PRISTINA, Kosovo — For centuries, dark forces of history have found the Balkans a suitable proxy region for unleashing grand plans for global prominence and competition. Now, after two decades of stability and prospects for a prosperous future, Serbia again is returning to an old vocation — seeking regional hegemony. It is doing so by destabilizing the Balkans, expanding its own military and working toward economic dominance of a regional common market that Kosovo finds unacceptable and strongly opposes — all of this with Russia looking over Serbia’s shoulder.
Russia is clearly using Serbia not just to regain a foothold in the Balkans, but also to seek vengeance on NATO, the United States and the West with schemes to restore the regional prominence it lost when the Soviet empire collapsed.
Serbia has not yet recognized the independence that Kosovo won a decade ago as a result of a liberation war, backed by NATO in 1999, to avert a genocidal catastrophe supported by Serbia’s despotic leader at the time, Slobodan Milosevic.
Now, in their presidential election on April 2, Serbians have not only endorsed a nationalist government that continues to defy Kosovo’s independence; they have also provided a needed victory for Russia, which only days before had authorized a new shipment of fighter jets and battle tanks for Serbia, obviously to help it regain power in the Balkans.
Serbia’s new president, Aleksandar Vucic, had campaigned from his former post as prime minister on the false premise that he wanted Serbia only to join the European Union and be a good neighbor to all. Nothing could be farther from the truth. While Serbia has opened talks to join the European Union, what we know and see is a Serbia moving day by day away from democratic Europe’s core principles. Serbia’s rapprochement with Russia clearly demonstrates a desire not for solidarity with the European Union, but rather for domination of the Balkans in Russian style — achieved by instigating instability to claim power in the name of restoring stability.
In this pursuit, Serbia can therefore be expected to create, at Russia’s behest, a sphere of influence by exploiting and inciting Serb minorities in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Montenegro and, to an extent, Croatia and Macedonia — leaving them weak states to dominate while it pursues entry to the European Union just when the union is preoccupied by internal challenges of its own and the international order itself is exposed to multiple uncertainties.
While Kosovo is a target of Serbia because it represents freedom from Serb occupation, it is also a humiliating reminder to Russia of the days when, at the end of the 1999 war, its forces tried to occupy the Pristina International Airport only to be confronted and superseded by NATO troops. Its efforts to control an entire sector of Kosovo went unheeded as well, and NATO protects Kosovo to this day.
Serbia’s strategy against Kosovo is to use the minority Serb population here to oppose institutions and provoke tensions. The tactics include disinformation campaigns, trying to arrest or extradite Kosovar citizens and political leaders, and dispatching a train into Kosovo emblazoned with signs reading “Kosovo is Serbia.” When Kosovo halted that train, Serbia threatened to send its army into Kosovo.
Serbia maintains illegal parallel agencies to serve Serbs within Kosovo’s territory, harming domestic sovereignty and impeding the integration of Kosovo’s Serbs. It uses its official visits to Kosovo to propagandize and spread ethnic antagonism. It promoted the building of a wall in Mitrovica, to physically split that mixed-population northern city along ethnic lines; the barrier was finally removed at the Kosovo government’s insistence.
Similar provocative acts, backed by Russia, have taken place in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Montenegro, which experienced a failed coup attempt that would have shaken that country’s democratic institutions and prevented Montenegro from membership in NATO, a process now underway.
The most worrisome development is Serbia’s rapid militarization, with Russia supplying air defense systems and other sophisticated military equipment. Serbia’s expanded military serves as a tool for pre-emptive coercion of its neighbors while Russia asserts its own influence in the region.
These dangerous geopolitical games come at a time when Balkan nations should be on a path of stability and progress. Instead, Serbia is blocking that path. During a meeting of the Western Balkans prime ministers last month in Sarajevo, a common market in the Balkans was proposed. But regional economic integration would not be viable until Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina recognize Kosovo’s independence and accept its equal participation and representation in all regional bodies.
Serbia’s aggressive policies, then, fundamentally deviate from any genuine commitment to normalize relations with Kosovo. They run counter to European integration and pose a new security threat for all countries in the Western Balkans.
Why has Serbia returned to its old belligerent habits? In addition to its collaboration with Russia, it has never dealt properly with its genocidal past. Serbia remains unwilling to deal with the war crimes of the Milosevic regime, with which many of Serbia’s current nationalist leaders were associated. Their denials of responsibility for war crimes in Kosovo only entrench a culture of impunity, which in turn encourages Serbia to increase its military power, defy any European integration path and fulfill its role as Russia’s advance guard.
Our region’s security cannot be guaranteed by flaunting military strength and ensnaring countries. It can be guaranteed only by a joint commitment to Euro-Atlantic integration and democratic peace.
It is important, then, for all to see Serbia as it is, not as it pretends to be. It is important to see Russia’s use of Serbia in its grand scheme to regain power. Both countries’ provocations toward the region cannot be minimized or ignored. Those acts pose the most serious threat not only to the region, but also to international peace and security.
Despite these threats, Kosovo remains committed to the normalization of relations with Serbia, facilitated by the European Union and supported by the United States. This is the way to promote cooperation — two sovereign countries reaching toward Euro-Atlantic integration and improving the lives of their peoples.
Yet Serbia continues to seek expansion beyond its borders, and the international community must be prepared to take necessary measures for the region’s peace and stability. Russia not only supports Serbia’s ambitions; it also underwrites them. Russia has never been welcomed as a broker to the Balkans.
The United States and the European Union are invested in promoting democracy, reconstruction and human security, while Russia invests in promoting authoritarianism, destruction and human insecurity. It is incumbent, then, for the United States, the European Union and NATO to implement all necessary peaceful and preventive measures to maintain security and stability in the Balkans. NATO’s continued presence in Kosovo is critical not only to Kosovo but also to the entire region.
The very best of the democratic world’s preventive diplomacy will be called upon to allow the Balkans to pass the last milestone toward a sustained peace and prevent a victory for the region’s darkest forces.