Day: May 17, 2013
Territorial claims or good neighbors
Serbian President Nikolic said today:
We are not giving Kosovo away. And [the] Bundestag should think about what kind of a decision it would make if it were about Germany.
This is a good point, whose meaning is precisely the opposite of what Nikolic intended. My guess is that many members of the Bundestag know full well that Germany has given up many territorial claims since 1945: to Alsace-Loraine (now part of France), to the Sudetenland (now part of the Czech Republic), and to a big chunk of Poland. Not to mention its pretensions to rule as an empire over Russia, France, Britain, North Africa and much of the Middle East.
Where would Germany be today if it had not given up these ambitions but instead, like Serbia, continued to maintain them in principle? It would not be the largest and most prosperous member of a large and prosperous Europe, albeit one with current economic and financial problems. It would not have been allowed to return to military prominence. It would not be a key ally of the United States or a major player in the world’s most successful military and political alliance. It likely would have been involved in several more wars and reduced to rubble many times. Or maybe it would have won one of the wars, thus enabling it to preside over an expanded Germany struggling to protect itself from hostile neighbors and domestic insurgency.
So if the Germans ask for Serbia to give up its claim to Kosovo, or at least to the north of Kosovo, it is asking no more than successive German governments have been prepared to do with claims to far more extensive and valuable territory, in order to secure peace and prosperity. Nikolic’s argument might be more compelling if it were addressed to the American Congress, which has presided over vast expansions of territory during the past 225 years or so. But it cuts precisely the opposite way when used against the Germans, who learned the hard way that territory is far less valuable than good neighborly relations.
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Ten things the president should be doing
Herewith my short list of ten international issues more worthy of presidential attention than the issues that are getting it this week:
- Drones: Apparently the President is preparing to address how and why he uses them soon.
- Syria: Secretary of State Kerry and the Russians are ginning up a peace conference next month, while Moscow strengthens Syrian defenses against Western intervention.
- Iraq: The Syrian war is spilling over and posing serious challenges to the country’s political cohesion.
- Egypt: President Morsi is taking the Arab world’s most populous country in economically and politically ruinous directions.
- Israel/Palestine: With the peace process moribund, the window is closing on the opportunity to reach a two-state outcome.
- Libya: The failure to establish the state’s monopoly on the legitimate use of force leaves open the possibility of further attacks on Americans (and on the Libyan state).
- Afghanistan: The American withdrawal is on schedule, but big questions remain about what will be left behind.
- Pakistan: Nawaz Sharif’s hat trick provides an opportunity for improved relations, if managed well.
- Iran: once its presidential election is over (first round is June 14, runoff if needed June 21), a last diplomatic effort on its nuclear ambitions will begin.
- All that Asia stuff: North Korean nukes, maritime jostling with China, Trans-Pacific Partnership, transition in Myanmar (how about trying for one in Vietnam?), Japan’s economic and military revival…
In the good old days, presidents in domestic trouble headed out on international trips. Obama doesn’t seem inclined in that direction. He really does want to limit America’s commitments abroad and restore its economy at home. Bless him. But if things get much worse, I’ll bet on a road trip.
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