Dayton Accords in the context of "Dayton, Ohio"

The Bosnian War (Serbo-Croatian: Rat u Bosni i Hercegovini / Рат у Босни и Херцеговини) was an international armed conflict that took place in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992 and 1995. Following several earlier violent incidents, the war is commonly seen as having started on 6 April 1992 when the newly independent Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina was internationally recognized. It ended on 21 November 1995 when the Dayton Accords were initialed. The main belligerents were the forces of the government of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and those of the breakaway proto-states of the Republic of Herzeg-Bosnia and the Republika Srpska which were led and supplied by Croatia and Serbia, respectively.

The war was part of the breakup of Yugoslavia. Following the Slovenian and Croatian secessions from the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1991, the multi-ethnic Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina – which was inhabited by mainly Muslim Bosniaks (44%), Orthodox Serbs (32.5%) and Catholic Croats (17%) – passed a referendum for independence on 29 February 1992. Political representatives of the Bosnian Serbs boycotted the referendum and rejected its outcome. Anticipating the outcome of the referendum, the Bosnian Serb leadership proclaimed the ”Republic of the Serb People of Bosnia and Herzegovina” on 9 January 1992 (Republika srpskoga naroda Bosne i Hercegovine), effectively laying the foundation of today's Republika Srpska.

Although the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) existed as an alliance and conducted joint military exercises throughout the Cold War period, it engaged in no military operations during this time. All of its military operations occurred in the post-Cold War era. The first of these was in Bosnia, where NATO engaged to an increasing extent. This engagement culminated in NATO's 1995 air campaign, Operation Deliberate Force, which targeted the Army of Republika Srpska, whose presence in Bosnia posed a danger to United Nations Safe Areas. This engagement ultimately helped to bring about the Dayton Accords.

The organization played a prominent role in Afghanistan after the September 11 attacks, when the United States invoked Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty, which interprets an external attack on any member to be an attack on all NATO members under the idea of collective defense. NATO has participated in a wide range of roles elsewhere, including relief efforts, counter-piracy, enforcing no-fly zones and naval blockades.