The Unrealistic Abstractions of Realpolitik in the Balkans

Foreign policy analyst Nikolas K. Gvosdev published a troubling article at the website for Foreign Affairs magazine:

Unfreezing Kosovo: Reconsidering Boundaries in the Balkans

Briefly, Gvosdev argues that regional stability in the Balkans and security and economic development in Kosovo are impossible as long as Serbia--the "linchpin state of the western Balkans" as he tellingly describes it--is unreconciled to the independence of Kosovo under its current borders. He insists that the "issue" of independence (which apparently will not be resolved until Serbia gets its way) must be "delinked" from the "issue" of boundaries. In short, the West must agree to an ethnic partition of Kosovo.

The article isn't, on the surface anyway, the work of an overt supporter of ethnic partition. The tone is reasonable, and one might even take heart from Gvosdev's assertion that one of the negative consequences of the current situation is that nationalists are able to attack pro-reform and pro-Western parties by championing the “fate of Kosovo.” This seems to indicate that Gvosdev is no friend to the nationalist project, and wishes to see liberal, secular political forces win out in Serbia proper.

The problem with his analysis isn't simply in what he says, however (more on what he does say later). Namely, the context to the current state of affairs; i.e., the recent history of Kosovo within the old Yugoslavia and then under control of Milosevic's Serbia. This is not to say that the incidents he does address--the riots and other acts of violence aimed at Kosovo's Serbian minority--are not issues of genuine concern. Nor do I wish to suggest that relations between Pristina and Belgrade should be forever frozen in a pattern of atrocity one-upmanship. Milosevic is gone, Serb forces are no longer threatening the ethnic Albanian majority, and Kosovo and Serbia are still and will forever remain neighbors, mutually interested in securing peace and stability in the region.

However, his analysis is curiously myopic--Gvosdev seems completely unaware that events in Kosovo resonate throughout the former Yugoslavia. There is not a word about Bosnia in this article. Anyone familiar with the history of the Yugoslav wars of the 1990s is well aware of the connection between events in Kosovo and Bosnia. To suggest that ethnic partition of Kosovo in order to placate nationalists in Belgrade is the path the greater security and peace in the region is to betray a shocking ignorance or indifference to the region's recent history.

Gvosdev gives some examples of agreements which he believes provide possible frameworks on how to proceed. He is very concerned not only with the Serbian-majority north, which he points out is not under Pristina's control (for reasons he does not dwell on), but also on some of the ethnic Serb enclaves in the south, and the many Serb Orthodox religious sites which are currently under the protection of NATO (and therefore also not under Pristinas' control--see how neatly this works?). Therefore, he suggests that a possible "solution" would be to pattern an autonomy agreement based on the Lateran Treaty, the agreement by which fascist Italy established the Vatican City as a sovereign nation capable of shielding serial child rapists from prosecution in their home countries. Gvosdev blandly portrays this pact, by which Mussolini courted favor with a right-wing, authoritarian church previously not inclined to look favorably on his radical regime, as merely a resolution of territorial beef between the church and the Italian state.

He also points out that both Poland and Armenia were promised independence before border had been settled--given that those two nations did not have long-standing fixed borders because of their history (any historical atlas of Europe will demonstrate this--go from map to map throughout history, and you'll note that Poland, sadly, never had the same borders for very long, due to aggression by its neighbors), Gvosdev might have a hard time ignoring that Kosovo has a long history as a well-defined geopolitical entity, but using a common Balkan revisionist tactic he claims that the borders were nothing but arbitrary administrative boundaries established by the Tito regime.

And this is the only time Gvosdev even acknowledges that there are other "disputed" boundaries in the Balkans. He dismisses these concerns by pointing out that Pristina doesn't control these areas, anyway--which means that hopefully nobody will ask him for his advice regarding the Russian occupation of significant areas of Georgia, for example. Gvosdev may not realize it, but he is arguing in favor of might making right--get enough militia on the ground able to bully the government into backing down, and viola--instant redrawing of the map.

Finally, what is so depressing about this article is that Gvosdev doesn't even realize that he is suggesting that the best way to defuse nationalist agitation is to give nationalists exactly what they want, or at least to make compromises on their terms. This is ethnic partition, no matter how one dresses it up, and it also is a validation of the premise that Serb nationalist demands have a legitimacy which cannot be fundamentally challenged, only modified. Ultimately, this sort of solution can only fuel more instability in Bosnia (and possibly the Sandzak as well), while his belief that this would actually increase the leverage that liberal and pro-democratic forces in Serbia wield seems naive to me.

Ironically, there was another story recently which suggests that Gvosdev has ignored a much less craven method of ensuring stability in the region--insisting on an acceptance of curent boundaries and a willingness to work within current national structures. Recently, the government in Turkey was able to get the governments of Serbia and Bosnia to sit down and pledge to work together. Predicatably, hardliners in the Republika Srpska were not pleased to see Belgrade dealing directly with Sarajevo without going through Banja Luka first. I suspect Gvosdev might be disappointed as well:

Serbia, BiH optimistic about new chapter in ties

Oliver Kamm on Burma and the Dubious Defense of Sovereignty by Anti-Interventionists

A couple of days ago, Oliver Kamm posted a short piece on Burma, the junta, and the problem of sovereignty:

Kamm Fire Warning Shot Across Bow of Sovereignty-Clinging Autocrats Everywhere

My own personal ideological journey related to Bosnia and interventionism in general has led me to the conclusion that "sovereignty" is going to be one of the sticking issues of 21st Century; Kamm promises to write more on this issue and I look forward to those writings. I, too, am being drawn towards a more extended consideration of the issue.

I encourage you to read the articles Kamm links to in his post as well. Rigter and Aaronivich both have powerful moral arguments; as a side note, it is welcome--but not surprising--to note that Bernard Kouchner is one of the most forceful advocates on this isse at the UN.

Evil Imperialists Plot to Violate Sovereignty of Non-Western Nation...or something

Brief TIME magazine article on the possible need to invade Burma/Myanmar*:

Is it Time to Invade Burma?

After the debacle of Bosnia, the shame of Rwanda, the ongoing disgrace of Darfur, and the stale and outdated debate on Iraq, I was afraid the the ideal of humanitarian intervention--a necessary step on the road to the globalization of human rights and a truly international standard of citizenship--would be tossed onto the scrapbook of failed idealisms.

Yet reality has a funny way of butting into the dialog, so it was strangely thrilling--even in the context of this horrible natural tragedy and the disgraceful way the junta is willing to sacrifice the citizens of that long-suffering nation--to read this comment:

"We're in 2008, not 1908," says Jan Egeland, the former U.N. emergency relief coordinator. "A lot is at stake here. If we let them get away with murder we may set a very dangerous precedent."

In other words, the "dangerous precedent" would not be the invasion of a sovereign nation; rather, it would be allowing the government of that sovereign nation to inflict even greater suffering on its people--and put the world at risk by allowing a huge outbreak of infectious disease.

One can almost feel the rocking of ground underneath; could this tragedy provide the tipping point needed to regain the high ground from the new isolationists and the faux-progressive "anti-imperialists" with their specious defenses of sovereignty and the use of "non-intervention" as the last-ditch justification for anti-Western authoritarian regimes?

I eagerly await reading Diana Johnstone, Michael Parenti, and the rest of that lot jumping on this issue. The legal and moral issues, I am quite sure, will fascinate them all.

Or maybe not.


*I am not comfortable with allowing the vicious junta to rename the country, diplomatic protocol aside.

"A Problem From Hell" by Samantha Powers [2]

Chapter One, "Race Murder," begins the story of the United States and 20th Century Genocide by way of the infamous genocide against ethnic Armenians by the Ottoman imperial government. The term "race murder" was coined by the US Ambassador to the Ottoman Empire at the time, Henry Morgentuau. Morgenthau risked his diplomatic relations with the Turkish government and went outside the limits of his job in his efforts--ultimately unsuccessful--to provoke a reaction from the Wilson Administration and Congress. Morgenthau, then, is the first in a long line of principled and conscience-stricken Americans (keep in mind this book focuses specifically on official US responses to genocide) who swam against the tide of official indifference and tried to make a difference. There are many people in this book who deserve to be remembered, and he is the first.

I will not go into details of the Armenian Genocide here--I trust that most readers of this blog are aware of at least the broad outlines of the story, and are aware that to this day the modern Turkish government continues to insult the memory of those killed by perversely maintaining the fiction that the killings and deaths were merely the unfortunate collateral damage associated with total war and the instability of a multinational empire coming apart at the seams. Any readers of this blog who might criticize me for dredging up the recent past rather than moving on and allowing for "healing" might pause to consider this.

The pattern of increasing violence against an unwanted group--couched in euphemisms about "security" and so forth--as well as an unwillingness by the outside world to act or even to acknowledge the reality of the situation, would become distressingly familiar as the the bloodiest century in human history played itself out.

The Armenian Genocide occurred before Raphael Lemkin (who is a central figure in this book) had even coined the word "genocide"--Morgenthau's anachronistic "race murder" was only one of many attempts to convey the scale and nature of the atrocity. This not only left concerned observers (of which there were tragically very few) grappling for words, it also presented a challenge to those morally brave souls who cried out for some sort of international response--there was no mechanism for such a response, nor was there any legal, procedural, or ideological basis for doing so.

The crucial point is illustrated in a couple of places in this chapter. On page 8, Powers writes:

"Morgenthau had to remind himself that one of the prerogatives of sovereignty was that states and statesmen could do as they pleased within their own borders. "Technically," he noted to himself, "I had no right to interfere. According to the cold-blooded legalities of the situation, the treatment of Turkish subjects by the Turkish Government was purely a domestic affair; unless it directly affected American lives and American interests, it was outside the concern of the American Government." the ambassador found this maddening."

And then, on page 14, U.S. Secretary of State Robert Lansing argued against setting up what would have been the first international tribunal for war crimes to try German and Turkish leaders for "violations of the laws of war and "laws of humanity."" Lansing's reasons for doing so are worth quoting:

"In general the Wilson administration opposed the Allies' proposals to emasculate Germany. But it also rejected the notion that some allegedly "universal" principle of justice should allow punishment. The laws of humanity, Lansing argued, "vary with the individual." Reflecting the widespread view of the time, Lansing said that sovereign leaders should be immune from prosecution. "The essence of sovereignty," he said, was "the absence of responsibility." The United State could judge only those violations that were committed upon American persons or American property."

There's that word 'sovereign' again. We will consider this further in the next post on Power's book.