Building a Multiethnic Military in Post-Yugoslav Bosnia and Herzegovina

273 Pages·2022·29.234 MB·English

by  Elliot Short

Building a Multiethnic Military in

Post-Yugoslav Bosnia
and Herzegovina
ii
Building a Multiethnic Military in

Post-Yugoslav Bosnia
and Herzegovina
Elliot Short
BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC
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First published in Great Britain 2022
Copyright © Elliot Short, 2022
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Cover image: Bosnian soldiers board a US airforce plane 01 June 2005, at Sarajevo
airport. The 36-men unit, trained in unexploded ordnance removal will join the
US-led forces in Iraq. © Elvis Barukcic/Afp Via Getty Images.
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Contents

List of Figures vi
List of Maps viii
Foreword by Rohan Maxwell ix
Acknowledgements xii
List of Abbreviations xiv
Introduction 1
Part 1 Precursors
1 The region before the Second World War 17
2 The Yugoslav People’s Army 33
Part 2 Components
3 The Army of Republika Srpska 57
4 The Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Croat
Defence Council 85
Part 3 Construction
5 The entity armies, 1995–2002 117
6 The Orao Affair and military unification 139
7 The Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina 161
Conclusion 185
Notes 191
Bibliography 229
Index 249
Figures
1.1 Soldiers of the k.u.k. Army planting the imperial flag on Bosnian soil 22
1.2 A military brass band of the 1st Bosnian Infantry Regiment, 1915/16 27
2.1 Josip Broz Tito and his entourage present a banner to battalions of the
First Proletarian Division, 1942 36
2.2 President of Yugoslavia Josip Broz Tito (1892–1980) 43
3.1 Troops of the newly established VRS evacuate Sarajevo airport 70
3.2 VRS General Ratko Mladić is flanked by Generals Živomir Ninković,
Milan Gvero, and Jovan Marić at a parade ceremony 78
3.3 F-16 Falcons from the 510th Fighter Squadron, Aviano Air Base, Italy 80
3.4 Gathered statesmen applaud the signing of the Dayton Peace Accords 81
4.1 Bosnian soldiers wearing a variety of uniforms walk among civilians
in Sarajevo 98
4.2 Emina Bakić of the ARBiH on Mount Trebević, outside Sarajevo 100
4.3 Bosnian government soldiers atop a truck wave a captured Serb flag
in Zenica 111
5.1 A Bosnian family on a horse cart makes its way through the M1 Abrams
tanks of a US IFOR checkpoint 118
5.2 Bosnian Croat soldiers of the VF stand in support of Croat self-rule 124
5.3 MPRI consultants train Bosnian and Croatian army soldiers 126
5.4 A column of VRS M-84 tanks in Lepnica, northern Bosnia 128
6.1 US Secretary of State Colin Powell shakes hands with Lord Paddy
Ashdown, High Representative of the International Community for
Bosnia-Herzegovina 145
6.2 German soldiers destroy weapons at their base in Rajlovac, near Sarajevo 146
6.3 The regimental patches of the 1 (Guards) Infantry Regiment, the 2
(Rangers) Infantry Regiment, and the 3 (Republika Srpska) Infantry
Regiment 158
6.4 Bosnian soldiers raise the flag of Bosnia and Herzegovina during a
handover ceremony 160
Figures vii
7.1 A Slovakian lieutenant and an OSBiH sergeant look for information on
a case of ammunition discovered at a cache site near Ad Diwaniyah, Iraq 163
7.2 Specialist Rebekah Wall pulls security with an OSBiH Soldier at Bagram
Airfield, Afghanistan 165
7.3 An OSBiH soldier working to clear landmines in BiH 169
7.4 US and Bosnian troops conduct a colour guard parade during the
Bosnian–US Friendship Day ceremony in Mostar 171
7.5 Armed police from Republika Srpska and the Republic of Serbia train
together 178
7.6 Soldiers of the Republika Srpska Regiment of the OSBiH attend an
unconstitutional statehood day parade in Banja Luka 183
Maps
2.1 The Western Balkans, 1945–91 39
3.1 The disintegration of Yugoslavia, 1991–5 69
5.1 Bosnia and Herzegovina after the Dayton Peace Agreement 120
Foreword

When Elliot interviewed me a few years ago, I did not imagine that I would one day
be writing the foreword to his book. I am pleased to be doing so: the development of
Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina is worth examination, both in its own right
as a piece of history and as a source of broadly applicable lessons. Elliot has captured
both elements effectively, bringing fresh perspective and extracting lessons of interest
to defence and security sector reform practitioners.
My involvement with the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina began one
morning early in 2003. I was in my office at 5 Combat Engineer Regiment in Valcartier,
Quebec, when the telephone rang. A voice from National Defence Headquarters in
Ottawa asked whether I would be interested in a one-year secondment to the Office of
the High Representative in Sarajevo. I had no idea what a High Representative was, so
I temporised and promised to ring back the following day with my response.
The Canadian Army in those days had not yet seen fit to provide internet access
on all of its workstations, so I rang my wife, Maggie, who conducted some expedited
research. When I got home she informed me that the High Representative was
responsible for the implementation of civilian aspects of the Dayton Peace Accords,
and that the Office of the High Representative included a Military Advisor, supported
by several staff officers, one of whom was Canadian. I happened to know him, and
the next day I sent a brief email: what exactly was he doing, and would I like it? His
response was equally brief: he was helping to build an army, and yes, I would like it.
I rang Ottawa and said ‘Yes’.
On a sunny Sunday afternoon six months later, newly arrived in Sarajevo, I installed
myself in a sidewalk café on the street known to many as ‘Sniper Alley’, and opened
the dark blue cover of a thick report. ‘The Path to Partnership for Peace’ was a detailed
proposal for placing the entity armies under a single chain of command.
As I sipped my coffee, I could see the Holiday Inn a short distance to the west across
a patch of waste ground, diagonally opposite the parliament building. When war came
to Sarajevo in April 1992, two of the anti-war protestors around parliament were killed
by shots fired from the Holiday Inn. There was a plaque to their memory, affixed to a
bridge a short distance to the south, down the street to my left. Shortly after they died,
that section of the river became part of the front line between the two armies that the
authors of the report proposed to unite. It was an ambitious undertaking: less than
eight years earlier, those armies had made the intersection where I was sitting one of
the most dangerous places in the world. It would be an interesting way to spend a year.
As it turned out, by the time Maggie and I left Sarajevo, it had been our home for
roughly the same amount of time that the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina
had been in existence: sixteen years. My first major task, in the autumn of 2003, had
been to conduct a week-long workshop during which the structure of the new Ministry