Good on recognition but oversold on strategic impact

My colleague at SAIS and its Foreign Policy Institute, Ed Joseph, has organized an unusual group to strategize about how to deal with growing instability in the Balkans. Regional stagnation due to EU hesistancy as well as Russian and Chinese meddling threatens more than two decades of progress. The group includes scholars with origins in both Serbia and Kosovo as well as EU non-recognizing states Romania, Slovakia, and Spain.

I was not involved in preparation of their report and did not know about it until published. I’ll offer an arms-length critique of some of its more salient points.

Convergence on recognition is right

The report is right to put the emphasis on convincing non-recognizers to recognize Kosovo, with due respect to the difficulties of the process. This is the centerpiece of what they call a “convergence” strategy. They are also correct to point toward Greece as the most likely of the non-recognziers to do the right thing. So it is regrettable that the report does not include a Greek author. That said, surely the encouraging approach they suggest is preferable to a punitive one.

Irredentism is a real threat…

One of the reasons for urgency about recognition is the growing threat of irredentism. Belgrade is dreaming of a “Serbian home” that includes Serb-populated parts of Kosovo, Montenegro, and Bosnia and Herzegovina. That idea is indistguishable from Greater Serbia. That was Slobodan Milosevic’s goal in going to war in Croatia and Bosnia. (Kosovo and Montenegro were already under Serbian rule at the time.) Some in Tirana and Pristina, including the current prime ministers, like the idea of Greater Albania, which is ruled out in the Kosovo constitution.

…but legal sanctions are not an appropriate response to talk

These ethnically-motivated territorial ambitions are, as the report suggests, a prime cause of Balkan instability. But the authors make the mistake of suggesting the US legally sanction their paladins. That proposal is attracting a lot of press attention in the region, but it isn’t going to happen. Washington does not levy legal sanctions for opinions but rather for actions. US officials may limit access and even visas for foreign officials who say things Washington regards as destabilizing. But the miscreants will have to introduce legislation, organize and arm paramilitaries, or take some other tangible action to incur frozen assets or other legal sanctions.

The bigger error

That is not however the report’s biggest error. It argues that recognition and eventual NATO membership for Kosovo will change Belgrade’s “strategic calculus,” incentivize Serbia to accept the Western order for the Balkans, and deter Russia.

I doubt these propositions. Belgrade claims it is “neutral” but in fact is re-arming beyond any need to confront real military threats. Serbia is also moving towards domestic autocracy. Its politics have shifted definitively toward virulent ethnic nationalism. Its democratic opoposition is moribund. Its media are not free. Even the constitutional amendments approved last weekend are but a first step towards an independent judiciary, if implemented in good faith.

Recognition of Kosovo and its progress toward NATO will likely prevent any Serbian military intervention. But it will also incentivize Serbia further in the wrong directions. Ethnic nationalist politicians will benefit. Moscow will be ready and willing to arm Belgrade against NATO. Russia can even be relied upon to block Kosovo UN membership if Serbia were to somehow agree to it. President Putin will have a price in mind–in Georgia, Moldova, or Ukraine–before surrendering his trump card.

Whole and free is a dead letter for now

Let me be clear: I like the idea of working hard for recognition by the EU non-recognizers, especially the four who are members of NATO. The Alliance needs to prepare for Kosovo accession no later than completion of its army, scheduled for 2027. But the notion that recognition or NATO membership will somehow undo Serbia’s domestic and international drift in the wrong directions is fanciful. Europe “whole and free” is a dead letter for now. So too is the Balkans “whole and free.” The region will divide because that’s the way Moscow and Belgrade want it. The only question is where the lines will be drawn.

So what do I think of the report? Good on its central thesis concerning recognition, but oversold on the strategic impact. There is no magic wand. The West needs to gird for a long struggle in the Balkans.