Bosnia and Herzegovina's future looks more uncertain than it has at any time since the end of the war in 1995. The nation's three main groups -- the Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats -- are all competing to determine the future of the Bosnian state. The country will hold general elections in October, and if that were not destabilizing enough, its various constituencies are all running in opposite directions: Serbs are threatening to call a referendum on the Dayton Agreement that stopped the war; Croats are calling for the creation of an autonomous entity within the broader state; and Bosnian Muslims are demanding a new constitution giving them more powers, to replace the existing, highly decentralized document. Forming a coalition government after the October polls will be very difficult, no matter who wins. On top of the political crisis, the country is in the midst of an economic and social meltdown.
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Paradoxically, this is precisely the time for NATO to forge a closer alliance with Bosnia, a process that began last Thursday in Tallinn, Estonia. A meeting of the alliance's foreign ministers agreed to give Bosnia and Herzegovina a Membership Action Plan (MAP) -- a welcome step toward maintain the country's tenuous hold on peace and stability. A MAP is not a promise of NATO membership; it does not commit the alliance to defend Bosnia against a military threat or affect its decision-making mechanisms. It is an assistance program through which NATO and its members provide guidance and support on specific political, economic, security, and legal reforms. That is exactly what Bosnia needs at such a tense moment, in part to reassure its various political factions and in part to help push forward badly needed reform.
Until now, U.S. and EU attempts to help Bosnia and Herzegovina by pushing for constitutional changes to make the government more functional have come to naught; no one on the ground is ready to take difficult steps. What’s needed is a common agenda of projects that would benefit all Bosnians, without upsetting the country’s delicate balance of power and the three communities’ individual, vital interests. But Bosnian politicians today lack the common interests and shared values that would be necessary to improve upon what they agreed to in the Dayton Accords. Trying to change the current arrangement would be divisive and time-consuming.
A closer link to NATO can help build up this common sense of purpose and calm things at home. Much of the current tension in Bosnia exists because all parties feel insecure about the future structure of the Bosnian state and their status within it. Having a MAP with NATO can give all sides a sense of security, making them more confident about undertaking necessary institutional changes, even when politically difficult. With NATO's help, reform can also be gradual; Macedonia has been in the MAP program since 1999 and is now ready to start accession talks with the European Union.
Even amongst Bosnian Serbs, the group least in favor of moving closer to NATO, public support for membership hovers at 35 percent -- higher than it was in Montenegro when that country received a MAP in December 2009. Even Serb leader Milorad Dodik, who has proven a difficult partner with other parts of the international community, is in favor of NATO membership for Bosnia. To be sure, more nationalist Serb politicians may rally against it, given NATO's bombing of Serbia in 1999. But this is unlikely to have much effect, particularly since Serbia, to which the Bosnian Serbs are closely linked, is also moving closer to NATO.
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