain) throughout the former Yugoslavia (Silber and Little 1996).

According to Serbian propaganda, the Bosnian War was neatly divided along ethnic lines: Bosnia's Orthodox Serbs, Catholic Croats, and Bosniaks. The reality is more complex. When Yugoslavia collapsed, over one fifth of its citizens had ethnically mixed parents (Zimmermann 1999: 138). Moreover, a 1985 survey revealed that as few as 17 percent of Bosnians considered themselves religious (Zimmermann 1999: 210). But fueled by propaganda, the Bosnian War reconstructed BiH's identity groups.

Many Bosnian Serbs supported Republika Srpska, an entity within BiH that claimed independence during the war. By and large, Bosnian Serbs were backed by rump Yugoslavia, which in turn was controlled by Milošević.

Bosnian Croats, for the most part, backed the Croatian Republic of Herzeg‐Bosnia, an entity inside BiH that sought unification with Croatia, which was led by Tuđman. On March 18, 1994, the United States brokered the Washington Agreement between Herzeg‐Bosnia and BiH that created a Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It aimed to end hostilities between Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks, thus allowing them to concentrate on their common enemy, the Serbs.

Bosniaks backed BiH, led by President Alija Izetbegović, who advocated for BiH to remain an independent, democratic, and multicultural state. Many Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Serbs fought alongside Bosniaks in defense of this vision (Sacirbey 2016a). Izetbegović's liberal outlook contrasted strongly with Milošević's and Tuđman's nationalism, xenophobia, and racism. The term “Bosnian delegation” as used in this article refers to the BiH delegation led by Izetbegović, in recognition of his attempt to establish a multicultural entity.

At the start of the Bosnian War, the permanent members of the United Nations Security Council were largely divided over how to handle the crisis. The United States was unwilling to deploy troops, France and the United Kingdom had peacekeepers stationed in the former Yugoslavia, and Russia sided with the Serbs (Power 2008). The Security Council refused to transform the U.N. Protection Force (UNPROFOR) into a peace enforcement mission; the failure to intervene successfully in Somalia was still hanging thick in the air. In 1995, there were almost 40,000 lightly equipped U.N. peacekeepers and aid workers spread throughout the former Yugoslavia, nearly half of whom were located in BiH (Watson and Dodd 1995: 18). Although UNPROFOR played a crucial role in sustaining close to 2.7 million Bosnians throughout the war, the U.N. was unable to end the conflict (Rose 1998: 247–248).

Here and there, NATO made use of “pin prick” air attacks against small targets in retaliation for violations of peace agreements. At the time, the U.N. and NATO had a unique decision‐making agreement, whereby the consent of both was required for NATO airstrikes. They called this arrangement a “dual‐key” and it gave the U.N. the power to veto NATO's actions (Holbrooke 1999: 72). Britain and France remained concerned about potential acts of vengeance against UNPROFOR should they be seen as a party to the war rather than as neutral actors. On occasion, Bosnian Serbs kidnapped peacekeepers to revenge NATO airstrikes (Rose 1998).

On July 6, 1995, Bosnian Serb troops under the command of General Ratko Mladić, one of the so‐called Butchers of Bosnia, ventured into Srebrenica, which at the time was a designated U.N. “Safe Area.” After bullying UNPROFOR to hand over people whom it was charged with safeguarding, Mladić ordered Bosniak men and boys to be separated from the group. A few days later, the world realized with horror their fate: they were massacred (Silber and Little 1996).

The Srebrenica massacre was the straw that broke the camel's back. Since the start of the crises in the former Yugoslavia, the United States had refused to take the lead in managing the conflicts. From the early days of the Bosnian War, Holbrooke had strongly argued that the United States should play a role in ending it. A few months before Srebrenica, Holbrooke—then assistant secretary of state for European and Canadian affairs—published an article in Foreign Affairs in which he boldly criticized the United States for failing to engage with the Bosnian crisis, calling it “the greatest collective security failure of the West since the 1930s” (Holbrooke 1995a: 40). He could not have foreseen that soon he would represent the United States as it quickly took on the role of lead mediator.

The period between the Srebrenica massacre (July 1995) and the brokering of the Dayton Accords (November 1995), although very short, holds thirteen valuable conflict resolution lessons for third‐party intervention:

• Lesson 1: Seize the moment.

• Lesson 2: Set goals, prepare, and reflect.

• Lesson 3: Balance carrots and sticks.

• Lesson 4: Remind parties of their weak BATNAs.

• Lesson 5: Negotiate with delegations but focus on the individual.

• Lesson 6: It is not about what is proposed, but who proposes it.

• Lesson 7: Simplify participation but maintain a coalition of partners.

• Lesson 8: Include devils if you must, exclude them if you can.

• Lesson 9: Provide flexibility to the negotiator but keep him or her in check.

• Lesson 10: Location, location, location

• Lesson 11: Be incremental and then go for gold.

• Lesson 12: Credibility trumps impartiality.

• Lesson 13: Perfect is the enemy of the good.

Some of these lessons overlap with previous analysis of the Dayton process, while others are unique. These lessons are largely deduced from Holbrooke's approach in managing the Bosnian conflict, but, as warned by Jeffrey Rubin (1999: 6), one has “to be cautious in our propensity to advance a set of ‘universal’ principles.” What worked in one setting may not be appropriate in another, as each negotiation or mediation remains situational. Nonetheless, the majority of these “Holbrookeisms” can be related to existing literature on conflict resolution. This study will also point out some disagreement with previous analytical studies on the Dayton peace process and theories of mediation.

Committing to serve as a mediator can be politically and economically expensive. This is especially true when one of the mediators uses “ripening agents” to enhance the attractiveness of a negotiated settlement. Such ripening agents include providing development aid, political support, security assurances, or military assistance; instituting or lifting sanctions; and reducing tariffs (Crocker, Hampson, and Aall 1999). In a democracy, such commitments often necessitate extensive internal political consensus, such as congressional approval. Negotiators must build up support for their efforts among both domestic and international actors; thus, international negotiation is sometimes referred to as a “two‐level game” (Starkey, Boyer, and Wilkenfeld 2005: 101). Given the complexity in forging broad‐based consensus, skilled mediators should focus on identifying ways to turn a crisis into an opportunity.

The Chinese word for “crisis” consists of two characters that represent “danger” and “opportunity.” In Bosnia, danger and opportunity became intertwined after the Srebrenica massacre. As argued by Muhamed Sacirbey, Bosnia's Minister of Foreign Affairs at the time of the massacre and a key negotiator at Dayton, “Sarajevo could have been liberated, rescued early into the siege … in the end, NATO did come to aid in lifting the siege, perhaps not so much out of principle or legality but because the consequences of the ongoing drama played out in the media” (Sacirbey 2016a). The Srebrenica massacre was one of the largest atrocities that Europe had experienced since World War II, but it also represented a major opportunity for the international community to take immediate action in putting an end to the Bosnian crisis. There were other crises before Srebrenica, as Sacirbey pointed out, but the Western media paid a great deal of attention to this one. After almost two years of approaching the war in Bosnia with inconsistency, reluctance, and ambivalence, the “CNN effect” was too powerful for the United States to ignore, and a host of decisions was swiftly taken.

UNPROFOR's role was to keep the peace, not to enforce it. Yet, the Srebrenica massacre demonstrated that intervention was needed. By July 20, 1995, the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Russia agreed that (1) the U.N. was ineffective in keeping the peace, (2) the “dual key” decision‐making agreement had to be modified, and (3) it was time for a more interventionist approach. The United States also recognized an opportunity to end the Bosnian War in total (Chollet 2005).

Soon after Srebrenica another crisis unfolded. On August 28, 1995, Bosnian Serbs fired five mortar shells into the busy Markale (marketplace) in Sarajevo, killing thirty‐seven people and injuring another eighty‐five. It was the second large‐scale attack on that market in little over a year.³ The second Markale massacre, as it became known, added fuel to the fire. Within twenty‐four hours of the attack, Sacirbey (1995) criticized the international community for failing to respond to it and threatened to pull out of the ongoing peace process. He then claimed that Holbrooke used his threat to mobilize support for military intervention. “Holbrooke wanted me to play that card, because Holbrooke then could use that card against the Pentagon,” and he wanted to demonstrate to Milošević “that he in fact was the one whose finger was on the trigger” (Sacirbey 2016b). Similarly, Christopher Hill, a member of the U.S. interagency mediation team, recalled that “President [Bill] Clinton was not going to punt on this one, and Holbrooke saw an opportunity … in having bombs fall on the Serbs in Bosnia as we met with Milošević” (Hill 2014: 86). On the day of the second Markale massacre, the U.N., under great pressure from the United States, authorized NATO to use airstrikes to send a message to Serbian warlords that their actions were unacceptable. “Over eleven days, more than thirty‐five hundred sorties were flown by NATO warplanes and nearly four hundred [Bosnian Serb] targets were attacked” (Annan and Mousavizadeh 2013: 72).

As argued by Brigid Starkey, Mark Boyer, and Jonathan Wilkenfeld (2005: 34–35), “The extent to which national actors perceive themselves to be in a crisis can have an impact on the pace of the negotiations and the range of alternatives examined, as well as on the types of outcomes that result (treaties, interim agreements, unstable cease‐fires).” What began as a crisis for Bosnians, particularly Bosniaks, was transformed by the United States into an opportunity to intervene to end the war. There is no doubt that NATO's bombing, which Holbrooke encouraged from the sidelines, helped to shift the balance of power in Bosnia and convinced the Bosnian Serbs to lay down their weapons and begin negotiations. Conflict resolution experts believe that “a more equal power balance between the parties is held to favor negotiation: when asymmetry is reduced, negotiation may become possible” (Ramsbotham, Woodhouse, and Miall 2011: 179). NATO bombing, together with further advances by the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, reduced Bosnian Serb control of Bosnia from around 70 percent to only half (Hill 2014: 68).

Yet, military action alone was insufficient to broker peace. There is a difference between “ripeness for negotiations to start and ripeness for negotiations to succeed” (Ramsbotham, Woodhouse, and Miall 2011: 179). As noted by Wesley Clark (2005), “[T]he lesson of Dayton is that great conflicts are not won by force alone.” Negotiation and mediation played crucial roles in helping to forge Bosnia's peace. Holbrooke and his team ventured from capital to capital with remarkable speed to broker consensus on a peace. From July 6 to 11, 1995 the U.N. “Safe Area” in Srebrenica was overtaken by Bosnian Serbs. From mid‐August to the end of October, in the middle of the NATO airstrikes, Holbrooke and his team undertook five high‐level shuttle diplomacy missions to the Balkans to establish a basic set of governing principles for the Dayton peace conference, which started on November 1, 1995 and lasted for twenty‐one days (Chollet 2005). The mediation process and peacekeeping efforts following Dayton required massive resources, and it is unlikely that Holbrooke's team would have been able to convince Clinton, the U.S. Congress, NATO allies, and even Russia, to commit to the peace process in the absence of a widely publicized crisis.

Former deputy secretary of state Strobe Talbott, one of Holbrooke's close friends and colleagues, wrote that “[i]n everything he did, [Holbrooke] cared most about getting results” (Talbott 2011: 9). At a memorial service for Holbrooke, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton shared a story that demonstrated his fortitude, recounting a time when he was so determined to make his point on an issue “she considered closed” that he “followed her into the ladies' room” to continue to argue his case (Talbott 2011: 11). Holbrooke was goal‐oriented; arguably this is what made him effective. His frustration with the Bosnian delegation was in part due to his belief that—unlike his own team—they were unprepared and lacked clear goals.

Although there were “differences within the U.S. position” (Sacirbey 2016b), serious divisions were mitigated by setting goals and conducting dress rehearsals. Setting goals before negotiation processes is important because it ultimately guides negotiators, mitigates divisions within a team, and allows negotiators to determine whether the negotiations are still on track. In Holbrooke's view, “Negotiating requires flexibility on tactics, but a constant vision of the ultimate goal” (Holbrooke 1999: 224). Much evidence suggests a positive correlation between setting goals and achieving them (Feinstein 2014).

Early on, the primary goal of Holbrooke's team was to end the Bosnian War. Holbrooke recognized that in order to be successful, “[t]he goals must be clearly defined” (Holbrooke 1999: 232). From the moment the U.S. team set off to the Balkans for their first shuttle diplomacy meetings, they developed specific goals in support of their main objective. One of the first such goals was to persuade the warring parties to support the basic outlines of the American peace initiative, which included issues related to Eastern Slavonia, sanctions, and borders (Holbrooke 1999). These goals were redefined along the way, but the core terms of peace that were identified at the start of the process set the direction for the following months.

During the weeks that followed, Holbrooke's team prepared tirelessly—and set additional goals—for each round of negotiation, anticipating alternative scenarios. Five days before the Dayton talks they did a “dress rehearsal,” with a ninety‐two‐page draft of the upcoming peace agreement and nine annexes at the ready (Chollet 2005). Holbrooke's team tended to reflect on their past negotiations, which helped to sharpen their approach (Holbrooke 1999). Officials from the U.S. State Department, the Pentagon, and the White House, and numerous legal experts, also undertook extensive preparations in support of the Dayton process. These efforts were well coordinated and ultimately shaped specific strategies that Holbrooke's team utilized throughout the negotiations. The development of “internal agreement” in advance of negotiations helps to unify a team, while preparation through dress rehearsals helps a team to anticipate possible “nasty surprise[s]” that may arise (Breslin and Rubin 1999: 55).

Theorists debate the merits of a mediator's use of leverage to resolve conflict (Crocker, Hampson, and Aall 1999; Beardsley 2011). In Bosnia, Holbrooke championed the use of leverage in an effort to broker peace (Pardew 2018).

A few days after the NATO airstrikes began, Holbrooke's team met with Milošević, the real power behind the Bosnian Serbs. Milošević announced that Radovan Karadžić, the then president of Republika Srpska, and General Mladić were ready to meet with them. Karadžić and Mladić were reportedly “visibly shaken” by the NATO airstrikes and ultimately agreed to a cease‐fire (Chollet 2005: 87). Holbrooke was adamant that NATO airstrikes brought the Bosnian Serbs to the table.

Carl Bildt—a former prime minister of Sweden, a mediator representing the E.U. during the Bosnian conflict, and a co‐chair at Dayton—had a different reading. According to him, the significance of NATO intervention is that it helped to bring the Bosnian delegation to the table as “they were the most reluctant” to negotiate because “they were in the ascendency, and wanted to take things back” (Bildt 2015). Thus, from their perspective, it was foolish to settle the conflict at a time when they could claim back some of what they had lost. Bildt argued that “you needed to convince Izetbegović … because he had been sort of campaigning for bombing. And this made it possible for Holbrooke, in this particular case, to go to … Izetbegović and say, now we have done bombing, now you need to accept this particular compromise” (Bildt 2015).

Regardless of one's perspective, it is clear that the United States employed a series of ripening agents to enhance the mediation process, using carrots and sticks with all the parties in order to make the conflict ripe for resolution. Essentially, the United States threatened Serbs (and particularly Bosnian Serbs) that their failure to negotiate in good faith would lead to: (1) a continuation of NATO bombing, (2) a lifting of the arms embargo against Bosnia, and (3) the equipping and training of BiH. Thus, the balance of power would shift. Conversely, if the Serbs cooperated, economic sanctions would be lifted against rump Yugoslavia. Lifting the sanctions was a very important bargaining chip in negotiations with Milošević (who was negotiating on behalf of Bosnian Serbs) because the sanctions took a huge toll on his economy, thereby weakening his leadership (Holbrooke 1999).

Yet, the Serbs (the main aggressors) were not the only ones who were given carrots and sticks. Given the change in the balance of power after NATO's intervention, the Croats and Bosnians were optimistic that they could do greater damage against the Serbs and gain more territory by continuing the war in its current form. Muhamed Sacirbey (2016b) claimed that Holbrooke “was particularly threatening the Croatians with the idea that if they didn't stop coordinating their offenses with the Bosnians … they would be hit by NATO.” The transition from waging war to waging peace was very hard. Some Bosnians opposed a peace agreement, wanting retribution and revenge against the Serbs (Chollet 2005). Furthermore, some Bosnian leaders questioned whether they could convince potential spoilers of the benefits of a peace agreement. According to Bildt, agreeing to peace was one of Izetbegović's hardest decisions. Bildt remembered a conversation with Izetbegović after the Dayton Accords were signed. The Bosnian leader admitted that “when he went for peace, he said he was afraid. He thought he was not going to carry his people with him, that they were going to be more interested in fighting on” (Bildt 2015). Given the Bosnians' reluctance to negotiate, it was vital for the Americans to make clear to them that if they refused to negotiate, the airstrikes would stop and arms and training for the Bosnian military would not be forthcoming (Chollet 2005).

Some criticized Holbrooke for employing an aggressive mediation strategy, which they contrasted with interest‐building approaches. Daniel Curran, James Sebenius, and Michael Watkins (2004), for example, argued that Holbrooke was “forcing” the Dayton Accords down the throats of the warring parties, while George Mitchell was “fostering” the Good Friday Agreement among the belligerents in Northern Ireland. However, these characterizations of Holbrooke's and Mitchell's methods of conflict resolution are not entirely accurate, as the two men's approaches did not completely fall on opposite ends of the spectrum. Although Holbrooke used a fair amount of coercion to frame mediation as more attractive than war, he did not force an agreement on the parties lock, stock, and barrel. Rather, he built on previous agreements, which were themselves created through extensive consultation with other mediators. Moreover, the ultimate framework that he followed going into Dayton relied heavily on the views and demands of the adversaries, with whom he and his team consulted extensively during their shuttle diplomacy. When, for example, Holbrooke met with BiH representatives, he asked, “What do the Bosnians want?” (Holbrooke 1999: 96). He asked analogous questions in meetings with representatives from rump Yugoslavia and Croatia. Mediators cannot simply employ naked force to achieve their goals. Thus, although Holbrooke used more muscle than Mitchell in getting the parties to the table, he ultimately employed an interest‐based approach, considering the interests of each party and attempting to find areas of convergence (Holbrooke 1999; Chollet 2005). Overall the Dayton Accords, although flawed, by and large reflected the adversaries' broad interests.

Moreover, Mitchell's time constraints were less severe than Holbrooke's. The Bosnian War claimed approximately 100,000 lives over three years and genocide was a key objective for at least one of the parties, while the Northern Ireland conflict claimed 3,000 lives over three decades (Curran, Sebenius, and Watkins 2004: 514).⁴ In addition, during the Bosnian War there was a high risk of “conflict widening,” in which a conflict situation draws in more actors, thereby making it more complex (Mitchell 2005: 86). Different European powers supported adversaries on opposite sides of the conflict, and radical Islamic groups began to provide support for BiH (Pardew 2018). The risk of regionalization of the Bosnian conflict was therefore real.

Thus, unlike Mitchell, Holbrooke had no time to build trust with the parties before facilitating an agreement. Yet, trust is an important factor in negotiations, especially in the implementation phase of peace processes. “The deeper the animosity between the adversaries, the harder negotiators have to work to build trust” (Hartwell 2016: 330). Therefore, in the absence of trust and with an intense conflict raging, Holbrooke needed greater leverage than Mitchell, not only to induce a peace agreement, but also to facilitate a successful outcome. Such leverage involved not only NATO airstrikes to bring the parties to the table, but also a large commitment to peacekeeping following the Dayton Accords in order to compensate for the great distrust between the adversaries. Barbara Walter (2002) study on conflict resolution outcomes similarly concluded that parties are more likely to implement peace agreements provided their insecurities are addressed.

The Americans utilized more than carrots and sticks to facilitate the negotiations. They also encouraged the parties to think about what Roger Fisher and William Ury (1991: 100) have called their “best alternative to a negotiated agreement” or BATNA. Broadly speaking, each party was faced with three alternatives: return to war, negotiate directly with one another, or work with the mediator to end the conflict. At every turn, Holbrooke's team reminded the adversaries of their weak BATNAs, and that the Dayton process represented the most attractive means to end the conflict. As argued by Thomas Colosi (1983: 234), “the creation and maintenance of doubts about the consequences of nonagreement … is central to inducing skeptics to settle.”

Theorists disagree as to whether U.S. intervention created a “mutually hurting stalemate” in which no party continued to believe it could achieve its goals through war (Touval 1996; Crocker, Hampson, and Aall 1999; Greenberg and McGuinness 2000). Technically speaking, it was not a hurting stalemate, as all parties were not yet fully committed to negotiation. In the run‐up to Dayton, President Tuđman, “[d]izzy with success” on the battlefield, still had ambitions to claim parts of Bosnia for Croatia (Chollet 2005: 49) while Izetbegović was not ready to settle (Percy 1996). Therefore, Holbrooke's team projected a hurting stalemate; all the adversaries could envision a scenario in which failing to enter the mediation process would hurt them more than continuing the conflict. In doing so, the team tried to “‘lengthen[ ] the shadow of the future’ by dramatizing the long‐term costs of violence to the parties if negotiations fail” (Crocker, Hampson, and Aall 1999: 30).

NATO's bombing of Bosnian Serb military targets and major military advances by the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina resulted in a number of significant military defeats for the Bosnian Serbs. Some of BiH's leaders were determined to maximize their wins, and a few desired some form of revenge. Although the U.S. team initially encouraged the Federation to make certain advances—as Holbrooke believed it would be easier to deal with territorial disputes on the battlefield—the Americans ultimately saw that further advances could weaken the prospective peace and escalate the conflict further. Punch drunk on victory, Izetbegović was, however, not yet convinced that they should stop their military campaign. He was arguably caught up in his position, not focusing on his interests. Consequently, Holbrooke approached Izetbegović and attempted to stop the Bosnian army in its tracks, saying, “Mr. President, they are going to be able to punch holes in your lines because they are too thin … you are shooting craps with the destiny of your nation” (Percy 1996). Holbrooke was laying out Bosnia's BATNA for the president; he was adamant that the time was ripe to negotiate an end to the war.

Each party to the peace process—whether Bosnian, Yugoslav, Bosnian Serb, Croat, European, or Russian—had different outlooks on a host of issues. However, individuals within different delegations also had varying perspectives. Some were more apt than others to see reason.

According to the Americans, the BiH delegation was often more problematic than the Serb delegation—they were “moody,” “disorganized,” and “conflicted” (Chollet 2005: 96). They exhibited what negotiation experts describe as “a heterogeneous model,” where members of the same team “hold different interests, which may be in conflict with one another” (Starkey, Boyer, and Wilkenfeld 2005: 42). It was thus common for the Bosnian delegation to flip‐flop on key commitments. One BiH negotiator would agree to something, only to be contradicted by another on the same day (Rose 1998; Holbrooke 1999).

Hence, Holbrooke developed preferences regarding with whom he wanted to deal. He got along with Izetbegović and Sacirbey, and negotiated with them directly. Sacirbey recalled that he and Holbrooke hit it off in the beginning, but by the end of Dayton their relationship became frosty. Nonetheless, Sacirbey (2016b) claimed that Holbrooke continued to insist on sitting next to him. “Sometimes I thought it was [because] he wanted to control what I might say, but no, he actually needed someone to interpret for him what was happening. A lot of the game was being played, not just in language, but in culture that he did not understand.” Holbrooke understood the value of the individual participants. Their differences aside, Holbrooke and Sacirbey spoke the same language; although Sacirbey was born in the former Yugoslavia, he grew up in the United States and like Holbrooke valued democracy. Like Holbrooke, Sacirbey held a law degree and had a taste of diplomacy when he served as BiH's first U.N. Ambassador in New York. In his To End a War, Holbrooke (1999) referred several times to negotiating directly with Sacirbey and Izetbegović rather than approach the BiH delegation as a whole. This was due in part to his special relationship with these men. Part of it arguably had to do with calculating that it is sometimes easier to negotiate with an individual rather than with a delegation. That individual can then return to their delegation and sell the idea personally. That way, the suggestion to the delegation comes from a friend or teammate as opposed to an outsider.

However, Holbrooke did not have a good relationship with Haris Silajdžić, the then prime minister of BiH. In the beginning of his shuttle diplomacy, aware of this tension and its potential negative impact on the negotiation process, Holbrooke asked two of his colleagues (Roberts Owen and Chris Hill) to travel with Silajdžić, hoping they would bond. He was hopeful that they would connect and build trust with each other based on their shared interest in Albanian issues (Chollet 2005). At Dayton, Holbrooke paired specific negotiators with one another based on their compatibility, displaying an acute awareness of the individual in relation to the negotiation.

Sometimes it is easier to accept suggestions and proposed solutions from third parties rather than one's rivals. This was a key lesson from the 1978 peace talks at Camp David (Bercovitch 2011), a negotiation that Holbrooke studied before he set out for the Balkans (Holbrooke 1999). During its shuttle diplomacy in 1995 from mid‐August to the end of October, Holbrooke's team solicited views from all the parties and floated numerous proposals, ultimately developing the framework that kicked off the Dayton peace conference (Chollet 2005).

In discussions about the final map of Bosnia, the Americans could see that the proposer was more important than the proposal. They recognized that “each map drawn by the parties would be worse than its predecessor,” so they had to present their own map—“the American map”—in an attempt to move the negotiations forward (Holbrooke 1999: 270). The American map was not adopted in its entirety, but it was used as the basis for further negotiations.

In part because it is much easier for adversaries to hear and accept suggestions from a third party rather than a direct adversary (Touval 2002), each party to the Bosnian conflict ultimately wanted the United States to play the leading role in the peace process. The mediator allowed the parties to save face, especially among their constituencies, as they were able to blame the world's superpower for Dayton's flaws instead of being seen as “compromising” on emotive issues with their enemies.

One of the mediator's key goals should be to simplify participation while at the same time maintaining a coalition of partners. At Dayton, there were almost 200 core officials from the three main adversaries (BiH, Croatia, and a joint delegation consisting of rump Yugoslavia and Republika Srpska); and the mediators, comprised of representatives of the Contact Group (the United States, Britain, France, Germany, and Russia) and Bildt, the E.U. representative. Hundreds of American officials, ranging from public affairs personnel to security staff, also participated (Chollet 2005). In all, about 800 people were present at Dayton, whereas just over 100 people attended the Middle East peace talks at Camp David (Holbrooke 2005; Wright 2014). “As the number of negotiating parties increases, so does the complexity of the negotiation. More issues have to be dealt with, more personal relationships have to be accommodated, more information has to be digested and more coordination problems have to be resolved” (Bercovitch 2011: 122). That begs the question: How was the issue of participation simplified to avoid those traps?

First, following the Srebrenica massacre, the United States lobbied for a lead role in the mediation process. This was welcomed by both the Europeans and the Russians—key parties with regard to the conflict (Chollet 2005). As argued by Helen Leigh‐Phippard, the Contact Group was only “reinvigorated after the [United States] showed a unilateral commitment to conflict resolution” (Leigh‐Phippard 1998: 307). Holbrooke fully exploited America's leadership role. He was frustrated by the Contact Group's tendency to require group consensus before taking their position to the Balkan parties, as this process was “cumbersome and unworkable” (Holbrooke 1999: 84).

Second, Holbrooke initially reduced participation in the negotiation by kicking off the five high‐level shuttle diplomacy missions to the Balkans beginning in mid‐August. Many of those negotiations involved only a handful of individuals (Holbrooke 1999). Thus, although participation at Dayton itself was bloated, much of the leg work for the mediation process had been done in advance. In effect, a very small group of people controlled the negotiation agenda and framework that were eventually taken to Dayton.

As time passed, however, and to the Americans' irritation, the Europeans sought more involvement with the process. This is particularly evident at Dayton. Holbrooke opined that states are often keen to be part of a group dedicated to resolving a conflict, even if such efforts are ineffective, because of the cachet of group membership. However, he worried that additional members in lead roles could further complicate decision‐making, thereby jeopardizing the likelihood of resolving the conflict. Holbrooke (1999: 117) admitted that “if [they] consulted the Contact Group prior to each action, it would be impossible for the negotiations to proceed, let alone succeed.” Instead of cutting out the Europeans completely, Holbrooke included them in the Dayton process but kept them at arm's length. Here, Holbrooke wanted his bread buttered on both sides. He did not want to include too many powerful interest groups in the negotiations, but he could not totally exclude them because they would continue to play vital roles in the implementation phase. Therefore, he opted to have them at the table but not give them too much say over the process.

This brings us to the second part of the lesson related to coalitions. Carl Bildt (2015) observed that one key lesson of the Bosnian conflict is that “if the international community is not on the same page concerning a peace agreement, then a peace agreement doesn't happen.” In the lead‐up to the Dayton process, NATO's military commander, U.S. Army General George Joulwan, projected that the military alliance would need to deploy approximately 60,000 peacekeeping troops to BiH. Of these, the United States planned to send 20,000 troops at a cost of about two billion dollars annually (Holbrooke 1999: 203). Thus, the United States could not carry the cost of implementation alone; the Contact Group's buy‐in was essential.

Following the signing of the Dayton Accords, NATO and the E.U. assumed leading responsibilities in keeping peace in Bosnia. Several years after the Dayton Accords were reached, Holbrooke reflected that one of the key factors influencing Dayton's success was the support that NATO's military might provided to American negotiators, an advantage that mediators from smaller countries lack (Chollet 2005). NATO's role was important not only in securing the terms for a peace conference, but also in helping to maintain the peace during the implementation phase (Pardew 2018).

In the war's aftermath, the E.U. has contributed further toward peacekeeping—which it took over from the NATO‐led Stabilization Force in Bosnia—and reconstruction and development programs (EUFOR 2019). Croatia, one of the former adversaries, has been brought into the E.U. In addition, as Bildt (2015) argued, the carrot of prospective E.U. integration for BiH and Serbia has been an important incentive to promote stability in the region. Without international partners, the United States would not have been able to manage the crisis in Bosnia.

In negotiating an end to a conflict, participants must confront the so‐called peace versus justice dilemma (Sriram and Pillay 2009). Victims demand justice, while perpetrators continue to play a decisive role in whether or not the conflict will end. The latter group often consists of so‐called spoilers, which have been described as “the greatest source of risk” in a peace process, as they can easily derail negotiations (Stedman 1997). Negotiators therefore must strike a balance between obtaining justice and ending the conflict.

Since the outbreak of the Bosnian War, outsiders have been debating the extent of Milošević's control over Bosnian Serbs. Throughout the war, the Serbs gave military support to Bosnian Serbs. At the same time, Milošević tried to wash his hands of atrocities committed by Karadžić and Mladić, and he denied having any influence over them (Hill 2014). He even spoke of Mladić as a “crazy, dumb maniac” (Chollet 2005: 51). On one occasion, when Holbrooke (1999: 106) referred to Karadžić and Mladić as Milošević's “friends from Pale [the administrative capital of Republika Srpska],” he was cut off by the Serbian president, who said, “They are not my friends … They are shit.” When it suited him, Milošević presented himself as the puppet master. Attempting to demonstrate his power over the Bosnian Serbs, he once told Mladić to “shut the fuck up” right in front of U.N. officials (Power 2008: 166).

On August 30, 1995, two days after NATO started bombing Bosnian Serb targets, Milošević gave a letter to Holbrooke signed by seven members of the Bosnian Serb leadership and the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church. The letter effectively gave Milošević the power to lead the negotiations on behalf of all Serbs—Bosnian Serbs and Serbs from rump Yugoslavia (Holbrooke 1999). The interagency mediation team was elated by the letter. They knew that Milošević, unlike Bosnian Serb leaders, was not only open to negotiation, but also keen to settle, and felt that “a sustainable peace process, which had eluded [them] for years, was now at hand” (Hill 2014: 89). Milošević's economy was in shatters, and he was desperate for sanctions relief from the Americans. Moreover, Milošević probably also calculated that NATO's presence in the region threatened the balance of power for rump Yugoslavia. Additionally, he wanted to seize the opportunity to portray himself as a peace broker and in the process gain international recognition for his efforts. In the end, Karadžić and Mladić, two important spoilers, were physically excluded from attending the negotiations at Dayton on the basis that they were “war criminals” (Holbrooke 1995b: 11). Milošević, their patron, was nonetheless powerful enough to “deliver” the Bosnian Serbs and see the peace process through (Chollet 2005: 45).

The lesson for negotiators is to exclude objectionable individuals if you can, but include them if you must. Peace negotiations inevitably involve people with blood on their hands. Nonetheless, as objectionable as some of the peace talk participants were (most notably Milošević and Tuđman),⁵ they were vital to the process because they held leverage over the conflict situation. This lesson was forgotten in Iraq, when the top American civilian administrator there, Paul Bremer, embarked on a policy of “de‐Ba'athification.” All public servants affiliated with Saddam Hussein's Ba'ath Party, including between 350,000 and 400,000 soldiers, were banned from employment in the public sector (Arraf 2003). A massive spike in insurgency resulted and experts claim that there is a strong link between “de‐Ba'athification” and the formation of the Islamic State (Stern and Berger 2015).

There is also a downside to including radicals in a peace process. According to Muhamed Sacirbey (2016b), Milošević should have been excluded from the negotiation table because (1) he was Serbian, not Bosnian, and (2) he was a very “cynical person” who propagated “populism.” The second issue seems to be the defining one for Sacirbey—who envisioned a Bosnia based on multiculturalism—because by empowering Milošević, the Dayton process “allowed the whole issue to be projected as an ethnic issue.” Consequently, the Dayton Accords reflected the divided Bosnia promulgated by racists and xenophobes that promoted “a new apartheid that did not exist” and continues to pit Bosniaks, Bosnian Serbs, and Bosnian Croats against one another. According to Sacirbey, by including radicals in the peace process, they “in effect have cut off the future of an alternative narrative based upon a multiethnic society … When the national Serbian leaders talk about what is legitimate [today], they use Dayton as the foundation for their legitimacy” (Sacirbey 2016b). He further noted, “I think it was necessary to vanquish those leaders who were responsible for those atrocities and for that whole fascism. If you don't vanquish them … then the idea, the movement, this populist, nationalist, in effect, fascist movement survives” (Sacirbey 2016b).

Jimmy Carter's advisors counseled him against participating in the Camp David negotiations because they thought it would cost him politically to be involved in what they considered a doomed process. When Carter finally decided to mediate between Egypt and Israel, he “budgeted three days for the summit” (Wright 2014: 50–51). In the end, the negotiations took thirteen days; additionally, Carter spent a lot of time pre‐ and post‐Camp David helping to bring about the Camp David Accords. Although facilitating peace is prestigious, it is also extremely complex, technical, time‐consuming, and exhausting. Furthermore, when a sovereign state's leader fails in efforts to produce a sustainable peace agreement, the prestige of the whole nation is affected (Bercovitch 2011).

Despite the stakes, Clinton and U.S. Secretary of State Warren Christopher gave broad authority to Holbrooke's team, thereby avoiding micromanagement, infighting, and red tape. The only limits related largely to “red lines” on military matters because NATO, which operates on consensus decision‐making, was expected to play a key role in implementing the final peace agreement (Chollet 2005). Effecting the Dayton Accords involved five dangerous high‐level shuttle diplomacy trips to the Balkans and another twenty‐one gruesome days at Wright‐Patterson Air Force Base (Holbrooke 1999). It was not feasible, nor was it desirable—given the high risk of failure—for Clinton or Christopher to devote that amount of time to brokering peace. By delegating the process to Holbrooke, they could avoid the risk of failure. Later on, during the signing ceremony, Clinton and Christopher nonetheless took credit for the outcome.

By delegating responsibilities for the negotiation to Holbrooke's team, Clinton and Christopher also avoided potential “entrapment,” which Paul Meerts (2015: 113) defined as “a decision‐making process whereby individuals escalate their commitment to a previously chosen, although failing, course of action to justify or recover previous investments.” Holbrooke and his team regularly debriefed their superiors about the negotiations by telephone or through diplomatic cables (Holbrooke 1999; Chollet 2005; Pardew 2018), giving Clinton and Christopher the opportunity to keep him in check. They could observe the mediation process from a distance, and nudge Holbrooke's team along when necessary. Clinton was not invested in the Dayton process to the same extent as Holbrooke. He therefore did not have the same emotional attachment to it, which allowed him, if need be, to pull the United States out of the process or replace Holbrooke with another mediator.

At times, the mediators at Dayton thought that Clinton's or Christopher's prestige was needed to move the peace process forward. In those cases, Holbrooke asked one of them to flex his muscles by making a phone call, issuing a press statement, or—in the case of Christopher—traveling to the negotiations to provide advice and high‐level support (Chollet 2005).

While empowering negotiators is important, it is also essential to continue to keep them in check. According to Sacirbey (2016b), Holbrooke had his own ambitions, which sometimes conflicted with Bosnia's domestic needs. “Holbrooke kept insisting [on] control[ling] the Dayton process well after we finished in Dayton. Part of it was because he wanted to control the narrative of how successful it was. The problem is … Dayton needed constant nurturing, and the nurturing couldn't happen because Holbrooke came to [Bosnia] once every three months, mainly to kind of show everyone that he was the one who brought peace.” In 1996, less than a year after finalizing the Dayton Accords, Holbrooke pushed for elections in Bosnia although the environment was not yet conducive for such a step. Sacirbey argued that Holbrooke wanted Bosnian and U.S. elections synchronized in the hope that by demonstrating rapid success in Bosnia, he would be awarded with a political appointment by the incoming U.S. administration or he would even win the Nobel Peace Prize. Perhaps one reason that Holbrooke was not kept closely in check following the signing of the Dayton Accords is his perceived success not only in brokering the peace, but also in revitalizing NATO. Holbrooke's role in Bosnia turned him into a diplomatic celebrity and the expert on the Balkans. Thus, it might have been difficult for high‐ranking officials to challenge him on his recommendations for the implementation phase. Moreover, by then the conflict in Bosnia had dissipated and the attention of high‐level officials naturally shifted elsewhere.

After shuttling between Balkan capitals, the final stretch of the negotiations took place at Wright‐Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio in the United States. At a briefing for the media and the participants shortly before the Dayton talks began, Holbrooke (1995b: 5) said, “I apologize to you … [but if we are going to] have any chance of success, we're going to have to negotiate in a cocoon.” Wesley Clark (2005) characterized the air force base, which was the negotiators' home for three weeks, as a “place of containment and isolation.”

Holbrooke was convinced that selecting the right location was a crucial factor in his team's success. From studying the Camp David talks, he had learned that a negotiation's location could critically impact the outcome. Camp David was a beautiful, relaxed, and informal setting, shielded from the media (Wright 2014). Holbrooke (2005) noted, “I had said from the beginning that I would never go to a city like Geneva, the ultimate symbol of failed diplomatic missions, a place where people are cynical, cold bureaucrats, and everything leaks to the press and to each other.” His motivation for selecting Dayton was threefold. First, Holbrooke wanted the negotiations to take place far from Europe to make it difficult for the parties to abandon the talks. Second, he wanted the parties to negotiate away from big‐city distractions so that they could focus on the important matters at hand. Third, he was adamant that the parties be isolated from the media so that they would negotiate with one another and not posture through the media. This was especially important given how much the Bosnian War was fueled by propaganda.

Influenced by the Camp David negotiations, Holbrooke (1999: 205) was attracted to the idea of “proximity talks” or “shuttle diplomacy by foot,” a technique that allows a mediator to move between conflicting parties without the belligerents meeting face‐to‐face. While it would be difficult today to seclude parties entirely—given the prominence of the Internet and social media—it is still advantageous to maintain some form of isolation and choose a location conducive to proximity talks (Chollet 2005). The initial shuttle diplomacy that preceded Dayton was dangerous, tiring, and time‐consuming for the American mediators who traveled from one capital to the next. There came a time when it was necessary for the parties to be in close physical proximity of one another to produce faster results. War tends to demonize one's enemy, while sitting across the table from an adversary could help to humanize them. Kati Marton, Holbrooke's widow, remembered the ceremonial opening dinner at the Wright‐Patterson Air Force Base, where she was seated between Milošević and Izetbegović. She was tasked with getting the two leaders to talk to each other. When the dinner began the two men hardly engaged with one another, but near the meal's end, they called each other by their first names (Marton 2015).

When talks broke down in Dayton, Holbrooke and his team continued to use shuttle diplomacy on foot, and due to the location they could go from door to door instead of airport to airport. Sometimes Holbrooke sat in the same restaurant as Balkan leaders who refused to talk to one another. Rather than travel from one capital to another, he was able to scribble proposals on napkins and walk across the room to present them to the other party. This became known as the “napkin shuttle” (Holbrooke 1999: 280). In any conflict, time is precious because the longer the conflict, the greater is the loss of life and the suffering of the victims.

Early on in the negotiation, Holbrooke became convinced of the need to negotiate a comprehensive and sustainable peace. He rejected what he called a “minimalist theory,” which favors negotiating only items that will be agreed upon easily and can be implemented (like a cease‐fire) while failing to tackle some of the more complex issues that would help to transform BiH into a functioning state (Holbrooke 1999: 205). His position, arguably, was another result of studying the Camp David talks. During the Camp David negotiations, President Carter sought a “comprehensive approach,” in contrast with Henry Kissinger's “step‐by‐step” approach to conflict resolution (Bercovitch 2011: 120). Although Holbrooke (1999: 175) sought a bold agreement, his initial approach was to “find areas of agreement, lock them in with a public announcement [or agreement], and then return to the region for another round of negotiations to narrow the differences further.”

Before the Dayton talks began in November 1995, Holbrooke's team conducted numerous formal and informal negotiations, starting with their shuttle diplomacy in August of that year. There were at least two other noteworthy moments preceding Dayton, including meetings in Geneva and New York where the parties publicly signed agreements on a handful of issues that helped to set the stage for the much broader Dayton Accords (Holbrooke 1999).

The value of the initial incremental approach is threefold. First, small steps toward peace may help the parties see alternatives to war, thereby altering their BATNAs. For example, a cease‐fire—accompanied by the opening up of public transport, the removal of physical barriers (like roadblocks), and other improvements in people's lives—could create a first step in demonstrating the possibility of normalization. It could also create public expectations that leaders are serious about negotiating peace. Second, an incremental approach could help to build trust gradually; it is much easier to take small steps with a long‐time adversary, to implement basic agreements, and then to move toward a broader agreement, then it is to negotiate a comprehensive agreement at the beginning of the peace process. Third, one could lock in a number of smaller agreements and implement those despite the absence of a comprehensive peace. Although the Dayton Accords were wide ranging, the overall package was divided into many smaller agreements (U.S. Department of State 2018). The advantage was that notwithstanding a walkout by the parties or a failure to reach a grand peace agreement, the parties could begin to resolve the issues upon which they agreed, thereby closing the gap between them. If the parties subsequently engaged in further negotiations, they could pick up from where they left off and close the issues that they were unable to resolve earlier.

Ultimately, however, Holbrooke (1999) pushed for a comprehensive agreement and even set a deadline for reaching it. Anything less, he argued, would be inadequate for securing long‐term peace. Some experts have suggested the importance of such deadlines in creating “the eleventh hour effect,” when time limits help to facilitate compromises and concessions (Bercovitch 2011: 124). Yet, even Holbrooke was flexible about meeting the initial deadline, knowing that some outstanding issues needed resolution before he could make a big push.

Most negotiation experts believe that mediators should be neutral and impartial (Bercovitch 2011). George Mitchell successfully utilized this approach (Curran, Sebenius, and Watkins 2004). Yet, an abundance of “neutral” mediation attempts in Bosnia failed to end the war (Greenberg and McGuinness 2000). Gabrielle Rifkind and Giandomenico Picco (2014: 13) liken “impartiality” to “an optical illusion” because “if you place a glass in the perfect middle of a table and two persons sit across from each other, each of them will see the glass as being closer to the other, no matter how perfectly centered it is.” Perhaps then, impartiality is sometimes less important than we have been led to believe.

According to James Pardew, a key member of Holbrooke's interagency mediation team, credibility was more critical than impartiality in Bosnia. Pardew considered Holbrooke “an activist diplomat,” meaning he had a general idea of how the conflict ought to be resolved (Pardew 2018). It is unlikely that Milošević viewed Holbrooke as impartial, especially since Holbrooke was vocal about identifying those whom he deemed responsible for the atrocities. Nonetheless, Milošević knew that Holbrooke's team had the leverage to bring Croatia and BiH to the table and help resolve the conflict. By the time Holbrooke became engaged in Bosnia, it was vital for Milošević that the conflict end; it was devastating rump Yugoslavia's economy and thereby threatening him politically. In short, Milošević needed a credible mediator who was able to end the war rather than a mediator who was neutral but weak.

On the twentieth day of the Dayton negotiations, Christopher sat in a room with Holbrooke and BiH representatives including Izetbegović, Silajdžić, and Sacirbey. The Americans were keen to save Dayton and forge a sustainable peace in Bosnia; the meeting was their last chance to persuade the Bosnians to feel the same urgency.

The meeting was extraordinarily tense because the American deadline for concluding the Dayton Accords already had passed. Christopher noted that the radical Bosnian Serbs had been Izetbegović's enemy for such a long time that the Bosnian president “couldn't quite bring himself to accept an agreement that would result in sharing power with them” (Chollet 2005: 176). As the seconds ticked off to conclude the Dayton talks, the Americans reminded the Bosnians that the final agreement as drafted was as good as it would get and there simply was no other alternative. For the Bosnians, it was not merely a question of acting rationally (reason dictates that peace is preferable to war), it was an emotional matter as well. After a long silence, Izetbegović said, “[I]t is not a just peace … but my people need peace” (Holbrooke 1999: 309).

With the Americans' help, Izetbegović recognized that although the peace was far from perfect, continuing the war was even less desirable. The late Kofi Annan conceded that the Dayton Accords created an “uneasy peace … [and] there were many contradictions and tensions in the agreement … but it is a peace that has held for [more than] twenty years” (Annan and Mousavizadeh 2013: 73).

In the end, the Dayton process helped to prevent conflict widening. Pardew (2018) noted that a continuing Bosnian conflict would have led to more genocides, akin to what happened in Srebrenica, and stronger linkages between Bosniaks and radical Islamic groups. In the long term, other European players might have escalated their involvement with the conflict as Turkey and Greece—two NATO allies—were already supporting opposing sides.

Ultimately, Holbrooke and his team achieved their main goal: ending the Bosnian War—a war that involved not only intrastate adversaries, but rump Yugoslavia and Croatia as well. If the United States had followed the “give war a chance” logic, as advocated by Edward Luttwak (1999), the conflict could have spilled over into the broader region and led to greater genocide. That said, adversaries do not have to fight it out until only one is victorious. As demonstrated by the Dayton process, mediation remains an important alternative for ending a conflict.

Although NATO military intervention in Bosnia played an important role in optimizing conditions for the negotiations to start, mediation was ultimately necessary to end the war. Moreover, mediation alone was not enough to guarantee peace in Bosnia. A strong follow‐up by the United States NATO, and particularly the European Union helped, and continues to aid, Bosnia's peace process.

By some accounts BiH made the transition in 2001 from the “post‐Dayton era” to a “Europe phase” (Petritsch 2006: 8). In 2015, the E.U. approved Bosnia's association accord, allowing it to become a member of the supranational body in the near future. The E.U. and Bosnia signed the Stabilization and Association Agreement (SAA) the same year (European Commission 2015). In brief, Bosnia has made a noteworthy transition in a short space of time.

Carl Bildt (2015) stated that “the immediate purpose of [the Dayton Accords] was to close down the war,” which was achieved. But he also noted that mediators aimed to “set up a functioning Bosnian state.” Bildt maintained that “the jury is still out on whether this will succeed over time. I think it will succeed, but I think it is going to take a longer time than most people think” (Bildt 2015). Moreover, he opined that the chief responsibility rests with the Bosnians, not the international community. “I would put the weight on the shoulders of the local politicians, because this is their country. It is not our country. There are distinct limits as to what we can do from the outside” (Bildt 2015). A move toward nationalism and the right in Europe could threaten to reopen old wartime wounds in Bosnia. In addition, Russia is stoking nationalistic fires in the Balkans, leaving Bosnia's ongoing transition vulnerable (Pardew 2018).

Despite the success of the Dayton Accords, we should also recognize their limitations, particularly their failure to promote the pluralistic society that Bosnia once was (Sacirbey 2016b). As argued, some of the Accords' imperfections resulted from including “devils” in the peace process, but including them was necessary. Many Bosnians are disillusioned with the Dayton Accords but Bildt (2015) observed that on the whole they are “happy with the absence of war” because “they have seen war and they don't want to go back to that.”

This article analyzed Holbrooke's approach to the Bosnian War and has identified thirteen negotiation and mediation lessons. The bulk of the lessons relate to existing theories on negotiations and are arguably applicable to most conflict resolution processes. However, we must acknowledge that each negotiation remains situational. For example, Holbrooke's use of leverage was extraordinary yet necessary given the intensity of this particular conflict. One useful exercise might be for the negotiator to ask: Which of these Holbrookeisms will bring me closer to achieving my goals? As these lessons advise, knowing and reaching toward goals is critical to the direction and success of overall negotiations.