When the Cold War ended, NATO appeared to have lost the enemy it had been created to confront. Then Yugoslavia collapsed, and Bosnia descended into siege warfare, ethnic cleansing, mass displacement, and genocide.

This episode explores how the Bosnian War exposed the limitations of European diplomacy, United Nations peacekeeping, and NATO’s cautious post-Cold War strategy. From the siege of Sarajevo and the fall of Srebrenica to Operation Deliberate Force and the Dayton Peace Accords, we examine how military pressure, diplomacy, and political will finally brought the conflict to an end.

More than a history of the war, this is the story of how Bosnia transformed NATO from a defensive Cold War alliance into an organization prepared to intervene beyond the borders of its member states.