ABSTRACT
During the period of the cold war US Yugoslav relations were defined within the larger context of East-West relations. Following the Soviet-Yugoslav break in 1948, the United States supported Yugoslavia's assertion of political independence from the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), Yugoslavia's right to preserve its territorial integrity and its non-aligned foreign policy. At the same time that the United States was attempting to define the contours of a new world order, events in Yugoslavia were proceeding in the direction of disintegration. The crisis was redefined in May, June and July 1993 by Christopher and Clinton as "both a civil war and a war of aggression", which the United States was incapable of stopping unilaterally. Instead of dealing with the growing Yugoslav crisis, Bush, Baker and other top administration officials preferred to expound on general themes, which were consistent with US support for Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms in the Soviet Union, the pre-eminent issue for US foreign policy makers.
