Why is Bosnia and Herzegovina important to NATO?

There are not too many questions about NATO in BiH, except for rare and loose announcements of a referendum by Milorad Dodik. Obviously, the Serbian and Croatian sides know the approximate content of the Dayton Agreement, so they are likely clear on the essence of the military segment of this agreement. The question is how much Bosniaks know about the background of NATO in BiH? BiH has been "under NATO's umbrella" since Dayton.

In Annex 1-A of the Dayton Agreement, the military segment of the agreement, the parties undertook to place the military forces in BiH under NATO command, subject to the administration and political control of the North Atlantic Council (NAC) through the NATO chain of command. The addendum to the agreement in Annex 1-A between BiH and NATO also lists all the rights and privileges granted to NATO in BiH. It is good to recall that the signatures on respecting the military aspect of Dayton were affixed by Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević, Croatian Minister of Foreign Affairs Mate Granić, and on behalf of RS, RS President Momčilo Krajišnik, and for BiH, then Minister of Defense of BiH Jadranko Prlić. It can be noted that only Granić escaped arrest and trial.      

Due to the war in BiH, the story of NATO expansion to some European countries began a quarter of a century ago. NATO foreign ministers met in early December 1994, dealing exclusively with Bosnia and Herzegovina. The dialogue on expansion to all potential NATO members was announced then.     

A special plan for Bosnia was being developed within NATO, which was a secret for a long time. Richard Holbrooke writes about this unusual "OP Plan 40-104". As the situation in Bosnia worsened in the spring of 1995, many countries began to openly talk about withdrawing from UN forces. "The Pentagon and NATO had completed OPPlan 40-104, a highly classified planning document that covered every aspect of NATO's role in supporting the UN withdrawal, from building bridges to body bags," says Holbrooke.

Holbrooke and Robert Freasure were given the details of this document, after a long period of secrecy, by a lieutenant general from the Pentagon. Holbrooke admits that the plan stunned both him and Freasure. The NATO Council formally approved the document. "The plan involved twenty thousand American soldiers, some of whom were assigned the dangerous night extraction of UN troops from besieged enclaves."

With these bold plans, NATO showed that it was ready for anything to stop the tragedy in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was already clear then that NATO was ready to invest its own credibility for the sake of Bosnia. Failure, it was said, "would mean the end of NATO as an effective military alliance" and "Bosnia caused a crisis in Western relations." Politicians in Brussels openly say that one of the biggest political challenges was how to preserve NATO. The brutal killings in Bosnia were beginning to call everything into question.                        

Brendan Simms, in his book "The Longest Winter," quotes Robert Renwick's observation that "the Bosnian crisis had reached a point where it began to threaten the very fabric of NATO." At the same time, he quotes several observers of NATO expansion who unanimously concluded: "If Bosnia had not happened, or if NATO had failed in Bosnia, the alliance would not have expanded." Simms notes that in June 1993, Robert Hunter, the US ambassador to NATO, "early recognized the link between Bosnia and NATO expansion."   

Strobe Talbott, US Deputy Secretary of State, directly linked NATO expansion plans with Bosnia. Representatives of several Central European countries publicly stated that the Bosnian tragedy was an argument for their accession to NATO. All these countries will likely consider BiH's request to join NATO one day.   

Key moments regarding NATO in BiH occurred at the Russian-American Summit in Moscow, which led to a one-day delay of Dayton. On October 27, 1995, US Secretary of Defense William Perry and Russian Minister of Defense Pavel Grachev met in Moscow and agreed that two thousand Russian troops would be under the direct command of a NATO general. Bosnia was the reason for many incredible decisions. It was the first and only time that Russian troops were placed under NATO control. 

Twenty days later, on November 11, Perry and Grachev watched in Brussels as a NATO general and a Russian general signed an agreement placing Russian troops under the command of the US Army in Bosnia. Perry called this miracle "a truly historic moment."            

However, there were also services from NATO. Several armies of Bosnia and Herzegovina were to be united into a single force, drastically reduced in size, and then merged into a unified force under the control of the central government in Sarajevo. However, NATO refused to accept the implementation of such a policy as part of its mission.

"That was a fundamental mistake in our post-war structure, but an unavoidable one, given the imposed limitations on everything external forces were willing to do," Holbrooke noted, indirectly referring to the pressures that came from Milošević and Tuđman on many issues.

But, thanks to such positions, NATO imposed itself as the supreme authority on the parties in BiH. It was officially clear that only NATO was listened to in BiH and that only what the alliance commanders ordered was done. On July 9, 1996, in Madrid, at a new NATO meeting, a decision was made on the expansion of the organization. At that summit, Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic were invited to join the alliance. At the end of May 1997, in Sintra (Portugal), a meeting of NATO foreign ministers was held. NATO invited all BiH leaders to Sintra, and they issued a joint statement there accepting the military part of the Dayton Agreement.

When US President Bill Clinton appointed Wesley Clark as the new Supreme Commander of NATO, according to Holbrooke, "they sent Dayton to NATO – which was an important signal of determination."

When discussing Bosnia and Herzegovina and NATO, it is clear that there are exceptional and deep historical ties. There are also legal ones, contained in the deep threads of the Dayton Agreement, which, by their essence, keep the "NATO umbrella" over BiH.