Barbara Boxer: “The Balkans are at peace; democracy is sprouting almost everywhere; even the apparently invulnerable Slobodan Milosevic…”

“The Balkans are at peace; democracy is sprouting almost everywhere; even the apparently invulnerable Slobodan Milosevic has been knocked from his perch. Of course, many problems remain, the gains are fragile and, yes, U.S. troops will be needed for some time. But surely helping democracy take root throughout Europe is worth the modest price of that modest deployment [of peacekeeping troops]. The job of securing peace in Bosnia and Kosovo is far from complete. The American share of the peacekeeping has already been substantially reduced. Finally, the NATO alliance has been built on a concept of shared risk that is inconsistent with a total withdrawal of American ground forces from Balkan peacekeeping. Now, we know that America's share, they say, of peacekeeping responsibilities is steadily reducing. There are now only 11,400 American troops in the Balkans, about one-fifth of the NATO total. When NATO first went into Bosnia, about a third of its 60,000 troops were Americans. Balkan peacekeeping costs [are only] 1 percent of the Pentagon's . . . budget.”