The Balkans 25 yrs After Dayton

Vital Interests: The Balkans conflict of 1992 to 1995 ended with the Dayton Accords. Could you provide a summary of what the Dayton Accords were intended to achieve and, as we approach the 25th anniversary of those accords, where things stand today? Did the Dayton Accords bring an enduring peace to this region or are there still issues to be concerned about?

Edward P. Joseph:  Let me try and put your comment into some context. With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the demise of communism, it became an open question: what would come next? Yugoslavia was the principal case study for this challenge when all of a sudden the prevailing authority, the Titoist, post-World War II communist state, which was made of six constituent republics, was presented a new reality, "Hey, we’re going to be democratic."

The concept of rule under a communist party, a single communist party, with all of us as Yugoslavs first and foremost, that was gone and what would come in its place? 

Unfortunately, Yugoslavia, for several reasons, collapsed violently. Bosnia was the most violent of the cases, but not the only one. Croatia had a bloody conflict between Croats and Serbs. Kosovo also saw violence in 1999 and remains to this day unresolved.  The Republic of Kosovo declared independence in 2008, with United States backing, but is still not recognized by Serbia, Russia or even the United Nations. 

Macedonia had conflict in 2001 which was resolved with very agile outside diplomacy from the United States, France and NATO only just recently. They resolved in a brilliant fashion its long-standing conflict with Greece over identity issues that go all the way back to the Greek Civil War right after World War II. 

This was an area was rife with conflict. The U.S. played a critical role with the Dayton Accords in resolving all of these conflicts, including, Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo and Macedonia.

VI: The purpose of the Dayton Accords was, first of all, to have a ceasefire and then to work out an agreement between the conflicting parties. A NATO peacekeeping force was brought into the region, international trainers created police forces, and monitors supervised elections. Has this proved to be a successful intervention that validated the Dayton intention?

Edward P. Joseph: It was a successful exercise if we take Richard Holbrooke and the words of his memoir literally. The late Richard Holbrooke was the architect of the Dayton Accords. The title of his book was To End the War. It was meant to be more than a ceasefire. It was meant to permanently end the conflict. The Dayton Accords included, in fact, the constitution. Bosnia's constitution is, incorporated as an annex to the Dayton Accords. 

The problem is that the Accords have turned out to be an enduring ceasefire, not a structure for lasting peace. Not that the parties are prepared to again take up arms against each other but the vision of Dayton as an effective solution that would lead to the birth of a new country has not been the outcome. There is little evidence of Serbs, Croats and Bosniaks (the Bosnian Muslims) working and cooperating together in one state - Bosnia Herzegovina.

That has not worked out. The country remains extremely polarized. We should be clear here, before someone says, "Well, you see, they just can't get along. It doesn't work," that there was substantial progress in implementing the Dayton Accords, not immediately, but in the early 2000’s.

There was a High Representative, an appointed senior representative of the international community, who had, in those days, real powers. A former British politician, military officer, and diplomat named Paddy Ashdown was tremendously effective in utilizing these powers in the Teddy Roosevelt fashion of walking softly but carrying a big stick. He goaded the parties, he didn't force them to do things, but he goaded the parties into cooperating, into making unprecedented steps towards forging a state. Ashdown's influence led to great progress in Bosnia up until 2006 when, of course, he had to step down.

His successor was Christian Schwarz-Schilling, a German politician, who was convinced that Ashdown had gone too far and was too assertive in his approach. Rather than slowly scale back, this High Representative came in and announced, ahead of time, tipping off all those who opposed the progress that the state of Bosnia-Herzegovina was making, that, "I am not going to intervene. It's up to you all.”

This gave the green light to the Serbs, the party with the least interest in building a state and the most interest in continuing their war aims of seceding from the country. What we've seen isn't that the Dayton Accords never worked. There were flaws to the Dayton Accords - no doubt about it. There were serious flaws, but there was also significant progress until 2006. Since then, it has gone steadily downhill in Bosnia, with greater and greater distance between those three constituent people, the Serbs, the Croats and the Bosniaks, with the Serbs continuing to press their case for outright secession from the country which would, in fact, spark a new conflict.

VI: What overriding authority was in charge of these High Representatives? Was it the European Union? Was it NATO? Who was watching and directing them?

Edward P. Joseph: The overriding authority is known as the Peace Implementation Council, or the PIC. This is a coalition of countries that supports Bosnia-Herzegovina. It includes, of course, the United States, all of the NATO allies, and Russia as well as countries that have not joined NATO. It even includes some countries that are not in Europe or in North America, such as Japan. Countries that have contributed a lot and it is the Peace Implementation Council, the PIC, that is the overall guardian of the Dayton Accords.

We should also point out that the Dayton Accords were signed not only by the three wartime leaders of Bosnia-Herzegovina but also by the two very important neighboring countries, Croatia and Serbia, both of whom had active roles in the war, in the terrible war, in Bosnia-Herzegovina. They also have formal responsibilities towards supporting the state of Bosnia-Herzegovina, but they do not live up to these formal responsibilities.

VI: This PIC, Peace Implementation Council, does that entity have a time frame? Does that time out, or does that keep going?

Edward P. Joseph: There's no time frame for the PIC, it is the body that has permanent oversight authority with respect to the Dayton Accords. Bosnia-Herzegovina is a sovereign country, but it is a divided country. It remains outside of the European Union. It remains outside of NATO. It is conflicted in its foreign policy. It's completely conflicted, for example, with respect to Kosovo and with respect to NATO, due to the Serbs veto. The problem with uncertainty in Bosnia- Herzegovina is that this incites tensions between Croats and Bosniaks, who at the end of the war formed an alliance to defeat the Serbs.

Essentially, all the peoples of the Balkans desire to rule themselves and be in their own state which is not possible.  Not everyone can have their own state, but they see what the Serbs have done. They see that the Serbs got their own entity out of Dayton. Basically, they got rewarded for all the terrible ethnic cleansing that they had done. They don't have an entity, and yet they see that there is little progress in their own relationship with the Bosniaks. The more that the Serbs incite towards secession, the more tension it brings to what is known as the federation of the Croats and the Bosniaks.

The country is increasingly divided and polarized. It's not that it's just in a stand still. It's actually politically gotten worse and you can imagine which also bears heavily on the economic situation. There is very high unemployment, very low foreign investment. The business climate is very poor, young Bosnians of all three communities just want to leave and many have left - tens of thousands have left.

To sum it up, we have a success of the Dayton Accord in that, as Holbrooke's memoir stated, ended the war. It really has not given us a peace, however, partly because the Dayton agreement itself has its own flaws but also because serious mistakes were made in implementing it.

VI: What is the role of outside players? Certainly the European Union is involved. The United States seems to have stepped back, but what about Russia and Turkey? The Balkans have always been in Turkey’s sphere of influence, especially the southern part.  Russia has always had a close relationship with the Serbs.

Edward P. Joseph: This is absolutely true, in both cases, Turkey and Russia are key players. But just as I said with the Dayton agreement, when people say, "Oh, it never worked" and "Oh, they were destined to be at loggerheads.” Not true. It’s the same with Russia and Turkey, people might think, "Oh, they were always going to be meddling, they always have." Not true. Russia actually cooperated with the United States in the early years after the Dayton agreement.

Then, its diplomats worked with the U.S. there. Of course, with their close relationship with the Serbs, they could be very helpful in encouraging the Serbs to comply and to implement portions of the agreement that they didn't like. Same with Turkey. Turkey was very responsible, prior to Erdogan, was a very responsible party that also encouraged its most influential community there, the Bosniak Muslims, encouraged them to comply and to cooperate.

That all changed with the rise of Vladimir Putin in Russia and Erdogan in Turkey. The policies of both countries have changed - both have brought malign influence. It’s much more serious in the case of Russia. Not that Turkey has been a benign force, particularly in recent years, but it is nowhere near the role that Russia has played with the Bosnian Serbs, also in Serbia as well.

Putin was trying to create the myth that only Russia understands the Serbs. This type of Russian involvement is taking place in other places in Europe, in Hungary and in other countries. Russia meddles in the Balkans. Its most serious meddling came in 2017 in Montenegro when it actually attempted to mount a coup against President Đukanović to prevent Montenegro from joining NATO.

Russia is deeply involved in meddling with money and with political support for Milorad Dodik as well. He is the Bosnian Serb leader., They have encouraged him to be obstructive and to advance his case for secession and to back Belgrade's position on not recognizing Kosovo and, in general, to foment a nationalistic anti-Europe and anti-NATO attitude in Serbia as well.

VI: Is Russia also arming these factions there? Do they provide weapons and military training?

Edward P. Joseph: There have been reports that Russia has actually trained some paramilitaries in Bosnia and they do, they absolutely provide weapons overtly to Serbia. Recently there was a deal to sell aircraft to Serbia.

When it comes to the Balkans, Russia is in the financial sphere, it is in the political sphere, and it's also in the military sphere. Russia has opened a base in Serbia supposedly for “humanitarian relief” but it is widely thought to be an intelligence collection center and also a base for potential military activity not too far from Kosovo.

VI: This is a basic security threat for NATO. Can NATO do anything? Do they issue statements about this? Do they try to confront Russia, or do they just see this as something they just can't get involved in any more than they are?

Edward P. Joseph: It's less of a direct military threat to NATO because this isn't the Ukraine. I don't want to make it out to be like the Ukraine, where there's an active, overt military threat as we saw with their takeover of Crimea and like you have in eastern Ukraine. This is a different sort. It's primarily a political effort by Russia. It's an opportunistic effort by Russia to try to complicate the western project for the region, which is, of course, to bring all these countries into the European Union and NATO, that is if they want.

Obviously Serbia and Bosnia, because of the Bosnian-Serb entity there, are reluctant after the 1999 NATO bombing that was done over Kosovo. Russia's main effort is to thwart the Western integration of former Yugoslavia into Euro-Atlantic institutions, principally NATO and the European Union. Again, just as in Hungary. We should be clear about Russia's objectives and even its tactics. It isn't that Russia is trying to win. It's not that Russia is trying to go there and say, "Oh, you have to be with us. You have to be with us."

They would like that, ideally, but really the main Russian objective, their tactic, is simply to sow confusion, to sow doubt in a liberal democracy, to sow resentment, and foment unrest. Russia believes it wins as long as it complicates and makes it harder for these countries to move into the Western sphere. They were very hopeful and very concerned about Montenegro because that is a country that has a warm-water port.

There was talk of a Russian base in Montenegro and lots of Russians have bought real estate. There was a real Russian stake. There is also an Orthodox Slav connection, just as in Serbia. They have an Orthodox Slav kinship. 

It is important for readers to know that Russia has been dealt some severe setbacks in the Balkans - in Montenegro. The people stood up to Russian efforts and now the country is a very proud, very strong member of NATO - despite that incident where President Trump shoved the Montenegrin Prime Minister aside at the NATO summit and then said that they're aggressive.

Montenegro is now a staunch new member of the NATO Alliance. Russia also failed to stop the agreement between two other Orthodox countries with whom they have a very close relationship, Macedonia and Greece. Both, again, are Orthodox Christian countries. They share that bond and yet both of them stood up to Russian meddling. Greece, which has had great relations with Russia over the years, expelled Russian diplomats as did Macedonia, now called North Macedonia. Both of them expelled Russian diplomats and angrily made it clear that they would not be cowed or intimidated by Russian attempts to undermine their agreement.

VI: Now that's a very interesting statement. In all of this, was the United States at all involved in helping these countries stand up against Russia?

Edward P. Joseph: The answer is yes. That's an important question because even the Trump administration, with all of the bizarre praise that President Trump gives to President Putin. Even with that, the US has been productively involved. Of course, it's complicated because of this unprecedented strange posture of the President of the United States now, but the actual policy in the Balkans, in some ways, has been actually like Ukraine. American policy, other than these very troublesome zigzags, has been to stand up against Russia in the region.

There was a lot of support that was given to Macedonia and Greece to encourage them to make this deal, for Macedonia, now North Macedonia, to become a member of NATO. The U.S. Senate just last week overwhelmingly ratified North Macedonia's admission to NATO and hopefully very soon North Macedonia will become a member of NATO. The U.S. has been very supportive of this.

The United States has continued to try, perhaps not as energetically as in years past, but has generally tried to help promote unity in Bosnia-Herzegovina and to stand up to these very dangerous pronouncements regarding succession by the Bosnia-Serb leader Milorad Dodik. There has generally been a continuation of the policy. The real question is now, what is going to happen now on the most serious question of the Balkans, which is Serbia and Kosovo.

There has been a dialogue that the Europeans have opened, with strong U.S. backing, that happened under the Obama administration. There's now a much more intensive effort to try to broker an agreement. But the Trump administration did a very strange thing which people have not really been able to figure out. A few months ago, an experienced State Department foreign service officer was appointed special representative for the region, principally to help with these very serious discussions between Serbia and Kosovo about how to finally resolve that dispute.

Then suddenly, within weeks of that appointment, a political appointee, the U.S. Ambassador to Germany, Richard Grenell, was suddenly named to be the special envoy on Serbia and Kosovo, completely displacing the state department official who had just been named. There is a lot of speculation about this individual who is, again, a political appointee, currently very close to the President, and there are a lot of questions about what the agenda might be.

It's too soon to know but there are indications and some concern about a potential deal to divide Kosovo, to split the country and territory which, of course, would have very big ramifications for the region, including Bosnia.

VI: This has been an extremely interesting conversation, you have brought us up-to-date on the continuing challenges in the Balkans. Certainly the 2020 presidential candidates should be paying attention to developments there. This could immediately be on the agenda as a potentially new administration takes office in January of 2021.

Edward P. Joseph: That's true.

Addendum

VI: Shortly after our initial interview President Macron of France made a controversial decision to block North Macedonia and Albania from opening EU accession talks.  Macron then explained his decision in an interview with The Economist where he termed NATO 'brain dead.'  How serious is this and what are the implications for the US?

Edward P. Joseph:  What President Macron has done, and said, is quite serious and quite damaging.  As a senior U.S. diplomat put it, Macron's decision to block North Macedonia and Albania from opening accession talks with the EU was "a historic mistake."  At the same time, it makes a mockery of Macron's whole 'brain dead' critique of NATO, wherein he argues that Europe must come up with its own independent security pillar because it can no longer rely on the United SStates, and therefore, NATO.  

What Macron forgets is that the Balkans are 'Exhibit A' of Europe's inherent inability to deal with its own security problems.  The U.S. - under every President from G.H.W. Bush to Clinton to W. to Obama to Trump - has always wanted Europe to deal with the politico-security challenge of the Balkans.  And Europe's consistent inability to do this is what has brought the US in, reluctantly. Europe's inability is what brought NATO in to end the Bosnia war, the Kosovo crisis and the incipient Macedonia war.  NATO deployments in these three countries secured the peace. NATO troops, including U.S. troops, are still on the ground as the guarantors in Kosovo.

And now Macron claims that Europe has to regain its "military sovereignty" and again become a "global power."  And yet Macron turns his back on the one area of Europe - the Balkans - where it has again and again proven its impotence and demonstrated its total dependence on the U.S.

VI:  Can you explain that?  What was Macron's recent decision on North Macedonia and Albania, and how does that undermine his critique of NATO?

Edward P. Joseph:  Of course.  Let's be very clear about the "historic" failure of Macron, as the U.S. diplomat aptly put it.  Since the bloody collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990's and early 2000's, the Western strategy has been very clear: use the attraction of NATO and EU membership to get the countries to make difficult internal reforms, which will improve their governance, their economies and their societies, making it less likely that they will again go into war.  This strategy has worked remarkably well; even the specter of Brexit, the financial crisis and other European calamities have not stemmed the core interest of Balkan states to join the EU.

There are requirements, of course.  But when the countries meet them, as North Macedonia and Albania have, then it is imperative -- imperative -- to honor the commitment by advancing them to the next stage.  In this case, that is 'opening negotiations to join the EU.' This is still far short of membership; it is the intensification of the process, where the countries must make 'chapter by chapter' reforms in key sectors like rule of law or agriculture.  In North Macedonia's case, the country had an additional burden -- to overcome the objection of its neighbor, Greece, to its name. After months of difficult negotiations, the courageous Macedonian leader agreed to a breakthrough with his Greek counterpart to end a bitter conflict decades in the making.

NATO is rewarding the Macedonian sacrifice by advancing the country to membership; the U.S. Senate recently approved this.  But the EU accession milestone has been blocked by France, angering other European states, including Germany, and even Greece which now strongly supports its neighbor's bid.

To make matters worse, Macron poured oil on the fire by suggesting that Bosnia is full of jihadists -- a gross exaggeration and one that unscrupulous Serb leaders like to use.  This has caused outrage in Bosnia, whose leaders point out that far more jihadists for ISIS came from France than from tiny Bosnia.

 In sum, Macron has shown himself to be just as impulsive, incoherent, and unrealistic as some other world leaders.  The truth is that he has made it harder -- not easier -- for France to deal with the political and security challenges of the Balkans.  The notion of Europe as not needing NATO is even more farcical thanks to Macron's positions.

Edward P. Joseph is a foreign policy specialist, writer/lecturer and field practitioner who has served in some of the toughest locations in the world.  Edward spent over a dozen years in the Balkans, including the war years in Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo and Macedonia, as well as shorter stints in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, and Haiti. In April 2012, as Deputy Head of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo, he negotiated an eleventh hour breakthrough on Serbian elections that averted a brewing crisis between Serbia and Kosovo.  Secretary of State Hillary Clinton issued written acknowledgement of Edward’s standout contribution. During the war in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Edward served in a number of isolated, besieged locations including the Zepa ‘safe area’ near Srebrenica where, in July 1995, Edward and a UN colleague coordinated the evacuation of thousands of Bosnian Muslim women, children and wounded men.  His work required face-to-face dealings with indicted war criminal General Ratko Mladic.  Edward has twice testified before the Hague Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia.  Edward’s reports for the International Crisis Group in Macedonia broke new ground on the link between corruption and conflict, as well as on the name issue with Greece. Edward brought his extensive field experience to Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Washington where he teaches conflict management and writes and speaks extensively on foreign policy issues.