About The Project
In recognition of the 30th anniversary of the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords (DPA), the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training (ADST) is recording, transcribing, and sharing 20 new oral histories with U.S. and foreign officials involved in the 1995 negotiations and subsequent DPA implementation. ADST will combine these interviews with excerpts from oral histories already in its own archive and accounts from the State Department’s 1990s Dayton History Project to create a web-based DPA oral history anthology that will serve as an educational resource for those examining the complexities of peace negotiations or searching for approaches to addressing today’s conflicts.
The upcoming NATO Parliamentary Assembly (NATO PA), scheduled for May 22-26, 2025, in Dayton under the leadership of Ohio Congressman Mike Turner, highlights the significance of the anniversary, as over 600 international dignitaries, their staff, and families will reflect on the DPA’s relevance to modern-day conflict resolution, peace negotiations, and diplomatic tradecraft.
Often cited as a model for peacemaking, the history of the DPA remains an intriguing part of U.S. diplomatic history, with many first-hand experiences still undiscovered and uncollected. As senior members of the U.S. Foreign Service have pointed out, there is both a need and demand for a resource that captures a comprehensive understanding of DPA negotiations and implementation and the reflections of U.S. and foreign officials who contributed to peace efforts in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Project Structure:
The project has three phases. Phase I (January to August 2025) will focus on organizing existing DPA materials from the ADST and State Department archives and capturing 20 additional oral history interviews. ADST will collect a portion of its DPA interviews during the NATO PA in Dayton, OH. This phase will culminate in a subject-specific reader, published on the ADST and Library of Congress websites, consisting of all existing and new oral history accounts on DPA.
Phase II (August to November 2025) will synthesize these DPA materials into an interactive web page anthology, 30th Anniversary of the Dayton Peace Accords: The Art of the (Im)Possible, that offers a comprehensive historical narrative of DPA negotiations, implementation, and “lessons learned” through the lens of those who lived it by including excerpts from the oral history collection. It will be interactive, accessible, and easy to use, and it will include photography and video fragments collected from the interviewees and other professionals.
Phase III (September to December 2025) will revolve around the educational events ADST is co-organizing with our various national and international partners. These in-person and virtual events will discuss DPA negotiations and peace implementation efforts, introduce students to the life of a diplomatic practitioner working on conflict resolutions, and our DPA anthology. During this stage, we will also develop lesson plans for middle and high school students.
U.S. Foreign Service: Notable Lessons Learned From The Dayton Peace Accords
Larry Napper, Ambassador (ret.), who served as the Coordinator for United States Assistance to Central and Eastern Europe:
Dayton is one of the crowning achievements of American diplomacy in the 20th century, not because it solved all the problems of the Balkans, but because it halted a war in the heart of Europe that had devastated the region and caused many thousands of innocent deaths. The Dayton Agreement reminds us that diplomacy is not without risks and costs, including the lives of three close associates of Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, Robert Frasure, Joseph Kruzel, and Sam Nelson Drew, whose sacrifice helped lead directly to the accords. With Putin on the march in Ukraine, China rising in East Asia, and full-scale war threatening in the Middle East, creative, persistent, and imaginative American diplomacy has never been more important.
Christopher Hoh, Senior Member of US Foreign Service who was the Charge d’ Affairs and Deputy of Mission at the US Embassy in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina:
Through this multi-faceted, multi-year effort Washington learned to coordinate multiple U.S. agencies into a whole-of-government approach and to rally allies, partners and inter-governmental organizations into a post-Cold War coalition for security and promoting of prosperity. We learned from failures as well as successes and developed lessons for future reconstruction and stabilization operations. A large number of later leaders in the U.S. Foreign Service cut their teeth working on the Balkans in the ’90s and early 2000s.
John Hennessey-Niland, Ambassador (ret.), was a member of the Investigation and Prosecutor’s staff of the International Criminal Tribunal for The Former Yugoslavia:
Seen from the perspective of an American diplomat assigned to the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY), the Dayton Accords were a key part of the U.S. strategy to bring the war to an end. Both negotiations and the threat of indictments by the ICTY – the proverbial carrot and stick approach – were required to convince the combatants to cease their conflict. The U.S. used all its soft and hard power to bring the conflict to a tenuous end.
Jacques Paul Klein, Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations (ret.), was head of the United Nations Transitional Administration for Eastern Slavonia and the United Nations Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina:
The Dayton Accords were far from perfect. Some describe the Accords as a bad peace to end a worse war. The fact is that ending that war was a single historic achievement that saved countless thousands of lives. The war in Bosnia would have continued indefinitely without the full engagement of the Contact Group, the UN and other regional players. Ambassador Dick Holbrooke’s personal engagement, insights and dynamism were crucial to the process. So also was the continued persuasion and pressure exerted by the foreign service officers and diplomats throughout the region, in key capitals and at Dayton.
Timeline: Disintegration of Yugoslavia and Diplomatic Efforts to End the Conflict
From The Moment in the U.S. Diplomatic History Series
A House of Cards – The Collapse of Yugoslavia
Over a bloody three years, hundreds of thousands of former Yugoslav residents were dislocated, imprisoned, raped, tortured, starved, and massacred as Serbian nationalists pursued an agenda of ethnic cleansing and carved out a homeland for his own people. The violence grew from the ruins of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, a conglomeration of Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks, Slovenians, Albanians, Macedonians, and other ethnic groups united under a single flag. Yugoslavia collapsed when the growth of nationalism inflamed ethnic tensions to the point that, on June 25, 1991, regions with Croat and Slovene majorities declared independence for the nations of Croatia and Slovenia. Read More.
Negotiating the Dayton Peace Accords
During the 1990s, the world witnessed the worst conflict since the end of World War II. The conflict began after Bosnia and Herzegovina declared its independence on February 29, 1992. As a result, a group of Bosnian Serbs rebelled and created their own republic, the Republika Srpska. With the support of Serbian president, Slobodan Milosevic, the Bosnian Serbs gained territory throughout three years of killing and ethnic cleansing. Fighting ensued for several years between Bosnian Croats, Bosnian Serbs, and Muslims. After the events and widespread media coverage of the shelling of a Sarajevo marketplace, the Srebrenica massacre of 8,000 Muslim men and boys, and the capture of UN peacekeepers as hostages, the goal of a successful peace agreement became imperative. Read More.
Slobodan Milosevic and the Road to Dayton
Slobodan Milosevic was in many ways a paradoxical figure. Long criticized for being a corrupt opportunist, he could also be engaging and charming. Often described as being a paranoid psychopath, he could quickly swing from the role of staunch Serbian nationalist to conciliatory peacemaker. As Yugoslavia disintegrated in the early 1990’s, leading to violent conflict, the United States began to view the protean Milosevic as the key to reaching a peace agreement in the region. Read More.
A Snapshot from Diplomatic Oral History: U.S. Ambassador Peter Galbraith
Q: The Dayton peace process, how was it viewed from Zagreb?
GALBRAITH: There really were two tracks to what was going on and in which I had a
role. The first track was the Bosnian peace process which was what Holbrooke was
doing. That involved these triangular missions of Sarajevo, Belgrade, and Zagreb and
perhaps in some ways the main action was Belgrade. I mean getting, that more time was
spent with Milosevic than with Tudjman by a huge margin because that’s where the
concessions need to be made. Zagreb was more of a center in terms because the UN was
headquartered there. In the early days of the war that’s where the media was, but I guess
the media at this stage was as much in Belgrade and perhaps even more in Sarajevo.
The second track was one for which I was principally responsible which was to negotiate
a peace agreement between Zagreb and the rebel Serbs or the local Serbs who had 4
percent of Croatia in Eastern Slavonia, Baranja and Western Slavonia that is the far east
of the country, Vukovar. So, in this period, I would find myself on my own shuttle
between Zagreb and Erdut which is a little village outside of Vukovar were I would meet
with the local Serbs, and then participating with Holbrooke in his shuttle whenever he came to town, which was two or three times a week.
Q: How did you see the role on this thing? Was it the Croatians were I mean what sort of
role in the Dayton thing did you see them playing? I mean it’s three sides, well, it’s the
United States, and then it’s four sided.
GALBRAITH: The Croatian role at Dayton in the period leading up to Dayton, at Dayton
was the and indeed the whole two years, was important because it was the swing role.
They were the ones who were capable of making things happen. By the time we were
getting to Dayton they were also looking like the big winners. On the one hand, that made
them more confident, made it in some ways they could be relied on to be more
responsible. On the other hand, they were the least willing to compromise on matters of
their own vital interests. Read More.
Mt. Igman Accident: Making The Peace Effort Personal for the U.S. Foreign Service
In the summer of 1995, during the early days of the American shuttle diplomacy between the Balkan capitals, Ambassador Holbrooke and his team were forced to drive down Mt. Igman road, “the most dangerous road in Europe,” to reach Sarajevo after the Serbs refused to guarantee safe landing to the Sarajevo airport. On August 19, 1995, the U.S. delegation arrived to the Veliko Polje soccer field, near Mt. Igman pass, where two military vehicles were waiting for them, French armored personal carrier (APC) and the U.S. Army Humvee. Ambassador Holbrooke and General Wes Clark were put into the Humvee and the rest of delegation took seats in the APC. About an hour into a drive, the APC carrying US diplomats went over the edge of the road, killing all in the vehicle. US Ambassador Robert Frasure, a special envoy for the former Yugoslavia, Joseph Kruzel, secretary of defense for European affairs, and, Col. Samuel Nelson Drew, a staff member at the National Security Council, were killed in the crash. This tragedy made the mission to reach lasting peace in Bosnia much more personal, with the U.S. diplomats returning back to the region just a few days after the funeral of their colleagues and pushing more forcefully to end the war.
“We have been pushing the rock of peace up the side of Bosnian mountain for a long time now, and it has kept rolling back down. But like Sisyphus, we will not stop trying ” – Secretary of Defense William Perry stated during the ceremony for killed colleagues at the Andrews Air Force Base, August 21, 1995.
Former Yugoslavia: Regional Country Readers
Educational Resources:
ADST is currently working with our partners to host educational events examining the Dayton Peace Accords implementation, developing educational materials such as lesson plans, and engaging national and international practitioners, academics, and students in a conversation on diplomats’ lesson learned during the negotiations and implementation of the Dayton Peace Accords. More information to come soon!
ADST Heading to 2025 NATO Parliamentary Summit in Dayton, OH:
ADST will attend the 2025 NATO PA spring session in Dayton, Ohio, to interview the attendees about their experience negotiating and implementing peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina. These interviews, combined with the ongoing process of recording experiences of American and international officials who took part in the historic Dayton Peace Accords negotiations and implementation, will form the basis for our upcoming interactive anthology, The 30th Anniversary of the Dayton Peace Accords: The Art of the (Im)Possible. The webpage will provide diplomatic practitioners with a comprehensive understanding of the Dayton peace process and interviewees’ reflections on lessons learned. For more details regarding the conference, please visit the 2025 Spring Session NATO PA website.
Additional Dayton Peace Accords Materials:
National Museum of American Diplomacy: Diplomacy Ends a War: The Dayton Accords
US Department of State: Dayton History Project (1996 – 1997)
US Department of State: Virtual Reading Room
William Jefferson Clinton Presidential Library: The Dissolution of Yugoslavia
FAMA Methodology: The Dayton Peace Accords: The Art of Negotiations – How to End a War
Contact the Dayton Peace Accords Project Team
If you have any questions about the ADST’s Dayton Peace Accords oral history project, or you would like to share your story of working on the Balkans issues in the 1990s or implementation period, you can reach out to the project manager, Fran Leskovar, at [email protected].