Building Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Defence Technology and Innovation Ecosystem: Cyber Resilience, Unmanned Systems and NATO Partnership

Key takeaways

• Defence innovation based on emerging technologies in the defence industry should be treated as part of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s wider reform, resilience, and Euro-Atlantic agenda and not merely as a collection of isolated technology projects.
• The Reform Programme, Individually Tailored Partnership Programme (ITPP), Defence and Related Security Capacity Building Package (DCB), and other NATO partnership tools can provide a coherent framework for capability development, education, cyber resilience, and institutional cooperation.
• Bosnia and Herzegovina could contribute to Allies and partners by developing specialised knowledgeand services in unmanned systems cybersecurity, including professional education, security testing, vulnerability assessment, digital forensic analysis, and simulation-based
• Gradually, Bosnia and Herzegovina could establish a specialised regional hub for unmanned systemscybersecurity, connecting national institutions, operational users, academia, industry, and internationalpartners while complementing the broader mandate of the Western Balkans Cyber Capacity Centre.
• NATO support can act as an enabler, but sustainable innovation will depend on national politicalcommitment, predictable financing, transparent governance, and cooperation among defence institutions, academia, and industry.

Defence Innovation as a Strategic Opportunity for Bosnia and Herzegovina

The international security environment is undergoing profound transformation. Recognising this shift, NATO’s Science and Technology Macro Trends 2025–2045 report identifies science and technology as key drivers of future geopolitical competition. According to the report, artificial intelligence, autonomy, quantum technologies, digital transformation, and growing technological interdependencies will fundamentally shape defence capabilities and strategic decision-making. Hybrid warfare and multidomain operations are expected to increase military dependence on interconnected digital systems, making cyber resilience an essential requirement for future operations. For smaller states and NATO partners (such as Bosnia andHerzegovina), the central challenge is therefore not simply how to acquire new equipment, but how to build the institutions,knowledge, partnerships, and industrial capacity required to use technology securely and sustainably.

The explained transformation in the international security environment presents both vulnerabilities and opportunities for Bosnia and Herzegovina. Limited defence resources, political fragmentation, legacyinfrastructure, and insufficient investment constrain long-term capability development. However, the countryhas universities, engineering and cybersecurity expertise, an established defence-industrial companies, and a generation of professionals already connected to international research and technology networks. These assets do not yet constitute a coherent defence innovation ecosystem, but they provide a foundation upon which one could be developed. In the context of Bosnia and Herzegovina, this broader understanding of security environment change is particularly important because innovation must support not only military modernisation but also institutional resilience, civil preparedness, crisis management, and the protection of critical infrastructure.

NATO Partnership as a Framework for Defence Innovation and Resilience

Bosnia and Herzegovina joined NATO’s Partnership for Peace in 2006 and was invited to participate in the Membership Action Plan in 2010. Since 2019, cooperation within the MAP framework has been structuredthrough the Bosnia and Herzegovina Reform Programme, which identifies reforms the authorities intend toundertake and enables NATO to advise and support the whole process. All of the mentioned mechanisms are primarily associated with political, institutional, and defence reform, but they can help create the conditions required for technological innovation: transparent and accountable institutions, clearer planning, professional education, interoperability, sound resource management, and long-term capability priorities.

In October 2025, NATO and Bosnia and Herzegovina agreed the country’s first Individually Tailored Partnership Programme covering 2025–2028. The ITPP follows NATO’s “One Partner, One Plan” approach, bringing different civilian and military cooperation activities into a more coherent framework. For Bosnia and Herzegovina, its value should not be measured only by the number of activities conducted. It should also be used to connect those activities to a longer-term national vision: what capabilities the country needs,which institutions should develop them, which knowledge gaps must be addressed, and where international assistance can produce sustainable domestic capacity.

The Defence and Related Security Capacity Building package provides a more practical foundation. Endorsedin 2023, it contains twelve initiatives in areas including crisis management, cyber defence, counter-terrorism, aero-medical evacuation, and CBRN-related capabilities. These initiatives can strengthen immediate operational capacities, but their longer-term value will depend on whether equipment, training, advice, and institutional reform become embedded in national structures. A cyber-defence project, for example, should not end with the delivery of tools or a short training course. It should help produce doctrine, trained personnel, repeatable exercises, incident-response procedures, partnerships with universities, and asustainable pathway for maintaining and improving capabilities.

A fully functioning ecosystem in Bosnia and Herzegovina cannot be solely created by the Ministry of Defence or the Armed Forces alone. Organised and structured cooperation among state institutions, operational users, universities, research centres, private technology firms, established defence companies, and international partners is required. Connections among these actors remain insufficiently institutionalisedand the described policy objective should be able to create repeatable mechanisms through which securityneeds are identified, research is commissioned, prototypes are tested, lessons are shared, and successful solutions can be adopted. These mechanisms can help Bosnia and Herzegovina link innovation with interoperability, good governance, transparent defence-resource management, and measurable capability development. The strategic task is to prevent these instruments from operating as separate administrative tracks and instead use them as mutually reinforcing components of an innovation and resilience agenda.

Building Specialised Defence Capabilities: Cyber Resilience and Unmanned systems

One potential approach for Bosnia and Herzegovina would be selective specialisation: identifying several areas in which domestic knowledge can be developed and connected to wider Euro-Atlantic requirements. Cyber defence and critical infrastructure protection could be particularly relevant areasbecause they affect military readiness, public administration, energy, transport, communications, and crisis response. Investment in these fields would therefore produce both defence and wider societal benefits.

The role of Unmanned Aerial Systems has expanded considerably over the past decade. Initially used primarily for intelligence and surveillance missions, UAS now support a broad spectrum of military, security, and civilian operations as well. UAS provide persistent situational awareness, operate in contestedenvironments, and reduce risks to personnel, which establishes them as crucial assets within contemporary security organisations. Beyond the military applications, UAS can be used in border surveillance, maritime security, search and rescue operations, disaster response, logistics, public safety, and law enforcement activities. NATO’s Stability Policing Centre of Excellence highlights that unmanned systems now supportevidence collection, traffic management, force protection, crowd monitoring, and operational planning, demonstrating that their strategic value extends well beyond conventional military operations. Modern unmanned systems operate within highly interconnected digital ecosystems comprising satellite navigation, wireless communications, mission-planning software, onboard computing, sensors, cloud services, artificial intelligence, and ground control stations. Moreover, these technologies enable operational flexibility while also expanding the digital dependencies upon which mission success relies. Cyber resilience shouldtherefore be recognised not as a technical requirement but as a strategic capability supporting operational readiness, interoperability, and, in the NATO context, collective defence.

In the context of Bosnia and Herzegovina, developing specialised expertise in UAS cybersecurity could support national resilience, technological innovation, and interoperability with NATO. This could make unmanned-system cybersecurity a suitable interdisciplinary niche for Bosnia and Herzegovina. It brings together computer science, electrical engineering, telecommunications, digital forensics, operational planning, law, and security studies. Bosnia and Herzegovina could begin with research, professional education, simulation-based and practical exercises, security assessment, incident analysis, and the development of policy. This approach could be more efficient than attempting to develop complete advanced platforms while still building valuable expertise, supporting the secure adoption of dual-use systems, and contributing to NATO-oriented interoperability and resilience.

Bosnia and Herzegovina would not be developing this proposed specialisation from the ground up since the country possesses several institutional capabilities upon which a more focused contribution could be built. For example, the Peace Support Operations Training Centre in Butmir is NATO-accredited and is a part of NATO’s network of Partnership Training and Education Centres, demonstrating that Bosnia and Herzegovina provides NATO-compatible education and training to domestic and international participants.The Armed Forces of Bosnia and Herzegovina have also already developed NATO-evaluated interoperability and maintain engineering and explosive ordnance disposal capabilities. The existing cooperation with NATO also includes cyber defence, advanced technologies, mine and unexploded ordnance detection, and emergency-response coordination. These capabilities still do not constitute a specialised institutional niche in unmanned-systems cybersecurity, but together with the country’s academic expertise in computer science, electrical engineering, telecommunications, security studies and digital forensics, they provide a credible institutional foundation for developing specialised training, simulation, security assessment and forensic analysis of unmanned systems. This could provide a solid foundation for further development.

Contributing to NATO Partnership through Specialised Unmanned Systems Cybersecurity Capabilities

One of the Bosnia and Herzegovina’s potential contribution to NATO could be based on specialised knowledgeof cybersecurity of unmanned systems and services that could be shared with Allies and partners. Looking long-term, it could also be determined how to establish a regional hub for the cybersecurity and cyber resilience ofunmanned systems in Bosnia and Herzegovina that could provide value to NATO and its partners.. The suggested regional hub could provide digital-forensics analysis, professional education, simulation-based training, security testing, vulnerability assessment, and operational guidance. All the activities in the hub could also be relevant in the broader sense for cyber resilience of unmanned systems, critical infrastructure protection, and emergency response. In this way, Bosnia and Herzegovina would contribute knowledge, training, and tested procedures rather than attempting to compete in the costly production of complete advanced platforms. To set up the infrastructure needed for a specific cybersecurity hub for unmanned systems, clear rulescould govern it: the lawful use of UAS, vulnerability assessment, data protection, and civil-military cooperation. On the other hand, human capital would be critically important. Bosnia and Herzegovina should develop national training programmes, instructor capacity, professional certification programmes, and partnerships between universities and operational institutions, including participation in NATO and regional exercises, research projects, and professional networks.

Existing NATO partnership examples could provide a realistic pathway and framework for developing this niche capability in Bosnia and Herzegovina. One of the best examples of smaller states making meaningfulcontributions to collective security by developing specialised capabilities is Estonia’s development of the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Center of Excellence. Estonia’s experience in hosting the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence illustrates how a smaller state can support internationally relevant expertise, training, research, and cooperation in a specialised field. At the regional level, Montenegro’s role in hosting the Western Balkans Cyber Capacity Centre provides another relevant example. This center demonstrates how a Western Balkan country can provide a platform for specialisation byleveraging existing national knowledge with the support of international partners.

Bosnia and Herzegovina could draw lessons from the mentioned models while developing a potential focus specifically on the cybersecurity and resilience of unmanned systems. NATO’s Defence and Related Security Capacity Building Initiative provides strategic advice and practical assistance to partner countries, supporting the development of effective and resilient defence institutions and sustainable national capabilities. However, such an initiative should not duplicate the broader cybersecurity mandate of theWestern Balkans Cyber Capacity Center. Instead, Bosnia and Herzegovina could develop a specialisednational center or regional hub dedicated to unmanned systems, working in cooperation with the WB3C, relevant NATO bodies, universities, research organisations, and operational institutions.

Fundamentally, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s ability to contribute to NATO-oriented security and continue its path towards NATO membership will depend more on transforming existing domestic knowledge into sustainable, internationally relevant capabilities than on the scale of its defence industry.

The views expressed in this publication are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the position of GSSC.