Bosnia and Herzegovina Military - 2023

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES 

Military and security forces

Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina (AFBiH or Oruzanih Snaga Bosne i Hercegovine, OSBiH): Army, Air, Air Defense forces organized into an Operations Command and a Support Command (2023)

Military expenditures

0.8% of GDP (2022 est.)

0.9% of GDP (2021)

0.9% of GDP (2020)

0.8% of GDP (2019)

0.9% of GDP (2018)

Military and security service personnel strengths

approximately 10,000 active-duty personnel (2023)

Military equipment inventories and acquisitions

the military's inventory is largely Soviet-era material with a smaller mix of mostly secondhand from other countries, particularly the US (2023)

Military service age and obligation

18 years of age for voluntary military service; mandatory retirement at age 35 or after 15 years of service for junior enlisted personnel, mandatory retirement at age 50 and 30 years of service for non-commissioned officers, mandatory retirement at age 55 and 30 years of service for all commissioned officers; conscription abolished in 2005 (2021)

note: as of 2021, women made up about 7% of the military's full-time personnel

Military - note

the Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina (AFBiH) are comprised of the former Bosnian-Croat Army of the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Vojska Federacije Bosne i Hercegovin, VF) and the Bosnian-Serb Republic of Serbia Army (Vojska Republike Srpske, VRS); the two forces were unified under the 2006 Law on Defense, which also established the country’s Ministry of Defense

the European Union Force Bosnia and Herzegovina (EUFOR) has operated in the country to oversee implementation of the Dayton/Paris Agreement since taking over from NATO's Stabilization Force (SFOR) in 2004; it has about about 1,100 troops from 22 countries

Bosnia and Herzegovina joined NATO’s Partnership for Peace (PfP) program in 2007 and was invited to join NATO’s Membership Action Plan in 2010; NATO maintains a military headquarters in Sarajevo with the mission of assisting Bosnia and Herzegovina with the PfP program and promoting closer integration with NATO, as well as providing logistics and other support to EUFOR (2023)

NOTE: The information regarding Bosnia and Herzegovina on this page is re-published from the 2023 World Fact Book of the United States Central Intelligence Agency and other sources. No claims are made regarding the accuracy of Bosnia and Herzegovina 2023 information contained here. All suggestions for corrections of any errors about Bosnia and Herzegovina 2023 should be addressed to the CIA or the source cited on each page.