Anatomy of Dodik's Hybrid Secessionism

By Sead Turčalo, Dean of the Faculty of Political Science in Sarajevo

"The destruction of a state is not always measured by the number of tanks you can mobilize, but by the number of court rulings and arrest warrants you refuse to execute" – historians will likely say about Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2025. Milorad Dodik may not go down in history with the same brutal consequences left behind by convicted war criminals Ratko Mladić and Radovan Karadžić, but his strategy of hybrid secessionism can be equally devastating. Instead of bloody sieges, Dodik is orchestrating bureaucratic sieges of Bosnia and Herzegovina's state institutions. Instead of trenches, Dodik is building anti-constitutional trenches in the entity parliament of Republika Srpska.

His institutional manipulations are reminiscent of the early nineties when the leadership of the Serb Democratic Party (SDS), with the support of Slobodan Milošević's regime, declared their "state within a state." The consequences then were genocide against Bosniaks, ethnic cleansing of non-Serb populations, and ruins. Let's also consider the case of the Serb Krajina Republic, a self-proclaimed mini-state on occupied Croatian territory between 1991 and 1995. Just like the Republika Srpska that Milorad Dodik desires, the Serb Krajina Republic lived for years on Belgrade's support, international indecisiveness, and the illusion of its own sustainability. Dodik knows this lesson well and counts on Europe lacking the strength and desire for intervention, believing he can do as he pleases as long as he avoids tanks and planes. We should not take this historical fact merely as a reminder; it is a warning.

Dodik's methods are more cunning than those of Karadžić or Martić. For now, he is not firing bullets, but anti-constitutional laws. Instead of barricades on the streets, he uses institutional blockades. Instead of mortars, he uses the media. The institutional blockade of Bosnia and Herzegovina, orchestrated by him, fits perfectly into what we could call a "hybrid secessionist strategy." He successively paralyzes Bosnia and Herzegovina – institution by institution, agency by agency, jurisdiction by jurisdiction. This is a state between peace and war, in which the country gradually, almost imperceptibly, loses control over parts of its territory.

However, the true strength of Dodik's strategy lies not only in (anti)legal games and political "barricades" but in propaganda. Every move by state institutions or statement by other political actors against secessionism is immediately portrayed as an attack on Serbs. Every court order is declared state repression against Serbs. The narrative of Serbian endangerment is a more powerful weapon today than artillery. All of this is further amplified by media outlets from Serbia controlled by Aleksandar Vučić. The recipe is simple: a people fed with fear exchange reason for obedience.

There is another important factor that makes this situation potentially more dangerous and different from previous escalations in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This is the growing geopolitical chaos within the West itself. Although, with the exception of Hungary, the West has practically unanimously condemned the attack by the leadership of Republika Srpska on the constitutional order of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Dodik counts on the transatlantic partnership, already seriously damaged, becoming completely paralyzed over time. He hopes that the West, too preoccupied with internal conflicts and dilemmas, will decide to back down from his threat to the state. For him, this is an opportunity to create a permanent de facto state within a state – Republika Srpska, which will not formally declare secession but will effectively operate completely independently of the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina, while being financed by that same state.

Russia and Orbán's Hungary are wholeheartedly fueling this fire that Dodik is igniting. They count on the weakening of Bosnia and Herzegovina paralyzing the EU and NATO in the Balkans. Moscow, moreover, is using Dodik to create a new "frozen conflict" in the heart of Europe, similar to Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia. This would further tie the West's hands, and Russia would secure a long-term lever of influence on the European periphery. Aleksandar Vučić's Serbia is playing a double game. It officially supports BiH's integrity, while Vučić's media fan nationalism, maintaining an atmosphere of crisis and paranoia, and officials, including the Serbian president, attack Bosnia and Herzegovina's judiciary.

Paradoxically, Dodik and his allies like to invoke Kosovo, arguing that "if Albanians have the right to secession, then Serbs must have it too." However, Kosovo is not an example that benefits Dodik, but an argument against him. Kosovo is not the result of institutional subversion, but of the Milošević regime's terrible war crimes against Albanians and the humanitarian intervention of the international community. It is a sui generis precedent – unique and non-transferable. Dodik has neither the moral right nor the historical legitimacy to invoke Kosovo. But history is not of interest to Dodik's politics anyway; it is merely a weapon in the service of his current ambitions.

The key danger of this new type of hybrid secessionism is that it unfolds slowly, in episodes of escalation and de-escalation, with the quiet consent of the international community, which repeatedly underestimates the danger of "silent secession." While the West awaits dramatic scenes like shelling or trenches, Dodik balances, always just below the intervention threshold. Thus, he has created a state of permanent instability – bad enough to weaken the state, but not catastrophic enough to warrant intervention.

And what are the domestic actors who oppose the secessionist agenda doing? Unfortunately, still too little and too slowly. Pro-Bosnian political forces remain deeply fragmented, entangled in mutual disputes, unwilling to grasp the full breadth and depth of the threat looming over the state order. Instead of a consensual approach and strategic clarity, reactions are often on the verge of improvisation, responses are partial, and signals of powerlessness are often carelessly sent, failing to inspire confidence in the state's institutional resilience. Leadership is lacking to articulate a clear narrative of resistance to destabilization and to rally pluralistic political actors around a common goal.

Furthermore, domestic actors opposing the secessionist agenda of the Republika Srpska entity leadership no longer have the luxury of ideological exclusivity or party pettiness. This struggle is not a fight for election percentages but for the preservation of the constitutional order and the state itself.

In this fluid and potentially explosive context, the change in the political orientation of the HDZ BiH also deserves attention. The party's leader, Dragan Čović, is increasingly distancing himself from Milorad Dodik, assessing that he can politically capitalize on a new configuration of power through an alternative coalition from which SNSD would be excluded. Čović's maneuver, driven by a cold calculation of his own interests and a realistic assessment of the international climate, could be a key factor in reshaping the political arena at the state level. However, the move that would give this process institutional weight and real momentum – the resignation of the Chairwoman of the Council of Ministers, Borjana Krišto, which would automatically lead to the fall of the entire Council – is still missing.

What is the international community doing? Despite increasingly frequent warnings, it still acts as if it has the luxury of time. As expected, for more than two decades, the international community, and above all the European Union, has nurtured the illusion that norms, institutions, and conditional integration can compensate for the lack of real political power. The EU operates with the conviction that moral norms can replace force. It believes that merely promoting values such as the rule of law, multilateralism, and human rights can change and shape the behavior of actors like Dodik. This is a serious misinterpretation of how power works. Institutions, rules, and norms are only valid if someone has the will and capacity to enforce them. The EU, the rest of the international community, and domestic political actors must demonstrate that they have this will and capacity. Actors like Dodik change their behavior only when faced with tangible, active power. If the international community wants to avoid a repeat of the nineties, it is time to show more determination. EUFOR troops must be more robust, visible, and strategically better deployed. They must communicate and cooperate much more intensively with state institutions. Bilateral sanctions by key EU countries against Dodik and his accomplices must be adopted more quickly, precisely, and painfully.

Dodik is counting precisely on the lack of will and capacity of international actors. He is counting on the disunity of what he pejoratively calls "political Sarajevo." He is aware that Bosnia and Herzegovina cannot be defended if its sovereign forces do not first agree among themselves. Any internal dispute among these forces is a gift to his secessionist ambitions. It is time to show the responsibility that this situation demands. State institutions must continue to act consistently, the judiciary must uphold the rule of law, and the media and civil society must actively expose the lies spread by the political leaderships of the Republika Srpska entity and Serbia.

Bosnia and Herzegovina is facing a decision: to clearly show that its statehood is not in question, or to silently watch as Dodik completes what Milošević and Karadžić failed to do 30 years ago. Europe, on the other hand, must ask itself whether it wants a new frozen conflict on its periphery, a new Abkhazia, a new Georgia, or even a new Ukraine of regional dimensions?

What is an unavoidable fact is that the fate of Bosnia and Herzegovina will not be determined by declarations, statements, and "processes." It will be determined by the distribution of power within and around the country. The current status quo benefits those who desire destruction. Dodik has institutional control over RS, support from Belgrade and Moscow, political cover from Budapest, and passivity from Brussels. His strategy does not require open secession. It is enough for the state to collapse from within, slowly, gradually, day by day.

Everyone must be aware that Milorad Dodik is not just some local, Bosnian-Herzegovinian problem. He is the personification of that old evil from the early 90s that is raising its head again. Therefore, this crisis has only two possible endings. Either Dodik's secessionist adventure will end with what the law prescribes for an attack on the constitutional order, or his success will become a model for others, the beginning of a domino effect whose consequences no one can even imagine today. Montenegro, North Macedonia, Kosovo – they all have internal crises, frozen conflicts, and a volatile combination of polarized societies and ambitious leaders. If we want peace, stability, and the future of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region, the only legacy Dodik should leave behind must be punishment for attacking the constitutional order of the state he tried to break.