New York Times: “A Serb strongman, who for years exploited ethnonationalist feelings to claim more power, publicly pledges to break his country apart, threatening to set off cascading conflict. The West, distracted by its own problems, barely notices. No, that’s not Yugoslavia in 1991. It’s Bosnia and Herzegovina today. The country, whose complex constitutional order was painstakingly negotiated in the teeth of a bloody war and settled through the Dayton Accords, is on the brink of breaking up. At the heart of the crisis is Milorad Dodik, the Bosnian Serb leader and longtime separatist. In October, he announced plans to withdraw the Serb-dominated Republika Srpska, one of the country’s two administrative entities, from major state institutions.”

“In what effectively amounts to secession, he intends to set up a separate taxation office, army and security forces. For a region with a recent history of ethnic violence and conflict, it’s a terrifying development. Behind Mr. Dodik’s moves, 15 years in the making, lies the steady withdrawal from the region of the United States and the European Union. In their absence, competing foreign influences – Russia foremost among them – have stepped into the vacuum, emboldening autocratic leaders and destabilizing the region. To avoid the breakup of Bosnia, which could lead to a new war and all-out disaster, the West must reverse course immediately and set about to repair the damage”