The speech by Ambassador Dorothy Shea in the UN Security Council marks a historic shift \u2014 Washington no longer wants to engage in \u201cnation-building.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is spoken softly, but the message is clear: the era of American interventionism in Bosnia and Herzegovina is over. The address by U.S. Ambassador to the UN Dorothy Shea before the Security Council was diplomatically courteous, but politically a turning point. When the highest American representative at the UN says that \u201cthe United States is no longer pursuing a policy of nation-building\u201d and that \u201csolutions must come from within, from local actors, representatives of the three constituent peoples\u201d \u2014 that is not just a change in rhetoric. It is the announcement of the end of an era.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
After the signing of the Dayton Agreement in 1995, the United States was the key architect of the new Bosnia and Herzegovina. Washington, under the Clinton doctrine of liberal interventionism, assumed the role not only of peace guarantor, but also of creator of a new social order.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Americans then believed that democracy could be constructed like a building \u2014 with a plan, donations, and Bonn Powers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In the name of \u201cstate functionality,\u201d pressure was exerted both on Bosnia and on its politicians: competencies were transferred from the entities to the state, central institutions were strengthened, courts, agencies, ministries established.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every new reform carried the prefix \u201cwith the support of the international community.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The peak of that project was the attempt known as the April Package in 2006, when the U.S. and its allies tried, through constitutional amendments, to redefine the political architecture of BiH. The failure of that package \u2014 most influenced by Haris Silajd\u017ei\u0107 \u2014 marked the beginning of the end of the illusion that Bosnia would become an American protectorate functioning according to the model of Western democracies. Already during the Barack Obama administration, U.S. interventionism in the internal affairs of Bosnia and Herzegovina became far less significant, only to be suddenly revived again with the arrival of Joe Biden.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Former and still last U.S. Ambassador to BiH Michael Murphy took active interference in political processes to new heights. From openly pressuring political leaders to publicly supporting state prosecutors working on the Novali\u0107 case or \u201cpro-European\u201d coalitions and post-election combinations \u2014 the U.S. Embassy often played the role of arbiter, and sometimes even of chief political engineer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But that approach no longer has support in Washington itself. With the shift in America\u2019s geopolitical paradigm under the Trump administration, U.S. policy is transitioning from global liberal interventionism to the realpolitik of national interests.<\/p>\n\n\n\n