Balkan Lessons
As peace plans emerge for Gaza and Ukraine, Bosnia’s experience shows that agreements don’t fail on paper—they fail in the years the world forgets.
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Peace plans dominated the headlines this week. On Monday, the UN Security Council approved the Trump administration’s proposal for an international peacekeeping force in Gaza—along with a new global oversight mechanism, the Board of Peace. Midweek, Axios revealed that Washington and the Kremlin have quietly drafted a 28-point framework to end Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine—without Ukrainian input. Expect this to be the headline over the next week or so.
For me, the timing is striking. Thirty years ago today, the Dayton Peace Accords—another US-brokered agreement—ended the war in Bosnia. And it has a lot of lessons to offer not just Palestinians and Ukrainians—but Washington. To start, peace ain’t easy.
Just two days before Americans would celebrate Thanksgiving in November 1995, it looked as if the talks to end Bosnia’s war were on the brink of collapse. After three tense weeks at an air base in Dayton, Ohio, the Bosniak, Croat, and Serb leaders had barely spoken to one another. They communicated through the US delegation led by the late Richard Holbrooke. Miraculously, in the final hours before the November 21 deadline would have rendered the effort a failure, the parties reached an agreement.
Thirty years later, Bosnia is rarely in the news. Dayton succeeded in its core task: it stopped the killing. At the same time, it also froze Bosnia into an elaborate and complicated system of ethnic power-sharing—two entities, three presidents, duplicative ministries across a variety of areas and lots of vetoes to go around. The goal was to force cooperation between the three ethnic groups, so no one group dominated. Over time, this arrangement entrenched division and has produced a largely dysfunctional state that young people, in particular, are leaving en masse. Bosnia’s population today is lower than it was at the end of the war.
Recently, in Foreign Policy, I wrote about Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik. For the past two decades, he has been the most notable politician to entrench divisions and test Dayton’s limits. (Most notable, not the only one.) He has pushed for the Bosnian Serbs to have more independence, despite the fact that they have their own largely homogeneous entity, and called for the Republika Srpska’s secession from Bosnia. Most browraising for me, he has challenged the international oversight that has final say over Bosnia’s governance. On that, he has a point.
Dayton’s drafters created the Office of the High Representative (OHR) to oversee the agreement’s implementation. Within two years these drafters realized that implementation—not the agreement itself—was the hardest part. As analysts Marko Prelec and Bernard Knoll-Tudor write, “by 1997, Bosnia was slipping apart.” In response, international actors staged “a quiet coup,” giving the high representative sweeping powers to fire officials and impose laws—essentially run the country.
Those powers never came with an end date. That has enabled politicians from each of Bosnia’s ethnic groups to focus on identity politics rather than deliver for citizens—another reminder that institutions can only do so much when political will is absent. And that brings us to the deeper lesson: peace is a political process that shifts along with power, both in the country and outside of it.
In its first 10 years after Dayton, both Washington and Brussels prioritized its implementation. Together, they managed to unify the armed forces, establish a single currency and license plate, and restore property to hundreds of thousands of displaced families. It was one of the few cases where property restoration worked.
But after 2006, Washington and Brussels, for differing reasons, changed focus. The Americans had turned their attention to the War on Terror and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. The Europeans prioritized the migration crisis on the continent over Bosnia’s success. In fact, they worked with nationalists like Dodik to stop the flow of refugees into Europe, turning a blind eye to the corruption and dirty politics that came with it.
Which brings us back to this week’s rush of new peace plans.
The urgency to end the wars in Gaza and Ukraine is real—but it’s not the silencing of guns that cements peace. It’s political progress. That was evident after World War II with Germany and Japan. The US and Europe invested years of diplomacy, economic assistance, and political will to rehabilitate those countries. Bosnia shows what happens when the world rushes to stop a war and then walks away too soon: the killing ends, but so does momentum for change.
Thirty years after Dayton, the lesson is clear: peace agreements don’t fail when warring sides violate their terms. They fail when the world stops fighting to make them work. —Elmira
Elsewhere in the World.....
On our radar...
Ukraine
Team Trump seems to be taking advantage of the corruption scandal rocking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government. Rumors that the US and Russia have drawn up a 28-point peace plan has sent everyone into a tizzy. That’s because the plan would have Ukraine concede territory to Russia, along with a number of other Russian demands, including no US presence in the country. Felicia Schwartz, Nahal Toosi, and others have the unfolding story. (Politico)
On Ukraine’s corruption scandal, Kim Barker writes that it unfolded like, or perhaps better than, a Netflix series. (NYT)
Anastasiia Lapatina goes into detail on the who, what, when of the corruption scandal, which she says comes at a bad time, but is a sign of Ukraine’s progress. (Lawfare)
Gaza 20-point plan
On Monday, the UN Security Council passed a resolution that calls for the creation of a multinational stabilization force in Gaza and an international overseer over the territory—the Board of Peace. It’s part of Trump’s 20 point plan for Gaza. That he sought UN legitimacy is striking, given his past statements about the international body—not to mention that the plan gives Trump, not the UN, ultimate authority in Gaza. China and Russia abstained from the voting, citing the lack of input from Palestinians. But with much of the region, including Qatar and Turkey, backing the proposal, neither stood in its way.
And a way it will have to go. It’s not clear which countries would send troops to Gaza or who would be on the Board of Peace.
MBS in Washington
On a visit to Washington this week, Saudi Arabia’s crown prince, Mohammed Bin Salman, aka MBS, walked away with a promise that the US would sell Saudi Arabia F-35 fighters. (He did pledge about a trillion in investments for it.) In the region, the US has only sold those fighter jets to Israel. The Pentagon thinks that’s a problem since Saudi Arabia is on good terms with China; China could get an up close look at the plane’s technology. Ditto with Nvidia chips that the country desires for its growing AI innovation hubs.
He also walked away with a promise that the US would defend Saudi Arabia if it came under attack. It’s a lopsided exchange, writes Sarah Leah Whitson, who argues that while US business would profit, the American people, namely the US soldiers who would be expected to risk their lives for Saudis, would pay. (Foreign Policy)
G-20
Leaders from the 20 largest economies of the world gather in South Africa this weekend, for the annual G-20 meeting. A notable absence: the United States. Trump has said that he would not attend the summit because of what he says is the “genocide” against white South Africans. There is no evidence to back this up. It would be the first time the US did not attend the G-20, which is seen as a blow to global dialogue. To make matters worse, the US has warned the group not to issue a final communiqué.
Russia and China’s leaders will also not be in attendance, raising the question of whether South Africa has the “political weight to moderate discussions and drive consensus” within the forum. Isel Ras discusses. (The Interpreter)
Africa
In Tanzania, Samia Suluhu Hassan took the oath of office, but with much controversy. As I reported here, she clamped down on her political opposition, making it almost certain that she would win her country’s election. Protests broke out and about 1,000 people died. Sophie Neiman notes that the country is in shock. She explains Hassan’s journey from being a mother figure to autocrat. (World Politics Review)
Also, this week in Africa, extremists kidnapped school girls in Nigeria’s north. At the UN, Nikki Minaj joined the MAGA chorus claiming genocide against Christians in the country.
Asia
In Bangladesh, the country’s International Crimes Tribunal, set up in 2009 to investigate crimes committed during the country’s founding in 1971, found former leader Sheikh Hasina guilty of crimes against humanity and sentenced to death. Hasina resigned and fled to India following student-led protests in July 2024. Nazam Laila notes that the verdict signals “a rupture in South Asia’s status quo and potentially opens the door to a more multipolar regional order...and transform Bangladesh into a stabilizing force.” (Chatham House)
Things are heating up between China and Japan, after Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi said that Japan would respond to an attack on Taiwan. China has long claimed the island nation as part of “one China.” Beijing has threatened to cut off seafood imports from Japan and has warned citizens not to travel to the country. Just how far is China willing to go over this matter? Yuchen Li takes a look. (DW)
Americas
Gen Z protests have reached Mexico—or have they? A few weeks ago, Carlos Manzo, a mayor of Michoacán, a state in the west, was assassinated. He had been an outspoken critic of organized crime. The young people who showed up in Mexico City’s Zocalo Square said they were fed up with corruption and violent crime. But, unlike Gen Z protests elsewhere, there were no calls for the country’s president, Claudia Sheinbaum, to step down. In fact, she’s never been more popular. Maria Verza has more details. (AP)
Last Sunday, Chileans cast their votes for a new leader. Leftist Jeannette Jara and conservative José Antonio Kast were the top vote getters. They’ll face one another in a final round on December 14. As mentioned last week, both were the favorites to win. What was surprising was the third place finisher, Franco Parisi, a right wing populist who garnered about 20 percent. Rocío Montes explains that given the vote totals on the right, nearly 70 percent, Kast will be the likely winner next month. That will take Chile back from the left to the right, with Kast as an ally of both Argentina’s Javier Milei and Donald Trump. (El Pais)
Europe
Spanish dictator Francisco Franco died 50 years ago this week. Zaya Rustamova on the stories of the women who were imprisoned or else suffered as a result of Franco’s heavy hand; stories that for so long stood at the margins. They reveal that Franco’s repression was gendered, “framing women as inherently subordinate.” (The Conversation)
Under the Radar
Can feminist foreign policy keep its promise? Rameen Siddiqui talked to Spogmay Ahmed, Katie Whipkey, and Beth Woroniuk. (Modern Diplomacy)
Apparently, Hitler had a small penis. This explains a lot. (CBS)
Opportunities
In Warsaw, the OSCE’s Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights is hiring for a Gender Advisor.
In London, the Children’s Investment Fund Foundation is hiring for a Director of Partnerships.
Editorial Team
Elmira Bayrasli - Editor-in-Chief