Abstract
More than three decades after the Dayton Peace Agreement, Bosnia and Herzegovina remains subject to a continuous international military presence and extensive external governance, yet without achieving political stability or institutional consolidation. This paper examines Bosnia as a paradigmatic case of forever missions and frozen peace: interventions that successfully prevent renewed violence while entrenching political stalemate. Building on theories of prolonged military intervention, conflict management, and institutional lock-in, the paper argues that the Dayton framework transformed peacekeeping from a temporary stabilisation mechanism into a permanent substitute for political settlement. While empirically centred on Bosnia and Herzegovina, the analysis situates the case within a broader universe of long-term interventions – including Kosovo, Cyprus, and Lebanon – where external military presence sustains stability without resolving underlying political conflict. The paper shows how Dayton institutionalised ethnic vetoes, fragmented authority, and international oversight, producing a condition of managed instability in which peace persists but sovereignty and democratic accountability remain suspended. International military presence, while effective in preventing violence, has thus become structurally necessary precisely because political settlement remains incomplete. Addressing a central but underexplored question in the literature – how long-standing interventions might move beyond stalemate without triggering renewed conflict – the paper identifies the strategic trade-offs that transform peacekeeping into conflict management. It concludes by reflecting on what political recalibration would be required to shift from frozen peace toward genuine settlement, and what the Bosnian case reveals about the limits of military intervention as a tool of political transformation.