Tag: United States
Stevenson’s army, September 1
– SAIS Prof Mark Cancian analyzes US aid to Ukraine.
– SAIS Prof Tom Mahnken discusses US-China tech competition.
– At Vox, Jonathan Guyer sees a possible Iraq civil war.
– Former SecDef Esper sees danger in extreme partisanship.
– Political scientists see more GOP use of unreliable information than Democrats.
My SAIS colleague Charlie Stevenson distributes this almost daily news digest of foreign/defense/national security policy to “Stevenson’s army” via Googlegroups. I 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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Why thin gruel is still progress
The Balkans world is breathing easier today, after Belgrade and Pristina reached agreement to accept each other’s identity documents. Heretofore, Belgrade has been issuing its own identity documents to Kosovars crossing into Serbia, based on Pristina’s documents. That was done to avoid implied recognition of Kosovo’s statehood and independence. It has already announced it will issue a disclaimer at the border asserting the new agreement is for practical purposes and does not imply recognition:
Thin gruel is still progress
While Belgrade’s disclaimer suggests the larger issues at stake, the agreement is pretty thin gruel. It is only half the original problem, which also concerned license plates. These will presumably continue to have their state symbols covered to cross the border/boundary. We measure progress in the Balkans in millimeters. Still: compliments to the diplomats involved–especially EU negotiator Miroslav Lajcak and American Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Gabe Escobar!
There is encouragement to be found in the method: the US collaborated visibly with the EU. That kind of tandem effort is responsible for most progress in the Balkans in the past three decades. Balkanites will tell you nothing has changed. But there is a deep chasm between genocide and ethnic cleansing and quarreling over state symbols on license plates.
Zeno’s paradox applies
The reward for virtue is heightened expectations. Energy is perhaps the next subject to tackle. The existing agreement that enables a Kosovo subsidiary of a Serb firm to collect fees from Serbs who live in the Belgrade-controlled north of Kosovo needs implementation. It is common for people not to pay for utilities during wartime. Twenty years of free electricity is at least a decade too long. Kosovo Electric will also gain access to facilities in the north.
This kind of step-by-step, incremental progress is really what is needed right now. Neither President Vucic nor Prime Minister Kurti is ready to make the compromises required for what Balkanites call a “final” agreement between Pristina and Belgrade. Vucic resists recognition. Kurti resists the creation of an Association of Serb-majority Municipalities he thinks would violate Kosovo’s sovereignty. The day will come, but in the fashion of Zeno’s paradox. If you halve the distance between two human bodies every year, they should never touch. But for practical purposes, they do.
Not with Vucic however
“AVucic” is unlikely to be the signature on the final agreement. He has turned definitively in the ethnonationalist direction domestically and eastward internationally. While he still mouths platitudes about seeking EU membership, he is far more welcoming to Russia and China than to the EU and the US. Serbia has steadfastly refused to levy sanctions on Russia for the invasion of Ukraine and has welcomed the Chinese into its infrastructure, including telecommunications. Vucic is capable of extraordinary contradictions. As he renominated Serbia’s lesbian prime minister, he also announced cancellation of Belgrade’s Europride celebration in September.
Unfortunately, the West (that’s US, UK, and EU for Balkan purposes) has come to treat Vucic on most days with kid gloves, fearing that he will tilt even further east and doubting that any better is available in today’s Serbia. But the agreement on identity documents is a good lesson. Squeeze him hard and he yields. I hope the West’s diplomats haven’t exhausted themselves–they are going to have to continue to work hard to get both Vucic and Kurti to yes.
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Yesterday, today, and tomorrow
Friday I spoke to the incoming class of students in SAIS’s mid-career Master of Aarts in Global Policy program (MAGP). I stuck fairly close to these speaking notes:
- It is a pleasure to be here at the MAGP program. Director Sinisa Vukovic is an esteemed and ever more accomplished colleague.
- He framed this talk as Afghanistan, the past; Ukraine, the present; Taiwan, the future.
- These are three big conflict challenges that lie respectively in the past, present, and future.
- We should certainly think hard and try to draw lessons from Afghanistan and Ukraine to apply to Taiwan.
- But that is a non-trivial exercise, because the circumstances of the three theaters of war are distinct.
Afghanistan
- Let me start with Afghanistan. A civil war wracked this weak Central Asian state in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion in 2001.
- Belatedly, the US realized it couldn’t get out of Afghanistan without doing more than chasing down Al Qaeda, not least because it failed at that task.
- That made Kabul the recipient of a massive multi-lateral post-war effort to rebuild governance along democratic lines.
- While the invasion succeeded dramatically and quickly, the state-building was arduous and ultimately failed. The Americans decided Afghanistan wasn’t worth wasting further resources, after more than 20 years of wasting resources.
- Now a distinctly anti-democratic group of Islamist militants has returned to govern Afghanistan. Hard to imagine that will work out well, but my sense is America is glad to be out and gone.
Ukraine
- Ukraine is different. It is a weak European state that suffered an unjust act of aggression on the part of a neighbor seeking to eliminate its sovereignty and independence. The United States is a key supporting actor in Ukraine, but not a belligerent.
- Ukraine is however a proxy for the West, especially NATO, which doesn’t want to risk war with a nuclear power.
- Russia is risking resources. That includes not only its political prestige but also its economic livelihood, military strength, and multiethnic social cohesion.
- For Ukraine is classic Tilly. The war is making the state while the state makes war.
Taiwan
- Taiwan is again distinct. It is a state that doesn’t claim independence but is sovereign over a clearly defined territory and population that the Taiwanese state governs democratically and effectively.
- The international community, including the US, generally recognizes China’s claimi to Taiwan, even if most of the world opposes enforcing that claim by military action.
- But the population of Taiwan isn’t keen on reunification. Who would want to suffer Hong Kong’s fate? Or Ukraine’s?
- Steering between those perils will require not only the Taiwanese but also the Americans to muster their full reserves of statecraft.
Lesssons
- Let me try, with these distinctions in mind, to suggest a few lessons from Afghanistan and Ukraine that we might want to apply in Taiwan.
- First is that there is no need to even begin to think about building a state on Taiwan. The Taiwanese have done it for themselves. Taiwan is a high-functioning, democratic state.
- The state-building challenge and lack of social cohesion that undermined the US effort in Afghanistan will have no parallel in Taiwan.
- Taiwanese are diverse in ethnic origins and political views (including on independence). But they will unite politically in resisting an invasion once it is launched.
The big challenge is military
- The bigger challenge is military . Taiwan is a densely populated island with a population of under 24 million. China is a country of 1.4 billion, 60 times larger. The Chinese army, economy, and financial capacity far exceed Taiwan’s, even if per capita income in Taiwan is much higher.
- Taiwan is more disadvantaged relative to China than Ukraine was compared to Russia, whose forces have proven inept and ill-equipped.
- The Chinese are not. Few knowledgeable people think that if Beijing throws all its resources into the fight that Taiwan can win, even with US support.
- That is precisely what most analysts thought about Ukraine. They were wrong. Ukraine has proven capable of responding effectively to Russian aggression, though Kiev is still far from anything that can be called victory.
- Taiwanese will likewise resist any occupation, with devastating longer-term effects on China. Think for example of what the Taliban did to the Americans.
The Chinese know all this
- The Chinese of course know this. They also know that Taiwan is an important source of Foreign Direct Investment in China. Ignoring Hong Kong, which today cannot be considered “foreign,” Taiwan alone accounts for about 8% of Chinese FDI. Countries likely to cut off investment if China invades Taiwan like the U.S., Japan, South Korea, and EU members constitute most of the rest.
- China is heavily dependent on Taiwanese exports of advanced computer chips. While some in Beijing might hope to take over that production, an invasion and subsequent sabotage will leave chip factories a shambles.
Prevention
- The key lesson from Ukraine for Taiwan should be just this: an ounce of prevention is worth more than a pound of cure.
- The problem is that we don’t know what would prevent war.
- The Ukraine experience suggests arming Taipei to resist an invasion in advance, which was not done for Kiev, is important. This will require what the Americans call a “porcupine strategy” of asymmetric defense.
- Taiwan will count on anti-ship missiles, anti-tank munitions and air defense weapons to blunt the force of a Chinese invasion.
- The Americans need to take care in arming Taiwan not to precipitate pre-emptive Chinese aggression.
- Fortunately, what Taiwan needs most is not the high-tech armaments that arouse Chinese public ire, but more mundane anti-access/area denial weapons.
Preventive intelligence and credibility
- Another suggestion from Ukraine is the importance of preventive diplomacy and anticipatory intelligence.
- The Americans repeatedly revealed Russia’s plans to portray the invasion as a response to Ukrainian atrocities against Russian speakers. This blunted Moscow’s information campaign.
- The problem with this tactic is that China won’t care much how the international community reacts if it decides to invade. And it will be difficult to muster the kind of regional response NATO offered to Russian aggression against Ukraine.
- Both South Korea and Japan will not want to see a Chinese invasion of Taiwan succeed.
- But their capacity to respond is limited. South Korea’s defense is focused mainly on the North. Japan’s is self-restrained, though less so than in the past.
- President Biden has however made it clear the U.S. will come to the defense of Taiwan, even if the White House “walks back” his commitment every time he utters it.
- That commitment is vital if conflict to avoid conflict. The Chinese will hesitate to attack Taiwan so long as they perceive the American commitment to its defense is credible.
It’s about China too
- More than that is needed. China’s claim to Taiwan is not only about sovereignty over territory.
- Taiwan represents, as Hong Kong did before 2020, a successful democratic experiment in a more or less Chinese political context.
- What Xi Jinping fears is that example. Why, a Chinese citizen might ask, can Taiwan be a prosperous multi-party state but China has to remain, even though capitalist in all but name, a one-party autocracy?
- This is comparable to President Putin’s fear about Ukraine. Why, a Russian citizen might ask, must Russia remain an autocracy if Ukraine can be democratic and aspire to membership in the European Union?
- Dial back to Afghanistan for a moment. There the Taliban need not fear nearby democratic examples. All its neighbors are autocracies of one sort or another. The failure of its own democratic experiment will poison the regional well for at least a generation.
War?
- Here I come close to a conclusion. In the long run, the big issue in East Asia is not Taiwan but rather autocracy in China. A consolidated democratic state there would not be threatening Taiwan.
- One thing we know about war. It is unlikely between consolidated democracies and between autocracies. But it is more likely when one state is a democracy and the other an autocracy.
- China is an autocracy. Taiwan has already accomplished its democratic transition. That tells you we need a lot of good statecraft to avoid war.
- China, as Beckley and Brands have made clear in their recent book, is facing major demographic and economic challenges, even as it builds its military capacity.
- Ironically, failure of the Chinese economy could create the most immediate threat from China to the US.
- The business cycle is still in force. Capitalist economies experience recessions and even depression.
- A major economic downturn in China would undermine the Communist Party’s authority.
- It is likely to use repression at home and aggression abroad to reassert domestic political authority as the demographic implosion and economic failure worsen.
- We have already seen a comparable evolution in Russia, with consequences for all its European neighbors and for Russia’s citizens, not only for Ukraine.
- The recent Congressional visits to Taiwan and President’s Biden repeatedly stated commitment to its defense, despite National Security Council objections, have sent the right political and military.
- The announcement of trade talks with Taiwan deepens the commitment.
Washington’s challenges
- Now the challenge for Washington is to back up these commitments with hard facts: weapons and strategy that can enable Taiwan to repel or at least hinder a Chinese invasion, continuing political exchanges, intelligence sharing to avoid any surprises, increased bilateral trade and investment, and a far more extensive Taiwanese official and cultural presence in the US as well as US presence in Taiwan.
- We’ll need to sustain the effort over a decade or more, which isn’t easy because of polarization in the US.
- The aim should be to avoid a major conflagration over Taiwan while China traverses what Brands and Beckley term the “danger zone,” essentially the next decade.
- Beyond that, we can hope the geopolitical challenge will become more manageable, but hope is not a policy.
- The US needs to conserve its power, as it did during the Cold War, and prepare for a geopolitical competition that could last decades more.
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Uncle Sam’s businesses need vets too
Photo Credit: Jessica Radanavong via Unsplash
Nicole Rubin* writes:
7 Reasons Veterans Make Great Entrepreneurs*
There are 17.4 million veterans living in the U.S. Though this population is united by their service, they are a diverse group of people with many different interests. One interest that commonly recurs amongst veterans, though, is the desire to start a business. Indeed, there are many traits veterans possess that make them well-suited to entrepreneurship. If you’re a veteran who wants to start your own business, consider the following seven strengths that may set you up for success.
Dedication, Patience, and Intuition
1. You finish the job. Whether you served in the Army, the Marines, or the Air Force, you know just how important it is to finish what you start. And that’s also what will make you a great entrepreneur. Veterans are dedicated to any endeavor they pursue, and dedication is often the difference between a successful and an unsuccessful businessperson.
2. You endure when times are tough. Every business will fall on lean times sooner or later. Even a lucrative enterprise will have slow seasons. As a veteran, you know just how important it is to endure when times are tough. This mentality will help you accomplish your goals.
3. You possess intuition. As a service member, you were trained to always be on the lookout for potential threats — and potential opportunities, too. As a result, you’ve developed a savvy sense of intuition that will help you outsmart the competition in the business world. You’ll be able to sense your customers’ needs and serve them effectively as a result of your military experience.
Organization, Insight, and Planning
4. You are organized. Another important aspect of military service is the mastery of organizational skills. You must learn how to organize information and data on a daily basis. This will come in handy when you’re writing a business plan that details your company’s structure, funding sources, marketing plan, and revenue expectations.
5. You know your strengths. When you’re in the military, you are assigned a unique role based on the skills you bring to your unit. As an aspiring entrepreneur, you’ll need to tap into these strengths once again as you decide what kind of business you want to start. Good businesses for a beginning entrepreneur include franchises, online services, and eCommerce websites.
6. You pay attention to the details. There’s no room for error when you’re on active duty. You have to pay attention to detail and ensure that your mission is going as planned. This instinct will serve you well as a business owner, too. But if you’re worried about managing your business’s finances, you can choose an accounting software to do it for you. The right software can track expenditures, time spent on projects, tax compliance, and financial performance metrics.
7. You take advantage of your resources. When you’re serving, you know exactly what resources are available to you and both when and how to utilize them. Continue doing the same on your entrepreneurial journey. Veteran business owners have multiple resources available to them, including grants and access to government contracts. Grants are especially helpful because they provide funding that does not need to be repaid, unlike a loan. Be strategic about what you have earned, and take advantage of those options.
Veterans Can Translate Their Skills Into Business Savvy
Many veterans report that it’s difficult to find a job once they have been discharged or retired from the military. If you’ve found yourself in this position, why not start your own business? There are many reasons why you likely have the skills and abilities necessary to thrive as an entrepreneur. With a detailed business plan, a winning idea, and comprehensive accounting software, you have all the tools you need to jumpstart your entrepreneurial career.
Just because you had to fight for our country doesn’t mean you don’t also love peace finding missions. Peacefare is a place to learn more about how to cultivate peace through our global encounters. Visit us online to see how you can contribute to world peace efforts.
*Nicole Rubin worked in the health insurance industry for years, spending a majority of her time fielding questions from people concerning their coverage and medical bills. She created Insureabilities to provide up-to-date information on the state of health insurance in the U.S.
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Tempest in a license plate
President Vucic squirmed through a BBC interview this morning, denying the use of obviously inflammatory language he had just (and has repeatedly) used. He sounded unnerved and desperate to claim persecution of Kosovo Serbs. He also threatened military intervention to protect them. Unfortunately, I can’t find the interview on the Newshour website.
Kosovo Foreign Minister Gërvalla-Schwarz replied with focus on mutual recognition and the threat of Russian meddling in the aftermath of Moscow’s (assumed) defeat in Ukraine.
No, agreement does not appear imminent but it is not impossible
I’m often asked whether a “final” agreement is imminent. It certainly doesn’t appear so. Vucic has reverted to Milosevic-style claims of Serb victimhood and focus on the agreed (but not implemented) Association of Serb-majority Municipalities (ASM). Gërvalla-Schwarz won’t settle for less than progress towards mutual recognition. In the particular case of license plates, that would mean a system that is strictly reciprocal.
But it is not really about license plates. It is about sovereignty. Kosovo Prime Minister Kurti is insisting on reciprocity because that is the rule between sovereign states. Vucic rejects reciprocity because that is the rule between sovereign states. This circle can, I think, be squared. The ASM Vucic wants will look different in the context of mutual recognition. The Kosovo constitutional court has already made clear it can have no executive functions. With recognition, ASM may be helpful to calming Kosovo’s northern municipalities. Without executive functions and with recognition it is not a likely threat to Kosovo’s sovereignty.
You can’t get there from here
The problem is the route to this solution is not clear. Neither Vucic nor Kurti has anything to gain in domestic politics from a settlement. Neither thinks he has to yield to gain advantage internationally.
Serbia has slid back into anocracy. Its democrats are divided and weak. Its filo-Russian ethnonationalists are strong. The media environment is less than free. Public discourse all too often focuses on the “Serbian world,” a remake of 1990s Greater Serbia, recycled via Putin’s “Russian world.” The Serbian world threatens the territorial integrity of not only Kosovo but also Bosnia and Montenegro. Belgrade mouths EU ambitions, but in practice it hedges its bets. It has strengthened ties with Russia and China, even during the Ukraine war. It has failed to align with many EU foreign policies, including Russia sanctions. Progress toward EU accession has slowed to a crawl.
Kosovo is a lively democracy, with free media and vigorous political competition. The electorate is impatient for an agreement with Serbia. Kosovars hope that would get the EU to fulfill its commitment to waiving visas, encourage five EU states to recognize Kosovo’s sovereignty, and enable faster progress towards NATO and EU accession. Still, Kurti has ample domestic support for insisting on reciprocity, which many Kosovars see as a sina qua non. He lacks international options. Neither Russia nor China is interested in befriending Kosovo. Of necessity, Kosovo enthusiastically bandwagons with NATO and the EU, which pressure Kurti mercilessly.
If all you have is lemons, make lemonade
So for now, no “final” agreement seems imminent. But interim ones should be possible. Serbia’s problem with Kosovo plates boils down to an “R,” for “republic.” Belgrade doesn’t want to accept for travel in Serbia plates that display that dread symbol of sovereignty and the documentation that comes with it.
Kosovars have spent ten years covering up the R and getting alternative documentation for the sake of not offending Serb sensibilities. At the same time, Belgrade wants Serbs in Kosovo to be able to keep their Serbian license plates and drive wherever they want. Reciprocity for that would mean Albanians who live in southern Serbia using Kosovo license plates to drive where they like in Serbia. How would that go over in Belgrade? If there really were any risk of violence against Serbs in Kosovo, Vucic wouldn’t be encouraging them to use Serbian license plates.
It is time for Vucic to recognize that this license plate tempest is unworthy of an EU aspirant. When living in Kosovo, Serbs should do as the Kosovars do. Drive with an R on their license plates. It’s not that hard.
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Bosnia’s citizens are its future
I have joined colleagues and friends in this Bosnian-initiated appeal to Secretary Blinken. I have reservations about the HiRep instituting constitutional changes, but I agree with the citizen-focused reforms proposed:
August 19, 2022
The Honorable Antony J. Blinken
Secretary of State
US Department of State
2201 C Street NW
Washington, DC 20520
Dear Secretary of State Blinken,
First and foremost, we are grateful for the pivotal role of the United States in ending the war and bloodshed in our country and brokering the Dayton Peace Agreement, which has kept peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina to date. Now, twenty-seven years after the signing of the Dayton Peace Agreement, that hard-won peace is threatened. Ironically, the very structures of the Dayton Peace Agreement have become an obstacle to Bosnia’s political survival. The mantra repeated by numerous international officials that Bosnia is composed of two entities and three constituent peoples has led us to the current existential crisis.
Due to the lack of international intervention, especially since 2006, Dayton’s structures have devolved into divisive ethnonationalist rhetoric and threats of secession that are destabilizing Bosnia and the region. Bosnian Serb member of the Presidency Milorad Dodik has threatened secession and consistently speaks of Bosnia as a failed State. He wields hate speech against Bosniaks and denies the Srebrenica genocide with impunity. Bosnian Croat party leader Dragan Čović, for his part, has threatened to boycott the election and form a third entity. Both separatist leaders have exploited the concept of “constituent peoples” so as to create further divisions and hatred. These separatist agendas have found their strongest support from the Russian Federation, whose Embassy in Sarajevo insisted in April 2021 that Bosnia fundamentally consists of two entities rather than a unified State.
So, it is clear that the time has come for a fundamental revisioning of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Constitution so that our country may fulfill the conditions to join NATO and the European Union. Once again, Secretary Blinken, we look to the United States for leadership, guidance, and assistance. We need support from the U.S. to help Bosnia transition from a system that gives priority to constituent peoples and ethnic divisions, to a nation of citizens with equal rights and dignity.
The first step in this process should be the genuine implementation of the five judgements of the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR): Sejdić-Finci, Zornić, Pilav, Šlaku, and Pudarić and the retirement of BiH’s ethnic-based election model in favor of a model where the individual citizen of BiH is front and center of the electoral process with the guiding principle of “one citizen, one vote”. A person’s ethno-national identity should not be the sole determinant of governance processes. Implementation of these ECtHR judgements is crucial for Bosnia’s future.
Indeed, it was the expectation of the ECtHR judgements that the contested “constituent peoples” category and all ethnic-based discrimination be removed from the Bosnian Constitution. In Paragraph 43 of the ECtHR judgement in Zornić vs. Bosnia Herzegovina (Application 3681/06), the EU Court asks for both equality of all Bosnia’s citizens and the elimination of the “constituent people” as an outdated concept rooted only in the ceasefire signed in to stop genocide and ethnic cleansing:
The nature of the conflict was such that the approval of the “constituent peoples” was necessary to ensure peace (ibid.). However, now, more than eighteen years after the end of the tragic conflict, there could no longer be any reason for the maintenance of the contested constitutional provisions. The Court expects that democratic arrangements will be made without further delay.
The phrase “constituent peoples” is part of the Dayton Peace Agreement (DPA), but the way in which this term evolved does not conform to the spirit of the DPA. Further, Citizens and Others are also clearly noted in the Constitution, foreshadowing the reform and evolution that the Court references in the statement above.
Without a fundamental restructuring of the Dayton-rendered Constitution, change will not be possible for Bosnia. Hence, we, the resident as well as non-resident citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina, together with our allies, dear friends and several NGOs from abroad, propose two ways the U.S. Government should constructively engage.
First, we encourage the U.S. to initiate and support a process of creating a completely new social contract for the 21st century in Bosnia. Instead of a complicated and extremely costly governance system involving the State government, two entities and 10 Cantons, governance would be transferred to Bosnia’s municipalities, resulting in a more locally based democratic model that is citizen-centered. The State of Bosnia would ensure the equitable provision of essential public services, including health care and education.
Second, we appeal to the U.S. to encourage the Office of the High Representative to use Bonn powers to implement constitutional and electoral reform across the entire territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina in accordance with all judgements of the ECtHR including the judgement in the Zornić v. BiH Application. This would mean that any and all citizens would be eligible to stand for election for any office in their municipality, and would, in turn, be eligible to stand for election to represent their municipality in the national parliament. Finally, according to the terms of Bosnia’s restructured democracy, all citizens would elect one President from among a field of candidates.
Secretary Blinken: what we are proposing would represent a fundamental shift in American foreign policy with respect to reform of the election law in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Thus far, Mr. Palmer’s and Mr. Escobar’s diplomatic efforts have sought to appease the HDZ, an ethnonationalist political party seeking to insure the election of one of their members to the Presidency –a so-called “legitimate” Bosnian Croat representative. However, such a result would only further entrench ethnic divisions and produce a situation in which two members of the Presidency would be seeking to undermine Bosnia’s sovereignty. Thus we urge you to support genuine constitutional and electoral reform that will ensure a sustainable democratic political culture in Bosnia and Herzegovina. With international meddling in Bosnia’s internal affairs from Croatia, Serbia and the Russian Federation, and with the exacerbation of social divisions within Bosnia through the rise of hate speech, genocide denial, and the glorification of convicted war criminals, along with threats of secession and third entities, there is no time to lose.
Thank you for your consideration.
Sincerely,
Azra Zornić, citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, plaintiff before the European Court of Human Rights,
Jakob Finci, citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, plaintiff before the European Court of Human Rights,
Dervo Sejdić, citizen of Bosnia and Herzegovina, plaintiff before the European Court of Human Rights,
Zlatan Begić, Ph.D., applicant before the European Court of Human Rights (application pending), Professor of Constitutional Law, University of Tuzla,
Slaven Kovačević, Ph.D., applicant before the European Court of Human Rights (application pending), Assistant Professor of Political Systems and European Integration, University of Sarajevo,
David Pettigrew, Ph.D., Professor of Philosophy, Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven, CT, Member, Working Group for Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Aida Ibričević, Ph.D., Global Fellow – Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO),
Bojan Šošić, ABD, psychologist, member of Presidency of Association of independent intellectuals “Circle 99”, Sarajevo,
Kurt Bassuener, Ph.D., Senior Associate, Democratization Policy Council (DPC),
Hazim Bašić, Ph.D., member of Presidency of Association of independent intellectuals “Circle 99”, Professor, University of Sarajevo,
Samir Beharić, human rights activist, Research Officer at the Balkan Forum, PhD Candidate at the University of Bamberg,
Azra Berbić, human rights and peace building activist, Project Coordinator Center for Youth KVART Prijedor,
Vildana Bijedić, MSc. Mandala Academy Foundation,
Sonja Biserko, President of the Helsinki Committee for Human Rights in Serbia,
Janusz Bugajski, Senior Fellow, Jamestown Foundation, Washington, DC,
Tanya Domi, Assistant Professor of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University,
Štefica Galić, Editor-in-Chief Tacno.net web portal,
Carole Hodge, Ph.D., Research Fellow Glasgow University (retired),
Marion Kraske, political scientist and analyst,
Adil Kulenović, President of Association of independent intellectuals “Circle 99”, Sarajevo,
Senadin Lavić, Ph.D., Professor, University of Sarajevo,
Satko Mujagić, Survivor, Omarska and Manjača Concentration Camps,
Dr. Emir Ramić, Director of the Institute for Research of Genocide Canada,
Daniel Serwer, Scholar, Middle East Institute; Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Institute, and Professor, School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University,
Munira Subašić, President, Association of Mothers of Srebrenica and Žepa Enclaves,
ReSTART Bosnia and Herzegovina, informal group of citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina,
Samir Vranović, President, Association of Istina Kalinovik ’92
cc: The Honorable Jeanne Shaheen, United States Senator
The Honorable Bob Menendez, United States Senator
The Honorable Ben Cardin, United States Senator
The Honorable Chris Murphy, United States Senator
The Honorable Steve Cohen, United States Representative
The Honorable Greg Meeks, United States Representative
The Honorable William Keating, United States Representative
The Honorable Ann Wagner, United States Representative
The Honorable Michael J. Murphy, United States Ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina
Karen Donfried, Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs. US Department of State
Dereck J. Hogan, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs
Molly Montgomery, Deputy Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, US Department of State
Robert Hand, Senior Policy Adviser at the U.S. Helsinki Commission
For further information contact Azra Zornić, zornicazra@gmail.com, or David Pettigrew, depettigrew@gmail.com. Alternatively, correspondence may be directed to: David Pettigrew, Ph.D., Philosophy Department, Southern Connecticut State University, New Haven, CT, 06515, or to Bojan Šošić, Asocijacija nezavisnih intelektualaca “Krug 99”, Vrazova 1, 71000 Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina.
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