Fighting for Peace : Bosnia, 1994

by Michael Rose

Known for his roles in the Iranian Embassy siege and the Falklands War, General Sir Michael Rose here recounts the story behind one of the toughest challenges of his career - as Commander of the UN Protection Force in Bosnia in 1994. Having inherited a mission that was sliding into chaos, Rose's brief was to sustain the people of Bosnia in the midst of a devastating three-sided war and to try to prevent the conflict from escalating. Facing scenes of inhumanity not witnessed in Europe since 1945, he describes how he dealt with individuals who would stop at nothing to fulfil their personal and political agendas.

Genres: Nonfiction, Military Fiction, War, Biography

Paperback

First published October 7, 1999

About the author

Michael Rose was raised on a small family dairy farm in Upstate New York. He retired after serving in executive positions for several global multinational enterprises. He has been a non-executive director for three public companies headquartered in the US. He lives and writes in San Francisco.

Reviews

[Thomas B · Rating 3 out of 5]

Knee deep in many rocks and more hard places, his flat humour and precise delivery is a strong, anecdoteful fight to validate peace keeping ops. However as with many British general autobiographers, he is light on translating his experience, values a d judgements into useful lessons, and threatens on the self congratulatory. Amongst the generals on my bookshelf it is a vital window into a forgotten fight in harrowing human tragedy, but he blends into the bland egos left and right of this book with ease.

[Patrick Baty · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good account of an attempt to bring peace to the former Yugoslavia. An incredibly complex situation for which new skills were required.

[Boris Cesnik · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's true, he's not a writer and probably never wanted to be. His style is dry, clean, precise but very simple...and I assume on purpose.
He wanted his version of the story to get out there and be disseminated as much as possible. It's a language that everyone can easily understand. There are no military technicalities or difficult passages to digest for civilians.

I have no interest whatsoever in reading books in military strategies, history etc. My fears vanished just after starting reading this book. I'm glad I did.

This is probably the 8th or 9th book I've ingested on the war in Yugoslavia. It's a companion to Milos Stankovic 'Trusted Mole' which is much superior in my opinion; although despite the fact they both touch the same topic they are written from different prospective and with different meaning (milos was one of his men).

It has that sort of language that makes you easily pass from page to page always craving to see what happens next.

It's an amazing source of information on how UN and NATO interacts on a bureaucratic and personal level. Boring, funny and tragic at the same time.

Michael may have tried very hard to save or re-establish the UNPROPFOR's reputation. I can definitely applaude him for that even if I do not 100% share his views on the operate of UN in that particular war.
And it's in those passages that the book loses one star in the rating. He is too redundant and ends up being just annoying. But in the end it's all understandable, and have to give credit to him for his and his people's undeniable help to the displaced civilians.

[Khayer Chowdhury · Rating 5 out of 5]

General Rose was one of the commanders of UNPROFOR. He provides an in-depth account of his time leading UNPROFOR in Bosnia. The book is very detailed and sometimes shockingly revealing. I used it for my dissertation on British humanitarian interventionism. General Rose gives the picture from the other side of the wall of UN peacekeeping. His detailed chapters can take the reader through a comprehensive journey of Bosnia whilst exploring the political, military, and media dimensions of the war. It's an excellent tribute to peacekeepers who have given their lives in the Balkans.

[Ian Chapman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very dry in writing style, although a major work on military peacekeeping efforts. General Rose is a much more distinguished soldier than writer!

[Richard · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have to be honest: this is not a well written book. Some of the chapters go on for too long, without even a break in the text at all. However, I have read several books on the war in Bosnia now. This is not the best, but it does make one key point that is massively important, and that is the “facts” of the conflict were reported differently by different people depending on their own political agenda, so in fact some truths were twisted by the media to support what was going on at home - for example, the upcoming Presidential elections in the USA. This books forced home to me more than any other about the way facts are spun to back up the argument you are making.
The second half is much more interesting than the first, but the futility of the whole thing was is just depressing.
This is a book in my chain read - the author, General Rose, was the commanding officer of the author of the previous book that I read in the chain, Trusted Mole by Milos Stankovic (which was a far superior book).