Dodik Is Pushing Bosnia to the Breaking Point—Again

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07-05-2025

When armed police prevented the arrest of Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik on April 23, it marked the latest escalation in a growing crisis afflicting Bosnia, one that some warn could be an existential test for the fragile country.
How could police themselves prevent an arrest? The answer lies in Bosnia and Herzegovina's notoriously complicated governing system. The security forces trying to arrest Dodik were from the central state police, SIPA, while those protecting him were from the Republika Srpska, or RS, one of two highly autonomous 'entities' created by the 1995 Dayton Agreement that brought the country's bloody four-year war to a close. The RS is a Serb-dominated region of which Dodik serves as president. The other entity, confusingly named the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, is dominated by ethnic Bosniaks and Croats.
Despite its complexity and deep flaws, the Dayton system, with subsequent amendments, has persisted for three decades. Arguably, it has preserved peace at the price of functionality. Now Dodik, who has frequently suggested that the RS should secede from Bosnia, threatens to tear even this system to the ground, with potentially drastic consequences. The attempt to arrest him was the latest escalation in an ongoing struggle between Dodik on one hand and state institutions and the representative of the international community on the other.
In February, the Serb strongman was sentenced to one year in prison and banned from politics for six years for defying the Office of the High Representative, or OHR, an international body tasked with overseeing the Dayton arrangement. In response, the RS passed laws barring state institutions from operating in the entity and approved a draft constitution proclaiming a right to self-determination, while also announcing plans to create a separate army and judiciary.
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Meanwhile, it separately emerged that Dodik and several political allies were under investigation for allegedly attacking Bosnia's constitutional order. His failure to appear for questioning on this case led to the arrest warrant being issued. However, Dodik has continued to move freely in the RS, heavily protected by RS anti-terrorism police, and has even traveled to Russia, Serbia and Israel, in further defiance of the Bosnian state.
Dodik is an inveterate brinksman who has often sparred with both Bosnian state institutions and Western powers. In January 2025, the U.S. imposed sanctions on individuals and businesses connected to him. But while he has frequently threatened secession, he has never acted on it. And in pulling back from the brink, he has often extracted concessions where possible from the international community and the Bosnian state.
But there is a sense that this time he has crossed a red line.
'It is not an exaggeration to say that this is the ultimate test of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a functional state—indeed, as a state at all,' says Adnan Huskic, a political scientist at the Sarajevo School of Science and Technology. 'Nothing will be the same after this, regardless of the outcome.'
In Huskic's best-case scenario, state authorities—including SIPA, the prosecutor's office and the Bosnian courts—will be able to assert themselves to permanently remove from the political scene the man he calls 'the most significant spoiler' of Bosnia's European Union aspirations: 'an outspoken Kremlin agent, a general disruptor and an autocrat who has captured all institutions in Republika Srpska and turned the entity into a financial black hole over nearly 30 years of unchallenged rule.'
In the 30 years since the war ended, Bosnia has hobbled along under the Dayton formula, never breaking free of the divisive legacy of the conflict, nor lapsing back into it.
But he warns that any weakness shown by the Bosnian state and its EU supporters leading to watered-down charges, or a scenario in which Dodik continues to evade arrest by moving between the RS and friendly countries such as Serbia, Russia and Hungary, could further destabilize Bosnia and the region, encouraging secessionist and irridentist movements elsewhere, at a critical time for Europe's security architecture.
Ivana Maric, a Bosnian political analyst, says that this is indeed an opportunity for Bosnian institutions to assert themselves by apprehending Dodik, rather than relying on the OHR, the EU or the U.S., to which domestic leaders have appealed during previous crises. She says it is inevitable that Dodik and his companions will be brought in for questioning. She emphasizes the farcical nature of the situation, with SIPA and other state institutions still operating in the RS, despite the supposed ban.
Perhaps more importantly for Dodik, his physical and political room for maneuver are narrowing.
He and his party have long retained significant popular support in the RS, and secession has wider appeal among Bosnian Serbs than many international figures would like to admit. He has been feted by populist nationalist Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and broadly supported by Serbia. He also talks warmly of his meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin. For many—probably most—Serbs in Bosnia, the RS is the protector of their rights and freedoms in a country in which they are outnumbered by Bosniaks.
Dodik may also have seen a window of opportunity presented by the return to the White House of U.S. President Donald Trump, who looks more kindly on the likes of Orban and Putin, and is less enthusiastic about engagement with Europe. Yet on March 8, U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio accused Dodik of 'dangerous and destabilizing behavior' that is 'undermining Bosnia and Herzegovina's institutions and threatening its security and stability.'
Closer to home, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, another populist strongman, has offered limited support, while Bosnian Croat leader Dragan Covic, who has regularly found common cause with Dodik, has condemned his actions and called on him to respect state institutions.
Meanwhile, says Maric, the most vocal opposition comes not from Bosniak parties—which Dodik often uses as foils to shore up support, and vice versa—but rather from RS opposition parties, as within the RS, disquiet is rising.
'People are deeply unsettled,' says Aleksandar Trifunovic, a journalist and commentator based in Banja Luka, the entity's de facto capital. 'Since Dodik's conviction, tensions have risen sharply.' Trifunovic says a new draft RS Constitution that has been announced would, if adopted, 'effectively usher in a dictatorship—and that's putting it mildly.'
Luka says Dodik often seeks to create chaos and project the illusion that he is in control as part of his strategy. 'But what makes this moment truly dangerous is that he is not in control,' he adds. 'Not of the situation, nor of its possible outcomes.'
Trifunovic says that even Dodik himself does not know his next move. But external actors—namely, the U.S. and EU—are distracted, if they have not given up on the country altogether.
'The international community has for decades now had only one real expectation from Bosnia and Herzegovina: don't start another war. That's it,' he says. 'It's clear that a society which, 30 years after the war, has failed to move toward the European Union—a society trapped in perpetual conflict and one that continues to elect politicians who thrive on division and exclusion—no longer interests anyone.'
In these circumstances, one cannot rule out further escalation. Yet in the 30 years since the war ended, Bosnia has hobbled along under the Dayton formula, never breaking free of the divisive legacy of the conflict, nor lapsing back into it.
'The curiosity of Bosnia and Herzegovina is that we have problems that are presented as unsolvable, crises that look like a war will break out tomorrow, conflicts after which you would think that there is no way for these parties and politicians to sit down at the same table again,' says Maric. 'And then everything is solved or forgotten overnight, and everyone pretends that nothing happened.'
The current crisis shines a harsh light on the reality that Bosnia's political classes of all ethnicities, as well as the country's international guardians, have failed to both overcome the grim legacy of the war, and reform or replace the structures put in place to end it. After 30 years, what are the chances of them doing so now?
'Bosnia is a persistent problem that constantly threatens to boil over, but never seems to explode,' says James Ker-Lindsay, an academic focusing on Southeast Europe. 'With so many other immediate crises on the agenda, there's just no sense that this is an immediate problem that requires high-level political bandwidth.' With international officials having all but given up, and repeated attempts at internationally brokered reform having stalled, Ker-Lindsay says the country is 'stuck in deep political deadlock.'
Those predicting Bosnia's imminent collapse have been proven wrong repeatedly over the past three decades. But this crisis need not be terminal to do real damage to Bosnia, the region and Europe as a whole.
Andrew MacDowall is an independent consultant and writer. He is the founding director of the strategic consultancy Toros Advisory and has written extensively for publications including the Financial Times, The Guardian and Politico Europe.
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