BOSNIA - SCENESETTER FOR THE VISIT OF DEPUTY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 SARAJEVO 001510

SIPDIS

FOR DEPUTY SECRETARY OF DEFENSE GORDON ENGLAND

E.O. 12958: DECL: 09/09/2018
TAGS: MARR PREL PGOV PINR KDEM KAWC BK
SUBJECT: BOSNIA - SCENESETTER FOR THE VISIT OF DEPUTY
SECRETARY OF DEFENSE GORDON ENGLAND, SEPTEMBER 30 - OCTOBER
1

Classified By: Ambassador Charles English. Reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).


1. (C) SUMMARY: Thirteen years after Dayton, Bosnia and
Herzegovina remains a deeply divided society. Dayton's
division of the country into two entities - one
overwhelmingly Serb (Republika Srpska - RS),and one divided
between a Bosniak (Muslim) majority and a Croat minority (the
Federation) - lacks legitimacy among all three constituent
peoples. Serbs now routinely talk of separation, which
Bosniaks interpret as a final push by Serbs to finish what
they started with the Srebrenica genocide and ethnic
cleansing of the 1992-1995 war. Bosniaks demand justice for
the crimes committed against them, including abolition of the
RS, which they argue was built upon those crimes; many
Bosniaks leaders also preidtc a return to war if Serbs push
for separation. Croats, emboldened by the nationalist claims
of Serbs and Bosniaks, now demand their own territorial unit
within Bosnia, a move that would make Bosnia's break-up
easier and perhaps inevitable. These themes have dominated
political discourse for close to two years, and as a
consequence, despite Bosnia's formal progress towards EU and
NATO membership, the political situation in Bosnia has
continued to deteriorate.


2. (C/NF) Summary Continued: One bright spot in an otherwise
gloomy picture is defense reform - the most successful
state-level reform to date. The U.S. has been key to defense
reform's success, and the Bosnians know it. The U.S. is also
perceived as the most reliable guarantor of the country's
future. With both these issues in mind, you can expect
Minister Cikotic to press for continued U.S. engagement here
generally, and for U.S. flag officer leadership at NATO's
Sarajevo HQ specifically - points Presidency member Komsic
are likely to echo. In your meetings with Cikotic and
Komsic, you will want to underscore the U.S. commitment to
Bosnia. At the same time, you will want to caution that
Bosnia is only at the beginning of the road to NATO
membership, a membership that must be earned by implementing
the reforms necessary to ensure Bosnia is a productive member
of the Alliance. Your trip comes as we have just told Bosnia
that their troops will no longer be needed in Iraq. Bosnian
leaders have already expressed interest in future
opportunities to contribute to international missions. If
there is a role for them in ISAF, now is the time to start
talking about how they can contribute. END SUMMARY

Political Climate Continues to Deteriorate
--------------


3. (C) Bosnia's June 16 signing of a Stabilization and
Association Agreement with the EU provided only a brief
respite from nationalist name-calling among Bosniak, Serb,
and Croat politicians. Politicians could have seized upon
the July 21 arrest of ICTY indictee Radovan Karadzic to
advance reconciliation here, but instead sought to exploit it
to advance their narrow, nationalist political agendas. With
the approach of the October 5 municipal elections Bosnia's
political leaders have further ratcheted up their nationalist
rhetoric: the Serbs speculating about a "peaceful separation"
of Republika Srpska (RS); the Croats openly calling for
creation of a third entity; and the Bosniaks advocating
constitutional reforms that would abolish the RS. Keenly
aware of the fragile ethnic balances of the Dayton Accords,
U.S. policy has been clear: there can be no RS secession, no
unilateral abolition of the entities, and no third entity.
Not surprisingly, in this environment there is little scope
for politicians to reach meaningful agreements that would
advance Bosnia's Euro-Atlantic aspirations. As a
consequence, the reform process, including the next steps in
defense reform, has stalled.

Defense Reform: Fragile Progress, More to Do
--------------


4. (C) Defense reform remains one of the biggest success
stories in Bosnia since Dayton. Since abolishing the two
entity-level militaries and ministries of defense and
creating a single state institution in their place in 2005,
Bosnia has taken the first steps to create a unified,
effective military. The government has developed a clear and
direct command and control structure, and with active U.S.
support and engagement, a legally consistent and transparent
way to manage the transition of the Joint Chief of Staff.
The new state-level institutions met the conditions for PfP
membership in 2006 and for an Intensified Dialogue in April

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2008. Nonetheless, for Bosnia to qualify for MAP, to say
nothing of NATO membership -- a top priority for political
leaders here --there remains much work to be done, and many
reforms will require engagement of state institutions other
than the Ministry of Defense. You will want to stress this
point with your Bosnian interlocutors, since officials
outside the Ministry of Defense have been so slow to grasp
the magnitude of the challenge ahead or the role they would
be expected to play in meeting it.

Property Issues Remain Critical
--------------


5. (C) Among other things, the Ministry of Defense and Armed
Forces must still implement the political agreement on
moveable defense property reached in February -- again only
after robust U.S. and NATO engagement -- by selling, donating
or destroying excess weapons and ammunition. (Note: These
weapons formerly belonged to the two entities. End Note)
Despite the agreement and clear practical advantages, brigade
commanders are reluctant to consolidate stored weapons or
ammunition -- instead, excess munitions have remained where
they had lain as property of the entity armies. The
inability to move resources around means that, despite
integration of the military's command structure, the reality
on the ground has changed little for BiH's infantry: a
Bosnian-Serb infantry soldier, for example, lives in the RS,
reports to a Bosnian-Serb Battalion commander, and works in
the RS guarding weapons formerly owned by the RS army that
lie in a storage facility that itself still belongs to the
RS.


6. (C) An agreement on immoveable defense property is
necessary to allow the armed forces to sell excess real
estate, consolidate its weapons, and free its forces from the
taxing burden of guarding excess sites. It is also one of
the five objectives set by the Peace Implementation Council
as a pre-condition for closing the Office of the High
Representative (Bosnia's international governor-general).
Unfortunately, the immovable defense property issue has
become a proxy for an existential debate between Serbs and
Bosniaks about the nature of the Bosnian state. The Serbs
insist that all immoveable property belongs to the entities,
though they claim they are prepared to allow the state full
usage rights. The Bosniaks insist that all property already
belongs to the state. During your meetings with Bosnian
officials, you will want to stress the importance to Bosnia's
NATO aspirations of resolving immovebale defense property
issues. You will also want to stress that the resulting
transfer agreement, which must be signed and approved by the
state and the two entities, must meet the needs the Ministry
of Defense and Armed Forces.

NATO Aspirations: Substance Matters
--------------


7. (C) Since being invited to join PfP in 2006 (and
reinforced by the invitation to join Intensified Dialogue at
Bucharest),NATO membership has been, along with EU
membership, one of the two uniting goals of a divided
country. Most Bosnians believe NATO membership is absolutely
necessary for their country's long-term peace and prosperity,
and many believe it within reach. The government's stated
objective is a Membership Action Plan (MAP) by NATO's next
summit, and some are hoping for an invitation to join by that
time. This overly optimistic prognosis is indicative of a
broad lack of understanding of the implications and
requirements of NATO membership. As a result, we are
confronted with the delicate task of keeping the Bosnians
motivated, while simultaneously injecting a dose of realism
into the discussions. There has been little public
discussion about what the path forward entails, particularly
the necessity of reform across the board, including in
civilian institutions. Some, including several (mainly
Bosniak) politicians, believe Bosnia is owed NATO membership
because of what they perceive as the international
community's failure to prevent the tragedies of the 1992-1995
war. You will want to underscore to your interlocutors that
NATO membership is to be earned, and that this requires a
sustained commitment to reforms across the board.

Bosnia in Iraq and Afghanistan
--------------


8. (C) I have told the Bosnian leadership that there will be

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no need for future deployment of Bosnian troops in Iraq. Now
we have a clear interest in encouraging Bosnia to take up
another international mission, namely Afghanistan. We
believe a Bosnian contribution to another overseas mission is
politically feasible. Inasmuch as you are able to tell
Bosnia's leaders about the opportunities for a Bosnian
contribution to ISAF, now is a great time to open a dialogue
that will lead to future deployments, serving our needs in
ISAF as well as contributing to our defense reform goals in
Bosnia. Bosnia's nine deployments to Iraq have served as a
positive model for the future of their armed forces -- a
small, NATO inter-operable and completely integrated force
focused on providing support for international missions.
It's also a back-door means of integrating Bosnia's military,
as we have successfully pressed the Bosnians to ensure that
all overseas deployments be multi-ethnic. The foreign
deployment of a company would effectively create an
integrated battalion in the BiH Armed Forces, because of the
need to train simultaneously both a reserve and a follow-up
company.

America's Commitment to Bosnia
--------------


9. (C/NF) Despite the signing of the SAA, many Bosnians
remain skeptical about Europe's commitment to the country.
This anxiety reflects Europe's record during the 1992-1995
war, notably its association with UNPROFOR, erratic European
leadership in other areas (e.g., police reform),and
widespread perceptions that the European successor to NATO's
SFOR, EUFOR, is a weak reed. As a consequence, Bosnians,
particularly on defense and security issues, look to the U.S.
for leadership and worry that the U.S. will disengage. The
decision to replace General Wightman as the Commander of NATO
HQ with a European will be viewed as a drawdown of American
military presence. We expect Minister Cikotic to reclama
this decision as one of his principal points to you. With
this in mind, you will want to emphasize that the U.S.
commitment to Bosnia's security is enduring. You can also
underscore that we plan to remain engaged and visible even as
our permanent foot-print shrinks. You might cite the
September 16-18 visit of U.S.S. Roosevelt to Neum and the
September 2009 NATO PfP Exercise Combined Endeavor in Banja
Luka as examples of continued U.S. commitment to Bosnia's
security.
ENGLISH