How important is the Balkans to the US? How likely is it that the US will find itself in a situation where it needs Russia very badly in the near future?

The two guys you want to keep an eye on are Nicholas Burns — #3 at State, and the highest ranking non-partisan appointee — and Daniel Fried.

You can find an interesting recent interview with Fried here:

http://pristina.usmission.gov/pressr/prs89.htm

* * * * *

Question: Loose ends from the ’90s, Kosovo. What happens next?

Fried: Well, I’ll tell you what can’t happen, which is the status quo forever. It’s not stable. It won’t keep. It won’t get better by itself. Some problems just don’t improve with age. The UN, with our backing, has launched a process to determine, this year, Kosovo’s final status.

Question: This year?

Fried: This year. Former President of Finland, Maarti Ahtisaari, is negotiating this. None of the options is ideal. We lost ideal options when Slobodan Milosevic decided to try out aggressive nationalism for political gain and he started a series of wars.

We can’t go back. We can’t stay where we are. We’ve got to go ahead. It’s not fore-ordained what the outcome will be, but there are a couple of parameters. I don’t foresee Kosovo being ruled again by Belgrade. They’re not going back to the pre-1999 era. The administration doesn’t see a Kosovo without guarantees for a minority population, which means the Kosovo Serbs. They have to have protection, the Serb communities there plus the monasteries, the historic sites. There have to be arrangements for so-called decentralization to give Serb communities daily control over their own lives, police, education. These things can be worked out.

Frankly, Serbia has to be offered a path to Europe. It can’t be sort of hung out to dry as a pariah. Milosevic is dead. There’s a democratic government in Belgrade. What happened in Kosovo is not their fault. These are the people who, by and large, helped overthrow Milosevic.

There are risks when you move ahead. Any time you change the status quo, there are risks. In the Balkans, changing the status quo has high risks, but we found out there were riots in March ’04, which sort of woke everybody up. You can’t go on like this, so we are going to move ahead. We’re working with the British, French, Germans, Italians and Russians in the so-called Contact Group. It’s not going to be easy, but the Kosovo issue is the last open question in the Balkans. If we get it right, then the whole region can start moving to Europe.

Question: I have to ask you, what do you see as prospects? Is this doable?

Fried: Well, sure. It’s doable.

Question: By the end of the year?

Fried: It is doable by the end of the year. It will be difficult and, as I said, there are risks, but the risks of inaction we know, which is that you have a deteriorating situation and then people like yourselves would write, “Why didn’t the administration do something when it had the chance?” [Laughter.] You’d be right. [Laughter.] But you’d be right to do that.

Sometimes, the U.S. government actually is capable, we think ahead, we see a problem coming, we take steps to try to avert it.

Question: God forbid. No.

Fried: That’s our job.

Question: But you think it’s doable?

Fried: I think it’s doable. I don’t think it’s easy. I think that the Serbs, it is painful for them, but it’s not the present Serbian government that is responsible for this wretched situation. It’s Milosevic. The Kosovar Albanians also have a responsibility. They have to treat the Serb minority population better than they were treated. They have to demonstrate that they deserve – they claim the right of independence and, in our view, independence has to be earned and has to be based on their achieving and making commitments to achieving European norms. It’s not going to be easy, but we’ve got to do it.

* * * * *

That was a couple of months ago.

If you read the whole thing, you’ll notice Fried downplaying differences between Europe and the US. That’s interesting. (Even if he’s lying his ass off. /Especially/ if he’s lying his ass off.)

Doug M.

Doug, I don’t know about unit size, but hasn’t the US military presence in Kosovo been scaled down considerably? I thought the largest contingents were now Italian, German and French, in that order, with the US only having something like 1700 troops left there..

Most of that is coming either through the UN or bilateral donors. The sums involved are — in international donor terms — chump change. A few hundred million a year, spread out over a lot of donor countries.

I agree about the overall scale, but I thought the donor contributions coming in have been mainly from EU countries, mostly under EU auspices. Over €1.6 billion to date from the EAR, for instance. It’s the EU that pays those KEK wage bills and refurbished the plant.

The point of this niggle is to ask whether you think there is any divergence in US and EU policies over a settlement. My general impression is that Europeans, notably France and Germany, are more understanding towards the Serb position, just as they were keener on keeping at least some bridges over the Danube still standing. The EU has some pull with the Serbs, and despite the relative financial contributions, the US has more pull with the Albanians, for whom number of bombs dropped on Serbs counts for more than amount of wages paid to Kosovars. However this influence is not much use if the US is giving the Albanians a blank check in these negotiations.

Anyway, apart from final status, there are other issues at stake – but I’m not too sure what they are in practice.

Hasn’t been so far, although of course it’s still early days.

But if I understand correctly (and it’s possible I don’t), Kostunica was saying that the Serb minority should have a veto over /all/ laws.

That’s just crazy talk.

Doug M.

I’d agree. This was supposed to wrap by the end of 2006. Now it looks likely to stretch into next year.

Kostunica didnt attend the joint lunch organised rather than walking out - though its interesting how everybody expects him to be obstuctionist and Tadic to be peacenik and favoured by the internationals.

Tadic shares the pragmatic philosophy of his old boss Djindjic.

Also, he’s in a better position than Kostunica. He’s not in danger of losing his job in the next few months. His party is in better shape going into the elections. And (for the moment, at least) he’s Serbia’s most popular national political figure. Granted, this is because most other national political figures are pretty _un_popular right now… but still; he can afford to be relaxed.

Kostunica on the other hand has that trademark bitter smile etched onto his face.

I used to live around the corner from Kostunica, in Dorcol. We never met, but you had to respect the fact that he never moved to Dedinje.

He’s a stubborn man.

Doug M.

Oooh boy.

Doug M.”

That is precisely what the solution that was imposed in Macedonia for the Albanian minority.

This week this was repeated by Croatian PM Sanader.

I’d say that those that wanted to finish off Kosovo independence by the end of the Summer are beginning to realise that it wont be that simple.

BTW I read that Kostunica didnt attend the joint lunch organised rather than walking out - though its interesting how everybody expects him to be obstuctionist and Tadic to be peacenik and favoured by the internationals.

The body language though confirms the image - Tadic seems very much at the centre of things and almost appears to be enjoying himself. Kostunica on the other hand has that trademark bitter smile etched onto his face.

The lines drawn as expected. Albanians all about independence, Serbs will never accept it.

One interesting twist: Kostunica wants a fixed minimum number of seats for the Serbs in Kosovo’s legislature. Reasonable enough.

But — he then adds that no law should pass without the consent of a majority of that minority.

Oooh boy.

Doug M.

True; but Serbia is in Year 6 of transition, not Year 14 or Year 17.

there are larger molehills of anti-Serbian sentiment than there ever were of anti-Croatian sentiment.

Actually, I agree with this. The Serbs have a deeper hole to dig themselves out of.

But it’s very doable IMO. From 1990 to 1996, Montenegro was Serbia’s junior partner in every dubious enterprise. Ethnic cleansing, mass murder, you name it, there were Montenegrins right in the thick. Nobody’s bringing that up today; it’s all “welcome Europe’s newest country”.

I could easily imagine a scenario where, five years from now, Serbia has mostly shed its reputation. I don’t think it’s likely, but I definitely think it’s possible.

It would be nice to get them something better than one last humiliation.

You could argue that Serbia today has to cash a check written by Milosevic.

What’s the alternative? Keep Kosovo under the UN? Um. Give it back to Belgrade? I think not.

Doug M.