UNPROFOR's current mandate. Opposition to its use has also been expressed by some members of the Security Council.

IV. FUTURE ROLE OF UNPROFOR

60.The analysis in the foregoing section raises the basic question of whether UNPROFOR is to be a peace-keeping operation, conducting itself in accordance with the established principles and practices for such operations, or an enforcement operation

61. At present the Force's mandate, on a literal reading of the relevant resolutions, is almost entirely peace-keeping. But it also contains some elements of enforcement; and the perception in many quarters is that the disastrous situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina is due to the Force's failure to enforce the will of the international community rather than being due to the consistent failure of the parties to honour their commitments and cooperate with a Force to which the Council has given a largely peace-keeping mandate.

62. The question of whether UNPROFOR is about peace-keeping or enforcement is not one that can be avoided. As I have written elsewhere, "nothing is more dangerous for a peace- keeping operation than to ask it to use force when its existing composition, armament, logistic support and deployment deny it the capacity to do so. The logic of peace-keeping flows from political and military premises that are quite distinct from those of enforcement; and the dynamics of the latter are incompatible with the political process that peace-keeping is intended to facilitate. To blur the distinction between the two can undermine the viability of the peace- keeping operation and endanger its personnel ... Peace- keeping and the use of force (other than in self-defence) should be seen as alternative techniques and not as adjacent points on a continuum, permitting easy transition from one to the other" (S/1995/1, paras.35 and 36).

63. It is true that the threat of force has sometimes produced positive results. NATO's readiness to shoot down offending aircraft has on the whole prevented the use of Bosnia and Herzegovina's airspace for combat purposes. The threat of force also helped to establish the Sarajevo heavy weapons exclusion zone in February 1994. But the Bosnian Serb side quickly realized that it had the capacity to make UNPROFOR pay an unacceptably high price if air power was used on its behalf. That capacity was demonstrated after close air support was provided in Gorazde in April 1994, after air strikes on Udbina airfield and on missile sites in Bihac in November 1994 and again after air strikes near Pale on 25 and 26 May 1995. On all these occasions, large numbers of United Nations personnel were taken hostage, further restrictions were placed on the Force's freedom of movement and negotiations were brought to an abrupt halt, except for the lengthy negotiations required to secure release of the hostages. These events demonstrated the perils of crossing the line from peace-keeping to enforcement without first equipping the Force with the manpower, armament, logistic and intelligence.capacity and command and control arrangements that would give the necessary credibility to its threat to use force by showing that it had the ability to respond decisively to any hostile reaction.

64. The absence of a clear enforcement mandate in the Council's resolutions on Bosnia and Herzegovina, notwithstanding their frequent references to Chapter VII, and the Council's reluctance to authorize the additional troops that I have judged necessary to enable it to perform even its peace-keeping functions (34,000 for the safe areas, 10,000 for border monitoring), permit one to conclude that the Council's answer to the above question is that, so far, it has wished UNPROFOR to be a peace-keeping operation.

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