Book Review: Unfinest Hour: Britain and The Destruction of Bosnia - Brendan Simms

The Balkans is a difficult region to navigate. There are ancient blood feuds to content with, not to mention many ethnic quarrels and various border disputes to understand. Inevitably, therefore, most books on the subject are weighty tomes; replete with battles and conflicts, small tribes and large bands. 

 

Unfinest Hour, however, does things differently. Its author, Cambridge historian Brendan Simms, makes a straightforward case: that between 1992 and 1995 the West, Britain in particular, abandoned Bosnia in her hour of need. Not only were the invading Serb forces able to act with impunity, but their cause (which involved ethnic cleansing) was abetted by a British government which undermined calls for international action at every available turn. 

Not only, Simms contends, did this constitute a dereliction of duty (after the Holocaust what happened to ‘never again’?) but it revealed a moral deficiency at the heart of Whitehall. ‘Conservative pessimism’ is blamed for this malaise, as are Douglas Hurd and Malcolm Rifkind, its two principle embodiments. 

In their language Bosnia was a land of ‘factions’, where different ‘parties’ vied for land. Such notions are rejected by Simms. There was, he argues, no moral equivalence between the various sides: Bosnia was a sovereign state under persistent attack from an outside enemy force. Indeed, by failing to draw this distinction the British government misconstrued the conflict and made matters more complicated than they ought to have been. 

Washington, on the other hand, saw Bosnia in a clearer light. ‘Lift and strike’ (end the weapons embargo, attack Serb armed facilities) is characterised as a positive policy stymied by the pernicious Brits -- who invoked UNPROFOR and their men on the ground whenever offensive action was tabled. 

As ‘lift and strike’ died the enthusiasm of the Clinton administration went with it. However, after a period of futility, in 1995 America witnessed a ‘revolution from above’ when Congress defied the Whitehouse and voted in favour of a military response. Simms favourably contrasts this activism with what he sees as the supine behaviour of the British parliament.

Going further he characterises London’s Bosnia policy as a failure of the establishment-class.

In this vein both David Owen, co-author of the Vance-Owen plan, and General Michael Rose, UNPROFOR commander, are personally assailed for their contributions. Such personal attacks are unusual in British political writing and come across as unwarranted and unkind. That said, Owen too readily toed the Foreign Office line, and Rose harboured an unhealthy respect for the Serb forces’ professionalism, heritage and history. 

For those interested in decision making there is much to gain from Simms’ account. For instance, the construction of a consensus is particularly interesting to behold. Indeed, whatever one thinks of British policy it is clear that Ministers failed to adequately challenge the advice they received; they were beholden to the men on the ground. 

In addition, analogy (not for the first time) had a negative effect. A little history, it seems, is a dangerous thing, especially when old-hands justify present positions by invoking the past. Too often, officials made fatuous reference to Northern Ireland (and to a lesser extent Cyprus) when discussing Bosnia’s plight. Moreover, the role the Serbs played during the Second World War appeared all too often in British thinking.

More troublingly, Simms is guilty of glossing over the contributions many nations made to pacifying Bosnia. Britain, of course, was very much at the forefront of these efforts, and while Simms may not agree with the tone and direction of such contributions, his work gives the false impression that the international community spent much of the early-to-mid 1990s wringing their hands. 

Stylistically, published in 2000, Unfinest Hour relies almost exclusively upon the public record to support its claims. Not only does such an approach have obvious weaknesses, but it tests the readers’ will. Too often chapters disintegrate into ceaseless newspaper reports interspersed with passages from Hansard. 

The date of publication is notable for another reason. At the turn of the century New Labour was at its peak, and Tony Blair dominated the British political scene. His Chicago speech, given the year before, (in)famously laid out the argument for an interventionist foreign policy. Simms appears to have been impressed for Unfinest Hour is essentially a liberal-imperialist tract. 

What’s interesting is that now, in 2013 we appear to have come full circle. In Syria a brutal regime has been targeting its own population for over two years. Quite terrible horrors are occurring on a daily basis and yet no international action has, or looks likely to occur. The spectre of Iraq haunts the decision-makers of Washington and London; no one wishes to overreach like Tony Blair and George W. Bush. In this regard, the position of Simms appears curiously old-fashioned, almost quaint. 

And yet, his argument retains force. His contention that we must confront brutality the world over is simple but powerful, and it’s refreshing to encounter this position argued with passion, purpose and clarity, even if he pushes too far.