Balkan Tango - article in Internationale Politik

Kurt Bassuener March 9th, 2010

In the February edition of the German foreign policy journal Internationale Politik’s English version, IP Global, Bodo Weber and I have written “Balkan Tango - The EU’s disjointed policies compound Bosnia’s paralysis.” In it, we argue that the international community’s policies toward Bosnia - and the EU’s in particular - are in disarray and without a strategic goal or plan.  This has accelerated Bosnia’s downward slide, which began four years ago.  To get out of this dynamic, we argue that the United States must first shift its own policy and make an effort to develop a coalition within the EU to restablilize the country, and then develop a more long-term approach.  We believe getting Germany onside is essential to developing critical mass within the EU.

The most recent Peace Implementation Council Steering Board meeting on Feb 24-25 (see the PIC Communique here) wasn’t encouraging from that persepective.  The issue of a referendum by the Republika Srpska didn’t even rate a mention in the communique, since doing so would mean a Russian footnote.  For some continental EU members, Germany prominent among them, maintaining consensus was more important that drawing the line…

Suddenly there is talk about war again - Die Zeit

Kurt Bassuener November 3rd, 2009

 (posted for Bodo Weber): 

The latest issue of the German weekly Die Zeit, published last week, carries an op-ed by me in which I argue that after the failure of the “Butmir process” initiated by  the EU’s Swedish Presidency it is time for the EU to finally take serious course in its policy towards Bosnia and that such a turn will demand Germany to take the lead. You can go to the link here for the article. An English version of the text is below.

Suddenly there is talk about war again

Die Zeit, 29.10.1009    Bodo Weber

This week the trial against Radovan Karadzic finally opened. Bosnia-Herzegovina may reach the soccer world championship in South Africa. And in all postwar countries of the former Yugoslavia, politics revolves around EU-integration. Sounds like successful calming and stabilization of Europe’s most recent theatre of war? Wrong.

High-level representatives of the European Union and the U.S. are currently en route to Bosnia-Herzegovina as crisis managers. For three and a half years ethnonationalistic rhetoric is escalating there and preventing political reform. For the first time in over a decade, the terms “war” and “violent conflict” have been resurrected in public debate. In this process Milorad Dodik, prime minister of the Republika Srpska (RS), the Serb entity in Bosnia is acting as the most vociferous agitator. He maintains an authoritarian regime with nationalistic populist speeches and regularly snubs the international community.

The international community had planned to stabilize the post-war state with the help of a semi-protectorate, but then initiated a phase-out. Its rationale: Over a decade after ending the war it was time for Bosnians and Herzegovinians to take over full responsibility for their country. From this view, the existence of international watchdogs is itself basically undemocratic. This putatively self-critical argumentation obscures two crucial problems: First, the international community wanted to get rid of the Bosnian problem child. And second, it wanted to hide the fact that at no point over the last fourteen post-war years has it developed a strategy for a long-term political stabilisation of the country without authoritarian international control.

One of the causes of the problems lies in the very Dayton-Agreement that secured the ending of the war in 1995. The Dayton post-war order has contained the aggressive effects of ethnic nationalism, it restored security and freedom of movement. The war armies have been dissolved, the military removed as a conflict factor.

But peace came at a special price: Instead of a functional Bosnian post-war state Dayton created a weak, dysfunctional and unsustainably expensive state; a complex state structure in which the constitution secures the decentralization of power and the predominance of ethnic political parties. At the same time, it sets hurdles too high for reaching substantial constitutional change from within, even though the majority of the population has long turned its back on the political elites.

The international community had tried to take corrective action through the Office of the High Representative (OHR). Its head was equipped with the authority to enforce laws or suspend them and to fire state officials whose ethnonationalistic policy and rhetoric represented a threat to Dayton. But this strengthening of the OHR was less motivated by the will to develop a real strategy for political stabilisation than by the wish to end the expensive and not very effective engagement in Bosnia in the foreseeable future.

When the U.S. took the Balkans off its top priority list after 9/11, the complete responsibility for the region fell to the EU. Without further ado, it declared the EU integration process to be the new statebuilding strategy. The High Representative additionally became the EU Special Representative for Bosnia. Europe put the EUFOR military mission in place for securing peace, thus turning Bosnia into one of the first test cases for its common European foreign and security policy. This sounded good – except for one shortfall: Brussels never had a strategic discussion on whether the prospect of EU membership could be a sufficient incentive for the local political elites in the southeast European countries (especially Bosnia) to take on the necessary economical and political reforms.

As the gap between the EU’s pretension and the Bosnian reality widened, “Bosnia-fatigue” inside the union grew. Instead of reacting politically Brussels turned on the bureaucratic autopilot and in 2006 decided to flee forward: The EU ascribed political maturity to the domestic elites and announced the imminent closure of the OHR. As the political elites’ zeal for reform vanished with the announcement of the pullout the EU dropped a central condition for signing an association agreement with Bosnia. The immediate consequences were: The expected reform dynamics did not take place. Two High Reps perished, the OHR sank into ineffectiveness. The EU lost the rest of its authority in Bosnia.

Brussels takes comfort in stating that the outbreak of a new war is unthinkable, if not for other reasons then because there do not exist ethnic armies any more. That is correct but still diverts from the real dangers. Bosnia lacks reliable state actors that could prevent an outbreak of violence.  Neither does there exist a de-politicized police nor a judiciary that could function in a way that guarantees the rule of law without external assistance. Without these instruments and a state monopoly on force, it is very realistic to imagine a local outbreak of violence as trivial as a clash between fans of two rivalling soccer teams to escalate into a regional ethnic conflict. And there is no lack of weapons in Bosnia even today.

Despite all that the EU remains politically motionless. Inside the union advocates of a harder approach (mainly Britain and the Netherlands) are standing vis-à-vis supporters of a softer course (lead by Sweden). But none of the European governments is prepared for a reinforced engagement in Bosnia. And yet the EU would neither need to reinvent the wheel nor invest additional resources. In Bosnia today, authoritarian-nationalistic forces are substantially weaker than they had been a few years ago. The recent political escalation is less the expression of a new strength of the political elites then of the power vacuum left over by the EU.

What then, should the EU do? It has to reengage. And it has to understand that both forceful interventions into the Bosnian sovereignty and the existing European military contingent will still be necessary through the course of the EU integration process. What is necessary is political will and a long-term perspective that will give the population security and curtail the elites’ space for manoeuvring and manipulation. With its current politics of ignorance, Europe risks generating considerably higher political costs in the long term.

Germany could take a leading role within the EU and thus bring the community back to a serious course in Bosnia. Both the emergence of the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy and Germany’s pretension to become a global player are inseparably linked to the Srebrenica genocide and Europe’s failure in Bosnia. That should actually be motivation enough for Germany. It remains to be seen in the upcoming weeks and months whether the new conservative-liberal government is going to move away from the Bosnia-fatigue of its predecessor. It then also remains to be seen how big the discord between pretension and reality in the German foreign policy will be.

Bodo Weber is a Berlin-based Senior Associate of the Democratization Policy Council (DPC)

EV op-ed: It’s time for a Plan B in Bosnia

Kurt Bassuener October 22nd, 2009

Today’s issue of the weekly the European Voice carries an op-ed by me in which I argue that the “Butmir process” pursued for the past two weeks in Bosnia by the EU’s Swedish Presidency and the US has failed, and for a different approach: strengthening the Dayton instruments of OHR and EUFOR and extending them until Bosnia undergoes sufficient constitutional reform to obviate the need for them.  You can go to the link here for the article.  The full text is below.

It is time for a Plan B for Bosnia
 
The international approach to Bosnia needs a strategic re-think.

For more than three years, Bosnia and Herzegovina’s political situation has been deteriorating. Fears have re-surfaced that the state may violently collapse. The international community, without a strategy for years, has responded irresolutely.
 
The international community has now re-engaged, at least. On 10 October and again on 20-21 October, Carl Bildt, Sweden’s foreign minister, Olli Rehn, the European commissioner for enlargement, and Jim Steinberg, the US deputy secretary of state, called most of Bosnia’s political party leaders together at Butmir, outside Sarajevo, where they outlined a ‘package’ of reforms necessary, as they sold it, for deeper Euro-Atlantic integration.
 
The effort, though, has failed. Most Bosnian party leaders rejected the package. And there has been collateral damage: Milorad Dodik, the prime minister of Republika Srpska, called for his largely Serb-populated region to have the right to a referendum on independence. The Butmir process further weakened the international community’s high representative, Valentin Inzko, who was relegated to the sidelines.

This highlights one of the core problems in the EU’s current approach: its fixation on the Office of the High Representative (OHR). The EU’s Swedish presidency and many EU states believe Bosnia is a ‘protectorate’ as long as there is an OHR, the peace implementation body created by the Dayton peace accords. They are categorical that they cannot negotiate with Bosnia on further steps toward the EU until the OHR is closed.

As a result, the aim of the ‘Butmir process’ appears to be more to close the OHR than to halt Bosnia’s downward political spiral.

This poses tactical problems: while Bildt seems willing to give anything away to achieve that end, Dodik seems unwilling to give anything.

But the bigger issue is that the real criterion for closing the OHR should be whether Bosnia can function as a state without it. The European Commission has, to its credit, gone some way toward defining the EU’s demands by enumerating constitutional reforms needed for Bosnia to gain candidate status. NATO too should clarify its requirements.

But Bosnia’s politicians have long shown little willingness to expend political capital to meet EU and NATO standards, a response conditioned by years of the international community fudging its own standards to create the illusion of progress. Those habits will be hard for both sides to break.

Now that the Butmir effort has clearly failed, the entire international approach must be re-thought. What key elements should a Plan B contain?

First, it should be made clear that Dayton’s executive instruments – the OHR and the military side of peace implementation, EUFOR – will remain in place until Bosnia has undergone deep reform. A clear, open-ended commitment would signal to Bosnia’s politicians that they cannot simply wait out the international community.

The roles of OHR and EU Special Representative should not be occupied by the same person, as is the case now. Linking these missions at the top ensures a lowest common-denominator approach, with the EU attempting to veto the use of the extensive Bonn Powers that the OHR has.

The EU and NATO should approach constitutional reform strategically, by forming an international commission tasked with identifying popularly legitimate solutions for Bosnia’s governance.

The status of state (public) and military property, included in the five objectives and two conditions set for the OHR’s closure, must also be resolved.

International judges and prosecutors should remain involved in war-crimes and organised-crime cases beyond the end of this year. The OHR should impose a three-year extension.

Finally, the West needs to develop and demonstrate a long-term common strategy. This was clearly lacking at Butmir. The fact that Bildt can have such influence shows that few member states have firm policies. A US special envoy may need to be the catalyst for any common strategy, working with EU members that share Washington’s concerns, primarily the UK and the Netherlands. They and others in the EU that back a tougher approach now need to bring Germany on board.

Kurt Bassuener is a senior associate of the Democratization Policy Council, a global initiative for accountability in democracy promotion.

DPC on Bosnia policy vacuum

Kurt Bassuener June 9th, 2009

Following the publication of an op-ed in the New York Times by former US Ambassador to Serbia and Croatia William Montgomery that advocated partition of Bosnia and Kosovo, DPC Senior Associate Kurt Bassuener was invited by Sarajevo daily Oslobodjenje to comment.  The following article appeared in the paper’s June 9 edition.  This is the original English language version.

–

Dangerous Policy Vacuum Leaves Space for Unfulfilled Agendas

By Kurt Bassuener

Last Friday, William Montgomery, former US Ambassador to Croatia and Serbia, advocated in the New York Times an “achievable” US policy toward Kosovo and Bosnia: partitioning them along ethnic lines.  This is essentially what Dobrica ?osi? and other Serbian nationalist theorists have advocated for some time.

In the mid-to-late 1990s, when postwar Bosnia was stagnating, such arguments were heard more often.  It was a flawed prescription then, as it is now. Montgomery alludes to the reality that partition would be accompanied by violence when he mentions a need for “demonstrated will and readiness to use force to prevent violence along the way.”  And violence we would see, both in BiH and in Kosovo, if this policy were actively pursued.

But the global environment and the international posture in Bosnia is much different than it was in say 1998.  For this reason, Montgomery’s article could not have come at a better time for those who wish to present BiH as an “impossible country.”  The faux simplicity of Ambassador Montgomery’s proposal is what makes it dangerously seductive to those who simply wish to be done with it. 

Bosnia and Hercegovina is far from a lost cause.  But arriving at a system that can make it work won’t be easy.  No durable solution in the country can be achieved without a consensus on what the state can be, and how it can meet popular needs for security and functioning, accountable governance. 

The current constitutional and structural system designed to maximize opacity and unaccountability.  Regardless of their varying views on the full range of issues, that is one common foundation for all members of the political cartel in BiH.  Pressing the nerves of fear and mistrust has kept them in their comfortable positions; they have little incentive to develop a functioning democratic system. 

The real question for the international community is how to ensure the necessary stability for those Bosnians who do want to make their country work to have a chance to come to accord.  This means maintaining an ability to prevent further deterioration while adopting a strategy to promote the necessary popular accommodation to arrive at a functional system.

Despite the big bang of Vice President Joe Biden’s visit and his direct statements to the BiH Parliament, there remains no clarity in international approach.  Bosnian politics went back to business as usual in days, with politicians predictably approaching Biden’s speech as a smorgasbord, picking out (and spinning) the elements they thought favorable to their positions and ignoring what they didn’t like.  There has been no follow up from Washington since.

The most likely way to catalyze a common approach is through a US presidential special envoy.  However, Biden said in an interview to this newspaper Friday that none was forthcoming.  The US remains stuck still hoping to follow an EU lead, should one materialize. None is visible on the horizon.

Only leadership by EU member states can move the Brussels bureaucracy, which thinks it has arrived at a magic formula that need only be applied.  Without any members proposing a strategy, the Brussels bureaucratic sausage machine will generate more lowest-common-denominator policies with no prospects of success. 

While the US cannot run an effective policy in Bosnia without the EU, only the US can galvanize a coherent strategy among its members.  Vague articulations of “the European path” and various process checklists are no substitute. 

There needs to be a clear articulation of what sort of Bosnia the EU will accept into the fold. The international community must commit that any such solution would have to obtain qualified majority consent of all Bosnia’s constituent peoples, as well as those “others” who are effectively second-class citizens in the Dayton system.  This will end speculation that some “Dayton II” is in the works that will impose a solution. The EU and US both need to state that will help facilitate the process by which a working consensus is reached. To make the discussion possible, the determination to maintain the guardrails that have averted implosion in Bosnia for 13 years remains essential.  That means retaining an operationally credible EUFOR and the legal platform, though not necessarily the office, of the High Representative.

The only fixation of the EU and most of its members regarding Bosnia, including the incoming Swedish presidency, is “transition” – closing the OHR and inaugurating a “reinforced” EUSR.  This is touted as an end in itself.  Aside from the amount of personnel EUSR will likely have, there is still no clarity on what this mission would actually aim to achieve.  In theory, this “reinforced” EUSR could be a positive development, if launched after full completion of 5+2 and if designed and equipped for the Bosnian reality.  Yet it seems the main goal is to divest itself of any power, and therefore responsibility should Bosnia fail. While not a policy design, the essence of Montgomery’s vision might arrive by default, with the attendant consequences.

The costs of failure – human, moral, and financial – would be massive and enduring for the EU – and the US as well.  The EU must recognize that the bill would land on its doorstep.  The reality is that the EU would have to devote far more troops than it currently fields to manage a carve-up, and it would be a far more dangerous mission for them, given that many Bosnians would see them as complicit. 

Even with a coherent strategy and the will to see it through, there is no guarantee of success.  Ultimately, if Bosnia’s citizens cannot agree on a way to make the country work, it cannot.  But under the current system, they haven’t had that chance.  Given the stakes, the international community owes Bosnia and its own taxpayers a full-bore effort to allow them that opportunity.  Once again, only American leadership can prevent a broader international failure.

Kurt Bassuener is a Senior Associate of the Democratization Policy Council, a global initiative for accountability in democracy promotion.

Unfinished Business in Bosnia: What is to be done?

Kurt Bassuener June 9th, 2009

USIPeace Briefing - Unfinished Business in Bosnia and Herzegovina: What is to be Done?

On April 3rd, DPC Senior Associates Kurt Bassuener and James Lyon attended a policy briefing on international policy toward Bosnia and Hercegovina hosted by the US Institute of Peace in Washington, DC. 

In late May, USIP published a USIPeace Briefing written by Bassuener and Lyon reviewing both the proceedings and then presenting the authors’ view on what the US-EU joint strategy must be.  This paper was followed by two papers with alternate points of view on the necessary approach - also available at the link above.  Bassuener and Lyon’s briefing is available in PDF format above.

DPC op-ed in International Herald Tribune on Bosnia

Kurt Bassuener February 25th, 2009

DPC Senior Associate James Lyon penned an op-ed published in today’s International Herald Tribune on the deterioriating situation in Bosnia and Hercegovina, “Halting the downward spiral.”  In his article, he summarizes the threat:

Inexplicably, the European Union and the United States pursue policies that could all but guarantee Bosnia will revert to war. A new conflict in Bosnia could have unwanted consequences for Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia and Serbia, and would result not only in loss of life, destruction of property, refugee flows and the abolishment of Bosnia’s Serb entity, Republika Srpska, but also would create serious rifts within NATO and destroy all pretense of EU common foreign policy. It could cause Balkan states to turn their backs on European integration and seek closer ties with Russia.

…and also the feeble international response:

In response to the escalating threat, the United States has withdrawn its general from NATO headquarters in Sarajevo, while the EU has reduced its peacekeeping force (Eufor) to approximately 2,100 troops, and announced impending withdrawals of 500 more, along with the withdrawal of its only airworthy helicopters. Eufor stopped patrolling in 2007, amid complaints that its troops were bored. France, Finland, Ireland, Spain and Switzerland are all rushing for the exits.

The international community appears to be on autopilot as it rushes to close the international supervisory mission in Bosnia, the Office of the High Representative, leaving only the European Union Special Representative, with an uncertain mandate and weak powers, as the leading international presence. Many EU members seem convinced, and the U.S. appears to hope, that the transition to a weak EU special representative will create momentum and somehow motivate Bosnia’s politicians to change their behavior.

He advocates the following remedy:

Bosnia’s backward slide can be halted with few new resources, but it will take outside-the-box thinking. This will include Washington re-engaging and appointing a special presidential envoy to the Balkans, who can help the Western alliance focus policies and deliver consistent messages. It also requires a robust office of the EU special representative and that the EU take the threat seriously and make Eufor a capable deterrent. Most of all, it requires a long-term commitment to state-building in Bosnia. Too much has been invested and too much is at stake to continue with current policies.

In the same issue of the Herald Tribune, NY Times reporter Dan Bilefsky reports on the fallout from a criminal investigation launched against Republika Srpska Premier Milorad Dodik:

 Dodik expressed indignation over the weekend, saying he was the victim of a witch hunt aimed at undermining him and the Bosnian Serb Republic. “Even the little faith I had in the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina is now lost due to this farce with the criminal charges against me,” he said Saturday. “They have made this country pointless.”…

Dodik also vented his ire at a meeting Saturday in Mostar, where leaders of Bosnia’s three main ethnic groups were discussing how to press forward with changes to the constitution. Attendees at the meeting said Dodik stormed out after one hour. Before leaving, they said, he delivered an ultimatum that a new constitution could only proceed if it affirmed the right of the Bosnian Serb Republic to national self-determination and enshrined its right to hold a referendum on independence.

He also quoted Bosnian political analyst Srecko Latal:

“The United States and the European Union must engage, not just for the sake of Bosnia, but because the world can’t afford to allow what happened the last time,” Latal said in an interview. While Bosnia is patrolled by a 2,000-strong EU peacekeeping force, he said it was not strong enough if hostilities erupted.

New DPC Policy Brief - How to Pull-Out of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Dead-End

Kurt Bassuener February 20th, 2009

DPC Policy Brief - How to Pull-Out of Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Dead-End calls for strong leadership of and tools for the “reinforced” European Union Special Representative (EUSR) mission to follow closure of the Office of the High Representative (OHR).  The brief notes the rising climate of fear and uncertainty in the country must be arrested by the international community to stop the slide toward conflict.  The paper also argues that only by confronting the constitutional reform issue can the EU assist Bosnia and Herzegovina in meeting EU standards.

 To the EU:
1) Appoint a politically capable leader as High Representative/EUSR.
2) Articulate clear constitutional reform guidelines and make constitutional reform the core of the EUSR mandate.
3) Give the EUSR executive authority to confront anti-Dayton activity.
4) Ensure that EUFOR has credible operational capacity throughout the country to deter and respond to threats to public security and the Dayton Peace Accords.
5) Authorize the EUSR to decide on fulfilment of EU conditions and all sanctions.
6) Ensure EUSR possesses anti-organized crime and corruption investigative capacity.
7) Maintain a broad international coalition in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

To the Peace Implementation Council:
8) Insist on full completion of the 5+2 formula prior to closing OHR.

To the US:
9) Appoint a Presidential Special Envoy to the Balkans to demonstrate US engagement and promote international policy cohesion.
10) Post a US flag officer in the NATO HQ Sarajevo to identify training and exercise opportunities.

New DPC Policy Brief - Rethinking US Policy toward the Western Balkans

Kurt Bassuener February 17th, 2009

DPC Senior Associate James Lyon has written a Policy Brief on the still unstable situation in the Western Balkans, and the need for re-engagement by the Unitied States through a Presidential Special Envoy.  A brief description of the policy brief is below, with a link to the full paper:

Euro-Atlantic policies towards the Western Balkans have reached the limits of their effectiveness, as countries throughout the region have hit a brick wall in the reform and European integration process. It is time to examine the effectiveness of the western alliance’s policy approach towards the Western Balkans and adjust it to meet new realities.This paper examines the challenges facing the western alliance in the Balkans, the limits of international influence under current policy, and the options available to enhance progress in the region. It offers five policy recommendations that will, if implemented, substantially alter the policy dynamic and assist the Euro-Atlantic alliance to stabilize the region and move it forward in the European accession process without substantial new resources. It also argues that little progress will occur in the region until the United States resumes its leadership role.Recommendations:

  1. The United States (US) needs to re-engage diplomatically in the region by appointing a Special Presidential Envoy to the Balkans.
  2. The practice of “dual-hatting” European Union Special Representatives with functions of non-EU missions should cease, particularly in Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina.
  3. The US and European Union (EU) should resist the temptation to further draw down troop levels either in Kosovo or Bosnia, and the US should reinsert a flag-level officer in NATO headquarters in Sarajevo.
  4. Both the EU and US should treat all countries equally, stop giving Serbia preferential treatment and refuse to lower standards, especially regarding corruption.
  5. The EU and US should engage on assuring energy security to the region, by expediting the Nabucco pipeline and including a spur into the Western Balkans.

The full brief is available in PDF at the link below:

DPC Policy Brief - Rethinking US Policy toward the Western Balkans