As the world prepares for war, we don't even know our security situation: Army is bad, OSA is dead, politics doesn't care!

By: Rasim Belko

War is on the horizon!

No matter how much Bosnia and Herzegovina reacts with unease to every sentence that mentions that ominous word – war – the facts are relentless. Announcements of a new, major conflict are increasingly coming from the most responsible and serious addresses of world security. These are no longer media speculations, but cold warnings.

In the last two years, we have witnessed almost routine calls from EU authorities to citizens to prepare, to secure supplies, to know procedures, to think ahead. These were not made by anonymous bureaucrats, but by top European officials.

However, the most serious and clearest message came from NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte. Symbolically, from Berlin, he stated that Europe must be ready for a state of war, that it must switch to a “war footing,” accelerate decision-making, and urgently build defense capacities.

In Bosnia and Herzegovina, almost silence.

The country, stuck in a political quagmire, endlessly pouring from empty to empty, has barely registered these warnings. And the paradox is brutal: BiH is the most security-exposed country on the Old Continent, and at the same time, the least defense-ready.

While we are silent, the region is preparing.

Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić openly states that his country is arming itself to ensure the safety of its citizens and warns that “people do not understand how close we are to conflict.” He speaks of hundreds of thousands of shelter spaces and plans for their multiple expansion.

Croatia, as a NATO member, is rapidly strengthening its military capabilities, with the additional security umbrella of the Alliance.

And Bosnia and Herzegovina?


With a militarily and materially impoverished Armed Forces, citizens would, in the event of any conflict, small or large, once again be left to themselves, improvisation, and self-organization, as in the nineties.

Political responsibility is obvious. Primarily the policies that have never abandoned the idea of a double aggression against BiH, but also all others who prefer to dismantle budgets and babble rather than build the state's security system.

But politics is not the only problem.

The security sector behaves as if it lives in an isolated bubble. The statement by the Chairman of the Presidency of BiH, Željko Komšić, is devastating. At the end of August, in an interview for Patria, he admitted that he had never received a comprehensive security assessment from the institutions legally obligated to do so.

This scandal went almost unnoticed, although it is a clear indication of the deep inaction and incompetence of the security apparatus.

Special responsibility lies with the Intelligence-Security Agency of BiH, which has been operating as if it doesn't exist for years. While Croatia's SOA regularly publishes reports analyzing the situation in BiH, domestic institutions and citizens live in complete darkness. OSA and its director Almir Džuvo do not feel the need or legal obligation to inform the public about security threats.

The situation is further aggravated by the fact that BiH has no Minister of Security. The acting minister even allows illegal border crossings for high-ranking officials of neighboring countries. The Armed Forces are the weakest in the region, poorly equipped, and no one even dares to talk about reintroducing military service, unlike Croatia and Serbia, which have already taken that step.

In summary, Bosnia and Herzegovina is already at war, a war against its own incompetence, irresponsibility, and institutional paralysis. It is completely unprepared for a real armed conflict of any intensity. And history teaches us that no major war in Europe, or even beyond, has ever bypassed us.

Time is relentlessly working in favor of those who see war as a tool of geopolitics. It is hard to believe that the head of NATO is warning just for the sake of it.

Therefore, it is high time for awakening. At all levels, from the local community to the state. Because if it is unacceptable that we are militarily and security unprotected, it is equally unacceptable that shelters are neglected, roads strategically ignored, and crisis plans non-existent.

Someone must have the courage to ask questions of responsibility. If the EU and NATO are openly talking about war, if world powers are preparing for large-scale conflicts, why are we pretending to be blind?

This inaction also carries criminal responsibility. And it is high time to talk about it, while we still have the luxury of doing so in peace.