I know in some quarters (the secret Bourbon councils I attend) that's not considered all that long, but realistically it doesn't cut it to say Bosnia is a "phony" country.
Yes, but as "a shared territory", never as a stand-alone country -- or at least as a stand-alone country that had Muslims in it.
Bosnia Hercegovina had always existed as a sort of DMZ between Serbia and Croatia, with members of both ethnicities, Serb & Croat, living there -- and the power shifting back and forth as political circumstances changed. When the Turks came, they empowered those Serbs, Croats (and Bogomils, a Christian sect) who converted to Islam, hence the Bosnian Muslims, now called "Bosniaks". When the Turks left they handed Bosnia over to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, as a territory, not as a country, which sowed the seeds of the events that led to WWI.
Today, most people don't realize that Muslims are still not a majority in Bosnia, they are a minority. Serbs and Croats, collectively, still outnumber Muslims but yet, the West still empowers Muslims to more power than their numbers warrant. And even the Croats, who are allies in "the Muslim-Croat Federation" portion of Bosnia want their own entity (not centralization) and are complaining that Croats have been ethnically cleansed from Sarajevo. (In fact virtually ALL non-Muslims, Serbs & Croats alike, have been driven from the capital.)
There is no "natural cohesiveness" to the peoples of Bosnia. What commonality and cohesiveness that did exist, died when Yugoslavia died.
Bosnia, as "a country" was created by and is being held together by "the international community" -- and even the internationals realize that the only ones who have a real life or death stake in Bosnia, as a country, are the Muslims. Bosnian Croats will always be politically and culturally pulled toward Croatia, and Bosnian Serbs will always be politically and culturally pulled toward Serbia. But the Bosnian Muslims have no where else to be or to go, so this is why the internationals are backing them -- to prop up their artificial creation.