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Stratfor Kosovo: The Real Flashpoint August 22, 2007 16 34 GMT Summary Unidentified assailants attacked a Kosovar Serbian couple Aug. 20 -- precisely the type of event that enflames Serbian nationalism and might trigger the return of Serbian forces to Kosovo. But any decision in Belgrade to send troops to Kosovo first requires a green light from Russia. Analysis A young Serbian couple was assaulted Aug. 20 near the Kosovar city of Gracanica, an outer suburb of the provincial capital of Pristina, Serbian television reported Aug. 21. Although the identity of the assailants is currently unknown, it is being implied in media reports that Albanians are responsible for the assault of the male and rape of the female. Such an event is precisely the sort of development that sparks nationalist passions in Serbia and could usher Serbian forces into Kosovo, but any go order from Belgrade depends on the opinion of another power entirely: Russia. NATO forces ejected Serbia from Kosovo in 1999, severing Belgrade's control over what Serbs view as their homeland. To make a very long and painful story more manageable, most Serbs believe they are not to blame for the Yugoslav wars and instead that they have been the victims of relentless punishment by both the West and their immediate Balkan neighbors. They see Kosovo as simply the latest in a long line of humiliations and now the de facto ethnic cleansing of Serbs in Kosovo is pushing the government to the brink. According to the 1999 U.N. settlement that still formally rules Kosovo, Serbia is entitled to station 1,000 troops in the breakaway province to look after places of cultural significance and the Serbian population (currently about 5 percent of the province's 2 million people). However, concerns among the NATO commanders who run security -- and command 16,000 heavily armed NATO troops -- in Kosovo have so far prevented those troops from being deployed. In the past week -- before the Aug. 20 assault -- many Serbian politicians were clamoring for Serbian forces' return to the territory. The most important of these politicians is Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica himself, whose political party -- Democratic Party of Serbia-New Serbia -- also happens to control the Interior Ministry, from which those forces would be drawn and commanded. This does not mean an intervention is imminent, or at least not for the obvious reasons. Serbia is exhausted -- morally, financially and physically -- from 17 years of war, sanctions and conflict. The Serbian middle class -- represented in the government by two different political parties -- does not want a conflict over Kosovo; it simply wants to get on with rejoining the European community. So while Kostunica technically has the power to move forces into Kosovo, he represents the second-largest party in a three-party coalition that would not back him up on the issue. He will not move alone. But he would move with some prodding. Serbian nationalists -- Kostunica included -- consider Russia to be their most powerful, if not only, foreign ally and are grateful for Moscow's refusal to sign off on any U.N. plan that would formally split Kosovo from Serbia. As long as that political cover holds, Kosovar independence will simply not get the U.N. stamp of approval. Russia, of course, is playing its own game. The Kremlin does not give a whit about Kosovo, but Russian strategists certainly recognize the value of an issue that can send fractures through the Western community. NATO's 1999 Kosovo operation was controversial in the West at the time, and imposing a final status remains controversial today. Put Russia in a position of influence with the Serbs and give Moscow the institutional leverage (via its U.N. veto) to stymie progress, and the Russians have the option of triggering a crisis -- or simply allowing one to boil over -- whenever they like. Like, just perhaps, now. Russia is attempting to refashion as much of the international system as it can before the United States disentangles itself from Iraq, and to do so at as low a cost to itself as possible. A dysfunctional Serbia/Kosovo, therefore, is in Russia's best interest because it installs a point of permanent instability in a region that is now within NATO and EU borders. A green light from Moscow could send Serbian forces into Kosovo and spark a crisis with NATO. After all, if you were the NATO commander on the ground, would you fire at a force that is legally entitled to be there and doing little more than protecting civilians whose security NATO has been unable to guarantee? The answer would likely be "maybe" -- definitive enough to keep the Serbs from acting on their own thus far. But if the Russians provided political cover for a Serbian move into Kosovo, that "maybe" would quickly become an "absolutely not." Best of all for Moscow, the forces would be Serbian -- not Russian -- so in the highly likely event that something goes drastically wrong, it would be no skin off the Russians' nose. Russia wants the world to see the West backing down -- publicly -- from a confrontation with Moscow. With such a capitulation, the Kremlin feels it could then craft a whole range of security parameters to its liking. For that to happen, quiet disengagements -- such as previous developments in Kosovo, with the West backing away from forcing the issue of Kosovar independence -- do not suffice. The sort of crisis Russia envisions would be one in which Serbia takes all the risk, while Russia is clearly seen as the instigator. Which means the real question is not whether the Serbs will move but whether the Russians will urge them to. And that will be a decision driven by the logic of Russia's needs -- something that has absolutely nothing to do with Serbia and/or Kosovo.
