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President Donald Trump and National Security
Advisor John Bolton are engaged in a campaign to pressure a close
American ally into ceding parts of its territory to a historic
adversary. The two are pushing a strategy to strong-arm Kosovo into
border changes or a land swap with Serbia that would upend a
decades-old bipartisan policy – one that has been supported by the
entire Euro-Atlantic community — of opposing the redrawing of
international borders along ethnic lines.
Such a move would risk a return to violence not
just in Kosovo or along its border with Serbia, but across the
entire Western Balkans. The European Union’s foreign policy chief,
who is leading talks between Serbia and Kosovo for an agreement, is
on board with the plan, even though the EU’s most powerful member
state, Germany, is opposed. The U.S. Congress needs to wake up to
the risks such a proposal poses for renewing conflict in the Balkans
and for the transatlantic alliance, and oppose Kosovo’s partition.
At stake for the U.S. is decades of political,
military and economic investment in Kosovo, premised on its
democratic, multiethnic potential as an example of stability in the
Western Balkans. The administration of President Bill Clinton
spearheaded an effort for a peaceful settlement to an insurgency in
the then-province of Kosovo against Serbian oppression. After war
erupted in 1998 and early 1999, the U.S. and its NATO allies took on
their first military operations outside NATO territory. To force
Serbian security forces out of the province, they mounted a bombing
campaign that began 20 years ago this month, on March 24.
Less than 10 years later, the U.S. was among a
handful of countries to recognize Kosovo the day it declared
independence in 2008, against vociferous opposition from Russia,
China, and Serbia. Today, most member states of NATO and the EU
recognize Kosovo as a sovereign state.
Meanwhile, Serbia is seeking to join the EU, which
has made a binding normalization agreement with Kosovo a
precondition for joining, possibly as early as the mid-2020s. But
Serbia has never accepted its loss of control over Kosovo. Backed by
Russia, it has blocked Kosovo repeatedly from joining various
international organizations, above all the United Nations. At the
same time, various Serbian leaders have floated ideas to absorb the
Serb-inhabited and Belgrade-controlled north of Kosovo.
The latest such idea of border changes was
advanced by Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić last July. It found
an enthusiastic supporter in Kosovo President Hashim Thaçi for still
opaque reasons, though the crux of his mostly general arguments have
been to get Kosovo out of limbo and into the U.N., as well as
enabling future NATO and EU membership.
Murky Terms
Nothing about the terms of the deal, if a specific
proposal exists, is known reliably, though rumors swirl constantly,
with the predictable destabilizing effect. Its basic feature seems
to be that Serbia would grant recognition to Kosovo in exchange for
absorbing much or all of north Kosovo, perhaps with Serbia ceding a
few Albanian-inhabited villages near the border. Vučić refers to the
border change as a “demarcation.” Thus far, only Thaçi has proposed
that Kosovo get certain Serbian land populated by Albanians in
addition to diplomatic recognition.
Kosovo Prime Minister Ramush Haradinaj has opposed
what he called “`peaceful’ ethnic cleansing,” and the proposal is
struggling to find supporters among citizens in either country. An
overwhelming majority – over three quarters – of Kosovo Albanians
object to what they rightly see as partition. Many Serbians – just
under half according to an October 2018 poll – also oppose
“delimitation” or a “land swap.” A large number resist any formal
acceptance of Kosovo independence, within any borders.
Serbs in the north of Kosovo who likely would be
within the areas Serbia would take in harbor deep misgivings despite
pressure from Belgrade, and feel again like pawns in a game over
which they have no say. In any case, most Serbs in Kosovo live south
of the Ibar River, a likely “demarcation” line, and they worry about
their rights in a post-partition Kosovo. Likewise, Kosovo Albanians
on the “wrong” side of the Ibar are disconcerted by the prospect
they might be drawn out of their state.
Backers of a land-and-recognition deal argue that
it would end Kosovo’s limbo status, leading also to recognition by
Moscow and Beijing. Serbia and Kosovo then could each pursue
membership in the EU (and in Kosovo’s case, NATO as well), as
recognized U.N. members.
Vučić and his government present a “demarcation”
as belated justice for the loss of Kosovo 20 years ago. Some
supporters have even posited the counter-intuitive argument that the
deal could weaken Russia’s influence in the Western Balkans. In
fact, there is no logical reason that Russia would ease the grip
with which it holds Serbia and the Serb entity of Bosnia or end its
fomenting of divisions, even after a deal.
The proposed deal received quick backing from EU
foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, whose five-year term is up
this fall. She has said she favors a “mutually agreed” deal that is
“in line with international law” and with EU laws, though she hasn’t
commented publicly on border changes or land swaps.
Instead, she has pursued the idea without
transparency to the people whose lives would be directly or
indirectly affected, or for that matter, to the EU’s member states.
Only a handful of the EU’s national leaders seem to have endorsed
the idea—Thaçi says France’s Emmanuel Macron expressed his support.
But most appear unwilling to spend political capital on pushing back
against it, which gives Mogherini her maneuvering space.
Trump Promising a Rose Garden
Mogherini’s position has won surprising support
from Trump, who previously had scotched the biggest foreign policy
victory of her time in office when he withdrew the U.S. from the
Iran nuclear deal in early 2018. The U.S. president even offered to
host a ceremony in the White House Rose Garden to seal a deal. His
backing not only puts him on the side of an acolyte of Russian
President Vladimir Putin, but also places him – again — squarely
opposite Merkel. Britain, too, has opposed the idea of ethnically
delineated border changes.
In early March, U.S. National Security Council
officials reportedly went so far as to threaten to withdraw the
roughly 600 American troops from the NATO deterrent force in Kosovo,
citing gratuitously that these deployments come up for regular
review. A U.S. Embassy statement the following day attempted to
reassure Kosovars about the American commitment, while reiterating
the review.
Every unfulfilled agenda in the Western Balkans –
there are many and most involve borders – has had its appetite whet
by the Trump administration’s openness to, and advocacy for, border
changes. But these inherently entail forced population movements on
an ethnic basis and could incur significant bloodshed.
Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik, for example, is
seizing on a potential Serbia-Kosovo border shift as a precedent to
push for his long-mooted calls to break away from Bosnia. Any — or a
combination of — such actions would drag the EU and likely the U.S.
into another conflagration, just as it did in the Balkan wars of the
1990s that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia.
Congressional Oversight Lacking
To date, there has been little or no U.S.
congressional oversight of Trump and Bolton’s radical policy shift
on Kosovo and Serbia. Most members of Congress seem either unaware
or reluctant to acknowledge the extremely high risk of renewed
conflict in the Western Balkans, not to mention the potential damage
to the core of the transatlantic alliance – the relationship between
the U.S. and Germany.
Similar stakes finally forced the Clinton
administration to get serious about ending the war in Bosnia in
1995. Voices in Congress from both parties were the conscience of
America in the Balkans then. They need to speak up again now.
Congress has given episodic attention to the
Western Balkans in recent years, and several members of both houses
– and both parties – have demonstrated a consistent interest and
will to engage. However, even these members seem to have been lulled
into standby mode by the State Department to wait and see what sort
of proposal emerges.
If this remains the case, Congress – just as
Kosovars and Serbians of all stripes and EU member officials and
legislators – may be presented with a fait accompli that will be
advertised as the only guarantee of “peace.” That’s the argument
proponents of the still-amorphous deal already make. And this is
just one part of the broader U.S. policy on the Western Balkans that
has shifted from previous bipartisan baselines.
Congress should immediately scrutinize the land
swap and the wider U.S. policy on the region, which appears to be
driven by the National Security Council. The effort could start with
requests for information as well as mutually reinforcing hearings of
the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee, as well as Congress’s U.S. Helsinki Commission.
Administration officials and external witnesses could assess the
already evident effects of the proposed policy change and the
potential impact.
Only with such a panoptical view can members of
Congress fulfill their oversight obligations, and protect America’s
legacy, reputation, values, and interests in Kosovo and the Western
Balkans.
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