The story of a war or some general conflict in the region is a topic that is timed every few years and occupies the attention of the public. It is most expressed, of course, in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), where there are the deepest wounds, but also fears.
Precisely in these fears, we should perhaps look for the point of political threats, spins, or vain announcements of some political dead characters. The topic of the secession of the Republika Srpska (RS) entity from BiH is as old as Milorad Dodik and his party SNSD have been in power, more precisely since 2006. Periodically, as in waves, this story was imposed and answers were sent about the illusory nature of such announcements and patriotic messages about the only possible option, and that is the survival of BiH.
The placement of an unofficial “non-paper” from Slovenia, which also mentions the option of the division of BiH, ie the secession of RS, reawakened the spirits advocating such ideas, and that story became a top topic in the region overnight. Even though he resolutely rejects the notion of any war and focuses exclusively on the topic of the so-called “peaceful separation”, in order to present himself as a peacemaker in search of solutions, Milorad Dodik managed to provoke the topic of war to fill the public space. It is mentioned by those who spontaneously invoke it, and by those who reject it through comments about the worst-case scenario.
In that context, we should also observe the persistent questioning of the host on Face television, who used a marathon interview with the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vucic, to ask several times whether there would be a war? With that, he wanted to allude to the fact that it is possible that Vucic has all the keys and that he will decide on everything, as a kind of guarantor of peace. And Serbia is very pleased with the story that it is the guarantor of both peace and Dayton, although it is not.
As the old saying goes: ”A burnt child dreads the fire.” Some tend to say that no announcements of war should be lightly dismissed, even though we hear them every two to three years. And maybe that’s the correct interpretation. However, in the context of real politics and power relations both in the Balkans and globally, it is necessary to set starting points.
What if?
If there were a conflict, it could not be exclusively a conflict within one state, but a regional, perhaps the third Balkan war. In that context, how would NATO act, whose members are also scattered in the Balkans? How would the pro-Bosnian bloc defend itself? What is his real military strength? How would the RS entity start any conflict? Would Albanians sit still? Wouldn’t that mean the collapse of NATO if both the United States (U.S.) and Russia stayed away?
The European Union (EU) may be in crisis and has probably never recovered since Brexit, while all the crises behind us, including the current pandemic, have been used maximally by the right-wing politics and all European proponents of autocratic rule. The authors of “non-paper” should probably be looked for in the nationalist dreams of right-wing politics, however, the ideas of some new borders have been rejected by everyone. The U.S., the EU, as well as Croatia, Serbia, and even Slovenia, from where the famous “non-paper” that treats this issue allegedly originated, have also spoken out against the change of borders in the Balkans, and thus in BiH. Everyone rejects war, and war is again somehow in the public discourse, already set deep on the waves of fear of all those who really felt it about 30 years ago.
Position of the U.S.
Therefore, if, hypothetically, any conflict arose or the conflict was given any chance, it would mean the defeat of the world’s most powerful power – the U.S. That would be a major foreign policy defeat for the U.S. that stopped the war in the 1990s. That would be considered as encouraging crime and ethnic cleansing, and ultimately would mean a reward for genocide. In such circumstances, everything would lead to a new order, for which it is difficult to say that the right time has come.
The solution and guide mark for everything should be sought in the rare direct but significant messages of the U.S. Such is the letter of Secretary of State, Antony Blinken, who at the end of the letter says that their country is the closest friend to this country. But it was also stated that the essence is to work on smaller but more significant reforms, such as a partial change to the Constitution, the Election Law, and economic reforms.
Certainly, all three Presidency members interpreted the letter in their own way and everyone is satisfied and everyone thinks that they are the ones working on the trace of Blinken’s views. And if we were to bet that the three members of the Presidency did not sit at all to interpret the messages from the letter, we would probably get a bet. And the letter said it all. There is no Dayton 2, there is no abolition of entities, there is no separation. Substantial reforms are needed, which are currently the backbone of the blockade. Everything else is platitudes on which we occasionally swim, and desperate political individuals catch the straws of salvation, Klix.ba writes.
E.Dz.
