If you give separatists an inch...
An independent Kosovo will spur other separatists to fight harder.
By David Young
from the November 5, 2007 edition
Arlington, VA. - The NATO intervention in the Serbian province of Kosovo in
1999, the UN protectorate that followed, and the symbiotic push for Kosovo's
development and independence have left many analysts and politicians scrambling
either to bemoan or trivialize the impact that Kosovo's final status could have
on the global order.
With the looming Dec. 10 deadline for the latest round of negotiations, it
seems exceedingly unlikely that Washington will be able to persuade Moscow to
endorse Kosovo's independence at the UN Security Council. Yet Kosovo's
frustrated Albanians, who make up more than 90 percent of the province's
population, have hinted that they are on the brink of declaring independence
unilaterally, even if it means renewed conflict with Belgrade.
Ultimately, in our international system, a nation's "independence" is little
more than the rest of the world's willingness to recognize it as independent.
So, even if Moscow vetoes Kosovo's bid for independence, Kosovo can still enjoy
some of the benefits of being an independent country. These benefits become
more substantial with every state that recognizes Kosovo. Similarly, the
likelihood of renewed violence would decrease if other countries viewed
Kosovo's self-defense as legitimate.
This means, however, that because negotiations are likely to fail, Washington
has been encouraging, and will continue to encourage, foreign governments to
support a technically illegal, self-declared, independent Kosovo in the event
that negotiations collapse. Yet this kind of persuasion does not come easily.
There are more than 50 separatist conflicts across the globe, and few of the
governments that have endured the bane of irredentism will be eager to
recognize Kosovo if such a precedent could come back to haunt them.
Echoing countless other US and European officials, Daniel Fried, the US
assistant secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, responded to
such concerns in February with the following logic: "Kosovo is a unique
situation because NATO was forced to intervene to stop and then reverse ethnic
cleansing. The Security Council authorized Kosovo to be ruled effectively by
the United Nations, not by Serbia. UN Council Resolution 1244 also stated that
Kosovo's final status would be the subject of negotiation. Those conditions do
not pertain to any of the conflicts that are usually brought up in this
context."
Unfortunately, Washington's "unique" talking points are actually engraving a
separatist playbook in stone, blazing a glorious trail that separatists will
follow with greater determination, recruits, and (in all likelihood) success.
Separatist regions like the Basque Country or Abkhazia might not resemble
Kosovo right now – as Washington is quick to note – but by so explicitly
stating the merits of Kosovar self-determination and independence, Washington
is essentially creating an innovative code, only to make the cipher publicly
available. Current and future separatists merely have to manufacture the same
conditions and sequencing that have compelled the West to embrace an
independent Kosovo: terrorize locals, invite government crackdowns, incite a
rebellion, and lure in foreign intervention and commitment to rebuild.
Once militants get this far, Kosovo will no longer be unique – even by
Washington's peculiar standards – and areas that share Kosovo's characteristics
will be equally deserving of independence. The horrid irony, of course, is that
declaring Kosovo's uniqueness has been Washington's deliberate attempt to
prevent future separatism, but it is inadvertently teaching militants how to
navigate the complex inconsistencies of geopolitics. In fact, the more thorough
and persuasive Western governments are about Kosovo's "uniqueness," the more
legitimate separatists' ambitions become, if only they follow the Kosovo model.
Not only, then, has Washington had a hard time selling Kosovo's independence to
all but its closest allies, but the very basis for that appeal is even more
threatening to governments that would face invigorated separatism in the wake
of an independent Kosovo – even if that independence is informal and
technically illegal.
With the "unique" endorsement, Washington and a few European capitals close
even more rhetorical doors that they will need to slip through when the time
comes to reject separatist analogies in the future, and our failure to
anticipate these complicated roadblocks will cost our allies more than anyone
else.
David Young is a fellow at Abraham's Vision and a graduate student at the
Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution at George Mason University in
Arlington, Va.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/1105/p09s02-coop.html
