The outgoing Biden administration has finally overcome its reluctance to allow Ukraine to use U.S.-provided weapons systems to conduct deep strikes into Russia in its defense, as well as providing almost $1 billion more in lethal equipment – all to provide Kyïv maximum assistance before the uncertainty of the Trump 2 era begins. Similar deterrence gaps — though currently less volatile, to be sure — create vulnerabilities elsewhere in the European Union’s and NATO’s perimeter, too. This risk is clearest in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the EU has consistently understaffed the primary deterrent role prescribed in the Dayton Peace Accords and annually renewed by the United Nations Security Council. There’s a relatively low-cost way the Biden administration can, in its waning days, carry its lessons to that region, too – that there is no substitute for on-the-ground power in reassuring populations – and deterring potential disruptors.
The EU military force for Bosnia, EUFOR, established its military operation Althea to take over the peace enforcement mandate from NATO’s Stabilization Force (SFOR) 20 years ago under a mutual conditional agreement: that it be backed by NATO under a formula known as “Berlin-plus”, which authorizes the EU to request support from the larger Alliance, including logistics, intelligence, and other assets. That allowed the United States and the U.K. to draw down and redirect their forces to Iraq and Afghanistan.
For EUFOR’s first few years, it maintained a credible deterrent of heavy brigade strength (approximately 6,500 troops) against any threats to Bosnia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty and – crucially – to a “safe and secure environment” for its citizens. The expectation was that violence at the command of former belligerents in the 1990s wars who were now political leaders would simply not be permitted. That assurance enabled the decade of postwar progress through 2005. That was a year of genuine optimism in Bosnia, when the country seemed to be moving toward EU and NATO membership with momentum, and new constitutional models for more accountable governance were widely discussed.
But as the EU’s self-confidence ballooned that it could transform the postwar Balkans solely by bringing them into the union, its will to maintain its military capacity in Bosnia deflated, most markedly in 2007. Assessments that I conducted in 2011 and 2015 with my colleagues at the Democratization Policy Council found the force a “Potemkin deterrent,” reduced by the end of that period to a mere 600 or so troops. They were only capable of serving as a placeholder force, with limited capacity to move troops by air or road-, perhaps able to defend Sarajevo Airport, next to EUFOR’s base on the outskirts of the city. Diplomatic missions were even informed that EUFOR would not be able to evacuate them in the event of a crisis. The force was finally reinforced – effectively doubled – following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. But it remains well below what I learned in interview research that three British deputy NATO commanders assessed as the proper strength – a brigade, approximately 5,000 troops — to provide credible deterrence throughout the country.
`Ownership’ of the Wrong Kind
While the EU possesses its own hard power tools in the Balkans (in addition to EUFOR, Kosovo has a specialized police unit under the EULEX rule of law mission), it prefers to approach the region solely through its enlargement framework – and within that, primarily by offering economic incentives as positive reinforcement. It also frowns on the civilian peace enforcement tool of the international community’s High Representative in Bosnia, a structure established in the Dayton Peace Agreement, believing the office is antithetical to “ownership” by Bosnia’s political leadership. The idea of a constructive approach would be laudable if recalcitrant political leaders in the Balkans weren’t so willing to repeatedly take full advantage of the leeway, essentially kneecapping the EU’s credibility and its declared desire to be a serious geopolitical power. The EU essentially is being humiliated repeatedly in a region where it should have the greatest sway.
What has become evident – and this is an American failure as well as that of the EU for having rolled with it – is that “ownership” has indeed been taken by the country’s structurally empowered political elites. But this granting of initiative has demonstrated that their priorities are not progress toward EU membership (through meeting standards and conditions), but rather securing their own existing advantages – and locking those in to the extent possible. Inevitably, their self-dealing approach to politics involves amplifying ethnonationalism, grievance, and fear, particularly by – but far from solely by – Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik and his long-time Bosnian Croat partner Dragan Čović. This behavior has made threats, blackmail, and extortion – from both citizens and the “international community” alike — once again the coin of the realm. The West has effectively allowed this modus operandi to determine its own policies, seeking to mollify rather than confront.
The result is reduced public confidence in security and markedly dissipated credibility for the Western guarantors of the Dayton Peace Agreement, now entering its 30th year. Bosnia’s political leaders have become acculturated to being appeased, either with reduced conditions for further formal progress toward EU membership, further funding, retreats from confrontation, or some cocktail of these.
Dodik’s methods have remained consistent for the more than 18 years he has been effectively in control of the majority-Serb entity of Bosnia, Republika Srpska – and effectively steering Western policies by default. A Russia humiliated by the loss of its client Assad in Syria and on the receiving end of deep strikes from Ukraine has an incentive to find other outlets. Generating humiliation for the West and the new, more hawkish EU foreign policy and defense team, as well as a more democratic values-centric enlargement commissioner would hold tremendous appeal in the Kremlin. But even absent Russian instigation or encouragement, this story will eventually end badly – both for all Bosnians and the EU – for the trajectory is ever-downward and there is now effectively no safety net. The capacity for political miscalculation is high among Bosnian and Western political actors alike. But interethnic violence is typically a top-down phenomenon in the Balkans. It can be deterred.
Shoring Up Deterrence
The EU and European members of NATO, as well as America’s other values-based security partners (Japan, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Taiwan) are understandably watching their calendars nervously as the U.S. proceeds in its post-election transition to the new administration, which takes office Jan. 20. These allies are doing deep dives on all of Trump’s statements and those of his desired cabinet officers. As my DPC colleagues have posited recently, the EU, should it summon the will, could easily secure its defense and security interests in the Balkans with steps including deploying some EUFOR troops in the strategic town of Brčko, in northeastern Bosnia.
The fate of Brčko, which is coveted by the country’s two sub-state “entities” (the Republika Srpska and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina), remained undecided at Dayton and later was made a separate district of its own via an arbitration. It is not coincidental that Dodik’s maps show Brčko as part of his domain. But his secessionist agenda and accompanying narrative would be immeasurably weakened by the presence of a preventive force of Western troops in an area that essentially serves as the circuit breaker of Bosnia. That would demonstrate to local, regional, and global actors (not least the United States) that the EU is willing to properly confront that responsibility.
However, old habits die hard. There is a leadership void among member States at present, as the new European Commission has just taken the helm. Given her disposition on security matters, Commission Vice President and High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas might well be amenable to shoring up the EU’s hard power in the Balkans, but it is unlikely that that idea has been presented to her as an option, let alone a priority. Furthermore, while she could advocate for a deployment of a credibly configured, brigade-strength force, it would require a decision by member States to contribute contingents. It is likely that absent some external prod (such as a call from a large member or group of member States) or a crisis — at which point it may be too late — the EU will remain stuck in neutral on reinforcing EUFOR.
And here is where the outgoing Biden administration can play catalyst to Europe’s long-needed evolution toward taking greater responsibility for its own security. The U.S. military’s deployment capability remains unrivalled; the rapid availability of these assets is what makes NATO’s Berlin-plus assurance a credible form of reinsurance for EUFOR. The U.S. military’s European Command (EUCOM) maintains its Contingency Response Force in the 173rd Airborne Brigade, based in Vicenza, Italy. The unit has exercised in Bosnia in recent years. A battalion from this unit, approximately 500-800 troops, could be temporarily deployed to Brčko for the interim, until EUFOR and other partners can move in. After all, it once was home to an American base in the years after the Dayton Accords.
The benefits would cross borders, too; such a move would draw a line for Serbia, which pursues an irredentist “Serbian World” agenda toward its neighbors, effectively without Western resistance. In this agenda, absorption of Bosnia’s Republika Srpska is the grand prize. Most importantly, with the reassurance of troops in a key corner, Bosnia’s citizens might finally get a chance to exhale and regain the confidence to begin forging a post-Dayton social contract to sideline their recalcitrant political leaders.
The deployment, however, would necessarily be time-limited: perhaps 90-120 days until EU members and other partners (such as the U.K.) could generate sufficient forces to relieve the U.S. battalion and demonstrate the will to bring EUFOR to brigade strength, seriously resourced, and deployed across the country. The interim U.S. deployment would be a kind of bridge loan from a departing Biden administration that has strongly supported EU enlargement but been frustrated that the EU has let the Bosnia force wither after wanting so badly to assume command 20 years ago.
An expanded EU operation that would then take a more serious role also would help jump-start the Union’s wider process of taking more responsibility for its own security, as the Trump administration tried to goad it into doing the first time – and which Trump continues to press. European defense against Russia, in the near term, will involve a great deal more investment in strategic nuclear deterrence, as well as conventional force generation and projection capability. The Balkans, as some have observed, is not the EU’s backyard but rather its courtyard – surrounded by existing EU members.
America’s last instinctive Atlanticist president can act in his final month to assist European allies in reinforcing their own security by closing a long-yawning deterrence gap in the EU’s courtyard. In so doing, the Biden administration can shore up the legacy of a U.S.-brokered peace – helping make genuine progress more likely in this corner of an unstable world.