Edward P. Joseph, a lecturer at Johns Hopkins University in Washington, assessed (before the Harris-Trump debate) that, if Kamali Harris wants to become the president of the United States of America (USA), it is urgently necessary to determine her policy in the Balkans, and understand the danger of rejecting basic democratic values.
Za Foren Polisi (Foreign Policy) Edward Joseph writes that as multiple crises flare up, Vice President Kamala Harris must anticipate a potential blow when it comes to the policy of the Biden administration towards the Balkans, reports N1.
The former president proudly cited his own achievements in the region, and Trump's former special envoy for the Balkans, Richard Grenell, "trolled" Harris for her supposed ignorance of the area.
And the truth is that the situation throughout the Balkans, with hardly any exception, has only worsened under US President Joe Biden.
On a deeper level, confronting Biden's struggles in the Balkans may help Harris urgently advance her foreign policy convictions.
The essential international task for any president is to use US power to advance US interests. The inability of the Biden administration to do so in the Balkans—where the West has strategic leverage—offers a powerful, universal lesson.
"Vučić revived the Greater Serbian nationalist project"
Rejecting Biden's essential democratic principles, his State Department "coddled" with the autocrat - the President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić.
Just like Trump, Biden officials failed to understand the inevitable cost of making a deal with a strongman: weakness.
Encouraged by the pleas of the USA, Vučić openly revived the Greater Serbian nationalist project that led Yugoslavia to war three decades ago, writes Jozef.
Now he applied that philosophy to his relations with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Montenegro. Both directly and indirectly, Serbia has consistently undermined the sovereignty, functionality and Euro-Atlantic aspirations of each country, he states.
The "armed Serbian conspiracy", hatched last September in Banjka in northern Kosovo – near where US troops are deployed – sought to divide the country by force. This brazen violation of Belgrade's peace terms with NATO could only have been carried out with the support of Serbian officials, none of whom have been held accountable.
The US administration, which regularly imposes sanctions across the region, has barely managed to sanction any Serbian officials.
Despising Washington, Vučić appointed two of the rare figures sanctioned by the US to the newest Serbian government. One of them – Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vulin, a "notorious former intelligence chief" and Kremlin aide – met again with Russian President Vladimir Putin on September 4, declaring that "Serbia is an ally of Russia" and adding that "under the leadership of Aleksandar Vučić, Serbia will never would not join NATO, nor would it impose sanctions on the Russian Federation".
Vučić's allies and rivals alike see the inconsistency in the US attitude towards Belgrade and act accordingly.
On a visit to Sarajevo in late August, CIA Director William Burns confronted the "troubling secessionist rhetoric and actions" of Milorad Dodik, the pro-Russian president and leader of the Bosnian Serb entity.
For most of his tenure, the Biden administration appealed in vain to Vučić to rein in Dodik, ignoring their shared interest in destroying Bosnia. In June, Vučić hosted Dodik in Belgrade at the openly irredentist "All-Serbian Assembly".
In July, the pro-Serbian president of the Parliament of Montenegro, Andrija Mandić, orchestrated a resolution designed to anger Croatia, an Adriatic neighbor that has fully reconciled with its former enemy.
Executed at the behest of Serbia, the resolution immediately casts a shadow on Montenegro's path to the European Union, calling for obstacles from Zagreb, which is an EU member.
Like Putin, Vučić also feels threatened by the European aspirations of the smaller, supposedly artificial neighbor, Montenegro, which Belgrade is trying to subjugate, he says.
Problems in Kosovo
The most serious deterioration is in Kosovo, where Prime Minister Aljbin Kurti has enraged Western diplomats with a series of provocative moves in the north.
Determined to finally assert Kosovo's sovereignty over inherited Serbian institutions, Kurti's unilateral actions risk overturning the internationally crafted Constitution of Kosovo, which guarantees a safe haven for Serbs.
Already deflated by the Banjska fiasco, Kosovo Serbs are close to giving up on life in Kosovo - a result that will play into Serbian and Russian plans to undermine the Western, multi-ethnic order in the region.
Despite US and EU sanctions, Kurti continued to "instrumentalize" the Kosovo police in the north after the disastrous decision of Belgrade loyalists to expel Serbs from the Kosovo police force and other institutions in November 2022.
As Grenell noted, the State Department's harsh criticism of Kurti's actions fell on deaf ears. Grenell and Biden officials are missing the point, according to Joseph.
Kurti continues his irresponsible populism for one, counterintuitive reason: defiance of the United States resonates with the most pro-American group in the world - the Kosovo Albanians.
Citizens of Kosovo, like many in North Macedonia and Montenegro, see Kurti as the only figure standing up to Belgrade, who has suffered no punishment for his actions or omissions that led to the violent confrontation with NATO peacekeepers.
The growing anger of the USA and Europe towards Kurti – along with the increasing American, French and German investments in Serbia – only worsens the problem.
Encouraged by Washington's transactional leadership, French President Emmanuel Macron visited Belgrade in late August, concluding the sale of French fighter jets and signing a number of agreements, including on nuclear energy.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz arrived with fanfare in July, overseeing the signing of an agreement between the EU and Serbia on key raw materials that will advance long-delayed lithium mining in Serbia's Jadra Valley, according to the author.
Like Washington, Paris insists the arms package — which comes at the top of a years-long, disturbing arms-buying campaign by Belgrade — will "anchor Serbia in the West."
On the contrary, the decade of Serbian procrastination with EU reforms proved that the ruling party of Aleksandar Vučić is anchored in autocratic exploitation, strengthening the anti-democratic government at home and weakening the democratic neighbors in the neighborhood, according to Jozef.
With an increasingly secure position, Vučić openly told Macron during their recent meeting that "joining Western sanctions (on Russia) is not an option."
In this phlegmatic environment, the dialogue between Serbia and Kosovo, supported by the US and the EU, has died down.
Neither Vučić nor Kurti will continue with the unsigned "normalization agreement" that Washington and Brussels insist both sides accepted last year.
Removing any ambiguity, former Serbian Prime Minister Ana Brnabić officially informed Brussels in December 2023 that Belgrade does not consider the agreement brokered by the US and the EU to be legally binding.
Putin's invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 provided Washington with another golden opportunity to challenge Vučić's duplicitous so-called balance between Serbia's bogus EU candidacy and his genuine friendship with autocrats in Moscow, Beijing and Budapest.
Shocked by this seismic geopolitical event, Belgrade was afraid that Washington, along with leading European capitals, would finally call Vučić's bluff, demanding the same loyalty to the EU's position on the war in Ukraine that other candidates had shown.
Instead, the US Embassy in Belgrade immediately praised Serbia's half-measures.
By May 2022, with renewed confidence, Vučić signed a three-year gas agreement with Putin.
In September 2022, Vucic embarrassed US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan and Undersecretary of State Victoria Nuland at the United Nations, planning to sign a high-level foreign policy pact with Russia, shortly after meeting with two high-ranking US officials, according to Joseph.
The following month, Serbia signed an agreement with Hungary to build a pipeline to deliver Russian oil to Serbia, violating Vučić's energy commitments to Biden, just as he did to Trump.
And in November, Russian state TV network Rasha Today announced that it would launch its website in Serbia, in direct defiance of EU sanctions.
After initially calling on Belgrade to impose sanctions on Russia, US Ambassador to Serbia Christopher Hill has now stated that the US government is "satisfied with the growing forms of cooperation between Serbia and Ukraine".
No one in Washington should be satisfied with the short-sighted, unambitious and unnecessary trade of democratic values for autocratic disorder.
If Vučić had finally been forced to give up his charade, Belgrade might have voluntarily spread Serbian military ammunition on the Ukrainian battlefield - without spreading Russian political ammunition throughout the region.
Proof: to date, the Kremlin has not exacted any price from Belgrade for arming its enemy — not even a verbal condemnation. Putin's biggest potential threat to Vučić – an end to Moscow's ritual opposition to Kosovo's UN membership – would be self-defeating.
The Russian president dreams of exchanging Kosovo for Crimea and other Ukrainian territory, in an agreement in the UN Security Council sanctioned by Washington.
In short, Putin has limited options in the Balkans — which means Vučić does too.
Without pressure from Russia or the West, Vucic has millions of reasons to continue the highly lucrative, low-risk flow of money from arms sales going to Ukraine.
Indeed, the whole premise that Belgrade should abandon its traditional friendship with Moscow is wrong. Vučić's commitment is ideological and voluntary, as evidenced by his enthusiastic agreement with the non-Slavic autocrats in Beijing and Budapest.
It is no coincidence that during his European tour in May, Chinese President Xi Jinping spent the most time in Hungary and Serbia.
Despising the EU's policy towards Iran, Belgrade promised last Sunday to "expand bilateral relations" with Tehran, a strategic partner of both Beijing and Moscow.
Domestically, the Serbian government enjoys almost complete dominance of the media narrative in the country (and significant, poisonous influence in the wider region).
Similarly, Belgrade's oft-cited support for pro-Ukrainian declarations and resolutions of the UN General Assembly on the war has little to do with solidarity with Ukraine and much to do with advancing Serbia's regional agenda.
As senior officials, including Vučić, have acknowledged, Kosovo – not Ukraine – is the reason for Belgrade's firm, vocal support for Ukraine's sovereignty and territorial integrity. If she wants to become president of the United States, Harris now needs to understand the danger of discarding core values just because standing up to autocrats seems like too much work.
"Europe that is whole, free and at peace" is a strategic goal of the USA, not a slogan.
Leaving the Balkans a worsening mess is a strategic victory for the United States' adversaries, Joseph concludes.
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