In a largely symbolic gesture, an additional 500 troops have been sent to reinforce the European Military Force (EUFOR) in Bosnia & Herzegovina, bringing total EUFOR troop strength in B&H to some 1100.
EUFOR commander General Anton Wessely claimed that the situation in the country was “stable and peaceful,” that there had not been “a deterioration in the security situation in the country,” and that there was “no information about changes and threats to the currently stable environment in the country,” but added that the reinforcements were being brought in as a measure of precaution, clearly referring to the overall security situation in Europe following Russia’s attack on Ukraine.
Over the past year, factions intent on provoking greater international political and military intervention in the country have been claiming that the country is teetering on the edge of widescale inter-communal violence or even all-out war. In reality, however, as more serious observers have noted, the various factions in B&H have neither the manpower, the materiel, nor the motivation to go to war.
Political leaders in B&H have also been trying to tamp down media speculation about the possibility for war in B&H. The leader of the largest Bosniac party in B&H, Bakir Izetbegovic of the Party of Democratic Action (local acronym: SDA), noted that the peoples of the region, particularly in Bosnia & Herzegovina, “are in no mood for war,” and that there was a “silent consensus” amongst political leaders that “despite their misunderstandings and disagreements, they have to, above all, preserve the peace.” Izetbegovic’s counterpart, the Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, similarly noted recently that the Serb entity in B&H, the Republika Srpska, “will not wage war even if it is attacked.”