Bosnia-Hercegovina

For many years, Western players have been going all out to placate the populistic-nationalist players and their destructive ideologies: yet their questionable methods of appeasement and undemocratic interventions have ended up bolstering the very powers that have come to pose a threat to peace.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine will bring flashbacks to millions of people in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, and Kosovo, who have all suffered massively under the regime of Serbian dictator Slobodan Milošević. In April 1992, Serb nationalists waged a war on my home country under a similar pretext as Putin did with Ukraine, denying its statehood, history, and national identity. Today, Bosnia and Herzegovina is in the worst crisis since the end of the war.

Democratic values and principles have been under fire in Bosnia and Herzegovina for years, from within and without, a battle between ethnocracy and democracy is being waged in the country at the expense of its citizens.

Not a dormant ethno-national conflict is the main problem in Bosnia. Rather, the source of crises since 1995 lies in the state’s weakness as well as a political class prone to corruption, nepotism, and abuse of power in the name of ill-defined ethnic interests. Is the Russian aggression on Ukraine a wake-up call for US and EU’s engagement in Bosnia?

In the 1990s, excesses of ethnonationalism led to the devastating Balkan Wars. Today, left-wing liberal agents are trying to free themselves from these destructive forces.