With a peak deployment of some 60,000 troops, and some $15bn spent on foreign assistance, Bosnia was NATO’s largest venture until Afghanistan. It was the first post-cold war test of the transatlantic relationship and gave early impetus to the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy. But sadly, after a decade of moderate success, the last four years have seen a serious deterioration in Bosnia’s stability. Relations between ethnic groups are more polarised then at any time since the fighting ended, and Bosnia risks falling out of step with its neighbours and missing the train to Europe. A return to violence, while not likely, remains possible.
One of the main lessons of the last two decades in the Balkans is that both European and transatlantic consensus is crucial to successful policies. Without consensus, the various parties on the ground can play the U.S. off against Europe or Europeans off against one another, thus debilitating the international effort. Today, the U.S. and Europe need to regain their common approach to Bosnia or risk losing their investment.
For several years the stabilisation of Bosnia, along with that of the western Balkans as a whole was the centre of transatlantic security co-operation and NATO’s main focus. The last decade, however, has seen that focus shift dramatically eastwards. At first, this shift appeared unproblematic for Bosnia, even beneficial. After the Dayton Accords, Bosnia had been put in a “neo-trusteeship” with a High Representative designated by the international community to ensure that the parties on the ground stuck to their commitments. By the early 2000s, Bosnia’s political deadlock had begun to loosen under the joint effects of economic reconstruction and the role played by the High Representative Paddy Ashdown as he strove to move Bosnians away from the debilitating ethnic politics that have hampered steps toward peace. The economy began to recover and a unified military was created out of Bosnia’s former enemy factions. NATO was able to close down its stabilisation operation and hand over responsibility to a much smaller EU force. The prospects for Bosnian membership in the EU and NATO continued to improve with Bosnia no longer the main flashpoint of the Balkans.
Unfortunately, in 2006, a number of developments conspired to again heighten ethnic tensions and put an end to this progress. First, Paddy Ashdown’s tenure as High Representative came to an end. He was replaced by Christian Schwarz-Schilling, a less energetic figure with a much narrower view of what the international community’s role ought to be. Second, 2006 was an election year, which naturally encouraged opposition leaders to adopt maximalist positions that were inimical to compromise. Recognising that nationalism still played well in the polls, one-time Serb moderate Milorad Dodik and Bosniak wartime foreign minister Haris Silajdžić took advantage of the situation to get themselves elected. A well meaning yet ill-timed U.S.-led effort to reform the Bosnian constitution and impart the state with greater executive powers gave them a target on which to focus nationalist sentiment.
These two men so polarised Bosnia’s political discourse that in 2008 and 2009 the possibility of renewed war was openly discussed. In a country whose political system requires frequent compromise if it is to function, this meant that the reforms needed for Bosnia to achieve membership in the EU and NATO ground to a halt. The Bosnian state has continued to operate in spite of the more rancorous political climate, but the stagnation of these reform efforts there threatens to turn Bosnia back into a Balkan black hole.
The solution to Bosnia’s mounting political crisis will, at the very least, require a return to the closer transatlantic co-operation of the 1990s, albeit in a greatly changed context. In some ways the scene is already set for closer co-operation. By comparison with its predecessor, Obama Administration officials’ experience and interest in Balkans issues is considerable Vice-President Joe Biden has a long personal history with Bosnia, not only as chairman of the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee but also as a member of the first congressional delegation to enter besieged Sarajevo in 1993. Many top foreign policy officials, from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on down have extensive experience with the Balkans – Deputy Secretary of State, James Steinberg, served as Director of Policy Planning and Deputy National Security Advisor during the Balkan crises, and both Ivo Daalder, the U.S. ambassador to NATO and Philip Gordon, the Assistant Secretary of State for Europe, once directed Balkans policy from the National Security Council staff. Their combined Balkan backgrounds no doubt was partly behind Vice-President Biden’s visit to Sarajevo in May 2009 as well as his promise of renewed U.S. engagement.
In Europe, the passage of the Lisbon treaty offered the chance to re-focus attention on Bosnia’s mounting problems. But so far there has been little progress. Joe Biden’s Sarajevo speech was followed up in the autumn of last year with a new transatlantic effort headed by Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt, the first High Representative in Bosnia, who teamed up with Steinberg in an effort to quiet the rising nationalism and get Bosnia back on track before the 2010 elections. But nearly a year later there was little to show for this so-called “Butmir Process”.
Lack of progress was in part a result of the intractability of Bosnia’s problems, but it was also due to a lack of agreement between Washington and European capitals over the nature of Bosnia’s problems: Washington remained focused on the still-controversial issue of constitutional reform, while Europe’s focus was on accelerating the closure of the Office of the High Representative and handing over responsibility to the EU’s Special Representative.
Bosnia’s political leaders are for their part no longer as impressed as they once were by “parachute” visits from high-ranking officials. They opted to wait out the westerners. Little was accomplished, and it seems unlikely that much will be soon.
The U.S. and Europe should step up their efforts to hammer out the basic principles of a transatlantic strategy. This will not be easy given their divergent institutional and bureaucratic interests, and such competing issues as Afghanistan, the revision of NATO’s strategic concept and the ongoing global economic crisis. Indeed, one of the main arguments for appointing a U.S. special envoy for the Balkans is that he or she could focus on building transatlantic consensus on joint strategy towards the region as much as shuttle diplomacy between the Balkans parties themselves.
An effort to get the transatlantic approach back on track in Bosnia could start with the following three points. First, post-conflict stabilisation is a long-term process. No matter how much the United States may wish to move on to other areas, and no matter how much some European capitals may wish to see the U.S. out, the reality is that the situation on the ground doesn’t yet warrant a transition of that sort. Bosnia’s political leaders have so far only proven themselves capable of acting responsibly when faced with the threat of serious consequences.
Second, even though a sustained transatlantic commitment is essential, Europe should still be in the lead. Not only is this preferred politically by both Europe and the United States, it is also apt to be more effective. Brussels holds the key to the things Bosnians need and want: visa liberalisation, candidate country status, negotiations over each of the acquis chapters, pre-accession funds and the prospect of eventual EU membership. Each of these is a potential carrot to elicit reform-minded behaviour from the parties on the ground. When the EU does set up its Special Representative, moreover, it may be useful to consider closing some of the national missions on the ground and transferring the staff to the joint mission, not only to save funds, but to increase the stature of the EU’s effort.
The process of NATO accession matters too as it will be a test of Bosnia’s political maturity and stability and could also serve as a means of promoting significant reform. How useful the NATO accession process is in promoting reform will in part depend, however, on how willing the United States is to play the bad cop.
Third, while the Dayton Accords remain the consensual basis of Bosnia’s peace, the political structures they created are cumbersome and impede Bosnia’s ability to reform itself. Rather than stipulating specific technical reforms, however, the United States and Europe must develop a common, broad vision for a minimally functioning Bosnian state and articulate that vision in unison to Bosnian citizens themselves. Washington and Brussels must then be prepared to use incentives as well as sanctions to encourage the vision’s realization.
Europe and the U.S. want Bosnia to become a full member of the Euro-Atlantic political and security system. But Bosnia should not get a free ride, and the biggest favour the transatlantic community can do for Bosnia is to hold its leaders to the same standard as all other candidates for EU or NATO membership over the past 20 years. Bosnia needs help, advice and mediation, but the really hard decisions about the country’s future must be made by the Bosnians themselves.