05 March 2010 - IISS-US Discussion Meeting - ‘Back to the Brink in Bosnia?’

Christopher Chivvis
Political Scientist
RAND Corporation

Moderated by Andrew Parasiliti
Executive Director, IISS‐US
Corresponding Director, IISS‐Middle East

Friday, 5 March 2010
Breakfast 7:45 – 8:00 a.m.
Discussion 8:00 – 9:00 a.m.

IISS‐US
1850 K Street NW, Suite 300
Washington, DC 20006

On 05 March 2010, Christopher Chivvis, political scientist with the RAND Corporation and adjunct professor in the European Studies program at the Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced and International Studies, spoke on his article, ‘Back to the Brink in Bosnia?’ in the February-March 2010 issue of Survival. Andrew Parasiliti, Executive Director, IISS-US, and Corresponding Director, IISS-Middle East, moderated the discussion.

Dr Chivvis is a political scientist with the RAND Corporation in Washington, DC, and adjunct professor in the European Studies program at the Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced and International Studies. 

 Survival - Back to the Brink in Bosnia?

By Christopher Chivvis

Survival: Global Politics and Strategy, vol. 52, no. 1, February–March 2010, 

Today in Sarajevo there is disturbing talk of an unravelling of the Dayton Accords that ended the bloody civil war there 14 years ago. Nearly 100,000 people were killed in that war, which pitted Muslims against Serbs against Croats, and saw Europe’s nastiest massacres since the Second World War. Since 1995, Bosnia has been at peace, but the main political parties continue to fight over the basic issues that started the war almost two decades ago. Concern over the general political situation has increased as nationalist rhetoric has raised the spectre of a re-division of the country and an ensuing descent into violence. Some in Sarajevo even evoke the possibility of ‘European Gazas’ emerging in some parts of the county, where there are hints that unemployed Muslim youth may be coming under the influence of a radical, foreign brand of Wahhabist Islam.  Read More