Why Bosnia Needs to Join NATO ASAP

Hamza Karčić

Global Governance, Europe

Bosnia's future depends on NATO membership.

The NATO Summit in Warsaw this July will bring one more Balkan country closer to the Alliance membership. Along with Slovenia and Croatia, Montenegro is on track to become the third Yugoslav successor state to join NATO. Montenegro's accession will bring a recent NATO foe within its fold. Yet, a country that NATO militarily intervened in 1995 and subsequently brought peace to lags behind: six years ago, NATO agreed to offer a conditional Membership Action Plan (MAP) to Bosnia. A stepping stone to full membership, MAP is dependent on the country's registration of immovable defence properties. The issue of whether to register the properties on the state or the entities has been used in the Bosnian entity Republika Srpska's footdragging towards meeting this requirement. Modest progress has since been made in registering some of these properties. However, concerns persist that the conditionality is turning into a barrier. Instead of functioning as a catalyst for reform, NATO's conditions may be used as a mechanism for slowing down Bosnia's path to NATO. The Warsaw summit provides an opportunity to reinvigorate the process. Fast-tracking Bosnia's NATO membership is crucial for two reasons.

First, the return on NATO's investment in Bosnia needs to be secured. The Alliance's presence in Bosnia following the conclusion of the Dayton Peace Accords ensured that the country did not slip back to war. In fact, the military component of the peace accords has been far more successful than the civilian one. Currently faced with increasing challenges in Europe, NATO's legacy in Bosnia offers a success story. However, what began as NATO's out-of-area operation in the 1990s remains an unfinished project. Bosnia's accession to NATO would be a case of firmly anchoring the peace dividend in the Balkans. Activating Bosnia's MAP would be a way to lock-in gains and provide much-needed momenutm for the country's reforms.