"There's this sense that, `We're better, we're

smarter, we've got better . . . technology.'

It leads the U.S. to believe that it can

automatically dominate the process. Well, it

doesn't work that way. . . ."- A UN official

For months, the U.S. led the bellicose chorus of those who argued that bombing the Bosnian Serbs was the only way to bring them to heel.

With no American troops at risk, it was a relatively cost-free stance for the U.S. to adopt. Even Britain and France, with the largest troop contingents in Bosnia-Herzegovina, found the urge difficult to resist.

Now that the West has unleashed its fury against the Serbs, senior officials admit the allies did so with little thought to what they would do next if the Serbs, as they had promised, took hostages.

Placed squarely on the defensive, Britain and France moved Tuesday to reinforce their exposed forces in Bosnia. The first 36 British soldiers of an expected 5,000 landed in the Balkans. Meanwhile, a U.S. aircraft carrier group and four assault ships with 2,000 Marines moved closer off the Adriatic Coast, along with a aircraft carrier from France, which said it will commit an additional 2,000 soldiers to the reinforcement effort.

The Serbs, meanwhile, freed six French peacekeepers but presented new demands, including a guarantee of no future airstrikes and a demilitarization of UN-declared "safe areas" such as Sarajevo.

Serving notice they will consider United Nations peacekeepers an enemy, the Serbs threatened to meet any UN military move with force. "The more soldiers you send, the more violence you will get," said Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic in a letter to UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

As Serb intransigence increased over the last few months, hitting them with a few laser-guided bombs became a tantalizing option, especially in faraway capitals like Washington.

Those on the ground who warned of the likely Serb response-hostage-taking-were dismissed as wafflers or appeasers. Among the loudest voices in favor of airstrikes were UN Ambassador Madeleine Albright, and presidential hopeful Bob Dole. President Clinton also joined in from time to time.

One frustrated UN policy adviser likened U.S. enthusiasm for NATO airstrikes against the Bosnian Serbs to teenage sex. "Great in the imagining; lousy in reality," said the official, who spoke at the UN Protection Force headquarters in Zagreb.

"There's this sense that, `We're better, we're smarter, we've got better planes and technology.' It leads the U.S. to believe that it can automatically dominate the process. Well, it doesn't work that way in this war," the UN official said.

In fact, far from cowing the Bosnian Serbs, NATO's relatively mild airstrikes so far, combined with months of UN threats of even stiffer action, appear to have emboldened the Serbs to seize heavy weaponry from UN-protected depots, shell UN "safe" areas and declare open season on hapless UN forces.

Now the finger-pointing has begun. From the capitals of Europe to the corridors of the UN in New York there is a scarcely muffled resentment that somehow the U.S. pressured the UN and NATO into pursuing an ill-conceived policy.

Washington's closest allies, Britain and France, have refrained from public criticism, but Russian Foreign Minister Andrei Kozyrev hasn't missed the opportunity to lecture the Americans about the folly of trying to impose a military solution on the Balkans.

Canada, the third largest contributor to the UN peacekeeping force, made it clear Tuesday it opposes any attempt to solve the crisis militarily.

"We believe a military solution at this time is not the best way to proceed," said Defense Minister David Collenette in Ottawa. "A diplomatic solution is the only way to get our people out and to defuse the tension."

Critics note the crisis was predictable. The last time NATO bombed Bosnian Serb targets, in November 1994, the Serbs responded by taking about 400 hostages.

The Serbs didn't chain them to military targets or parade them in front of TV cameras, as they have done this time, and the UN insisted they weren't really hostages but "detainees." When NATO indicated it was "satisfied" with the results of the bombing and had no plans for further attacks, the Serbs released the detainees.

In a sense, the United Nations has been hostage to the Serbs' will ever since. Movements of UN monitors in Serb-held territory are tightly restricted, and for months the Bosnian Serb army hasn't allowed UN personnel to leave Serb-held territory until their replacements are in place.

The UN military command in Bosnia has come in for its share of blame in the present crisis. After months of resisting the temptation-and against the better judgment of many of its military and political advisers-the UN also yielded to the urge to strike at the Serbs.

Stuck with an unenforceable mandate, sick of being humiliated by the Serbs and maligned by U.S. politicians, the frustrated peacekeepers abandoned caution.

By engaging in the risky business of airstrikes despite the potential downside, they have dramatically underscored their predicament and forced the issue: Either give us a workable mandate or get us out of here.

For the Clinton administration, the good news is that there are no American hostages. The bad news is that critics at home and abroad have come to see Bosnia as the latest symbol of Washington's failure to exercise leadership.

The U.S. has no real national interests at stake in Bosnia-Herzegovina, but its reluctance or inability to lead the alliance decisively has allowed the Bosnian Serbs' small army to thumb its nose at the UN, at NATO and, by extension, at the world's only superpower.

Coming after its sad experience in Somalia, the UN's ability to mount credible peacekeeping operations in the future is likely to suffer.

The Yugoslav crisis also raises the biggest question of all about the Atlantic alliance: If NATO can't cope with a small war in a corner of Europe, what purpose does it serve?