Operation Joint Endeavor

Operation Joint Endeavour was the North Atlantic Treaty Organization deployment of the peacekeeping force IFOR to Bosnia beginning in December 1995. The operation was the biggest military mission in the history of NATO. Almost 60,000 NATO troops in addition to forces from non-NATO nations were deployed to Bosnia. Operation Decisive Endeavor (SACEUR OPLAN 40105), beginining December 6, 1995, was a subset of Joint Endeavor. [http://ftp.fas.org/irp/ops/smo/docs/ifor/bosappc.htm] After a year IFOR was replaced by the "Stabilization Force", SFOR.

NATO was accountable for carrying out the Dayton Peace Accords. The Dayton Peace Accords was started on November 22, 1995 by the presidents of Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia, on behalf of Serbia and the Bosnian Serb Republic. The actual signing happened in Paris on December 14, 1995. The peace accords contain a General Framework Agreement and eleven supporting annexes with maps. The accords had three major goals: ending of hostilities, authorization of military and civilian program going into effect, and the establishment of a central Bosnian government while excluding individuals that serve sentences or under indictment by the International War Crimes Tribunals from taking part in the running of the government (1).

Force contributors

Of the 60,000 troops, almost 20,000 were from the US military supported by an additional 12,000 more US troops positioned in neighboring nations. Overall command fell on the shoulder of US Army General George Alfred Joulwan, Supreme Allied Commander, Europe, and Commander-in-chief, United States European Command. The NATO formation that actually entered the country was the ACE Rapid Reaction Corps, made up of U.S.-led, British-led, and French-led divisions.

NATO nations that contributed forces included Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. Non-NATO nations that contributed forces included; Austria, Bangladesh, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, Czech Republic, Hungary, Ukraine, Malaysia, Latvia, Lithuania, New Zealand, Pakistan, Poland, Slovak Republic, Sweden, and the Russian Federation. [Clark, A.L. 1996. Bosnia: What Every American Should Know. Berkley Books:New York]

US contribution

Task Force Eagle, composed of 20,000 American soldiers, implemented the military elements of the Dayton Peace Accords in support of Operation Joint Endeavor. This operation marked the first commitment of forces in a wartime environment in NATO's history.

The US Army 1st Armored Division constituted the bulk of the ground forces for Task Force Eagle. On December 18, 1995, under the command of Major General William L. Nash, the 1st Armored Division deployed to northeast Bosnia as the command element of Task Force Eagle, a powerful, multinational unit intended to keep the peace. A Russian brigade, initially under the command of Colonel Aleksandr Ivanovich Lentsov, was part of the Task Force Eagle effort. An account of the interactions of the Americans and Russians in Bosnia in 1996 may be found in James Nelson’s Bosnia Journal.

The 1AD 2d Brigade led by Col John Batiste constituted the southern flank of the US sector based in Camp Lisa located about 20 km east of Kladanj. Task Force 2-68 Armor based in Baumholder, Germany (later re-flagged to 1-35 AR) was based in Camp Linda, outside of Olovo. This was the Southern boundary of the US Sector. The 1AD returned in late 1996 to Germany.

United States airlift operations

In the first three months of operations, the United States Air Force flew 3,000 missions, carried more than 15,600 troops and delivered more than 30,100 short tons of cargo. These statistics reflect the presence of the C-17 transport aircraft, which was systematically employed in a major contingency for the first time. The limited airfield at Tuzla was the major port of debarkation in Bosnia-Herzegovina. During the first critical month of operations, C-17s flew slightly more than 20 percent of the missions into Tuzla and delivered more than 50 percent of the cargo.

“During JOINT ENDEAVOR, intelligence personnel provided aircrews and staffs at several locations with critical threat information and airfield data. Taking advantage of the Combat Intelligence System (CIS) capabilities and an emerging global connectivity to military networks and databases, intelligence personnel provided the best and most timely support ever to air mobility forces.”(2) This improvement was especially visible during the Mission Report (MISREP) process, when intelligence analysts used CIS to provide MISREP info very quickly to aircrews and staffs, making sure the people in need of this intelligence got it while the information was still useful (2).

UK contribution

The British IFOR contingent formed Multi National Division South West headquartered in Banja Luka.

References

External links and Sources

*GlobalSecurity.org, [http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/joint_endeavor.htm Operation Joint Endeavor] , Retrieved Friday September 14, 2007 from
* [http://www.nato.int/ifor/ Information on Operation Joint Endeavour on the NATO Website]