History is written by the victors and the role of the United States in the Balkans in the second half of the 1990s was undoubtedly decisive. The Bosnian war came to an end as a result of decisions of the administration of US President Bill Clinton.

The borders of Croatia were secured, and the United Nations later occupied Kosovo, an act ultimately leading to the country’s independence. The public face and private engine of US policy in the Balkans was the prominent US diplomat Richard Holbrooke, who died following surgery to repair a ruptured aorta on 13 December 2010. 

A fearsome intellect and an ardent advocate of military intervention for humanitarian goals, Holbrooke stood behind the policy of US support for Bosnia’s Muslims and pressuring Bosnian Serbs to sue for peace. A friend and colleague of Holbrooke drafted the Dayton Peace Accords, and served as arbitrator over the disputed territory of Brcko.

Holbrooke drove the policy of strengthening the Office of the High Representative of Bosnia and Herzegovina in late 1997, turning the country into an international protectorate. He was the leading voice behind the Rambouillet negotiations over Kosovo’s status in March 1999, and the subsequent US-led NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999.

His final act of Balkan politics was to engineer the overthrow of the government of Slobodan Milosevic in September 2000, which ultimately led to Milosevic’s extradition to The Hague on war crimes charges in March 2001.

Without Holbrooke’s efforts, the Bosnian war might have continued in an indefinite stasis as the parties fought themselves to a halt.

The Serbs would have obtained more territory in any final settlement; Bosnia would not have been subjected to international proconsulship; Brcko District would never have been created; Milorad Dodik might never have become the Bosnian Serb prime minister in 1998 with Western support; and Republika Srpska might have declared independence in the late 1990s amidst international condemnation.

Kosovo might still have been part of Serbia, and the source of continuing ethnic conflict; Milosevic might have struggled on in power for a few more years; Zoran Djindjic might never have become prime minister of Serbia and been assassinated; his successor Zoran Zivkovic might never have appointed the hitherto little known Boris Tadic as his defence minister.

Holbrooke’s input in paving the way for the modern Bosnian state, the independence of Kosovo and the democratic evolution of contemporary Serbian politics was decisive. It is extraordinary that the most influential person in the recent history of the Western Balkans is not a native of the region at all but an American civil servant.

In engineering the annexation of Kosovo by a UN mission and the downfall of Milosevic, Holbrooke paved the way for the final disintegration of Yugoslavia. For this he is beloved by Bosniaks and Kosovar Albanians, and reviled by Serbs. Yet fundamental questions remain about the sustainability of the course on which he set Bosnia and Kosovo, the region’s two most fragile states.

By forcing the Bosnian government to centralize under international governorship, Holbrooke committed the international community to a long-term programme of state building and creating political institutions that had not existed before. By crafting the text of the Dayton Peace Accords and forcing this unusual American legal document upon the recalcitrant warring parties, he contributed to Bosnia’s chronic political instability.  

Holbrooke has not survived to see the final outcome of the heavy-handed international intervention he initiated in post-war Bosnia. Some 15 years after the Dayton Peace Accords the Office of the High Representative still exists, trying in vain to hold the country together amidst continuing threats of secession by the Bosnian Serbs.

By bombing Serbia into submission to secure the occupation of Kosovo, Holbrooke contributed to significant flows of both Albanian and Serb refugees.

As UNMIK entered Kosovo in June 1999, the entire Serbian administration of the province fled, causing near-total political and social collapse.

Kosovo still struggles with the problems of an ineffective government and near-total lawlessness and corruption to the present day, its economy and political system propped up by Western aid and administrators. 

Holbrooke was a lifelong supporter of the US Democratic Party. He disappeared into political irrelevance amidst Washington think tanks and corporate New York during the Republican Presidency of George W Bush, but was rehabilitated when US President Barack Obama appointed Bill Clinton’s wife, Hillary Clinton, as his Secretary of State.

She made him the President’s Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan. It was the perceived success of Holbrooke’s approach in the Balkans that in part drove robust international intervention in Afghanistan in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, and thus Holbrooke was indirectly responsible for the creation of his new role.

His achievements and profile in the midst of the Afghan mire were relatively limited, and it will be for his impact in the Western Balkans that he will principally be remembered. 

A profoundly controversial and divisive figure in the region, his legacy will be fought over for some years to come as various possible end games play themselves out in Bosnia and Kosovo. Holbrooke was genuinely motivated by the finest humanitarian principles, and at the time he considered resolute action essential to save human life and topple tyrants and war criminals.

But like so many embroiled in the state-building game, he could not foresee the pernicious long-term consequences of his decisions. It is still not clear whether, as Holbrooke’s Balkan policies continue to play themselves out over a decade after he last made his critical decisions, history will adjudge him an architect of the unsustainable or a victor for justice and stability.

Richard Charles Albert Holbrooke, US diplomat, born 24 April 1941, died 13 December 2010.

Matthew Parish is an international lawyer based in Geneva, and formerly worked as the Chief Legal Adviser to the International Supervisor of Brcko. His book on post-war Bosnia, A Free City in the Balkans: Reconstructing a Divided Society in Bosnia, is published by I.B.Tauris. His new book, Mirages of International Justice: The Elusive Pursuit of a Transnational Legal Order, will be published by Edward Elgar in January. www.matthewparish.com

The article was orginally published on the BalkanInsight.