peacefare.net

Slam the door shut on Open Balkans

Miodrag Vlahović is the former minister of foreign affairs of Montenegro and the first Montenegrin ambassador to Washington. He is now president of Montenegrin Helsinki Committee. He writes:

Russian aggression against Ukraine has provoked a dramatic change in the Western approach to Russia. Confrontation with Russia has re-united the Euro-Atlantic community and given a new raison d’etre to NATO. It will have profound effects in the Balkans too.

The EU and US have been failing

The Balkans have endured years of futile US diplomacy and ineffective EU efforts to move all six Western Balkan countries towards EU membership. The main reason for their poor results was their effort to appease Serbia. That modus operandi was particularly present during the Trump administration. The American bottom line was simple: economy will resolve all the other issues. Karl Marx would agree.

EU diplomacy in recent years entered the murky waters of of changing borders and territorial swaps on an ethnic basis. That process failed but evolved to a vague “Open Balkans” proposition. It ignores not only the existing Berlin Process for regional co-operation, but also the regional CEFTA framework for trade. It would give leadership in the region to Serbian President Vučić and Albanian Prime Minister Rama, encouraging their Greater Serbia and, consequently, Greater Albania ambitions.

The consequences are evident

As a consequence of this ineffective diplomacy, Western Balkan countries’ advance towards EU membership has stalled. Three (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Montenegro) have expressed serious reserves concerning the logic and potential effects of Open Balkans. Pro-EU Balkan politicians and civic activists think hard-line nationalism, emanating mainly from Belgrade, has caused serious degradation of regional security and stability.

Russian hybrid activities have contributed, as they have in many Western countries, the US included. Russian media and their outlets, combined with an orchestrated round-the-clock campaign of Belgrade-controlled media, have encouraged Serbian nationalism and its allies throughout the region.

Serbia has enjoyed “privileged status” in the West for years now. The US and EU hoped to “save” Vučić from Russia’s bear hug. Appeasment from the West allowed the step-by-step takeover of Serbia from the East.

Now things should change

This appeasement of Russia’s main client in the region is no longer a viable policy.

“Open Balkans,” supported by both the State Department and the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, should end. It was leading the entire region off the EU track.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine requires prompt action in the Balkans:

• Accelerate EU membership negotiations as the first priority on the Euro-Atlantic Balkans agenda. The region should return to the “regatta principle,” that is EU accession on the merits of individual candidates.
• Provide a credible time-table for NATO accession of Kosovo as well as Bosnia and Herzegovina. The sooner, the better.
• Offer Serbia the same. Even if its internal politics and declared “neutrality” militate against NATO membership, the “open door” policy is crucial.
• Make Bosnia-Herzegovina a functioning, civic political system. Changes of election laws based on ethnic denominations will not help. The Dayton constitutional framework needs change.
• Revive the Berlin Process, especially cultural co-operation and educational programs. They are the best training for accession talks with EU.
• Promote civic and non-nationalist political forces and their leaders throughout the region.

All these measures will take time and energy. The magnitude of problems and wasted years make the task difficult. The Balkans has never been a place of easy solutions.

Open the doors to NATO and the EU

This is a time to be resolute. The Ukraine war makes delay unwise and appeasement foolish. The US and EU should slam the door shut on Open Balkans and open the doors to NATO and the EU.

Humanitarian corridors are a bad idea too, but what’s better?

I’ve already said that a no fly zone won’t fly. It risks bringing the US into direct conflict with Russia. That’s a bad idea because the escalatory ladder could end in a nuclear exchange. That would be far worse, especially for Americans, than anything happening now.

Humanitarian corridors are target-rich

Another much-ballyhooed proposal would establish humanitarian corridors for the safe evacuation of civilians from population centers. They too are not a good idea. For the Russians, any territory on which adversaries gather to evacuate is a target-rich environment. They have demonstrated unequivocally in Syria that they will attack evacuation routes. They have already done it again in Ukraine in recent days. The Red Cross has said one designated humanitarian corridor leading out of Mariupol is mined.

Far better would be an international effort to stop the shelling that gives rise to the humanitarian corridors proposal. Mariupol is under siege. The Russian army is shelling the city’s civilian areas, targeting among other things hospitals:

Das Krankenhaus mitten in Mariupol. Es hatte die größte Wöchnerinnenstation der Stadt #RussiaInvadesUkraine pic.twitter.com/wAUyDpPLif

— Alice Bota (@AliceBota) March 9, 2022

Both the siege and the shelling are war crimes. International humanitarian law permits attacks only on belligerents, not civilians, the means to supply them, or medical services.

Stopping the sieges

How to get the Russians to stop? Ideally, the Russian commanders would have refused to shell civilian areas or lay siege to population centers. They know full well those are war crimes. Since they have not seen fit to do the right thing, every Western general who knows one of them should be calling to object. Russian commanders should understand that for the rest of their lives professional soldiers will view them as war criminals, not colleagues.

That isn’t likely to work, so we come to military solutions. The Ukrainian army would break the sieges if it could. One possible move would be airdropping humanitarian supplies. This too doesn’t work well. It is hard to target them to the right people. The planes carrying the supplies are the flying equivalent of sitting ducks. They are slow. They don’t carry much. Lacking their own active defenses, they are vulnerable, especially as they descend to drop supplies.

If the Russians won’t agree to stand off, the transport planes would need to be protected. That is not a pretty picture. It is also one that could lead to direct conflict between the Russians and NATO.

Another possibility is for the Ukrainians to surrender some population centers to enhance the defense of others. That is apparently what they did at the beginning of the war when they moved air defenses from the south to Kyiv. This would risk losing more of the southern coast, including Odesa. It is not an attractive proposition. But if it were to lead to a major defeat of Russian forces aimed at besieging Kyiv it might be worth the cost. Abandoning Kyiv to enhance defense of Odesa is too risky. Once the capital is gone, defeat can’t be far off.

Only winning will save the civilians

The Ukrainians face an adversary who doesn’t care about international humanitarian law. Winning the war quickly would save the most civilians. That isn’t likely. The Russian offensive has stalled, so Putin will double down. Odds are the Russians will continue waging their war of aggression, targeting of civilians, and besieging of population centers. Humanitarian corridors are a bad idea, but what’s better?

PS: Here for your viewing pleasure is a little something about Foreign Minister Lavrov, who is supposed to be negotiating humanitarian corridors:

The real but strange superbowl is next week

The impending Russian attack on Ukraine will trigger a war for geopolitical dominance in Europe between Russia and the United States. But Washington will not be fighting with its own troops. Ukraine will get lots of help from the US and its NATO allies, but Kyiv is not a member of the Alliance and therefore not entitled to its collective defense.

Russian war plans

Russia has wisely chosen a relatively weak adversary, as it did also in Georgia in 2008. Kyiv is a bit more than 100 miles from Russia-allied Belarus (less as the crow flies), where Moscow has mounted a substantial invasion force. It would be foolhardy for Russia to try to capture Kyiv. Doing so would cause massive destruction to a city where Moscow will want to install a post-war puppet government. But a feint from the north is inevitable, to keep Ukrainian forces pinned down there. A smaller move from Moldova in the west is also likely.

In the meanwhile, Russian forces from Crimea, the rebel areas of Luhansk and Donetsk, and amphibious landing ships will aim for Mariupol and other towns along the Sea of Azov littoral. A land bridge to Crimea will be their objective. If they succeed at that, they may try to go all the way to Odesa. Cut off from the Black Sea, surrounded, and defeated, Ukrainian forces would surrender, the government would flee or fall, and Moscow would be in charge of the entire country.

The Ukrainians have a chance

None of this is inevitable. The Ukrainians may surprise the Russians with stiff resistance and newly acquired advanced weapons, including Turkish drones and American anti-tank Javelins. While surrounded, the Ukrainians have the advantage of shorter interior lines of communication. They will also be fighting on their home turf. It is anyone’s guess how many thousands of troops Putin can lose before abandoning the invasion. But it is wise to remember this:

Stalin, Peter the Great and Ivan the Terrible especially, all of whom not only both glorified the state while abusing its people, but also, literally killed (Ivan), or were involved in killing (Stalin and Peter) their own offspring. 

Once he starts, Putin will be hard to stop, no matter what the losses.

Diplomacy isn’t working yet

He is proving hard to stop even before the attack. There is no sign yet of Russian second thoughts. Moscow continues to prevaricate, saying it has no plans for an invasion of Ukraine. President Biden has done an admirable job of lining up the NATO allies. But only time will tell whether they are ready and willing to impose serious sanctions on Russia, cutting it off from the international financial system and from revenues of the Nordstream 2 natural gas pipeline.

President Biden is in a difficult spot. Americans don’t want to defend Ukraine. But in the wake of the withdrawal from Afghanistan, a Russian takeover in Kyiv will underline American weakness. Biden needs either to convince Putin not to invade Ukraine, or make the sanctions that ensue far more punishing than the usual. The pre-emptive use of intelligence on Russian false flag operations and military deployments is a clever tactic. It has made clear to Western audiences who will be at fault for the Russo-Ukrainian war. But that won’t save Biden from ferocious criticism if it happens.

This is a geopolitical contest with one adversary fighting with both hands tied behind its back, or geopolitics by proxy. The real but strange superbowl more than likely kicks off next week.

Time is running out but it is not over yet

President Putin has four objectives in deploying Russian troops to Ukraine’s borders:

1. Get the US to pay attention to him and his demands.
2. Prevent Ukraine from ever joining NATO.
3. Split the Alliance.
4. Distract domestic attention from his economic failures and corrupt behavior.

How is he doing?

US attention

He has succeeded in getting US attention. Washington and Moscow are now exchanging papers addressing European security issues. That’s good from Putin’s perspective, as he regards Russia and the US as first-rank powers. Everyone else in Europe is a bit player. The Russians have succeeded in setting part of the agenda for bilateral talks. For Putin, that signals the return of Russia to great power status.

But it also alerts the US and Europe to Russia’s broader objectives. Moscow seeks to reverse 30 years of eastward movement of Western democracy and values. It wants a neutralized sphere of influence surrounding Russia. Its neighbors should present no models of successful governance that might inspire rebellion inside the Russian Federation. We used to call such states “satellites.”

Ukraine NATO membership

On Ukrainian membership in NATO, the results so far (and likely in the future) are mixed. Many NATO members are more reluctant to consider Ukraine for membership with a Russian invasion force now poised on Kiev’s borders. NATO defense of Ukraine would not be an easy task. But the Ukrainian population, at least those not under Russian rule in Donbas and Crimea, has become far more pro-NATO. Ukraine will not get membership anytime soon. But it will be coordinating its defense plans with the Alliance for at least a generation to come, unless Moscow were to be successful in again installing a puppet regime in Kiev.

Splitting the Alliance

Alliance members are not opening their arms to Ukrainian membership, but they are lining up solidly in favor of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity. The only visible split in the Alliance is Germany’s reluctance to allow arms it manufactures to be transferred to Ukraine from third countries. This is a product of German internal politics. The Berlin government, which includes parties friendly to Russia and reluctant about arms trade, also fears war will interfere with putting the Nordstream 2 pipeline from Russia into operation. Nordstream 2 is vital to German’s future gas supplies and its ability to meet climate change goals. Washington has explicitly said an invasion would end the hopes of bringing Nordstream 2 on line.

Despite the German reservations, the Alliance has held together pretty well. If there is a major Russian intervention, Putin can anticipate a firm response focused on economic sanctions. His best bet for splitting the Alliance is a more modest intervention. As President Biden inopportunely said in his last press conference, the Alliance would then face dissension on the strength of the sanctions. A Russian push along the coast of the Sea of Azov towards Crimea could both gain territory and split the Alliance.

Domestic politics

Putin needs some sort of military move to distract domestic attention. Russians aren’t supportive of war against Ukraine, but Putin hopes they will rally around the flag if an intervention is successful. What Putin needs to worry about domestically is not war but failure. If he moves on Mariulpol but is not be able to take it, Russians could turn on him, especially if he gets a lot of young men killed. Putin will use “hybrid war” maneuvers to increase the odds of military success. Among his options are protests and bombings throughout Ukraine, cyberattacks on vital infrastructure, financial manipulation against the Ukrainian hryvnia, and massive propaganda about Ukrainian malfeasance.

Time is running out, but it’s not over yet

There is little visible progress in the diplomacy, but the Russians are still hesitating. They won’t want to keep their troops mobilized and ready for an invasion too long. It’s expensive, tiring for the troops, and logistically challenging. The Americans say they are trying to given the Russians an “off ramp.” But there is little they can do to satisfy Putin’s demand for a legally binding commitment that Ukraine will never join NATO. Nor will they want to reverse NATO’s three decades of expansion eastward.

The main question now is whether deterrence will work. Has the West done enough to ensure doubt about whether Russia will win a war with Ukraine? Is the prospect of sanctions sufficiently daunting for Moscow to prefer standing down? Can Putin back down without suffering serious domestic political consequences?