Rebuilding the Balkans - Essay Example

Issues in Rebuilding the Balkans Introduction This article discusses the international intervention in the Balkans that significantly impacted the rebuilding process in the region. During the years since the ending of the Bosnian war, outside intervention in the region has continued to grow, most openly in NATO's 1999 aerial bombardment of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Accordingly, this article puts a broader historical view on placing this action and other recent international activity within the Balkan region. This is for the reason that the latter part of 1995 international intervention cannot be considered in isolation from the expectations and anxieties engendered by past incursions into the Balkans, a number of of which helped establish the norms of intervention and non-intervention on a global scale. Taking a look at the brief history of international intervention in the Balkan region will elucidate some of the reasons for intervention, the aims of those who intervene and the consequences of their actions, which often differed from their aspirations. The main issue discussed in this article is the contemporary remarkable continuities in the approach of the western world towards the Balkan states, with multilateral intervention largely being driven by a desire to contain crisis and maintain the status quo in a region perceived as lying on the periphery of Europe. With the exception of Greece, it was only until the mid-1990s when the policy was prefigured earlier, have there been signs that such approach might be replaced by a qualitatively different one based on contractual engagement and a possibility of eventual integration into the European mainstream. Contrastingly, the meaning of integration for the Balkan space remains vague. The Uncertainty Within the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe and the Stabilization and Association Process there are suggestions that it could eventually lead to EU accession and, certainly, this is the dream of many within the region. However, with the EU already facing the challenge of an unprecedented enlargement into Central Europe and the Baltic, the likelihood of this occurring within the short or even the medium term remains doubtful. Alternatives to membership have been canvassed, and European Commission President, Romano Prodi, has even floated the idea of some form of 'virtual membership' for the states of the region, but, if this is the case, will integration itself be anything less than 'virtual' (Siani-Davies 2003). International Intervention in the Balkans The wars in the western Balkans could be considered a laboratory for post-Cold War intervention. There have been five conflicts over the last decade: Slovenia 1991; Croatia 1991-1992; Bosnia-Hercegovina 1992-1995; Kosovo 1999; and Macedonia 2001. As a consequence of global media attention and civil society pressure, outside powers have been learning to adapt the forms of intervention to an interconnected globalised world. Broadly speaking, it is possible to distinguish between two types of security philosophy that have guided interventions in the Balkans. One has been the traditional geo-political approach, in which security is understood as the defence of territory. The geo-political approach tends to be top-down, using diplomatic, economic and military pressure to influence political leaders and warring parties. The other approach is cosmopolitan in which security is understood as the defence of individual human beings. This approach is bottom-up; the emphasis is on respect for human rights, support for civil society, economic assistance and regional cooperation. Top-down approaches, of course, remain important, but they are shaped by bottom-up priorities. In the context of globalization, geo-political approaches to security have perverse effects - they lead to fragmentation and instability. Indeed, it is the attachment to territory and borders that explains the disintegrative process in former Yugoslavia. By and large, the United States has tended to pursue geo-political forms of intervention, while the European Union (EU) has tended to apply both geo-political and cosmopolitan approaches, although, over time, as a result of its experiences in the Balkans, the cosmopolitan have become more salient (Kaldor 2003). It can be argued that the EU itself is a form of experimentation. While most commentators agree that the EU is neither a new European nation-state in the making nor a traditional inter-governmental regime, there is no clear consensus on the nature of this new type of polity (Castells 1998; Leonard 1999). In Europe, nation-states were constructed through war. It was through war that states consolidated their hold on territory, eliminated domestic private competitors and protected borders from external competitors. 2 The EU, by contrast, was established in reaction to war; its founders believed that the gradual integration of economies, societies and, eventually, polities could prevent war in Europe. How the EU relates to areas beyond the member states will influence its own development. Will it apply traditional geo-political approaches and treat its own borders as nation-state borders Or will it apply the methods that were adopted in its own internal development What happens in the Balkans, thus, will have profound effects on the character of the EU itself. Indeed, the future of the EU may well depend on its readiness to apply seriously a cosmopolitan approach to the Balkans. Humanitarian Intervention The question of whether states and international organizations can take coercive action against another state to protect their populations from life-threatening risks - in other words whether they have the right to exercise humanitarian intervention - has been one of the most controversial and difficult in both international law and international politics. The academic debate has so far failed to produce a unified doctrine, with proponents and critics divided not only when the humanitarian intervention does occur but also when it fails to happen. In an attempt to move beyond the controversies the recent report of the International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (ICISS) proposed a shift in the discourse from the 'right to intervene' to the 'responsibility to protect'. This is a significant move, because it changes the emphasis of the discussion from the interests of the intervening states to the interests of the people at risk. It should consolidate and rationalize the debate on humanitarian intervention. Disagreements may remain about why states and organizations intervene (or fail to intervene), on the motives for their actions and on the relative balance between national and humanitarian interests, but there is a growing consensus that displaced, starving and dying people do need help and, with the continuing accumulation of precedents, the concept is gradually gaining international understanding and acceptance. This chapter elaborates on the definition and the legal status of humanitarian intervention, presents the recent development of the concept, defends it against some criticisms and, taking Kosovo as a case study, offers criteria for its justification. Under intervention, states or international organizations act against the will of another state (Vincent 1974). According to Stanley Hoffman, "the purpose of intervention is the same as that of all other forms of foreign policy; it is to make you do what I want you to do, whether or not you wish to do it" (Hoffman 1984). As well as military action, intervention in Hoffman's view may also comprise economic and diplomatic pressures to achieve foreign policy goals. The concept of 'humanitarian intervention' as a distinct form of intervention has been developed in recent decades by a number of scholars. Adam Roberts has suggested it may be defined as: 'military intervention in a state without the approval of its authorities and with the purpose of preventing widespread suffering or death among the inhabitants' (Roberts 1996). Compared to Hoffman's understanding of 'intervention', Roberts's definition of 'humanitarian intervention' is narrower in both scope (military) and objectives (humanitarian). The first of these limitations, however, may be questioned. A humanitarian intervention might include not only military action but also non-military measures, such as economic sanctions, travel restrictions and even criminal prosecution against the perpetrators of gross violations of human rights. Indeed, it can be argued that the military option is often the least desirable one. Euro-Atlantic Intervention In 1990 the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) entered a new security environment. In the international arena the self-dissolution of the Warsaw Pact stripped away the benefits the country had enjoyed from sitting on the fence between the rival superpowers. Focused on increasing its strategic influence in the states of the former Soviet bloc, the West showed little concern for the events unfolding in the Balkans. So, when local elites plunged the Yugoslav state into war, the European Union and United States of America (together with NATO, the Euro-Atlantic community of this chapter) were conceptually and operationally unprepared as well as politically and economically reluctant to face one of the consequences of what, until then, had been an overwhelming strategic objective: the elimination of socialism (Perry 1996). Domestically, the collapse of socialism also laid bare the internal crisis of the SFRY. Instead of a peaceful transition to a stable democracy, under a rhetoric of democracy and the right of nations to self-determination, national and republican elites embarked on an aggressive and chauvinistic path, which, in the absence of a willingness to compromise, ended in violence and calamity (Popov 2000). There is no doubt that the war (wars) in the former Yugoslavia endangered the basic human rights of the population. One country was destroyed and several new ones created through the use of armed force. Borders were changed. War crimes were committed. With immense suffering, population structures were drastically altered by ethnic cleansing. There was also widespread international intervention. Indeed, without intervention, it is possible the wars might have lasted virtually until the mutual extermination of the conflicting parties (Lucarelli 1995). Intervention effected the dynamic of the conflict and had a significant influence on its outcome (Wiberg 1996). From the first EU-led attempts to defuse the Slovene crisis to the bombing of the FRY by NATO, intervention was critical. Yet, it was also marked by a series of paradoxes and inconsistencies and it is the aim of this short chapter to highlight some of these in the belief that their mark can still be found on Euro-Atlantic policy towards the region today and that unless an open and thorough evaluation of intervention is carried out, it will remain difficult to create a new stable security architecture for the Balkans. The Kosovo Conflict In the case of the Kosovo conflict it is difficult to talk of war objectives. Certainly, even if they existed, they were not firmly held, since both parties readily abandoned them for temporary and limited gain. The ultimate objective of NATO may have been the removal of Miloevi but this was not possible without a land operation and, for this, the USA had the consent neither of all its allied partners nor the American public. Perhaps the war did have humanitarian aims but it should have been clear from the outset that these were not attainable through high-altitude bombing (Galtung 2002). In fact, the tactics of NATO were entirely counter-productive (Mandelbaum 1999). It had been calculated that air strikes would give the highest gains with the least risks but in the end the victory that was achieved was barely justifiable and Miloevi was left in power, just as Saddam Hussein was after the first Gulf War (Brzezinski). So, the paradox of the war was that Miloevi was not faced with the usual political consequences of defeat, that is, the loss of power. Instead, he was able to use the NATO bombing to hide the considerable concessions he had already made on Kosovo and to excuse the economic catastrophe unfolding in Yugoslavia as well as to tighten the screw of his dictatorship. Defeat, in some ways, helped Miloevi stave off the consequences of his misrule and, in this regard, even after the effective loss of the province, Kosovo retained a significant instrumental value for his regime. Kosovo also produced a further paradox. Despite the fact that during the conflict no NATO forces were actually deployed on the territory of the FRY, it ended with a NATO 'conquest', that is, the negotiated take-over of Kosovo. Indeed, the absence of land operations in many ways dulled the division between victor and vanquished, allowing all the participants to claim satisfaction with the outcome. Nevertheless, the greatest beneficiaries of the conflict, at least initially, were probably the KLA. Incapable of winning the struggle for an independent Kosovo on their own, the KLA in 1998 played the role of 'stalking-horse' for NATO. First, it drew the Serbian police and the Yugoslav Army further into the conflict, allowing the outside media to produce convincing reasons for NATO intervention. Then, during the bombardment, its activities created the conditions which accelerated the expulsion of the Albanians from Kosovo, while simultaneously it provided intelligence to the NATO airforces. 12 If it had come to a land operation, the KLA would have played the role of advance strike echelon for NATO, perhaps performing a role similar to the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. Indeed, so successful was the KLA in fulfilling their allotted task that its leadership earned an initial right to rule Kosovo. Post-Kosovo there is a need for a different security model in the Balkans. Sufficient elements exist for this to emerge, with the causes of internal instability now being well known, as are the external factors, which determine security (Hadzic 2000). Previously, the sub-regional security of the Balkans was mainly understood as an element of the global balance of power, which ultimately rested on the alignment of the superpower blocs. The presence of this overlay not only prevented the creation of autonomous security arrangements within the region but, along with the repressive nature of the communist states, it also camouflaged the potential instability of the Balkans. This lack of a regional security architecture was one of the reasons why the violent (self-)destruction of the Yugoslav state so jeopardized the Balkans, as, within a changing global environment, it aggravated existing weaknesses. Now, in order to prevent a further outbreak of conflict, the European Union and USA are taking steps to integrate the states of the region into the security architecture of NATO and the Partnership for Peace. However, whether such links will actually increase security remains open to question, as they do not guarantee a democratic transformation, especially if the elite structures remain unchanged. International Intervention in Bosnia Since the Washington Agreement of March 1994, which established the so-called 'Muslim-Croat federation' (formally, the 'Federation of Bosnia-Hercegovina' or FBiH), the re-integration of Mostar (the historic capital of Hercegovina) has been viewed by the international community as a key indicator of the viability of that precarious federation. Since the Dayton Peace Accords (DPA) of November-December 1995, the state of affairs in Mostar has also been regarded as a measure of post-war stabilization and the development of the minimal framework of a common state of BiH. Mostar has therefore been subject to a special degree of international attention, supervision and engagement. Between July 1994 and January 1997, the city was under a special supervisory regime, the European Union Administration of Mostar (EUAM). After the expiry of the EUAM's mandate, its tasks of supervising Mostar's reconstruction and re-integration were transferred to the consortium of international agencies that entered Bosnia after the Dayton Accords - the UN-supervised International Police Task Force (IPTF), responsible for police monitoring, training and restructuring, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), responsible for framing electoral rules, conducting elections, and grassroots democratization initiatives, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the specialized Reconstruction and Return Task Force (RRTF), responsible for promoting refugee and displaced person (DP) returns, the NATO-led Stabilization Force (SFOR), guarantor of overall security, and the Office of the High Representative-South (OHR-S), based in Mostar, charged with formulating strategy and coordinating the raft of civilian agencies. International Intervention in Macedonia (Former Republic of Yugoslavia) The former Yugoslavia is an example of the ambiguities surrounding intervention by third parties, not only because of the various forms of international intervention that have occurred - including direct military action, humanitarian intervention, preventive deployment, peace enforcement, peace-maintenance - but also because of differing views as to whether these interventions were politically expedient and accomplished their objectives or merely changed the dynamics of the conflict by indirectly supporting one contending party over the other. The same is true of existing international engagements in the Balkans, with doubts often being raised about whether they are achieving the purpose for which they were initially established. Undesirable Outcomes of Coercive Western Policies Hampering the Rebuilding Under this debate, the Yugoslav case study has been at the centre of considerable controversy, provoking conflicting assessments of both the successes and the costs of coercive policies that were employed by Western states and international organizations in the 1990s against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY, consisting of the republics of Serbia and Montenegro). Hence, some analysts argue that the economic embargo against the FRY was key in bringing about peace in Bosnia-Hercegovina, whereas others believe that it only had an undefined and marginal impact. Similarly, some defend the 1999 NATO bombing of the FRY as both justified and appropriate to end Serbian repression of Albanians in Kosovo and 'prevent another Bosnia', while others see it as a deeply flawed policy which achieved dubious results at great cost to both Albanian and Serbian civilians (Buckley 2000). The impact of external factors on internal political developments in the FRY seems to have been less of an issue in Western policy debates. Analyses of the Miloevi regime have tended to focus on the domestic sources of stability in the 1990s: Serbia's political culture, Miloevi's exploitation of nationalism, the regime's control of economic, political and media resources, as well as the opposition's disunity, political opportunism and ineffectiveness (Gordy 1999; Thomas 1999; Cohen 2000). While recognizing these internal factors, most of the Serbs who were active throughout the 1990s in the myriad of opposition parties, nongovernmental organizations, anti-war groups, independent media and anti-regime demonstrations, nevertheless consistently argued that the policies of the international community - particularly those of the Western liberal democracies to whom they looked as a model for their own country - in fact strengthened the Miloevi regime and made their own struggle for democratic change more difficult. They provided much evidence showing that economic sanctions 'hit the wrong people' and that democracy was in fact the main 'collateral damage' of NATO's bombs (Dimitrijevi 1996; Prokopijevi and Teokarevi 1998). Yet despite such claims, Western governments maintained coercion as their principal policy orientation until October 2000, greeting Serbia's 'democratic revolution' and Miloevi's fall as vindication of their policies. Conclusion In an attempt to rebuild the Balkans, civil society development is perceived as a concrete solution. The building of civil society is expected to generate more internal security in the region and provide proper climate for the development of democratic culture, for the promotion of human rights, and for an effective, accountable government. However, such efforts in building civil society also create new forms of tension including from the various local and international actors. What has been termed as international intervention in rebuilding the Balkan region's civil society appears to be a form of colonialism. In the same way as colonialism is a source of insecurity; a more serious reflection on foreign interventions is certainly called for. Much of the above discussions clarify the historical rationale for the obstruction in the endeavor of rebuilding the Balkans. 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