ABSTRACT
In May 2003, the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH)
Jeremy ‘Paddy’ Ashdown decided to take decisive action to address
concerns about the extant defence system, in which each of BiH’s two
entities (Republika Srpska RS and the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina FBiH) possessed armed forces independent of any meaningful state-level control.1 He used his broad powers to establish
the Defence Reform Commission (DRC), based in Sarajevo and responsible
to him directly. The DRC’s comprehensive report, ‘The Path to Partnership
for Peace’, published in September of that year, set defence reform in the
broader context of BiH’s Euro-Atlantic integration ambitions, which
envisioned eventual membership in both the European Union and NATO
as the basis of long-term security and prosperity.2
