The people of Bosnia have been battered by war for over three years. The odds of winning that war have been so slim that the world predicted their surrender long ago. "I think we are on the threshold of the final solution. The main remaining question is the question of maps," boasted Slobodan Milosevic in 1993.

Yet as of 1995, Milosevic's boast had not come true. Bosnia is in shambles, but it is still a nation. The words that journalist Branka Magas wrote in 1992 still apply:

Despite the cataclysm that has engulfed it, Bosnia-Hercegovina has not surrendered. Its multinational government continues somehow to function. Sarajevo ... continues to resist. The Bosnian defense forces still contain Muslims, Croats, and Serbs.... Bosnia needs outside help, of that there can be no doubt; yet its strength lies in its own determination to survive.

Understandably...