Ahatović: What Will BH Politicians Do If Russian Tanks Appear in Mahovljani?

Nedžad Ahatović, professor of defense and security, analyzed the significance of the military exercise that began yesterday in Serbia with joint forces of Serbia and Russia. His analysis is published in full by the BH news agency Patria.

At the training ground in Nikinci, in northwestern Serbia, more than 400 members of the armed forces of Serbia and Russia began a "joint counter-terrorism exercise Srijem 2014." The Russian-Serbian joint tactical military exercise of special (parachute) forces "SRIJEM-2014" will last a total of two weeks, and it is the largest deployment of equipment and personnel of the Russian army in the Balkans since the initiative for the ground seizure of the Pristina airport Slatina in 1999.

Namely, on June 11, 1999, just one day after the adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 1244 and the conclusion of the military-technical agreement in Kumanovo, a battalion of Russian paratroopers from the IFOR mission in Bosnia and Herzegovina entered the territory of the FRY. Crossing the Pavlovića Bridge on the Drina, 200 Russian paratroopers with their armored personnel carriers traveled via Šabac and Belgrade towards Niš and arrived in Kosovo before the NATO forces that were planned for deployment within the KFOR mission in Kosovo.

After arriving in Kosovo, the Russians swiftly seized the strategically very important military airport Slatina near Pristina, which by its configuration was built like the underground airport Željava near Bihać. On the other side, parts of British elite troops from the Royal Brigade of Gurkhas were moving towards the Russian paratroopers, tasked with seizing all communication hubs in Kosovo. After reaching the Slatina airport, the Russian paratroopers stopped them with a threat of weapons. For three days, NATO military forces and Russian paratroopers faced each other across the gun sights at the Slatina airport. At the same time, the Supreme Allied Commander of NATO forces in Europe, American General Wesley Clark, issued an order authorizing commanders on the ground to respond with fire to any fire coming from the Russian paratroopers. The situation, after minor tensions, was resolved peacefully through a telephone conversation between Russian President Boris Yeltsin and US President Bill Clinton. Given the global geopolitical situation, the question arises whether, with the further development of geopolitical instability in the world, the "Slatina" case could happen in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The following should also be considered. On the night of August 20-21, 1968, the armies of the Eastern Bloc from five Warsaw Pact countries attacked Czechoslovakia. During the invasion, between 5,000 and 7,000 Soviet tanks occupied Czechoslovakia. They were followed by 200,000 to 600,000 soldiers and additional Warsaw Pact troops. The Soviets constantly repeated that they were invited to occupy the country, claiming that loyal Czechoslovak communists had requested "fraternal help against counter-revolution."

Forty years later, the armed conflict in Georgia, which broke out on August 7, 2008 after an attack on Georgian security forces, escalated into a general military attack by Georgia on South Ossetia, one of two provinces that had unilaterally declared independence 16 years earlier. This set of circumstances led to the intervention of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, which carried out a counterattack operation against Georgian armed forces, with the explanation that they had received a call from the Russian minority in South Ossetia and had an obligation to protect them. After fierce fighting, the Georgian army was almost destroyed and militarily defeated, and salvation from total defeat and the fall of the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, came through an initiative for a ceasefire by Western countries, which was agreed upon through the mediation of the EU. The agreement was signed on August 15 of the same year.

At the proposal of both houses of the Russian parliament, on August 26, 2008, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev recognized the independence of South Ossetia and called on representatives of other states to follow his example.

Having all these facts in mind, the question rightly arises whether the political leadership of the smaller BH entity is ready to request similar help?

Military interventions by the Russian armed forces in both Czechoslovakia and Georgia occurred immediately after large military maneuvers, which were essentially just a cover for the strategic deployment of troops. Although in a different political, ideological, and international political context, the interventions in Czechoslovakia and Georgia had the same military methodology. So what is Serbia, with its parades and demonstrations of military force and joint military exercises with Russia, telling its neighbors with whom it is building a policy of "peaceful coexistence" on its European path? Is it perhaps a symbolic message to all Serbs in the region provoked by the Albanian drone, as well as the famous Milošević's ascending-political sentence: NO ONE DARE TO BEAT YOU!

The pathetic reawakening of Serbian dignity and national fervor has always cost the Balkan region dearly. For the interests of one great power or another, the Balkans has always been a victim, primarily of hegemonic Greater Serbian policy, which awakened other peoples in these areas to nationalism, chauvinism, and war. However, as if that were not enough, the overall development of friendship between Serbia and Russia is also accompanied by the return from The Hague of the last official Chetnik duke, Vojislav Šešelj, whose release on temporary freedom stirred up spirits. Šešelj's political ideological indoctrination gave rise to today's modern leaders of Serbia, Tomislav Nikolić and Aleksandar Vučić, and it remains to be seen what their reaction to Šešelj's media and other appearances will be – for now they ignore him, and it is to be hoped that it will remain so.

On what does this kind of political thinking and total indoctrination of the Ser(b)ian Rad(b)icals, the former party of Nikolić and Vučić, rest, we in Bosnia and Herzegovina know best. It can best be explained by the following illustration from the excellently documented book by Miodrag Zečević, "Documents from the Trial of Draža Mihailović" from 2001. Major Petar Baćović reports on August 18, 1942, to his commander General Draža Mihailović that his emissaries succeeded in bribing an Italian colonel for an attack on Foča. With the permission of the Italians, Mihailović's Chetniks took Foča from the Ustasha in mid-August, committing terrible crimes in the city and its surroundings. These crimes are described in a dispatch from their direct perpetrator, Major Zaharije Ostojić (chief of the Chetnik staff for Eastern Bosnia, editor's note).

- Yesterday finished the action up to Ustikolina and the ridge of Jahorina. According to data so far, 1,000 – 3,000 Muslims slaughtered. All troops are good fighters, but even better looters, except for Pavle. The fall of Foča has a good echo. Muslims are fleeing en masse to Sarajevo... Now they are satisfied.

If, by any chance, in the coming period, political instability in Bosnia and Herzegovina occurs due to the crisis over the formation of government and the functioning of state institutions, its escalation could in perspective lead to a scenario of "Slatina" or "South Ossetia." If we only for a moment look from our local geopolitical aspect at the global situation, we will see how possible such a development of the situation is.

In financial terms, Russia has only slightly increased its spending on armed forces from 4.4% in 2012 to 4.8% of GDP, which it will reach in 2015. However, Putin's plan for rearming the Russian military force from 2011-2020 involves spending 705 billion US dollars for the procurement of the latest types of weapons and military equipment. Within this program, 70% of Russian military potential will be replaced by new, technologically more advanced weapons systems in the next five years. This means that if you are economically and technologically capable of reforming your armed forces into a global power, then you are capable of basing and continuously supplying several of your divisions (setting foot) anywhere in the world. This again means that you are capable of conducting a series of very complex offensive military operations of all branches and services, of varying intensity. If you are ready to engage your total military capacities in this way, then you are also politically ready to defend your vital national interests anywhere in the world. In other words, if Putin is ready to invest hundreds of billions of dollars in improving his military capacities, then he is also ready for radical solutions to escalate potential problems at neuralgic points in the world according to the principle of CARPE DIEM. This is precisely the main message of the military exercise "Srijem 2014."

Therefore, the essential question arises - What will politicians in Bosnia and Herzegovina do if one morning at the airport in Mahovljani near Banja Luka, Russian transport planes appear and from them, with unbearable noise, Russian tanks begin to roar?