|
Not much, in the first instance. It has now been a
long time since a president of the United States regarded the
Balkans as a priority. A region that in the 1990s was the object of
two US military interventions (in Bosnia and Kosovo) and NATO
deployments has dribbled its way down the list of priorities and now
rests no higher on most days than a deputy assistant secretary in
the State Department. That’s not a bad thing: democracy and
statebuilding in the Western Balkans has been relatively successful,
with Slovenia, Croatia and Albania now NATO members and Montenegro
in the accession process. Slovenia and Croatia are also EU members
and all the other countries of the region are pointed in that
direction, each at its own pace.
But the Westernization process in the Western
Balkans is still not complete, has slowed recently, and could be
curtailed or even reversed during the Trump administration. Bosnia
is suffering attacks on its constitutional legitimacy, rooted in the
Dayton peace accords of 1995, from the President of the relatively
autonomous 49% of the country known as Republika Srpska. Macedonia
is stalled due to internal strife and Greece’s refusal to accept is
name. Kosovo started its existence as a sovereign state well behind
the others and likewise suffers internal strife and continuing
problems due to Serbia’s non-recognition. All the Balkan countries
are suffering a Russian soft power assault on their media and
institutions.
If the new president is inclined to accept a
Russian sphere of influence in the Balkans, the consequences for the
region’s relatively new democracies could be dramatic. Montenegro’s
NATO accession depends on ratification in the US Senate. Progress in
Bosnia will require the EU and the US to act in tandem to promote
political and economic reforms. Improved relations between Kosovo
and Serbia likewise depend on concerted action Brussels and
Washington, as will resolution of Macedonia’s internal and external
problems. Just easing up on these ongoing efforts could doom them to
failure.
But worse could be in store. Trump wants to
improve American relations with Russia and may be tempted to concede
items of value to get them. If, for example, he were to accept
Russian annexation of Crimea, that alone could set off a series of
ethnically based partitions not only in Ukraine but also elsewhere:
in Georgia, Moldova, Bosnia, Kosovo, and Macedonia. It would be
truly miraculous if such a chain of partitions were to occur
peacefully. It is far more likely that it would entail instability,
ethnic cleansing, redrawing of borders, and war. White nationalists
like Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief long-term strategist, will no doubt
be telling the new president that ethnic partition is natural or
inevitable and not such a bad thing after all.
What this amounts to in the Balkans is an assault
on the post-war order established in the late 1990s as the most
recent Balkan wars came to an end. It wasn’t an entirely liberal
democratic order, as ethnic identity and group rights have remained
an important dimension of organized political life virtually
everywhere in the region. But it was an order based on aspirations
to EU and for some NATO membership that involved establishing
independent judiciaries, relatively free media, representative
legislative bodies, and peaceful resolution of disputes. Upsetting
this order in favor of ethnic separation and illiberal autocracies
with territorial pretensions would be perilous: this is a part of
the world involved in two world wars, in addition to its own
post-Cold War conflicts arising from the breakup of former
Yugoslavia.
I don’t expect Steve Bannon or John Bolton to
worry about that, but I do hope that more pragmatic Republicans like
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Corker or outgoing New
Hampshire Senator Ayotte, both of whom are rumored for cabinet
positions, to understand that the Balkan wars of the 1990s and the
subsequent peace were a bipartisan effort, with support led as much
by Republican Senator Dole as anyone else. Preserving that
bipartisan legacy of peace and increasing prosperity is important,
even if the region no longer attracts high level attention.
|
