Tag: United States
Could the message be any clearer?
I spoke this morning at Hudson Institute-US/Europe Alliance event on Foreshocks in the Black Sea and Western Balkans: Repercussions of the Russia-Ukraine War. I drew on this post:
All too often those who follow the Balkans view Moscow and Beijing as manipulating President Vucic. That is not the whole story. He “has agency” in the awkward syntax of political science. Vucic has decided to align his increasingly autocratic regime with Russia and China, as well as with Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Hungary. He likes their “might makes right” style, which gives him some hope of recovering Kosovo or part of it. He would no doubt befriend Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, if Pristina hadn’t beaten him to it by establishing its embassy in Jerusalem.
The many reasons why
Ethnonationalist, autocratic preference comes naturally to Vucic, who learned his politics at Slobodan Milosevic’s knee. But he had a choice when he became Prime Minister in 2014. He could have adopted a truly pro-Western approach. He has long talked pro-EU. If deed had followed words, Serbia would today have a consolidated democracy well on its way to accession. Instead, it has drifted towards authoritarian rule. Freedom House ranks it generously as “partly free.” Its ruling Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) “has steadily eroded political rights and civil liberties, putting pressure on independent media, the political opposition, and civil society organizations.”
Vucic has not only presided over Serbia’s democratic decline. He has encouraged it. Many Balkan watchers complain about “stabilitocracy.” They mean by that the alleged Western preference for incumbent rulers because they provide stability, despite democratic shortcomings. But that ignores the fates of Macedonian Prime Minister Gruevski, Montenegrin President Djukanovic, and Kosovo President Thaci. Vucic fears lack of Western commitment to stability. He worries, I hope rightly, that the day he faces defeat in an election or indictment in an international court no one in Europe or the US will trouble themselves with him.
There are no doubt ample economic reasons for Vucic’s autocratic drift as well. China is not beneficent, but its mining, rail, and tire projects and investments leave ample room for hiring well-connected locals and skimming off a percentage to support Vucic-connected oligarchs and politicians. Moscow deals are even less transparent. Both the Chinese and the Russians are all too willing to help as well with internal security cooperation that might go a yard further than the Americans or Europeans would countenance, including extensive electronic surveillance.
Vucic is serious about the Serbian world
But in the end the biggest factor in Vucic’s Eastern leanings is his admiration for those who take what they want, without offering any excuses. Vucic wants to govern all the Serbs of the Balkans, de facto if not de jure. His minions call that ambition the “Serbian world.” In Milosevic’s era it was known as Greater Serbia. Vucic is achieving his objective de facto in Republika Srpska and in Montenegro with minimal violence. That won’t be possible in Kosovo. Any violent move there would throw the Balkans back into chaos and ethnonationalist slaughter.
Belgrade’s new government includes the strongest Serbian world advocate, Deputy Prime Minister Vulin. He claims to have organized the terrorist incident in northern Kosovo last year. It was intended to provide an excuse for Serbian military intervention.
The new Prime Minister was Defense Minister last year when a rent-a-crowd injured dozens of NATO peacekeepers and when Serbia kidnapped police from the territory of Kosovo. He denies genocide in Bosnia and vaunts his ambition to get Montenegro “closer” to Serbia. He shows no sign of accepting as valid the two agreements negotiated last year on normalization with Kosovo. His predecessor disowned them. The new Foreign Minister, the former Ambassador in Washington, can talk for an hour or so with an EU diplomat without mentioning them.
Vucic himself has made it clear he is biding his time until geopolitical circumstances allow him to grab at least northern Kosovo.
This is where the Chinese, who want to do likewise with Taiwan, and the Russians, who have already annexed something like 18% of Ukraine, are most useful. They help Vucic keep alive the hope that some day he can seize what he wants.
So where will the fate of the Balkans be decided?
We should take Vucic’s ambition seriously. Washington and Brussels need to extinguish it. It will be difficult to do that until Biden wins in November and Ukraine evicts Russia. It will be impossible if Trump or the Russians win. Washington, Donbas, and Crimea will decide the fate of the Balkans.
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Farewell to failure
State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary Escobar and EU Special Representative Lajcak, both with mandates for the Western Balkans during the past three years, are saying their farewells in Washington this week. These are two experienced diplomats who know the Balkans well. They have collaborated without much friction. The biggest visible issue has been American support for “Open Balkans,” a scheme for facilitating trade. The Europeans rightly viewed it as unnecessary and duplicative of their own efforts in what is known as “the Berlin process.”
But Lajcak and Escobar failed to produce the political normalization between Kosovo and Serbia that they made their top priority.
What went wrong?
Escobar and Lajcak started badly and ended worse. They promised Belgrade that they would prioritize the creation of the Association of Serb-majority Municipalities inside Kosovo. They ended without significant progress on that mistaken priority.
Pristina had committed to the Association in a 2013 Brussels agreement. But Escobar and Lajcak neglected to get Belgrade to deliver the quid pro quo. In addition to the Association, the Brussels agreement acknowledges the validity of the Kosovo constitution and justice system in its entire territory, commits the Serbs to participating in Pristina’s governing institutions, and pledges that Kosovo and Serbia will advance to the EU without interfering with each other.
Belgrade has reneged on all those commitments. It has maintained de facto governance over the Serb population in the Serb-majority communities of northern Kosovo. It organized the boycott of municipal elections there. Belgrade also withdrew Serb officials from the police and courts. And Serbia has done everything possible to hinder Kosovo entry into the Council of Europe.
Belgrade then went on the offensive
Frustrated with the failure of the EU and US to deliver the Association, Serbia last year decided to make things worse. It kidnapped two Kosovo police from Kosovo territory, rented a mob to attack NATO peacekeepers inside Kosovo, and organized a terrorist attack that was supposed to provide the excuse for a Serbian military intervention.
By the end of last year, Serbian President Vucic was expressing hope for changed geopolitical conditions, including Trump’s reelection, that would enable Serbia to retake part or all of Kosovo. The newly inaugurated Serbian government includes vocal supporters of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the leading advocate of the “Serbian world,” a euphemism for Greater Serbia.
Policy needs a reset
Clearly, Western policy towards Serbia is not working. Washington and Brussels aren’t doing much better with Kosovo. Pristina has refused to move on the Association, despite costly European “consequences” and vituperative US denunciations. Only if Belgrade implements the other provisions of the 2013 Brussels agreement will Pristina respond in kind. Vucic is in no mood to do that.
Success requires a reset. The more political dialogue the 2013 agreement initiated has demonstrably failed for more than a decade. The more technical dialogue that preceded it was far more successful. It focused on issues that could produce demonstrable benefits to the citizens of both countries. Despite spotty implementation, the results were substantial. Even today, Pristina and Belgrade have done better with practical issues like license plates and identity documents than political normalization.
That is the right direction for the future. Political normalization for now is a bridge too far. Serbia won’t be interested in surrendering its sovereignty claims in Kosovo until the war in Ukraine ends Russian annexations there. Kosovo won’t be interested in forming the Association until it is confident that Serbia accepts its sovereignty and territorial integrity. But both Belgrade and Pristina can welcome smoothing movement through their mutual borders and enabling more licit trade and commerce.
Pristina has rightly begun to insist on use of its official currency, the Euro, in transactions within Kosovo. But that is creating problems for the Serb communities, which receive subsidies from Belgrade in Serbian dinars. This is the kind of practical issue the EU and US should focus on. Belgrade and Pristina need to agree on transparency for Serbia’s subsidies to the Serb communities inside Kosovo, which would help resolve the currency issue. That is the practical direction in which prospects for success lie.
Farewell to failure requires getting the priorities right.
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The Gaza war will likely continue
That’s precisely what Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu is doing. The Israel Defense Forces have seized the Rafah Crossing into Gaza. The attack is proceeding. Netanyahu hopes thereby to accomplish the complete victory over Hamas that has so far eluded him. Only that would have any chance of keeping him in power.
Netanyahu claims Hamas or Qatar made last-minute changes in the ceasefire agreement. Whatever they may be (or not be), it is hard to imagine that they justify an attack on a place where more than a million civilians are crammed together. This attack will be remembered for creating an even greater humanitarian catastrophe than the more than six months of war on Gaza have generated so far.
A test for Biden
President Biden has firmly opposed the attack on Rafah without a clear plan for protecting civilians. That is nowhere in sight. The Israelis are encouraging civilians to evacuate some areas, as they have previously, but the attacks are not limited to those. And there are few places left for civilians to go.
The question now is how Biden, who has supported Israel’s objective of eliminating Hamas’ military capabilities, will react. Axios has reported that the US has put a hold on some shipments of ammunition for Israel. But it is unclear how vital these are and how long the hold will last.
More important than a shipment or two of ammunition is the overall posture of the US towards Israel. In recent years, it has become “Israel right or wrong.” Netanyahu has taken advantage of that attitude not only in Gaza but also on the West Bank, where he has unleashed racist settlers to attack Palestinians. Arabs chant “from the river to the sea.” Netanyahu and his allies are doing it. They are also making Gaza uninhabitable.
Biden cannot continue to pose as a champion of democracy worldwide if he allows Israel to continue its disproportionate killing of civilians in Gaza. But stopping Netanyahu at this point will require a dramatic reversal of US policy.
The problem is domestic politics
That will be difficult. Biden faces some domestic pressure to rein in Israel. Many liberal Jews, as well as Arab and Muslim Americans, oppose continuation of the war. The campus protesters represent only the most visible part of that electorate. But the far more numerous evangelical Christians still favor “Israel right or wrong.” Most of them will vote Republican anyway, despite Donald Trump’s obvious disdain for religion and morality. But the center of gravity of American politics still favors Israel. Shifting toward more conditionality will not help Biden in November.
The opposite is true in much of the rest of the world. While much of Europe is still backing Israel, many in Africa and Asia view Israel as a colonial power and therefore support the Palestinians. America could benefit internationally from shifting policy away from “right or wrong,” as Eisenhower did when he got Israel, Britain, and France to back off the Suez Canal in 1956. But foreigners don’t get to vote in US elections.
Biden isn’t likely to pass the test
I would not bet on Biden forcing Israel to back down in Rafah. He is more likely to try to get Netanyahu to make the attack shorter and less violent. But Netanyahu is looking for a real victory–the modern equivalent of Yahya Sinwar’s head on a pole–and won’t settle for less. The Gaza war isn’t over and may continue for a long time still.
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See no evil is not good policy
Serbia’s parliament approved the country’s new government last week. The personnel and program represent a further turn to the ethnonationalist, anti-EU right. AP makes many of the details easily accessible. The government includes ministers the US has already sanctioned for corruption as well as blatant Russophilic sycophants. Not to mention a prime minister who led the Serbian Defense Ministry last year, when it was complicit in a terrorist attack in northern Kosovo, the kidnapping of Kosovo police, and rioting against NATO-led peacekeepers. He has already reiterated Serbia’s desire for good relations with Russia and refusal to align with EU sanctions against Moscow.
President Vucic is leaving little room for those who argue that Serbia is headed West. In recent months he has ostentatiously met with the would-be dictators of Hungary and Azerbaijan as well as the all too real authoritarians governing Belarus, Russia, and China. Vucic is making no secret of his ambition to extend his authority to the Serb-controlled 49% of Bosnia and Herzegovina, all of Montenegro, and Serb-majority northern Kosovo. Vucic also presided in December over a grotesquely unfair national election, and a fraudulent municipal election in Belgrade, that have prompted Freedom House to continue lowering Serbia’s democracy scores.
Why Europe and the US delude themselves
Still, officials in the US and Europe are prepared to tolerate and even reward Vucic. Some fear that any alternative might be worse. Others don’t want to admit the failure of three years of going easy on Vucic. Still others imagine that crumbs he hands out in the Western direction–Serbs using Kosovo license plates and identity documents–may presage improvement on bigger issues. The shells and bullets Serbia allows to reach Ukraine may influence some, though surely similar amounts–if not more–make their way to Russia.
But self-delusion is a big part of this story. Vucic has made clear that he will not implement agreements the US and EU regard as legally binding. Belgrade has opposed Kosovo membership in the Council of Europe. This is despite its qualifications and the benefits that could derive therefrom to the Kosovo Serbs. Surely intelligent Americans and Europeans understand that Serbian participation in NATO exercises generates a substantial flow of intelligence to Russia. But doing something about Serbia’s malfeasance requires heavy political lifting. Why take that on if no one above your pay grade objects to a “see no evil” policy?
An opportunity to shift
There should soon be an opportunity to take a more effective tack. The officials who forged the see no evil policy are headed elsewhere. Rumint says EU Special Representative Miroslav Lajcak and US Deputy Assistant Secretary Gabriel Escobar are both getting ready to move on. They invested heavily in Vucic and have little to show for it. So has the US embassy in Belgrade. Ambassador Hill has repeatedly denigrated Kosovo’s leadership while lauding Serbia’s.
The new leader of the State Department European Bureau, Jim O’Brien, has not fallen entirely into their unproductive rut. He has been notably blunt on some issues with Vucic. But he, too, continues to promise Serbia progress on instituting an Association of Serb-majority Municipalities in Kosovo that Vucic intends to use as an irredentist mechanism for governing Kosovo’s Serbs.
The Association requires fulfillment of the quid pro quo
This is unfortunate. Kosovo promised this Association in a 2013 agreement that included recognition of the validity of the Kosovo constitution on its entire territory and a commitment to allowing Kosovo and Serbia to accede to the European Union separately and without mutual interference. This amounted to de facto Serbian recognition of Kosovo, since only sovereign states can accede to the Union.
But Serbia has withdrawn from those commitments. Vucic has made it clear that he has no greater tolerance for de facto recognition than for de jure recognition. He has pulled the Serb mayors, police, judges, and other officials out of Pristina’s institutions in northern Kosovo. Belgrade encouraged the Kosovo Serbs to boycott the last municipal elections. Serbia is also opposing Kosovo membership in the Council of Europe and other regional institutions.
The problem is democracy
To expect Kosovo to form the Association without the benefits that Serbia promised in return is foolish. Kosovo Prime Minister Kurti has held a commanding position for most of the past five years in Kosovo politics. There would be no quicker way for him to lose it than to give the Association to Serbia without getting anything in return. He likely faces an election next year. To expect him to commit political suicide to please Belgrade is diplomatic malpractice.
Of course the same is true for President Vucic. Serbia may be headed towards autocracy, but it is not there yet. Few Serbian politicians risk saying the obvious: that Kosovo is lost and Serbia would be better off admitting it. Vucic’s main opposition for years has been more hawkish on Kosovo than he is. It would require unusual courage for him to buck the political currents in Belgrade.
The only way of reviving the Association is to revive the 2013 quid pro quo as well. That should include genuine participation of Serb citizens in Kosovo’s governance, Belgrade acceptance of Pristina’s constitutional and judicial authority in the north, and an end to Belgrade’s opposition to Kosovo membership in international organizations. Kurti might then be able to boast that he had made a good deal. Vucic could claim to have have gotten what Belgrade wanted. And the US and EU would be able to claim real progress in bringing both Serbia and Kosovo closer to EuroAtlantic institutions and values.
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The wider war has arrived, when will peace?
Iran yesterday retaliated against Israel for its bombing of the Iranian consulate in Damascus, which killed high ranking officers of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. The barrage of hundreds of drones and missiles was ineffective, due to Israeli, American, British, and Jordanian air defenses. The Iranians made no secret of what they intended to do and presumably are hoping it will not trigger another round.
Multiple vectors
But it is still reasonable to conclude that the wider Middle East war many have feared has already begun. Israel continues its attack on Gaza. Lebanese Hizbollah and Israel are exchanging shots across the border. Israel is frequently targeting Iranian assets in Syria. Yemen’s Houthis are targeting shipping and warships in the Red Sea. Iraq’s Iranian-sponsored “Popular Mobilization Forces” have been targeting American military bases. Israeli settlers have been chasing Palestinians from their homes on the West Bank.
Of course the pace and lethality of this wider war could heighten. So far, its most deadly axis by far has been Israel/Hamas. Hamas has killed about 1500 Israelis and the Israelis have killed tens of thousands of Palestinians, in retaliation for the mass murder, kidnapping, and mayhem of October 7. Elsewhere the wider war is more than symbolic, but still far less fatal.
Worsening prospects
Once such things start, the natural tendency is towards escalation. Certainly things have gotten worse in the past six months. They are likely to get worse still. The murder of an Israeli teenager on the West Bank last week sparked heightened settler violence against Palestinians there. Hizbollah could do a lot more damage if it unleashes its missiles. So could the Israelis if they decide to push into southern Lebanon. Iran still has lots of drones and missiles it could use in a second attack.
The next round will be Israel’s choice. It could choose to write off yesterday’s attack as ineffective and unworthy of response. Or it could decide to reassert deterrence with a direct attack on Iran or on Iranian assets in the region. I suspect the decision will be based primarily on Prime Minister Netanyahu’s domestic political calculations. He faces growing demands for his resignation. Any pause in the fighting could provide the time to bring him down. He is still hoping for enough of a victory in Gaza, Lebanon, or Iran to enable him to remain in power.
That seems unlikely in Gaza. Israel has done significant harm to Hamas there but is still far from the total defeat Netanyahu has set as its war goal. Israel has been hitting Hizbollah in Lebanon without much reaction. That could be a likelier prospect. He may think a devastating blow against Iran would enable him to avoid the inevitable for a while longer. Why anyone in his war cabinet would go along with that is unclear to me, but so far they have generally supported his wartime decisions.
Can diplomacy work?
The still wider and more deadly war in prospect is not in the US interest. Nor do the Europeans want it. Karim Sadjadpour on MSNBC last night pointed out that the Chinese would likewise prefer stability in the Middle East to lower and steady oil prices. The Russians by contrast benefit from de-stabilization and the consequent distraction from the Ukraine war as well as the bump up in oil prices. But even acting together it is unclear that the Americans, Europeans, and Chinese could exert sufficient influence on Israel or Iran to de-escalate.
Both countries have leaders whose political mandates won’t last much longer. Iran’s Supreme Leader is almost 85 years old and ill. Netanyahu is suffering a catastrophic decline in popularity as well as serious corruption charges. Both are claiming not to want to escalate. But neither sees an enticing option other than escalation. Both want victory over the other as a political legacy. The wider war has arrived, but until there is decisively new leadership in both Tehran and Jerusalem peace is unlikely.
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A good lesson in diplomacy
Ten days with family in Rome have emboldened me to tell the tale of the Embassy’s Giambologna Venus:
She is the single most valuable piece in the State Department’s worldwide art collection. The story of her travels dates to my time as Deputy Chief of Mission and Charge’ d’affaires ad interim 1990-93. She is now back at Embassy Rome, where I visited her week before last, courtesy of Ambassador Jack Markell.
All cooperation
Paul Richard told her backstory in the Washington Post 30 years ago. The Venus dates from 1583 and ended up in the State Department collection shortly after World War II. That was when the US government bought–I was told with post-war currency it printed itself–Palazzo Margherita, the imposing 19th century building on the via Veneto that still serves as the US embassy. The Venus was among the few art objects the hard-up dowager queen of the assassinated King Umberto I had not sold. Many of the rest are today in the Museums of the Villa Borghese and Palazzo Altemps.
The Venus stood for decades in a niche in the Ambassador’s grand staircase leading from the main, piano nobile (second floor in US numbering) to the courtyard. But sometime in late 1992 or early 1993 the State Department Under Secretary of State for Management called to say I should cooperate with the National Gallery of Art, which wanted to borrow the Venus for display in Washington. They would pay for her cleaning and restoration. The National Gallery had also arranged to display her at the Pitti Palace in Florence before she took up a couple of months residence on Constitution Avenue.
This all sounded fine to me. When National Gallery Director Caaarter Brown called, I was all cooperation.
Things fall apart
In the succeeding months, the cleaning and restoration went well. I enjoyed visiting the restorers, who worked in a cordoned off corner of the embassy courtyard. But other things started to come apart.
For reasons never explained to me, the Pitti Palace canceled its display of the Venus. This concerned me. I knew there would be a public controversy if she went to Washington without public display in Italy, where she had not been seen for more than 350 years. So I took advantage of my wife’s connection to the Director of the Capitoline Museums. She quickly arranged to display the Venus in the Sala degli Orazi e Curiazi. Its frescoes date, like the Venus, to the late 16th century.
While she was there, I awoke to news that terrorists had exploded a bomb in a parking lot outside this very Sala. I imagined the Venus in pieces, along with my diplomatic career. But she and I were both intact. The bomb had only broken a few windows.
Still more trouble
Then things got dicier. A rumor reached me–again through my art historian/museum curator wife–that the National Gallery was not planning to return the Venus to Embassy Rome. It belonged, the curators there thought, to the American people, which meant the National Gallery. Why should she hide in the niche above the Ambassador’s staircase?
This presented a classic diplomatic quandary. I had instructions to do something–cooperate with the National Gallery. But that could lead to a result I didn’t want–the loss of the most valuable piece in the State Department’s collection. How was I to do as instructed without sacrificing my employer’s interests? I could have passed the issue back to the State Department. But what if State decided to give away the Venus? My Ambassador wasn’t going to like that.
The National Gallery’s interests were also at risk, whether they knew it or not. The Italians had refused for many years to loan art to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Met would not return an ancient Greek “krater” stolen from a Sicilian archeological dig. I could barely get an Italian to accept a lunch invitation to meet the President of the Met during those years.
Trust but verify
For the Venus, the Italians were the answer. I rang up the Director General for Cultural Affairs at the Foreign Ministry to discuss her export to the US. He assured me there would be no problem. The committee charged with considering such exports would approve this one quickly without question. “We trust you” he said.
I had to tell him twice that he might trust me, but I still needed a formal bilateral agreement pledging the return of the Venus to Rome. He got the message the second time around. So we exchanged Notes Verbales committing the US Government to return the Giambologna Venus to Italy.
Codas
Off she went to the National Gallery, where about 185,000 people saw her. They held a big, flashy opening but forgot to invite anyone from Embassy Rome. Having just transferred to DC, I rang up Rusty Powell, who had replaced Caaarter Brown as Director. I suggested he could repair this faux pas by giving me and my wife a personal tour of the Venus on display. He graciously did that, accompanying us to see her before opening hours.
Then a few years later I met a National Gallery curator at a friend’s house. She had been involved in the Venus loan and confirmed that the National Gallery had not intended to return it to Embassy Rome. I was pleased to recount how I had prevented that maneuver.
It really is a good lesson in diplomacy: anticipate trouble, try to prevent it, and get lucky.
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