BALKAN HISTORY, MADELEINE’S WAR, AND NATO’S KOSOVO Gordon N. Bardos MISHA GLENNY The Balkans 1804-1999: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers London: Granta Books, 1999 TIM JUDAH Kosovo: War and Revenge New Haven: Yale University Press, 2000 MIRANDA VICKERS Between Serb and Albanian: A History of Kosovo New York: Columbia University Press, 1998 , arly in 1999, a small, poor, and backward books under review here, though very different in , corner of Europe became the center of their scope, all shed light on the problems EJ world attention. On March 24, the self- confronting international policies in the region, and proclaimed greatest military alliance in history the misperceptions about the Balkans underlying began a 78-day bombing campaign against the these policies. Glenny's book is the most ambitious, Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), allegedly to offering a grand sweep of nationalist movements force it to accept the terms of an international throughout the Balkans over the past 200 years. settlement for regulating the FRY's relations with Vickers provides a well-focused history' of its rebellious province of Kosovo. NATO's Albanian-Serb rivalry' over Kosovo, with the bulk “Operation Allied Force” soon went awry, of her book concentrating on twentieth century however, as myriad miscalculations on the part of events. Judah concentrates on the immediate all the relevant players to this drama quickly' background to the Kosovo conflict of the 1990s threatened to spiral out of control. Then-Russian and the war itself (and at the same time offers a president Boris Yeltsin openly warned that commendable example of what a journalist's first NATO's actions could lead to world war, the draft of history should look like). All three books, bombing of the Chinese Embassy' in Belgrade however, suggest that much of what the heightened Great Power tensions even further, and “international community'” has been attempting to the unity of the Adantic Alliance itself was severely' do in the Balkans has been based on a significant tested. In the aftermath of the conflict, Kosovo has misunderstanding of the underlying forces driving joined Bosnia in becoming another Balkan the violence. protectorate of the international community'; Macedonia may yet become a member of tliis collection, and even Albania's future is uncertain. How did a small-scale guerrilla war manage to become the focal point of a global crisis? The three 36 The Harriman Institute among Bosnia’s Croats and Serbs. To the contrary, these I. Balkan History democratic victories appear to have energized Bosnia’s ethnic The bulk of recent writings on the breakup of extremists.’ the former Yugoslavia have focused blame for the state’s disintegration on malevolent politicians and A careful reading of the above suggests that leaders who deliberately stirred up popular these “ethnic extremists” must have almost prejudices to keep themselves in power. Richard superhuman abilities. Neither the passage of time Holbrooke, for instance, claims that “Yugoslavia's nor the expenditure of billions of dollars can defeat tragedy was not foreordained. It was the product of their agenda. They are able to defy the will of the bad, even criminal, political leaders who international community7, and have found ways of encouraged ethnic confrontation for personal, sabotaging or subverting constitutional political, and financial gain.”1 Along similar lines, arrangements designed by7 the brightest (?) minds at Warren Zimmerman has noted that “Yugoslavia's the U.S. State Department.4 They* * are impervious to death and the violence that followed resulted from positive democratic changes in Bosnia’s immediate the conscious actions of nationalist leaders who regional environment. They7 are even able to waylay coopted, intimidated, circumvented, or eliminated the will of the people, as expressed in elections all opposition to their demagogic designs. organized, supervised, and paid for by the Yugoslavia was destroyed from the top down.”2 international community7. A succinct summary of much of the thinking in Such views, however, do not take us very7 far in this school of thought can be found in a recent understanding what is happening in the Balkans. report on the November 2000 elections in Bosnia- The belief that entire societies can be manipulated Herzegovina produced by the International Crisis in this way, as Rogers Brubaker points out, reduces Group: the general population to being “passive dupes, vehicles or objects of manipulative designs” instead Despite five years and five billion US dollars of of “active participants” and “political subjects in international community investment in Bosnia, the 11 November Bosnian elections demonstrated once again that their own right.”3 Nor can such views explain why7 international engagement has failed to provide a sustainable basis for a functioning state, capable of surviving an 3 Bosnia’s November Elections: Dayton Stumbles international withdrawal. The elections highlighted once again (Sarajevo/Brusscls: International Crisis Group Report No. the near complete failure—in the face of determined 104), 18 December 2000, Executive Summary. nationalist extremism—of an international approach that 4 On this note, it is worth pointing out that many people places emphasis on hopes that moderate, co-operative Bosnian involved in Balkan policy over the past decade have decried partners will come to power through elections. The elections the appalling lack of understanding about the Balkans also revealed the complete unsuitability’ of the present Dayton exhibited by international personnel dealing with the region. constitutional structures, as well as the international As Jacques Klein, the head of the United Nations Mission in community’ implementing structures and policies... Many in the Bosnia recently noted, “There are more people (in Sarajevo) international community had naively hoped that democratic who know nothing about this place than in any other capital change in Zagreb and Belgrade would translate into change where I’ve ever served.” See Klein’s comments as quoted by Robert Wright, Irena Guzelova, and Jonathan Birchall, 1 Holbrooke, To End a War (New York: Random House, “Bosnia-Herzegovina: Fear proves to be the biggest vote- 1998), pp. 23-24. winner,” The Financial Times (London), 18 December 2000, Bosnia-Herzegovina Country Survey. Along the same lines, 2 Warren Zimmerman, Origins of a Catastrophe (New York: the above-quoted report by the ICG (p. 17) claims that the Times Books, 1993), p. vii. This mode of thinking leads to international effort in Bosnia has been “hampered by a rapid some rather perverse logic; for instance, the belief that in turnover of often unqualified personnel, lacking relevant bombing a country for 78 days you are waging war against experience, including sometimes in senior positions.” To an individual, not against a country or a people. NATO this, one should add that many of today’s so-called “Balkan Secretary-General Lord George Robertson, for instance, experts” often exhibit a woeful ignorance of, or even recently claimed “The 19 democratic nations of the Alliance interest in, anything that happened in the former Yugoslavia did not commit an act of aggression against the Yugoslavian prior to 1987. (sic) people. We did not have anything against them. We acted against Milosevic.” See Yuri Pankov’s interview with ’ Rogers Brubaker, Nationalism Keframed: Nationhood and the Robertson, “Dialogue, Not Confrontation,” in Krasnaya National Question in the New Europe (Cambridge; Cambridge Zvepda (Moscow), 20 February 2001. University Press, 1996), p. 72. Brubaker’s comments were 37 The Harriman Institute nationalist parties in places such as Bosnia are able to grasp its significance.9 This misdiagnosis of the to win election after election for more than a problems facing southeastern Europe, however, decade,*6 even though the leaders of these parties often leads to seriously flawed policies. The three come and go. books under-review here provide a useful corrective Alija Izetbegovic once described the mass by showing that the problems of the former appeal of national issues by saying, “If you call for Yugoslavia long predate the emergence of an open forum on democracy, a hundred Slobodan Milosevic or Franjo Tudjman. intellectuals show up. If the forum is about Two points bear stressing here. First, nationalist nationalistn, you will get 10 thousand people from conflict in the Balkans is not merely the result of evil all walks of life on the streets.”7 In a more scholarly leaders stirring up ethnic hatred for the sake of vein, Ivo J. Lederer observed in his classic 1969 their own personal political gain. Although we can essay, “Nationalism and the Yugoslavs,” always count on politicians to embrace policies that will further their ambitions, as A.J.P. Taylor once The eastern European “way of life” is akin to a stream made noted, "Statesmen exploit popular emotion; they do up of a variety of tributaries of which nationalism is only one, not create it."10 Instead, nationalist leaders gain but nationalism has run so deep and strong that it has appeared to possess an elemental, almost gravitational, quality’. popular support when ethnic groups believe they ...nationalism has been the fundamental fact of life for nearly face an existential threat to their survival, a threat two hundred years. Nowhere has this been so clear and best confronted by the creation of strong, viable agonizingly the case as in the lands of the Yugoslavs.8 nation-states enjoying significant levels of popular support and legitimacy. But while astute politicians and scholars have What determines the timing of these outbreaks recognized the historical force and social depth of of interethnic conflict in the Balkans is usually a tliis phenomenon, far too many others have failed function of events in the wider geo-strategic order. More specifically, when the international order imposing a modicum of security in the region breaks down, individuals resort to seeking security’ in their collective national/ethnic identity’.11 Thus, made in reference to the Krajina Serbs in the period 1990- 91.