Getting to Dayton: The Making of America’s Bosnia Policy

For over four years, Washington responded to the war in Bosnia by handing the problem to the Europeans to resolve and substituting high-minded rhetoric for concerted action. Then, in the summer of 1995, the Clinton administration shifted course, deciding to assert the leadership that would prove necessary to end the war in Bosnia. This book - based on numerous interviews with key participants in the decision-making process and written by a former National Security Council aide - examines how the policy to end the war took shape. The case study seeks to demonstrate how determined individuals can exploit their positions to change US government policy issues on crucial issues. In so doing, Daalder not only explains how Washington launched the diplomacy that culminated at Dayton, but also why the subsequent peace proved to be difficult to establish.