Naval and Air Forces Under UN Flag
Initially, along with tightening the United Nations Naval blockade of the Danube and other regions under Serbian control, the UN Command should give Milosevic, Karadzic, and their generals a 24-hour ultimatum to stop fighting and lay down their arms, or else aircraft under UN command would commence bombing or strafing the bases of Serb fighters in Bosnia and strategic targets in the land from which the invasions were launched and supported, Serbia itself. These should include not only artillery batteries and other military sites in the field, but also munitions factories, air- and river-ports, rail centers, and key bridges. To keep casualties of civilians to a minimum, as well as to induce them to have second thoughts about supporting their jingoistic leaders, announcements of the bomb-attacks should be well publicized shortly before they occur (without specifying the exact times and places).

UN Ground Forces
Unfortunately, it was a charade for military and civilian leaders of the United States and other NATO countries to pretend that only by NATO's patrolling the seas and air, could the Serbian military and para-military forces be stopped in their drive to wipe out their muslim Slav neighbors in Bosnia.  The US Government made a second error, a serious error in strategy, and abetted the Serbian aggression from the outset by publicly ruling out the use of US ground forces, while suggesting that it was up to the Europeans to provide them. Ground forces must come from both the United States and the Europeans, as well as other countries.
    The threat by itself of overwhelming United Nations ground forces, including American contingents, should cause the Serb militarists - who until now have faced only smaller and weaker opponents - to cease their attacks. If the mere threat does not achieve its objective, the UN peace-making ground forces should pursue and defeat the aggressors.  The superior UN forces should then be able to pacify and restore order in the Slavic countries involved in this war. Meanwhile, the British and French "peacekeepers" - who are not authorized to use their light arms against the aggressors and have failed to keep the peace and defend the Bosnian people - should be replaced by well-armed "peace-makers."  This is what needs to be done. But the UN, which still depends on the whims of individual ethnocentric and parochial governments often preoccupied with domestic problems, must possess the authority to deal with the critical needs of the world's peoples.

Crimes and Individual Accountability
Leaders - civilian as well as military - who incite, launch and justify military aggression and genocide should be held individually accountable for their crimes against peace and crimes against humanity. Through all forms of media, including US-financed Radio Liberty and Radio Free  Europe,  countries supporting the United Nations should make this plain throughout the world, especially to those peoples whose national leaders, agents provocaturs, and propagandists have instigated such crimes. The UN forces should proceed to arrest the suspected war criminals, which should then be tried not in some national court but in a permanent International Criminal Court. This court must be organized as soon as possible and not be restricted to trying only suspected Serb and, where identified, Croat and Muslim Slav, war criminals of the current war.

UN Transitional Authority
Next, a UN Transitional Authority (UNTA), responsible to the Secretary-General, should be set up to take over the reins of government in not only the victimized country, Bosnia, but also the aggressor's country, Serbia. The UNTA should take effective control of the ministries of foreign affairs, defense, public security, information, education, and finance (something the UNTA  in Cambodia failed to do), and it should recruit qualified professionals from around the world to serve in the interim. As a UN-led disarmament program is carried out, the UNTA would begin the restoration of peace. After helping displaced refugees on the spot, it would assist them to return home if they wish.
    Eventually, the UNTA should arrange free and fair elections and referendums in Bosnia, Kosovo, Voyvodina, and the rest of Serbia to determine their future as far as possible according to the wishes of the inhabitants, including those still displaced abroad (something which was not allowed the Cambodians). Subsequently, the European Community, which has under consideration applications for admission from Slovenia and possibly Croatia, by offering the other small Slavic states integration into the Community, could help assure their peaceful economic and political future.  

What Do Americans Think?
While the Serb leaders have tried to carve a Greater Serbia out of Kosovo, Slovenia, Croatia, and Bosnia, the world has been waiting for a sign of leadership from the Americans, such as was demonstrated in the American struggle for independence from the British by Washington, Adams, Franklin, and Jefferson, and during World War II by Roosevelt and Willkie (who championed One World). Yet the absence of a daring call from American leaders today is partly based on the fear that the people are not yet ready.
    But in a recent poll on Structures for Global Governance, sponsored by the World Federalist Association and organized by American Talk Issues Foundation, 82% of 12OO respondents felt that the UN should be empowered to arrest persons who commit serious international crime. When specific crimes were mentioned, 78% felt that the UN should have the authority to arrest lawbreakers who invade and occupy other countries; an even greater percentage - 83% - felt that the UN should arrest offenders responsible for egregious human rights violations including making war against groups within their own country. In the same poll, on the question of attitude towards institutions necessary for effective international security and law enforcement, 68% favored having a global police force; and 77%, a world court. At the same time that 86% felt the UN should be made more effective, 58% were ready for a limited, democratic world government.

What Should Americans Do?
It appears that many Americans are ahead of their leaders in adapting their world view to the needs of the world of the 21st Century and in wanting to help create an effective world organization with enforceable world law and order. In view of this, let us as American citizens and as world citizens encourage our Congress and our President to promote a world-wide effort to support, reform and empower the United Nations, enabling it to tackle the situation in the former Yugoslavia and to set a precedent for the handling of "regional conflicts" that may continue to arise in the future.

(This appeared in the Summer 1993 Toward Democratic World Federation)