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War and Peace by Shlomo Ben-Ami |
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Transatlantic Perspectives by Boskin, Sinn |
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Crossing Cultures by Ian Buruma |
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The Statesmen's Debate by Castaneda, Haass, Rocard |
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Finance in the 21st Century by Davies, Shiller |
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Anatomy of the Global Economy by J. Bradford DeLong |
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Net World by Esther Dyson |
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The Next Financial Order by Barry Eichengreen |
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The Magic of the Market by Martin Feldstein |
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The Rebel Realist by Joschka Fischer |
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Capitalism Then and Now by Harold James |
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Global Warning by Bjorn Lomborg |
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European Observer by Dominique Moisi |
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Of Might and Right by Joseph S. Nye |
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History in Motion by Chris Patten |
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Roads to Prosperity by Dani Rodrik |
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The Unbound Economy by Kenneth Rogoff |
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After the Storm by Nouriel Roubini |
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Economics and Justice by Jeffrey D. Sachs |
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The Ethics of Life by Peter Singer |
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Against the Current by Robert Skidelsky |
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I Dissent: Unconventional Economic Wisdom by Joseph E. Stiglitz |
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Awakening India by Shashi Tharoor |
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The Next Wave by Naomi Wolf |
SARAJEVO - Almost exactly 13 years ago, American leadership brought an end to Bosnia's three-and-a-half-year war through the Dayton peace agreement. Today that country is now in real danger of collapse. As in 1995, resolve and transatlantic unity are needed if we are not to sleepwalk into another crisis.
Bosnian Serb Prime Minister Milorad Dodik, once the darling of the international community (and especially the United States) for his opposition to the nationalist Serb Democratic party, has adopted that party's agenda without being tainted by their genocidal baggage. His long-term policy seems clear: to place his Serb entity, Republika Srpska, in a position to secede if the opportunity arises. Exploiting the weaknesses in Bosnia’s constitutional structure, the international community's weariness and EU inability to stick by its conditionality, he has, in two years, reversed much of the real progress in Bosnia over the past 13, crucially weakened the institutions of the Bosnian state, and all but stopped the country's evolution into a functioning (and EU-compatible) state.
Dodik's actions have been fuelled by Russian encouragement and petrodollars. In addition his rival, the senior president of all of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Haris Silajdzic, has stressed the need to abolish the two entities that make up Bosnia, to create one non-federal country. Dodik professes to respect Dayton and Silajdzic wishes to revise it, but both men are violating its basic principle: a federal system within a single state. This toxic interaction is at the heart of today's Bosnian crisis.
As a result, the suspicion and fear that began the war in 1992 has been reinvigorated. A destructive dynamic is accelerating, and Bosnian and Croat nationalism is on the rise. Recent local elections gave a fillip to nationalist parties.
This tipping point is the result of a distracted international community. While the Bush administration largely turned its back on Bosnia, the EU became deeply engaged; EU membership has been the critical lever for pressing reforms in Bosnia since it was made policy in 2003. But the EU did not develop a coherent strategy, and by proclaiming progress where it has not been achieved, the EU weakened not only its own influence in the country, but also the Office of the High Representative (OHR) and the international military presence (the European Union Force, Eufor, which succeeded NATO) the drivers of progress in Bosnia since Dayton.
The degeneration of the OHR's influence coincided with the withdrawal of the US military and the hollowing-out of Eufor, which now has little in the way of operational capacity. Despite the danger signals, France and Spain apparently want to pull the plug on Eufor altogether before the end of the year, seemingly to prove the purely technical point that EU missions can end.
The EU, fixated on a still undefined "transition" from OHR to an EU-centered mission, seems intent on emptying its toolbox before it knows what tools it will need to enable Bosnia's transition. It failed, for example, to back its man on the ground, the able Slovak diplomat Miroslav Lajcak, at a crucial moment, fatally undermining his authority.
Like Dodik, Russia is exploiting weak EU resolve, making trouble for the US and EU where possible. Yet the Kremlin’s stake in Bosnia pales in comparison to those of the EU or US. Russia’s attempts to close the high representative's office, regardless of whether the job is done, must be rebuffed. It has to remain open - or a similarly strong organization set up - until the conditions for the transition to a more normal EU presence are met. The US, lame duck president or not, must re-engage.
Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief, should initiate an independent study with the task of producing a new transatlantic policy, backed by America's full engagement and strong EU conditionality, which can lead to deeper and broader international involvement in Bosnia. A collapse of the Dayton peace agreement would be an unnecessary and unwanted additional problem for the next US president.
The EU’s foreign policy attention has recently focused on Kosovo, but it is Bosnia that has always been the bigger and more dangerous challenge. That country's decline can still be arrested, provided the EU wakes up, the new US administration gets engaged, and both renew their commitment to Bosnia's survival as a state, by maintaining an effective troop presence and beginning the process of strengthening the international community's approach long-term, including finding ways to untie Bosnia's constitutional knot.
It's time to pay attention to Bosnia again, if we don't want things to get nasty very quickly. By now, the entire world knows the price of that.
Paddy Ashdown was the international community's high representative and EU special representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina from 2002 to 2006. Richard Holbrooke was the chief architect of the 1995 Dayton peace agreement.
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2008.
www.project-syndicate.org
Dayton peace agreement that was put together at the end of war in Bosnia was merely a starting point in the dialog towards future of the country. Mr. Holbrook needs to admit to this fact. For Bosnia to move forward it needs a new constitution based on unified country of all its citizens, and not based on ethical lines that legitimize war time objectives. It also needs strong commitment of EU and US to transform Bosnia in democratic and viable country. If current status is not changes with Dayton Peace Accord in its core it will undoubtedly lead to another war. Current system of ethnical based governance is simply unsustainable.
Both of them (Holbrooke and Ashdown) are trying to launder their biographies. They insist on unified Bosnia and want to prevent very imminent secession of Serbian entity. However, they supported Kosovo's secession from Serbia. How come that Bosnia's territorial integrity is sacred, and Serbia's isn't? You can't have it both ways... Someone should finally recognize that Bosnia is not a viable state. There won't be lasting peace in Balkans, unless Republic of Srpska joins Serbia! Sooner or later, even Americans will have to accept the reality...