Q: What parallels do you see with events in the US and Bosnia before the SHTF?

Things that I experienced in my case prior to SHTF, and things that you might recognize:

Things that make differences between people are more and more problematic (race, religion, political opinion).
Polarization is getting obviously stronger.
People want to come to your country, but they do not want to “assimilate” or contribute to the greater good. They want to preserve their way of life which is often absolutely contradictory to the way that your country (society) works.
The political way of solving those problems often fails, because, in essence, those problems are hard to solve in a democratic way (in the spirit of democracy).
Your freedoms are “shrinking” as a result of that.
Calls for “radical solutions“ for the problems are stronger and stronger.
The media is absolutely working a dirty job, and it is hard to find out what is the truth anymore.
Suddenly people and events from history are “brought back” so people can judge and argue about it, to write history again, to build myths sometimes.

From personal experience, the flint in a Bic lighter will dissolve in a few years when stored in your glove box or even in your house. If I were stockpiling lighters, I would heat seal bag them with silica gel or store them in a airtight container under nitrogen if possible. Stocking replacement Zippo flints or other fire lighters wouldn't hurt.

There was a similar first hand account of living in Argentina, (search "FerFal"). His situation was more "economic collapse/rampant inflation" than war/occupation/survival. One of the things I remember from his account was that lots of places would exchange gold, but you would only be paid junk gold prices.