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Maybe it would work the other way around

I haven’t been able to make this video of the US Ambassador in Pristina to play, but the audio works.

Vesna Pusic, former Foreign and European Minister of Croatia,* tweeted today:

Let me get this straight: US is sanctioning Kosovo because:

1. The Serbian List political coalition, which by their own admission is completely loyal to Serbian President Vučić and follows all his instructions, has boycotted local elections in the north of Kosovo.

2. Because of that ethnic Albanians were elected mayors of the 4 municipalities with majority Serb populations in the north of Kosovo

3. The mayors tried to take the posts to which they have been elected

4. Kosovo state authorities attempted to secure the process

5. Ethnic Serb demonstrators attacked Kosovo state authorities

6. KFOR, NATO peacekeeping force in Kosovo came in to prevent further escalation of violence

7. KFOR was attacked by Serb demonstrators and cca 30 peacekeepers were injured. All amply video documented

8. The tensions & violence in Kosovo coincided with mass antigovernment demonstrations in Belgrade triggered by 2 mass shootings & killings in Serbia

9. Kosovo is sanctioned by the US & reprimanded by NATO Secretary General

10. Please explain @JoeBiden @ABlinken @jensstoltenberg

The bad bet

The short explanation is that the US and EU have doubled down on a bad bet. By appeasing Belgrade, they hope to get President Vucic to abandon his growing links to Russia and China.

He isn’t going to do that. Vucic may send some ammunition to Ukraine and vote for a UN General Assembly resolution denouncing Russia’s invasion. But he is now an elected autocrat who sees his future in the East, with other autocrats. Money from China and security support from Russia are his current interests. The EU is a much larger funder and investor, but the Union’s failure to effectively condition its assistance on maintaining democracy has allowed Vucic to talk the talk without walking the walk. The Americans have been tweeting his embrace of democracy without ever insisting on it.

And pressure your friends

Instead, the State Department has decided to try to pressure Kosovo Prime Minister Kurti. His small, manifestly democratic, country has been perhaps the most pro-American on earth. It really has little alternative but to “bandwagon” with the US. The Americans know it. Ambassador Hovenier’s admirably calm but tough talk (above) aims to get Kurti to agree that the mayors won’t try to return to their offices and that the Kosovo police will not try to enforce the law in northern Kosovo. The diplomatic sanctions pinch but do not yet bite hard, as the Kosovo Security Forces have other things to do and the Americans haven’t done much lately for Kosovo’s membership in international organizations.

The illogic is blatant. The Americans mouthed support for the election but don’t want to implement the results. They support rule of law but don’t want the Kosovo police to enforce it. They want Kosovo to be sovereign but aren’t willing to see its institutions operate from the mayoral offices there. Secretary of State Blinken criticizes both sides when Belgrade-sponsored thugs attack and injure KFOR soldiers. The US said not a word about the heightened alert and deployment of the Serbian Army to the country’s border/boundary with Kosovo.

This isn’t really about the mayors

What’s worse is that this isn’t really a conflict over the mayors. The first issue is Belgrade’s determination to maintain its control of northern Kosovo. That’s why it required the election boycott and why it sent the thugs who attacked KFOR. Vucic fears that loss of control over the north will make real problems for him in Belgrade, both with the right-wing ethnonationalists who constitute his main opposition and with the security services that enjoy their no doubt lucrative role in keeping northern Kosovo a law-free zone.

A second issue is the domestic political situation. Vucic is facing massive street demonstrations against his increasingly authoritarian rule. Shifting the focus to Kosovo and appearing to defend Kosovo Serbs is a tried and true technique for distracting attention from domestic discontent. So too is calling an early parliamentary election, quickly enough that the liberal opposition will not have a chance to organize. Vucic knows that well, as he served Slobodan Milosevic in his heyday. He won’t be calling an early presidential election–that’s what brought Milosevic down.

Reevaluation is needed

In their effort to win Serbia for the West, the Americans have wrapped themselves in contradictions. It won’t be easy to break out. But it is high time that they re-evaluated, just as they are asking Kurti to do. Neither is getting what they want. Even if they bend Kurti with sticks, they won’t have bent Vucic with carrots. Maybe it would work better the other way around?

*My original identification was wrong, because I was thinking “Vesna Pesic.” That was my error. I know them both and should not have made it, even in haste! Apologies to them and to readers,

Pristina, we’ve got a problem

These were the talking points I used this morning in a remote appearance at the Kosovo Leadership Conference in Pristina:

1. Let me begin by telling you how much I regret I am not with you there in Pristina. I haven’t had the pleasure of a stroll in Mother Teresa Street in more than three years. My recent illness made the trip inadvisable even now, but I am glad to report that I am well on my way to full recovery.
2. The bad news is that the Balkan region is not recovering. There is plenty of blame to go around but let me start with people outside the Balkans.
3. There is no more important factor in determining what happens in the next few years in Pristina, Sarajevo, and Podgorica than the outcome of the war in Ukraine.
4. It isn’t fair, but your fate depends on whether Ukraine is able to restore its sovereignty and territorial integrity, including Donbas and Crimea.
5. If Russia is successful in getting a settlement that recognizes the annexation of any part of Ukraine, you can expect Serbia to redouble its efforts to create the “Serbian world.”
6. This is well understood in Belgrade and Banja Luka.
7. Aleksandar Vulin and Milorad Dodik were in Moscow just last week no doubt cheering on the Russian army and getting their own marching orders for continuing to disrupt the Balkans and block any more Western success in the region.
8. President Vucic’s rent-a-crowd rally in Belgrade Friday manifested that Serbia is seriously pursuing “all Serbs in one country,” in cooperation with Dodik and allies in Montenegro.
9. Belgrade’s reaction to the installation of elected Albanian mayors in northern Kosovo also demonstrated its hegemonic territorial ambitions.
10. The “Serbian World” and the “Russian World” are the same idea meant to signal that no Serb or Russian should be subject to a liberal democratic order in which non-Serbs are able to gain a majority. Ethnic autocracy in a defined, unified territory is Russia and Serbia’s common goal.
11. That is incompatible with existing state structures in the Balkans and Ukraine, which include ample protection for numerical minorities.
12. That said, I am supposed to tell you what the US and EU can do about counteracting the Russian and Serbian efforts to deprive their neighbors of sovereignty and territorial integrity.
13. The first thing they can do is declaratory. That much they have done: Washington and Brussels have been clear enough about their rhetorical support for not moving borders in the Balkans.
14. The EU commitment, however, is tainted. The five EU member states that do not recognize Kosovo weaken the Union’s effectiveness in the Balkans.
15. Nothing would strengthen EU Special Envoy Lajcak’s hand more than a few more recognitions.
16. The EU could also make itself more effective by levying sanctions on Dodik and his coterie in Republika Srpska. And both the US and EU should prepare sanctions on political forces in Montenegro if they continue to head in the Russian direction.
17. I don’t like to say it, but the American commitment to sovereignty and territorial integrity in the Balkans is also clouded.
18. On Friday Washington supported the Serbian challenge to the elected mayors, condemned Prime Minister Kurti’s decision to have them take their rightful places, and failed to denounce the Serb violence and deployment of the Serbian armed forces to the border.
19. Pristina, we’ve got a problem.
20. I understand Prime Minister Kurti’s desire to proceed with implementation of the election results and to ignore ethnic differences. He wants to exercise Kosovo’s sovereignty in its whole territory and believes in equal rights for all citizens.
21. I am sympathetic with those goals. But has he got a plan for how to proceed now that Belgrade has mobilized its rioters to resist?
22. The ethnicity of the mayors is not the problem. The problem is capability, in two senses: installing the mayors needed both international and local acceptance.
23. As public figures in Pristina as well as the Council of Albanian Ambassadors have said, Kosovo needs its US and EU friends. It doesn’t have them on its side on this issue.
24. The Kosovo police seem to have done reasonably well on Friday, but things got out of hand yesterday as Serbs attacked KFOR. My sympathies are with the Italians, Hungarians, Moldovans, and any others who were injured.
25. I won’t however presume to tell Albin that he made a mistake. That will depend on how things evolve.
26. But I would like to know what his plan is now? How will the mayors be kept safe? How will they be able to conduct their business in these circumstances?
27. And I ask that we identify clearly what the problem is. The problem is Serb resistance. There are no substitutes for a modicum of local acceptance if you want the mayors to be effective.
28. Belgrade’s objectives are clear: it wants to partition Kosovo and Bosnia, de facto if not de jure, as well as swallow Montenegro whole. Russia backs those objectives, which would weaken NATO and the EU.
29. Pristina’s objectives should be just as clear: to assert its sovereignty and territorial integrity and bring the whole country into NATO and the EU as soon as possible.
30. Those are also Ukraine’s objectives, which I believe they will achieve, sooner and easier than many expect, with US and EU assistance as well as broad local support, including among Russian speakers. Military victory is not guaranteed, but it is within sight.
31. I am hoping Kosovo will do as well on its nonmilitary battlefield. But I repeat: Pristina, you’ve got a problem. You can’t get there without US and EU support as well as local acceptance.
32. Reconstructing both will now need to be major objectives for Kosovo’s leadership.