Tag: United Kingdom
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Last month’s threat by Serb political boss Milorad Dodik is fading into the holiday mist. No one who watches Bosnian poitics should relax. He has made it clear his goal is de facto secession of Republika Srpska. This regional entity’s authority extends to 49% of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s territory.
Dodik is moving small step by small step. Each time he slices the salami to get closer to what he wants. Last month the RS National Assembly convened to begin planning for withdrawal starting in six months from Bosnia’s security, justice, and taxation institutions. These were all established in the aftermath of the 1992-95 war that ended in the Dayton peace agreements. American efforts “to walk Bosnia back from the cliff” at least made Dodik stop at the edge.
The plan is to eviscerate the minimal Bosnian state
He is unlikely to step much farther back or to declare independence. Dodik’s plan is to eviscerate the Bosnian state, minimal though it is. He wants the RS to withdraw from Sarajevo’s vital institutions under a veil of legislative approval. He would then be all-powerful and unaccountable in his own fief. Failing that, he wants his threat of secession to prevent any further strengthening of Sarajevo governance.
Russia will support Dodik’s moves and try to protect him. Moscow is already denying the authority of the High Representative in Bosnia, who is responsible for civilian implementation of the Dayton agreements. Serbian President Vucic will be more circumspect, as he fears EU and US disapproval. But his minions, including Interior Minister Vulin, cheer more openly. The RS is an important component of what they call the “Serbian world.” That would be a Greater Serbian state incorporating neighboring Serb populations.
The ethnic authoritarian paladin
Dodik is the embodiment of the ethnic authoritarian ideal. He started political life as a relative moderate in the Bosnian context. But he has become a denier of crimes (including genocide) the RS committed during the 1990s war. He is now a champion of Serb exceptionalism, a subservient puppet of Moscow, and a deeply corrupted pocketer of ill-gotten gains. The Dayton agreements divide the Bosnian pie along ethnic lines. That reduces political competition and incentivizes predatory behavior. Most people in Washington and Brussels understand that Dodik is irredeemable. So their diplomats work hard instead to get Serbian President Vucic to restrain him, offering mostly carrots and few sticks.
That is no longer working as well as once it did. Like his genocidaire predecesssor Radovan Karadzic, Dodik regards himself as a political competitor to Vucic in Belgrade, not just a provincial party chief in Banja Luka. The time is coming for a showdown between these Serb paladins.
Vucic is unquestionably more powerful, but Dodik is more useful to the Russians. They would regard de facto RS secession as a useful precedent and bargaining chip for breakaway provinces in Ukraine, Moldova and Georgia. Moscow would also enjoy derailing a Western triumph of the 1990s unipolar moment: the negotiated end of the Bosnian war.
What is to be done?
Dodik is making it impossible for the US and EU to continue ignoring his moves towards de facto independence. The question is: what can they do about it? Next time he slices the salami, how should they react?
First, the EU and US need to nullify any decisions in the RS Assembly that contradict the Dayton accords and subsequent decisions of the High Representative. This the HiRep can do with the stroke of a pen. But then what? How do his decisions get enforced?
Once upon a time, the HiRep would not have hesitated to remove Dodik from office. But is that any longer feasible? Another possibility is his arrest for insurrection against the Bosnian state, of which he is blatantly guilty. But Bosnia’s prosecutors seem unwilling and likely incapable of doing that.
The US and EU will need to act
If nothing can be done inside Bosnia, then the burden falls to Washington, Brussels, and European capitals (if the EU fails to act jointly). They will need to levy punishing sanctions on Dodik personally, all members of the RS Assembly who vote for withdrawal from Bosnian institutions, and the RS institutionally, including an end to all World Bank and IMF as well as bilateral assistance and access to international financial markets. If the RS has de facto seceded from Bosnia, it shoud not benefit from grants or loans available to its sovereign. It would be rank hypocrisy to allow any international financiing or official development assistance to reach the RS.
There are other possible moves. Brussels and Washington could shut down RS representational offices. The international military presence, EUFOR, could move troops to the vital northeast town of Brcko while the UK and US deploy NATO troops there, to prevent any effort by either Sarajevo or Banja Luka to seize it. Want to make an impression? The British and Americans could arrive in the hundreds by parachute outside Banja Luka, in a NATO training exercise.
Dodik and any other politicians supporting de facto secession could be barred from Sarajevo and any requirements for Serb approval of Bosnian government actions there could be abrogated. Any funding for the RS from Sarajevo could stop. Bosnia could revert to its pre-war constitution, or devise a new one that erases the RS as well as the Federation and its cantons, relying on municipalities for local governance.
Dodik should not be ignored
This is an illustrative, not an exhaustive, list of options, not recommendations. The main point is that Brussels and Washington should no longer downplay or ignore Dodik’s moves. If they do, patriotic Bosnians, who were the main victims of the 1992-95 war, will take matters into their own hands, seizing Brcko before Dodik does.
That too, would mark a failure of Dayton, but one that would preserve the country’s sovereignty and territorial integrity as well as its multi-ethnicity. For anyone thinking democracy is a preferable system of government, it would be better than secession by genocide-denying political and ideological successors to Radovan Karadzic, bent on ethnic authoritarian rule with Moscow’s support and on creation of Milosevic’s Greater Serbia.
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Stevenson’s army, December 21
– Former head of the National Intelligence Council Greg Treverton warns a civil war is coming to the US.
– Manchin friend Steve Clemons explains the breakdown.
– US & UK helping Ukraine prepare for Russian cyber attack.
– NYT says drones tipped balance in Ethiopia war.
– Reuters says Chinese spies have infiltrated Taiwan military.
– Atlantic Council warns of 2022 problems.
I somehow missed this from Charlie yesterday:
– I’m surprised and puzzled by the Manchin statement on the administration’s domestic policy bill. Normally, experienced politicians keep their word. And it sure looked like Biden was treating the Senator gingerly, never pressuring him in public. But something led Manchin to break publicly — his own ambitions? something Schumer did? something Biden or his top aides have done? The WH statement is extraordinary. Nevertheless, Biden needs Manchin for other things, as do his colleagues, so I expect renewed talks after thingds cool down.
– Sen. Cruz got his vote promised and he let some nominees through. This is normal.
– FP has a story on how interns run Washington.
– NYT has a new story on how China manipulates Facebook and Twitter.
– Don’t forget to keep checking CRS for new reports. Here’s one on Use of Force in Cyberspace. And an update on State/Foreign Ops appropriations.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Stevenson’s army, December 7
– Putin & Modi made nice in advance of Biden call.
– NYT reports WH signals on Putin call.
– FP says Ukraine desperate for arms.
– WaPo notes discrepancies if not hypocrisy in summit of democracies.
– Politico sees irony in Biden foreign policy appointments.
– British parliament “rife” with drugs.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Stevenson’s army, November 26
Charlie writes for Black Friday, an entirely unrelated consideration:
Like many Americans, I grew to admire Winston Churchill as I learned more about him. Early on, I bought a recording of some of his most famous speeches and marveled at his stirring words. I happened to be in London at the time of his funeral and felt that I was part of a great historic moment. I have often quoted some of his witty sayings, even though many now seem to be apocryphal. I was thrilled to visit the Churchill War Rooms and see the actual place where so many consequential policies were formulated.
I have just read Geoffrey Wheatcroft’s critical and revisionist biography, Churchill’s Shadow, which adds a lot of negative facts to the ledger assessing Churchill’s legacy. Wheatcroft savages Churchill’s reputation by quoting from letters and diaries by contemporaries, who point out his flaws — inconsistency, hypocrisy, frequent inebriation, social isolation, and so forth. He also repeats many statements which Churchill later disavowed or pretended he never said. [And he quotes Churchill as saying of war cabinet meetings, “All I wanted was compliance with my wishes after a reasonable period of discussion.”]
There has been too much hagiography about Churchill. It’s time for a fuller picture of his human qualities, including his failings, as well as his political accomplishments, including their blemishes. Like most successful politicians, he was vain, ambitious, and self-centered, better at tactical adjustments than consistency or strategy. He was a loving though patriarchal husband, but a poor parent. He drank too much and stayed in power too long.
And he was a racist, demeaning all but white, Protestant, English-speaking people much of the time. Sadly, so were many if not most of his Victorian era contemporaries. Nevertheless, I am not ready to pull his statues down or shatter the busts simply because of those abhorrent views. His political accomplishments were world-historical and worthy of honor despite their flaws.
The most useful correctives I found in Wheatcroft’s books were on lesser points.
– He was a defender of the Empire to the bitter end.
– His own history books were group-written and fabricated to enhance his roles.
– He had some surprising and consistent policy views, including support for a national health service and other social programs and support for Zionism.
– He exaggerated his friendship with FDR and his areas of agreements with the Americans.
– Many of his wartime strategy proposals were profoundly unwise [Gallipoli, Norway, Greece, Singapore].
– He strongly favored terror bombing in World War II, despite earlier and later misgivings.
And yet…in 1940 especially he rallied a defeated force and a demoralized nation — and onlookers in America — to fight back and join together in common cause. He did that, and it’s unlikely anyone else could have.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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Deterrence is absurd and risky, disarmament difficult but necessary
Pantelis Ikonomou, a former IAEA nuclear inspector, writes:
The use of nuclear weapons is at the core of NATO security policy. At the same time, their role continues to increase in the national strategy of all nine nuclear-armed states, both the five Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Nuclear Weapon States (NWS) (USA, Russia, China, UK and France), as well as the four non-NPT de facto nuclear weapon possessors (India, Pakistan, North Korea), and allegedly Israel. They all appear committed to retaining nuclear capacity for the indefinite future by adding new nuclear weapon systems or modernizing the existing ones, pledging at any opportunity that they retain a strong nuclear deterrence.
The rationality of nuclear deterrence is based on two fundamental characteristics of today’s advanced nuclear weapon systems: a) the capability of instantaneous counterattack and b) the immense destruction power they possess.
Thus, an intentional nuclear first strike should not be launched as a pre-emptive surprise attack to destroy the adversary’s nuclear weapon arsenal because the attacker would not survive either. The logical consequence of this reality is that the nuclear capacity of each nuclear weapon possessor establishes the definite deterrence to an adversarial nuclear first strike.
However, as in mathematics so in the nuclear world, there is no second without a first. The No-First-Use nuclear postures of the five NWS plus India include a critical footnote: the right to a pre-emptive nuclear first strike against any armed attack that would threaten their vital security interests, whether nuclear or conventional.
Additionally, two more nuclear first-strike possibilities arise from:
- The First-Use doctrines of North Korea (DPRK), Pakistan, and Israel. For DPRK, to pre-empt a regime decapitation. For Pakistan, as a desperate necessity against India’s Kashmir policy, and for Israel, as the strategic national survival choice.
- The probability of launching a nuclear weapon by accident, miscalculation, or a malicious/terrorist act. This probability is steadily increasing, as the nuclear arsenals are maintained, modernized, and eventually growing.
The continuously existing possibility of a nuclear first strike, for whatever cause, will instantaneously trigger a counter response. This makes the possession of nuclear weapons for deterrence only, i.e. for a forced second strike, a dangerous absurdity.
This situation fully reflects a dead-end reality, described in the game theory as the Nash equilibrium. Solving the Nash equilibrium in the nuclear deterrence analogy would require cooperation of the antagonists (an oxymoron condition) yet the only solution: lowering all armed-raised-hands before shooting at each other. In other words, abstaining from the absurdity of being the first attacker, the necessity of being the responder, or the danger of either side committing an error.
Moreover, maintaining weapons for strengthening states’ geopolitical objectives inspires would-be proliferators. While the NPT was in force since 1970, proliferation took place successfully in four non-NPT states: India, Pakistan, DPRK, and allegedly in Israel. Additionally, four more NPT states attempted proliferation: Romania (by 1989), Iraq (by 1991), Libya (by 2003), and “very likely” Syria (by 2011) [re: “Global Nuclear Developments”, by P. F. Ikonomou, Springer 2020, 4.4 Syria 2011-2020, page 55].
History also suggests that nuclear deterrence was again and again ineffective. Common irony: nuclear weapon holders after World War II lost several wars they entered; the UK at Suez (Egypt), France in Algeria, the Soviet Union in Afghanistan and the US in Vietnam and Afghanistan. Likewise, the UK and France could not hold on to their colonial possessions despite having nuclear weapons, and the Soviet Union collapsed while sitting on the world’s largest ever nuclear arsenal.
In conclusion:
Nuclear deterrence is dangerous. It does not establish strategic stability, but rather prolongs global uncertainty, maintaining the possibility of two-party nuclear standoffs, single acts of despair and survival, or an accident, error, or terror. Pursuing weapons that can never be used without destroying your own country is irrational, dangerous, wasteful, and pointless.
Maintaining nuclear weapons for attaining geopolitical objectives inspires would-be proliferators.
Nuclear deterrence without attempting global and complete nuclear disarmament is nothing but a nebulous political stalemate. Global nuclear disarmament is not an easy process. It cannot be quick, quiet nor cheap. It is an extremely complex task, but it must be pursued before the last human error occurs.
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Stevenson’s army, September 18
– NYT has story about Israel’s killing of an Iranian nuclear scientist.
– NYT has more on secret diplomacy leading to AUKUS.
– And fascinating NYT story on how Russia manipulates its elections.
– FP says US wants regular bases in Australia.
-WaPo says Milley actions tend to politicize US military.
– Early examples of redistricting games.
– Good advice for writing policy memos and op-eds from Todd Rogers of Harvard:
1. Make it shorter.
2. Simplify the language.
3. Use formatting to direct attention.
4. Make key information obvious to skimmers.
5. Make the response as easy as possible.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I plan to republish here. To get Stevenson’s army by email, send a blank email (no subject or text in the body) to stevensons-army+subscribe@googlegroups.com. You’ll get an email confirming your join request. Click “Join This Group” and follow the instructions to join. Once you have joined, you can adjust your email delivery preferences (if you want every email or a digest of the emails).
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