The Biden administration's vision of promoting democracies is on its deathbed in the Balkans. The U.S. stopped trying to reign in Serbia's authoritarian, criminal-linked regime, even though the regime aligned its foreign policy with Russia's and stomped out civic freedoms. To keep order, the U.S. strongarmed and punished its most dedicated ally, democracy-oriented Kosovo—the country it safeguarded and built up following the Serbian ethnic cleansing campaigns against the Albanian majority in the 1990s.
In the meantime, Serbia received backing from Russia and China to continue its provocations.
Why is the U.S. supporting those regimes in the Balkans that are least committed to democratic values, while abandoning its liberal-minded allies? The U.S.' liberal values are desperately needed to resolve the crisis, but they are currently nowhere to be found.
A drastic U.S. policy reversal is urgently needed in Kosovo.
Serbian Attack on NATO Troops—A Portent of More Come
Emboldened by the West's repeated pacifications, Belgrade-directed instigators, in masks, batons, and armed with guns and Molotov cocktails, recently attacked NATO peacekeepers and journalists in northern Kosovo.
A day before the attacks on NATO troops, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken condemned Kosovo for implementing the results of Western-supported elections in the north. But it was Serbia that placed its armed forces on combat alert and stationed units on Kosovo's border. Blinken uttered no words of condemnation for the first round of Serbian-ordered violent protesters who set fire to police cars. Without international condemnation, the Serb agitators grew bolder and attacked and injured NATO troops, damaged media vehicles, and painted Z symbols on peacekeeper vehicles. In response to the Serb violence, the U.S. canceled Kosovo's participation in the Defender 23 NATO exercises.
In recent years, this willful blindness to Serbia's transgressions became the norm in U.S.-Balkans diplomatic relations, and it's leading down the road of appeasing Balkan strongmen, again.
The pattern is clear. The U.S. looks the other away as Serbia's leader Aleksandar Vucic saber rattles and "escalates to deescalate" in Kosovo whenever his domestic opposition grows louder. Even after days of Serbian-led violence against NATO, the West demands more from Kosovo and merely "encouraged President Vucic to urge calm among Kosovan Serbs."
The U.S. needs to decide upon its vision for the Balkans. Will it become a region run by ethno-nationalist autocrats, or a region that is committed to multiculturalism and democracy? After all, Kosovo is the U.S.' most democratic ally in the region. Yet now, the U.S. pacifies ethnonationalist leaders like Vucic and castigates those who seek to implement genuine liberal structures as barriers to "stability."
Patterns of Appeasement in the Name of Stability
In the last years, Serbia mobilized tanks and warplanes to the border in response to a reciprocal policy on license plates in Kosovo, without any international condemnation. This time, Serbia escalated in response to the Kosovo government guiding four newly-elected municipal mayors to their offices in northern Kosovo. The majority-Serb population in the north boycotted the elections under orders from Serbia but then sought to physically block the new mayors from taking office.
When the Kosovo police escorted the politicians past the crowd of protestors, clashes between Serbs and police ensued, prompting Serbian military escalation.
The U.S. supported the results of the April municipal elections. Despite this, when Kosovo sought to enforce the election results amid Serb barricades, the U.S. reversed course and blamed Kosovo for daring to enforce the rule of law.
While the U.S. invested decades of funding and troops into promoting Kosovo's statehood, it now wields its diplomacy against Kosovo's sovereignty and against Western interests and democratization in the region.
In the meantime, Serbia purchases sanctioned weapons from Russia and sponsors criminal gangs and the illegal government in northern Kosovo without penalty.
Current U.S. Diplomacy Echoes a Bloody Past
These is no logic or values to the U.S.' current diplomatic position in the Balkans. There is only an eerie echo to an era when the West tied its wagon to the most powerful autocrats in the region, which ended in genocide, ethnic cleansing, and NATO interventions.
By condemning Kosovo and praising Serbia when it deescalates, the U.S. implicitly condones the lawless northern region. It places Kosovo's sovereignty on the table as a bargaining chip—despite decades of Western resolve to uphold Kosovo's democratic progress.
If the "Balkan powder keg" explodes once again, the blood will be on the hands of U.S. diplomats for punishing their democratic allies while pacifying the autocrats. But there is still time to reset and renew investments in the democratization of the Balkans—not in another stabilitocracy. The U.S.' most successful humanitarian intervention and democratization mission in the post-Cold War era is on the line along with what's left of its liberal credentials.
Sidita Kushi, PhD, is assistant professor of political science at Bridgewater State University.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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