IFOR Member Countries (Mapping the Dayton Peace Accords, 2015)
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NATO conducted its first major crisis-response operation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. The NATO-led Implementation Force (IFOR) was deployed in December 1995 to implement the military aspects of the Dayton Peace Agreement and was replaced a year later by the NATO-led Stabilisation Force (SFOR). SFOR helped to maintain a secure environment and facilitate the country’s reconstruction in the wake of the 1992-1995 war.
Admiral Leighton W. Smith Jr., Commander in Chief Allied Forces Southern Europe (CINCSOUTH), served as the first Joint Force Commander for the operation, also known as Commander IFOR (COMIFOR).
Over the course of these missions, a total of 36 Allied and partner countries contributed troops. In addition, soldiers from five countries that were neither NATO members nor Partnership for Peace (PfP) countries participated at different times, namely Argentina, Australia, Chile, Malaysia and New Zealand.
We flew home on Air Force One. The President was in a good mood as we flew home. He came back to the second cabin to ask Clark, Kerrick and me how we thought implementation would proceed.
HOLBROOKE: ”We will have far fewer casualties than the public and the Congress expect.”
But none of us could have imagined just how low the casualty rate actually would be - zero American forces killed or wounded from hostile action in the first years after Dayton.
(Excerpts from Richard Holbrooke’s book “To End a War”)