Western Negligence Towards the Eastern Question

Borislav Shterev

The tension on the Serbian-Kosovo border in recent months clearly shows that the efforts of the international community to restore peace in the region have not led to the desired result. The future of Kosovo is still unclear and for the time being only the KFOR forces prevent the smoldering conflict from escalating into a new war.

The Eastern Question and the Balkans

To find the reason for the bloody disintegration of the former Yugoslavia and the subsequent wars, we must return to the Eastern Question and the mistakes that the great powers made in their policies towards the Balkans. When the national liberation movements of the Balkan peoples began in the mid-19th century, the great powers rushed to redraw the political map by drawing state borders that diverged from those of ethnic communities, crossing ethnic lands and creating large border areas with a concentration of ethnic minorities. Thus, even in the earliest period of the modern history of the Balkan peoples, territorial disputes began to ripen between them, which would later escalate into the Balkan Wars and become the cause of the outbreak of the First World War.

Unable to avoid a Russian veto in the Security Council at the beginning of the Kosovo conflict, the United Nations decided to entrust military intervention to NATO, a strategy that was repeated many times in the following years. This is a significant moment in the history of the UN, as the organization's failure to intervene adequately at the dawn of the conflict became one of the first indicators of its declining effectiveness.

The nature of the subsequent intervention of the North Atlantic Alliance largely prevents the possibility of constructive dialogue and the search for a peaceful and lasting solution to the dispute. By its founding act, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is a military defense alliance, which until the end of the Cold War did not engage in peacekeeping operations. The UN Charter allows such an activity to be assigned to a regional organization, but as the development of events clearly showed, NATO was hardly the best choice.

NATO's reputation in the region cannot be compared to that of the UN Blue Helmets, because even after the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Serbs began to perceive NATO, if not as an enemy, then at least as a temporary occupier. There are many reasons for this. On the one hand, NATO enjoys the glory of the winner of the war in Bosnia, and on the other, the membership of the organization at that time included only countries from North America and Western Europe, which left the Serbs with doubts that it only protects the interests of the West.

As a result of the operations conducted, NATO managed to achieve a ceasefire, but not peace, and the subsequent admission of Albania to the pact (in 2009) further discredited the organization in the eyes of many Serbs, who still do not have their own representation. Another strategic mistake of the UN and its NATO partners was tolerating the Albanian Kosovo Liberation Army during the hostilities despite the terrorist nature of their operations and the violations revealed by Human Rights Watch.

Kosovo's future remains unclear

The status of Kosovo has been the subject of lively discussions since 2006. The UN has been committed to resolving the issue under Resolution 1244, but has failed to find a solution that satisfies both sides. A major problem for the future of the region is the presence of a relatively large Serbian minority (between 5 and 7% of the total population), concentrated mostly along the border with Serbia, which complains of harassment by Albanians. The areas with a predominantly Serbian population have proven to be a bone of contention not only in Serbian-Kosovar relations, but also in the UN Security Council, where Russia has refused to adopt a resolution on Kosovo's independence on the grounds that it would violate Serbia's sovereignty.

Ultimately, the UN's indecisiveness forced Kosovo to seek a unilateral solution to the issue. After consulting the United States, Britain, and France, in February 2008, the Kosovo parliament unilaterally declared independence from Belgrade. The act remains controversial to this day, with Kosovo receiving international recognition from a number of countries, while many others view the unilateral declaration of independence as illegitimate. As a result of Pristina's actions, ethnic tensions in the region increased, and after a series of riots in the Serbian regions of the country, a parallel parliament was established, rejecting the supremacy of the Albanian authorities.

The tension on the Serbian-Kosovar border in recent months shows that with the declaration of independence of Kosovo, the opportunity for a peaceful resolution of the conflict was missed. Pristina's attempt to build a border with the Republic of Serbia was met with a "knife" by the Serbian minority, for whom Serbia represents the homeland. Serbs in Kosovo do not want to sever their ties with Belgrade, but they also do not want to leave their homes and move to the neighboring country. KFOR's open support for Pristina and the use of force to suppress the conflict once again left the impression of haste and shortsightedness. With their actions, NATO forces have rather worsened the prospects for peace in the region and given new impetus to Serbian nationalism.

The future of Kosovo in its current form seems increasingly uncertain, as NATO forces are currently the only ones maintaining the territorial integrity of the country, while their actions are fueling ethnic tensions. It is clear that KFOR cannot remain in Kosovo forever and, after its withdrawal, will leave a highly polarized country, bordering Albania on one side and Republika Srpska on the other, in the midst of an internal conflict that could drag both into open war over the inheritance of Kosovo. Moreover, problems along the Serbian-Kosovar border could reignite the conflict in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where Republika Srpska has been fighting for independence for years.

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