The Future of Kosovo

It was a busy weekend for Kosovo related business. On Saturday, following talks with Italy's Prime Minister Romano Prodi, George Bush expressed his administration's support for a quick resolution of Kosovo's status despite Serbian and Russian opposition. The next day, Serbia's Prime Minister was in Moscow getting guarantees from Vladimir Putin that Russia would indeed veto any UN Security Council Resolution that would pave the way for Kosovo to become independent. The guarantees were duly given as Russia, which until a few months ago was non-committal about its policy towards Kosovo, expressly rejected the idea that any solution could be imposed without Belgrade's consent. Bush then arrived in Tirana and reiterated his support for Kosovo's independence.

There are several problems with these developments. Belgrade's stance, expressed today, that the status of Kosovo is in the hands on the UN and not the US shows a fundamental misunderstanding of the situation multiplied by wishful thinking. With such wide ranging support within the EU for Kosovo's independence, a US recognition of an independent Kosovo would be followed by the EU (despite the fact that not all EU states are favourable to this - flashback to 1991-2) and probably a number of other nations around the world, giving Kosovo enough legitimacy and leaving Serbia between the rock and the hard place. Does it tacitly accept the situation while continuing to claim sovereignty? Does Belgrade severe ties with those that have infringed upon its sovereignty? The most unlikely option is one of using force, but Belgrade still had the capacity to create trouble in Northern Kosovo, which could in turn declare independence. This is far from a satisfactory resolution. And it seems to me that the US has not thought this one through.

The current problem is a US creation. Not in the sense that the US created the Kosovo problem itself (I think that we can all agree where that came from), but its push for a speedy resolution of the status will lead to further instability in the Balkans. Frustration with the potential for further negotiations is understadable but rushing might lead to further conflict. Secondly, the US is undermining the basis of the international society - sovereignty. While this contested concept has changed since the early 1990s, it nevertheless continues to be the building block of relations between states. Already the idea that the UNSC had the power to change territorial boundaries is a serious challenge to the system. The idea that one should begin to recognize territorial entities seriously challenges previously accepted approaches to the problem of self-determination. And it creates a precedent. And despite claims to contrary. This is why developments in Kosovo are closely watched by Transdnietria, Abkhazia and other break-away territories.

There is another interesting question. What about China? It has remained quiet and Belgrade, in another sign of the political immaturity that continued to reign there has not courted it to the extent that it should. Because if abuses of human rights are a basis for self-determination, China should be worried and could be as natural an ally as Moscow is.

Grand Strategy - further reading

Unit 2.9 seems to have generated a lot of discussion on the meaning of grand strategy. I wonder whether the thrust of the discussion would have been different had the question read "Are the setbacks for the West in the Third World during this period best explained on their own terms, or as part of a Soviet strategy?", dropping the grand part of it. Most of the students seem to have taken the view that the "grand strategy" in question needed to cover the Cold War as a whole, rather than just the Third World, which made for some interesting debate, as well as some racing analogies.

Having failed miserably to post in WebCT for the past 2 1/2 hours - the system does not allow me to - I thought I should point those of you interested in taking the debate further to Paul Kennedy's Grand Strategies in War and Peace. You can find an excerpt on Amazon.com.

How does his definition fit with your understanding of the term?

Lessons of the Milosevic Trial

Yesterday, Human Rights Watch published a new report on the Milosevic trial. Although the trial could not be completed due to the defendant's death, HRW rightly points out that there have been positive aspects of the trial, and more importantly that lessons could still be learned for future cases. I have not read the whole report, but I get the sense that overall they have got things right (I don't always agree with HRW). The most significant contribution of the Milosevic trial was the historical record, something that often gets overlooked when discussing international criminal justice. The prosecution, despite the many slip ups, has been quite successful in presenting evidence of Belgrade's involvement in the war in Bosnia and Croatia. Whether this evidence would have been enough to convict Slobo will never be known, but it was put into the public domain, and contributed to the process of reconcilliation. No one in Serbia can deny the role Belgrade's security forces played in Krajina or Bosnia. One of the most poignant examples is the so-called Scorpions video, on which a paramilitary unit associated with/under the command of the Serbian Interior Ministry (MUP) executes six young Bosnian Muslim men from Srebrenica. The video had a great impact on Serbia's reconing process, and was first made public during a defence witness testimony at the Milosevic Trial. It is the best example of the impact the ICTY can and should have. The problem however is for the International Courts to capitalize on such successes - unfortunately their Outreach programmes remain a joke, and the failures of the ICTY have somehow taken root at the ICC(ok, many of its staff were previously with the ICC).

What about the lessons? They all make great sense to me, but it was not necessary to wait until the end of the trial to come up with them. HRW suggests that in future courts should:
• Ensure an adequate pretrial period for an expeditious trial in order to narrow the issues and allow all parties to fully prepare;
• Limit charges against the accused to the most serious crimes alleged, and avoid duplication;
• Limit the number of crime scenes in the trial of a high-level official;
• Require that the right to represent oneself be subject to the defendant’s ability to fulfill the role of counsel and attend court sessions regularly; and,
• While increased use of written testimony can expedite proceedings, care should be taken to ensure that observers have access to the written testimony and can follow the cross-examination.

The question is whether Prosecutors will learn them...

Second Thoughts... And a cartoon

One of my favourite blogs is America Abroad. It is written by a number of top people within the international security field, and is usually full of excellent and informed exchanges. Very difficult to keep up with, but worth a regular visit. I found this funny cartoon in one of the posts on Rummy - did you know he said he found the notion of "war on terror" problematic? A bit late to say that now, but then again, seeing how much W values loyalty and lack of dissent, it understandable - I mean, the guy kept his job until it became just absurd. I hope that some of my Conduct of Contemporary Warfare students have picked this up - quite a few are doing an essay on the topic.

Rewarding Failure and Cowardice

The Dutch Government has awarded medals to members of the Dutchbat - the Dutch peacekeeping battalion, famous for its failure to stand up to Bosnian Serb forces in Srebrenica ( see the news story). Ok, so it was not all their fault, and the mission sucked etc. But surely you should reward acts of bravery and sacrifice, rather than those that just followed orders, which resulted in the largest single massacre on European soil since World War II? Just a thought.

What happened to Channel 4 news?

Have any of you seen Channel 4 news tonight (13 Nov 06)? Ok, it only applies to those in the UK, but basically, C4 broadcast the news live from Kabul, and started off with a report on the security situation in Helmand province. And it was a strange proof of biased reporting, where by the story is there to prove a point rather than to report facts. I used to have a lot of respect for Channel 4 news, but I think that they are straying towards a US type of news reporting, heavily editorialised and biased. Shame...
I think that British troops were not given a fair coverage, while the story of the mosque is proof of the difficulty of winning the media war. If you watch the report, you will notice how heavily emotive the mosque part is, with assertions such as 'the villagers paid for the mosque themselves' etc while pictures of the destroyed mosque just tell part of the story. At the same time, the UK officer is far from convincing, not really trying to explain the destruction of a holy site (which could have been used by the Taliban as a firing position), and this could be down to him not being fully aware of the story that C4 are running. At the end of the day, the cameraman was probably local, as C4 seem to be increasingly reliant on local reporters. But the bottom line is that the report does not show the coallition in as good a light as it could. And this is down to the UK et. al. ability to manage the media. ISAF needs to get much better at winning the media campaign

Bye Bye Rumi...

Some days ago, I blogged about the likelihood of Donald Rumsfeld being replaced at the Pentagon. And what do you know, he has been replaced. This was probably expected, although it was long overdue. It would have been better for Rumsfeld himself to have resigned after the Abu Ghraib scandal. I still find it unbelievable that someone can have so little integrity and sense of responsibility! One way or the other, the architect of US failure in Iraq is gone. Pity that the consequences of his inability to understand the problem will not go away as easily.