The Role of Intelligence in Ending the War in Bosnia in 1995

In the summer of 2013 the Central Intelligence Agency and the Clinton Presidential Library made an unprecedented declassification of more than 300 documents showing the role of intelligence in supporting American decision-making on Bosnia in the 1990s, and in particular the 1995 Dayton Peace Agreement, which brought an end to the fighting in Bosnia. The following spring, James Madison University hosted a conference in which scholars from all over the world assessed what the documents show about what is needed for the complex process of making peace. Aspects covered included military, political, diplomatic, and religious, among others. Timothy R. Walton's The Role of Intelligence in Ending the War in Bosnia in 1995 offers a collection of papers presented at the conference; several of the authors were participants in the events of the time. Based on primary sources, this book examines the 1995 Dayton Peace agreement, which ended the fighting in Bosnia, to show how American decision-making works on a complex issue. It takes a multidisciplinary approach and highlights both the capabilities and limitations of intelligence in the American foreign policy process.