Posted on 08/26/2008 1:49:38 PM PDT by DTA
When the United States and its key European allies ignored Russia’s protests and recognized Kosovo’s declaration of independence from Serbia in February, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice blithely insisted that the Kosovo situation was unique and set no international precedent whatsoever. Prominent members of the foreign policy communities in Europe and the United States echoed her argument.
Moscow’s August 26 decision to recognize the independence of Georgia’s separatist enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia demonstrates the arrogant folly of that position. In just a matter of months, the Kosovo precedent has backfired on the United States and generated dangerous tensions between Russia and the West.
It is difficult to imagine how Washington and its NATO allies could have more egregiously mishandled the Kosovo situation. Western policy has been a debacle from its beginnings in the early 1990s. When Belgrade attempted to suppress the secessionist campaign by the Albanian majority in Kosovo, NATO intervened with air strikes to compel Serbia to relinquish control of the province to an international occupation force. NATO’s actions ignored Moscow’s vehement objections and showed contempt for Russia’s long-standing interests in the Balkans. The Clinton administration also bypassed the UN Security Council (and, hence, Russia’s veto) to launch that military operation, exhibiting further disdain for Russia’s prerogatives as a permanent member of the Council and a major power in the international system.
Russian leaders fumed, but Moscow was too weak to do anything but issue futile protests. Ultimately, the NATO powers offered Moscow the sop of a belated UN resolution that professed to recognize Serbia’s territorial integrity, which included Kosovo, even though that province had been put under international control. How much that resolution was worth became apparent in 2007 and early 2008 when the United States and the major European Union governments pressed for Kosovo’s independence without Belgrade’s consent and—once again—without UN Security Council authorization. Moscow warned at the time that such action would set a dangerous international precedent; countries as diverse as China, India, Indonesia, Spain and Greece expressed the same concern. Most ominously, Russian officials specifically cited Abkhazia and South Ossetia as places where the Kosovo precedent could apply.
Russia has now demonstrated that two can play the game of using military force against another country to detach discontented ethnic enclaves. And the United States and NATO are not able to do much about it.
Rather than escalate the already alarming tensions with Russia, Washington needs to walk back its policy on Kosovo and seek a deal with Moscow. The U.S.-EU position on Kosovo is untenable from the standpoint of both wise diplomacy and basic logic. American officials have put themselves in the awkward position of arguing that quasi-democratic Georgia’s territorial integrity is sacrosanct while fully democratic Serbia’s is not. Moreover, despite the expectation of leaders in Washington and Pristina that the vast majority of countries would quickly recognize Kosovo’s independence, only a meager forty-seven have done so—and most of them are long-standing American allies and clients. The rest of the world still worries about the broader implications of the Kosovo precedent and withholds recognition.
Washington should propose a mutual diplomatic retreat to Moscow, in which the United States would rescind its recognition of Kosovo’s independence and urge the Kosovars to accept Belgrade’s proposal for a negotiated status of “enhanced autonomy,” which comes very close to de facto independence. Russia would be expected to adopt a similar policy with regard to Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
If U.S. leaders do not suggest this course, they will face the unpleasant prospect of further demonstrating NATO’s inability to do anything effective to reverse Russia’s conduct in Georgia. American miscalculations have already underscored the alliance’s impotence; it is not a lesson that officials should want to reinforce. Moreover, if Washington and Moscow do not back off from their tenacious positions, relations between the two countries—already in bad shape—may degenerate into a new cold war. Conversely, some common sense and flexibility on the twin secessionist issues could be a catalyst for repairing that important relationship.
Ted Galen Carpenter, vice president for defense and foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute, is the author of eight books on international affairs, including Smart Power: Toward a Prudent Foreign Policy for America (2008). He is also a contributing editor to The National Interest.
Did Brzezinski REALLY say that the Bolshevik revolution was a blessing because it destroyed Russia? Then he’s even WORSE than I thought he was!!!!
In fact, he’s in the same league (but with much more intellectual firepower) as the Nazi Biden and his Nazi son “Beau” (Joeeph Biden III, really). Biden said in 1999 that all Serbs should be put in “Nazi-style concentration camps”. Last night, at the Democratic Convention, Beau praised his father for standing up to “Serbian thugs” who were committing “genocide”, to the cheers of the Kool-Aid drinking Obamamaniacs and clintonites in the crowd.
Serb-bashers and Orthodox-bashers in America just don’t get it. Whether Obama or McCain wins, we will have the kind of Soros-shill, New World Order government that the bashers prescribe for various Eastern European countries, especially Orthodox ones. The bashers richly deserve to have a taste of their own medicine, but the rest of us will have to go through it, too. Lord defend us!!!!
Since I grew up in a part of what would become “Aztlan”, I would NEVER stand for their secession!!!!
If other conservatives from the Great Southwest would think about “Aztlan”, they would have some idea of what Serbs feel about Kosovo. Ditto for all American conservatives who deplore the land of Lexington, Concord, and Bunker Hill being taken over by a bunch of “gay allies” and EU-wannabes!!!!
Majority of Russian nationalists accuse West of inposing communism on Russia in 1917.
The plain (i.e., non-conspiracy theory) facts about that are:
1. Marxism was originally a completely Western movement, developed in Germany and England. It was based on completely Western philosphy, e.g., Hegel.
2. The Germans (in order to take Russia out of WWI) helped Lenin get back into Russia.
3. Communism is an atheist system that is especially antagonistic to Christianity. The vast majority of those killed by communists outside of China have been Orthodox Christians.
If you love Serbia so much, you should go there. Stop stinking up the USA with your foreign loyalties, and go to the place where your loyalties lie.
I was against Clinton's bombing of the Serbs, but Putin-worshipping Serbo-Nazi scum like you have made me change my mind. Now I'm upset Clinton didn't wipe Serbia off the map completely and permanently.
My sympathies are with my country, the USA, and with the US soldiers such as those who occupy Kosovo. If Serbs want to take Kosovo away from the US soldiers who occupy it, I hope our soldiers totally annihilate them. You can root for the Serbs to kill our soldiers, but that won't happen, because the cowardly Serbs only talk about Kosovo, they are too scared of the USA beating the crap out of them again to actually try and take it back.
So you see, cowardly traitor scum, that you are no better than Al-qaida to me. They are my enemy, and you are my enemy. If Al-Qaeda kills Serbs then I am happy because my enemies are killing each other. That's what you get for supporting America's enemies. We celebrate when you die.
Sounds like a post one might read on the Democratic Underground.
You are the only one suggesting that, Joe. It's called "projecting".
How do you feel about the Russians using Chechens to exterminate your Orthodox Christian brethren? Just curious . . . do they get a pass?
Assuming that were so for a second, with more regret than you can muster over NATO troops allowing the KLA to exterminate our Orthodox Christian bretheren.
http://noviny.narod.ru/A0002016.html
I'm not surprised at that you try to deflect attention toward me. Explain those photos.
Funny thing is, no one needed to be convinced that the war was wrong. Now these Bolsheviks have convinced us that the war was right because of what the Russians have done. That is their argument, after all . . . what the Russians did was ok. Therefore, in the absence of any argument that what the Russians did was not ok, what NATO did was ok also.
Hey, we can call it even! Now maybe FR can get back to normal.
Explain what I’m about to see, first. I do not serve you.
It’s quite clear whom you do serve.
But I can understand your reluctance to witness scenes of the Jihadist progroms in Kosovo against the Christian Serbs.
And by "conservative," I don't mean "NATO kicked my ass, boo hoo."
Well seeing that I have never denied the evidence of war crimes on either side, just where do you think you are going with your argument, you idiot?
LOL! Calling an Orthodox Chrisian a Bolshevik screams out your ignorance of the Balkans better than anything I could post.
I’ll just leave you hung on your own foolish petard then. LOL!
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