Tag: Balkans
Why a PM resigning doesn’t matter
I’ve been preoccupied with events in DC and thus slow to comment on Serbian politics. Certainly the resignation of the prime minister is a credit to the demonstrators. They have maintained the pressure for months in the aftermath of the collapse of the Novi Sad train station canopy.
Waves of protests
In my way of counting this is a third wave of recent popular protests against President Aleksandar Vucic. The first wave was the anti-violence protests starting in late 2023. The second was environmental protests against lithium mining last summer and fall. Now we are seeing massive protests asking for accountability for the Novi Sad tragedy, which occurred last November 1. The common thread is that Serbs are asking for more transparency, accountability, and rule of law.
The protests show profound dissatisfaction with Vucic. He has introduced a semi-authoritarian system. The state vilifies and arrests dissenters, denies them outlets for free expression, and buys support with government jobs and contracts. Meanwhile, he and his allies are harvesting rents from any and all who want to do business in Serbia.
While united on the street, the opposition is fragmented among small political parties and their egotistical leaders. There is no opposition ready to govern. Some of the demonstrators are calling for a technical government to prepare for elections. Vucic won’t likely do that. He doesn’t hesitate to cheat when need be during electoral campaigns and at the polls. A technical government might put a crimp in his style.
Democratic backsliding has worked well for Vucic
But he is also genuinely popular in much of the country. He is a devoted Serbian nationalist who has attracted a lot of foreign investment from China, Europe, and the US. Despite his democratic backsliding, he has also gained political support from Washington and Brussels. They have regarded him as better than any of the conceivable alternatives, which are mostly on the nationalist right. And they like Vucic’s supply of ammunition to Ukraine and his willingness to mine lithium. Fawning over Vucic by the US government and by Germany has been particularly noteworthy.
Beijing has been investing mainly in steel, other metals, mining, and the automotive industry. In addition to its potential future in the European Union, Serbia is attractive partly because of lax regulation and enforcement. The Novi Sad collapse is symptomatic. China also supplies internal security technology that Vucic no doubt appreciates.
Moscow is not a big investor anywhere these days but gets lots of electronic components and political support from Serbia. Most notable is Serbia’s refusal to align with EU Ukraine sanctions.
One lapdog is as good as another
In this context, the resignation of a prime minister with little power doesn’t make a lot of difference. Vucic is the man, not Vucevic. If he thinks he’ll win, or can ensure that he’ll win, the President will call new elections. That has worked for him in the past to quiet protests. Or he will choose another lapdog prime minister who will do what the President wants without objection.
The prospects for real democracy in Serbia are dim, but of course that is true elsewhere as well. But that’s not a good reason not to try. My sentiments are with the demonstrators.
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Things in the Balkans can get worse
My post yesterday on Biden’s less than sterling foreign policy legacy disappointed my Balkan fans. They thought his weak performance in their region merited attention. So here is a moment of attention. Let’s start with Trump’s first term, 2017-21.
Trump disappointed
In 2020, then President Trump signed with Kosovo Prime Minister Hoti and Serbian President Vucic separate agreements on “economic normalization.” The US Administration advertised these agreements as great achievements. They provided for highway and rail connections, financing for small and medium enterprises, entry of Kosovo into what was then labeled a “mini-Schengen” zone that included Serbia, Albania and Macedonia, mutual recognition of diplomas, prohibition of “untrusted” (read: Chinese) 5G vendors, as well as a number of other provisions that have little or nothing to do with economic normalization between Belgrade and Pristina. The other economic provisions were even more minimal, except for a promise to Belgrade of more US investment.
These agreements mostly went unimplemented. Israel recognized Kosovo and Pristina located its new embassy to Israel in Jerusalem. Serbia got lots of new US investment. The most important provision, Serbia’s suspension of its anti-recognition campaign, never happened so far as I can tell.
Everyone had high expectations for Biden
People in the region, especially in Bosnia and Kosovo, had high expectations for the Biden Administration in 2020. Senator Biden had been a vigorous advocate of US interventions in the Balkans. Secretary of State Blinken knew the region well. Ambassador in Belgrade Chris Hill had been deeply involved at Dayton and thereafter at Rambouillet and as ambassador in Macedonia. Derek Chollet, Counselor at State, was likewise knowledgeable.
To my surprise, they decided to turn American policy in a decidedly pro-Belgrade direction. They also decided to back Albanian Prime Minister Rama to the hilt. I knew that Biden had favored Belgrade getting candidacy for the European Union, without having met the requirements. I had opposed him on this issue while testifying in the 2000s. But I did not understand this reflected a generalized lean towards Serbia. For much of the Biden Administration, Gab Escobar, former DCM in Belgrade, led on the Balkans at State. He made creation of the Association of Serb Majority Municipalities his exclusive priority. That meant giving Belgrade what it wanted most while giving Pristina nothing. That was never going to work, and it didn’t.
But Biden’s people kept on leaning towards Belgrade. When Serbia kidnapped two Kosovo police from Kosovo territory, they said nothing meaningful. When Vucic sent rioters to Kosovo to attack NATO peacekeepers, Washington said little. When Serbia organized and equipped a terrorist attack in Kosovo, they did nothing. In Bosnia, the Biden people prioritized getting rid of a Bosniak nationalist politician. They left the much-sanctioned Serb and the equally odious Croat for another time.
What to expect now
I don’t expect better of the second Trump Administration. Jared Kushner, Trump’s Saudi-funded son-in-law, has been prospecting for investment projects in both Serbia and Albania. So far as I am aware, he hasn’t even visited Bosnia or Kosovo. You can expect Trump to do nothing that will endanger Kushner’s projects or his Saudi money. That means a continued tilt towards Belgrade and away from Pristina, though not away from Tirana. Albania and Serbia agree on many things, including the need for their presidents to stay in power without serious opposition. The Americans have been supportive under Biden. That will continue under Trump.
People in the Balkans will be watching Marco Rubio’s confirmation hearing today for any questions involving the Balkans. That could be a hint of where things are going. But I wouldn’t bet on any Balkan issues getting raised, unless someone prompts one of the Senators to do it.
Mico Vlahovic quotes outgoing Assistant Secretary James O’Brien as saying:
We do not want to it to seem that one [US political] party or the other is taking responsibility, because in America both parties believe that a strong relationship is important – both for our country and for Serbia.
That implies continuity in the appeasement of Belgrade.
It could be worse than that, if Washington returns to wanting to partition Kosovo on ethnic lines. But neither appeasement nor partition will bring peace and stability. The route to that is strengthened sovereignty for all the region’s countries. In these waning days, the Biden Administration is pushing “strategic dialogues” with both Belgrade and Pristina. That’s not the worst idea I’ve heard, but it all depends on the agendas.
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Grenell’s special missions
President Trump has announced that Ric Grenell will be Presidential Envoy for Special Missions.
Ric, he says, “will work in some of the hottest spots around the World, including Venezuela and North Korea.” To my knowledge, this is a new job definition. In the past, presidents have often named special envoys for specific issues, not for “special missions” in general.
What he did in the past
Grenell was notorious in the first Trump Administration for mucking up several tasks. As Ambassador in Berlin he had a terrible relationship with the Germans. Without discussing the issues in private, he slammed German companies publicly for doing business with Iran and Russia. As a special envoy, Grenell tried to negotiate partition of Kosovo, transferring its Serb-majority northern municipalities to Serbia. That effort failed. He then spent several months as a highly partisan but interim Director of National Intelligence. In that job, he declassified documents he thought would embarrass Democrats.
Openly gay well before that was widely acceptable in the US, Grenell has been politically labile. He has worked for Mitt Romney, criticized Donald Trump, and lobbied for Hungarian autocrat Viktor Orban. He did not register with the Justice Department after signing a contract with Orban.
Venezuela and North Korea
President Trump in his first term notably failed in diplomacy with Caracas and Pyongyang. He recognized opposition candidate Juan Guaido as the rightful President of Venezuela. He even introduced him as such during a State of the Union address. But he failed to make it stick. President Biden is in a similar situation now. The US recognizes opposition candidate Edmundo Gonzalez as the winner of the July presidential election. But Nicolas Maduro remains in power.
The first Trump Administration likewise failed in its effort to reach an agreement with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un. Trump tried both threats and flattery to get Pyongyang to give up nuclear weapons, to no avail. North Korea is a de facto nuclear power with about 50 nuclear weapons. It also now has the fissile material needed to build at least another 50. The Biden Administration has not made any progress on the nuclear issue. It has also been unable to prevent Pyongyang from helping Russia with missiles and other conventional weapons.
So Grenell is taking on at least two difficult portfolios. Venezuela might be the easier, as Maduro appears weak and vulnerable. He allowed an election in which he was soundly defeated but claimed victory and refused to leave office. Kim Jong Un has not made that mistake. But even apparently strong regimes can be brittle and fall, as we have seen these last two weeks in Syria.
Good luck!
Good luck and timing are important factors in diplomacy. It’s possible Grenell will not fail this time around. I wish him good luck. America would be better off if Maduro concedes the presidency in Venezuela and Kim Jong Un surrenders nuclear capabilities.
The Balkans will be fortunate if Grenell stays busy with Venezuela and North Korea. He came close to precipitating disaster there in the first Trump Administration. Since 2021, Grenell has been involved with Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner in hospitality investments in Serbia and Albania. It would be a gross abuse for him to get involved now in the Balkans. But in an Administration that doesn’t know what “conflict of interest” means, it could happen. Kosovo and Bosnia would be the victims.
Ukraine should also count itself lucky that it was not named as a “special mission”:
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Trump likes incompetence and chaos
Marco Rubio and Michael Waltz, the projected Secretary of State and National Security Advisor respectively, are fig leaves. Trump proposed them first to hide the ugly reality that followed.
Lowering the bar
His aim is to name people who will make him seem normal. This is difficult. He is a rapist and convicted felon who improperly stored classified material and imperiled US security. As President, Trump cozied up to Putin and incited a riot against the 2020 election result. He ran his businesses in ways that infringed on legal requirements and drove them into bankruptcy.
In this context, Tulsi Gabbard, Pete Hegseth, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Matt Gaetz fit well.
Gabbard, the nominee for Director of National Intelligence, is also a Putin sycophant and flak for Syrian President Assad.
Hegseth, the Fox News nominee for Defense Secretary, is a Christian nationalist and womanizer. He has no visible qualifications for the job except service in the Army as a major. The US Army has more than 16,000 of those.
Kennedy, nominated to lead Health and Human Services, is a flake. His “Make America Healthy Again” website doesn’t bother with discussion of the issues he is interested in. It goes straight to selling swag. In his bio, it highlights his environmental activism, entirely out of tune with Trump. But he is an anti-vaccine activist as well, claiming that all he wants is good scientific data. But he ignores the excellent scientific data already available on vaccines.
Matt Gaetz has sex with underage women, some of whom he pays for the privilege. His nomination for Attorney General was worthy of Trump. Sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein claimed Trump made a sport of sleeping with his friends’ wives. Gaetz has now withdrawn his name. Maybe Trump will give him a position that doesn’t need confirmation.
Normally when a nomination doesn’t succeed a president will pick someone less prone to controversy. I suppose the choice of Pam Bondi, former Florida Attorney General, might be seen that way. But she is ethically challenged and may not stand up well under intense scrutiny.
Exaggerating what he can do
While lowering the bar for personnel, Trump is also boasting about the incredible things he will achieve. He aims to deport millions of undocumented immigrants. His billionaire friends will cut trillions in government expenditure. He will end the Ukraine war in 24 hours.
Much of this is not going to happen. Here too Trump is setting a bar. While on personnel he sets it low, on policy he sets it high. The moves he favors on immigrants and government expenditure will generate thousands of lawsuits. The stimulus to the legal profession will be unprecedented.
The result will be chaos, something Trump enjoys. He will use it to claim extraordinary powers for the presidency. He disdains democracy and seeks unfettered power. The current Supreme Court majority, which has already given him immunity from prosecution for official acts, will back him wholeheartedly.
Encouraging international chaos
On the foreign policy front, it is harder to predict the outcome. But let’s try.
If Trump ends military aid, Kyiv will have to negotiate an unsatisfactory outcome with Moscow. The result will be partition. Russia will keep most of the territory it occupies now. The Europeans will have to patrol a demilitarized zone. And rump Ukraine will face a prolonged period of instability as the Russians wage hybrid warfare against Kyiv.
Irredentist ambitions will explode worldwide. Serbia will aim to gain territory in the Balkans. China will continue its expansion in the East and South China Seas, and set its sights on Taiwan. Russia will try for Moldova and Georgia. India and Pakistan may go at it over Kashmir. Israel will annex whatever it wants of the West Bank and Gaza.
There are about 150 outstanding border disputes worldwide. Even if only a handful get worse, the international community will have a hard time managing them.
The President can impose tariffs without Congressional approval. They will re-ignite inflation in the US and have a devastating effect on the US and world economies. That will cause the Fed to slow the decline of interest rates, or maybe raise them again. Other countries will retaliate against US goods, slowing the US economy further. Even without the tariffs, the US expansion that started with Obama
A difficult four years
Trump will relish this chaos as well. But it is not good for the United States, which can barely manage one serious crisis at a time.
The current US expansion started during Obama’s presidency, in the aftermath of the financial crisis. Except for the COVID-19 recession Trump aggravated with an inept response to the epidemic, it has continued unabated since. Even without Trump’s chaos, the expansion would be unlikely to last much longer.
We are in for a difficult four years. Tighten you seat belt.
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Trump’s first foreign policy failure
I find it hard to cheer the widening of any war. But President Biden’s decision to allow Ukraine to strike deeper inside Russia is an exception. It has become necessary in response to Moscow’s persistence in pursuing its invasion despite colossal losses.
I am not really cheering the move. It’s more like recognizing its grim necessity.
The gains are small but the losses are big
The Russians have advanced, albeit marginally, over the past year, mainly in Donbas. The gains in 2024 amount to less than 1% of Ukraine’s territory. The advances since 2022 have cost around 700,000 Russians killed and wounded, according to the Ukrainians. Russian military casualties are now estimated at around 40,000 per month. That’s why President Putin doesn’t want to mobilize Russians again. They are souring on his war.
The losses on the Ukrainian side are no doubt large as well, though not the 700,000 or so Moscow claims. Russia is simply mirroring the number projected in the West for its own losses. But Ukraine before the war had a population of about 37 million. Russia’s was almost four times that number. In a war of attrition, Russia has more bodies to throw at Ukraine than Ukraine has to throw at Russia. And more elite political willingness to accept those losses. Putin doesn’t tolerate dissent.
Russia also continues to attack civilians and civilian infrastructure using drones and missiles. To judge by news reports, Ukraine’s attacks on civilians are minor by comparison.
Escalation but will it make a difference?
Biden’s decision apparently applies to MGM-40 Army Tactical Missile System (aka ATACMs) with a range of about 190 miles. It is reportedly limited for now to countering Russian advances in Kursk oblast, which the Ukrainians invaded in August. The decision responds to the deployment there of North Korean troops in support of the Russian army.
Moscow is portraying this deployment as adding fuel to the fire. That is a reasonable assessment, but the fire will not be in Ukraine. Most of the gigantic country remains beyond their range. The ATACMs can however reach a lot of military targets inside Russia. Whether that is a game changer, or they are too little too late, is unclear for now.
What is clear and what isn’t
The Ukrainians and Russians are racing for gains against the January 20 deadline in the US. Both expect President Trump, once inaugurated, to try to force a negotiated settlement to the war. Reports suggest he would require Ukraine to cede, at least temporarily, Russian occupied areas. It would also commit Kyiv to not joining NATO for decades.
That would be a one-sided settlement in favor of Moscow. And it would need the Europeans to deploy peacekeepers to guard a demilitarized zone between the two sides.
None of the parties will find the Trump idea attractive. Putin seems ready to reject it. He wants all of Ukraine permanently within the Russian sphere of influence and outside NATO. The Europeans, who have failed at peacekeeping between Israel and Lebanon, won’t want to do guard a demilitarized zone. Ukrainian President Zelensky doesn’t want to cede territory or be barred from NATO.
That doesn’t mean it won’t happen. Trump will threaten to withhold aid to Ukraine. The Europeans won’t compensate Kyiv and will want to limit the Russian advance. Putin is facing increasing economic and popular pressure at home. Zelensky may get boxed in.
Partition has consequences
The consequences of decades-long partition will be tragic. The Russians will insist on Zelensky’s removal, or defenestrate him at the first opportunity. Western investment in Ukraine will dry up. Its economy will shrivel. People will emigrate. Moscow proxies will take over, as they have in Georgia and Chechnya. Putin will have won.
Partition of Ukraine will echo elsewhere. Serbia will see it as an opportunity to take northern Kosovo. Republika Srpska will try to secede from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Irredentist ambitions worldwide will flower. China will want to assert sovereignty over Taiwan. Israel will annex the West Bank and northern Gaza. Dozens of border disputes in other regions will exacerbate.
Trump’s partition of Ukraine will be his first but not his only foreign policy failure.
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Group rights encourage tyranny
My inbox floweth over. I’ve received two long letters arguing that the European Court of Human Rights should affirm its recent Kovačević v. Bosnia and Herzegovina decision. One comes mainly from the Bosnian diaspora in the US and Europe:
The other comes from the Democratization Policy Council:
The authors argue their cases well. Those concerned with the fate of Bosnia and Herzegovina should give them close attention.
What’s it all about?
I’ll take a less legalistic perspective and try to avoid reference to the details. The basic issue is the one Timothy Snyder refers to as “who belongs to the state”? But in the 21st century I think it better to ask “to whom does the state belong?”
The US constitution is clear on this question: it belongs to “we, the people.” This simple formula has many ramifications. American history has seen the individual rights originally reserved to rich, white men inexorably extended to all American citizens. The US Constitution recognizes groups rights only for American Indians. Sadly, the US government has honored those more in the breach than in the observance.
In the Balkans, most of the constitutions can be summarized in an equally simple formula: “we the peoples.” The Bosnian constitution specifically names Bosniaks, Croats, and Serbs. It provides those groups with rights and powers in addition to those assigned to individuals and other groups. To gain power under this constitution you need to identify with one of the “constituent peoples.”
This all but guarantees the permanence in power of political parties that associate themselves with ethnic groups. Non-ethnic parties are disadvantaged. In its not-yet-final decision the ECHR has decided that this ethnonationalist constitution discriminates against people who do not identify with one of the ethnic groups. That makes it impermissible in a member state of the Council of Europe. The European Convention on Human Rights applies directly in Bosnia and Herzegovina.
What difference does it make?
It makes a big difference. Without the empowerment of ethnic groups, the citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina would have many more ways in which to organize themselves and their politics. Ethnonationalist leaders would no longer have a monopoly on power. More conventional left and right parties could gain greater weight.
That is why the ethnonationalists, their co-nationals in Zagreb and Belgrade, and their apologists worldwide oppose the proposed ECHR decision. If implemented, it would disempower all of them. So they resist. The ethnonationalists have still not implemented a 2009 ECHR decision to allow citizens who don’t identify with the three main ethnic groups to serve in the presidency.
The Kovačević decision is more sweeping. It essentially requires a complete rewrite of the Dayton constitution that ended Bosnia’s 1992/5 war. Instead of group rights, individual rights would predominate. The geographical structure of the country, based on the warring parties, would have to be changed. The Croat/Bosniak Federation and Republika Srpska could dissolve in favor of strengthened municipal governance.
That would eliminate much unnecessary expenditure on intermediate levels of governance. In many municipalities, one ethnic group or another would dominate. But all municipalities would be required to respect the rights of the minority. At the “state” level, politicians would have the option of organizing across ethnic lines. Appealing to your own ethnic group would of course still be permitted. But access to power would no longer depend on ethnic identity.
Bosnians need to decide
How to rewrite their constitution is up to the citizens of Bosnia. But I don’t wish for them any less than I wish for myself. I would not trade my individual rights in the US for any form of group rights. That is because the courts can be relied on to enforce my individual rights. I wish nothing less for Bosnians: rule of law that guarantees implementation of individual rights. Power should flow from the choices of individuals, organized how they prefer. Forcing people into an ethnic mold is not freedom. Group rights encourage tyranny.
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