Tag: European Union
Hussein Saleh, you are not alone
My journalist (McClatchy) friend and fellow Haverford graduate Roy Gutman tweeted this moving short video about a Yemeni International Committee of the Red Cross worker, Hussein Saleh:
I Know Where I’m Going from Intercross on Vimeo.
It reminded me of what I know: most of the people who work for humanitarian and other organizations, nongovernmental and governmental, in conflict zones are host country nationals. They take enormous risks and get killed at an accelerating rate: they are most of the more than 300 humanitarian workers killed last year worldwide.
My first encounter with what the State Department now calls “Foreign Service nationals,” that is citizens of the country in which a U.S. government facility is located, was with Danilo Bracchetti, who worked in U.S. embassy in Rome from the late 1940s until retirement sometime after I left in 1993. When he started, Rome had no garbage collection, because no one threw anything out. He was the only Italian I ever met who admitted to having been in a fascist youth organization (virtually everyone was of course). By the time I came along in the late 1970s, Italy was still in the throes of the Red Brigades, so working for the Americans was not without risk. He never betrayed the slightest hesitation. So far as Danilo was concerned, working for the Americans was an honor and a privilege, one I’m sure he was proud of to his premature dying day.
I’ve met other “host country” nationals in more dangerous situations. Iraq was particularly challenging. The U.S. Institute of Peace employees there did not always tell their families for whom they were working. In 2006/7 especially, they lived in risky conditions. One of our security contractors–an Iraqi Kurd–was killed then in a militia hit. A number of our employees and collaborators later applied for and got visas to come to the U.S., on grounds that they were in danger if they remained. Others fled to Kurdistan, which is still relatively safe from the sectarian violence that plagues other parts of Iraq.
A number of the key players in Afghanistan’s bureaucratic upper crust these days spent the Taliban years working for international relief organizations, some of which were active even then. It is amazing how well acclimated they are to Western habits, even though they conserve their Afghan roots. It was no small thing to deliver international aid during the years in which the Taliban ruled.
In Syria today virtually all the people distributing substantial amounts of international humanitarian assistance during the civil war are Syrians. The risks they face every day are unimaginable. Or, depending on how you look at it, all too imaginable.
Despite the very real risks they run on behalf of Western governments and organizations, these host country nationals are largely invisible in today’s world. But talk to any journalist, aid worker or diplomat. They will recount tales of their heroism and devotion. The host country (and third country) nationals run risks every day. As the year comes to a close, I hasten to express what so many of us have felt: deep appreciation and respect for the commitment they demonstrate and the sacrifices they make. Hussein Saleh, you are not alone.
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Prevent what?
Most of us who work on international affairs think it would be much better to use diplomacy to prevent bad things from happening rather than waiting until the aftermath and then cleaning up after the elephants, which all too often involves expensive military action. But what precisely would that mean? What do we need to prevent?
The Council on Foreign Relations survey of prevention priorities for 2013 was published last week, just in time to be forgotten in the Christmas rush and New Year’s lull. It deserves notice, as it is one of the few nonpartisan attempts to define American national security priorities. This year’s edition was in part crowd-sourced and categorizes contingencies on two dimensions: impact on U.S. interests (high, medium, low) and likelihood (likely, plausible, unlikely).
Syria comes out on top in both dimensions. That’s a no-brainer for likelihood, as the civil war has already reached catastrophic dimensions and is affecting the broader region. Judging from Paul Stares’ video introduction to the survey, U.S. interests are ranked high in part because of the risk of use or loss of chemical weapons stocks. I’d have ranked them high because of the importance of depriving Iran of its one truly reliable ally and bridge to Hizbollah, but that’s a quibble.
CFR ranks another six contingencies as high impact on U.S. interests and only plausible rather than likely. This isn’t so useful, but Paul’s video comes to the rescue: an Israeli military strike on Iran that would “embroil” the U.S. and conflict with China in the East or South China seas are his picks to talk about. I find it peculiar that CFR does not treat what I would regard as certainly a plausible if not a likely contingency: a U.S. attack on Iran. There are few more important decisions President Obama will need to make than whether to use force to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons. Certainly it is a far more challenging decision than whether to go to war against China in the territorial disputes it is generating with U.S. allies in Pacific. I don’t know any foreign policy experts who would advise him to go in that direction.
It is striking that few of the other “plausible” and high-impact contingencies are amenable to purely military responses:
- a highly disruptive cyberattack on U.S. critical infrastructure
- a mass casualty attack on the U.S. homeland or on a treaty ally
- severe internal instability in Pakistan, triggered by a civil-military crisis or terror attack
It is not easy to determine the origin of cyberattacks, and not clear that a military response would be appropriate or effective. The same is also sometimes true of mass casualty attacks; our military response to 9/11 in Afghanistan has enmired the United States in its longest war to date, one where force is proving inadequate as a solution. It is hard to imagine any military response to internal instability in Pakistan, though CFR offers as an additional low probability contingency a possible U.S. military confrontation with Islamabad “triggered by a terror attack or U.S. counterterror operations.”
In the “moderate” impact on U.S. interests, CFR ranks as highly likely “a major erosion of security in Afghanistan resulting from coalition drawdown.” I’d certainly have put that in high impact category, as we’ve still got 100,000 troops in Afghanistan and a significant portion of them will still be there at the end of 2013. In the “moderate” impact but merely plausible category CFR ranks:
- a severe Indo-Pakistan crisis that carries risk of military escalation, triggered by a major terror attack
- a severe North Korean crisis caused by another military provocation, internal political instability, or threatening nuclear weapons/ICBM-related activities
- a significant increase in drug trafficking violence in Mexico that spills over into the United States
- continuing political instability and emergence of a terrorist safe haven in Libya
Again there are limits to what we can do about most of these contingencies by conventional military means. Only a North Korea crisis caused by military provocation or threats would rank be susceptible to a primarily military response. The others call for diplomatic and civilian responses in at least a measure equal to the possible military ones.
CFR lets two “moderate” impact contingencies languish in the low probability category that I don’t think belong there:
- political instability in Saudi Arabia that endangers global oil supplies
- renewed unrest in the Kurdish dominated regions of Turkey and the Middle East
There is a very real possibility in Riyadh of a succession crisis, as the monarchy on the death of the king will likely move to a next generation of contenders. Kurdish irredentist aspirations are already a big issue in Iraq and Syria. It is hard to imagine this will not affect Iran and Turkey before the year is out. Neither is amenable to a purely military response.
Most of the contingencies with “low” impact on U.S. interests are in Africa:
- a deepening of violence in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo that involves military intervention from its neighbors
- growing popular unrest and political instability in Sudan
- military conflict between Sudan and South Sudan
- renewed ethnic violence in Kenya surrounding March 2013 presidential election
- widespread unrest in Zimbabwe surrounding the electoral process and/or the death of Robert Mugabe
- failure of a multilateral intervention to push out Islamist groups from Mali’s north
This may tell us more about CFR and the United States than about the world. Africa has little purchase on American sentiments, despite our half-Kenyan president. All of these contingencies merit diplomatic attention, but none is likely to excite U.S. military responses of more than a purely emergency character, except for Mali. If you’ve got a few Islamist terrorists, you can get some attention even if you are in Africa.
What’s missing from this list? CFR mentions
…a third Palestinian intifada, a widespread popular unrest in China, escalation of a U.S.-Iran naval clash in the Persian Gulf, a Sino-Indian border crisis, onset of elections-related instability and violence in Ethiopia, unrest in Cuba following the death of Fidel Castro and/or incapacitation of Raul Castro, and widespread political unrest in Venezuela triggered by the death or incapacitation of Hugo Chavez.
I’d add intensification of the global economic slowdown (high probability, high impact), failure to do more about global warming (also high probability, delayed impact), demographic or financial implosion in Europe or Japan (and possibly even the U.S.), Russian crackdown on dissent, and resurgent Islamist extremism in Somalia. But the first three of these are not one-year “contingencies,” which shows one limit of the CFR exercise.
I would also note that the world is arguably in better shape at the end of 2012 than ever before in history. As The Spectator puts it:
Never has there been less hunger, less disease or more prosperity. The West remains in the economic doldrums, but most developing countries are charging ahead, and people are being lifted out of poverty at the fastest rate ever recorded. The death toll inflicted by war and natural disasters is also mercifully low. We are living in a golden age.
May it last.
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Enough time
After the progress Serbia recently made toward improving its relationship with Priština, the country’s political leadership has brought forward an unrealistically ambitious platform for its future Kosovo policy. Even a superficial glance at the document suggests that Belgrade is looking to create another Republika Srpska with the potential to destabilize Kosovo at any time. Unsurprisingly, the Kosovo government has dismissed the platform as unacceptable; the Europeans for now seem to be rather cautious.
One reason for the ambitious platform is the praise that Serbian prime minister Ivica Dačić has received from the West for his pragmatic conduct in the negotiations with Hashim Thaçi. Encouraged, Belgrade is likely hoping that Brussels and Washington could be willing to put pressure on Priština to consider at least some of the ideas outlined. A difference compared to the usual practice is that in this platform Kosovo Serbs who live south of the Ibar river have for the first time been taken into account by a Serbian government.
Parts of the platform can be understood as an attempt to somehow accommodate divergent views and interests of various stakeholders. One of these is undoubtedly the Serbian Orthodox Church (SPC), whose leadership has already blasted the government for Dačić’s constructive approach to his ongoing talks with Thaçi. Given the level of influence and popularity that SPC enjoys among Serbs, domestic politicians would hardly dare to openly defy it.
The platform also helps two main parties of the ruling coalition – the Serbian Progressive Party (SNS) and Dačić’s Socialist Party of Serbia (SPS) – create the impression that they are not going to “surrender without fight.” While they are both nominally pro-EU, a large portion of their voters are opposed to European integration.
Serbian opposition parties have reacted to the platform in a more or less expected fashion. Dragan Đilas, the new president of the formerly ruling Democratic Party (DS), considers most of its content to be out of touch with reality. Vojislav Koštunica of the conservative nationalist Democratic Party of Serbia (DSS) is basically satisfied with the platform, albeit with some reservation. The clearly pro-Western Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) insists that the government must finally “tell people the truth about Kosovo” instead of prolonging the agony.
Unlike the Church, politicians, media and far-right extremists, ordinary people appear to have for the most part remained unmoved. This is potentially good news for leading government figures, allowing them to remove a number of controversial elements from the paper. Dačić has already stressed that the platform is not a “Holy Writ” and therefore can be amended. Likewise, SNS first deputy prime minister Aleksandar Vučić stated shortly after the platform was announced that Serbia must at all costs remain on the path of European integration if it is to avoid economic disaster.
The next round of talks between Dačić and Thaçi is scheduled for January 17. There is time for the platform to undergo revision before then, but a lot will depend on dynamics within the government itself. Judging from their recent statements, Dačić and Vučić are anticipating changes will be made in time.
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Fantasyland
Anyone who thought, as The Economist and others have reported, that Serbia was softening its position on Kosovo and would yield to sweet reason has to be disappointed today. The Belgrade platform for negotiations on Kosovo represents a giant step backwards in Serbia’s position, as it pretends to meet international community demands for dismantling of illegal Serbian institutions in Kosovo by legalizing and unifying them, with the entire “autonomous” province under Serbian sovereignty. Serbs in Kosovo would gain not only separate and equal institutions, but also a legislative veto, their own justice and police systems and many other powers. This would apply not only to the northern bit of Kosovo still under Serbian control, but also south of the Ibar river to communities that have at least partially accepted and integrated into Kosovo government institutions.
What Belgrade has failed to do is come to terms with the independence and sovereignty of Kosovo. This is not surprising, but it is still important: it means that Kosovo will need to equip itself for a future in which Serbia continues to claim sovereignty over the entire territory. I don’t envy Pristina. To my knowledge, no two countries that fail to recognize each other and establish a clearly demarcated border have an untroubled relationship. Serbia is Kosovo’s most powerful and threatening neighbor, its largest potential market and its historical metropole. Good neighborly relations would be a big plus for Kosovo. It isn’t going to happen based on the platform Belgrade has written for itself.
Belgrade has also failed to apply a simple but critical equity test to its own propositions: how much of what it proposes would it be ready and willing to offer to Albanians in southern Serbia or Bosniaks in Sandjak? Almost none of it. It is profoundly sad, and risible, that Belgrade claims for Serbs who have left Kosovo (including their descendants) the right to return when such rights have been blatantly violated by Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina. I’ve heard few in Belgrade bemoaning that (I hasten to add that those few are wonderful people).
International community reaction at this point is important. There will be an enormous temptation for the European Union and the United States, having waited long for this platform and no doubt tried to influence its contents, to try to see at least parts of it in a favorable light, or at least as a basis for negotiation. That would be a mistake. This platform stops just short of a declaration of war on Kosovo’s institutions and on the international community’s at least partially successful efforts to build a democracy in Kosovo. There is precious little in it that I would advise Pristina to discuss. Washington and Brussels should be profoundly disappointed and say so.
So what now? Belgrade is unhappy with the technical talks that it pursued with Pristina for more than a year, as they view them as having encroached on political issues. They are correct. While Belgrade celebrated each and every agreement as a Serbian triumph, the technical talks were gradually establishing Belgrade and Pristina as equal negotiating partners. That was the intention in both Brussels and Washington. But the talks were also reaching the limit of what could be achieved without deciding on Kosovo’s status: is it an autonomous province of Serbia, as Belgrade continues to want to claim, or is it a sovereign state, as half the UN General Assembly now recognizes? There really is no doubt about the answer to this question, but the EU has to tiptoe around it because of its five members who don’t recognize Kosovo.
Pristina should of course continue to be willing to meet with Belgrade on an equal basis and expect all agendas to be reciprocal in both letter and spirit. If Belgrade wants to discuss governance in northern Kosovo, it has to be willing to discuss governance in southern Serbia. That’s a non-starter, so there is no need for Pristina to discuss Kosovo’s own internal political arrangements with Belgrade. They are spelled out clearly in the Ahtisaari plan for a Comprehensive Peace Settlement that both the EU and the U.S. adhere to. Pristina has shown good faith in trying to implement them.
A note to non-recognizers of Kosovo: if you thought that your non-recognition was in any way helping to soften Belgrade’s stance or promote a negotiated solution, Belgrade’s platform for the negotiations should be enough to convince you otherwise. The best possible response to this gross overreach is to recognize and establish diplomatic relations with Pristina.
A note to Albanians: I can well imagine how angry this Serbian document will make those of you who have worked hard to establish serious democratic institutions capable of treating Serbs and other minorities correctly. The right response is a peaceful one, no matter how strong the passions. Anything else will play into Belgrade’s narrative that the Balkans won’t be safe from violence if Kosovo is sovereign and independent.
A note to Serbs: Kosovo is lost to Belgrade’s sovereignty. Protection of Serbs in Kosovo is still a legitimate interest. That’s what the talks with Pristina should be about, not about Kosovo’s status, which has been decided in a political process foreseen in UN Security Council resolution 1244. You did not like the result, but that will not change it. You can block UN membership for Kosovo, but it would be a mistake to try to change the facts on the ground. The effort to ensure that Serbs are governed only by Serbian majorities on their own territory has led Belgrade into war several times in the past. It is a profound error to stick with it. Go visit Kosovo: see for yourselves the reality. Then come back and tell me whether you want to continue living in Fantasyland.
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The EU kicks the can
Carl Bildt, Sweden’s long-time and much-followed Foreign Minister, tweeted earlier this week from the General Affairs Council of the European Union:
Finally everything done. Cyprus presidency, Stefan Füle and Cathy Ashton moved all EU enlargement issues successfully forward. Off we go.
I wondered at the time what this meant. Now I know.
It meant nothing: no date for Serbia or Macedonia to begin accession talks, no date for Kosovo to negotiate a Stabilization and Association Agreement. Croatia’s membership next year is expected to proceed on autopilot (with some corrections in Zagreb’s course requested) and Montenegro will continue accession talks. Albania still awaits for a date to start accession negotiations.
Admittedly it is difficult to get too excited about anything in the Western Balkans these days. Syria is imploding. Egypt is turning its judicial system over to religious supervision. Iran is making progress towards nuclear weapons. North Korea is successfully launching a longer-range ballistic missile, disguised as a space-launch vehicle. Afghanistan and Iraq are teetering. Al Qaeda is setting up shop in Mali. The euro is going down the tubes. Who cares what the Greeks want to call Macedonia or whether the former belligerents who run Serbia and Kosovo get dates to begin negotiations (Belgrade for accession, Pristina for a Stabilization and Association Agreement) with Brussels?
The people who live in those places do, that’s who. However insignificant the Balkans look these days from Washington, which is busy with its own domestic quarrels above all else, the region is important to those who inhabit it and has the potential to make life difficult for the rest of us, as it has proven repeatedly over the past 100 years.
A closer reading suggests that things might unfreeze in Brussels in the spring. Macedonia at least can expect a framework for negotiations then, provided it delivers on reforms in the meanwhile. Likewise Serbia, which is asked specifically for
…irreversible progress towards delivering structures in northern Kosovo which meet the security and justice needs of the local population in a transparent and cooperative manner, and in a way that ensures the functionality of a single institutional and administrative set up within Kosovo.
Also important is
…the agreement of the two Prime Ministers to work together in order to ensure a transparent flow of money in support of the Kosovo Serb community…
While couched in the EU’s usual obscurantist language, we see emerging here a detailed understanding of the real challenges that have so far blocked reintegration of the north with the rest of Kosovo. Bravo to the EU for acknowledging them!
Some of the same perspicacity is evident in the discussion of Bosnia and Herzegovina, where the EU finds the need to reiterate
…its unequivocal support for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s EU perspective as a sovereign and united country enjoying full territorial integrity.
It’s not good news when Brussels kicks off this way, though I’d be the first to admit that its subsequent suggestions of what needs to be done to fix the problem are thoroughly inadequate.
Pristina gets a pat on the back for its engagement in the talks and language identical to that addressed to Belgrade on northern Kosovo, plus a recommendation to develop an outreach plan.
Don’t get me wrong: it is correct for the EU to insist on specific reforms and benchmarks in dealing with the Western Balkans. Unfortunately, it is still true that conditionality is what moves things forward in many of these countries. In most of them, I expect the EU carrot will bring real changes, albeit in fits and starts. The most concerning is Bosnia, where the EU acknowledges the challenges to sovereignty that Milorad Dodik and Republika Srpska pose but fails to offer adequate responses and continues to quarrel with Washington over whether the High Representative should stay or go.
The EU has kicked the can down the road. The best we can hope for is a spring thaw.
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Keep pedaling
My friends in Macedonia will expect me this morning to share their fury at the European Council, which yesterday once again postponed a decision on when accession talks with Skopje can begin. Spyros Sophos* wrote to colleagues and friends:
the Brussels outcome is shortsighted and disgraceful. It has the potential to undermine the stability of Macedonia and to reward the forces of nationalism and hatred in all the countries and communities involved.
He is right.
But I am not going to join the chorus denouncing the European Union, which ironically collected its Nobel Peace Prize this week. Instead, I am going to ask, what is this all about? what can be done to solve the problem?
It is about identity more than anything else. Macedonians claim to be distinct: to have their own language, culture and history. Bulgaria, one of the two countries blocking an EU consensus to open accession talks, has a problem with this. Sofia wants Skopje to acknowledge the common history, culture and language of the two now separate countries.
Greece, the other country blocking an EU consesnsus, has a different identity problem. It claims that Macedonia has no right to use an unqualified appelation that belongs to Greece, historically, culturally and linguistically. It also fears, or some in Athens say they fear, Macedonian claims to Greek territory. While I have seen no evidence for that claim, it is certainly true that Skopje would like Greece to acknowledge the existence of a Macedonian minority within Greece. That is not the only minority Athens refuses to acknowledge, as it claims its citizens are Greek, tout court. No hyphens in the land of Alexander.
For this American (unhyphenated by the way), all this is pretty indigestible and hard to take seriously when there is death and destruction in Syria, a satellite launch by North Korea, constitutional chaos in Egypt, progress towards nuclear weapons in Iran, a stalled Middle East peace process and several dozen other current problems that seem far more important. But that is precisely the point: however intractable Balkans identity problems may be today, they are not deadly to large numbers of people, as they were in the past. The EU is maddeningly slow and ponderous, but it has also managed to dampen the fighting spirits that generated war and slaughter only a decade or two ago.
The charm may not last. The bicycle analogy is pertinent: only forward motion keeps the Balkans from falling over into violence. The EU’s non-decision will generate nationalist passions inside Macedonia, strain relations with its large Albanian minority and further exacerbate relations with Bulgaria and Greece. If you ignore people because they don’t resort to violence, they might just learn the wrong lesson.
To continue to merit its Nobel Peace Prize, the EU needs to get beyond the current stalemate. I hope it can do that in six months time, when Macedonia comes up for consideration once again. The necessary instrument is lying close at hand: the Interim Accord that Athens and Skopje agreed in 1995 should allow Skopje to enter NATO as “the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia” and to begin EU accession negotiations with that name. This is acceptable to Skopje and is not, it seems to me, offensive to either Bulgaria or Greece, which the International Court of Justice has found in violation of the accord.
Please, EU, keep pedaling to prevent the Balkans bicycle from falling over. The time for a definitive solution will come with Skopje’s accession.
*Apologies to Spyros Sophos: in the first posting, I mistakenly attributed this quote to someone else.
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