The Western Balkans: The Genesis of the Frozen Conflict Lines

Three problem states still pose a major challenge to the West two and a half decades after the end of the Balkan wars: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Serbia. In these three countries, not only does democratic progress seem to have stalled, but the threat of ethnic escalation following Russia's attack on Ukraine has heightened fears of a possible Putin-led infiltration that could lead to a new front in Europe. Like it or not, both Europe and the U.S. are paying the price for the many concessions they have, for a decade, made to the main instigator and organizer of the destructive Balkan wars, Serbian leader Slobodan Milošević. 

For ten years, from 1990 to 2000, Brussels and Washington, Paris, London and Berlin sought arrangements with a man who took the wars in Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and the unrest in North Macedonia and Montenegro not only to be a strategic approach aiming at the formation of a "Greater Serbia", but also as the only means of maintaining his power in Serbia. Each retreat from a battlefield opened a new one—step by step and year by year.

Faithfully Serving Personalities

However, the two countries that suffered the most from these wars—triggered by their immediate neighbor Serbia—were undoubtedly Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo. Now it is a fact that Serbia in 2023 is not the same as it was in 1995 when the war in Bosnia or 1999 when the war in Kosovo ended. But it is also a fact that the key figures in today's Serbian politics are personalities who faithfully served the regime of Slobodan Milošević at that time. The current president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, was the Minister of Information in the Milošević government in 1999, while the current Minister of Foreign Affairs, Ivica Dačić, was the spokesman for the Socialist Party of Serbia then led by Slobodan Milošević.

Is this the reason for the difficulties these two states have with today's Serbia? Undoubtedly. In early 2000, the new Prime Minister Zoran Đinđić attempted to create another, ‘democratic’ Serbia. Đinđić was assassinated by Serbian paramilitaries, leading to a resurgence of a toxic nationalist discourse in Serbia.

After Putin's invasion of Ukraine, Russia is finding it even more difficult to exert its influence on the Western Balkans […].

Serbia has never reconciled with the statehood of Bosnia and Herzegovina, much less with that of Kosovo. Following the defeat of the Serbian military and paramilitaries, the nature of the so-called Serbian ’war‘ and the battles for Serbian territories in Bosnia and Kosovo certainly differed from those of Milošević. ’Serbian territories‘ were renamed the ’Serbian world‘ according to the tactics developed by Vučić and his allies.

The ’Serbian World’

The ‘Serbian world’ has become a term used and applied by Belgrade to justify all actions Serbia undertakes in favor of the Serbs outside the borders of the Serbian state. This includes the constant launching of new verbal disputes with Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Kosovo and North Macedonia, as well as the provocative mention of a geopolitical alliance with Russia, China and, if necessary, with Germany and the U.S.

It comprises economic investments, the threat of escalation and new conflicts and, above all, the instrumentalization of the Serbian leadership in Bosnia and Kosovo to make life in these two states as difficult as possible. Both Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo remain under the spell of their Belgrade-controlled Serbian element even after their independence. Two decades after the wars, rapprochement with the EU is the only carrot for the region. Belgrade holds the key to this and, paradoxically, with its policy of blackmail, is the biggest beneficiary of the European integration process.

Both Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo remain under the spell of their Belgrade-controlled Serbian element even after their independence. Two decades after the wars, rapprochement with the EU is the only carrot for the region.

Serbia, more than any other state in the region, has made progress in EU membership negotiations. The ‘carrot and stick’ policy for the former Yugoslavia has benefited the policies of Vučić and Dačić more than Bosnia and Herzegovina or Kosovo. This is also due to the fact that the internal organization of these two states gives considerable political power to the Serbs in the Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina and to the Serbs in northern Kosovo: any decision related to their internal administration requires their approval, starting with constitutional amendments and ending with the lifting of parliamentary paralysis.

Exhausted by the Pacifist Political Discourse

Exhausted by the pacifist political discourse of the then leader of the Kosovo Albanians, Ibrahim Rugova, and politically disillusioned with Germany, Switzerland and America, young Albanian men and women of Kosovo, began to organize themselves in an effort of self-defense against Milošević's troops. The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), the insurgent organization of Kosovo Albanians was active for only one year, from 1998 to 1999. It moved away from Rugova's pacifist agenda and thus attracted the attention of the West.

The final chapter of the disintegration of Yugoslavia had begun. Mass killings of Albanian civilians and the punishment of entire villages in Kosovo served as both a warning and a lesson to the West, especially after the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This led to the proposal to hold a Dayton-style conference for Kosovo in the hope of preventing bloodshed like the one in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The donor conferences and the promises made by the West for the region's European accession perspective were innumerable.

Encouraged by the success he had achieved with peace in Bosnia, Milošević sent his delegation to the Castle of Rambouillet near Paris. Many books have been written and much testimony has been given about what happened behind the walls of this castle. What is known, however, is that Milošević, encouraged by his success in Bosnia and Herzegovina, not only lost Kosovo but also his power as a result of his mistakes made at Rambouillet.

By refusing to grant autonomy to the Albanians, withdraw his paramilitary forces, reduce the presence of regular Serbian military troops in Kosovo, and allow UN peacekeepers to enter, the West had no choice but to intervene militarily with NATO air strikes. This happened without the consent of the UN, as Russia blocked a UN Security Council resolution.

Obviously, relations between Kosovo and Serbia would have been different if Milošević had accepted the proposal of the US, Britain, France, Germany and Italy for a partial withdrawal of the army to the barracks and granted Kosovo extensive autonomy within Serbia. But Milošević decided to go to war. During the three-month NATO air strike, more than ten thousand people died, around a million were displaced.

In June 1999, when Milošević withdrew his army from Kosovo and NATO entered, a new chapter began in the relations between the two countries. Kosovo came under the administration of the UN, while Serbia had to wage its internal war to free itself from its dictator Milošević. Thus, the past century ended with a war in Europe, precisely in the same region where the First World War began – in the Balkans.