Tag: United States
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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, January 2
– The Great Resignation has hit Hill staffers because of the January 6 attacks.
– 1/3 of Americans [including 40% of Republicans] tell pollsters violence against the government is sometimes justified. The figure was 18% in 2010.
– WSJ says China fell short of trade commitments to US.
– FP lists conflicts to watch in 2022.
Charlie also wrote this yesterday:
I followed the career of Peter Navarro in recent years with great interest. He was an outspoken China hawk who advised the Trump campaign and then was an early appointee to work in the White House. Candidate Trump had promised to create a National Trade Council to take on China and otherwise promote an America First economic policy, but he never did. As a student of the presidency, I was not surprised that other officials blocked that action in order to preserve the established system that tilted toward mainstream policies. Instead, Navarro was named head of an Office of Trade and Manufacturing Policy that had no clear authority, not even an executive order creating it, but gave Navarro a handful of aides.
Despite his weak bureaucratic position, Navarro was a hustler and he knew the president agreed with him on trade. So he wrote memos and showed up at meetings and got into fights with the more powerful figures like the secretary of the treasury and the head of the national economic council. He also maneuvered to see the president without an appointment and to ride on Air Force One, sitting in the conference room.
Navarro produced major documents criticizing China’s trade policy and pushed for even tougher measures. But he repeatedly lost fights with the treasury secretary and the trade adviser, who ultimately persuaded President Trump against extreme measures.
Navarro also did valuable public service pushing the administration to recognize the danger of the coronavirus when most senior officials, including the president, were downplaying the threat. And with no clear lines of authority within the White House, Navarro wound up as the action officer for government officials and company leaders searching for protective gear and medical supplies. As he reports in his new memoir, In Trump Time, he succeeded time and time again with quick results, though he complains of many times he was thwarted by existing laws and administrative requirements.
There’s a valuable case study in that memoir, though it’s told in a rambling, incomplete way. Navarro tells how, in the summer of 2020, he dreamed up the idea of a special commission to investigate the causes of the pandemic and to report before election day of the human and economic costs. He believes that the virus originated in a Chinese lab and wanted to call the group the CCP Virus Commission. He wrote a draft executive order, but then ran into resistance from several senior officials. He still can’t believe that the president wouldn’t agree to his brilliant election ploy.
Navarro is using his book to settle scores — against all of Trump’s national security advisers except Robert O’Brien; against Treasury Secretary Mnuchin; against Jared Kushner; against Anthony Fauci; and even against Mike Pompeo and Vice President Pence. He disparages them all in intemperate language and then describes how he thinks the Democrats stole the 2020 election and what he did to help Trump prevent a Biden inauguration.
Navarro could have told a story of a lonely fighter for policy change. He has some victories to brag about after all. But his anger and his Trump loyalty outweigh that story.
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Stevenson’s army, December 31
– WaPo reports the Taliban are behaving like the Taliban.
– NYT reports what’s being said about Biden-Putin call.
– SAIS Prof Frank Gavin assesses Biden’s first year.
– Here’s the 2022 congressional calendar.
The NDAA is now public law 117-81. The 910 page measure is here.Three sections, totaling 68 pages, cover “Matters relating to other nations” — foreign policy in the defense policy bill. The law also contains 19 pages of what’s called a State Department Authorization Bill, but it’s pretty skinny. The Department of Homeland Security gets 24 pages of new laws. And cyber matters take up 52 pages. As I’ve often said in class, the NDAA is now the everything bill, and it gives the defense committee people a key role in all foreign policy legislation.
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A blue future, but there’s a big if
I’ve written little in recent days, mainly because I spent the Christmas holiday plus in San Antonio Texas, where my younger son, his wife, and their daughter live. It’s difficult to focus on the Russian threat to Ukraine while enjoying your only grand daughter in a city far not just from the maddening crowd but from the even more maddening international policy community.
Some readers will think I might have been politically uncomfortable in Texas, whose state leadership is leading the extremist right on voting rights, abortion, and lots of other issues. But that would be wrong. San Antonio, while not as blue as DC (slmost nowhere is), is still cerulean. At least in Alamo Heights, a mostly privileged part of town, lawn signs declare black lives matter more often than they tout Donald Trump. In the 2020 election, Biden beat Trump in San Antonio 58/40. The city is majority minority, with a 64% LatinX population, more often still referred to there as Hispanic. Even among the inhabitants of the mansions of Terrell Hills, Biden won 2/1.
Atlanta, Georgia, where I spent Thanksgiving, is likewise blue, though to my surprise its population is only 1/3 black. I’m surprised because the inner city districts I frequent, though gentrifying apace, seem heavily populated by young, up-and-coming black professionals, in addition to some older long-time black residents. As in San Antonio, outlying areas are more white, and red, but the recent in-migrants are mostly white. Biden won in the center city (Fulton County) by an astounding 83/16, but he also won in surrounding counties by lesser margins.
Both cities have a good vibe. The commercial districts I witnessed were thriving, if not always bustling. The contrast with downtown and Chevy Chase DC is striking. Both of these former upscale shopping districts are now a wasteland of empty storefronts. It will take the better part of a decade to recover, if not longer. In Atlanta, the commercial areas adjacent to the Beltline are hopping. In San Antonio, the Lincoln Heights and Quarry shopping centers are not quite as hip, but their parking lots are full.
I can’t say much about the people in Atlanta and San Antonio, as epidemic conditions kept older people like us mostly isolated. In San Antonio, it is striking how many people walking on the street greet you with “how are you doing,” without expecting an answer. In Atlanta, a wave is all you usually get, which is true in DC too. In Atlanta and San Antonio, the driving is respectful of pedestrians on the side streets, but on the main drags pedestrians are not much better than stray dogs. In DC, the driving on side streets is a bit less respectful but on the main drags isn’t quite as fast and careless.
City infrastructure in Atlanta and San Antonio leaves a lot to be desired compared to DC, where the city has used the two years of epidemic to repave and re-sidewalk a good part of at least the affluent Northwest. I got a pot hole filled within a few days in front of my house just by reporting it on line. Atlanta and San Antonio have sidewalks, where they exist, that are often decrepit and streets that are worse. I don’t know about San Antonio, but local taxes in DC and Atlanta are comparable–perhaps even a bit higher in Atlanta. There and in San Antonio high school football stadiums seem preferred to decent cityscape.
The cars available in these three cities are the same, but the local preferences are different. In San Antonio, the availability of hybrids and all-electric cars seems to have encouraged the purchase of upscale behemoths. There are also many more large pickup trucks and SUVs in Texas, where size really does seem to matter. Or perhaps vehicle size compensates for the anatomical. Size seems to matter less in DC and Atlanta, though the latter sports a striking number of people who believe driving without a muffler is manly.
I can’t say anything about culture in these three cities, as it has now been a long time since I’ve enjoyed a major performance or museum. DC has a pair of fabulous small opera companies–the In Series and Bel Cantanti–that I’m pretty sure aren’t matched in San Antonio or Atlanta. San Antonio is hosting a road version of Hamilton, which has also been seen in Atlanta and DC. It’s a good thing they called it a rap musical. Had it been labelled what it is–an opera–I doubt many would have seen it. I look forward to the day it appears at the Met.
We are all worried these days about Omicron, even if Atlanta and San Antonio are noticeably less masked than DC. Masked, I got chastised for getting too close to someone (also masked) on the check-out line at Walgreens in San Antonio. But the virus is in its last, less sickening but more contagious, phase. This makes sense, as evolution favors contagion, not deadliness. There is a lot of doom and gloom among those who worry about hospital capacity, anti-vaxxers, flight cancellations, and people who try to get on aircraft unmasked.
I’m preferring to think that we can look forward to increasingly blue cities that get the less deadly Omicron under control and can hope for economic revival as well as declining political strife. The only real question is whether urban votes will be allowed to count equally with those in less populated areas. The future is blue, if everyone’s vote counts equally. That’s a big if.
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Stevenson’s army, December 30
– NYT reports what US officials expect from today’s Biden-Putin call.
– AEI’s Kori Schake says Russia is being deterred.
– Other analysts think naval action more likely.
– WSJ says Biden’s trade policy conflicts with alliance repair.
– I agree with WOTR article that unmanned systems often have unrecognized costs.
– NYT has best obit on Harry Reid. I still regret his ending of filibuster on nominations.
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 27
– The Guardian says US & Japan are coordinating on Taiwan.
– Russia will have talks with US & NATO in January.
– WSJ reports how Taliban “outwitted and outwaited” US.
– Just Security has long report on military activity last January 6.
– NYT reviews book challenging views on WWII. I also found the book persuasive. My take is here.
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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