Tag: European Union
Ukraine doesn’t like Trump’s surrender
Ukrainian President Zelensky is understandably an unhappy man. President Trump organized a meeting to discuss Ukraine behind his back. Trump also conceded most of what the Russians were seeking in advance. Besides the continued Russian occupation of 20% of Ukraine, Trump is prepared to meet other Russian demands. They include no NATO membership for Ukraine, no US forces in Ukraine, and sanctions relief for Russia. It is rumored Trump has also agreed to withdrawal of US forces from other Russian neighbors.
Why?
The US interests the Administration has cited are economic and geopolitical. That is bogus. Russia’s economy at this point is smaller than Spain’s. Alienating Europe, a wealthy market of over 500 million people (EU+UK), to curry economic favor with Russia is absurd. Its population is less than 145 million and its GDP smaller than California’s or Texas’. Russia’s giant Eurasian land mass is of little interest to the US. America has greater oil and gas reserves and produces much more of both. We bought the most important part Russian territory in 1867. It is now called Alaska.
Besides, Russia is now firmly aligned, as a vassal state, with China. Putin couldn’t get out of that relationship if he wanted to. But he doesn’t want to.
One reason for Trump’s capitulation was seated at the negotiating table. Dmitry Rybolovlev, one of Putin’s favorite billionaires, bought a house in Palm Beach from Trump in 2008 for $95 million. Trump had paid less than $42 million for it four years earlier. Even in Palm Beach, that’s wild. Dmitry must have had very good reasons making his money disappear. Trump collaborated in the laundering. If this were a mafia movie, you would know what having him sit in the negotiations yesterday means.
US interests
This is not even appeasement. It is capitulation. There is no reason for Ukraine or the US to give in at this point. Russia has been making very slow progress in attacking Ukraine at very high cost. The war has eliminated Russia as a peer military competitor to the US, if it ever was one. That alone is worth the aid we’ve given Kyiv.
Ukraine is also bleeding, but that is Zelensky’s problem, not Trump’s. Zelensky wants a decent negotiated solution, not the capitulation Trump is offering. Yesterday Turkiye President Erdogan backed Ukraine’s “indisputable” sovereignty and territorial integrity.
Fortunately, the Europeans are said to be assembling a 700 billion euro package for Ukraine. That far exceeds all US assistance to Ukraine, which totals $183 billion. It is a good thing for the US. If Trump’s supporters want to claim credit for getting the Europeans to do it, I’ll gladly applaud with one hand. But the Europeans need to move as quickly as possible after the German election this weekend. Derailing a bad settlement is vital.
Perfidy unlimited
Trump has also tried to shake down Ukraine for $500 billion in mineral deposits, or maybe more. Zelensky has made it clear that deal isn’t going anywhere. He is correct to do so. If anyone should pay for the US aid to Ukraine, it is Russia, which invaded. Asking the victim to pay is a new level of perfidy for Trump, though consistent with past behavior.
The United States should be offering the full support that Erdogan is voicing. Instead, a president who is dismantling the US government is doing the same to its alliances and interests abroad. These will be days that live in infamy.
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Europe needs to unify and toughen up, fast
Yes, the US is trying to exclude Europe from an issue of vital European interest. No, it is not the first time.
Why Washington excludes Europe
My personal familiarity with this apparently undiplomatic behavior dates from the Dayton agreements that end the Bosnian war. The Europeans were present, but excluded from the key decisions. Holbooke was convinced that they would only complicate things and slow the negotiations. So he ordered Bob Gallucci to get them involved in an endless discussion of the international police force. Should it have executive authority, as the Americans wanted, or not, as the European insisted?
The tactic worked. Only the Germans, who worked bilaterally with the Americans without EU cover, had any impact at Dayton. Holbrooke encouraged Bonn, to prevent a united European consensus against him. The other Europeans had no significant role. The British and French complained bitterly without effect. But they and the rest of the EU were left holding the bag–they paid for much of the reconstruction.
Something similar had happened a few years earlier in the reunification of Germany. The Americans agreed to a 2+4 (two Germanies plus the four occupying powers) format for the diplomacy. But Washington then prevented most important issues from getting on the 2+4 agenda. The format was a fig leaf for US and (West) German decisions.
I’m sure there are many other examples.
The Ukraine negotiations
The Americans are trying the same trick now in the Ukraine negotiations. They intend to work directly with the Russians, excluding not only the UK and EU but also Ukraine. Washington wants to avoid the complications and delays dealing with them would cause. It again intends to leave the Europeans holding the bag. They will be expected not only to pay for the reconstruction but also to field peacekeepers.
The Americans have already made one big mistake. They have telegraphed what they are up to. Defense Secretary Hegseth’s scolded the Europeans at NATO. President Trump’s undertook his talk with Russian President Putin without consultation with allies. The Russian and American Foreign Ministers are meeting this week in Riyadh. Vice President Vance’s offensive talk at the Munich Security Conference told the Europeans all they needed to know.
The US is moving to conclude the Ukraine war on Moscow’s terms. That means surrendering Ukrainian territory for peace. The Americans want, as they have for several presidencies, to pivot away from the defense of Europe. They are also playing to their domestic audience, some of which is Russophilic and anti-European.
What the Europeans need to do now
Amply alerted, the Europeans are reacting quicker than usual. Key states are meeting in Paris today to plan what to do. Here is what I would suggest:
- They agree to monitor a peace settlement only if it in principle preserves Ukraine’s pre-2014 sovereignty and territorial integrity.
- They supply Ukraine with all the weapons and intelligence it needs to win, substituting for any shortfalls from the US.
- Europeans should examine any agreement reached without their presence on its merits, but with prejudice.
- They deploy trainers and technicians to Ukraine to help with both military and civilian tasks.
The Americans won’t like this. They may even try something like what Holbrooke did: convince a big country like Germany or Poland to cooperate bilaterally. That would block a European consensus. But so long as Europe continues to insist on point 1 above, they won’t be stuck with a bad deal.
Trump is different
The difference between Holbrooke’s exclusion of the Europeans and Trump’s is significant. President Clinton, Holbrooke’s boss, backed the NATO alliance and was sympathetic to the EU, which then included the UK. After Dayton, there was no need for a continuing rift between Europe and the US. The agreements reached accorded with European preferences. The rift ended quickly and Europe carried a big burden post-war.
The same won’t happen with Trump. He is unsympathetic to alliances in general, NATO in particular, and the EU most of all. The Americans are pushing for an agreement that will encourage future Russian aggression. If Europe is going to punch at least its weight in future trans-Atlantic issues, it needs to unify and toughen up, fast.
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Peace in our time will bring more war
Pete Hegseth announced a major change in US policy on Ukraine today. The most unqualified Defense Secretary ever offered to appease Russia by
- Ending US support for Ukraine’s membership in NATO;
- Abandoning Ukraine’s war goal of regaining control of all its sovereign territory;
- Anticipating an end to most US assistance to Ukraine;
- Excluding US troops from any post-war peacekeeping force;
- Asking European allies to provide such a force without a NATO Article 5 guarantee.
This gives Russian President Putin everything he hopes for except direct and immediate control over the government in Kyiv.
This is not peace through strength
Hegseth claimed he was proposing peace through strength. But that is pure illusion. He is pulling the rug out from underneath Ukrainian President Zelensky. At best (from Ukraine’s perspective), his remarks would make Ukraine a buffer state between NATO and Russia.
But maintaining Ukraine as a buffer state would be impossible. The Europeans would need to monitor a confrontation zone between Russia and Ukraine that is more than 1200 miles long. Kyiv, abandoned by the US, would want nuclear weapons to ensure Ukraine’s survival. That Russia would not allow.
Another Russian invasion of Ukrainian territory would be just a matter of time. And in the meanwhile Russia would be doing everything it could to bring down Zelensky. That wouldn’t be difficult if he agreed to anything like what Hegseth proposes.
I hardly need mention that partition of Ukraine as Hegseth proposes will have a dramatic impact in the Balkans. Serbia will try to grab territory in Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as Kosovo. American and European troops will be at risk.
Worse: appeasement of Russia in Ukraine will be a signal to Beijing that Washington won’t defend Taiwan. Some of that damage may already have been done with Hegseth’s speech. He has undermined the deterrence he claims to find vital.
Real peace through strength is the alternative?
The Biden Administration pursued a Goldilocks policy on Ukraine. Enough support to make Russia’s territorial gains slow and costly. But not enough to provoke Russia’s use of nuclear weapons, which Putin has contemplated in the event Moscow faced calamity.
That worked well enough given its objectives. But it wasn’t enough–nor did it intend–for Ukraine to win the war. Kyiv, like Moscow, is struggling with manpower shortages. The only way for it to win the war is with overwhelming technological superiority. Ukraine’s forces have developed a lot of their own weapons and tactics. But they will need more unqualified US and European support to win.
The alternative to Hegseth’s appeasement is to provide that support. That would be real peace through strength.
A Ukraine win would strengthen the West
The implications of Kyiv winning are good for the US and Europe. Moscow would then need to abandon its imperial ambitions. Putin might survive using repression, but only as a much-diminished figure at home and abroad. Russia’s economy and demography will need rebuilding. It will be at least another generation before Moscow can threaten a neighbor.
Reasonable people in Moscow would quickly switch the position on Ukrainian membership in NATO. They would come to see that as the best guarantee of a Ukraine without nuclear weapons. They know better than anyone else that NATO membership has kept Germany non-nuclear.
Europe would gain enormously from the opening of a peacetime free market with Ukraine reconstructing itself. The US would get the privileged access to Ukrainian rare minerals it seeks.
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Kosovo is democratic but complicated
Kosovo voted yesterday. The electoral mechanism seems to have worked reasonably well except for a cyberattack. That appears to have been overcome. Prime Minister Kurti (LVV) got 41%, his PDK opposition 22%, the LDK opposition 18%, and AAK (Ramush Haradinaj) 7%. Minorities will hold 20 seats. Turnout was relatively low (around 40%), despite a lively campaign. I haven’t yet seen how the preliminary percentages translate into parliamentary seats. That could change the picture.
For background, here is a primer. So far as I can tell, the EU observer mission has not yet reported its findings.
The winner loses…but the losers didn’t win
The Prime Minister led by an almost a 2/1 margin over his nearest competitor. But he lost his absolute majority in parliament. While minority votes could put him in the majority, he won’t get enough of them. He will now need the seats of either the PDK or the LDK to regain the majority. The freewheeling way he has governed will make that difficult. Both the PDK and AAK have said they are unwilling to govern with VV. Still, it can’t be ruled out, especially if he is willing to give up the prime ministry. The LDK seems more open to the idea.
The PDK, LDK, and AAK did not win either. Even if the PDK and LDK join together in coalition, they won’t have enough seats to gain the majority. Putting together a 3-party coalition isn’t going to be easy. Resentment of Kurti might help. The three opposition parties were united during the campaign in criticizing him. They don’t like his handling of the economy and blame him for strained relations with the US and EU.
What next
Parliamentary systems that produce ambiguous results of this sort generally need some time to work things out. Despite strains between them, I suppose President Osmani will give Kurti a chance to forge a parliamentary majority. If he fails, the PDK may get a chance to bring in a government that includes the other opposition parties.
If Kurti keeps the prime ministry in coalition with an opposition party, the US and EU will pressure him to consult more. They want him to show more flexibility in dealing with Serbia. That isn’t likely to produce results, given past experience.
Almost any conceivable alternative prime minister will try to reduce strains with the US and EU. All the other political parties have criticized Kurti for inflexibility.
But all have governed in the past, with not much better results when it comes to dealing with Serbia. Belgrade is likewise is inflexible in dealing with Pristina. It demands creation of an Association of Serb Majority Municipalities inside Kosovo with no quid pro quo.
The broader context
Kosovo’s future depends today more on what happens beyond its borders than on this ambiguous election result. Ric Grenell, Trump’s former envoy, is telling everyone in the Balkans he will again be in charge of the region. He loathes Kurti. Last time around, he tried to partition Kosovo. Likely he’ll try again. Or at least insist on self-governance for the Serbs in the north that compromises the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. And he’ll wield control over NATO accession as a stick. He’ll also wield USAID assistance, which will need to be unfrozen.
Even without the American push for partition, any discussion of partition of Ukraine will open the question in the Balkans. Russia and Serbia will encourage Republika Srpska to secede from Bosnia and Herzegovina. They will also try to get the Serb-majority north to leave Kosovo. Moscow and Belgrade will figure the US and EU will be unprepared to defend either country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.
While the Trump Administration is bad news for Kosovo, so too are future elections in Europe. Further strengthening of the right in Germany this month will stymie EU expansion, already slowed to a crawl.
Kosovo is a good example of successful democratization in the Balkans. But it is also complicated, both internally and in the broader geopolitical context.
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How to solve the Dayton puzzle
Bosnian Fulbrighter Cancar will present tomorrow 11-12:30 at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. Please register and join us!
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Bosnian constitutional reform on one page
I hope my friends at Circle (Krug) 99 in Sarajevo won’t mind my republishing this statement. It is a clear and concise proposal for constitutional changes in Bosnia and Herzegovina presented at their January 19 session. It also puts the responsibility where it belongs: primarily on Bosnians.
| The current Constitutional arrangement of Bosnia and Herzegovina is based on Annex 4 of the Dayton Peace Agreement, whose principal attribute Is the cessation of armed conflict in our country. However, its implementation over the past three decades has clearly shown that this consensual constitutional arrangement in fact represents an obstacle to the development of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a democratic state in harmony with contemporary standards. For this reason, constitutional reform is necessary and should unfold in three directions. First, we should incorporate into the constitution the actual achievements of constitutional development attained up to now. For example, the Constitution provides for legal regulation of state symbols, and this has been realized. The symbols have been adopted and have taken on a life of their own. Now it is necessary to raise their normalization to the constitutional level. In addition, reform of the armed forces, introduction of a Court and Prosecutor’s Office of Bosnia and Herzegovina, intelligence agencies and indirect taxation – these are all new institutions and authorities for our state that should be dealt with in a coherent text of the principal law of the land. Second, the Constitution is replete with provisions of a limited time nature. In other words, their validity and implementation are linked with precisely defined timelines. Some of these have either expired, or they present solutions that are no longer realistically implementable because of the afore-mentioned developments. For example, there is the convening of the Constitutional Court, the first naming of the Executive Council of the Central Bank with a foreigner as its governor, and the Permanent Committee for military issues. Constitutional reform would include eliminating references of this kind. The third direction of reform is perhaps the most demanding, since it calls for the harmonization of the Constitution with decisions of the European Court of Human Rights, which has time after time referred to the discriminatory nature of current provisions that limit the active and passive voting rights for the House of Peoples and for the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It would be enough to recall the decision in the Kovacevic vs. Bosnia case, where the claimant demonstrated that the House of Peoples at the state level has no electoral legitimacy under today’s constitutional arrangements. There exists in this country the will, the professional expertise and expert communities necessary to conduct a thorough constitutional reform, whose work hopefully would be augmented with considerable assistance of international players. ** Presenters at the “Krug 99” session were: Professor Dr. Sukrija Baksic Law Faculty of the University of Sarajevo 19 January 2025 ** Adil Kulenović, president |
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