Today, the Western Balkans seems like a region at peace. Tourists flock to the Croatian coast while more adventurous types travel further inland to the mountains, monasteries, and rakia-filled towns of Montenegro, Macedonia, and Bosnia. Left out of that list is the unresolved reminder of NATO’s final 20th century intervention: Kosovo-Serbia. Much of the news today is filled with discussions of war and potential peace-settlements. In this piece, I want to explore why that perspective is misguided to understanding conflict in the modern day, and why the Western Balkans is at risk.
Pt. I: Beyond War and Peace
In 1995, after four brutal years and 100,000 dead, war in Bosnia & Hercegovina came to a close. One of the key moments was the lifting of the siege of Sarajevo by none other than British General Rupert Smith. Ten years after the conflict, he published a book called the Utility of Force.
In it, Smith sets out how our contemporary, binary perspective on conflict as being either War or Peace is a consequence of the Western experience of industrial, interstate conflict. States and their governments mobilised industry and the people with the aim of destroying an opposing state’s ability to wage war. Such a perspective died, however, with the invention of the nuclear bomb. The threat of total annihilation meant that preparing for full-scale industrial conflict was redundant. Since then, and partly in response to the dominance of interstate conflict, the prominent form of organised violence has not been war between states but rather war between peoples. It’s an important distinction to make because it means that war cannot be effectively employed to destroy a military and force a state to capitulate since the irreconcilable interests – the confrontations – that lead to conflict are no longer created by states. Instead, the people who do not leave their beliefs and philosophies behind when the war is over generate such confrontations.
With this new era of war between peoples, we have confrontations that are, at times, raised to the level of conflict. This means that peace is not to be found when guns stop firing but rather when irreconcilable interests are compromised to find honest resolution.
Pt. II: Kosovo-Serbia
Slovenia is often remembered in the West for having started the Balkans War in the 1990s but locally, people say that the war started and ended in Kosovo. Student protests in Pristina ignited the tinderbox of the leaderless Yugoslavia and a decade later, Serbian insecurity stemming from the changing Balkan landscape resulted in both war crimes and crimes against humanity being committed against the predominantly ethnic Albanian population within Kosovo.
The details of such conflicts are quickly complicated by the fact that arguments on either side usually find themselves grounded in history. Who wrote such history and, critically, when they choose to start their historical narratives remains a point of severe contention. Rather than the nuances of these arguments, what is important is the fact that there is a ‘confrontation’ – an irreconcilable difference of perspective and interest that both see as crucial to the integrity of their polities. Simply, leaders in Serbia argue that Kosovo is part of Serbia while leaders in Kosovo argue that Kosovo is independent.
For 26 years, the international community has remained involved in this confrontation with the UN, EU, OSCE, NATO, and others all maintaining offices in the region. Take the bus from Pristina to Mitrovica, for example, and one can find NATO/KFOR troops still present on the central bridge, remaining vigilant for signs of unrest and preventing traffic. Crucially, the basis of the continued involvement of the international community is to be found in UN Security Council Resolution 1244. This resolution does not recognise Kosovo as an independent country but does recognise its previous, Yugoslavian rights to ‘meaningful self-administration’. As such, most international organisations maintain a ‘status neutral’ perspective whereby they neither recognise Kosovo as part of Serbia nor as an independent country. Open nearly any internationally-produced report on Kosovo and you are likely to find an asterisk clarifying that the term Kosovo is in reference to UN Security Council Resolution 1244.
This might all seem like the simple recognition that international politics involves disagreements. Nonetheless, it is important to acknowledge that despite being ‘at peace’ with one another (since there is no ongoing armed conflict between the two political entities), the underlying issue that once led to conflict has not been resolved.
Pt. III: The situation today
The environment today was created by, and therefore somewhat contingent on, a few key factors. Firstly, the use of force (specifically missiles) provided and delivered by the US, albeit encouraged and supported by the British. Today, KFOR remains as a presence in Kosovo but with an America that is seemingly both more reluctant to uphold the international order it built and more aggressive in its posturing (demonstrated by the recently renamed Department of War), the reliability of this force in the current context is circumspect. While Europeans provide a small contingent of troops to KFOR, this is for predominantly policing roles. Key European security actors such as the UK and France already face dwindling supplies of missiles as they continue to support Ukraine against Russia which casts doubt into their ability to provide and deploy the sort of munitions that can strike deeper into a potentially aggressive Serbia in a protracted conflict. One of the key points about the US-led bombing campaign on Serbia in 1999 was the credible threat of its continuance. Ultimately, NATO capacity for a politically and materially-sustained bombing campaign is doubtful. It is therefore a relevant fact that the UK has invested £5 billion into building a railway in North Macedonia which, incidentally, would make it easier to connect one of the largest ports in the Mediterranean (Piraeus-through-Thessaloniki) to within 25km of the Kosovo border. Amongst the winding roads of the Balkans, this makes provisions (military or otherwise) to Kosovo much easier. Incidentally, this railway would also be a significant feature for shipping heavy materiels into Romania (which now has Rheinmetall factories) and the Black Sea without going through the Bosphorus which has implications in the case of an escalated conflict with Russia.
Secondly, Kosovo itself lacks an actual ‘army’ and rather maintains a ‘security force’ of 5,000 personnel. Thus, Kosovo would require armed support from interested partners in the case of its confrontation with Serbia once more escalating to a point of conflict. The Dayton Accords signed in 1995 after the Bosnian War (specifically Article IV) set limits on the quantity of military equipment available to Croatia, Bosnia & Hercegovina, and Serbia/Montenegro (both were still part of Yugoslavia at the time of the agreement). This makes their support limited despite having an interest in restraining a potentially aggressive Serbia. This year, however, two key agreements were signed. The first is a trilateral defence alliance signed by Croatia, Kosovo, and Albania. Notably, Albania was not a signatory of the Dayton Accords and therefore faces no limitations on its military arsenal. What makes this particularly interesting is that the other key agreement of this year is a defence agreement between the UK and Albania which creates closer collaboration on the creation of defence equipment and military systems (specifically ground-based air defence).
Over in Belgrade, against this background, the Presidential office was briefly vacant with President Vučić attending the somewhat sinister meeting between Presidents Xi, Putin, and Kim Jong-Un amongst others. It is a disconcerting development but Serbia also faces the dilemma of wanting to join the EU. The EU, primarily led by Germany and France in this matter, has made clear that some attempt to reconcile must be made with Kosovo through the Pristina-Belgrade Dialogue. Just this week, President Vučić stated that it was for the Serbian people to decide whether they recognise Kosovo (whether de facto or de jure remains to be seen). Considering popular attitudes towards Kosovo within Serbia and the previously failed attempts at trust-building measures, this statement is nonetheless worth reading with a healthy portion of salt. He also recently expressed his concern that such alliances and agreements should prompt Serbia to strengthen its army while avoiding immediate conflict. Ultimately, the confrontation between Serbia and Kosovo remains unresolved and the factors that created the space for ‘peace’ are eroding.
Final Thoughts
As the UK and Europe once more rearm themselves hoping to deter, but in grim preparation of defence, our democratic sensibilities must become attuned to the difference between war/peace and confrontation/conflict. Just because the guns stop firing, that does not mean we have resolved our issues. It is a perspective that is critical to discussions of peace in Ukraine and will undoubtedly become more pertinent regarding Israel-Palestine. So often, we become caught up in the news cycle, the next scandal, the price of fuel and utilities, and so many other issues that have tangible effects on our daily lives. Even if the aspiration of a continued civic interest in foreign affairs might be too ambitious; culturally, we must have some faith in our governing bodies and institutions (whether Cabinet, MoD, or FCDO) and some conviction that our interests and values are worth pursuing even when threats do not announce their presence in the form of violence. The first confrontation to overcome, perhaps, is with our own politics.