ABSTRACT

The second London Conference (21 July 1995) has often been described as a turning point for international policy in Bosnia, marking the moment when world leaders finally decided to act with decisive NATO airpower to end the war. Yet from the British viewpoint the conference had a much narrower remit: to preempt a VRS assault on the remaining ‘safe area’, Gorazde, where hundreds of British troops were still deployed and, as John Major himself admitted, to parry a US/French military initiative. It was not until several weeks later, following a massive Serb defeat in Croatia and north-western Bosnia, that Britain conceded (and then only tacitly) that the peace process and UNPROFOR – two of the main pillars governing international policy for nearly four years – had finally run their course.