DETERMINED EFFORT

After the United Nations authorized the creation of a no-fly zone in the territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, NATO took care of its implementation with Operation “Deny Flight” in April 1993. Only one year later, on 28 February 1994, four warplanes violated the banned zone. They were shot down, suffering the first real proof of the Atlantic Alliance’s military commitment to the peace-keeping process in the region.

In 1994, following the evolution of the conflict, NATO began to consider the need to plan scenarios for the extraction of its military forces deployed in support of UN operations in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia under the worst conditions.

Two operations were initially considered: Operation “Determined Effort”, for a gradual evacuation that would have taken months, and Operation “Daring Lion”, much faster, which could have been implemented within a few days, but which would have forced UNPROFOR to abandon equipment on the ground that would have to be destroyed.

The initial plan was changed, and Operation “Determined Effort” became the basis for the NATO OPLAN 40-104 and Operation “Joint Endevour”. With the Dayton Peace Agreement (1995), the military forces of the Atlantic Alliance became the Implementing Force of these agreements in Bosnia and Herzegovina (IFOR).