Month: October 2012
The brighter side
Kosovo’s Minister for Economic Development, Besim Beqaj, stopped by last week to talk at SAIS. I was too busy with Yom Kippur and a wife’s illness to write him up quickly, but I doubt any of what he said is yet out of date. So here is my summary, with apologies for anything I’ve gotten wrong (the numbers are particularly difficult to keep track of–I’ll print corrections if you send them to me):
Kosovo found itself at the end of the NATO/Yugoslavia war in 1999 with a devastated economy and two big challenges: post-war reconstruction and transition from badly broken socialism to a free economy. Beqaj himself started his career as a teacher in the parallel education sytem, which undertook the schooling of Kosovo’s Albanians during the 1990s outside the official Belgrade-sponsored system. At the end of the war, 120,000 houses were damaged out of a housing stock of 400,000. Ninety-five per cent of the refugees and displaced people returned quickly, within two months.
Kosovo needed a state. Today it has one that declared independence in 2008 and substantially completed the implementation of Ahtisaari’s Comprehensive Peace Settlement proposal this year. Governance is decentralized, minority protection is enshrined in law, and 91 other states have recognized Kosovo, which is already a member of the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank and will soon be a member of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. Kosovo’s breach last year of its IMF agreement has proven temporary. Within eight months it was back under an IMF program and will stay there.
The state-building process is not yet complete. The long pole in the tent is rule of law. Kosovo has asked for the EU rule of law mission (EULEX) to stay for two more years. Education needs a major upgrade. Unemployment is high, especially among the young.
Still, Kosovo has enjoyed high growth rates (estimated at 4.4% in 2012), 40% of its budget is devoted to capital investments in infrastructure, GDP has grown to 2700 euros/year, debt is under 7% of GDP and foreign direct investment last year amounted to 400 million euros. The road to Durres in Albania is a major improvement. The next infrastructure priority is the road to Skopje, which will start construction soon (I was relieved to hear that!).The Central European Free Trade Agreement provides access to a market of 25 million, in addition to trade agreements with both Europe and the United States.
The National Council for Economic Development has set five goals:
1. Maintaining fiscal stability (legislation limits government debt to 40% of GDP);
2. Improving the environment for investment by reducing red tape and empowering the private sector;
3. Privatizing state enterprises, with priority going to telecommunications (a competition is now in process), the energy sector and mining (much improved airport operations are already in private hands);
4. Revitalizing agriculture and food processing;
5. Developing human capital, including civic education.
All legislation implementing these and other priorities must be aligned with European Union requirements. Ninety per cent of Kosovo citizens would approve a referendum in favor of EU membership.
Kosovo still faces serious difficulties. The Serbian campaign against diplomatic recognition has hurt the state’s prospects and its ability to provide for practical things like “green card” insurance coverage for people who want to travel outside Kosovo by car. Smuggling into Kosovo and back into Serbia) on small roads in the north is costly to both Pristina and Belgrade. As much as $200 million euros in electric bills remain unpaid by Serbs living in the north, which remains a major issue.
It was left to me to ask the obvious question: what about corruption? The Minister replied that the perception is worse than the reality. He pointed to UNDP/USAID polling that suggests only 8% of the population has personal experience of corruption. Eighty-two per cent of the population knows of corruption only through the media or through talking with friends and relatives.
Alas, that same polling shows low levels of satisfaction (among both Serbs and Albanians) with the government, which gets most of the blame for the still difficult economic situation. Besim Beqaj and his colleagues still have a tough road ahead.
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When all you have is a hammer…
Both right and left (not to mention the middle) have so unanimously condemned Mitt Romney’s “A New Course for the Middle East” that it is unseemly to pile on, but I’ll do it anyway. He blamed President Obama for everything that has happened in the region, reiterated current U.S. policy goals and offered no idea of what he would do differently. Rumor has it that Karl Rove had a hand in this. I certainly can’t believe that Romney’s foreign policy advisors, some of whom sit within yards of where I am writing, would fail to recognize Romney’s lack of attention to ways and means.
But there is a deep reason for the lack of attention to ways and means: the only instruments the Romney/Ryan budget provides for are military ones, but the goals the candidate lays out require diplomacy, development assistance, state-building, law enforcement cooperation–in a word the whole panoply of civilian foreign policy instruments that they propose to slice well into the bone. This is a serious mistake, as is the impulse to retreat to fortress embassies and pull up the drawbridge.
What America needs now is more civilian outreach in the Middle East and the Muslim world generally. Romney and Ryan will not provide anything like the means required. Instead, they will provide military instruments. When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. This fallacy is playing out already in the Sahel, where the U.S. is contemplating the use of drones instead of thinking about strengthening local community resistance to the Muslim extremists who have taken over parts of northern Mali, Niger and Nigeria.
I have no doubt about the importance of military strength and economic vitality in determining what burdens the United States can carry. Mitt Romney wants to emphasize the former. Barack Obama wants to emphasize the latter. I’d like to see someone standing up for what Ambassador Chris Stevens and his colleagues represented: an approach to the world that seeks to match American interests with the interests of others, enabling the cooperative sharing of burdens and concerted action to reach common goals. Military action is always going to be an expensive option available only in the most challenging circumstances.
Diplomacy and its concomitants are not expensive. Foreign affairs amounts even today to less than 1% of the U.S. government budget (and less than 10% of the Pentagon’s). But diplomacy is difficult, time-consuming and all too often confusing. Americans simply don’t know what their diplomats do and why it is important. Nor has there been an effective effort at explanation. An enterprise that citizens don’t understand is not going to find the resources it needs to be effective, which of course leads to a further downward spiral of inadequate funding and disappointed expectations.
I dream of a day when two candidates like Romney and Obama will together declare that in addition to military strength and economic vitality, America needs diplomatic outreach. Maybe one of our fellow citizens will ask what role they see for diplomacy at the town meeting debate October 16. Or maybe Bob Schieffer will press the point at the third debate October 22.
The president is not only our commander-in-chief. He is also our diplomat-in-chief. I’d like to hear the candidates tell us what they plan to do in that role, and what resources they will require to do it well.
PS: I missed the semi-official response to Romney.
PPS: On the issue of our embassy posture, Wendy Chamberlin makes good sense.
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The Federation revisited
As some readers will know, I was known during the Bosnian war as Gospodin Federacije, because I was in charge of U.S. support to the Federation that had ended the 1992-4 Bosniak/Croat war and was supposed to govern on territory controlled by the Bosnian Republic Army and the Croat Defense Force. So when the Bosnian version of the Croatian daily Večernji list asked some questions (mildly edited here for English grammar and spelling), I replied:
1. How would you describe current situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) having in mind that there’s no stable coalition on the state or entity level and everyone is trying to remove the other party from power?
DPS: I’d describe as you have: no stable coalition at the state or entity level and everyone trying to get rid of everyone else. That’s called politics in a sharply divided polity. At least it’s peaceful.
2. How much is BiH important to US and is it a major focus right now, and how would you coment on a more powerful engagement in this country?
DPS: Bosnia is way down the list of U.S. priorities today. I don’t think you can expect a more powerful U.S. engagement, unless things get really bad. Even then I’m not certain.
3. Is it time to shut down and relocate Office of the High Representative outside BiH and strengthen the role of Mr. Peter Sorensen and the European Union Special Representative in BiH?
DPS: I don’t see much purpose in relocating the OHR and it is clearly premature to shut him down. Peter Sorensen’s role is quite distinct from the OHR’s. And it has a narrower constituency.
4. A lot of Croat and Serb politicians reproach that U.S. administration for letting Turkey have broader political infulence in the BiH. Do You consider that approach productive or harmful?
DPS: I think Turkey has played a very positive role in many ways in the Balkans: peacekeeping, investment, trade, even politics. It is their backyard and they have every reason to try to make sure it evolves in a peaceful and European direction.
5. Many European diplomats to whom I’ve spoken consider that the Dayton experiment has shown its limits and weaknesses. Some of them told me as a matter of fact it’s failure. Would you like to take comment on that? Is it time for radical change?
DPS: European mouths are sometimes more active than their brains. I’d like to see their plan for radical change before commenting on it.
6. The Dayton political system gave key powers to three constituent national groups: Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats. Key Croatian and Serb politicians consider that the imposition of national representatives in the previous two election cycles have caused the most serious crisis in this country. How is it possible to establish a system that would guarantee equal rights to all constituent national groups and from the other hand citizens having in mind also verdict in case Sejdic – Finci?
DPS: My view is that equal rights should be established on an individual basis and protected by the rule of law, not by group rights protected by thuggish political leaders. I don’t think there should be any ethnic criteria for the presidency of a country of which I am a citizen. But the perspective among many Bosnians is different, and I respect that.
7. How do you comment demands of the Croats in Bosnia, who are the most vulnerable ethnic group in Bosnia, for restructuring of the country in order to have equal rights with two other people. There’s always mentioning of the third entity!?
DPS: The Croats got a very good deal at Dayton: half the Federation and one-third of the state. That’s because they then held a stranglehold on the Federation and Croatia’s military power was vital. Now the military balance is irrelevant, Croatia is entering the European Union and therefore no longer a major factor inside Bosnia, and there are far fewer Croats in Bosnia than at the time of Dayton. Why would they get a better deal now than in 1995? If I were a nationalist Croat, I’d be cautious about reopening an agreement that was highly favorable to Croat nationalists.
8. Do you consider that development in Catalonia would have impact on BiH, maybe some new Dodik initiative?
DPS: No. Whatever happens in Catalonia, it is not based on the ethnic cleansing of more than half the population on its territory.
9. The US administration is lobbying for constitutional changes in the Federation of BiH. They have in mind to change the internal organization of the Federation. What is your view on this initiative?
DPS: I don’t understand it well enough to comment, but see my response to 7 above.
10. What would Croatian accession to the EU mean for BiH and the region?
DPS: I hope it will be inspiration to BiH, Macedonia, Albania, Serbia and Kosovo to get their act together, as Croatia did, and meet the criteria for membership. At the same time, it may disrupt some trading and travel patterns and create some stresses in the rest of the Balkans. The important thing is to recognize that all of the Balkans should soon be members, but only if they make the necessary reforms.
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