Tag: United States
So far so good, but we’ll need to wait and see
I’ve gotten more praise than criticism for yesterday’s piece on Serbia under President Vuvic, but my friend Ylber Hysa, Kosovo’s former ambassador in Macedonia and Montenegro, is super talented at posing questions. Here go my answers:
1. Do you see the EU really ready and open for any enlargement soon towards the Balkans?
No, I don’t, but I don’t see any aspirant that will be ready any time soon, especially given the tightened criteria. Under its previous government, Montengro might have been ready before the end of this decade. Kosovo has the legislation mostly right, but not the implementation. Macedonia is better, but also suffers from a lag in implementation. Bosnia and Herzegovina can’t get it right because its constitutional system is faulty. Albania is making progress, even if it has not yet opened accession negotiations, but it isn’t quick or easy.
2. With Merkel gone, and Macron with a tough election ahead, is there any leadership there for “Europe One and Free”?
No, but entry of Western Balkan states into the EU and NATO should not depend on that. Enlargement should now be seen in the context of strengthening the European counterweight to Russia and China. There too leadership has been lacking and it is not clear Biden will be able to mobilize Europe to the kind of efforts required.
3. Do you believe that Trans-Atlantic unity is better with this administration, or much better than we all hoped for…?
It’s better, as illustrated in the agreement between Serbia and Kosovo on license plates. The Americans and Europeans acted in unison and got a reasonable result. Now they need to extend that practice to bigger issues. Gabriel Escobar and Miroslav Lajcak need to be joined at the hip.
4. Do you really see the Biden Administration seriously engaged in the Balkans after Afganistan?
The Biden Administration has the right approach to the Balkans: strengthening the sovereignty, territorial integrity, and democratic legitimacy of all the states. But it has not yet developed detailed plans for how to do that. That requires hard work and serious engagement that they are now pursuing. I wish them success.
I didn’t see the Biden Administration engaged at a high level in the Balkans before the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Certainly the messy withdrawal has made pulling US troops out of Kosovo less likely. What is needed now is a clearer program that will advance the European perspective.
5. Do you see any progressive, liberal and serious opposition in Serbia?
No, and that’s what I said in the piece. I know lots of individual progressive liberals who are in opposition, but they have failed to construct a viable alternative to Vucic with mass appeal. We should be helping them do that, but the time before next year’s Serbian election is short. I expect Vucic will win another 5-year mandate as a committed ethnic nationalist and friend of Russia and China.
6. Do you believe that in the last “licence plates war” in Northern Kosovo Kurti demonstrated any strategic thinking (or that he picked the right time for war games)?
I can’t say I saw strategic thinking, but Albin applied the principle of reciprocity and got a reasonable outcome that I hope will lead to a satisfactory final agreement on license plates. That’s not strategic, but it’s not a bad start in the right direction.
Now he needs to show some of the same grit inside the dialogue and produce results he can vaunt. Doing that will give him what he needs to get the Europeans to give Kosovo the visa waiver. That would be closer to strategic: opening Europe to young Kosovars without a visa would put his country on a far clearer European path. So too will asking for Kosovo membership in NATO’s Partnership for Peace and ensuring that the Kosovo army is fully functional by 2027, which will open the question of NATO membership.
7. Do you really believe that Kurti is a real liberal, democratic and visionary leader?
Albin has at least for now what a good prime minister needs: strong support in the population, which is tired of the nepotism, ineffectiveness, and corruption of the more established governing parties. In my experience, he is a vigorous proponent of individual human rights and an opponent of the group rights dear to ethnic nationalists, including Kosovo’s Serbs. But he also enjoys strong support among Albanian ethnic nationalists, many of whom want union with Albania. That’s a vision, but it is not a liberal democratic one or even a Kosovo patriotic one.
We’ll just need to wait and see whether Vetevendosje sticks with liberal democratic ideals or falls victim to the temptations of power and the Balkan tendency towards default ethnic nationalism.
PS: Ylber asks in addition:
8. Do you believe regional initiatives can substitute for EU Enlargement: Open Balkans, Berlin Process, Partition and border changes i.e “Jansa nonapaper” etc.
I am dead set against border changes, which will lead to mass displacement and likely death and destruction. We know this from the experience of the 1990s when Milosevic tried to change the borders of Serbia. I see no reason to believe the consequences would not be bad also today, not only for Kosovo and Bosnia but also for Serbia, Montenegro, and Macedonia, all of which have minorities who will want union with a neighbor. Not to mention the negative consequences for Georgia, Moldova, and Ukraine, where border changes in the Balkans would be regarded as a license for Russia to annex more territory.
The Berlin Process in my way of thinking is part of the process of preparing the Western Balkans for EU membership, in particular by encouraging neighborly relations. Open Balkans is not clearly defined for me yet, but if it can remove non-tariff and tariff barriers to trade that would be a good thing, provided it is done on a reciprocal and equal basis. Certainly a more prosperous Western Balkans would have a greater stake in peace and stability. But the devil is in the details, and I haven’t seen a lot of details.
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No one should be fooled: Serbia is lost for now
Colleagues I know and respect think that Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic aims a) to get neighboring countries to treat their Serb populations correctly, and b) thereby avoid any mass migration of Serbs, as occurred in the 1990s when they left Croatia and Kosovo.
I beg to differ. I see no evidence of these two claims and lots of contrary indications.
Let us count them:
- In Kosovo, Vucic controls the Serbian List, which occupies all the Serb seats in the Kosovo Assembly. The Serbian List does not cooperate with other political parties to improve the lot of the Serbs but instead has conducted itself as a spoiler, boycotting parliament often. Belgrade has threatened and harassed Serbs who join Kosovo’s nascent army, and recently deployed army units, as well as the Russian ambassador, to the boundary/border with Kosovo in response to a dispute over license plates (sic).
- Vucic has toyed with the idea of trading Albanian-majority municipalities in Kosovo’s south for Kosovo’s Serb-majority municipalities in the north. But the majority of Serbs in Kosovo live south of the Ibar river. This “border correction” scheme would end the viability of those communities and lead to their eventual, if not immediate, abandonment.
- In Bosnia and Herzegovina, the now Vucic-allied Serb member of the tripartite presidency (Milorad Dodik) has tried to undermine the state institutions in preparation for secession and independence of Republika Srpska (RS), which occupies 49% of the country’s territory. Dodik objects to any strengthening of the state’s judiciary, police, army, and parliament.
- Vucic has taken up the cudgels in favor of a “Serbian Home,” that is a state that would annex the Serb populations of Bosnia, Kosovo, and Montenegro. The idea is indistinguishable from “Greater Serbia” and “all Serbs in one country,” the slogans that led Milosevic to four wars in the 1990s, all of which were lost and led to the mass migration of Serbs to Serbia.
- In Montenegro, a new Vucic-aligned government dominated by people who identify as Serbs is welcoming Russian and Serbian dominance and undermining the independence and sovereignty of NATO’s newest member, while also mistreating the country’s minorities.
It is hallucinatory to think that the Serbian Home and the behavior of Vucic-allied Serbs in Kosovo, Bosnia, and Montnegro is intended to improve the lot of Serbs in neighboring countries or to avoid mass migration. This is no doubt a line Vucic uses with Westerners, as he knows what they want (and don’t want) to hear. But that doesn’t make it true.
In addition to threatening his neighbors, Vucic is taking Serbia in a definitively autocratic as well as Russia- and China-focused direction. Belgrade’s foreign policies are only 60% or so aligned with the European Union, the lowest ratio in the Western Balkans. Serbia has joined the free trade area of the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union, which is incompatible with EU membership. Belgrade has declared itself “neutral” with no intention of joining NATO (unlike all its neighbors). Its media are not free, its judiciary is not independent, and its economy is largely state-directed, with big investments from Russia and even bigger ones from China. Belgrade’s recent arms purchases are likewise largely from Moscow and Beijing.
Vucic faces an election, albeit not a free or fair one, next year. There is no viable liberal democratic alternative. The only current threat to his dominance comes from ethnic nationalists. He sees no hope of joining the European Union within his next five-year mandate and is behaving accordingly: grab what you can from Russia and China, promise to protect Serbs in other countries, look for opportunities to bring them and the land they occupy into Serbia, and stave off the the Europeans and Americans by telling them that you are anxious to avoid mass migration and improve the lot of Serbs in neighboring countries.
No one should be fooled. It is time for Washington and Brussels to wake up and smell the coffee. The geopolitical challenges from Russia and China have dashed hopes for early realization of a Europe “whole and free.” Serbia is lost to the liberal democratic world so long as this Vucic is president. He is a chameleon. For now, he has surrounded himself with autocrats and ethnic nationalists. Courting his favor won’t get us anywhere. Supporting serious liberal democrats inside Serbia and in the region might get us something. But we’ll still need to wait six years or more for a serious alternative.
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Reciprocity is right, and making it stick is vital
Kosovo in recent days has imposed on cars coming from Serbia a requirement to use Kosovo license plates. This mirrors a Serbian requirement that cars coming from Kosovo use Serbian plates. Serb residents of northern Kosovo are protesting by blocking roads. Kosovo police have so far not cleared them.
Reciprocity is correct from the Pristina perspective. It is a basic principle of relations between sovereign states. That is also precisely why Serbia rejects it. Belgrade regards Kosovo as Serbian sovereign territory. Reciprocity is not a principle that governs relations between a sovereign and part of its own territory, even if that part has its own goverrnment, police, and in this case security forces.
From my perspective, Kosovo is a sovereign state: its declaration of independence breached no international law, Serbia has recognized the validity of Kosovo’s constitution on its entire territory, and it has its own democratically validated parliament, prime minister, and president. Serbia does not contest this and claims the territory but not 90% of the people. But if Kosovo Albanians are not citizens of Serbia, then they must be citizens of something else, which is the Republic of Kosovo for all practical and legal purposes.
So demanding reciprocity is consistent with Kosovo’s sovereignty, but that doesn’t mean applying that principle to license plates is smart. Once you do that, you need to anticipate what Belgrade will do in response, like blocking the roads. If you can leave them blocked without any serious economic harm, or if you can clear them without creating a mess, you could come out on top, but only if Belgrade yields. You have to also think about what else Belgrade might do next: create trouble in the Serb communities south of Ibar, complain to the European Union and the Americans, or make a show of military force on its side of the border, which is what it has done in addition to the complaints. It doesn’t suffice to be right about reciprocity; you have to make it stick.
There are other areas where the principle of reciprocity might be invoked, perhaps with greater effect. Certainly Kosovo should ask of Serbia, which wants an Association of Serb-majority Municipalities in Kosovo, an Association of Albanian-majority municipalities in Serbia, with equivalent functions and powers. It could also ask for guaranteed Albanian seats in Serbia’s parliament, as 10 seats in Kosovo’s are reserved to Serbs. It was a mistake not to insist that the Specialist Chambers now prosecuting Kosovo Liberation Army leaders in The Hague also be able to prosecute crimes committed on the territory of Serbia, not just Kosovo.
But to do these things successfully, Pristina needs to line up unequivocal international support in Washington and Brussels. Both have instead adopted an attitude of impartiality. This is a mistake. Serbia is no long “sitting on two stools.” It has committed itself to Russia and China, which have reciprocated with arms and investment. The EU and US need to open their eyes and realize that the current geopolitical competition requires a much firmer commitment to pro-Western forces throughout the Balkans, not only in Kosovo but also in Croatia, Montenegro, Macedonia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina.
President Biden, who has expressed unequivocal support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all the countries of the Balkans, needs now to put his thumb of the scale in favor of democracy throughout the region. That will mean favoring some over others, rather than retreating to a “Europe whole and free” mantra that was appropriate for the unipolar moment but now faces concerted Russian troublemaking and Chinese influence-peddling throughout the continent. Serbia has made itself handmaiden to those efforts.
Kosovo is America’s most loyal friend in the region. It is time for Washington to recognize it as a strategic partner in countering Russian and Chinese influence and to support unequivocally its sovereign equality with Serbia. With that support, reciprocity will stick.
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The angel sings, but the devils are in the details
President Biden today gave his first speech to the United Nations outlining his foreign policy priorities and approach more clearly than he has so far. He aimed to restore trust in American leadership, not only in the aftermath of the Trump Administration but also in the wake of the chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan and controversy surrounding the deal to sell nuclear submarines to Australia that shocked and annoyed France.
The priorities were strikingly different from Trump’s:
- Ending the COVID-19 pandemic.
- Slowing climate change
- Encouraging respect for human rights
- Rebalancing geopolitcs
- A level playing field for trade
- Ensuring benefits, and limiting harm, from technology
- Countering terrorism
The first three items would not have appeared on any Trump Administration list. Numbers 4-7 would have, but with a distinctly America First (i.e. alone) spin.
Biden’s means are at least as different from Trump’s as his priorities. He favors diplomacy over war, multilateralism over unilateralism, and the power of America’s example at home over American intervention abroad.
In my book, this is all well and good, but then come the difficulties in applying these methods to actual issues. Encouraging booster shots to Americans is likely not the best way to end the COVID-19 epidemic, but exporting vaccines to poor countries exposes the Administration to criticism, so Biden is trying to split the difference by doing both. Slowing climate change is a grand idea, but can Biden get the legislation through Congress to meet his own goals for limits on American production of greenhouse gases. Encouraging respect for human rights is fine, but what do you do about Saudi Arabia, whose Crown Prince is thought culpable for the murder of a US-based journalist? Rebalancing geopolitics is fine, but what if selling nuclear submarines to Australia requires you to blind-side and offend your longest-standing ally?
And so on: a level playing field for trade is hard to achieve when a major competitor is using prison (or slave) labor to produce manufactured good. Responding to state-sponsored cyber attacks is proving a particularly difficult challenge. Facial-recognition technology, with all its defects, is spreading rapidly around the world even though it is prone to misidentification and other abuses. You may prefer a less military approach to counter-terrorism, but if there is a successful mass casualty attack in the US the military response will be dramatic. Never mind that 20 years of military responses have not been effective and have killed a lot of innocent non-combatants.
As for methods, there too there are problems. The State Department is a notoriously weak diplomatic instrument. Can it carry the weight of additional responsibilities? Diplomacy may be preferable to prevent Iran and North Korea from getting a nuclear weapons, but will Tehran agree? A two-state solution would be best, but how can we get there from here? Multilateralism is often preferable, but not always possible. One of my mentors used to quote President Carter (I think) saying multilaterally where we can, unilaterally when we must. But that judgment is not a simple one. America should be a shining “city on the hill,” as President Reagan hoped, but what then about the January 6 insurrection and the anti-voting legislation in more than two dozen states?
Biden’s angel sang well this morning at the UN. But the devils are in the details. It isn’t going to be easy to get those right in a divided country and a competitive, if not downright chaotic, global environment.
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Parsing the Afghanistan quandary: humanitarian aid now, nothing more
The UN is anticipating that virtually the entire population of Afghanistan will soon require humanitarian assistance. The country’s economy is imploding. The new Taliban government is broke. The neighbors currying favor with the new authorities in Kabul are not traditional sources of aid: Pakistan, Iran, China, and Russia, not to mention Turkey, Turkmenistan, Uzbekhistan, and Tajikistan. The UN and non-governmental relief organizations will be willing, but they depend on financing from the usual suspects: the US, the EU, Japan, and other developed countries. The one willing Gulf donor is presumably Qatar, which played a role in the negotiations between the US and the Taliban and now runs Kabul airport.
The humanitarian imperative is clear: provide the aid to those in need, no matter what the politics. Life with dignity is everyone’s right. But this is an odd situation: the Taliban just ousted the internationally recognized government, they have not fulfilled the minimal requirements the UN Security Council has levied, and the countries now expected to provide aid are those the Taliban spent twenty years fighting. American taxpayers, having just witnessed the humiliation of the US withdrawal, are now expected to ante up in ways that will make the Taliban regime sustainable?
The problem extends beyond humanitarian assistance. At least that can be done without putting cash in Taliban pockets. The Taliban will still benefit, as otherwise the burden of feeding the population would fall to them. But assistance with government expenditures, including so-called “early-recovery” and reconstruction, will directly help the Taliban to hold on to the power they gained by force, as will unfreezing of Afghanistan’s foreign currency reserves and allowing the Taliban to cash in the International Monetary Fund’s Special Drawing Rights. The Taliban will be no less clever than the previous government in skimming off some percentage.
American interests in this situation need to be parsed. Collapse of Taliban rule and the likely subsequent civil war would be awful from Washington’s perspective. An Islamic State (Khorasan) takeover would be worse. The Americans want what the UNSC resolution specified: exit of those US citizens and supporters who want to leave, access for humanitarian relief, respect for human rights (especially those of women and girls), and an inclusive transitional government. The Taliban have already disappointed by naming a government of their own militants, including people linked to Al Qaeda. While it is early days, they have not demonstrated respect for human rights. Nor have they allowed the exit of more than a minimal number of people.
So do we discount the Taliban failures so far and go ahead with humanitarian relief? I’m afraid we don’t have a lot of choice, both as a matter of principle and pragmatic policy. Humanitarian relief may not save the Taliban government from collapse, but it is the right thing to do and could help to stave off civil war or an IS takeover. We should provide the funds with eyes wide open, trying to verify that access is unhindered and that food and other assistance flows to those in need and is not monetized or otherwise pocketed by Taliban-connected warlords.
There is an argument for at least partially unfreezing reconstruction assistance and Afghanistan’s hard currency assets, because that too could help prevent civil war or worse. Certainly the Taliban will try to extract hard currency with promises to fight the Islamic State. The Pentagon may be sympathetic to this argument. Here I would be far more cautious. The Islamic State is a rival of the Taliban: a jihadi group that wants to govern Afghanistan (and more). The Taliban have their own reasons for wanting to crush IS (Khorasan). I’d prefer to see them doing it for their own good reasons.
As for Al Qaeda, it is clear from inclusion of the Haqqani network, an Al Qaeda affiliate, in their government that the Taliban are not prepared to treat it as an enemy. There is still a question whether a government that includes Sirajuddin Haqqani as “interim” Interior Minister will allow the use of Afghan territory to plot or organize attacks on the US. It is arguable that it is better to have Al Qaeda in the tent pissing out than outside the tent pissing in. I wouldn’t buy it though: it really doesn’t matter that much where Al Qaeda plots its next attack against the US–9/11 may have been conceived while Osama bin Laden was in Afghanistan, but most of the plot was organized and conducted elsewhere. Wherever the Haqqani network helps Al Qaeda, the US interest is clear: weaken both.
Bottom line: Humanitarian assistance yes, but nothing more until it is clearer how the Taliban will govern and whether they will cooperate with those who target, or allow others to target, the United States. Hoisting their flag over the presidential palace in Kabul on 9/11 was not a good omen.
PS: What Ahmed Rashid has to say is always interesting:
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Patriots wear masks and get vaccinated, no compromise
Today is 9/11, but today is also a day on which more than 1500 Americans will die of COVID-19. That is half of the number dying every day as died in the 9/11 attacks twenty years ago. The total confirmed deaths due to the corona virus now number well over 600,000. That is close to 1000 times the number of American service members killed in Afghanistan and Iraq over the past twenty years. Or, if you prefer, about 500 times the number of troops and contractors killed during two decades of the war on terror and two hundred times the number killed on 9/11.
The differences are obvious: COVID-19 has killed people over a year and half, not in a single day, and all over the country, not in one, two, or three places. It has killed mostly older people with pre-existing conditions and mostly brown and black people. But I still find it hard to understand how (mostly white) people who regard themselves as patriots can resist doing what each of them needs to do to prevent fellow-Americans from dying:
These are not difficult things to do. They do not infringe on personal freedom. Virtually every American gets at least half a dozen required vaccines while growing up. Masking to prevent yourself from infecting others is a social obligation. It should be a no-brainer.
It isn’t. Why not? Because you identify with a party and politicians who have decided to oppose vaccines and masking no matter the consequences. Maybe you also think the US government had a hand in attacking the twin towers. Likely you thought Barack Obama was not born in the US. Even more likely, you think Biden won the 2020 election due to fraud. You are prepared to personally interfere with women’s freedom to choose whether she wants to have a baby (as encouraged by a recent Texas law), but you are not willing to have the government, which is responsible for the public welfare, or your employer, who is required to provide a safe workplace, insist that you take simple precautions not to infect others.
9/11 was a moment of extraordinary unity among Americans. We reacted in shock and horror, applauded the first responders, mourned the dead, and sought punishment for those who planned and ordered the attacks. The results 20 years later are not just disappointing but counter-productive: there are now more jihadists in more countries than ever before. It is hard to justify the sacrifice not just of Americans but also the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, Afghans, and others who have died in the war on terror.
Now we find ourselves sharply divided, between those willing to do what little needs to be done for the common good and those who are unwilling. That division doesn’t sound like a winning formula either, but we’ll have to live with it. The unwilling are not patriots. They have betrayed their fellow citizens and are willing to see many more die. President Biden is right to require them to protect others or lose their livelihoods. Patriots wear masks and get vaccinated. There should be no compromise.
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