Clark arrived intending to warn that the United States might arm the Bosnian government if the Bosnian Serbs rejected the Contact Group plan. Rose had cautioned him that Mladic was manipulative and that Bosnia's political rules were subtler than those of the Gulf War. Mladic answered the warning with a theatrical tirade about Serbian endurance, foreign aggression, Vietnam, and the willingness to fight to the last drop of blood. Rose depicts Clark as losing confidence and shifting from a display of American power toward respect for the Serbs as a fighting people and a plea to avert war. Only then did Mladic lower his voice and enter a practical discussion. The encounter shows how an adversary can disrupt coercive diplomacy by controlling the emotional tempo of a meeting.
Chapter · 7:32-10:22
Wesley Clark, Ratko Mladic, and failed coercive signalling
A meeting intended to deliver an American warning instead shows Mladic using intimidation and cultural misreading to make Clark soften his approach before substantive bargaining begins.