DPC Senior Associate Kurt Bassuener was a vocal participant in the Atlantic Council’s November 29 conference “A Coming Storm? Shaping a Balkan Future in an Era of Uncertainty,” as well as the closed-door workshop the previous day.
The full conference can be viewed at http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/events/webcasts/a-coming-storm-shaping-a-balkan-future-in-an-era-of-uncertainty. Of particular interest was the final panel (beginning at 8:31:15), in which Kurt raised the deterrence failure in BiH, quoting DPC Research Associate Armina Mujanovic’s reflections on the hyperbolic rhetoric from Croatian and BiH Croat politicians following Slobodan Praljak’s suicide at The Hague that morning. He repeated his call for a US/NATO presence in Tuzla, Brcko, and Mostar, under the existing Ch.7 peace enforcement mandate. This elicited strong and supportive responses from DPC ally Jasmin Mujanovic, as well as Atlantic Council’s Amb. Bob Gelbard, who reflected on Croatia’s malign role since entering NATO and particularly the EU, toward BiH. He called for a “dramatic response, right away” from the West.