Read: Has international intervention helped or hurt Bosnia?

The Dayton Accords left all sides dissatisfied and nurturing grievances, but brokered a brittle peace. In the process, they shaped modern Bosnia—the country’s entire constitution is an annex of the document—by cleaving it into two ethnically based “entities” of roughly equal size. These are the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, home predominantly to Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims) and Bosnian Croats, and the Bosnian Serb–dominated Republika Srpska. Both entities have their own president, their own prime minister, and the trappings of extensive autonomy, with a weak central government in the federal capital Sarajevo presiding over them. There is no hard border, but Bosnia’s various communities largely live separate lives.

Besides the country’s presidency, Dodik has also for the past eight years led Republika Srpska, which encompasses much of the country’s north and east (Republika Srpska should not be confused with Serbia, a separate country with whom its people share ethnic, linguistic, and religious commonalities). He appears to have grand designs for the territory: like many Bosnian Serbs, Dodik views Republika Srpska as a state-in-waiting, whose full sovereignty is stymied only by the Dayton Accords, which clearly forbid its often postponed secession from Bosnia.

In October, Bosnians elected three members of the country’s presidency, each representing its main ethnic groups; the chairmanship of the presidency rotates between the trio. For the next eight months, it’s Dodik’s turn in the driver’s seat, and he has started in predictably inflammatory style. Before his inauguration in November, Dodik brought the flag of Republika Srpska to Sarajevo, where he planted it outside his new office in the presidency building. The act seemed calculated to spark anger, given that Republika Srpska has flirted with secession more than once. Politicians from the Bosniak and Croat communities demanded that the flag be removed. Dodik not only stood firm but upped the ante: If Republika Srpska’s flag was not displayed in the building, he said, he would refuse to hold presidency sessions.

Beyond that bellicosity, Dodik is taking legislative steps to further his cause, too. A new reform package consolidates even more powers in Republika Srpska’s hands. For example, the statelet might get its own intelligence service alongside its burgeoning, militarized police force.

Banja Luka, a Serb city in northern Bosnia, flaunts its alter ego as the capital of this state-in-waiting. The red, blue, and white flag of Republika Srpska is ubiquitous here; few Bosnian flags grace its streets, and the city’s museum and theater are proudly prefixed with the word national.

“Many young people in Republika Srpska today have no conception of any other political reality,” remarks Miloš Šolaja, a political-science professor at the University of Banja Luka, adding that some of his students had never even been to Sarajevo. “This mental geography is very strong; it’s as if there’s an iron curtain in the brain.”