President Trump’s First Foreign Policy Crisis: Balkan War Drums Beat Again

Source: Observer | January 25, 2017 | John R. Schindler

Vladimir Putin views Western intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo as an affront to the Slavic Orthodox world—and he plans on revenge

In the decade-and-a-half of war in far-flung places since the 9/11 attacks on our country, it’s easy to forget how much time Western spies, soldiers and diplomats spent in the 1990s trying to save the Balkans from themselves. After Yugoslavia collapsed in 1991, leaving violence and turmoil in its wake, it fell to NATO, led by the United States, to sort out that ugly mess. Now, a generation later, the temporary solutions Washington crafted are coming apart, and war may be returning to Europe’s unstable Southeast.

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Since the testy relationship between the country’s Serbs and the Muslim-dominated government in Sarajevo is exactly the same issue which plunged the country into civil war and genocide back in 1992, Dodik’s moves demonstrate how depressingly little political progress has been achieved—despite more than two decades of Western political and military intervention and billions of aid dollars spent to make Bosnia less inclined to fratricide.

Even worse is the situation in Kosovo, the former Serbian province which gained independence thanks to a 78-day NATO bombing campaign in 1999 which brought Belgrade to heel. Although most of the world recognizes Kosovo’s independence, Serbia does not. Tensions are on the rise thanks to Belgrade’s mounting provocations. Serbia is pushing for independence for Kosovo’s north, which includes many Serbs (more than nine out of 10 of Kosovo’s 1.9 million people are Albanians, while four percent are Serbs, most of living them in the north around the city of Mitrovica, close to Serbia).

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What Putin wants in the Balkans seems plain enough, namely political chaos that will distract the West, which made itself the region’s ward in the 1990s. He will happily risk a local war to achieve that, since it won’t be Russians doing most of the dying. The political solutions crafted by NATO a generation ago are increasingly frail, and Moscow plans to reap its reward. Putin, like many Russians, views Western intervention in Bosnia and Kosovo as an affront to the Slavic Orthodox world, and he plans on revenge.

Right now, NATO is deploying troops in Poland and the Baltics to deter Russian adventurism, as I’ve been counseling for years, but Kremlin saber-rattling in 2017 to test the Alliance’s resolve may instead come in the Balkans, where states are weak and Western control looks shaky. Given how terrifically badly things went the last time Russian intelligence aided and abetted clandestine Serbian machinations in Bosnia, the United States and our European allies need to urgently calm down Southeastern Europe before its problems get out of hand and mass violence returns to that perennially troubled region.

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