The good news about the so-called EU-forced dialogue is that it has achieved nothing significant. His primary goal of creating an Association of Serb Municipalities, ostensibly integrated into Kosovo institutions, would only make matters worse, so says David B. Kanin, a lecturer at the prestigious American University, Johns Hopkins. In an interview for KosovaPress he says that such a development would provide the Association with an internationally recognized status, while Kosovo would continue not to have a clear international status, and would not make any progress towards recognition by Serbia and five EU member states.
Mr. Kanin, who served as a senior analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency for three decades and was a member of the US team in the Kosovo peace talks in Rambouillet, thinks Kosovo would do well to get rid of this dialogue, or at least put it in the background, while – Prishtina may think of orienting itself towards the rest of the Albanian universe.
Interviewed by: Fadil MIFTARI
KosovaPress: Professor Kanin, you have an excellent experience with developments in the Balkans, at the time you were active when the Balkan region was at war. Although many years have passed since you were engaged, the region still remains politically unstable as well as in terms of security. From your experience, can you tell us, please, where is the problem that the Balkans are failing to find peace?
Kanin: The Balkan area, like the Middle East, largely is a former piece of the Ottoman Empire that has never found durable stability since that Empire lost its grip. Since 1878 different versions of “the West” have imposed supposedly final statuses on the region that have lasted for a while and then collapsed. In my view, the current version of Western oversight is following the same pattern. Nothing has been decided south of the Sava. Borders, settlement patterns, economic viability, and the tug-of-war between formal (western-imposed) political structures and the informal trust-based networks so central to every aspect of life remain up for grabs. The results of the hot and cold wars of the 20th century settled a lot of these issues in much of the rest of Europe but not in the Balkans.
Post-Yugoslav diplomacy did produce truces in Bosnia and Kosova and – eventually – a settlement on the name issue in what now is called the Republic of North Macedonia. So far, none of the participants in the wars of the 1990s wants to return to armed conflict. Nevertheless, the idea that there exists only one way forward involving supposedly universal neo-enlightenment values of transparency, rule of law, democracy, and multi-cultural integration is wishful secular teleology. A quarter century-long effort to resolve existing disputes and create functioning states and societies on the basis of liberal institutionalist ideology continues to fail.
KosovaPress: Recently, there has been a great deal of tension in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as Bosnian Serb leader Milorad Dodik has been threatening to boycott state institutions of the Bosnian federation, and the purpose of this action is already known. How would you evaluate these developments?
Kanin: Current tensions so far fall within the pattern of behavior among the mutually hostile constituent communities of the first Bosnia since the 15th century to stand outside a larger imperial or Yugoslav market. This odd construction was doomed at birth by American-driven diplomacy that forced an unworkable polity on Washington’s Bosniak clients while handing Slobodan Milosevic his one clear diplomatic success of the 1990s.
No wonder the Bosnian Serbs insist on retaining the Dayton deal as struck while US diplomats are at war with the provisions of an arrangement Washington forced Alija Izetbegovic to accept. Successive Western failures to force through political and constitutional reform and the impossibility of doing anything useful under the rules of the Dayton constitution leave the RS as the one viable piece of the present Bosnia. This is not a judgment as to the ethical or moral value of that entity, but the fact remains that the patronage network in charge of the RS can function while the rest of Bosnia cannot. Like it or not, the current status quo is unlikely to hold.
Blaming current tensions on nationalist leaders is easy and amounts to work avoidance. Milorad Dodik, originally put in power by American officials who believed he would be the antidote to Radovan Karadzic, has skillfully manipulated and out-thought successive generations of Western diplomats while taking care of his patronage network. For all his noise, Dodik so far has not actually written the word “secession” into any draft resolution. He has calibrated his rhetoric to win press duels with foreign foils while avoiding any action that actually might trigger conflict. Nevertheless, there is danger in the atmosphere of distrust pervading the never-ending exchanges among Dodik, Bosniak leaders, pundits, and the internationals. Formal and actualized RS withdrawal from central Bosnian institutions – weak as they are – would be a step toward secession and a direct challenge to what remains of Western credibility in the region.
KosovaPress: International experts are warning that Bosnia is in danger. From your point of view, is it likely that Bosnia will get involved in an armed conflict?
Kanin: A return to conflict is unlikely and will remain so as long as there exists no version of Vojislav Seselj in any of Bosnia’s three constituent communities. Dodik wants to continue to safely thumb his nose at the exasperated internationals while the Bosniaks know violence would threaten the weak bonds holding the Bosniak-Croat Federation together, not to mention the existence of the tottering Bosnian state. Nevertheless, any move by Dodik to construct and equip an army in the RS, or of the Bosniaks to make the notional Bosnian army more muscular would present a real danger of new fighting. The current tension also carries the risk that some unforeseen event might spark an unwanted conflict.
KosovaPress: As tensions in Bosnia escalate, so far, we have not seen Belgrade authorities send content messages. And the perception is that Russia and Serbia are behind these tensions, as they were in the 1990s. What should the West, the US, NATO and the European Union do?
Kanin: The premise of this question appears to place sole blame for the wars of the 1990s solely on Russia and Serbia. This simply is not true. I will not fight those wars again here, but it is important to be honest about the role figures from all the warring parties played in the collapse of Bosnia’s internal dialogue as the Yugoslav structure was collapsing around them. Also, Yeltsin’s Russia was engaged in a constructive effort to cooperate in the Balkans and elsewhere with a triumphant West. The latter responded with a NATO enlargement that Moscow and the Alliance’s new east European members all understood to mean the West still treated Russia largely as a potential enemy.
What “content messages” should Belgrade be expected to send? Serbia both acknowledges the existence of the current Bosnia and expresses a concern for the interests of the large Serbian community inside it. This is normal behavior for a state and nation with neighboring kin. The current tensions in Bosnia are not about either Serbia or Russia. They result from the congenital non-viability of the Bosnian edifice. Any response by Western states and institutions to current tensions on the assumption Russia and Serbia are behind them would be misplaced and, possibly, dangerous.
KosovaPress: I believe that you have been in the flow of developments in the Balkans before and after the Dayton Agreement. From today’s perspective do you think it could have been done differently?
Kanin: As intelligence analysts, my colleagues and I provided policymaking customers with assessments of events, trends, and possible alternative outcomes. Those customers decided whether or not they found our analyses useful and made their policymaking decisions accordingly.
Bosnia as imposed in 1995 is congenitally unworkable. A lot of things might have happened differently but one issue stands out. The decision to maintain the 51-49 formula for dividing Bosnia between its two entities severely damaged Bosniak interests. To adhere to this formula meant reestablishing Bosnian Serb control over areas lost in Western Bosnia during the military campaign of 1995. Doing so prevented establishment of a contiguous area of Bosniak influence. This was not supposed to matter because the US assured Izetbegovic Washington would ensure Bosnia became a civic and multiethnic state not under the nationalists’ control. The Americans also promised that refugees and internally displaced persons would return to multiethnic communities in a functional Bosnia. These promises were not kept.
It should not have surprised anyone that Bosnia did not fall in with Western notions of secular, multi-cultural, rule-of-law based political forms and structures. Balkan societies have depended on trust-based relationships for centuries under serial imperial and other foreign occupations. This remains the case. The effort to force-fit constitutions and civic culture on a region where ascriptive and affective relationships remain centrally important is based on bad theory and leads to failed practice. In my view, it is essential for Western viceroys, academics, and NGO mavens to understand that in the Balkans – and not just the Balkans – many survival strategies are simultaneously illegal and legitimate. The patronage bosses, their clients, and their local adversaries all know this and found it easy to capture Bosnia even before Dayton. In this context, any move by the West to re-establish its post-1995 vice-regal carrot and (mostly) stick policies would be misguided.
KosovaPress: We have seen President Biden to return to the Balkans some of the most successful American diplomats in the 1990s. Tensions here have risen almost similarly as in the 1990s. While some of the American ambassadors who will soon come to the Balkans, especially Ambassador Hill, it seems that they will have to deal with similar problems as 20 years ago. Will they face the same circumstances?
Kanin: I think I define “successful” differently than you do but Washington does seem to be getting the band back together. It appears the current American Administration considers experience in the region as a good criterion for Balkan envoys. I hope Washington will come to realize good ideas sometimes come from people not having any experience at all in a region and not burdened with professional records and personal predilections related to places they are assigned to.
Some things largely are as they were. The Bosniaks and the Albanian universe remain America’s clients while Serbs and Serbia are still more skeptical of American “help.” The basic post-1878 instability I noted in answer to your first question remains in place. At the same time, having squandered its hegemonic moment in the 1990s the United States has lost the patina of omniscience and omnipresence it had back then. Balkan politicians and diplomats in all camps know us a lot better now and some likely have discovered the limits of Washington’s insight into the region’s problems. Successors to those who once expected and hoped for decisive US action in the region either are desperate for it now or have come to realize the US really does not have a plan and is unlikely to commit significantnumbers of troops or other kinetic instruments to enforce a desired outcome. A Dayton deal welcomed in 1995 now is recognized as being just a truce rather than the framework for peace its creators promised. The uncertain status Kosova lived under after 1999 turned into a stunted quasi-sovereignty mishandled by American diplomacy between 2006 and 2008 and still in dispute. The good news comes from what now is the republic of North Macedonia. Studying the consociational success there of local politicians augmented – not dictated – by the behavior of a singularly skillful American mediator might be useful to the old/new diplomats.
KosovaPress: Unlike in the 1990s, Russia’s power and presence in the Balkans is much greater. For years, the West has neglected Russia’s operation in the Balkans, and now that tensions are rising and its impact is palpable, can this influence be weakened?
Kanin: Russia’s actual presence in the Balkans is not large but is efficiently managed by Putin and his diplomats. Moscow’s focus on weakening American power and taking advantage of Washington’s mistakes gives it a strategic focus lacking in Western capitals. At the same time, Russian influence over events in the Balkans often is overstated. It is not hard for the Russians to say no at the UN Security Council, for example regarding Kosovo’s independence in 2006 and during the recent failed Western effort to mention the High Representative in official print. The Russians can prop up Dodik but it is not clear how far they will go to help him if his actions provoke renewed conflict. Meanwhile, Serbia’s President Vucic will continue to balance relations with all the great powers, granting Russia no particular pride of place. Moscow’s contribution to problems in the Balkans should not become a distraction from the urgent need to fix the results of the West’s own unforced errors and enable actors in the region finally to take responsibility for their own future.
KosovaPress: For years, the United States has supported the European leadership in leading the Dialogue process for the normalization of relations between Kosovo and Serbia. It is a general assessment that the EU does not demonstrate the capacity to give an epilogue to dialogue. Kosovo thinks that without the leading role of the United States there can be no epilogue, do you think it is time for the US to take the lead in this process?
Kanin: It is time for the governments and peoples in the Balkans to take responsibility for their own problems. Relying on disingenuous and unreliable great powers is the local form of work avoidance and results only in disappointment and unrelieved instability. The good news about the so-called dialogue ordered up by EU in 2013 is that it has not accomplished anything of significance. Its primary goal, creation of a Community of Serbian Municipalities supposedly integrated into Kosova’s institutions, would only make things worse. Such a development would provide that Community an internationally recognized status. Serbia, of course would remain a universally recognized state. Kosova, however, would continue not to have a clear international status and would not have made any progress toward recognition by Serbia or the five EU members who block Pristina from joining the EU. Meanwhile, Serb-controlled towns would find ways of retaining their loyalty to and dependence on Serbia with the help, of course, of Serbian patronage networks.
Kosova would do well to ditch that dialogue or at least keep it on a back burner. Pristina might consider pivoting toward the rest of the Albanian universe. Edi Rama’s recent observation that chances for closer relations between Albania and Kosova are more likely with Albania outside than inside the EU deserves serious thought. Neither country is likely to enter the EU for the foreseeable future even if Bulgaria lifts its veto on opening accession talks with North Macedonia. The fog surrounding conditionality and EU disunity enables Brussels to keep candidates out indefinitely while instructing them to jump through the hoops strewn along the famous European Path.
/David B. Kanin is a Lecturer at the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, and Analytic Director with Centra Technology. In 2010 he retired as a senior analyst after a 31- year career with the Central Intelligence Agency. He was a member of the US delegation in the Rambouillet peace talks on Kosovo in 1999
The views expressed in this publication are the author’s and do not imply endorsement by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the Intelligence Community, or any other U.S. Government agency./
