U.S. Kosovo-Metohija Policy Based on Wishful Thinking
Harriman Institute: Wishful Thinking is Not a Strategy
In its current edition, National Interest features analysis by Gordon N. Bardos, assistant director of the Harriman Institute at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, warning that current U.S. Kosovo-Metohija policy of enforcing its will regardless of the dangers and possible consequences is, without a shred of a doubt, wrong.
Referring to the announcements by the U.S. State Department bureaucrats, Albanian lobbying ‘think-tanks’ such as ICG and U.S. lawmakers financed by the Albanian mafia that United States will recognize independence of southern Serbian province with or without the UN Security Council resolution — allegedly, in order to prevent “further bloodshed” impatient Kosovo Albanian separatists would cause — Bardos points out that such a reckless move “could just as easily whet the appetites of militants who have already engaged in violence in Macedonia, Montenegro and southern Serbia.”
“In Serbia’s Sandzak [Raska] region, adjoining both Bosnia and Kosovo, the recent discovery of an Islamic militant training camp full of weapons and Al-Qaeda propaganda materials shows that Wahhabists are making inroads in the Balkans’ economically underdeveloped regions. In Kosovo itself, ethnic minorities continue to suffer under the worst human rights situation in Europe, unemployment and official corruption are at extremely high levels even by regional standards, and there is a strong possibility that a precipitate move towards independence could provoke Kosovo’s Serbs north of the Ibar River to declare independence themselves, creating yet another frozen conflict in Europe. [...] It is in this regional context that American policymakers claim that quickly granting Kosovo independence without UN Security Council approval will stabilize the region, yet just the opposite could prove true,” says Bardos.
“Stabilizing Factor” Would Not Be Ruled by Terror or Threatening Neighbors
Furthermore, according to the Harriman Institute assistant director, acting unilaterally in this instance is almost certain to lead to further isolation of the U.S. on the international scene, at the time when multilateral cooperation is badly needed. “Moscow and Beijing have both expressed their unhappiness, both with the Kosovo future status process and with Washington’s lack of respect for Russian and Chinese concerns about how Kosovo may set a precedent in other parts of the world. Many Europeans are also uneasy about a unilateral U.S. move to recognize Kosovo’s independence. Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, one of Europe’s most experienced Balkan hands, warned last week that the U.S. was ‘playing with fire with the transatlantic relationship and playing with fire in the Balkans’ if the United States unilaterally recognized Kosovo’s independence. At a time when all the major powers need to show unity in dealing with Iraq, Iran and North Korea, for the United States to break ranks over Kosovo would be foolhardy.”
Reminding that “strategic wishful thinking” which insists on assuming only the best possible outcomes, without taking into consideration the alarm bells or attempting to figure out what to do when the worst happens instead, Bardos concludes that “an independent Kosovo that does not respect the rights of its ethnic minorities or that is a threat to its regional neighbors” cannot be considered a “stabilizing factor” and clearly calls for a careful, well thought-out multilateral approach instead of the “unilateral actions based on best-case scenarios of what might happen.”