Month: May 2023
Stevenson’s army, May 4
– Tom Nichols analyzes the alternative explanations for the drones over the Kremlin.
– Politico notes the disparate approaches in Congress to AI.
– WaPo shows how few days are left when key debt players are in town.
-WaPo says business and nonpartisan groups aren’t weighing in on debt ceiling.
-There’s more than we thought to US-Philippine agreement
– And look how new British election laws requiring a voter ID are helping the Tories. Neither US nor UK has a national ID card for cultural reasons. [Ours is that the NRA is a chief opponent]
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here, with occasional videos of my choice. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Bilateral isn’t working, so…
Yesterday Serbian President Vucic and Kosovo Prime Minister Kurti failed to reach any further agreement at their umpteenth meeting of the EU-sponsored Belgrade/Pristina dialogue in Brussels. The two leaders merely reiterated a longstanding pledge to deal with the outstanding issue of missing persons from the 1998/99 Serbian repression and Kosovo rebellion. The best that can be hoped is that they will now fulfill that pledge.
Prime Minister Kurti explicitly rejected a Serbian government proposal to create an Association of Serb-majority Municipalities (ASM) inside Kosovo. Suzana Starikov (@Intetyst) reports that he called it:
fundamentally incompatible w/Constitution, w/democratic & European values, w/human & minority rights according to European standards
https://twitter.com/Intetyst/status/1653506908421070852/photo/1
That is a thoroughgoing repudiation. Petrit Selimi reports:
The statute of Association proposed by the Management Team led by a Serbian MP doesn’t pass, what one diplomat called a “laughability test”. Belgrade wants ASM to “execute laws”, “organize referendums”, “establish institutions & agencies”. It’s a non-starter in 90% of content.
https://twitter.com/Petrit/status/1653683292661579777/photo/1
Kosovo seems not to have put forward its own proposal, despite many urgings to do so.
The bilateral approach just isn’t working
The EU is warning about possible violence due to this stalemate. That is realistic. Belgrade has several times in the past year or so precipitated violence in Serb-majority northern Kosovo. Serbia is trying its best to demonstrate that Kosovo cannot govern there and to get the Americans and Europeans to convince Pristina to let Belgrade do it through the ASM. Kurti isn’t buying, not only because he wants to protect Kosovo’s sovereignty and territorial integrity but also because Serbia, the US and the EU are offering him little in exchange.
The plain fact is that the “bilateral” Kosovo/Serbia dialogue isn’t working. It is tempting to say no one is to blame, but it would be more accurate to say they all are. The Europeans have failed to make accession attractive. The Americans have simply shifted to appeasing Belgrade and beating on Pristina. Belgrade isn’t really interested in anything but maintaining de facto authority over Serbs in Kosovo. Pristina is demanding apologies and recognition from Serbia that they know Belgrade won’t provide. It’s what the US military terms a goat rope, or more expressively FUBAR. Or the conflict management nerds would say there is no ZOPA (zone of possible agreement).
Try something else
There are other options. The multilateral approach–involving all six of the non-EU members of the Western Balkans–has been far more successful. The so-called Berlin process last year produced highly popular agreements on mutual recognition of identity cards, university diplomas and professional qualifications. Both Serbia and Kosovo have ratified these agreements, though of course it remains to be seen whether and how they implement them. These latest agreements come on top of the commitment to a Common Regional Market (CRM), which aims to free up movement of goods, services, people, and capital in preparation for EU accession. The CRM also envisages regional investment, digital, and industrial and innovation areas.
It would be reasonable to hope that success multilaterally would focus minds. It did. Serbia has proposed Open Balkans, a regional scheme without the EU mediation it intends to dominate, along with Albania. That isn’t going far. Serbia won’t invite Kosovo on an equal basis with the others participating, so Kosovo won’t even consider joining. Montenegro is thinking about it. And the Bosnians as usual can’t agree one way or the other. Without the Europeans in the mix, it is hard to get the Balkanites to do much, especially when they are rightly suspicious of the organizers’ intentions. In any event, much of what Open Balkans might do is already included in the Berlin process.
Time to move the show
Kosovo and Serbia are simply not ready to do for each other what each needs to improve relations. Serbia has turned eastward internationally and less democratic domestically. Its state-influenced press whips up anti-Albanian fervor on a daily basis. There is zero likelihood of an apology for the 1990s repression. Kosovo is pretty much united in rejecting any new infringements on its sovereignty and territorial integrity. Its constitution already provides guaranteed seats in parliament for Serbs as well as a large measure of self-governance for municipalities.
No “final” agreement is anywhere on the horizon. That is what the bilateral dialogue was supposed to produce. So it is time to move the Serbia/Kosovo show to where it might be more productive. The Berlin process is the right place. Embedded in a multilateral context in which Berlin plays an important role, Kurti and Vucic might both play nicer.
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Stevenson’s army, May 3
– WaPo says administration hopes for win-win deal on debt. Lots of luck.
– NYT says administration considers invoking 14th amendment to ignore debt ceiling.
– FWIW I agree with Larry Tribe that that’s wrong.
– Meanwhile, House Democrats stealthily pDrepared a discharge petition option.
– Politico floats a GOP wish list for moderate Democrats.
-Troops to southern border, but no law enforcement role.
-Gen. Milley gave interview to Foreign Affairs.
– WaPo show how Capitol can accommodate a larger House.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here, with occasional videos of my choice. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Stevenson’s army, May 2
Hard to believe I am watching The Diplomat, and harder to believe that I am enjoying it, but I am. No, DCMs don’t spend all day outside the Embassy or get involved in their Ambassador’s marital problems. Nor do Ambassadors, especially professional ones, get tapped for VP. But still, it’s amusing. So:
– Congress has barely a month to raise or suspend the debt ceiling. Politico reports the state of play. CBO warns of the deadline. CRS has background on debt legislation and the “extraordinary measures” Treasury has been taking.
– Defense News updates how far DOD has pivoted to Asia.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here, with occasional videos of my choice. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Stevenson’s army, May 1
-Two assessments: Dan Drezner on Jake Sullivan’s speech and Ishaan Tharoor.
– A Carnegie analyst says India will disappoint us.
-Supreme Court will take up a case that will give it a chance to overturn Chevron decision.
– Georgetown prof says PLA might be a Potemkin force.
– Politico explains the Ukraine Defense Contact Group.
– CSIS has a bunch of new reports.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I republish here, with occasional videos of my choice. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Justice can’t substitute for politics
Anwar Albuni, Director of the Syria Center for Legal Studies and Research in Berlin, gave an overview today at the Middle East Institute of prosecutions in Europe for serious crimes over the past 12 years of revolution, repression, and civil war in Syria. These include at least 60 indictees for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including Bashar al Assad if I understood correctly, as well as many others for money laundering.
Justice as a substitute for political progress
Albuni’s view is that these prosecutions worry the Syrian leadership and send a powerful message to human rights abusers worldwide. He hopes that in the absence of any progress in the constitutional talks in Geneva, the prosecutions in Europe and one potential prosecution in Chicago will exclude abusers from the political process and prevent diplomatic normalization with the Syrian regime. The Russians and Chinese are blocking any action in the UN Security Council. But he hopes the General Assembly may create a special court, at least to prosecute use of chemical weapons.
The diplomatic normalization the Arab countries are pursuing with Syria should be, he thought, expected. The Gulf in particular wants no democracies in the region. Its monarchies even supported extremists in Syria in order to prevent a real democracy from emerging there. An audience member noted that Turkiye today is on a similar wavelength and is preventing Syrian witnesses from leaving Turkiye to testify in European courts.
Hope is not a policy
I might be inclined to hope Albuni is correct. But I don’t see much evidence for his perspective. There are certainly instances where indictments have given pause to abusers, but Syria isn’t likely to be one of them. Twelve years of civil war with only a few dozen lower-level convictions is not going to stop Bashar al Assad from his homicidal ways any more the International Criminal Court indictment will stop Vladimir Putin from kidnapping Ukrainian children.
Human rights abuses are not incidental for Assad and Putin. They are part of the war-fighting strategy and well-documented, including by an organization on whose board I sit. Bashar used chemical weapons because he found them effective. Like barrel bombs, they are cheap and indiscrimately deadly. If you are trying to terrify a civilian population, that is what you want.
Assad won’t soften
So it is unlikely that justice will do for Syria what politics has failed to do so far. Getting some of the worst abusers out of the picture and sending a message to the rest is a good idea but will just as likely stiffen Assad’s resolve as weaken it. Assad knows that softness will get him nowhere. The prosecutions may make some of his cronies think twice, but like Putin’s they can easily find a window to fall out of.
Syria’s Arab neighbors are likely to continue diplomatic normalization, in exchange for Assad’s fake promises of cracking down on the drug trade his regime now uses in lieu of taxes. The Americans show no interest in normalizing but are turning a blind eye. They are convinced that the Arab neighbors will do it even if Washington objects. The constitutional committee is likely to remain stalemated, because Assad thinks he has won the war. He has nothing to gain from the political process. Justice, justice you shall pursue, but don’t expect it to solve political problems.
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