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THE BALKAN POWDER-KEG: Why the World Should Care about Bosnia’s Newest Separatist Crisis

2 021 has been marked by several major international developments, from the fall of Afghanistan to the Taliban, to escalating tensions in the Persian Gulf, and Russia’s major buildup of military forces along the Ukrainian border. Since the fall of Kabul in August, the international news cycle has been dominated by updates on the human rights situation in Afghanistan, the international community’s responses to COVID-19, and fears about Russia’s potential invasion of Ukraine in the coming months. While the Western world seems to be preoccupied with worrying reports of increasingly aggressive Russian and Chinese foreign policies in Ukraine and Taiwan, respectively, a noticeable omission from this zone of concern is the deteriorating situation in one of

Europe’s youngest and most politically divided countries, Bosnia and Herzegovina.

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Since October 2021, Bosnia has been undergoing its “greatest existential threat of the postwar [since 1995] period”, in the words of United Nations envoy Christian Schmidt; this existential threat comes in the form of a renewed wave of aggressive nationalism from Republika Srpska and its demagogic leader Milorad Dodik, who has essentially threatened his autonomous region’s secession from the rest of Bosnia, which had previously, in 1992, led to the infamous Bosnian War and the associated ethnic violence in the country. It is surprising that, regarding a situation in which a pro-Russian and ultranationalist political leader is initiating the secession of a former breakaway state historically involved in some of Europe’s worst genocidal acts, there has not been as much international (and especially NATO) interest as might be expected. However, it would be a great mistake for the West to underestimate the importance of peace in Bosnia during a time when Russia is back at work in destabilizing the European Union through engineering a migrant crisis in Poland, threatening an invasion of Ukraine, and, now, censoring a UN report on the deteriorating situation in Bosnia, most likely to forestall any international action to keep the peace. Bosnia was once called the “Balkan Powder-Keg” due to the small country’s volatile political situation during the 20th century, which played a central role in the ignition of World War I in 1914. If Russian-backed Serb nationalist aspirations in Bosnia remain unchecked, and Bosnia faces disintegration, civil war, and international military intervention for a second time in recent history, Bosnia may, well, be another powder-keg in which simmering tensions between the West and East may, however improbable, someday explode.

The Impact of War

The Dayton Agreement which ended the Bosnian War in 1995 promised a future of peaceful co-existence and political representation for the various historic national groups within Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Muslim Bosnians and Catholic Bosnian- Croats were to be represented by the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, while the Orthodox Bosnian-Serbs were to retain their autonomy as part of a re-imagined Republika Srpska, which, after three years of war, was to continue its existence as part

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Since October 2021, Bosnia has been undergoing its “greatest existential threat of the postwar [since 1995] period”, in the words of United Nations envoy Christian Schmidt; this existential threat comes in the form of a renewed wave of aggressive nationalism from Republika Srpska and its demagogic leader Milorad Dodik, who has essentially threatened his autonomous region’s secession from the rest of Bosnia, which had previously, in 1992, led to the infamous Bosnian War and the associated ethnic violence in the country. It is surprising that, regarding a situation in which a pro-Russian and ultranationalist political leader is initiating the secession of a former breakaway state historically involved in some of Europe’s worst genocidal acts, there has not been as much international (and especially NATO) interest as might be expected. However, it would be a great mistake for the West to underestimate the importance of peace in Bosnia during a time when Russia is back at work in destabilizing the European Union through engineering a migrant crisis in Poland, threatening an invasion of Ukraine, and, now, censoring a UN report on the deteriorating situation in Bosnia, most likely to forestall any international action to keep the peace. Bosnia was once called the “Balkan Powder-Keg” due to the small country’s volatile political situation during the 20th century, which played a central role in the ignition of World War I in 1914. If Russian-backed Serb nationalist aspirations in Bosnia remain unchecked, and Bosnia faces disintegration, civil war, and international military intervention for a second time in recent history, Bosnia may, well, be another powder-keg in which simmering tensions between the West and East may, however improbable, someday explode.

The Impact of War

The Dayton Agreement which ended the Bosnian War in 1995 promised a future of peaceful co-existence and political representation for the various historic national groups within Bosnia and Herzegovina. The Muslim Bosnians and Catholic Bosnian- Croats were to be represented by the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, while the Orthodox Bosnian-Serbs were to retain their autonomy as part of a re-imagined Republika Srpska, which, after three years of war, was to continue its existence as part

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of the larger, federal republic. For decades, Bosnia’s economy slowly grew as the country’s infrastructure gradually recovered from the devastation of war. However, Bosnia remains the sixth-poorest country in Europe and, according to data from the World Bank, youth unemployment reached a troubling 63% in 2006, 2012, and 2014-2015, while, according to a November 2021 UN survey, 47% of Bosnian youths considered emigrating. (Sandford 2021) According to a GlobalPost article, the poor economic prospects for young people in Bosnia have been “driven by widespread corruption, nepotism and economic stagnation.” (“Why Bosnia Has the World’s Highest Youth Unemployment Rate | Youth Economic Opportunities,” n.d.)

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The Rising Tide of Serb Nationalism

A common theme in recent European politics is the emergence of intense nationalism in deprived and struggling regions, and the rise of charismatic leaders in the vacuum caused by years of political corruption and disunity. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, a uniquely ethno-federalized country in Europe, the Bosnians’’ Party of Democratic Action (PDA), the Croatian Democratic Union (HDZ), and the Serb Democratic Party (SDS) have each historically dominated the politics of their respective communities, their political power having been entrenched as a result of their leadership of the warring factions during the Bosnian War in the 1990s. Recently, however, Bosnia and Herzegovina followed the rest of Europe’s democracies in facing a dangerous new threat to democracy: the rise of ultranationalism and militant populism. In 2018, Milorad Dodik, founder of the Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), was elected to serve as the Serb member of the three-person and tri-national Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Dodik entered politics in the 1990s as a social democrat with moderate views towards Serb nationalism, but, during the 2000s, his views veered sharply to the right as he became an open denier of the Srebrenica massacre (the infamous genocidal killings of 8,000 Bosnian men and boys in a United Nations “safe zone’) and supporter of Republika Srpska’s renewed independence. During his presidency, his threats to seek the restoration of Bosnian Serb independence were frequent and were cause for political outrage in the Bosniak and Croat communities of Bosnia and Herzegovina, but it was not until 2021 that dangerous words became dangerous actions.

On 2 November 2021, the United Nations High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, Christian Schmidt, released a report warning that Bosnia and Herzegovina were in imminent danger of breaking apart, and that the country was possibly on the brink of renewed civil war (“Bosnia and Surrounding Region Still Heading for Crisis, Says Top Official” 2021). This report followed President Dodik’s 28 September 2021 announcement that the Republika Srpska was planning to withdraw

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Bosnian Serb troops from Bosnia and Herzegovina’s national army (ARBiH) and resurrect the independent Bosnian Serb army of the 1990s, his 13 October speech that 130 Bosnian laws imposed by UN peace envoys would be annulled and authorities given back to the regional parliament of Republika Srpska, and his 14 October speech threatening to besiege ARBiH barracks on Bosnian Serb territory if ARBiH troops refused to evacuate Bosnian Serb territory. On 16 November, the ARBiH responded to these threats by carrying out military exercises to mark the donation of military equipment to Bosnia by the British government.

Excessive Optimism

The gradual escalation of tensions within Bosnia has failed to make a global media presence, however, as political developments in Bosnia have been overshadowed by concurrent crises such as China’s increasing sorties into Taiwanese airspace and Russia’s massive military buildup on the Ukrainian border. In fact, the US Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Western Balkans, Gabriel Escobar, expressed his belief that there would be no war in Bosnia due to the supposed commitments of Bosnia’s political leaders to peace (“US Envoy Rules out New Bosnia War” 2021). High Representative Schmidt also expressed his belief that, since Bosnia did not have the same supply of heavy weapons it did on the eve of the first war in 1992, and because Dodik had supposedly reversed course on his threat to re-establish an independent Bosnian Serb army, renewed conflict would be unlikely (“Bosnia and Surrounding Region Still Heading for Crisis, Says Top Official” 2021). However, Dodik has vowed to “go to the end” with his announced activities, leaving little room for optimism. Kurt Bassuener of the Berlin-based Democratization Policy Council think tank argued that there was more than enough equipment for violence to break out again, and, in the absence of international interest, it seems that this crisis – which began in October – may survive well into the winter.

The Bosnian separatist crisis has objectively received less public attention than it

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merits. This not only applies to media coverage, but also to the international response to the crisis. Dodic bragged that he had “friends” who would support the Bosnian Serb cause should the West intervene in the case of renewed conflict; this was commonly understood to refer to Serbia and Russia (“Bosnia Is in Danger of Breaking Up, Warns Top International Official” 2021). Russia also threatened to block a United Nations vote on extending the mandate for the UN peacekeeping forces in Bosnia and Herzegovina unless Schmidt’s name was excluded from the report, as Russia sought to prevent Schmidt from speaking at the council, according to an anonymous diplomat who spoke with The Guardian in the aforementioned article. The situation in Bosnia should deserve international concern and action regardless of the broader political context, but the correlation of the Bosnian crisis with Russia and China’s recent, bellicose postures in Ukraine and Taiwan, respectively, should especially interest the rest of the world, and certainly the NATO powers.

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From the few major news outlets that have taken an interest in the crisis, it seems that the prevailing narrative is that Bosnia and Herzegovina face an uncertain future. Different political figures both within the country and from the international community provide different opinions on how they see the situation being resolved: Dodik believes his drive for Bosnian Serb independence will “go to the end”; Putin may see the Bosnian crisis as another opportunity to distract the West from his designs on Ukraine (hence Russia’s attempts to censor High Representative Schmidt and his revelatory report on the deteriorating political situation); international diplomats such as Schmidt and Escobar believe that war in Bosnia can be averted due to somewhat shaky criteria such as trusting Dodik’s word on his goal of avoiding armed conflict and

Fifteen Weeks of Fame? Or a Major Crisis?

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bringing up the fact that Bosnia is not nearly as awash with weapons as it was in 1992;

and think-tanks interested in the Bosnian crisis have cautioned against such premature

optimism. The Bosnian crisis could not occur at a worse time for the Bosnian people, as

COVID has killed more people in Sarajevo than the infamous siege during the Bosnian

War, unemployment remains dangerously high, and the Western countries are in

retreat from international commitments and military interventions in the Middle East

and West Africa. While the ongoing crises in Taiwan and Ukraine are certainly

deserving of international attention, Bosnia – a country only recently out of a

devastating civil war which has still left its mark on the country’s stagnating economy

and dire political situation – deserves the same amount of concern, given its past

history of violent conflict, and given the present threat of a return to the same situation

within the context of the “Cold War”-esque situation between the West and Russia.

While it is not certain or might not even be likely that Bosnia will once again

experience the horrors of violent conflict, Dodik’s initiation of the gradual process of

Bosnian Serb secession, Russia’s keen interest in the Bosnian crisis (in which Dodik is a

key player and powerful asset), and America and Europe’s policy of inaction towards

Bosnia can only allow for the situation to become much worse. Hope is not a strategy,

and inaction is a form of action; until the United States and Europe take an active

interest in Bosnia and maintaining the decades-long peace which is now at stake,

Bosnia – where a pro-Russian, Serb nationalist movement and a Western-backed

federal government are entering into an incredibly perilous standoff – will continue to

be a potential “Powder-keg of Europe.”

FIN.

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