Tag: Balkans
From Bosnia to Iraq, with love
Some colleagues interested in Iraq asked what lessons had been learned from states that have emerged from a collapse of central authority. I was assigned Bosnia. Here is what I had to say:
- Central authority never completely collapsed in Bosnia. The internationally recognized government continued to exist in Sarajevo.
- But its authority did not extend during more than three years of the war to the three-quarters of the country controlled by unrecognized Croat and Serb military and governing structures, analogous in a way to Kurdistan under Saddam Hussein.
- Nor has central authority in Bosnia been fully restored, 22 years after the wars ended.
- Let me offer a short version of the story.
- After Croat (Catholic) and Bosniak (Muslim) “Federation” forces swept through western Bosnia in August and September 1995, the US peace initiative imposed a ceasefire.
- At Dayton, we rolled back the Federation forces from about 67% of the territory to 51% and accepted the governing authority of Republika Srpska on the remaining 49%. The Federation and Republika Srpska are two sub-state units of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
- This was done with the concurrence of Croatia and Serbia, Bosnia’s nearest neighbors. They were responsible for the war; peace could not be made without them.
- NATO initially deployed 60,000 troops, one-third Americans, to guarantee no reversion to war.
- We also created a thin central government with limited competences: foreign affairs, customs, currency, immigration, and a few other things like international communications and law enforcement.
- The currency used was the Deutschmark, as there was no possibility of agreement on anything else. As a consequence, there could be no: no printing of money and no devaluation.
- Under the Dayton constitution, this thin central government and the corresponding parliament were power-sharing arrangements: no important decisions could be made without all ethnic groups agreeing. This was repeated in the Federation down to the municipality level.
- Most responsibilities were devolved to the two “entities” created by the warring parties: the Federation and Republika Srpska. The Croat entity was to disappear.
- But that Dayton formula proved insufficient to create a functioning state. A civilian international community “High Representative,” designed at Dayton as powerless, was entrusted in 1997 with virtually dictatorial powers to fire officials and promulgate laws.
- From 1997 to 2006, he undertook the strengthening of the central government by fiat, with authority derived from a Peace Implementation Council in which the major powers were represented.
- With support from the NATO forces, he and the other civilian organizations he reigned over dismantled the separate Croat governing structures, organized elections, unified the army and defense ministries, the customs, the banking system, the license plates, and to some degree the courts, arrested war crime indictees, vetted the police, blocked broadcast of hate speech, instituted direct election of mayors, and beefed up the central government’s authority.
- This was vigorous international state-building backed by the stick of military force.
- The carrot was entry into Euro-Atlantic institutions.
- In 1999, four years after the war, a summit meeting in Sarajevo opened for all the countries of former Yugoslavia the prospect of membership in NATO and the European Union, a commitment that has been reiterated several times since.
- While Bosnia lags most of the rest of the Balkans in qualifying because of its still dysfunctional governing structure, incentives like a Stabilization and Association Agreement and a Schengen visa waiver have proven critical in thickening the authority of the central government.
- Present circumstances—which include Brexit, the refugee crisis, and a long recession as well as a decision not to admit any new EU members before 2020—have postponed the most important carrot and reduced its attractiveness, which accounts for a lot of the difficulties the Balkans, and Bosnia specifically, are facing right now.
- One other detail from Bosnia that may have some relevance to Iraq: the international community, in the person of an American “supervisor,” took on direct governing authority over the Brcko District, perhaps the most contested area during the war.
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Preventing new Balkan conflicts
Here are my speaking notes for the testimony I delivered today at the hearing on “The Balkans: Threats to Peace and Stability” of the Subcommittee on Europe, Asia and Emerging Threats of the House International Relations Committee.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With permission, I would like to submit a written statement for the record and use the few minutes I have for just three key points.
First, the countries of the region made remarkable progress in the 10 years or so after the NATO intervention in Bosnia in 1995. But in the last 10 years, the U.S. effort to pass the baton of leadership to the European Union has allowed slippage. In Bosnia, Kosovo, Serbia, and Macedonia there are now risks of instability that could trigger a regionwide convulsion. That would reflect badly on America’s global leadership role, unravel three peace agreements, and cost us far more than conflict prevention.
Second, those who say ethnic partition through rearrangement of borders would be viable are playing with matches near a powder keg. Moves in that direction would lead to violence, including ethnic cleansing, crimes against humanity, and even genocide. It happened in the 1990s and could again. Monoethnic states cannot be achieved without a massive and expensive peacekeeping deployment.
Ethnic partition would not only be violent, it would also generate a new flood of refugees and creation of Islamic mini-states in parts of Bosnia, Serbia, and Kosovo. This was a main reason we refused to move borders in the 1990s. Americans should be even more concerned about it today. The Islamic State and Al Qaeda have had more success recruiting in the Balkans than many once thought possible given the pro-Western and pro-American attitudes of most Muslims there. Reducing Balkan Muslims to rump monoethnic states would radicalize many more.
Damage would not be limited to the Balkans. Russia would welcome ethnic partition, because it would validate Moscow’s destructive irredentist behavior in South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Transnistria, Crimea, and Donbas as well as give Moscow a stronger foothold in the region. It would also leave a geographic gap in NATO and the EU that we have long hoped would be filled with friends and allies.
My third point is this: I see no serious alternative in the Balkans to the political and economic reforms required for each of the countries of the region to be eligible for NATO and EU membership. All want to join the EU, which unfortunately will not be able to begin admitting them until 2020 at the earliest. That leaves NATO membership as the vital “carrot” for reform, except in Serbia. We need to do more to enable Balkan countries that want to do so to join the Alliance, as Montenegro is doing.
In Macedonia, this means Europe and the U.S. need to tell Greece “The FYROM” will be invited to join NATO once it reestablishes transparent and accountable democratic governance. In Kosovo, it means ensuring Pristina develops an army designed for international peacekeeping that poses no threat to Serbs. For that, Serbia will need to accept Kosovo’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, by allowing UN membership. In Bosnia and Herzegovina, NATO members should tell Republika Srpska secession will gain no Western recognition or aid for it or any country it joins, including from the IMF or World Bank.
These and other suggestions in my written testimony would put the region back on track and prevent the peace agreements of the 1990s and 2001 from unraveling. So too would ensuring that all Balkan countries have access to energy supplies from countries other than Russia: natural gas from Azerbaijan, LNG from the U.S., or eventually Mediterranean gas from Cyprus or Israel.
Mr. Chairman, I’ve just outlined a substantial list of diplomatic tasks. If the Administration commits to them, implementation might require an American special envoy. But a policy should come first: one based on maintaining current borders, preventing ethnic partition, and pushing harder for NATO and EU membership. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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Let him try to govern
Thugs supporting the erstwhile ruling party VMRO-DPMNE broke in to the Macedonian parliament yesterday, in an apparent effort to block election of an Albanian Speaker, a prelude to the opposition (SDSM) forming a government. SDSM leader Zaev was injured in the melee. Other parliamentarians as well as journalists were also injured and taken hostage.
This is a big setback for Macedonia’s fledgling democracy as well as its ambitions to become a NATO and EU member. The country can hardly claim it meets NATO’s criteria if its parliament is unable to meet and freely choose its Speaker in an orderly fashion. Ditto the EU, which won’t be interested in pursuing negotiations with Macedonia, already stalled because of Macedonia’s “name” problem with Greece. Macedonia’s substantial Albanian population, which regards NATO and EU membership as vital to its future security and prosperity, will enormously resent the Macedonian nationalist attempted violence against the parliament.
This is not where Macedonia should be 17 years after the negotiated end of an Albanian rebellion in Macedonia.
No one is to blame but the Macedonians, first and foremost those who wear balaclavas whle attacking parliamentarians and journalists. But the broader political context is also important: for months, the politicians whom the thugs support have been claiming that Zaev and his Albanian allies are trying to steal the country from VMRO-DPMNE patriots. Never mind that VMRO-DPMNE has been deeply implicated in malfeasance revealed with the publication of embarrassing wiretaps. Or that President Ivanov made things worse when he refused weeks ago to allow Zaev to form a government because he disliked the platform his Albanian allies were bringing to the proposed coalition.
I might not like everything in that platform, or the fact that it was negotiated and agreed in Tirana rather than Skopje. But in a democracy people are entitled to organize politically wherever they want and for what they want, even if I don’t like it. That doesn’t mean they will get it. Americans know all too well how little platforms count when it comes to actually governing. Any new government in Skopje will have a narrow majority and need to move cautiously.
Sadly, it will take some bold action by outsiders–the US and EU–to fix what ails Macedonia. President Trump should ask that the US Treasury “designate” today’s rioters and their political masters, so that their assets are blocked as well as their travel to the US. While this rarely has any great practical effect, it is vital to signaling that the individuals involved are non grata to the US government. Unfortunately, the EU has no comparable mechanism, if I understand correctly, though similar moves can be made at the member state level. I would hope that as many European countries as possible would follow suit.
President Ivanov and his ilk will cry foul, claiming that we are being unfair and acting precipitously. I don’t think so. To the contrary, we’ve been far too patient. Brussels and Washington have treated Macedonia like the fragile state it is, giving it rewards before performance and hoping that will fix what ails it. But its leadership–especially President Ivanov and former Prime Minister Gruevski–seem to have decided they aren’t interested in either NATO or EU membership but prefer an illiberal democracy with a weak judiciary that lines their supporters’ pockets and guarantees they stay in power. They also enjoy and appreciate Moscow’s blessing and support.
The citizens of Macedonia deserve better. They have made enormous progress in the years since independence in 1991. Gruevski even deserves some credit for economic reform and for deployment of Macedonia’s troops to help NATO in Afghanistan under US command. But past performance is no guarantee of future results, as they say on Wall Street. The country is now stuck in a political and economic rut that will require new, more daring leadership. I’ve never met Zaev and I’m not convinced he is the right guy. But he is the guy with the majority in parliament. Let him try to govern.
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Outside influences in the Balkans
Some colleagues asked that I talk yesterday about outside influences on the Balkans, where things have gotten shaky lately, with a risk that the peace settlements of the 1990s might unravel. Here are the notes I prepared for myself:
- Renewed attention to the Balkans, which has all but dropped off Washington’s priorities in recent years, is most welcome. The region has made a lot of progress, especially in the first ten years after the Bosnian war, but right now it is in trouble.
- I’ve been asked to talk about “outside influences”: Russia, China, Turkey, Iran, and Saudi Arabia.
- It is important at the outset to say that none of these countries would have much influence in the Balkans except for the decline in American engagement and the weakening of the EU.
- The US has tried for a decade now to get the EU to lead, as it has the main carrots for political and economic reform as well as more compelling interests in the region.
- The Europeans have done some good things: the Brussels dialogue has led to real improvements in Belgrade/Pristina relations, even if many specific agreements remain unimplemented.
- The 2014 British-German initiative for economic reform in Bosnia—undertaken to forestall a renewed U.S. initiative to change its constitution—has made little real progress, largely due to European reluctance to stick with its own conditionality.
- The best that can be said for EU efforts in Macedonia is that they have so far avoided the worst, with US support. The EU there seems unable to overcome a monumental level of stubbornness.
- But in the past two years the refugee crisis, Brexit, surging nationalism in many EU countries, and the congenital inability of the EU to speak with one voice has undermined the credibility of EU accession, which in any event won’t happen before 2020 and more likely not before 2025.
- That’s a long time to wait in the Balkans, where we’ve spoiled people with Stabilization and Association, Schengen visas, candidacy for EU accession, pre-accession funds, and other goodies. What we haven’t done is invest: the US and EU have risked little private money in the Balkans.
- Russia and Turkey—whose influence is far greater than others I’ve been asked to discuss—are moving into relative vacuums: the Russians find ethnic Serbs easy pickings and the Turks find Islamists, especially in Bosnia but also in Kosovo, friendly to their interests.
- The Russian influence is overwhelmingly pernicious from a Western perspective. Moscow is doing its best to make NATO and EU membership as slow and as difficult as possible, especially in Montenegro, Macedonia, Bosnia, and Serbia. Its influence in Albania and Kosovo is minimal.
- The attempted coup in Montenegro is just the tip of iceberg. Moscow contributes to ethnic tensions, political polarization, and regional instability in many ways: opaque financing for Republika Srpska, Russia’s so-called humanitarian center, overt military aid and investments in Serbia, support to Russophile politicians as well as media onslaughts throughout the region.
- Quite apart from these Slavic connections, Moscow has strong leverage over Belgrade because its UNSC veto is essential to blocking Kosovo’s General Assembly membership.
- Moscow’s goal is clear: to prevent Balkan countries from entering NATO and even the EU.
- Turkey is a different story.
- For more than twenty years after the Bosnian war the Turks were disciplined Western-oriented contributors to peacekeeping and development in the Balkans, trying to maintain good relations with Serbs and Croats as well as with Balkan Muslims.
- This has been described as a “gentle version” of the Ottoman Empire, one associated with the “no problems with neighbors” policy and aimed at the region’s Christians as well as its Muslims.
- Many Croats and Serbs may have been nervous about Turkish cultural inroads, as parts of the region lived for centuries under Ottoman domination, but most welcomed Turkish investment and contractors, which are evident throughout the region.
- As Erdogan turned in a more authoritarian direction and relations with the US strained, Turkey began a more Islamist push, especially with Bosnian Muslims and President Bakir Izetbegovic.
- The Muslim Brotherhood connection is a more visible and explicit one for Bakir than it was for his father, though it existed for Alija Izetbegovic as well.
- The recent Turkish-Russian rapprochement has had an undesirable impact with some Bosniak leaders in Montenegro. They are taking Erdogan’s hint, viewing Moscow in a more positive light and connecting with the Chechen leadership. That development may warrant monitoring, especially if it spills over to Bosnia.
- Turkey has also had notably good relations with President Thaci in Kosovo, but more based on commercial opportunities than religion.
- Iran and Saudi Arabia both have long histories in the Balkans.
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Yes, Kosovo needs stronger security forces
I spoke this morning (along with President Thaci, the American and French ambassadors as well as Deputy Prime Minister Branimir Stojanovic) at a conference in Pristina on the future of Kosovo’s security forces (KSF), which until now have been limited. Here are the speaking notes I prepared:
- It is a pleasure to be back in Pristina to discuss a subject I had the privilege of working on about five long years ago: future requirements for Kosovo security forces and ways of meeting them.
- I would like to underline that I speak only for myself and will not address the constitutional and legal issues.
- A paper I was involved in writing then cited five security risks to Kosovo:
- Continued de facto Serbian control of parallel structures in northern Kosovo and the persistence in that area of smuggling and other organized crime activities.
- A Serbian armored incursion that seeks to establish overt control over northern Kosovo and possibly some monasteries or enclaves south of the Ibar River.
- Political extremism that aims by violent means to change the constitutional order in a religious or nationalist direction.
- Organized crime activities that aim to capture the state and subvert it for criminal purposes.
- The possibility of deteriorating social and economic conditions in a young and rapidly growing population.
- Kosovo already has within its sovereign control the means to respond to four out of five of these security risks. Your police, courts, parliament, economic policies, and international relations are the appropriate means, though not yet always equal to the tasks.
- The only missing means concern number 2: a Serbian armed incursion that seeks to establish overt control over northern Kosovo and possibly some monasteries or enclaves south of the Ibar River.
- My friends in Belgrade—and I am pleased to say that I do have many there—will instantly say there is no need to fear that.
- I agree with them most days. Serbia has far more important things to concern itself with.
- But I can’t advise basing a security policy and the security forces entrusted with implementing it on assumptions. Sometimes things happen—as they did in March 2004—that make the unlikely possible.
- In the nine years since independence, Kosovo has enjoyed the privilege of not worrying too much about that, because KFOR defends the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
- That however won’t last forever. NATO too has other things to worry about and should not remain forever in Kosovo, which will want to become a security producer and a full member of NATO rather than a security consumer.
- Once NATO is gone, you will need the capacity to defend yourselves, at least for the couple of weeks it will take for your allies to respond to a contingency.
- This raises two issues: the process by which you get strengthened security forces and the character of those security forces.
- The process will require U.S. and European support.
- Washington and Brussels will want you to make a genuine effort to obtain Serb concurrence and participation.
- What Serbs need more than anything else is confidence that the Kosovo Security Force will not be used against them.
- The KSF role should be focused on external threats and contributions to international missions, not on law and order inside Kosovo.
- The question of what kind of security forces you will need depends on the threats you face. If the threat of a Serbian incursion is eliminated, Kosovo will not need forces designed to respond to it.
- Today however Serbian capabilities are already all too real, and Russian transfers to Belgrade of aircraft, tanks and other equipment will make them loom larger in the future.
- Those weapons, and the means to respond to them, are expensive. Kosovo and Serbia would be far better off without the costs of preparing for war against each other.
- So the question is: what could remove that threat, lessen the risk, and reduce the costs?
- Serbia could: by recognizing the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Kosovo, or at least allowing it to enter the United Nations, and exchanging diplomatic representatives with it.
- Doing so would enable Kosovo to limit the capabilities of its security forces and focus them on international missions, which is appropriate given how much the country has benefited from them in the past.
- With Aleksandar Vucic soon to be inaugurated as President of Serbia, it seems to me the time for a grand bargain between Pristina and Belgrade, and with Serbs in Kosovo, is near.
- President, I am ambitious. I’m just a professor, so I can afford to be.
- I would like to see resolution of all the big outstanding issues in a package deal: composition of the Kosovo isSecurity Force, UN membership and exchange of diplomatic representatives, and creation of the Association of Serb Municipalities consistent with the Kosovo constitution.
- That’s asking a lot, but not I think too much.
- Serbia at this point needs to focus on its path to the European Union. Any conflict with Kosovo would make that difficult.
- I am confident Serbia will not become an EU member without exchanging diplomatic representatives with Kosovo, enabling it to focus on the needs of its citizens.
- Kosovo likewise needs to concentrate on fulfilling the aspirations of its citizens for better and more secure lives, including candidacy for EU membership.
- Neither Kosovo nor Serbia would benefit from a costly arms race or from frictions that might escalate to armed conflict.
- To the contrary: it is time even now for your chiefs of staff to meet and begin the normal communication and collaboration that is happily standard among European countries, even countries that fought far more terrible wars than Kosovo and Serbia.
- You can expect to go much farther than that in the future: Serbia and Kosovo will someday be allies and fight together on foreign shores. The time to begin preparing for that day is now.
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What to do with a big win
Acting Prime Minister Aleksandar Vucic has won the presidency in Serbia with a convincing margin over a fragmented opposition in the first round. The question now is what he will do with his overwhelmingly dominant position in Serbian politics.
In foreign policy, Vucic has straddled the yawning gap between European Union ambitions and close relations with Putin’s Russia. Conditioned by decades of non-alignment, Serbs have good reason to like this: they play one side off against the other, getting arms from Russia and lots of money from the EU while refusing to go along with Ukraine-related EU sanctions. So long as US policy on Russia remains in limbo, this straddle is workable. If Trump eventually gets his way and cozies up to Putin, Belgrade will be relieved of any discomfort it may feel from keeping one leg in the West and one in the East. If things go in the other direction, Vucic could come under intensified pressure to join the Ukraine sanctions and align Serbia more completely with Western policy.
Domestically, Vucic also tries to straddle. He claims to be a true democrat and reformer, while outside observers see him as leaning heavily towards illiberal politics: the Serbian press rains praise on him and opprobrium on his competitors, the courts are far from independent, and the ballyhooed corruption investigations rarely touch those close to him. Vucic’s popularity is real, but he lacks a serious political opposition. His closest rival in the presidential poll–former Ombudsman Sasa Jankovic, who has a good reputation–had fewer than one-third the front runner’s votes. The third candidate was a literally a youthful jokester who satirized Serbian politics.
What about the future? It seems to me a new president should keep his focus on longer-term issues–that means at least the five years of his term if not the ten he likely hopes to serve–and not get bogged down in daily events. I’d cite three of particular significance:
- Opening the media space so that a viable opposition can form and thrive.
- Building an independent judiciary that is capable of sharply reducing corruption.
- Moving Serbia definitively towards membership in the European Union, including reaching agreements with Kosovo on difficult outstanding issues.
That is asking a lot. Politicians don’t rise above the fray easily. Certainly Boris Tadic, one of Vucic’s predecessors (2004-12), spent too much of his time managing daily issues of governance. The result was that he achieved little, especially in his second term. Current President Tomislav Nikolic had no choice because Vucic as prime minister was strong enough to keep him out of a lot of issues. So he focused on maintaining relations with Russia and was reasonably successful at that longer-term game, shifting Vucic significantly in that direction.
Vucic likes to say, both in public and in private, that he is not straddling and that he has made a definitive choice to take Serbia into the EU, while maintaining (as many European countries try to do) good relations with Moscow. That is difficult: Moscow last year sponsored a coup attempt in Montenegro, whose accession to NATO it wanted to block, using people and resources that came in part from Serbia. Vucic helped to block Moscow’s move, which targeted Montenegrin Prime Minister Djukanovic for assassination. How do you stay on good terms with people who plot a violent coup against a friendly neighbor?
A big win merits a big move in the direction Vucic really wants to go. We’ll be looking for further signs of his bona fides.
PS: “Anti-dictatorship” protests were held in Belgrade this evening:
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