Tag: Balkans

The 2013 vintage in the peace vineyard

2013 has been a so-so vintage in the peace vineyard.

The Balkans saw improved relations between Serbia and Kosovo, progress by both towards the European Union and Croatian membership.  Albania managed a peaceful alternation in power.  But Bosnia and Macedonia remain enmired in long-running constitutional and nominal difficulties, respectively.  Slovenia, already a NATO and EU member, ran into financial problems, as did CyprusTurkey‘s long-serving and still politically dominant prime minister managed to get himself into trouble over a shopping center and corruption.

The former Soviet space has likewise seen contradictory developments:  Moldova‘s courageous push towards the EU, Ukraine‘s ongoing, nonviolent rebellion against tighter ties to Russia, and terrorist challenges to the Sochi Winter Olympics. Read more

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A good year for Kosovo, big challenges ahead

I did this piece for the New Year’s edition of Kosova Sot, which was scheduled to publish it today:

2013 was a good year for Kosovo. It reached an important agreement with Serbia, got a green light from the EU for stabilization and association talks with Brussels, and conducted good elections on its whole territory for the first time since independence in 2008. These are not spectacular achievements, but they point in the right direction: an increasingly normal state with a future in the European Union.

What stands in the way? Kosovo is still not sovereign in vital two dimensions. One is the military dimension: it lacks an army and other ways of defending itself. The other is the rule of law dimension: it lacks the capacity to enforce the law on the whole territory and with respect to everyone.

The army is not an immediate problem, as the NATO-led KFOR provides territorial security. But KFOR will only be around for a few more years. Pristina needs to devote some quality time to working out what the major challenges to its security will be over the next 5-10 years and how it can respond effectively. Read more

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The handwriting on the wall

The European Council at the level of heads of state and government decided Friday that accession negotiations with Serbia will open formally January 21.  This marks an important advance in Serbia’s transition from a thuggish autocracy under Slobodan Milosevic to an increasingly open and democratic society 14 years later.  The process of meeting European Union standards and gaining admission will likely take another decade, as Croatia’s accession did.  It will be a hard slog.  But many of the benefits and costs of EU membership occur even before formal accession.  Serbia can expect ample funding to pay for the adjustment process.

This puts Serbia more or less in the middle of the pack in the Balkans “regatta” for EU membership.  Slovenia and Croatia are already EU members, Montenegro is in the process of negotiating accession, Macedonia is already a candidate and awaits only resolution of its dispute with Greece over its name to start accession negotiations, Albania awaits candidate status, Bosnia and Herzegovina has concluded a Stabilization and Association Agreement (a prelude to candidacy) and Kosovo is still negotiating one.  But Serbia has particular weight in the Balkans:  it is geographically central, played an important role for the better part of a century in Yugoslavia and is still demographically and economically a relative heavyweight, despite a greying population and a stalled economy. Read more

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The end is nigh, once again

2013 is ending with a lot of doom and gloom:

  • South Sudan, the world’s newest state, is suffering bloodletting between political rivals, who coincide with its two largest tribes (Dinka and Nuer).
  • The Central African Republic is imploding in an orgy of Christian/Muslim violence.
  • North Korea is risking internal strife as its latest Kim exerts his authority by purging and executing his formally powerful uncle.
  • China is challenging Japan and South Korea in the the East China Sea.
  • Syria is in chaos, spelling catastrophe for most of its population and serious strains for all its neighbors.
  • Nuclear negotiations with Iran seem slow, if not stalled.
  • Egypt‘s military is repressing not only the Muslim Brotherhood but also secular human rights advocates.
  • Israel and Palestine still seem far from agreement on the two-state solution most agree is their best bet.
  • Afghanistan‘s President Karzai is refusing to sign the long-sought security agreement with the United States, putting at risk continued presence of US troops even as the Taliban seem to be strengthening in the countryside, and capital and people are fleeing Kabul.
  • Al Qaeda is recovering as a franchised operation (especially in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and North Africa), even as its headquarters in Pakistan has been devastated.
  • Ukraine is turning eastward, despite the thousands of brave protesters in Kiev’s streets.

The Economist topped off the gloom this week by suggesting that the current international situation resembles the one that preceded World War I:  a declining world power (then Great Britain, now the US) unable to ensure global security and a rising challenger (then Germany now China). Read more

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The world according to CFR

The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) survey of prevention priorities for 2014 is out today.  Crowdsourced, it is pretty much the definition of elite conventional wisdom. Pundits of all stripes contribute.

The top tier includes contingencies with high impact and moderate likelihood (intensification of the Syrian civil war, a cyberattack on critical US infrastructure, attacks on the Iranian nuclear program or evidence of nuclear weapons intent, a mass casualty terrorist attack on the US or an ally, or a severe North Korean crisis) as well as those with moderate impact and high likelihood (in a word “instability” in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq or Jordan).  None merited the designation high impact and high likelihood, though many of us might have suggested Syria, Iraq  and Pakistan for that category. Read more

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For those who couldn’t make it

I gave the last of my pre-holiday talks on Righting the Balance yesterday at the Middle East Institute.  Here is the latest iteration of the talking points I’ve been using, admittedly with occasional departures to tell a story or respond to a skeptical look.  

1. Thank you for that kind introduction. It is truly an honor to present at MEI, which welcomed me as a scholar after I moved to SAIS from USIP three years ago and provided a steady flow of interns who did essential fact-checking, footnoting and commenting on the manuscript.

2. As I am going to say some harsh things about the State Department and USAID, and even suggest they be abolished in favor of a single Foreign Office, I would like to emphasize from the first that I have enormous respect for the Foreign Service and the devotion of its officers to pursuing America’s interests abroad. I feel the same way about the US military.

3. But I don’t think the Foreign Service is well served by the institutions that hire, pay and deploy our diplomats and aid workers. And I don’t think our military should be called upon to make up for civilian deficiencies.

4. My book, Righting the Balance, is aimed at correcting those imbalances. But it does not start there. Read more

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