III. CONSENSUS AND AGREEMENT

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Notes

¹These measures were described to BiH on three occasions: a meeting between the NATO secretary general and the BiH Presidency in July 2001; a series of meetings between staff from NATO HQ Brussels and BiH interlocutors in September 2001 (including the presidency, the SCMM, the entity presidents and their staffs, entity defence committees, the Foreign Affairs Committee of the BiH Parliamentary Assembly, and the Ministries of Foreign Affairs and European Integration); and a letter to the presidency from the NATO secretary general. See NATO HQ Brussels, Defence Planning and Operations Division, Crisis Management and Operations Directorate, ‘Fax to OSCE in Europe, Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina’, 19 October 2001; and George Robertson, NATO secretary general, ‘Letter to Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina’, 11 November 2002.

²NATO HQ Brussels, ‘Fax to OSCE in Europe’.

³OSCE, ‘Code of Conduct on Politico-Military Aspects of Security. Document adopted at the 91^st Plenary Meeting of the Special Committee of the CSCE Forum for Security Co-operation’, Budapest, 3 December 1994, <http://www.osce.org/fsc/41355>, accessed 15 January 2013. The code obliges participating states to provide for democratic oversight of their armed, internal, paramilitary and intelligence forces as well as the police. They are also obliged to ensure that their armed forces remain politically neutral and to guarantee that the human rights of security personnel are respected. It contains principles governing the relations between participating states and calls on them to implement all agreed confidence- and security-building measures, and arms control agreements. In addition, it specifies that participating states should maintain only such armed forces as are necessary for individual or collective self-defence. Each year, the participating states report to each other on their national practices in implementing the code's provisions. This information exchange adds to the confidence and security promoted by the code. As an additional transparency measure, the reports are published on the OSCE website, <http://www.osce.org/fsc/44574>, accessed 20 February 2013.

⁴The secretary general of the SCMM Secretariat, Enes Becirbasic, made this commitment to the PIC on behalf of the BiH Presidency.

⁵Robertson, ‘Letter to Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina’. This desire for stronger state institutions was shared by other international community organisations, both from a desire to see BiH evolve into a fully functional state and because the nature of Euro-Atlantic organisations demanded a reasonable degree of internal state cohesion. Efforts were thus under way to enhance state capacity in various sectors including security and justice. These efforts did not enjoy universal support within BiH, where there remained strong divisions regarding the relationship and relative authorities between the entities and the state.

⁶Defence was not, of course, the only sector suffering from such deficiencies. In the broader context of former Yugoslavia, and indeed much of the region, most observers, and numerous independent surveys, identified pervasive corruption, nepotism and mismanagement as factors having a severe collective and negative impact on the reforms necessary for political, social and economic progress.

⁷John Drewienkiewicz, ‘Budgets as Arms Control: The Bosnian Experience’, RUSI Journal (Vol. 148, No. 2, April 2003), pp. 30–35.

⁸Christian Haupt and Jeff Fitzgerald, ‘Negotiations on Defence Reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina’, in Predrag Jurekovic and Frederic Labarre (eds), From Peace Making to Self Sustaining Peace: International Presence in South East Europe at a Crossroads?, Report of the 8^th Workshop of the Study Group ‘Regional Stability in South East Europe’ (Vienna: National Defence Academy, May 2004). Author correspondence with Johannes Viereck, OHR Security Sector Advisory Unit, 1 February 2013.

⁹The Orao incident was the key trigger. Author interview with James Locher III, former DRC chairman, 2 February 2013; Viereck correspondence, 1 February 2013.

¹⁰Christian Haupt and Daniel Saracino, ‘Defence Reform in BiH and SCG: Possible Sharing of Experiences and the Potential for Further Cooperation’, in Jos Boonstra (ed.), ‘Defence Reform Initiative for Bosnia and Herzegovina/Serbia and Montenegro: The DRINA Project’, Groningen, Centre for European Security Studies, 2005, pp. 57–66.

¹¹OHR, ‘Decision Establishing the Defense Reform Commission’, 9 May 2003, <http://www.ohr.int/decisions/statemattersdec/default.asp?content_id =29840>, accessed 28 February 2013. In the view of the DRC chair, High Representative Ashdown was the primary driver of this decision. Locher interview, 2 February 2013.

¹²Before this appointment, he had directed the bipartisan US Senate Armed Services Committee staff that supported the five-year effort leading to the Goldwater-Nichols Department of Defense Reorganization Act of 1986.

¹³OHR, ‘Decision Establishing the Defense Reform Commission’.

¹⁴Author interview with James Locher III, former DRC chairman, 4 February 2013.

¹⁵In the case of the Russian Federation, the DRC chair visited the embassy at the beginning of his mandate and secured a commitment for support for ‘balanced efforts to bring about meaningful reforms’. This commitment was honoured throughout the life of the DRC, notably in the form of periodic interventions with Bosnian Serbs. Turkey's role in supporting the reform process leveraged the general desire of Bosniaks for meaningful defence reforms and state-level control of armed forces. Locher interview, 2 February 2013.

¹⁶Haupt and Fitzgerald, ‘Negotiations on Defence Reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina’.

¹⁷ Haupt and Fitzgerald, ‘Negotiations on Defence Reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina’.

¹⁸The first DRC meeting on 2 June 2003 was a pro forma affair. The second meeting, two days later, provided a forum in which the chairman described his vision for both the immediate work of the DRC and a longer-term reform process. This vision essentially set a realistic objective for immediate work, focused on state-level operational command and control of armed forces, while deferring administrative reforms for subsequent efforts. Locher interview, 2 February 2013.

¹⁹ The first DRC meeting on 2 June 2003 was a pro forma affair. The second meeting, two days later, provided a forum in which the chairman described his vision for both the immediate work of the DRC and a longer-term reform process. This vision essentially set a realistic objective for immediate work, focused on state-level operational command and control of armed forces, while deferring administrative reforms for subsequent efforts. Locher interview, 2 February 2013.

²⁰Haupt and Fitzgerald, ‘Negotiations on Defence Reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina’.

²¹Defence Reform Commission, ‘The Path to Partnership for Peace’, OHR, Sarajevo, September 2003.

²²Lingering Bosnian Croat concerns had not yet been resolved by the time of the signing ceremony, and the Bosnian Croat member of the BiH Presidency (who was also the key Bosnian Croat politician at this juncture) was out of the country. His de-facto representative on the commission, the FBiH minister of defence, discussed the issues with him by telephone, and in the end the onus for accepting the various compromises was placed on the minister. The latter's decision to go ahead with signing the report thus carried with it a significant degree of political risk. Locher interviews, 2 February 2013, 4 February 2013.

²³Locher interview, 2 February 2013.

²⁴DRC, ‘The Path to Partnership for Peace’, pp. 84–85.

²⁵ DRC, ‘The Path to Partnership for Peace’, pp. 8–25.

²⁶ DRC, ‘The Path to Partnership for Peace’, pp. 248–53.

²⁷Haupt and Fitzgerald, ‘Negotiations on Defence Reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina’. The lack of transparency in entity defence activities up to 2003, including business activities and actions that violated the Dayton Agreement, allowed some political leaders to support defence reform on the grounds that the entity armies were, in essence, more trouble than they were worth. Viereck correspondence, 1 February 2013.

²⁸The new law was complemented by modifications to defence legislation in Republika Srpska (dating from 1992 and perpetuating former Yugoslav legislation) and the FBiH (enacted in 1996 to reflect the uneasy balance in the VF that had been formed from ARBiH and HVO elements).

²⁹The name ‘Joint Staff’ combined the preferred nomenclature of the VF – ‘Joint Command’ – and the VRS – ‘General Staff’. The ‘Joint’ in ‘Joint Command’ referred to Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats.

³⁰Viereck correspondence, 1 February 2013. The wisdom of this decision was demonstrated in the spring of 2004 when an SFOR officer presented the charts to a BiH audience. The audience's extremely negative response suggested that many Bosnian interlocutors regarded the first stage as the final stage (observation by Rohan Maxwell, co-author).

³¹The Dayton Agreement provided for state competencies in very few areas: fewer than desired by Bosniaks, but the highest number to which Bosnian Serbs would agree. Thus in 1996, only a small number of minimally staffed state-level institutions could be established. Over the course of the intervening years a number of other state-level institutions were established to meet evolving requirements. In each case, while there were legitimate requirements for a given function, including defence, there was at least some degree of disagreement as to whether that function needed to be carried out at the state rather than entity level. The international community usually played a lobbying and facilitation role in this process and in many cases exerted direct or indirect pressure, as was (and is) the case for defence reform. At the time of writing, resistance to the enhancement of state functions continues, and there has been much talk of ‘taking back’ what many Bosnian Serb political leaders claim to have been coerced or illegal (or both) transfers of competencies from the entities to the state. These include the areas of defence and security. Regardless of the feasibility of ‘taking back’ competencies, or even if there is no real intention to make the attempt (as opposed to political rhetoric), obstructionism remains a frequently exercised option and opportunistic attempts are a distinct possibility.

³²The complete title is the Joint Committee for Defence and Security Policy and Monitoring of the Work of Defence and Security Structures on the BiH Level. Haupt and Saracino, ‘Defense Reform in BiH and SCG’.

³³ The complete title is the Joint Committee for Defence and Security Policy and Monitoring of the Work of Defence and Security Structures on the BiH Level. Haupt and Saracino, ‘Defense Reform in BiH and SCG’; Drewienkiewicz, ‘Budgets as Arms Control’.

³⁴DRC, ‘The Path to Partnership for Peace’, pp. 24–25, 241–48.

³⁵MPRI had delivered the US-funded ‘Train and Equip’ programme to the VF following the end of the conflict. It had subsequently shifted from a large contingent focused on military training to a small advisory group focused on the nascent state-level defence institutions.

³⁶OHR, ‘Decision Extending the Mandate of the Defense Reform Commission’, 4 February 2004, <http://www.ohr.int/decisions/statemattersdec/default.asp?content_id=31761>, accessed 28 February 2013.

³⁷Ironically, the lengthy process for recruiting civil servants had been instituted following sustained pressure from the international community to introduce a merit-based system for filling civil service positions and thus reduce the scope for nepotism.

³⁸Author interview, Bosko Siljegovic, member of the DRC in 2004 and 2005, and current BiH parliamentary military commissioner, 4 April 2013.

³⁹The BiH Presidency had written to the DRC chair seeking his views on qualifications for the officers who would be appointed to lead the new Joint Staff and Operational Command. The chair had provided those views, highlighting the need for the new leaders to earn quickly the trust of their new subordinates, including the members of the VF and VRS. This point was apparently well taken by the members of the presidency, since the decision to retire the wartime generals followed shortly thereafter. Locher interview, 2 February 2013.

⁴⁰All general officer positions, as well as those of the minister of defence and deputy ministers of defence, were screened by SFOR under Annex 1A of the Dayton Agreement, which empowered the SFOR commander to exercise broad and essentially unchallengeable discretion regarding the suitability of any person – civilian or military – to hold a position directly or indirectly related to defence matters.

⁴¹By late 2004, deployed elements included a single platoon in Iraq and a small number of UN observers in various missions.

⁴²For example, the DRC subgroup charged with command-and-control issues required months of formalistic meetings to reach agreement on exchanging staff telephone directories so that contact could be made when authorised.

⁴³The eventual adoption of the White Paper provided an official baseline of acceptable text that fed into subsequent efforts to conduct a full review of defence requirements.

⁴⁴The US provided crucial training and logistics support for this deployment.

⁴⁵The reduction in full-time personnel continued a trend that had been developing for some time. In the aftermath of the Dayton Agreement, the estimated 250,000 soldiers on all sides had been reduced to approximately 45,000 by mid-1997. This number was neither sustainable nor appropriate to the size of the country, but a mutual lack of trust meant that both entities were reluctant to undertake further reductions. The OSCE conducted a lengthy negotiation under the rubric of ‘confidence and security building measures’ and eventually the number was reduced to 36,000 during 2000–01, with undertakings by the entity governments to reduce to 20,000 troops by 2005. Budgetary pressures, leveraged by the international community, brought this date forward dramatically, so that the number of personnel fell to 19,800 in 2002, three years earlier than planned. See Drewienkiewicz, ‘Budgets as Arms Control’. In this context, the DRC agreement of 2003, implemented in 2004, represented a relatively small reduction in contrast to what had occurred earlier, and the associated political fallout and human consequences had already been dealt with and managed as far as possible.

⁴⁶DRC Co-Chairs, Conscription Service and Reserves in Federation of BiH: An Information Paper (Sarajevo: Defence Reform Commission Secretariat, 2 March 2005).

⁴⁷NATO, ‘NATO Istanbul Summit Communiqué’.

⁴⁸DRC, ‘The Path to Partnership for Peace’, p. 25.

⁴⁹Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, NATO secretary general, ‘Letter to Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina’, 16 December 2004.

⁵⁰The High Representative's determination was based largely on evidence of VRS support to indicted war criminals including former VRS commander, General Ratko Mladic.

⁵¹Raffi Gregorian, ‘Report to the High Representative on the Work of the Defence Reform Commission, by the NATO Co-Chairman’, 16 January 2006.

⁵²OHR, ‘Decision Extending the Mandate of the Defence Reform Commission’.

⁵³ OHR, ‘Decision Extending the Mandate of the Defence Reform Commission’.

⁵⁴PIC SB Political Directors, ‘Communiqué by the PIC Steering Board’, 3 December 2004, <http://www.ohr.int/pic/default.asp?content_id=33662>, accessed 13 January 2013.

⁵⁵Gregorian, ‘Report to the High Representative’.

⁵⁶ Gregorian, ‘Report to the High Representative’.

⁵⁷ Gregorian, ‘Report to the High Representative’.

⁵⁸Republika Srpska Prime Minister Mikerevic had resigned in response to High Representative Ashdown's use of the Bonn Powers to remove from office a number of RS police officials on the grounds that they were supporting indicted war criminals. This led to the fall of the RS government and thus a ‘caretaker’ government situation in which no one was willing to deal with significant issues, such as defence reform. For a time it also appeared possible that the minister of defence would be replaced as part of the ensuing political manoeuvring. Gregorian, ‘Report to the High Representative’.

⁵⁹Viereck correspondence, 1 February 2013.

⁶⁰Raffi Gregorian, ‘Agreed Principles for the Way Ahead on Defence Reform’, 2005.

⁶¹Gregorian, ‘Report to the High Representative’; DRC, ‘Concept for Defence Reform in 2005’, 12 June 2005.

⁶²Gregorian, ‘Report to the High Representative’.

⁶³ Gregorian, ‘Report to the High Representative’.

⁶⁴ Gregorian, ‘Report to the High Representative’. The concept of demilitarisation as being preferable to a single military force remains very much alive, albeit almost entirely in the view of RS interlocutors only. However, in the view of the chair of the first DRC, there were no realistic alternatives to defence reform. Locher interview, 2 February 2013.

⁶⁵OHR, ‘Defence Reform Timelines: How Big the Delay?’, 19 May 2005.

⁶⁶Gregorian, ‘Report to the High Representative’.

⁶⁷Siljegovic interview, 4 April 2013.

⁶⁸Gregorian, ‘Report to the High Representative’.

⁶⁹ Gregorian, ‘Report to the High Representative’.

⁷⁰Haupt and Fitzgerald, ‘Negotiations on Defence Reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina’.

⁷¹Author correspondence with William Thomas, co-chair (NHQSa), Legal Working Group, 3 March 2013.

⁷²The manoeuvre brigades were primarily infantry brigades. The air-force/air-defence brigade included subsonic training/ground-attack aircraft, helicopters, and air-defence assets, all well-aged. The tactical support brigade comprised various specialist units, a tank battalion, and a mechanised infantry battalion's worth of armoured personnel carriers with crew.

⁷³It should be noted that the terms ‘active duty’ and ‘active reserve’ were new concepts in BiH and thus required much explanation, not all of which, to this day, has taken root.

⁷⁴Milovan Stankovic, ‘Views on Future Organisation of AFBiH’, RS MoD, 18 May 2005.

⁷⁵Gregorian, ‘Report to the High Representative’.

⁷⁶Rohan Maxwell, ‘Canadian Forces Personnel Practices and Regimental System’, memo, 6 May 2005; Raffi Gregorian, ‘Letter to Entity Ministers of Defence’, 7 June 2005. This proposal did not appear entirely out of the blue, as the NATO co-chair had studied the British Army extensively, two of his senior staff members were intimately familiar with the regimental system, and the DRC vice-chair had been the chief engineer of the British Army.