DISEASE OF HUMAN MISCALCULATION

The ultimatum worked. The Serbs will remove their artillery (or place it under U.N. supervision) within a 12-mile radius of Sarajevo. Without the ultimatum there would have been no Russian initiative. The families and friends of the tens and tens of thousands who have been slaughtered and maimed ask the question: Why, in the name of human decency, didn't the ultimatum come 22 months sooner?

The Bosnian bloodbath could have been averted. We now have every reason to believe that Yeltsin would have intervened if NATO had decisively exercised its responsibility to maintain peace in Europe.

Those presumed to know the most about the Balkans said "stay out" -- "quagmire" -- "bottomless pit" -- "no way out." The Bush policy was directed by Larry Eagleburger, Acting Secretary of State and then Secretary of State. He had served for years as ambassador to Yugoslavia and knew the history and intensity of Balkan fanaticism. "We have no national security interest in the region," he has said time and time again. Under Eagleburger, we would do no more than file an indignant protest or two. As Senate Republican leader bob Dole put it, "The Bush administration policy on Bosnia was one of neglect. Larry Eagleburger felt that all we could do was send a letter to Milosevic."

The best way to have stopped the Serbian slaughter was with an early and collective NATO ultimatum directed at the invasion of Croatia in 1991 or, at the latest, when Serbs launched the assault on Bosnia in 1992. Touch Croatia or Bosnia and we will respond with air strikes on appropriate targets in Serbia proper. That's what former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and former Secretary of State George Shultz say they would have announced if this bloody mess had taken place during their watch. But the inaction of NATO in 1991 and 1992 tied the hands of President Clinton. by 1993 the evil deed of Bosnian dismemberment was done. Clinton ran as a hawk on Bosnia in 1992, but did not specify precisely what he would do or when and with whom he would do it.

Truth is that most of Clinton's post-election foreign policy advisers felt that Eagleburger was probably right. It didn't make all that much difference relief forces deployed on the ground, were adamantly opposed to doing anything that could jeopardize the safety of those ground troops. President Clinton was not about to act alone on Bosnia as the first order of business in his new presidency.

The great sadness of Bosnia today is both over what has occurred and what might have been avoided. This new resolve of the American, French and British air commands could well have prevented the horror if demonstrated 22 months ago.

History is replete with might-have-beens. Military history is an amalgam of miscalculations and missed opportunities. The evolution of World War I was punctuated by weird happenstances. There was the bumbling Austro-Hungarian foreign minister who made bellicose demands because he was in need of some bold stroke to bolster his own sagging prestige. There was an erratic Kaiser giving Austro-Hungary a "blank cheque" to do as it wished with Serbia, but then reacting with panic when Austro-Hungary pushed events beyond the brink.

What might have been if men of greater skill had been in charge? World War I was fought because stupid men made stupid decisions. It was fought for its own sake. One of the songs of the war was:

"We're here because we're here; Because we're here; Because we're here."

Men fought because they fought because they fought. That awful war was not a great tribute to human wisdom.

World War Ii had many might-have-beens: the reoccupation of the Rhineland by German forces which, for all effective purposes, made the Treaty of Versailles null and void; the annexation of Austria; the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia. Wars come more often by distracted people acting too late than prudent people acting early.

Two years too late the NATO allies have decided to risk the use of air power in Bosnia. The ultimatum may save some lives in Sarajevo, but it's too late to alter substantially the outcome; Bosnia is partitioned and the Muslims will get some modest percentage of the territory insufficient to be economically or politically viable.

To be sure, the tragedy of Bosnia is not of the order of magnitude of World Wars I and II, but it stems from the same disease of human miscalculation.