The international community has been dealing with Bosnia-Herzegovina since before the war began in 1992 in a conflict-management project that has evolved from inconclusive mediation by the United Nations and regional bodies, to the coercive diplomacy of the United States and NATO, to the comprehensive multinational protectorate that has attempted to shape a functional, democratic state. The essays in Bridges to Peace, culled from a conference at Queen's University, explore the mixed results of efforts to negotiate or impose peace and build a modern state out of the ruins of a multi-ethnic society.

In an examination of a complex international action that has involved three local protagonists and a multiplicity of international players, this volume addresses reactions to the initial crisis and the ensuing war, the results of the 1995 Dayton Accords, international efforts to keep the peace and enable Bosnia to join Europe, and divergent national policies toward the conflict and their consequences. The lessons drawn from a decade's work apply both to the ongoing project in Bosnia and to the many other conflicted societies that trouble the global order.

Contributors include John Blaxland (Royal Military College), Tufik Burnazovic (University of Sarajevo), Louis A. Delvoie (Queen's University), Jürgen Döbert (German Navy), A. Walter Dorn (Royal Military College), David Hale (United States Army), Jeremy King (UN Political Officer), David Last (Canadian Armed Forces, Royal Military College), and Gerald Wright (Queen's University).