Srdja Trifkovic: "Greater Romania" Redux

 

http://www.balkanstudies.org/articles/greater-romania-redux-problem-prospects-ukraines-response

http://www.aminuk.org/index.php?idmenu=12&idsubmenu=167&language=en - English
http://www.aminuk.org/index.php?idmenu=112&idsubmenu=168&language=ru - Russian

http://www.aminuk.org/index.php?idmenu=112&idsubmenu=168&language=ua - Ukrainian

 

ROMANIAN ASPIRATIONS EAST OF THE PRUT:

THE PROBLEM, THE PROSPECTS, KIEV'S RESPONSE

Srdja Trifkovic

 

As presented ат AIU Roundtable in Kyiv, June 17, 2010

 

Ukraine faces sustained security challenges from its southwestern neighbor Romania. Those challenges reflect a remarkable continuity of Romania's geopolitical objectives, regardless of the nature of its domestic regime. They require carefully calibrated policy responses from Kiev. This fact was blurred by the visceral Russophobia of Ukraine's previous government, to the detriment of both parties. It is now finally possible to look at the challenges Ukraine faces on its southwestern borders through the realist prism, and to consider specific counter-measures that are proportionate to the challenge, feasible, and useful.

 

THE PARADIGM – The notion of interests and the policies that they engender are defined by the ideological framework in which they are embedded.  Both the old Soviet notion of the "fraternal community" and the current notion of "European integration" are derived from neo-Marxist utopianism. Both hold that Man is improvable and that permanent peace within a stable, supra-nationally controlled system is the attainable order of things. Both believe in their ability to make the international system as they wanted it to be, rather than dealing with it as it is.

 

It is realism that, unlike either utopian school, places national interest, pragmatically defined and quantifiable, at the basis of international affairs. It accepts the reality of a world where might is often right, rivalry the norm, and the immutable constants of history, culture, and geopolitics outweigh propositional slogans emanating from Moscow (before 1989) or from Brussels (today).

 

From the realist vantage point, it is evident that Romania's cultural narratives, national objectives and state interests – as articulated by its political elite ever since the Congress of Berlin (with the exception of two decades following World War II) – make that country Ukraine's most adversarial and potentially most dangerous neighbor.

 

THE CHALLENGE – At this time, four key elements of the Romanian elite consensus directly affect Ukraine:

 

1.      Romanians are civilizationally an outpost of "the West" amidst the Slav-Magyar sea, and in the 21^st century they remain Europe's "last bastion before the immense, vague and unsettling space left behind in the wake of the disintegration of the Soviet Union."[1]

2.      Moldovans east of the Prut speak the Romanian language and are Romanians; therefore, they should be incorporated into Romania, on the basis of the right to self-determination.

3.      Not only the Republic of Moldova, but also Ukrainian territories to its south and north (Bukovina), annexed by the USSR in 1940, should be "returned" to Romania based on its legal rights ("undoing the fruits of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact"). Last January President Traian Basescu declared in Kishinev that he would not sign a Border Treaty with Moldova: "I will never sign what Hitler with Stalin have signed. I will never confirm that Romania's border passes on Prut River. There may be discussions about a contract, an agreement concerning the border regime, but there is no way I can discuss an agreement based on which I will confirm that the border passes from here to there."[2]

4.      In any event, Bucharest has a valid title to the territories of pre-1940 Romania mare on the basis of its historic rights. In May 2010 President Basescu thus stated: "If Kiev has pretensions concerning the return of Transdniestria to Ukraine, then officials there should not forget about the return to Chisinau of Southern Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina, territories which the former Ukrainian SSR received after the Second World War."[3]

 

HISTORICAL LEGACY – Before 1878, the "Danubian principalities" of Wallachia and Moldavia (united in 1859) looked upon the Russian Empire as an essential source of external support in their emancipation from the Ottoman Empire. The United Principalities took part in the siege of Plevna, but their hopes of enlargement along the Black Sea were soon dashed. Russia took back Bessarabia (lost after the Crimean War) and awarded southern Dobruja to its then favorite, Bulgaria.

 

The effect on the political class of the newly established Romanian state ("undeserving of statehood" as it was, according to Bismarck) was both immediate and decisive:

·         The early-19^th-century national-romantic myth of the Romanians as linguistic and cultural heirs to Rome morphed into the nationalist ideology of Romania as an outpost of the Western civilization amidst the supposedly inferior ocean of Slavs and Magyars.

·         The irredentist aspiration to Bessarabia and resentment of Russia outweighed the bitterness over the Magyar treatment of the Romanian minority in Transylvania, drawing Romania to the Central Powers in the three decades preceding World War I.

 

Romanian nationalism, freshly minted, weak and insecure, thus came to rest on two pillars, and the equation has not changed in essence for almost a century and a half:

·         Audacious territorial aspirations, primarily directed eastwards, and

·         Antagonism to "the Other," divided equally between Budapest and St. Petersburg.

 

The collapse of Austria-Hungary and imperial Russia made possible the creation of the Greater Romania (1918-1940), by crook more than by hook. East of the Prut, however, Bucharest proved singularly unequal to the task of nation building. Bessarabia remained unintegrated socially, undeveloped economically, resentful politically; most of its Moldovan-speaking plurality remained reluctant to embrace a "Romanian" identity.

 

The disasters of 1940 – the loss of northern Transylvania to Horthy, southern Dobruja to Boris and Bessarabia to Stalin, without a shot being fired – were to be alleviated by Hitler's gift of Bukovina and an insanely expanded "Transnistria" all the way to the Bug, comprising a fifth of Ukraine, as a reward for Romania's participation in the Barbarossa. Ethnic cleansing started right away, justified by an openly racist attitude of Romania that treated Jews and Slavs as equally sub-human.[4] The hasty switch of allegiance came in August 1944, however, enabling Romania to avoid facing squarely the demons of its recent past. They are still with us today.

 

PLUS ÇA CHANGE… – A radical change in the composition of Romania's political class took place under communism. Its core consensus and nationalist agenda have not changed, however. In 1991 Romania rushed to be the first country to recognize the newly-independent Republic of Moldova. The government of Ion Iliescu, Nicolae Ceausescu's neo-communist successor, saw its independence as a step towards its reunification with Romania. It hailed the event with a rousing statement that could have been counter-signed by Marshal Antonescu:

 

"The proclamation of an independent Romanian state in the territories annexed by force following the secret agreements of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact represents a decisive step toward the peaceful elimination of that pact's unfortunate consequences directed against the rights and interests of the Romanian people."

 

During the Transdnistrian conflict, Romania sent a contingent of volunteers and military advisers to fight alongside Moldovan forces, and supplied them with weapons. When Moldova started having second thoughts about the union, however, the reaction in Bucharest was acerbic. On April 14, 1994, the Romanian Parliament adopted a declaration of protest against the decision of the Moldovan Parliament to join the CIS. The protest contained an audacious blend of nationalist claims based on ethno-linguistic, historic, and late-19^th-century "civilizational" arguments:

 

"The vote of the Parliament in Chişinău regrettably reconfirms the criminal [Ribbentrop-Molotov] pact and irresponsibly cancels the right of the Romanian nation to live within the integrity of its historical and spiritual space. [...] Through the geographical position, culture, history and traditions, the natural place of our brothers from across the Prut is, undoubtedly, together with us, in the great family of the European nations, and by no means in a Eurasian structure." [emphasis added]

 

Sixteen years later, in May 2010, President Traian Basescu used the same terms of reference in his aggressive reaction to the claim that Presidents Medvedev and Yanukovich had reached a secret understanding on the future of Moldova and Transdnistria:

 

"Moscow and now Kyiv are trying to create on the territory that, at the end of World War II should have been returned to Romania, a pseudo-federation of three political-legal pseudo-subjects. But we will do everything to oppose the Russian-Ukrainian plan for the amputation of Bessarabia."

 

Back in January 2006, Basescu declared that "the minimal policy of Romania is for the unification of the Romanian nation to take place within the EU." Note the phrase minimal policy, implying the existence of a maximal policy that goes way beyond unification with Moldova. Its reality is apparent in the decision to grant Romanian citizenship to all residents of the territories belonging to the pre-1940 Greater Romania and their descendants up to the third generation – including the denizens of Bukovina and southern Bessarabia.[5]

 

UKRAINIAN RESPONSE – The policies and stated positions of Bucharest represent an open challenge to Ukraine as a state and a threat to its core interests. The response to that challenge has been muted and indecisive thus far. Its articulation in realist terms should be a priority for the decision makers in Kiev.

 

To start with, Ukraine should overcome the previous government's propensity to embrace the Euro-integrative discourse, which inhibited asserting its interests in a reasonable, clear and unambiguous manner. Ukraine's reluctance to do so over the years has created the expectation in Bucharest that it can get away with a dual-track policy of pursuing its revisionist-nationalist agenda, and at the same time pretending to be Ukraine's special friend and advocate within the EU. With "friends" like Basescu, Ukraine needs no detractors.

 

ROMANIA'S WEAKNESSES: Kiev's response to the challenge should take account of the fundamental weakness of Romania's position, both internally and externally:

 

1.      Romania does not enjoy a carte blanche from Brussels, or from any major West European capital, for its irredentist-revisionist policy. In fact, its status within the EU – low to start with – has been further eroded, albeit indirectly, by the Greek financial crisis. Key European countries are more impatient than ever with their poor relations along the periphery of the Union. They have no time for their special pleading, and do not care one way or another for whose flag flies over Kishinev or Tiraspol. They will not hesitate to express their lack of support for Romania's designs if asked to state their preferences. The reason Romania has been able to pretend that it enjoys the support of "Europe" in its aspirations has been Ukraine's reluctance to force the issue and test that proposition.

2.      Romania does not enjoy the support of the Obama administration either for its irredentist-revisionist designs. Admittedly, Bucharest gets private encouragement for such ambitions from various neoconservative "analysts" who still pursue a Russophobic, NATO-for-ever agenda, yet those people represent nobody but themselves. They may pretend to have official connections and influence, and their Romanian hosts may be lured into believing it. Ukraine can and should call their bluff, in view of Yanukovich's high stock in Washington after his visit last spring.

3.      Romania is no longer able to count on the Orange animosity to Russia as the welcome focus of Ukraine's external priorities. To the contrary, Ukraine is now able to discuss and coordinate its policies with Moscow, since their interests in the region are "objectively" identical. This is particularly significant in view of the growing special relationship between Russia and Germany, manifested in the opening of the North Stream pipeline: Europe's overall indifference to the rekindling of regional tension is strengthened by Moscow's ability to exert influence in Berlin on any specific issues it deems worthy of attention.

4.      Romania cannot count on clear support for its agenda in Moldova – not even for what Basescu calls the "minimal policy" of unification. The Unionists may be ascendant right now, but the opposition to "the reunion with the Romanian motherland" remains strong.[6] The support is largely pragmatic (i.e. EU membership and associated presumed benefits) rather than emotional and cultural, which makes it soft and volatile.

5. Within Romania itself, there is no real consensus on the irredentist objectives of the political elite. Ordinary Romanians are too preoccupied with the daily struggle of making ends meet in what is officially the poorest EU member-country (per capita GDP). Polls indicate that barely one-half of the population supports a union with Moldova and a third rejects it.[7] Among those supporting the union, it is worthy of note that a half would be willing to give up Transdnistria. The cost of the project is broadly suspected of exceeding (in relative terms, of course) FRG's cost of integrating GDR. Anecdotal evidence also indicates a sense of cultural detachment from the trans-Prut Moldovans, who are perceived as less than diligent and generally "primitive."
6. Romania's aspiration to "regional leadership" – a theme that had inexplicably resonated in Kiev for years until last January – is entirely bogus, and it is the source of actual or potential friction with Warsaw and Budapest. "Leadership" presumes the qualities of legitimacy and cultural, political or economic power that underpin the leader's willingly accepted benevolent authority. On no account can Romania aspire to such a lofty position. In the words of a Bucharest-based Western diplomat, "it needs to be led, rather than lead."
7. Romania has ambiguous relations, at best, with all of her neighbors, and tense with two. (a) The new Fidesz government is Hungary takes an active interest in the status of Hungarian minorities in the neighboring countries, and it advocates autonomy for the Hungarians of Transylvania, which the authorities in Bucharest say they will not accept. (b) In eastern Serbia, the Romanian government is actively promoting the "awakening" of the Vlachs, traditionally well integrated, and the unprecedented establishment of parallel ecclesiastical structures of the Romanian Orthodox Church.
8. Romania has no military option a la Saakashvili, being within NATO and having no green light from any quarter for an act of reckless adventurism.[8] Far from giving it the muscle for assertiveness, EU and NATO membership create salutary constraints in the behavior of Bucharest and provide affected third parties (in this case Ukraine and Russia) with the means of exerting indirect influence, and – if needed – pressure.

 

Ukraine should assert its interests with five low-cost, low-risk policy moves:

1. Ukrainian law does not recognize dual citizenship, but it should be augmented by the prospect of the loss of Ukrainian citizenship by permanent residents of Ukraine who accept the citizenship of another country. This would not affect the Ukrainians e.g. in Toronto who take the citizenship of Canada, but it would quite properly affect those living in Chernivtsi or Izmail who take the citizenship of Romania and thus implicitly accept the validity of its continuing claim to the pre-1940 Romania mare.
2. Ukraine should intensify its relations with the new Hungarian government, with which it shares common interest in denying Romania any special or privileged position in the context of regional cooperation and Euro-integration. Budapest has already signaled its interest in a new chapter in its relations with both Ukraine and Moldova.[9]
3. Ukraine should increase the awareness of Romania's problematic positions and policies by indirectly supporting and promoting events, research and publications – primarily in Western Europe and North America – conducive to its views on regional stability.
4. Ukraine should indicate to its West European interlocutors that it needs no third parties as its pleaders in the process of drawing closer to the EU. There will be no eastward expansion of the Union anyway; Romania nevertheless should be disabused of its pretensions to be Ukraine's self-appointed chaperone in Brussels.
5. Ukraine should proceed with the Bystroye project, and indicate that it would treat any attempt to dig a counter-canal upstream as an overtly hostile act.

 

The challenge Ukraine faces from Romania is not going to fade away because it is based on the cultural, strategic and geopolitical realities that are relatively constant. That challenge can and should be met more forcefully than before, and recognizing its existence would be the necessary first step. The source of the challenge is relatively weak and vulnerable. With its size, resources, and comparative advantages, Ukraine has nothing to fear in tackling it responsibly but firmly.

---

[1] Lucian Boia. Romania: Borderland of Europe. London: Reaktion Books, 2001, p. 308.

[2] <http://omg.md/Content.aspx?id=6807&lang=2>

[3] "Do Medvedev and Yanukovych plan to sign a 'secret protocol' on Transdniester?" <http://www.kyivpost.com/news/opinion/op_ed/detail/67633/print/ >

[4] "Sugary and incorporeal humanism is inappropriate in this situation," Marshal Antonescu told his soldiers on July 8, 1941. "The Jews should be forced to leave Bessarabia and Bukovina, and Ukrainian people must leave the country too [emphasis added]. I don't care if the world calls us barbarians. You can use machine-guns if necessary. Let me tell you, the law does not exist. So, let's give up all the formalities and use this complete freedom."

[5] It would be unthinkable for, say, Germany to start distributing its passports to the inhabitants of the lands that used to be known as Silesia, Pomerania, or East Prussia.

[6] A poll conducted by IRI in Moldova in November 2008 showed that 29% of the population would support a union with Romania, while 61% would reject it.

[7] In a survey conducted by the Social Studies Group (May 13-20, 2010), 80% of respondents said that Romania was heading in the wrong direction, while only 8.3 percent held the opposite view. Asked about the priority the Government should have, job creation came first (50.5 percent), followed by the fight against corruption (12.5%), pay and  pension rises (18%), etc. Only 6 percent included "constitutional revision" among the priorities.

[8] Romania has negligible support within either the EU or NATO for courting Saakashvili, and Basescu's advocacy of Georgia's doomed NATO bid is unlikely to give a boost to his stock in the West.

[9] "The main objective of the conservative Hungarian government is the European Neighborhood Policy (ENP) in the East – which includes cooperation with Ukraine and Moldova – in order to separate Hungary's situation from the issues in Southern Europe." EurActiv.com, June 8, 2010.

Karadzic Questions Credibility of Witness

Karadzic Questions Credibility of Witness

| 23 June 2010 | Nidzara Ahmetasevic
 

On the last day of his cross-examination of General John Wilson, Radovan Karadzic questioned the credibility of the prosecution witness.

Karadzic, the wartime leader of the Bosnian Serbs who is on trial at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, ICTY, posed a number of questions that the witness could not answer.

General Wilson was not certain who the minister of defence in Bosnia and Herzegovina was in 1992, and he was unsure about some parts of Sarajevo and about the way the Army of Bosnia and Herzegovina was organised in the city.

"Mr Karadzic, from my position I was not obliged to know everything, but to know how to find information that was needed, and that was my job. I did not know everything about every incident that happened, and it is true that many things were unclear, in gray areas in that conflict and it was impossible to attribute everything that was going on," the witness said.

General John Wilson was a liaison officer in the UN monitoring peace-keeping mission in Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina from for 10 months during 1991 and 1992. Later on, in 1993, he worked as a military adviser in the negotiating team headed by special envoys of the international community Cyrus Vance, Lord Owen and Thorvald Stoltenberg.  

After seven hours of questioning over a three day period the cross-examination of General Wilson is over.

During his cross-examination Karadzic was warned by the trial chamber several times about the way he asked questions and made statements. He has also been warned about his cross-examination method during previous cross-examinations.

The prosecution will call a protected witness for the next hearing on June 28.

After that, the next witness will be Momcilo Mandic, a former close associate of Karadzic and the minister of justice in his government in 1992 and chief of the Office of Republika Srpska in Belgrade. Before the war Mandic was assistant minister of the interior of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

While Karadzic was in hiding after the war, Mandic was suspected to be a part of the ring that was helping him and as a result in 2003 he was banned from travelling to the EU. Karadzic was arrested in Belgrade in 2008, while the ban on Mandic is still valid.

However, the Tribunal issued an order for safe conduct for Mandic during the period he will be in The Hague as a witness. The statute of the ICTY asks for cooperation from all the states "in the investigation and prosecution of the persons accused of committing serious violations of international humanitarian law" and to comply with orders issued by the Tribunal.

According to the order, safe conduct for Mandic is guaranteed from June 25 to July 3 on his travel from Serbia, where he now lives, to the Netherlands, meaning that "he cannot be arrested, detained, prosecuted or subject to any other restriction, whether physical or legal, of his personal liberty".

Karadzic demanded that the ICTY order the lifting of the ban for Mandic completely, but the request was denied with the explanation that the Tribunal does not have the power to interfere in questions of EU policy.

In 2010, Mandic was acquitted of war crimes charges by the Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Copyrights ©  Balkan Investigative Reporting Network.

 

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/main/news/28977/

EU confuses Serbian leaders who confuse Serbian people

 

http://waz.euobserver.com/887/30334
 
EU confuses Serbian leaders who confuse Serbian people

ZELJKO PANTELIC
Today @ 09:33 CET

Serbian politicians often get contradictory messages from EU member states as well as officials and ambassadors in Belgrade about Serbia's European integration and the possibility of reopening discussions on Kosovo's status. Consequently, Serbia's public is baffled.
Top Serbian officials and some government-friendly NGO representatives often release information in the Serbian media on these subjects, asking journalists to quote them as sources from the EU, Brussels or international diplomatic circles.
The average Serbian news consumer can easily become confused by the divergence of messages in a single week.
One day he is told that Serbia is winning the diplomatic battle for Kosovo and progressing very well towards EU accession. The next day's headlines read that Kosovo independence is irreversible and that Serbia cannot enter the EU without recognising Kosovo's statehood. A day later the news may be that Serbia is far from EU integration because the EU is tired of enlargement, and that Serbia is learning lessons from Cyprus on how to join the Union without recognising Kosovo.
On day four the story could be that the diplomatic fight for Kosovo is very difficult because Pristina is backed by the most powerful countries in the world, and that Serbia is well prepared for EU integration, but its bid is being blocked by Germany and the Netherlands, for no clear reasons.
A day later again headlines foresee an imminent reopening of Kosovo status negotiations after the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice, and that Serbia's EU application will be passed to the European Commission at the next meeting of EU foreign ministers. On day six the news is that Belgrade-Pristina negotiations may only concern technical issues, not the status of Kosovo, and that the EU has adopted a gradual approach towards European integration, meaning no big steps on Serbia's European agenda in the near future.
After the last foreign ministers meeting in Luxembourg, Italian minister Franco Frattini said the Serbian application for membership had not been passed to the Commission because his German colleague first needed an opinion from parliament.
A German diplomat, meanwhile, said it was not just Germany but that a big majority of EU members opposed the passing of Serbia's application "because most EU member states apply the step-by-step approach in their enlargement policy."
Ambassadors to Belgrade from some member states also release confusing statements. Unlike in EU countries, where few people know the names of ambassadors from other member states, or from Russia and the US, foreign diplomats in Serbia are like pop stars. They are interviewed by newspapers or appear on national television on a daily basis. Some of them insist there is no link between the Kosovo issue and Serbia's European integration. Others assert the opposite. Some EU ambassadors even contradict themselves, saying completely different things in the course of just a few days.
"If Spanish foreign minister Miguel Angel Moratinos says, as he did at the last Council of ministers, that Serbia is very constructive on the Kosovo issue and the participation of Kosovo in regional co-operation, we can just imagine what he said to his Serbian colleague," a participant in the last meeting of EU foreign ministers told WAZ.EUobserver on the condition of anonymity.
"It is quite understandable that Serbia's top officials are more eager to believe what Moratinos tells them, than to listen to the warnings of [French foreign minister] Kouchner, [German foreign minister] Westerwelle or [British foreign minister] Hague. We are not able to speak with one voice to Belgrade and that is why Kosovo is becoming a frozen issue and Serbia is going to be very slow on the European path," the contact continued.
An EU diplomat said there is a high risk the Union blocks both Serbia and Kosovo's European integration.
"I am afraid leaders in Belgrade and Pristina do not understand that if they want to move ahead on the European path, it is not important how many countries support you, but whether there is consensus in the EU or not. In other words, you need all EU countries on your side. To stop you or to slow you down, just one member state is sufficient," the diplomat noted.
Back to front page

The new threat to America: NATO

By ARTHUR HERMAN

Last Updated: 4:33 AM, June 14, 2010

Posted: 1:12 AM, June 14, 2010

Comments: 10

It's not just the euro (and with it the European Union) that's in danger of sinking out of sight. So, too, is NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Unless the United States takes a long, hard look at its connections with this Cold War relic, we may find ourselves caught in the undertow.

Two recent news items ram the point home.

* The Gaza convoy incident underlined the growing support of Iran and the terrorist group Hamas by Turkey -- a NATO member since 1958. That one of the NATO allies now wants to ally with the jihadist cause -- and a country that is NATO's face in the Middle East -- should get everyone's attention.

* France, having rejoined NATO's military structure in 2009 (after leaving in a huff back in 1966), is about to sell up to four Mistral-class helicopter assault ships to Russia. The warships include sophisticated technology that integrates the ships with the military command and information systems used by NATO and the United States, including in Afghanistan.

Indeed, Russia's Vladimir Putin announced he won't do the deal unless he gets that highly restricted technology -- even though, as Agence France Press quotes one senior US lawmaker as saying, it would "shake NATO to the core."

In short, one NATO ally is lining up to help Iran dominate the Middle East. Another, after months of promises that it would not, intends to sell Russia the means not only to intimidate maritime neighbors like Lithuania and Georgia, but possibly to eavesdrop on every NATO operation around the world.

Add in NATO's refusal to carry its share of the burden of fighting in Afghanistan, which is hampering our strategy there and putting our soldiers in danger, and there's only one conclusion to draw: The Cold War alliance that was once an important pillar of Western and US security is becoming a danger to both.

NATO was created in 1949 with the idea that America would supply the alliance with the bulk of its muscle, while its other members would display the solidarity of political will to resist Communist domination of Europe (though each member also promised to devote at least 2 percent of GDP to military spending each year).

That made sense when Germany and France and Italy were still emerging from the rubble of world war, and a war-weary Britain was still rationing meat and sugar -- and the Soviet Union loomed as a nuclear-armed monolith. By the 1970s, the formula was becoming absurd: European countries were flourishing and incomes rising, yet their share of meeting NATO's defense needs did not. Instead, the vast US conventional and nuclear umbrella let them build hugely wasteful welfare states under its shade.

When the Cold War ended, NATO made even less sense. The first sign that it had outlived its usefulness came in Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s, when the alliance's European members were unwilling to prevent the first genocide on European soil since the Holocaust, unless the United States took the lead. So much for displaying political will.

Then came Afghanistan. The European members of the International Security Assistance Force there have been extremely careful to avoid any serious combat duties, for fear their pacifist-minded populations might demand the troops come home. In many cases, US forces have to spend almost as much time and effort protecting them as engaging the enemy. For the last five years, they've been a misery to us, and an aid and a comfort to the enemy.

Yet President Obama's strategy in Afghanistan relies on "help" from those same NATO allies (even as he himself has undercut NATO's most pro-American members like Poland, Latvia and the Czech Republic by giving in to Russia on missile defense). Likewise, his long-term plans for the Pentagon depend on Europe sharing more of the burden on its own defense, including the NATO budget.

It's a forlorn hope. Today, only five of NATO's 28 members live up to the 2 percent defense-spending requirement. Worse, Karl Heinz Kamp, director of the research division of NATO Defense College, has found that, of Europe's 2 million men and women in uniform, only 3 percent to 5 percent are actually deployable in combat. And the cash-strapped Europeans want to cut NATO's budget almost out of sight.

If an armed conflict ever does come back to Europe, it is easy to guess who will be doing the fighting. Meanwhile, it's increasingly hard to see what we're getting in return when Turkey and France are not only undermining NATO, but seemingly mounting direct challenges to US security interests.

When NATO was created, Churchill's friend Lord Ismay said its job was "to keep the Americans in, the Russians out and the Germans down." Today, NATO is letting the Americans and Afghans down, allowing the Russians and Iranians in -- and letting everyone else off the hook. So why are we still part of it?

Arthur Herman's most recent book is "Gandhi and Churchill."

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/the_new_threat_to_america_nato_yEHmKUmEDa18HOEBQhD4aL#ixzz0r3S7W7bt

 

Serbian Court Upholds Prison Terms for Perpetrators of Kosovo Massacre

Serbian Court Upholds Prison Terms for Perpetrators of Kosovo Massacre

VOA News 15 June 2010

A Serbian appeals court has upheld prison terms of up to 20 years for three ex-Serb paramilitaries convicted of gunning down 14 ethnic Albanian women and children a decade ago in Kosovo.

The court in Belgrade rejected appeals from the three appellants, who served in the notorious Scorpions unit during the 1999-2000 Kosovo war.  A retrial was ordered for a fourth defendant.

The massacre in Kosovo's northern town of Podujevo took place at the start of a NATO bombing campaign launched against Serbia to stop a Belgrade crackdown on Albanian separatists.

During the original 2009 trial, survivors described how Scorpions lined up 19 people against a wall in March 1999 and sprayed them with machine-gun fire.  Five children survived the massacre, saved only when regular Serbian troops arrived on the scene.

The Scorpions unit operated under the command of the Serbian Interior Ministry during the Balkan wars of the 1990s.

Domestic war crimes trials in Serbia only became possible after the ouster of autocratic Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic in 2000.  Milosevic died in 2006, while on trial in The Hague for genocide and crimes against humanity.

Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in 2008.  The declaration is recognized by more than 60 nations, including the United States and most countries of the European Union.

Some information for this report was provided by AP, AFP.

http://tinyurl.com/369aso4

Balkan Tension and the Future of NATO by Ted Galen Carpenter

 

http://www.panmacedonian.info/balkan_tensions_and_the_future_2010.htm

Balkan Tensions and the Future of NATO

By Ted Galen Carpenter

           A key assumption long held by proponents of NATO enlargement is that the process would both strengthen the alliance and stabilize potentially volatile portions of Europe.  That assumption is dubious in general and wildly inaccurate when it comes to the Balkans.  Indeed, the addition of new members such as Croatia and Albania has produced the opposite outcome with respect to both goals.  Washington's ongoing effort to add such countries as Bosnia- Herzegovina and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) would likely make matters even worse.  Yet that is the course that U.S. and European leaders seem determined to pursue.

New Balkan Members Weaken, Not Strengthen, NATO

            It is mystery why NATO supporters cling to the notion that adding small, militarily insignificant allies makes the alliance stronger and more capable.  It is an even greater mystery why opinion leaders in the U.S. foreign policy community believe that such allies benefit the security and well being of America.  The opposite is true.  Such NATO members are strategic liabilities, not assets, and many of them bring with them political, diplomatic, and military  baggage that could prove very troublesome for the United States.

            The addition of Croatia and Albania confirms that NATO enlargement has now entered the realm of farce.  The military capabilities of those two countries are minuscule.  According to the most recent edition of The Military Balance, published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Croatia's annual military budget is a mere $875 million, and its military force consists of 18,600 active-duty personnel.  Albania's budget is an even more meager $254 million, and its active duty force is a paltry 14,295 soldiers.[1] 

            By not yet offering membership to FYROM, though, NATO will have to do without Skopje's $167 million and 8,000 troops.  The alliance is also missing the opportunity to add Bosnia's $281 million in military spending and 11,099 soldiers.  And, of course, there is always the prospect of gaining Montenegro's $61 million and 3,127 troops.  Serbia remains enough of a pariah to the statesmen of NATO's leading powers that its $1.06 billion in spending and 29,125 soldiers probably will be unavailable to the alliance for many years to come.[2]

            The combined annual defense outlays of all of  those countries are less than the United States spends in Afghanistan in one week.  Why American political leaders believe that such military pygmies augment the vast power of the United States is inexplicable.

Potential Trouble for NATO–and the United States–in the Balkans

            NATO's new and prospective Balkan members are not just militarily insignificant, they create the prospect of entangling the alliance–and its leader, the United States–in a variety of messy problems.  Albania is likely to prove to be an embarrassment, or worse, for its NATO partners.  The country is notorious for being under the influence of organized crime.  Indeed, the Albanian mafia is legendary throughout southeastern Europe, controlling the bulk of gambling, prostitution, and drug trafficking. 

            Moreover, Albania's political stability remains highly uncertain, as the country is barely a decade removed from the political chaos and near civil war that led to an armed multilateral peacekeeping intervention, Operation Alba,  led by Greece and Italy.  Longstanding animosity between the two principal ethno-linguistic factions, the Gegs, who dominate the northern part of the country, and the Tosks, who dominate the southern portion, shows no clear signs of abating.  It is important to remember that those ethnic tensions contributed to the disorder in the late 1990s, and they could easily do so again.

            Problems associated with some of the countries proposed for alliance membership are even more worrisome.  Bosnia in the nearly 15 years since the Dayton Accords has hardly been an unalloyed success story for ambitious Western nation builders.  Although the Dayton agreement did end the tripartite civil war, Bosnia is still a country that lacks a meaningful sense of nationhood or even the basic political cohesion to be an effective state.  The reality is that if secession were allowed, the overwhelming majority of Bosnian Serbs would vote to detach their self-governing region (the Republika Srpska) from Bosnia and either form an independent country or merge with Serbia.  And that sentiment has intensified since the United States and its allies gave their blessing to Kosovo's secession and unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia.  Most Bosnian Croats would also likely choose to secede and join with Croatia.  Bosnian Muslims constitute the only faction that wishes to maintain Bosnia-Herzegovina in its current incarnation.  Although the situation remains relatively stable at the moment, that could easily change.[3]  And if it did, NATO would be caught up in the new turmoil.

            There are even more troubling aspects if the alliance were foolish enough to add FYROM to its roster of members.[4]  FYROM has a huge problem with its Albanian minority in the north and west of the country.  The Albanian inhabitants there have sought a degree of political autonomy that amounts to independence in everything but name.  Indeed, serious questions remain about the proper location of the border between FYROM and predominantly Albanian Kosovo–now a nominally independent country thanks to its unilateral declaration in February 2008, which occurred thanks to the instigation of  the United States and the leading powers in the European Union.

            An independent Kosovo is already exacerbating problems with several neighboring countries, especially FYROM.  There is scant evidence that advocates of a "Greater Albania" have relinquished their territorial ambitions in the Balkans.  It was an ominous development that less than a month after Pristina's declaration of independence, the leading ethnic Albanian party in FYROM threatened to withdraw its support and bring down the government because of what party leaders described as a failure to support minority rights or to recognize Kosovo's independence.  Among that party's demands were greater use of the Albanian language and flag in the increasingly autonomous northwestern region of FYROM and increased benefits to veterans of the 2000-2001 Albanian guerrilla insurgency.[5]

            The situation has not noticeably improved over the past two years.  Indeed, there was an especially alarming incident in early May 2010.  Four individuals were killed in shootout with FYROM police near the northwest border hamlet of Radusa.  They were driving a van transporting illegal arms from Kosovo.[6]  Unless we assume that the FYROM police are exceptionally competent at their interdiction efforts, it is highly probable that there have been other shipments and that this is part of an ongoing campaign to foment a new insurgency.

            If FYROM ever becomes a member of NATO, that nasty ethnic separatist problem becomes a matter of direct concern to the alliance.  One would think that the United States has enough foreign policy headaches around the world without adding that one to the list.

            Fortunately, it is doubtful whether FYROM will gain membership soon.  Its ongoing quarrel with Greece remains a major impediment.  The primary reason that FYROM was not invited to join NATO when Albania and Croatia received invitations was because Athens continued to object to that country using the name "Macedonia," which Greeks rightly insist applies only to a region of their nation. 

            That controversy is not merely over a historical and linguistic point.  Greeks worry the Skopje government's insistence on calling its country Macedonia implies a territorial claim to Greek Macedonia.  Maps circulating in FYROM that include major chunks of Greek territory as part of a "Greater Macedonia" do nothing to allay such fears.  In early 2008, FYROM's prime minister was photographed laying a wreath at a monument that featured a map of Greater Macedonia, which even included Greece's second largest city, Thessaloniki.[7]

            Such provocative territorial claims are hardly consistent with the view of FYROM that the U.S. State Department has tried to promote.  The nature of Washington's continuing lobbying campaign for NATO membership for FYROM can be seen in a gushing article about the country in the April 2010 issue of State Magazine, the department monthly publication.  The cover described FYROM as the "pearl of the Balkans."  The title of the article itself was "Skopje: Ancient Macedonia Builds Modern Democracy."[8]  The American Hellenic Institute issued a scathing 5-page letter rebuking the State Department for publishing such a puff piece, and the letter effectively debunked several of the article's claims.[9]

Conclusion

            NATO expansion into the Balkans is a spectacularly bad idea, for it entangles the alliance in an assortment of murky disputes and potential dangers.  Most of those issues are of little relevance even to NATO's other European members, much less to the United States.  The alliance has not been strengthened by the process of enlargement; to the contrary it has acquired new strategic liabilities rather than assets. 

            The new Balkan members are militarily useless, and they all bring with them a variety of unpleasant problems.  Enlargement has been an especially bad deal for the United States.  As NATO's leader, America is responsible for implementing the alliance's goal of maintaining stability throughout its membership zone in Europe–and in even in security arenas beyond the continent.  Given the history and current condition of the Balkans, U.S. policymakers have now made all the quarrels and problems of that volatile region America's problems.  That is an extremely unwise strategy.

Ted Galen Carpenter, vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute,  is the author of eight books and more than 400 articles on international affairs.  His most recent book is Smart Power: Toward a Prudent Foreign Policy for America (Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).  He is a contributing editor to the National Interest and serves on the editorial boards of Mediterranean Quarterly and the Journal of Strategic Studies.

Notes
 

---

[1]. International Institute of Strategic Studies, The Military Balance, 2010 (London: Routledge, 2010), pp. 119, 123.

[2]. Ibid., pp. 179, 186, 189, 190.

[3]. See Patrice C. McMahon and Jon Western, "The Death of Dayton: How to Stop Bosnia From Falling Apart," Foreign Affairs 88, no.5 (September-October 2009): 69-83.

[4]. For a good overview of the costs and potential problems (substantial) and prospective benefits (meager) of admitting FYROM to NATO, see Scott N. Siegel, "Weighing Macedonia's Entry into NATO," Mediterranean Quarterly 21, no. 1 (Winter 2010): 45-60.

[5]. Kole Casule and Matt Robinson, "Albanian Party Threatens to Bring Down Macedonian Government," Reuters, March 12, 2008.

[6]. Jasmina Mironski, "Four Dead in Macedonia-Kosovo Border Shooting," Agence France Presse, May 12, 2010.

[7]. Dora Bakoyannis, "All In a Name," Wall Street Journal, April 1, 2008.

[8]. Stephanie Rowlands, "Skopje: Ancient Macedonia Builds Modern Democracy," State, April 2010, pp. 22-25.

[9]. Aleco Haralambides, President, and Nick Larigakis, Executive Director, American Hellenic Institute letter to Hillary Rodham Clinton, April 27, 2010.

The disaster of Sarajevo?

The Sarajevo summit once again re-affirmed the impression that the EU is attempting to solve the region's problems on an ad hoc basis, without a clear commitment and without offering anything that hasn't already been on the agenda since 2000.

Wednesday's summit of the EU and the Western Balkans in Sarajevo was supposed to re-energize the accession process of the region to the EU and help deal with some of the regional problems in particular the political deadlock in Bosnia. Instead it appears to have accomplished the opposite. According to a report by the Swiss Neue Zürcher Zeitung, the conference ended after just three hours, lacked an agenda, a clear purpose and was generally chaotic. It had already been clear for a while that it would lack high-caliber EU member states participants to genuinely signal renewed EU commitment and interest in the region. The fact that few prime ministers or heads of state showed up and that most EU countries did not even send their foreign ministers conveys the signal that the region has dropped on the list of EU priorities.

The meeting was not concluded with a 'Sarajevo Declaration', as the Spanish presidency had hoped, leaving in essence the commitment to further enlargement with the representatives of the EU, while the member states have sent a much more ambivalent signal by their modest turn out. It is unclear how the meeting signals a 'new deal' for the Balkans as the Spanish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Miguel Ángel Moratinos, called it, as the EU does not appear to have offered anything to the region which had not been on the agenda since 2000.

Particularly striking was the absence of any proposal to overcome the three key stumbling blocks for EU integration in the region – the Greek opposition to accession negotiations with Macedonia, relations between Serbia and Kosovo and the political crisis in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Despite talk of an EU special representative for the region, none was named. Such a special representative would have been a good idea -  a special representative can help put the region back on the map for the EU. Furthermore, a special representative would help link the enlargement strategy of the EU with its efforts at dealing with its post-conflict engagement in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Macedonia. Linking these two policies would greatly improve the effectiveness of the EU. Finally, the EU often looks at the region country by country, not recognizing the links. Somebody who is able to take a regional perspective would very helpful. Of course it matters who would be the special representative–it would need to be somebody with political clout in the EU and respect in the region.

The name floated in a recent Guardian article was Paddy Ashdown, not exactly an inspired choice. While he has the political weight to be effective, as one could see in Bosnia, his instrumentalization of EU accession in Bosnia has had long-term negative consequences and his image would not give him the necessary respect in the region. Instead, it would be good to see a fresh face in region.

For now, the conference appears to have confirmed the streak of rather disastrous initiatives over the last years in Bosnia, from the Butmir process to the visit in April to Sarajevo by EU and US representatives, which both yielded few results and instead compounded the impression that the EU is trying to solve the regions' problems ad hoc and without a clear commitment. This latest effort  seems to have re-affirmed this message – not one the EU or the Spanish presidency intended.

Florian Bieber is a Lecturer in East European Politics at the Department of Politics and International Relations of the University of Kent, Canterbury, UK. Further analysis by Dr. Bieber is available by clicking here.

http://transconflict.com/2010/06/the-disaster-of-sarajevo/

Re-exam Serbia's EU commitment

Jun 2, 2010

OPINION by Vojin Joksimovich | A re-examination of the Serbia's commitment to the EU, as well as to the IMF, is more than prudent if not imperative then a blind adherance to Serbia's EU membership.

After his meeting with the Republika Srpska Prime Minister Milorad Dodik in Laktasi, near Banja Luka, Tanjug reported that the Serbian President Boris Tadic reiterated his commitment for Serbia to join the EU as soon as possible. Even the birds know that for a long time President Tadic has been saying that there is a no alternative for Serbia but to join the EU. This disturbing statement, regarding the future of Serbia, is not only factually flawed but even philosophically nonsensical as only the death has no alternative. Putting all the eggs into one basket has hardly ever been a good strategic decision. Recent global financial meltdown of historical proportions including the debt crisis, initially affecting most the Mediterranean countries (now called Club Med), will probably adversely impact the entire EU and the euro-zone in particular. It necessitates a wakeup call which should reach Tadic's office as well. A re-examination of the Serbian commitment to the EU, as well as to the IMF, is more than prudent if not imperative. If it doesn't happen soon it is not inappropriate to pose a question if Tadic is serious about the future of his country. There are viable alternatives for Serbia probably more promising than joining the EU, e.g. an association with the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China). The BRIC countries have much more economic potential than the moribund EU. Besides, unlike the EU, with 22 out of 27 recognitions of Kosovo, the BRIC countries have been supporting the Serbian position with regard to the illegal Kosovo unilateral declaration of independence.

EU Sovereign Debt Calamity

The magnitude of this crisis is best illustrated with the statement of the European Central Bank (ECB) President Jean-Claude Trichet who said that this was the worst European economic crisis since WWII and perhaps even WWI. Greece for all intents and purposes went bankrupt. The interest rate on the Greek bonds shot up to 38%. The stave a collapse, but after a long procrastination which exasperated the crisis, the EU leaders, primarily Germany and France, hastily arranged a EUR 110 billion ($185 billion) a bailout package for Greece but not without participation of the International Monetary Fund (IMF). The size of this package was three times the amount officials initially estimated. This bailout is more of a bailout of primarily French and German banks rather than a bailout of Greece. The French, and to a lesser extent the German banks had flooded the Greece with cheap credits for a decade and now hold at least EUR100 billion in Greek government bonds. The Greek bondholders have not been asked to miss a single interest payment, reschedule a cent of debt, suffer any write-downs, or any other messy measure to address the sovereign debt subject with empty coffers. The lenders are extracting their pound of flesh. The Greek government has to slash its public deficit by implementing draconian and unpopular package of new taxes and reducing the wages of public employees and pensioners. The birthplace of democracy was in flames: rioters attacked banks, businesses and government buildings.

This bailout package has, however, failed to convince the markets throughout the world resulting in substantial losses on the worldwide stock exchanges and threatening to delay the U.S. fragile economic recovery. Concerned that a Greek default might imperil the euro and in order to calm the markets, the EU leaders in conjunction with the IMF conceived yet another large-scale intervention in the form of establishment of so called EUR 750 billion stabilization fund (about 1 trillion dollars). The participants in this emergency fund are: euro-zone governments to the tune of EUR 440 billion, 60 billion from the EU members, and 250 billion from the IMF. If Serbia was an EU member, it would have to contribute to the 60 billion portion of the fund. The U.S. Federal Reserve issued a blank check to give any money wanted. Even this EU-IMF bailout failed initially to calm the markets resulting in the global selloff in stocks. The crisis is still unfolding and at this point in time nobody seems to know how this crisis might end. There are assertions that the trillion dollar fund provides a temporary relief only until larger obligations of Spain and Italy come into question. Some have suggested that unless Germany assumes responsibility for the Club Med debts, something its voters will not permit, the Euro is dead. Even the IMF wizards who were last year urging more "stimulus" spending have made a 180 degrees turn and started frantically advocating tax increases and spending cuts, i.e. more austerity, rather than tax cuts or other pro-growth mechanisms. However, what is certain is that austerity measures will be impoverishing the working class and the pensioners not only in Greece but in Portugal, Spain, and Italy as well as probably in other EU countries.

EU to become Fiscal Union?

Trichet has started urging tighter euro-zone coordination. In an interview with German Der Spiegel he said: "Europe needs a quantum leap in how it collectively manages public finances." German Chancellor Angela Merkel is also pushing for tightening of zone's fiscal rules. She advocates real enforcement and penalties behind limits on debt and budget deficits including suspension of voting rights. For a good reason euro-zone governments have long resisted stronger oversights of their budgets by the EU executive arm, the EU Commission in Brussels. While such a fiscal union might impose some discipline on national governments, control of budgets and taxes by the EU Commission amounts to a total loss of national sovereignty, which puts a nation on the road to self-destruction and oblivion. The EU Commission demanded from Bulgaria, Slovakia and Lithuania to shutdown Russian-built nuclear power plants, despite their good operating and safety records as a pre-condition for joining the EU. There was no evaluation on the basis of own merits. Simply these plants didn't satisfy the EU standards. This sticks in my mind as yet another loss of national sovereignty and I was somewhat surprised that the countries in question swallowed the unreasonable EU demand. All three countries have opted to build new nuclear power plants thus enabling the vendors from EU countries, France in particular, to make profits at the expense of future member countries.

Greece will still restructure/default?

Martin Feldstein, professor of Economics at Harvard University and economic adviser to presidents Reagan, Bush and Obama believes that Greece will have to default due in large part to the membership in the European Monetary Union. "In the end, Greece, the eurozone's other members, and Greece's creditors will have to accept that the country is insolvent and cannot service its existing debt. At that point, Greece will default." Feldman argues that "if Greece had remained outside the eurozone and retained drachma, the large increased supply of Greek bonds would cause the drachma to decline and the interest rate on the bonds to rise. But, because Greek euro bonds were regarded as a close substitute for other countries' euro bonds, the interest rate on Greek bonds did not rise as Greece increased its borrowing—until the market began to fear a possible default." This restructuring, essentially a default, would renegotiate the debt with bondholders causing bondholders to take a loss. Restructuring may not take a place for a year or two. The ECB announced that eurozone banks face EUR 195 billion in write-downs this year and the next due to an economic outlook which is clouded with uncertainty. Great Britain did not join the eurozone and is now very pleased they didn't. Presumably, President Tadic and his followers have been dreaming of joining the eurozone as Slovenia did.

IMF

The IMF launched its operations in 1947. The quota subscriptions of 182 member countries are the principal source of financing… It has largely performed as a rubber stamp for the U.S. Treasury, the major finance ministries of Europe and Japan, and the IMF senior staff. Since the onslaught of debt crisis in 1980s, the IMF has assumed a central role in fixing the economies of sick countries including Former Yugoslavia. IMF sponsored the dinar devaluation which resulted in abrupt price hikes and a dramatic compression of earnings. Susan Woodward, in her brilliant book Balkan Tragedy, blamed the IMF for "the lack of recognition and accommodation for the socially polarizing and politically disintegrating consequences" of the IMF program and approach to westernization. "The austerities of policies of demand-repression led to conditions that could not easily foster a political culture of tolerance and compromise." The Yugoslav economy was running on the credit bubble during Tito's rule, while the Greek economy was running on the euro-zone induced credit bubble. 

 In 1990s IMF intervened in two financial meltdowns: Mexico and East Asia. After signing of the Dayton Accords it refused to readmit Yugoslavia, then Serbia and Montenegro. Yugoslavia had to repay a pre-sanction debt of $100 million. After NATO planes demolished the Serbian infrastructure and removal of Milosevic from power, the Serbian post-Milosevic leaders were "rewarded" with the IMF loans, which enabled the IMF to essentially manage the Serbian economy. In the process, the Serbian economy has been essentially destroyed. The Serbian economy has no competitive export-oriented economy and is not attractive enough for direct foreign investments. However, the Tadic administration continues to be addicted to these loans. The IMF's cure for the ailing Serbian economy is likely to follow IMF's Spanish cure: "radical overhaul" of labor laws, a "bold" reform of its government pension system. At this writing Serbia is negotiating austerity measures that would allow the IMF to release additional EUR 380 million. In 2008, faced with a shortfall in revenues, IMF sold a part of its gold reserves. At the 2009 G-20 London meeting, it was decided that the IMF would require additional resources to the tune of $500 billion. Where is all this money going to come from?

In addition to Serbia, other Eastern European countries have become addicted to the IMF loans: Hungary ($11.6) billion), Romania ($12.5 billion), Ukraine $16.4). Hence, the sheep mentality prevails. Nonetheless, Serbia should attempt to get out of this Faustian deal. A way out of these IMF debts is to find somebody to buy them like China, Russia, or a combination of BRIC countries. If the worst comes to the worst a default might be an option.

EU demands on Serbia

The EU is not in a position to seriously consider expansion of the Union until it satisfactorily resolves the exiting fiscal crisis. It has been reported that Germany now opposes the EU expansion to include the Western Balkans. Hence, the Serbian government expectations will have to be pushed back anyhow. While the euro-calamity briefly summarized above may or may not result in any additional demands on Serbia, the existing demands should have already been deemed unacceptable to Serbia. The Srebrenica declaration by the Serbian government is a case in point followed by the Kosovo independence resolution.

In early January Tadic announced that the Serbian Parliament would pass a resolution condemning so called "genocide" in Srebrenica, which we all know did not happen. Now massive amount of literature has been amassed providing enough facts about what happened in Srebrenica and "genocide" continue to exist only in the literature of western apologists for dismemberment of Yugoslavia and their legal servants in the Hague inquisition. I was somewhat surprised by this development and suspected that it was cooked in Washington, Brussels and Strasbourg. In mid-March Slovenian Jelko Kacin, the European Parliament deputy with responsibility for Serbia, revealed that in December 2009 Tadic was presented with a done deal. Nebojsa Malic pointed out that the Turkish newspaper Zaman has claimed that the Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu was also privy to the resolution text before Tadic. Tadic barely mastered a majority of 127 votes in the 250-person Serbian legislature. However, the term "genocide" was dropped making so called Bosniaks and some in Washington and Brussels unhappy. This is yet another example that whatever the Serbian government does, irrespective whether Milosevic, Kostunica, Djindjic or Tadic are in power, is never is enough to satisfy Washington/Brussels totalitarianism.

In succumbing to the Washington/Brussels pressure Tadic, while labeling the vote as patriotic, has damaged the Serbian national interests despite a presumable intent to advance only the EU membership status by appeasing the Dutch. While the resolution did not use the term "genocide," it acknowledges involvement of the Serbian government in the massacre of some 7-8,000 Muslims despite the fact that the Serbian government never commissioned own study to establish own Srebrenica ID card. Therefore the Hague Tribunal fabricated casualty numbers become the "truth." In other words it acknowledges the Hague fraud as the truth with conceivable legal consequences. Stefan Karaganovic, a Serbian-American with a U.S. law degree, made an important point that the Hague Srebrenica indictment would not have succeeded in any American court and that it would have been thrown out. The Hague Tribunal case has entirely favored the standpoint of the prosecution, which in turn was based mostly on falsehoods and distorted interpretation of a few meager facts. The most likely outcome of this irresponsibility of the Tadic's coalition will be a multimillion dollar law suit to be filed by the Croat-Muslim Federation.

Serbia would have to give up Kosovo to join EU

As mentioned above, Bulgaria, Lithuania and Slovakia had to give up cheap electricity that would have been generated by Russian built nuclear power plants with good safety records. In addition to the cost of replacement power they had to commit cost of the plant decommissioning with some help from the EU. The likelihood that Serbia could join the EU without recognition of the Republic of Kosovo is next to zero. This is, however, what Tadic and the followers have been telling the Serbian people. On many occasions, young Serbian foreign minister Vuk Jeremic told the rest of the world that Kosovo to Serbia is more important than the EU. On March 4 in Budapest he said that it was "slightly more important" presumably getting closer to the position of the Tadic's coalition. At the same time he was responding to the warning of the western quintet (U.S., UK, Germany, France and Italy), issued in February, to cool down the Kosovo rhetoric. The note was addressed exclusively to Jeremic and not to Tadic. The quintet was concerned that Serbia would be trying to convene a special session of the UN General Assembly the day after issuance of the legal opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) regarding legality of Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence. Belgrade offered an explanation that Tadic had to be protected from the Serbian nationalists.

What is cooking in Washington and Brussels?

Philip Gordon, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs, told reporters in May: "Serbia's path to the EU will only be completed when it resolves its differences with Kosovo. The EU has been quite clear…that they are not going to be too keen to incorporate border disputes, non-recognitions and ambiguous relationships." Incidentally, the EU did that when it accepted Cyprus as a member. Gordon is another holdover from the Clinton administration. He has worked closely with Ivo Daalder, Obama's pick for the U.S. NATO Ambassador. Daalder is known to the Serbian-American community, as Stella Jatras pointed out, for his response to Prof. Alex Dragnich's question: "How can NATO bomb a sovereign country without the approval of the U.S. Congress." Daalder's answer was: "Because we can." Gordon doesn't believe that the Turkish troops in Cyprus constitute an occupation.

According to Obrad Kesic, Washington has been working for two months to develop a Kosovo recognition plan which will request from Belgrade to go along in abolishing UN Resolution #1244, the resolution which guarantees Serbia's integrity, in exchange for speeding up Serbia's EU entry and access to the EU funds.

Meanwhile Doris Pak, a German member of the European Parliament whose job is to implement the German policies vis-à-vis Serbia, is preparing a resolution which will call on Serbia to take a "pragmatic" attitude towards Kosovo and to stop blocking Kosovo's entry into international organizations. It is expected that the resolution will be voted on in June with the discussion in July. The resolution also calls for the EU members to take a uniform position.

Nikolas Gvozdev, a professor of National Security Studies at the Naval War College, has written a common sense, but well documented, article Unfreezing Kosovo. In it he advocates that Washington should encourage negotiations open to idea of territorial adjustment. Gvozdev uses precedents: after WWI independent Armenia and Poland were recognized before the boundaries were established. In order to address the delicate subject of Serbian Orthodox Church treasures, Gvozdev is using the agreement between Italy and the Vatican in 1929. At the May 17 UN Security Council meeting the triumvirate of the U.S., UK and France argued that the Kosovo independence was irreversible and that a territorial adjustment is unacceptable. The ambassadors of Russia, China, Brazil and Mexico reiterated their support for the UN 1244, while Vuk Jeremic reiterated the Serbian offer to negotiate with no preconditions.

Another pogrom after ICJ ruling?

The ICJ ruling is expected this summer. The judges representing those countries that have recognized Kosovo independence will in all likelihood introduce ambiguities in the ruling, subject to interpretation, but they cannot ignore the UN Charter and the UN Resolution #1244. While there will be all sorts of spins, the ruling is likely to favor the Serbian position and thus alienate the Albanian leadership. Judging by the past, Thaci and the company will threaten with violence including a Pogrom #2 (Pogrom #1 in which the Albanian mobs attacked Serbian and Roma communities as well as the Serbian churches, took place in 2004). KFOR did not adequately protect the Serbs and other minorities, Roma in particular, in 2004. How would it able to do a better job in 2010/2011 when NATO currently mulls cutting the force to 2000. Needless to say that Hashim Thaci welcomed NATO plans to reduce troops. I am not aware of any contingency preparation for this scenario by the Belgrade government such as a military agreement with Russia.

Tags: Vojin Joksimovich

http://serbianna.com/analysis/?p=549

STRATFOR: Flotillas and the Wars of Public Opinion

Flotillas and the Wars of Public Opinion

May 31, 2010 | 1828 GMT

By George Friedman

On Sunday, Israeli naval forces intercepted the ships of a Turkish nongovernmental organization (NGO) delivering humanitarian supplies to Gaza. Israel had demanded that the vessels not go directly to Gaza but instead dock in Israeli ports, where the supplies would be offloaded and delivered to Gaza. The Turkish NGO refused, insisting on going directly to Gaza. Gunfire ensued when Israeli naval personnel boarded one of the vessels, and a significant number of the passengers and crew on the ship were killed or wounded.

Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon charged that the mission was simply an attempt to provoke the Israelis. That was certainly the case. The mission was designed to demonstrate that the Israelis were unreasonable and brutal. The hope was that Israel would be provoked to extreme action, further alienating Israel from the global community and possibly driving a wedge between Israel and the United States. The operation's planners also hoped this would trigger a political crisis in Israel.

A logical Israeli response would have been avoiding falling into the provocation trap and suffering the political repercussions the Turkish NGO was trying to trigger. Instead, the Israelis decided to make a show of force. The Israelis appear to have reasoned that backing down would demonstrate weakness and encourage further flotillas to Gaza, unraveling the Israeli position vis-à-vis Hamas. In this thinking, a violent interception was a superior strategy to accommodation regardless of political consequences. Thus, the Israelis accepted the bait and were provoked.

The 'Exodus' Scenario

In the 1950s, an author named Leon Uris published a book called "Exodus." Later made into a major motion picture, Exodus told the story of a Zionist provocation against the British. In the wake of World War II, the British — who controlled Palestine, as it was then known — maintained limits on Jewish immigration there. Would-be immigrants captured trying to run the blockade were detained in camps in Cyprus. In the book and movie, Zionists planned a propaganda exercise involving a breakout of Jews — mostly children — from the camp, who would then board a ship renamed the Exodus. When the Royal Navy intercepted the ship, the passengers would mount a hunger strike. The goal was to portray the British as brutes finishing the work of the Nazis. The image of children potentially dying of hunger would force the British to permit the ship to go to Palestine, to reconsider British policy on immigration, and ultimately to decide to abandon Palestine and turn the matter over to the United Nations.

There was in fact a ship called Exodus, but the affair did not play out precisely as portrayed by Uris, who used an amalgam of incidents to display the propaganda war waged by the Jews. Those carrying out this war had two goals. The first was to create sympathy in Britain and throughout the world for Jews who, just a couple of years after German concentration camps, were now being held in British camps. Second, they sought to portray their struggle as being against the British. The British were portrayed as continuing Nazi policies toward the Jews in order to maintain their empire. The Jews were portrayed as anti-imperialists, fighting the British much as the Americans had.

It was a brilliant strategy. By focusing on Jewish victimhood and on the British, the Zionists defined the battle as being against the British, with the Arabs playing the role of people trying to create the second phase of the Holocaust. The British were portrayed as pro-Arab for economic and imperial reasons, indifferent at best to the survivors of the Holocaust. Rather than restraining the Arabs, the British were arming them. The goal was not to vilify the Arabs but to villify the British, and to position the Jews with other nationalist groups whether in India or Egypt rising against the British.

The precise truth or falsehood of this portrayal didn't particularly matter. For most of the world, the Palestine issue was poorly understood and not a matter of immediate concern. The Zionists intended to shape the perceptions of a global public with limited interest in or understanding of the issues, filling in the blanks with their own narrative. And they succeeded.

The success was rooted in a political reality. Where knowledge is limited, and the desire to learn the complex reality doesn't exist, public opinion can be shaped by whoever generates the most powerful symbols. And on a matter of only tangential interest, governments tend to follow their publics' wishes, however they originate. There is little to be gained for governments in resisting public opinion and much to be gained by giving in. By shaping the battlefield of public perception, it is thus possible to get governments to change positions.

In this way, the Zionists' ability to shape global public perceptions of what was happening in Palestine — to demonize the British and turn the question of Palestine into a Jewish-British issue — shaped the political decisions of a range of governments. It was not the truth or falsehood of the narrative that mattered. What mattered was the ability to identify the victim and victimizer such that global opinion caused both London and governments not directly involved in the issue to adopt political stances advantageous to the Zionists. It is in this context that we need to view the Turkish flotilla.

The Turkish Flotilla to Gaza

The Palestinians have long argued that they are the victims of Israel, an invention of British and American imperialism. Since 1967, they have focused not so much on the existence of the state of Israel (at least in messages geared toward the West) as on the oppression of Palestinians in the occupied territories. Since the split between Hamas and Fatah and the Gaza War, the focus has been on the plight of the citizens of Gaza, who have been portrayed as the dispossessed victims of Israeli violence.

The bid to shape global perceptions by portraying the Palestinians as victims of Israel was the first prong of a longtime two-part campaign. The second part of this campaign involved armed resistance against the Israelis. The way this resistance was carried out, from airplane hijackings to stone-throwing children to suicide bombers, interfered with the first part of the campaign, however. The Israelis could point to suicide bombings or the use of children against soldiers as symbols of Palestinian inhumanity. This in turn was used to justify conditions in Gaza. While the Palestinians had made significant inroads in placing Israel on the defensive in global public opinion, they thus consistently gave the Israelis the opportunity to turn the tables. And this is where the flotilla comes in.

The Turkish flotilla aimed to replicate the Exodus story or, more precisely, to define the global image of Israel in the same way the Zionists defined the image that they wanted to project. As with the Zionist portrayal of the situation in 1947, the Gaza situation is far more complicated than as portrayed by the Palestinians. The moral question is also far more ambiguous. But as in 1947, when the Zionist portrayal was not intended to be a scholarly analysis of the situation but a political weapon designed to define perceptions, the Turkish flotilla was not designed to carry out a moral inquest.

Instead, the flotilla was designed to achieve two ends. The first is to divide Israel and Western governments by shifting public opinion against Israel. The second is to create a political crisis inside Israel between those who feel that Israel's increasing isolation over the Gaza issue is dangerous versus those who think any weakening of resolve is dangerous.

The Geopolitical Fallout for Israel

It is vital that the Israelis succeed in portraying the flotilla as an extremist plot. Whether extremist or not, the plot has generated an image of Israel quite damaging to Israeli political interests. Israel is increasingly isolated internationally, with heavy pressure on its relationship with Europe and the United States.

In all of these countries, politicians are extremely sensitive to public opinion. It is difficult to imagine circumstances under which public opinion will see Israel as the victim. The general response in the Western public is likely to be that the Israelis probably should have allowed the ships to go to Gaza and offload rather than to precipitate bloodshed. Israel's enemies will fan these flames by arguing that the Israelis prefer bloodshed to reasonable accommodation. And as Western public opinion shifts against Israel, Western political leaders will track with this shift.

The incident also wrecks Israeli relations with Turkey, historically an Israeli ally in the Muslim world with longstanding military cooperation with Israel. The Turkish government undoubtedly has wanted to move away from this relationship, but it faced resistance within the Turkish military and among secularists. The new Israeli action makes a break with Israel easy, and indeed almost necessary for Ankara.

With roughly the population of Houston, Texas, Israel is just not large enough to withstand extended isolation, meaning this event has profound geopolitical implications.

Public opinion matters where issues are not of fundamental interest to a nation. Israel is not a fundamental interest to other nations. The ability to generate public antipathy to Israel can therefore reshape Israeli relations with countries critical to Israel. For example, a redefinition of U.S.-Israeli relations will have much less effect on the United States than on Israel. The Obama administration, already irritated by the Israelis, might now see a shift in U.S. public opinion that will open the way to a new U.S.-Israeli relationship disadvantageous to Israel.

The Israelis will argue that this is all unfair, as they were provoked. Like the British, they seem to think that the issue is whose logic is correct. But the issue actually is, whose logic will be heard? As with a tank battle or an airstrike, this sort of warfare has nothing to do with fairness. It has to do with controlling public perception and using that public perception to shape foreign policy around the world. In this case, the issue will be whether the deaths were necessary. The Israeli argument of provocation will have limited traction.

Internationally, there is little doubt that the incident will generate a firestorm. Certainly, Turkey will break cooperation with Israel. Opinion in Europe will likely harden. And public opinion in the United States — by far the most important in the equation — might shift to a "plague-on-both-your-houses" position.

While the international reaction is predictable, the interesting question is whether this evolution will cause a political crisis in Israel. Those in Israel who feel that international isolation is preferable to accommodation with the Palestinians are in control now. Many in the opposition see Israel's isolation as a strategic threat. Economically and militarily, they argue, Israel cannot survive in isolation. The current regime will respond that there will be no isolation. The flotilla aimed to generate what the government has said would not happen.

The tougher Israel is, the more the flotilla's narrative takes hold. As the Zionists knew in 1947 and the Palestinians are learning, controlling public opinion requires subtlety, a selective narrative and cynicism. As they also knew, losing the battle can be catastrophic. It cost Britain the Mandate and allowed Israel to survive. Israel's enemies are now turning the tables. This maneuver was far more effective than suicide bombings or the Intifada in challenging Israel's public perception and therefore its geopolitical position (though if the Palestinians return to some of their more distasteful tactics like suicide bombing, the Turkish strategy of portraying Israel as the instigator of violence will be undermined).

Israel is now in uncharted waters. It does not know how to respond. It is not clear that the Palestinians know how to take full advantage of the situation, either. But even so, this places the battle on a new field, far more fluid and uncontrollable than what went before. The next steps will involve calls for sanctions against Israel. The Israeli threats against Iran will be seen in a different context, and Israeli portrayal of Iran will hold less sway over the world.

And this will cause a political crisis in Israel. If this government survives, then Israel is locked into a course that gives it freedom of action but international isolation. If the government falls, then Israel enters a period of domestic uncertainty. In either case, the flotilla achieved its strategic mission. It got Israel to take violent action against it. In doing so, Israel ran into its own fist.

Tell STRATFOR What You Think For Publication Not For Publication

Read What Others Think Reader Comments

 

Reprinting or republication of this report on websites is authorized by prominently displaying the following sentence at the beginning or end of the report, including the hyperlink to STRATFOR:

"This report is republished with permission of STRATFOR"

http://tinyurl.com/2e97see