ABSTRACT
The disintegration of Yugoslavia and the ethnopolitical conflicts in the successor states created a challenge which for four years defied solution by the international community. 1 Early diplomatic failures by the European Community (later known as the European Union, or EU), combined with the inadequacies of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), forced the Yugoslav issue onto the agenda of the United Nations (UN). Lacking adequate military and surveillance capabilities, the UN in turn came to rely upon European military organizations — the Western European Union (WEU) and North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) — to assist with peacekeeping and to enforce the arms embargo imposed on Bosnia-Herzegovina.
