Member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Milorad Dodik, during their meeting with the Deputy Assistant US Secretary of State Gabriel Escobar in Sarajevo. Photo: EPA-EFE/FEHIM DEMIR

Lacking resolute backers in the US and EU, Bosnia must make the most of Britain’s moves to pursue a post-Brexit international identity.

Bosnia and Herzegovina has never been a state with an abundance of allies. It would be hard to identify a single, resolute backer of Bosnia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity that has not, at one time or another, seriously compromised on these ends.

In the grand scheme of international politics, these are not such unique circumstances. Realpolitik teaches us that all states are, at base, self-serving. And in the anarchic world of international relations, even formal alliance structures are often zero-sum games.

In that sense, Bosnia’s sovereignty can only be truly championed by its own citizens. Still, it is striking that for a country which at one time was the poster child of the triumphs of international liberalism, the cause of liberal democracy in Bosnia effectively falls on deaf ears in most Western capitals.

The US was instrumental to securing the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords, for instance, but the same Clinton administration which secured the landmark deal also dragged its feet on intervention during the Bosnian War, and remained ambivalent about backing the interests of the then Sarajevo government.

Today, Joe Biden’s administration – whose executive was one of the celebrated “Bosnia Hawks” during the 1990s – appears primarily interested in appeasing Serbian secessionists and their Croatian collaborators.

Why the about-face? The reasons are myriad, but the simplest explanation appears to be that this White House, like its predecessors, does not consider fostering a liberal-democratic, rational regime in Bosnia a priority. Fair enough: Ukraine, Russia, China, Afghanistan – the Biden administration has not lacked foreign policy challenges in its first year.

But that is cold comfort for those confronting an alarming and accelerating political crisis in Bosnia.

The decision of the Biden administration to default to familiar patterns of leaning on European counterparts – although EU policy in Bosnia and the region is in even worse shape than that of the US – seeking merely to “stabilize” the country is incomprehensible. And at odds with Biden’s purported interest in revitalizing global democracy.

Both Washington and Brussels have spent the better part of two decades emphasizing stability over all else in Bosnia and the region. This has led Bosnia to the brink of its worst political crisis since the end of the war, while the Western Balkans have collectively witnessed dramatic democratic backsliding over the past decade, transforming into a theatre for geopolitical brinkmanship between Russia and the West. In the meantime, the once celebrated EU enlargement project has also suffered an ignominious implosion.

This “stabilocracy” approach, as it is known in academic literature, has ultimately produced only instability, for all involved.

So, here is the country at the end of 2021: the regime in the Bosnian Serb dominated entity, Republika Srpska, under the leadership of Milorad Dodik, is taking decisive steps towards secession. Dodik’s Croat nationalist associates are continuing their nearly four-year long blockade of the Federation entity, while the two sides jointly work to scuttle the recently established law outlawing genocide denial.

In the meantime, Dodik and the Croat nationalist chieftain, Dragan Covic, are explicitly threatening to prevent the 2022 Bosnian general elections from taking place, unless a suitably sectarian election “reform” law is enacted.

US and EU mediators have responded to this growing political brinkmanship and adventurism by publicly declaring their commitment to Bosnia’s security and stability, while working behind the scenes to accommodate Dodik and Covic to the greatest extent possible.

Said mediators have apparently been shocked to find that this approach has only further emboldened the two reactionaries, while also convincing actual pro-reform parties in BiH that it is all but pointless to expect principled leadership on the part of Brussels or Washington at this time. As a diplomatic approach, the outcome has been lose-lose.

It is for that reason that so many advocates of actual reform and progress have been so surprised and moved by recent events in the UK.

British parliamentarians have emerged as leading advocates for a comprehensive re-imagining of Western policy in Bosnia. UK-based charities like Remembering Srebrenica have steered tremendous public attention towards the unfolding crisis in the country. Boris Johnson’s government has also appointed its own special envoy to the region, one of the country’s most highly decorated military and intelligence figures, Sir Stuart Peach. And Foreign Secretary Liz Truss scarcely misses an opportunity to mention Dodik’s secessionist militancy.

Explaining the origins of this “pro-Bosnian” turn in British foreign policy would require an academic thesis. Suffice it to say that Whitehall’s pursuit of a post-Brexit international identity has lent itself favorably to interests of democrats in the otherwise deteriorating Western Balkans and Bosnia above all.

Moreover, the UK appears serious about actually confronting malign Russian efforts in Europe unlike their counterparts in the US or EU – and sees in Bosnia and the region a necessary theatre for engagement.

Most importantly, appeals to basic liberal-democratic norms and ideas, and why these offer the only sustainable path for Bosnia, appear to have a genuine audience in the UK. That is certainly gratifying. It also makes the absence of such interlocutors in other key Western capitals even more bizarre and distressing.

How much the broader pro-Bosnian camp can or should expect of the UK largely depends on how much they are, in turn, willing to do for themselves, and how much they are willing to invest in shoring up that British interest.

Realistically, the near total absence of meaningful pro-Bosnian influence networks in the US and EU has certainly played a role in the lukewarm positions of these governments to Bosnia’s actual long-term interests.

As such, pro-Bosnian forces cannot afford to squander the opportunities afforded by this opening in British foreign policy thinking. In fact, serious engagement with key decision-makers in the British government and parliament might even offer avenues to reboot the relationship with the US (and perhaps even the broader Atlantic community).

For Bosnia, the international scene is replete with predators and disinterested shepherds. But when someone like parliamentarian Alicia Kearns stands in the House of Commons and declares: “Dodik must learn that Bosnia also has friends, with none more committed to Bosnia’s stability than the United Kingdom,” that is a transformative statement.

To turn it into a transformative and lasting policy will require Bosnians and Herzegovinians, including those in the diaspora, giving people like Ms Kearns and her colleagues the political support and resources necessary to do so. This chance cannot be wasted.

(Jasmin Mujanovic Sarajevo BIRN – https://balkaninsight.com/)

Member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina Milorad Dodik, during their meeting with the Deputy Assistant US Secretary of State Gabriel Escobar in Sarajevo. Photo: EPA-EFE/FEHIM DEMIR

Lacking resolute backers in the US and EU, Bosnia must make the most of Britain’s moves to pursue a post-Brexit international identity.

Bosnia and Herzegovina has never been a state with an abundance of allies. It would be hard to identify a single, resolute backer of Bosnia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity that has not, at one time or another, seriously compromised on these ends.

In the grand scheme of international politics, these are not such unique circumstances. Realpolitik teaches us that all states are, at base, self-serving. And in the anarchic world of international relations, even formal alliance structures are often zero-sum games.

In that sense, Bosnia’s sovereignty can only be truly championed by its own citizens. Still, it is striking that for a country which at one time was the poster child of the triumphs of international liberalism, the cause of liberal democracy in Bosnia effectively falls on deaf ears in most Western capitals.

The US was instrumental to securing the 1995 Dayton Peace Accords, for instance, but the same Clinton administration which secured the landmark deal also dragged its feet on intervention during the Bosnian War, and remained ambivalent about backing the interests of the then Sarajevo government.

Today, Joe Biden’s administration – whose executive was one of the celebrated “Bosnia Hawks” during the 1990s – appears primarily interested in appeasing Serbian secessionists and their Croatian collaborators.

Why the about-face? The reasons are myriad, but the simplest explanation appears to be that this White House, like its predecessors, does not consider fostering a liberal-democratic, rational regime in Bosnia a priority. Fair enough: Ukraine, Russia, China, Afghanistan – the Biden administration has not lacked foreign policy challenges in its first year.

But that is cold comfort for those confronting an alarming and accelerating political crisis in Bosnia.

The decision of the Biden administration to default to familiar patterns of leaning on European counterparts – although EU policy in Bosnia and the region is in even worse shape than that of the US – seeking merely to “stabilize” the country is incomprehensible. And at odds with Biden’s purported interest in revitalizing global democracy.

Both Washington and Brussels have spent the better part of two decades emphasizing stability over all else in Bosnia and the region. This has led Bosnia to the brink of its worst political crisis since the end of the war, while the Western Balkans have collectively witnessed dramatic democratic backsliding over the past decade, transforming into a theatre for geopolitical brinkmanship between Russia and the West. In the meantime, the once celebrated EU enlargement project has also suffered an ignominious implosion.

This “stabilocracy” approach, as it is known in academic literature, has ultimately produced only instability, for all involved.

So, here is the country at the end of 2021: the regime in the Bosnian Serb dominated entity, Republika Srpska, under the leadership of Milorad Dodik, is taking decisive steps towards secession. Dodik’s Croat nationalist associates are continuing their nearly four-year long blockade of the Federation entity, while the two sides jointly work to scuttle the recently established law outlawing genocide denial.

In the meantime, Dodik and the Croat nationalist chieftain, Dragan Covic, are explicitly threatening to prevent the 2022 Bosnian general elections from taking place, unless a suitably sectarian election “reform” law is enacted.

US and EU mediators have responded to this growing political brinkmanship and adventurism by publicly declaring their commitment to Bosnia’s security and stability, while working behind the scenes to accommodate Dodik and Covic to the greatest extent possible.

Said mediators have apparently been shocked to find that this approach has only further emboldened the two reactionaries, while also convincing actual pro-reform parties in BiH that it is all but pointless to expect principled leadership on the part of Brussels or Washington at this time. As a diplomatic approach, the outcome has been lose-lose.

It is for that reason that so many advocates of actual reform and progress have been so surprised and moved by recent events in the UK.

British parliamentarians have emerged as leading advocates for a comprehensive re-imagining of Western policy in Bosnia. UK-based charities like Remembering Srebrenica have steered tremendous public attention towards the unfolding crisis in the country. Boris Johnson’s government has also appointed its own special envoy to the region, one of the country’s most highly decorated military and intelligence figures, Sir Stuart Peach. And Foreign Secretary Liz Truss scarcely misses an opportunity to mention Dodik’s secessionist militancy.

Explaining the origins of this “pro-Bosnian” turn in British foreign policy would require an academic thesis. Suffice it to say that Whitehall’s pursuit of a post-Brexit international identity has lent itself favorably to interests of democrats in the otherwise deteriorating Western Balkans and Bosnia above all.

Moreover, the UK appears serious about actually confronting malign Russian efforts in Europe unlike their counterparts in the US or EU – and sees in Bosnia and the region a necessary theatre for engagement.

Most importantly, appeals to basic liberal-democratic norms and ideas, and why these offer the only sustainable path for Bosnia, appear to have a genuine audience in the UK. That is certainly gratifying. It also makes the absence of such interlocutors in other key Western capitals even more bizarre and distressing.

How much the broader pro-Bosnian camp can or should expect of the UK largely depends on how much they are, in turn, willing to do for themselves, and how much they are willing to invest in shoring up that British interest.

Realistically, the near total absence of meaningful pro-Bosnian influence networks in the US and EU has certainly played a role in the lukewarm positions of these governments to Bosnia’s actual long-term interests.

As such, pro-Bosnian forces cannot afford to squander the opportunities afforded by this opening in British foreign policy thinking. In fact, serious engagement with key decision-makers in the British government and parliament might even offer avenues to reboot the relationship with the US (and perhaps even the broader Atlantic community).

For Bosnia, the international scene is replete with predators and disinterested shepherds. But when someone like parliamentarian Alicia Kearns stands in the House of Commons and declares: “Dodik must learn that Bosnia also has friends, with none more committed to Bosnia’s stability than the United Kingdom,” that is a transformative statement.

To turn it into a transformative and lasting policy will require Bosnians and Herzegovinians, including those in the diaspora, giving people like Ms Kearns and her colleagues the political support and resources necessary to do so. This chance cannot be wasted.

(Jasmin Mujanovic Sarajevo BIRN – https://balkaninsight.com/)