A cease-fire holds only while its sponsoring core state retains strategic interest.

Evidence

Russia will be a continuing presence in the Transcaucasus and will have the capability to enforce the cease-fire it sponsored so long as it has an interest in doing so. This contrasts with the situation of the United States with respect to Bosnia. The Dayton accords built on proposals that had been developed by the Contact Group of interested core states (Germany, Britain, France, Russia, and the United States), but none of the other tertiary parties were intimately involved in working out the final agreement, and two of the three primary parties to the war were on the margins of the negotiations. Enforcement of the agreement rests with an American-dominated NATO force. If the United States withdraws its troops from Bosnia, neither the European powers nor Russia will have incentives to continue to implement the agreement, the Bosnian government, Serbs, and Croats will have every incentive to renew the fighting once they have refreshed themselves, and the Serbian and Croatian governments will be tempted to seize the opportunity to realize their dreams of a Greater Serbia and a Greater Croatia. — Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the…, 809

Categorization

• QUESTION: Huntington predicted Bosnia’s fragile peace would collapse without US troops; worth checking what actually happened after the 1990s withdrawal and how the Dayton framework persisted.
• SHARE: For a friend who follows Balkan security — Huntington’s 1996 prediction about Bosnia’s fate after a US pullout.
• XREF: connects to: An institutionalist view holds alliances survive only while states value their benefits. — Robert B. McCalla, NATO’s persistence after the cold war, 133