How The USA Made The Srebrenica Massacre INEVITABLE | Prof. David Gibbs

The Srebrenica massacre is usually invoked as the clearest moral justification for humanitarian intervention: an emblem of failure that supposedly demonstrates why outside military action is necessary to stop mass atrocities. Yet the conversation with Professor David Gibbs reframes that admonition as a bitter paradox. Rather than being an avoidable failure of interventionism, Srebrenica was the product of a chain of foreign decisions—diplomatic signals, strategic calculations, and power politics—that made such a massacre far more likely. The lesson is not simply that intervention arrived late; it is that certain forms of intervention and the diplomatic paralysis that preceded it can make atrocities not merely possible but, in a grim sense, inevitable. ## The Srebrenica Massacre and the Moral Case for Intervention The July 1995 fall of Srebrenica—designated a “safe area” yet overrun by Bosnian Serb forces—ended in the systematic separation and slaughter of more than 8,000 Bosniak men and boys. That atrocity quickly became the icon of a new moral rhetoric: if outside powers had intervened sooner and more forcefully, the killings could have been prevented. This narrative was deployed repeatedly afterward, from the lead-up to the 2003 Iraq War to debates over Libya in 2011. Srebrenica became shorthand for “never again,” used to justify coercive measures as a necessary safeguard against ethnic cleansing. Professor Gibbs cautions that this shorthand elides a crucial fact: diplomacy was not a mere, exhausted option that gave way to force only after all else failed. Rather, diplomatic avenues that might have prevented mass violence were actively obstructed or undermined by foreign actors who had other objectives. When the international community elevates military intervention as the primary response to atrocities, it risks erasing or minimizing the role that earlier political choices played in creating the conditions for those atrocities. ## Missed Diplomatic Opportunities and the Yellow Light One of the conversation’s sharpest claims is that Western powers—particularly the United States—handed Yugoslavia a “yellow light,” effectively greenlighting secessionist moves that should have been managed within Yugoslavia’s constitutional order. By signaling tolerance, if not encouragement, for unilateral breakups, outside powers removed incentives for internal negotiation and made violent contests over territory and sovereignty more likely. Gibbs argues that diplomacy could have prevented the escalation that culminated in Srebrenica. The Yugoslav federal system contained mechanisms—legally awkward and politically fraught, but existing—that required collective agreement to alter borders. Rather than insist on using those mechanisms or pushing for mediated settlements, foreign actors signaled acceptance of rapid, unilateral disintegration. That failure to insist on constitutional processes turned what might have been a political reorganization into a series of wars in which ethnic mobilization and territorial cleansing became the instruments of statecraft. The “yellow light” metaphor highlights a broader point about international signaling: recognition, assurances of support, or even ambiguous statements by outside powers can alter local elites’ cost–benefit calculations. When secessionist leaders heard encouragement from abroad, secession seemed achievable without catastrophic consequences—so they pursued it. When others feared foreign abandonment or indifference, they prepared for violent imposition. The diplomatic environment mattered as much as—or more than—weaponry in shaping trajectories toward violence. ## Germany, Secession, and the Breakup of Yugoslavia The conversation scrutinizes Germany’s role as the pivotal early actor. In the immediate aftermath of reunification Germany embraced a more assertive foreign policy in Southeast Europe, offering explicit backing to Slovenia and Croatia. That support changed the calculus for republic-level leaders who were economically motivated to split from the federation. Ambitions to implement neoliberal reforms and retain greater control over resources, Gibbs suggests, were a central driver behind secessionist pushes—and Germany’s applause made those ambitions feasible. This is not a tale of simple ethnic animus or ancient hatreds suddenly unleashed; it is a story of political economy and external encouragement. When international actors publicly favor certain outcomes—here, partition and independence rather than negotiated federal reform—they change incentives on the ground. The result in Yugoslavia was a cascade: legal norms about territorial integrity were relaxed, local elites rushed toward separation, and federal institutions—including a multi-ethnic Yugoslav People’s Army—found themselves politicized and sidelined. Gibbs emphasizes that this was an unusual episode in post‑war international norms. The dominant approach since decolonization had been to preserve inherited borders in order to limit violent conflicts over demarcation. Germany’s unilateral support for secession signaled a break with that restraint and opened a precedent for future challenges to territorial integrity—an instability that has echoed into later crises where outside recognition or support becomes a tool for reshaping states. ## NATO, US Strategy, and the Militarization of Resolution By the early 1990s the United States grew wary of a Europe pursuing independent foreign-policy ambitions that might diminish American primacy. NATO—about to enter a period of uncertain purpose after the Cold War—represented a strategic asset the U.S. was determined to preserve and repurpose. Gibbs contends that Yugoslavia offered an opportunity: if European efforts to manage the conflict could be undercut and NATO could be cast as indispensable, Washington could simultaneously reassert transatlantic leadership and give NATO a new raison d’être. When the conflict intensified, the U.S. shifted from peripheral involvement to a leading role in shaping outcomes. That shift was not neutral: it favored military solutions that could demonstrate quick effectiveness and restore NATO’s prestige. Operation Deliberate Force—the NATO air campaign of 1995—became the centerpiece of this strategy. Militarily decisive and politically clarifying, the operation is recalled as a vindication of interventionism. Yet Gibbs warns that such military fixes came after crucial political moments had been lost and in a framework in which earlier diplomatic options had been constricted by prior policy choices. The paradox is clear: by denying or undermining noncoercive means and then legitimizing military action as the remedy, powerful states both created crises and then presented themselves as the only plausible responders. The humanitarian rhetoric used to justify intervention obscured strategic motives—restoring NATO’s relevance, constraining European autonomy, and shaping the post‑Yugoslav order in ways congenial to Western interests. ## A New Precedent: Fragmentation, Intervention, and Its Costs The broader implication of this assessment is unsettling. Srebrenica did not simply expose a failure to act humanely; it exposed how major‑power maneuvers can reconfigure local conflicts and foreclose peaceful alternatives. When outside actors favor secession, apply selective diplomatic pressure, or treat military force as the corrective measure after a crisis, they alter incentives in ways that make mass violence more likely. The institutional and legal norms that once discouraged border change were weakened, and in their place a politics of strategic opportunity flourished. Gibbs points out that this process—fragmentation followed by selective intervention—has shaped subsequent debates about foreign policy. Appeals to prevent another Srebrenica have served as rhetorical leverage for a wide variety of aggressive policies. Yet invoking Srebrenica to justify intervention without acknowl

How The USA Made The Srebrenica Massacre INEVITABLE Today I’m talking again to Dr. David Gibbs, a Professor of History at the University of Arizona. The occasion is a sad one, as we are commemorating this month the 30th anniversary of the 1995 Srebrenica Massacre. Professor Gibb’s Book: First Do No Harm: Humanitarian Intervention and the Destruction of Yugoslavia https://www.vanderbiltuniversitypress.com/9780826516435/first-do-no- harm/ Our Shop: https://neutralitystudies-shop.fourthwall.com #M3 I think the best way to view this is that the purpose of this whole operation was to do two things. First of all, to give a new purpose to NATO, because NATO led the airstrikes. That was by far the largest combat involvement—the only significant combat involvement—NATO had ever had since 1949, which was Operation Deliberate Force. And it was a victory. You can't argue with a victory. So it gave a new purpose to NATO after this. NATO had a new function; it had new prestige. Secondly, it underscored the fact that the European states are impotent. They tried for years to settle the conflict, but they couldn't do it. It shows how incompetent they are. Only the United States could do it, because the United States is a far-seeing, wise country. #M2 Hello everybody, this is Pascal from Neutrality Studies, and today I'm talking again to Dr. David Gibbs, a professor of history at the University of Arizona. The occasion is a sad one, as we are commemorating this month the 30th anniversary of the Srebrenica massacre in 1995, in which more than 8,000 Bosniaks lost their lives to the mass atrocities that happened there. This is what we want to talk about today. So, David, welcome back. #M3 Thanks for having me again, Pascal. #M2 Well, thank you very much for taking the time for this, because it is a sad anniversary. Maybe we can start with what exactly happened in Srebrenica 30 years ago this month. #M3 -- 1 of 20 -- Yes, what happened was that Srebrenica in 1995 was a so-called safe area. It was an area inhabited primarily by the Muslim ethnic group in Yugoslavia—Muslim is not only a religious, but also an ethnic association. And during the civil war, a very complicated civil war in Bosnia, it was overrun in July of 1995. The Serb forces then proceeded to separate the children under 16 and the women, moving them out of town, and then massacred the males over the age of 16, killing over 8,000 males. This has been seen as an almost iconic event. It's remembered very much as an iconic event, one that gave a perceived moral force to interventionism. The idea was that the American-led, NATO-led intervention that occurred after this massacre was a very positive development—one that, according to the standard account, should have occurred sooner. And it also established a sort of moral standard that intervention is the proper solution to ethnic cleansing, abuse of women, and all sorts of atrocities—that American-led intervention is the way you deal with these things. So it gave a good name to interventionism, and it made it seem like a moral thing to do. It was used again and again during the lead-up to the Iraq War, for example, in 2003. It was cited: "Look what happened at Srebrenica. We waited too long on Srebrenica." And with Libya, again, it was, "Overthrow Gaddafi—we had to overthrow him to prevent a Srebrenica-like massacre." This keeps coming up repeatedly, and so this really became almost a defining event. #M2 Yeah, it comes up even now, time and again—not just as "we did this too late," but as "we have a moral obligation to prevent a second Srebrenica," right? It's necessary to intervene; otherwise, we'll have another Srebrenica. #M3 I suppose one of the themes I want to make here is that all of this could have been prevented through diplomacy. The idea was basically that the United States blocked diplomatic options that would have ended the war early or even prevented the war from beginning in the first place, and then used military intervention to settle it on the battlefield in a way that advanced American strategic objectives. At a very high cost, the whole war could have been prevented. One hundred thousand people's lives could have been saved. The massacre at Srebrenica probably would never have occurred. People leave that detail out—that diplomacy was a real option here, and this blocked diplomacy. #M2 Yeah, so the disingenuousness of the whole situation is that it wasn't necessary to even get to that point where intervention was the only option to stop violence. But can we maybe lay that out a little bit? At which point—because the Srebrenica massacre happened in 1995, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, right? And that was five years after the Soviet Union—sorry, after Yugoslavia had already started crumbling. Four years, four years, four years. Yeah, sorry, 1991 to 1995. So four years into the -- 2 of 20 -- Yugoslav wars, which were a series of different political events, ending up with us now having seven successor states out of what was once Yugoslavia. So can you maybe tell us, where should we start the history of the Srebrenica massacre? #M3 I think it really did start with the breakup of Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia was a multi-ethnic, I think, mostly very successful communist state. It was often cited as a relatively humane form of communism that had, up until—it began to fall apart in the late '70s, but in the context of, I would say, a global crisis of capitalism, which also affected non-capitalist states in Eastern Europe. But up until the '70s, during the first maybe 25 years of its existence, Yugoslavia was considered to be an exceptionally successful communist state. And it was cited as, if not fully democratic in that sense, it was worker self-managed. There was a worker self-management system and very high rates of economic growth. But it began to fall apart due to economic reasons. I know that Susan Woodward was on your podcast a few months ago, and she's been very effective in noting the importance of economics in bringing about the dissolution of Yugoslavia and also bringing about a particularly ugly set of ethnic wars. Generally speaking, when people are impoverished and are required to undergo austerity and unemployment, it brings up very ugly tendencies. And that happened in Yugoslavia, clearly. So Yugoslavia began to break up, and the multi-ethnic character of Yugoslavia, which had been managed very successfully up until then, began to lead to enormous tensions. It didn't have to result in breakup, however. The key event that caused the breakup, I would say, was foreign intervention—not initially by the United States, but by Germany. In 1990, Germany had reunified, and the Germans did really have a certain, I don't know how to put it—arrogance, shall we say—since they now were the largest and most powerful country in Europe. They were going to set aside their previous power, their foreign policy timidity, and they acted outside the European Union and outside of NATO, and began openly encouraging the breakup of Yugoslavia. They began communicating with elites in Slovenia and Croatia, which were the richest republics. They wanted to separate for a number of reasons, including the behavior of many actors— Milosevic, famously; Franjo Tudjman of Croatia was another very disturbing figure. But I think the main reason they wanted to separate is that they were the richest republics and they did not want to share their wealth, basically, with the less wealthy republics. And that is really the main reason I think they wanted to separate. This comes through again and again. You know, there was an article by two top figures in the Slovenian government who said that one of the reasons they wanted to separate was that they'd be more effectively able to establish a free-market, neoliberal-style economy, and they wouldn't have to share their wealth with the rest of the country. And so there really was a certain greed to it. But Germany played a critical role in basically telling them as early as 1990, "If you separate from Yugoslavia, we, the Germans, will back you." -- 3 of 20 -- And the evidence for this is overwhelming. We have it from multiple sources. We have it from Stjepan Mesić, who is the former president of Croatia. We have it from David Halberstam, a Pulitzer Prize-winning author who interviewed many of the key figures. We have it from a number of different military journals. So the multiple sources point in the same direction: that Germany played a critical role in letting Slovenia and Croatia know that they would be supported by Germany if they separated. I think Germany's motive here was, at least in part, anti-communist. German officials openly said they preferred Slovenia and Croatia because they elected non- communist parties, as opposed to Serbia, which elected the former communists. So anti-communism was a factor, but also Southeastern Europe had been a traditional sphere of influence for Germany. The German private sector and the German government were both eager to reestablish German primacy in that region, and so they encouraged the breakup of Yugoslavia. They didn't really have to do much more than that. Germany was emerging as the most powerful country in Europe, and of course, it carries a lot of weight when Germany gives a green light to secession. #M2 For the timeline, was that in early '91? Because if I remember correctly, the big Yugoslav Communist Party meeting that was pivotal, I think, happened around April or May '91, wasn't it? #M3 I don't remember the exact day or time of the meeting. The actual secession was in June—June of '91 was the formal declaration of secession. But it's the media. Yeah. The United States during this period was preoccupied. 1991 was a very busy year for the United States. There was the First Gulf War, the largest use of military force since Vietnam. It was also the year of the breakup of the Soviet Union. So the U.S. wasn't that interested in Yugoslavia. However, Slovenian officials met with Lawrence Eagleburger, who was briefly Secretary of State, and basically said, "The Germans are encouraging us to secede." What do you think about that? And Eagleburger said, "We'd prefer you don't secede, but we won't do anything to stop you if you do." And so that was another—if not a green light, then a yellow light—from the United States. And so they basically got encouragement from abroad. And I think that was the decisive factor in the breakup of Yugoslavia. One more point—I know you wanted to interject something, but one more point I want to note is that Yugoslavia was, you know, the federal system was breaking down. But a major factor that helped to sort of hold it together, at least up to that point, was the Yugoslav National Army, which was one of the largest armies in Europe. And its top officer corps, contrary to popular belief, was multi-ethnic. The top generals were of different nationalities. There's a myth that it was Serb-dominated. That is not true—certainly not among the top generals. The two top figures were General Veljko Kadijević, who was of mixed Croat -- 4 of 20 -- and Serb background, and the deputy defense minister was Admiral Stane Brovet, who was Slovenian. So this was very much a multi-ethnic, very communist-oriented, very ideological and pro- Yugoslav element. They were fully determined to use force to stop secession. What's remarkable is that the European Union and the United States both insisted that the use of force was inadmissible. You can't use violence to stop secession. If they want to secede, they have the right to secede. That's a remarkable development because international law up to that time had been firmly against secession—that secession is inadmissible. I come from a country, the United States, where it was established in 1861. Abraham Lincoln went to war against the South, not initially to stop slavery, but to stop secession. And so secession has always had a very sort of odious tone througho