Eyes on the prize
Republika Srpska (RS)–the Serb-controlled 49% of Bosnia and Herzegovina–is equipping its police with automatic rifles as well as reportedly initiating counter-terrorism training with Russia. Does this matter? Is it a threat to a cold Balkans peace that has lasted more than 22 years?
This news certainly illustrates the timidity of both the European Union and the United States. Brussels and Washington would not have allowed such things to happen for many of the years since the Dayton peace accords brought an end to the Bosnian war in 1995. Now they shrug it off, knowing that neither has the political will to confront RS President Dodik and hoping that it won’t really matter anyway. Some think the weapons more targeted against Dodik’s opposition in the RS, rather than posing a threat the Brcko District or the Bosnian Federation. The RS interior minister denies the Russians will provide training.
Were I a Bosniak or a Croat I would not be a happy camper. I might want to see the Federation police match the RS arms and up the ante a bit to ensure that nothing untoward occurs. In other words, what the RS has done could initiate an escalatory spiral, one that will certainly increase the likelihood of armed clashes sooner or later.
What should be done to stop this? The most important thing is to ensure that the Brcko District remains outside RS and Federation control. Without the Brcko District, the RS is split into two pieces. That’s why it was so ferociously fought over during the war and its disposition could not be decided at Dayton. Instead, an American arbitrator decided it belonged to both the RS and the Federation, which meant in essence it belonged to neither. Reintegration there has been more successful than in most of the rest of the country. That makes it the keystone that prevents Dayton Bosnia from collapsing.
The US no longer has deployed troops in Bosnia and it is doubtful Washington could be convinced to send them back. The EU does, but they are currently scattered around the country in militarily insignificant numbers, constituting a security presence (not a serious deterrent force). But if a war starts again in Bosnia, it won’t start all over the country, not least because of the ethnic separation the previous war caused. Brcko will be the center of gravity of the next war. The EU should move all of its six hundred or so troops there, making clear that neither the Federation nor RS will be permitted to take it and cause the Dayton edifice to collapse.
It’s not that I treasure that edifice. There are good arguments against the rigid ethnic power-sharing arrangements created at Dayton. But a violent collapse of Bosnia and Herzegovina would be catastrophic. What is needed is a peaceful renegotiation, one that enables the country to qualify as a candidate for EU membership.
As luck would have it, Sarajevo is planning to submit its replies to the initial Brussels questionnaire concerning Bosnia’s EU candidacy within the next few weeks. That is the right direction: the EU’s new Balkans strategy has opened the possibility of new accessions by 2025. Bosnia and Herzegovina is unlikely to qualify in time for that date, because it has been slow to adopt and implement the acquis communautaire (the EU’s accumulated legislation and regulations). But it should do everything it can to move as quickly as possible, before the window closes unpredictably.
Dodik’s automatic rifles are bad. But far worse would be failure of Bosnians to keep their eyes on the prize of EU membership.
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4 thoughts on “Eyes on the prize”
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Dan,
One way to monitor the arms situation in BiH would be to increase the presence of the US army’s Civil Affairs Battalion.
Bruce Hitchner
Mustafa Ceric, the Grand Mufti of Bosnia 1993-2012, writes:
Thank you for your insightful analysis both of the situation in Kosovo and in Bosnia…I am staunch optimist but recently I am becoming an pessimist as to the future peace and security in the Balkans…I think that Dodik has went too far in his disregard of international community, especially America – the Peace Broker in Bosnia…Čović is very confused and has lost the compass in Bosnia…It seems as if Tramp and his current administration doesn’t give a damn about the Balkans… about Bosnia…
I just wanted to share with you a feeling among my Bosniak people:
We are very much scared!
We feel that we are left alone!
Dodik is preparing a new Genocide… and No one will stop him… the Bosnian politics is in retreat an risk to lose all what it had gained morally over all these years…
I am grateful to you just to hear me saying this without expecting any response… this is just loud thinking … nothing else…
Ambassador Robert Beecroft, former head of the OSCE Mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina, writes:
Your Bosnia commentary is on the mark, on two points in particular: the paralyzing rigidity of Dayton’s “constituent peoples” non-solution; and the continuing strategic importance of Brcko. It would be helpful if we had a fully operational State Department, including a knowledgeable Bureau of European Affairs that paid appropriate attention to SEE. Sadly, that appears to be asking too much under current circumstances.
It is challenging to offer novel policy recommendations on Bosnia when there is little diplomatic and political space within which to work. In essence we understand the problems quite well, but there is little or no agreement on how best to tackle them. And most of the solutions that have been attempted or are still being pursued offer little prospect for the scope of reform required. There was a period (1995 – 2001) when real progress was being made. It arose from the rare opportunity often provided by dramatic events (i.e. the 1992-95 war, the weakness of the Russian Federation, the expansion of NATO and the EU). But 9/11 and subsequent events ended the robust Dayton mission phase which was replaced with a much weaker, process-over-results EU reform approach. The last initiative of the Dayton process was the 2006 April Package. The RS counterinsurgency seeded by EU opposition to the Dayton-OHR mission brought Bosnia, in my view, to a sub-Dayton stage which reflected its structurally weak pre-war state. We’re stuck now. Short of the compelling (and unwelcome) realities of revolution or renewed conflict, the EU and US are unwilling to re-launch a robust new reform initiative to fix Dayton BiH out of understandable fear that it could destabilize the country and the region. The “do no harm” factor is hard at work. We are in a long-term waiting game, hoping that with time and consistent low-level international pressure for reform, BiH will slowly evolve into a functional state within the Euro-Atlantic alliance. Russia, the febrile EU reform approach, and the poisonous domestic political environment of the last decade push hard against this outcome any time soon. Metaphorically, BiH is now like an electrical grid that’s been down for years. All the equipment is still in place but it can’t be restarted because it has gone without maintenance for too long.
Thus, we have arrived at a point where, I believe, the US should risk taking the lead on revitalizing the BiH reform process that began with Dayton. I doubt whether my advice will be seriously considered. But I believe that if the US determined that it wanted to re-engage on this robustly, the resistance from the EU, Russia, certain BiH politicians, and some of the country’s neighbhors would be loud at first, but not substantive or material, and ultimately give way to a sustained US re-engagement. There is little doubt in my mind that the majority–yes a majority–of the Bosnian population would welcome such an initiative. No, we are not back in 1995-2001, but it is fatuous to hold that only slow-moving, marginally effective process-driven reforms–EU policy–is the only stable-secure path forward for the country. It is time to rid ourselves of the pathology that BiH is a policy sideshow that can be dealt with as a sideshow.