The Endless Saga of Balkan Mischief

Kosovo Serbs hold a Serbian flag as they take part in a demonstration after a gunman shot and wounded two Serbs, in Strpce, Kosovo, on Jan. 6, 2023. Armend Nimani/AFP via Getty Images

Commentary

Why, at this time, has the Turkish government been secretly shipping truck convoys of weapons across Albania and into Kosovo, once controlled by the Ottoman Empire?

It is being done with the clear cooperation of the Albanian government, and seemingly with the knowledge of the United States and United Kingdom governments. Indeed, to what extent is Turkey doing this at the behest of Washington? And is this part of a quid pro quo so that the United States will supply Turkey with the advanced new F-16 Viper fighters?

Why did the UK government suddenly take seven members of the Kosovo Security Force (KSF) and embed them as “peacekeepers” in the South Atlantic Falkland Islands?

These, and other actions, are part of strategic maneuvering by Washington and London to take advantage of the distraction of the Russia-Ukraine conflict to maneuver against Russia’s allies—or, more logically, Russia’s perceived allies—in the Balkans. Chief among the “perceived allies” of Russia is Serbia. Indeed, Serbia’s capital, Belgrade, is being likened to “the new Vienna,” harkening to the immediate post-World War II days when the Austrian capital was the hub of the east-west intelligence wars.

It is not, however, that Serbia is a formal ally of Russia; rather, having been brutalized since 1990 by the U.S.-led NATO, Belgrade is wary of committing solely to the United States and the West. It would rather balance its interests between East and West, befitting its geographic position as the hub of Central Europe and the Balkans.

There is nothing anti-Western about Serbia’s government (and population), despite the fact that the European Union and NATO have attempted to place Serbia in a position where it has no options other than to seek EU membership and cooperation with NATO. Neighbor Croatia, for example, is now a full member of the EU, and on Jan. 1, 2023, joined the EU’s visa-free Schengen Area and adopted the euro currency.

Neighboring Montenegro, formerly part of Serbia (and Yugoslavia), is already a NATO member and uses the euro as its currency. Another neighbor and former Yugoslav state, Bosnia and Herzegovina, supported by the West, is collapsing, as, in many ways, is neighboring Albania.

Serbia, unsupported by the United States, is flourishing, despite remaining outside the European Union.

Serbia continues to be pushed politically and diplomatically—by the United States, in particular—and threatened over its refusal to recognize the sovereignty of Kosovo, which was, in 1999, carved forcibly by the United States out of Serbia’s sacred region, Kosovo and Metohija, and given in 2008 to a population of illegal Albanian migrants.

A Serbian minority enclave now remains in Kosovo, and the residents’ rights are being steadily eroded by the Kosovo authorities in a bid to force out all remaining ethnic Serbs and to force recognition by Serbia of the sovereignty of Kosovo. Even the United States, however, has not been able to force all its NATO allies to recognize Kosovo.

Kosovo ethnic Serbs pass through barricades near the border crossing between Kosovo and Serbia in Jarinje, Kosovo, on Sept. 28, 2021. Laura Hasani/Reuters

On Dec. 10, 2022, the Kosovo authorities continued their escalation, arresting a former Serbian policeman from the Kosovo Serb enclave, and increased the presence of Albanian Kosovo police in the area. This led to Kosovo Serb protests and blockades, with the United States, which has Camp Bondsteel military base in Kosovo, threatening to intervene. The former Serbian policeman in Kosovo was released to house arrest on Dec. 28, calming tensions somewhat. Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic said on Dec. 29 that the Serbs in Kosovo would dismantle their blockades. Vucic was speaking shortly after a Serb official claimed that both the EU and the United States had provided assurances that the Serbs in Kosovo who had led the protests and manned the barricades would not be prosecuted.

It is all a game to push the Serbs to and fro to let them know who can punish them.

The question is whether the game will work to the U.S. and UK advantage. It is significant that the team in the U.S. national security leadership (State Department and National Security Council) is the team that began, under President Bill Clinton in the 1990s, with the stated purpose of breaking up Serbia (and stating that the job was not finished with the Dayton Accords agreed on Nov. 21, 1995).

In the UK, the defeat of the John Major government in 1997 (and the arrival of the Tony Blair Labour government) meant that Whitehall—the Foreign Office and Secret Service—followed the U.S. Clinton administration line, and the pragmatists of the Ministry of Defence were no longer in charge of British Balkan policy.

That situation prevails today in the U.S. State Department and UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office, along with the strenuously anti-Russian line, which aims to broaden the proxy war against Russia beyond the Ukraine military conflict.

Meanwhile, substantive proposals to create a viable redistribution of lands between Serbia, Albania (and, by default, Kosovo) have been suppressed by Washington and rejected by Albania and Kosovo at Washington’s suggestion. Despite being regarded as a narco-state, Kosovo applied on Dec. 14, 2022, to join the European Union.

Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.