As a senator, Joe Biden was a fierce advocate for Bosnia’s right to defend itself in the early 1990s, but expectations that he would get more involved to drive the country forward once in the White House were misplaced.
With his decision to withdraw from the US presidential race, Joe Biden’s long political career is coming to a close. He becomes a lame-duck president, with all eyes now on Vice-President Kamala Harris, whom he has endorsed to replace him as the Democratic nominee.
Biden’s career in Washington stretches back to 1972. His legacy will now be the subject of close inspection, not least his record on foreign policy given his long-standing interest in international affairs.
From an American perspective, Biden’s views and advocacy on Bosnia in the 1990s may represent only a small part of that legacy, but they were significant for Bosnians.
So how does he fare when it comes to Bosnia, and how will he be remembered in the country?
As a senator, a post he held for more than three decades, Biden was an eloquent supporter of Bosnia and the Bosnian cause in the early 1990s.
When Bosnian Serb forces, backed by Belgrade, launched their attack on the newly independent state in the spring of 1992, , Biden supported Bosnia’s right to self-defence in the face of an arms embargo imposed by the United Nations.
In September 1992, five months into the war, the Delaware senator sponsored an amendment, passed by the Senate, stating that “because the UN arms embargo is serving to sustain the military advantage of the aggressor, the UN should exempt the government of Bosnia-Herzegovina from its embargo”. The amendment authorised the US president, George H. W. Bush at the time, to provide military assistance to Bosnia following the lifting of the embargo.
The following year, Biden made clear his dissatisfaction with the UN role in Bosnia in the pages of The New York Times, with an op-ed headlined “More UN Appeasement on Bosnia.”
In 1994, he and fellow senator Bob Dole visited Sarajevo, still then under siege, while in 1995 Biden co-sponsored the Bosnia and Herzegovina Self-Defense Act, directing the president, by then Bill Clinton, to terminate the US arms embargo on Bosnia.
Hopes dashed
It was because of such stands that Biden’s selection as Barack Obama’s running mate in 2008 and his subsequent swearing in as vice-president generated such high expectations in Bosnia.
Many hoped the Obama administration would intervene more vigorously to push the country forward. Biden visited again in 2009, but it soon became clear that the focus of US foreign policy had long ago shifted away from Bosnia and the Balkans.
Fast-forward to 2020, and hopes were revived again when Biden became the 46th US president.
Bosnia was lurching from one political crisis to the next, amid an overwhelming sense of malaise 25 years after the end of the war. Bosnians believed Biden would be able to do more, now that he was president.
Academics, analysts and journalists in Bosnia raced to explain and predict that major change was only a matter of time. Such hope was understandable: since the early 1990s, Bosnians had looked to the US for support, knowing full well they were unlikely to get anything meaningful from the European Union.
Their new expectations, however, were not based in the new reality.
Even more so than Obama’s, the Biden administration had new and different priorities. Washington could have pushed NATO to fast-track Bosnian accession, but progress on that front proceeded slowly.
For years, elections, nominations and appointments in the US have been viewed in Bosnia through the prism of whether those officials worked on Bosnia in the 1990s. If they did, the media would pump up expectations of change.
With Biden set to bow out in January, any expectations of major change in Bosnia have dissipated.
The Delaware senator will still be remembered positively in Bosnia as an advocate for the country during its darkest hour, though there will be a lingering sense of dashed hopes.
