Tag: Ukraine
Good enough for me
Those who favor a still ill-defined but all too real “border correction/land swap” between Serbia and Kosovo are justifying it on grounds that it would be legal. I think they are right: I don’t know of anything that prohibits sovereign states from exchanging territory and people, even if it has not been done a lot lately. But let’s be clear about two things:
- The swap would exchange human beings as well as the land they live on. That’s fine for the Serbs in northern Kosovo and the Albanians in southern Serbia. But there are also Albanians who live in the parts of northern Kosovo Serbia wants, and Serbs who live in the parts of southern Serbia that Kosovo wants. Tens of thousands are going to end up moving.
- Mutual recognition of sovereignty and territorial integrity would have to come before the exchange. A state not recognized as sovereign would be crazy to attempt a swap with a non-recognizer.
The arguments against the land swap are not legal. They are practical and realist.
Defenders of the proposition on the Pristina side are saying it would also have to include UN membership. That is something Belgrade cannot guarantee. Only the permanent members of the Security Council could do so. I haven’t heard anything yet that suggests Russia or China is prepared to let Kosovo’s UN membership through the Security Council. Russia will seek a quid pro quo, most likely US recognition of the annexation of Crimea as well as the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, the Russian puppet states inside Georgia. China will hesitate because of what it perceives as Tibetan independence aspirations. The only thing worse than Kosovo independence for Beijing would be rearranging its territory on an ethnic basis.
There are also good reasons inside Serbia and Kosovo to doubt that this swap is viable. Kosovo’s main water supply is in the Serb-controlled north. Would it be prepared to see that transferred to Serbia? Serbia’s main outlet to the sea is the north/south road through southern Serbia to Thessaloniki. The Serbian army has always wanted to keep not only the road but as much territory surrounding it as possible. Are the generals suddenly willing to give in?
Any land/people swap would also raise questions about the Serb population in Kosovo south of the Ibar river, where the majority live close by the most important Serb religious sites. That population is already aging. A land swap would undermine any confidence the Kosovo Serbs south of the Ibar have in their future. It would also create temptations for radical nationalist Albanians, since they will see any land swap as prelude to union with Albania, which is what the political movement that got the second largest number of votes in the last Kosovo election wants. That movement has split, but a land swap will vastly increase the appeal of its more radical faction.
I hardly need rehearse again all the other arguments against the swap proposition: Russian President Putin would welcome it. The liberal democratic ideals of the EU and US would be weakened. Not to mention that it would put Bosnia and Herzegovina at serious risk: Republika Srpska President Dodik has made it clear he is prepared to declare independence if a land swap occurs. Serbia won’t recognize the RS as independent because that would destroy its EU ambition, but Dodik won’t care. He’ll be happy to rule a Russian-sponsored satrapy like South Ossetia and Abkhazia, so long as Moscow provides the needed rubles.
What is the alternative to a land swap? Kosovo and Serbia need to institute the political and economic reforms required for EU membership. That is far more urgent, and popular in both countries, than a land swap. The closer Serbia gets to EU membership, the greater the pressure it will feel to recognize Kosovo, without a land/people swap. That’s good enough for me.
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Trials and tribulations
President Trump’s former campaign manager and his former personal attorney/fixer yesterday became convicted felons. Paul Manafort’s conviction on eight charges confirmed his financial crimes. He was not acquitted on any charges, but the jury failed to come to a conclusion on ten. Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to financial crimes as well as campaign finance violations associated with paying hush money, at Donald Trump’s direction, to women with whom Trump had had affairs. Nothing like this level of corrupt behavior has come so close to a president in at least 100 years, if not since the founding of the republic.
What significance does any of this have, in particular for foreign policy?
Manafort’s conviction brings enormous pressure on him to cooperate with the Special Counsel in the Russia investigation. Manafort, who seems to me to be a Russian agent, presumably knows a great deal about Trump’s dealings with the Russians. To avoid his spilling the beans, Trump may pardon him, but Manafort would remain vulnerable to state prosecution. That is presumably the reason the President has hesitated so far, though he signaled clearly in his reaction to the verdict (Manafort is a “good man” he said) that he might resort to a pardon. If Manafort talks, many of the details of Trump’s relationship with Moscow are likely to become public, with dramatic impacts: Trump may be soft on Russia, but the Congress has been tough and insisted on increasingly draconian sanctions.
Cohen’s conviction makes it virtually certain that he will cooperate with the Special Counsel to get a lightened sentence. He presumably knows the gory details of Russian investments in Trump real estate, which are manifold and the likely cause of much of Trump’s affection for Putin, in addition to Putin’s help in getting him elected. Trump is terrified Putin will block Russian investments in Trump properties. The day of reckoning on that score is near.
So these convictions, while not directly connected to the Russia investigation, do have implications for its future. I doubt Special Counsel Mueller will act decisively before the end of the month, when a pre-electoral moratorium on major judicial moves begins. The question, which won’t be answered until November 6, is whether Americans will be able to read the handwriting on the wall. Trump’s solid 35% or so is likely to stick with him, but 65% is a lot of potential voters. The big question is whether they will go to vote in sufficient numbers to begin to correct the mistake of 2016.
Many tribulations lie ahead. If the Republicans lose control of the House of Representatives, it will have grounds for impeachment (indictment). The Republicans are likely however to continue their control of the Senate, where conviction is unlikely so long as they remain solid in their support of Trump. The process of impeachment and trial will take months, distracting the Administration from other important issues, including foreign policy.
If the Democrats do not gain control of the House or Senate, impeachment is not possible and they will continue in opposition while the Special Counsel pursues his investigation and decides whether to charge the President. That is unlikely as it contradicts Justice Department policy. Mueller will however file a report that could state boldly what laws the President has violated.
That will happen only if Trump doesn’t fire him or neuter the investigation by taking away its staff’s security clearances. Both are possible, but the political risks involved are significant. It would amount to a presidential guilty plea and would not stop state-level prosecutions that could detail presidential malfeasance and lead to prosecution after Trump leaves office.
So no, we are nowhere near the end of the Trump scandals and their consequences. We face at least two more years of painful revelations and judicial maneuvers, while the Russians, Iranians, Chinese, and others test our mettle in cyberspace, on the high seas, and on land in Syria, Ukraine, Turkey, and elsewhere. Our traditional allies in both Europe and Asia are all hedging their bets, because of Trump’s erratic behavior, his attack on NATO, and his cozying up to Kim Jong-un. And the lengthy Obama recovery is showing signs of aging, in part due to Trump’s tariffs, an inflationary budget, and a giant tax cut for the wealthy.
Neither the trials nor the tribulations are over.
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You don’t need to know a lot of history
I tweeted to Kosovo President Thaci on Friday:
.
@HashimThaciRKS: do you really want to open for renegotiation the deal with the US and most of the EU that got your state recognition? This could end very badly.
He responded:
Dear
@DanielSerwer, I’m committed deeply to obtain#Kosovo‘s membership in@NATO and EU. Based on values we share. Based on need to ensure safety of our children. We need to close a chapter that brings about reciprocal recognition & good neighborly relations between RKS & SRB.I’m against partition. I’m against swaps. I’m against status quo. I’m against making a Republica Srpska in
#Kosovo. But I’m in favor to peaceful demarcation and settling the 400km long border between Kosovo and Serbia. Balanced agreement is in all our interests, incl US & EU.
I prefer to respond here rather than on Twitter, which doesn’t work well for complex issues. This one is complex.
I share the President’s goals: NATO and EU membership, recognition, and good neighborly relations between Kosovo and Serbia. I am also against partition and land swaps, and a Republika Srpska (RS) in Kosovo (that is part of Kosovo that de facto escapes Pristina’s sovereignty, like the RS in Bosnia). Peaceful demarcation of the border is vital. You can look long and hard for two countries with good relations that have not agreed on and demarcated their border.
So what’s the problem? Just this: President Thaci has responded to Serbian President Vucic’s constant harping on partition of Kosovo with the suggestion that Kosovo would like to absorb at least some of the Albanian-populated communities in southern Serbia. Never mind that Serbia’s main route to the sea is adjacent to those Albanian communities and that Kosovo’s main water supply is the Serb-controlled north. The tit-for-tat presidential speculation on partition opens what diplomats call Pandora’s box: border changes throughout the Balkans that would necessarily involve significant populations and land areas.
Calling it “border correction” and associating it with demarcation does nothing to lessen the broad and dramatic impact an attempt to redraw borders along ethnic lines would entail. Consider this from Father Sava on his Facebook page today:
Acceptance of ethnic partition between Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo by territorial division, forcing 70.000 Serbs south of the partition line to an imminent exodus and leaving their holy sites in peril would mean that EU accepts the idea of an AGREED ETHNIC CLEANSING as a legitimate solution.
This would be a dangerous precedent with unforeseeable consequences which would inevitably encourage replication of such a model throughout the continent. EU member states are before a critical historical responsibility if this scenario is politically supported. This will bring us back to the tragic years of the ex-Yu wars in the 90ies.
Meanwhile, Republika Srpska President Dodik is declaring:
I think that BiH [Bosnia and Herzegovina] will not survive and that it will peacefully dissolve.
He knows that there is no possibility of a peaceful dissolution and has been arming his police with weapons from Russia to ensure that RS is ready to defend its secession when the time comes. That would of course lead to the expulsion of the (relatively few) Croats and Bosniaks who have returned to RS and might imperil the Serbs in the Bosnian Federation as well. The net result would likely be a non-viable Islamic Republic in central Bosnia that could readily become an extremist safe haven.
In Macedonia, there is a real risk that more extreme ethnic nationalists of both the Albanian and Macedonian varieties will benefit from the atmosphere that these partition fantasies are creating. That could lead to defeat of the September 30 referendum on the agreement that would end the more than 25-year dispute with Greece over the country’s name. NATO and EU membership would then become impossible and agitation in favor of an infeasible partition would become inevitable.
The implications for the secessionist regions of Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine are all too obvious. President Putin couldn’t hope for more.
Why is this happening? In part because the US has an ethnic nationalist administration whose erstwhile chief strategist, Steve Bannon, is running around pushing ethnic partition while former Trump campaign officials sign up lobbying clients like Dodik and Vucic. The lobbyists don’t care how much trouble their schemes may cause, but those who are actually governing in Washington, European capitals, and Brussels should. You don’t need to know a lot of history to know how easily conflicting ethnic territorial claims in the Balkans can lead to instability, and instability to much worse.
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Three* months hence
The main conclusion to be drawn so far from the current trial of Trump campaign chair Paul Manafort is just this: the President of the United States has extraordinarily poor judgment about the people he surrounds himself with. Manafort defrauded banks, failed to report income and foreign accounts to the IRS, and accepted a lot of money from a Putin-linked oligarch.
Manafort’s sidekick Rick Gates, who worked for Trump throughout the campaign and until the Inauguration, has confessed to helping the illegal shenanigans as well as embezzling money from Manafort by means of fraudulent expense claims. Both men have the unenviable distinction of having worked for Viktor Yanukovych, the pro-Russian former president of Ukraine, whose corrupt behavior is legendary.
I admit that anyone can be victim of fraud. I suffered such an instance once in my career, when an employee took a kickback in connection with renting an office. He was caught, charged, and plea-bargained. But Trump’s record is incredible: he has lost at least half a dozen more or less cabinet-level officials to scandals, not counting firings of people he regarded as disloyal, like Sally Yates and James Comey. The list of offenses by Trump Administration officials would be far too long to enumerate, but it includes blatant abuse of government funds and employees, in addition to wife and alcohol abuse.
This is not bad luck. It is the result low moral standards at the top, combined with failure to properly vet appointees. More than one has been dropped before even assuming the posts for which they were already named. This does not happen to everyone. It happens to bosses who themselves display abusive behavior and tolerate it in those close to them. In my view, the President himself is fleecing taxpayers by frequenting his own golf clubs with a large entourage and encouraging use of his hotels by foreign governments. I have little doubt but that we will eventually learn of illicit expenditures and abuse of employees for private purposes, as Trump makes no distinction between his personal and official activities.
Nor does he show any compunction about marital infidelity, which no longer seems to offend anyone. Do we really think he has stopped courting porn stars?
All the misbehavior by and surrounding the president opens him and his minions not just to accusations of abuse but also to blackmail. The Russians have demonstrated how capable they are of gathering data from US institutions. They and the Chinese no doubt know all about malfeasance in the Trump Administration and will be using it already to intimidate officials into doing their bidding. Trump’s poor judgment thus creates multiple national security vulnerabilities. American intelligence collection capabilities will guarantee that the Chinese and Russians are not the only ones who are in the know. Our own intel will show up traces of whatever the foreigners discover.
That I suppose is the silver lining. Trump can’t hope to hide malfeasance forever. He has now admitted that his son’s meeting with Russian operatives was intended to gather dirt on Hillary Clinton, after many months of denials and false claims that it was to discuss Moscow’s bar on adoption by Americans to retaliate for sanctions levied on Russia. He says what his son did was not illegal. I’ll be delighted to let a court decide that.
Admittedly the bar has been raised, so that just a little abuse–say a flirtation with a White House intern–would not attract much attention, as we’ve all been inured to far worse. But every once in a while America still proves capable of recoiling. Trump’s failure to stand up to Putin in Helsinki unquestionably hurt him outside his still substantial base. But when and how will the country finally react to a grossly incompetent and corrupt administration? I don’t know, but I hope it happens before November 6, just three* months hence.
*I managed somehow to publish this initially as “Two months hence.” My readers know better. Apologies.
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No thanks
I have been trying to avoid wasting time commenting on the Center for Euro-Atlantic Studies call for partition of Kosovo in its ill-considered report ironically entitled “West Side Story.” But the partition idea never seems to die. Last week’s “fake news, wishful thinking” is the latest example of the Belgrade press spinning up the idea. And more than one friend has suggested to me in private that there must be something cooking.
The CEAS report is a transparent effort to make the West more palatable to Serbian President Vucic by suggesting NATO might lead an effort to give him northern Kosovo as compensation for normalizing relations with Pristina. It fails not only as a strategic concept but also on the merits.
CEAS proposes “adjustment” of what it considers the administrative boundary with Kosovo to incorporate Northern Mitrovica, Zvecan, Zubin Potok and Leposavic into Serbia, without any exchange for Albanian populated communities in southern Serbia. This comes (and here I have to quote because the assertion makes no sense at all)
…as a consequence of the opinion that neither the West itself nor the UN have managed to clearly determine the exact amount of punishment Serbia should sustain for the crimes of Milosevic’s regime in Kosovo…
So far as the West of which I am a part is concerned, the independence of Kosovo has nothing to do with punishment for Milosevic’s crimes. The proper venue for that was the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, where Milosevic unfortunately died before the expected guilty verdict was delivered.
Serbia after the war with NATO had every opportunity to try to “make unity attractive” (in the Sudanese phrase) to Kosovo Albanians in anticipation of the decision on final status foreseen in UN Security Council resolution 1244. It failed to do anything whatsoever in that direction, and even adopted a new constitution by not counting Kosovo Albanians on the voters rolls, because if they were counted the requirement that 50% of voters come to the polls could not be realized. I won’t pretend Serbia would likely have been successful in convincing Kosovo’s Albanians that they could return safely to Serbian sovereignty. The important fact is that Belgrade after Milosevic never even tried.
After proposing its idea of uncompensated territorial partition, described as one among “small concessions to authorities in Belgrade,” CEAS is still vague about what Kosovo would get in return. It
…could possibly facilitate the process of achieving a comprehensive agreement on the normalization of Serbia’s relations with Kosovo…
It doesn’t get much airier than that, and the subsequent argument against Putin being able to use this “correction” as an argument helping him to justify the annexation of Crimea is unintelligible. The fact is he would use it, just as he has used Kosovo as justification for what he did in the first place.
Later in the report there is mention of a possible “community of Albanian municipalities in southern Serbia.” That’s rich, since Belgrade has not regarded such a community of Serbian municipalities in Kosovo as sufficient for full normalization of relations. Why would Albanians accept something Serbs have found inadequate, especially as it is something they haven’t asked for?
The CEAS report simply ignores the obvious geopolitical risks involved in its partition proposal, claiming they are “low.” It offers no discussion of
- the likelihood that Republika Srpska would try to follow northern Kosovo into Serbia or declare independence,
- the possibility that Albanian nationalists would take the opportunity to try to chase Serbs from south of the Ibar river and thereby create conditions for a greater Kosovo or greater Albania,
- the implications in Georgia for South Ossetia and Abkhazia or in Moldova for Transnistria,
- the consequences for Crimea, Donetsk and Luhansk in Ukraine,
I could go further afield to Iraqi Kurdistan and Tibet, but that’s enough to show why NATO would not want to consider the West Side Story proposition as anything but an effort to butter up Vucic. It is a sign of the weakness and desperation of pro-NATO advocates in Serbia that they come up with this poorly thought through proposal. So let me help them out:
Only sovereigns can cede territory. Serbia would have to recognize and establish diplomatic relations with Kosovo before Pristina could negotiate any change in the border. This is something Presidents Vucic and Thaci understand. Pristina would not agree without getting the Albanian communities in southern Serbia in exchange. Any partition, with or without exchange, would put at risk the Serb communities and religious sites south of the Ibar. Those countries that have recognized Kosovo would oppose such an exchange, because of the risk to Serb communities and religious sites as well the irredentist implications for Bosnia, Albania, and Macedonia as well as Russian aggression in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine.
But we don’t have to go there, because that’s where we already are. West Side Story is shameful effort to enlist NATO in a proposal that would benefit Russia, deprive NATO of cohesion, and reduce the Balkans as well as several countries beyond once again to ethnic nationalist chaos. No thanks.
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Life ain’t fair
The Trump-Putin press conference after their meeting in Helsinki merits little comment. It wasn’t a lovefest, but they mostly avoided points of friction. The only obvious one was on Crimea, where Putin essentially said they had agreed to disagree on the legitimacy of Russia’s annexation. Trump said nothing.
On Syria, they are hoping for unspecified cooperation. The Syrian opposition, under bombardment by Russian warplanes, will be glad to hear that. Putin emphasized the importance of humanitarian assistance, but Russia essentially provides none (other than a bit of air transport). The US provides the lion’s share.
Both presidents want the summit to mark the beginning of a more normal relationship between the two powers. Putin was pleased to appear on an equal footing with Trump and emphasized nuclear weapons, as did Trump. No one mentioned that Russia is a declining regional power with an economy more or less the size of Spain’s.
Trump acknowledged that he had pushed American liquified natural gas as an alternative to Germany’s import of Russian gas through the Nordstream pipeline. Never mind that it would be far more costly. I think Chancellor Merkel might have noticed though.
The lies were fast and furious. Putin claimed the referendum on Crimea’s annexation was conducted according to international standards. Hardly. It didn’t even offer an option to keep Crimea’s autonomous status inside Ukraine, not to mention that it was conducted under Russian military occupation.
Trump tried to distract attention to a question about whether he believed the US intelligence community assessment of Russian interference in the 2016 election by ranting about “where is Hillary Clinton’s server!” It’s with the FBI. He should ask there. Trump also said Putin forcefully denied the charge. That should settle it.
Putin referred to an implementation issue with the INF (Intermediate Nuclear Forces) treaty. Hardly. Russia is violating the treaty.
He also tried to suggest that he knew nothing about the Russian officials Mueller has indicted but that some of what the Americans are complaining about might be the handiwork of private Russian companies. Does anyone think Putin doesn’t know precisely what the GU (Russian military intelligence) is up to? Does anyone think private Russian companies don’t do the bidding of the Russian government?
Putin also generously offered cooperation with the Mueller investigation, on a reciprocal basis. We need only arrest Bill Browder, Putin’s nemesis and the originator of the Magnitsky Act. Then Mueller can participate in the interrogation of the indicted GU officials and Russian law enforcement will participate in the interrogation of Browder. Even Trump might not fall for that one.
Had a Democratic president appeared with Putin in this fashion a few days after the indictment of Russian officials for interfering in a US election and a few months after the Russians tried to kill a defector in Great Britain, the Republicans would be getting out the noose. The president wouldn’t even have to be black, just liberal. But this pair of white nationalist liars get to display their mendacity with impunity. Life ain’t fair.
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