The “Serbian world”* is a peril to non-Serbs and regional security

Aleksandar Vulin, Serbia’s Interior Minister, has become chief spokesman for an idea he attributes to President Vucic: the “Serbian world.”* This is a warmed up version of the Greater Serbia Slobodan Milosevic failed to create because he lost four wars in the 1990s. Vulin is clear that what he intends is military conquest, if need be. Serbia, he says, must “have an army capable of preserving both it and the Serbs wherever they live.” Serbs of course live in many places–notably also the US and Canada–but Vulin’s real meaning is clear to everyone in the Balkans. He means Serbia should be capable of defending Serbs in neighboring countries: principally Bosnia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Croatia.

In classic aggressor fashion, Vulin attributes this need to harm done to Serbs. Self-victimization is a classic precursor to violence. The Serbian Academy memorandum that Milosevic used to justify his wars focuses on the claim that Serbs were the victims of an unjust Yugoslavia. Hitler justified his aggression against Czechoslovakia and Poland on grounds that Germans were victims. Stalin claimed Communists were the victims when he joined with the Nazis to invade Poland. The factual basis of such claims is irrelevant. Their main purpose is to justify aggression, not to seek justice.

Meanwhile, the Serbian member of the presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Milorad Dodik, is preemptively warning the US ambassador that he won’t accept the decision to replace the international community “high representative” in Bosnia and Herzegovina, who is responsible for implementation of the Dayton peace accords. Dodik claims he will defend Dayton himself. What he means is that he will defend his version of the agreements, which claims that Republika Srpska (RS), the 49% of the territory he represents, is sovereign and should be independent. You won’t find that in the Dayton accords. Dodik would no doubt take an independent RS into the “Serbian home.” Never mind that the Dayton accords guarantee the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In Kosovo, the Serbian aim is also partition. Serbia wants the four majority-Serb municipalities in the north. In Montenegro, a pro-Serbian coalition now has a one-vote majority in parliament. Most of them, too, are “Serbian world”* affiliates, but their purpose seems not to divide Montenegro but to make it a solid Serbian stronghold, despite the resistance of both those who identify as Montenegrins and well as the country’s Albanian, Bosniak, and other minorities. The “Serbian home” doesn’t like to acknowledge that non-Serbs have rights too, or that they are sometimes victims.

President Vucic was elected on a pro-European platform. But he abandoned that years ago. He is now an unabashed supporter of ethnic division throughout the Balkans. He may get the word out through Vulin and Dodik. And he is cautious in dealing with Serbia’s own minorities, as was Milosevic. You don’t want to start nasty at home if you are planning nasty to your neighbors, as that could weaken the home front. But Vucic is increasingly aligned with China and Russia, both of which are much closer to his views on ethnicity and minorities than Brussels or Washington.

Bottom line: the “Serbian world”* is a peril to non-Serbs and a threat to regional peace and stability. The Americans and Europeans need to recognize it for the illiberal, anti-democratic notion that it is and counter it and its advocates as best they can. They aren’t doing that yet.

*I originally wrote for “home” for “svet.” It should have been “world.” My bad.