Daniel Serwer in Sarajevo: How to fix American policy in Bosnia

Daniel Serwer is back in Sarajevo. I think that is an important event. In order to convey the importance of Serwer, former Clinton Administration official and professor at Johns Hopkins SAIS, for Bosnia and Herzegovina and the region, I will cite a historical parallel.

Two months before the beginning of the bombing in 1999, the Government of Serbia (in which Aleksandar Vučić was then Minister of Information) announced that it was in possession of a secret document in which the CIA “suggests to the US Government to double the amount of financial support for Yugoslavia, from 15 to 35 million dollars to remove from power the authoritarian regime in Belgrade”.

As pointed out by the Government of Serbia, the document foresees that Washington will allocate the most money to the media and opposition parties — 10 million, and then slightly less, but also millions, for universities, trade unions, youth organizations, etc.

Answering the questions of journalists, Serbian officials said, among other things, that they will not reveal how the Government obtained this document, “because it intends to obtain others as well.” The document, “albeit of the highest degree of confidentiality”, was distributed to media.

The very next day, the Belgrade-based Danas announced that the CIA’s secret plan to overthrow the Milosevic regime was actually a policy paper of the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), which had been available to the public for a long time on the website of that non-governmental organization.

The author of the document and the vice-president of USIP, Daniel Serwer, who was out of politics for years after his involvement in Bosnia and Herzegovina, said in a statement to the Belgrade media that the absurdity is complete, if we take into account that it is a month before the sensational conference of the Serbian government, the “secret plan” was presented to the public at a meeting in Washington, attended by the ambassador of government in Belgrade.

Despite the facts, the Serbian regime continued to claim that it was a secret CIA plan, and accused the media, which published its authentic origin, of being on the CIA’s payroll as well.

Summarizing this case, Serwer said that “the government, which can come up with this kind of fraud, can do something worse” (which turned out to be true), and prophetically concluded (something which still hasn’t turned out to be true): “Serbs will — and not the CIA — to create institutions of democratic and civil society.”

All this happened after the massacre in Račak, which the then president of Serbia, Milan Milutinović, commented with the words: “The CIA wants to provoke NATO intervention through Walker.”

Nothing flows

To make matters more bizarre: around the same time, when I read about the aforementioned case (in Grujica Spasojević’s book “Danas, in spite of them: the first thousand days”), the media reported on the controversy between Vučić, who in the meantime became the president of Serbia, and ( again) Serwer.

As Politika reported on October 21, 2022: “Commenting on Daniel Serwer’s statement that there is no solid reason for postponing the decision on vehicle re-registration [in Kosovo], Vučić says that ‘as for Daniel Serwer, if he were to ask himself no there is a solid reason for Serbia to even exist’.

“The President points out,” the news further states, “that our Western partners are concerned about the possibility of an escalation in Kosovo and Metohija, but that they will not make public the details of the talks with Quinta representatives.”

It was as if time stood still. 23 years later, the same people, more or less the same discussion, the same topic (tensions in Kosovo), etc. If Heraclitus had lived in this age, he might have concluded that nothing actually flows.

Everything is the same as in 1999, and at the same time, nothing is the same. Serwer’s prediction in 1999 that “Serbs — not the CIA — will create the institutions of a democratic society” turned not to be good. At least for now. Kosovo has not been a part of Serbia for a long time, but is an internationally recognized state. The global order is not unipolar, but multipolar. The United States has more work to do in Ukraine and Gaza, and the last thing Washington wants at the moment is an escalation in Kosovo. “That’s exactly why Vučić threatens,” as one former US Army colonel lucidly observed.

In such a situation, the Americans put pressure on Pristina to accept the Association of Serbian municipalities, in order to send message to Vučić that he should not go to war, if he can get “something” by peaceful means. Washington’s goal in the region is modest — any kind of peace. Or, as the US ambassador in Belgrade Chris Hill said a few days ago: “The US is satisfied with Belgrade’s policy towards dialogue with Kosovo.”

So, although everything is the same (and even Chris Hill is back in Belgrade), the situation is not even close to the one in the late 90s, when Washington was thinking about changing the regime in Serbia.

Currently, in the Balkans, it is worse to be America’s friend than its enemy

Commenting on Ambassador Hill’s statements, Serwer recently said that “ toadying to Vucic has become the default behavior in Belgrade” and that “no amount of lickspittle will change Belgrade’s decision to align with Russia.”

“Vucic,” said Serwer, “has made clear that he intends to try to take back a piece of Kosovo whenever he gets an opportunity. Any agreement in Ukraine to surrender territory to Russia will provide that opportunity.”

Serwer pointed out that the general leniency of the Biden administration encouraged Vučić’s ambitions, not only in Kosovo, but also when it comes to Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro. In order to prevent escalation, Washington, in his opinion, should take a tougher stance towards Vučić, and not towards Kosovars, Bosniaks and Montenegrins, as is currently the case.

Serwer concludes: “US policy needs to return to favoring its friends in the Balkans and countering its enemies.”

As it exerts pressure on Pristina regarding the Association of Serb municipalities, and as it helped the coming of Serbian nationalists to power in Montenegro, the Biden administration turned (not entirely, but to a significant extent) against its most loyal allies in BiH, the Bosniaks. D. C. did it in order to please the Serbs and Croats and thus cement the peace, so that, being burdened by Ukraine (and Gaza) anyway, US would not have to deal with a possible war in Bosnia.

Čović and Dodik understood this, so after the start of Russian aggression against Ukraine, and before the elections in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 2022, they fiercely threatened. In order to prevent Čović’s “unrest in the south” and Dodik’s secession, the Americans complied with their demands.

First, the OHR, following the request of the American Embassy in Sarajevo, brought amendments to the Constitution of the Federation, so biased in favor of the HDZ that the Croatian Prime Minister presented them as the result of his own lobbying. As for Dodik, the key concession to him was staying in power. As BiH Defense Minister Zukan Helez (SDP) has repeatedly pointed out, the Troika had the possibility to form a Council of Ministers with the opposition from Republika Srpska, but, after consulting with the “international community” (read: the American Embassy), they decided to form a government with Dodik.

Ultimately, the biggest losers were the Bosniaks.

Reaffirmation of the Federation

If the OHR’s ​​amendments of October 2, 2022 were imposed in order to protect the right of Croats to participate in the government of the Federation, the right of course provided by the Washington Agreement and called into question by the announcements of the SDA and the DF that they intend to form a government without the HDZ; Schmidt’s intervention on April 27, 2023 is, without any doubt, the violent deprivation of Bosniaks, as a constituent people, of the right of veto in the election of the Government of the Federation, which is the cornerstone of the Washington Agreement.

In other words, the motto of the Biden administration was to “reaffirm the Federation”, but Gabriel Escobar and Derek Chollet did the opposite: they undermined the foundations of the Federation.

The result is: an almost complete loss of trust of the largest ethnic group in BiH in US policy, and indifference or even contempt on the part of the Croat side towards the Americans. Čović humiliated the American ambassador to Bosnia and Herzegovina, Michael Murphy, because, regardless of the fact that the Americans helped him to stay in power, the HDZ leader showed no will to distance himself from Dodik, moreover — as Murphy himself admits — he is now blocking LNG pipeline in favor of Russia.

How much Escobar, Chollet and Murphy were played and humiliated is perhaps best expressed by the fact that Croatian Prime Minister Andrej Plenković, in the diplomatic corridors, says that he “cannot influence Čović”. Let’s imagine that in 1994, Franjo Tuđman told Charles Redman or Peter Galbraith that he was unable to control, that is, replace Mate Boban, pro-Serb leader of Bosnian Croats at that time. The Washington Accords would never have been signed. In other words, if he cannot influence Čović, Plenković should not be taken seriously as an interlocutor when it comes to BiH.

Lately, especially after the appointment of Jim O’Brien as Assistant Secretary of State for Europe and Eurasia, the effort of the Biden administration to appease the Bosniaks has been noticeable, with a harsher tone towards Čović and some concrete moves towards Dodik, such as yesterday’s sanctions. However, none of that is a fundamental change, because both Dodik and Čović are in power, and they have all the prerequisites to retain power even after the next election cycles.

What to do?

The topic of the Sarajevo conference, where Serwer will speak, is “Policy of the Biden administration: 30 years of the Federation of BiH”. Knowing that Daniel Serwer is someone who participated in Washington Agreement and Dayton Agreement, and someone who is capable to think about Bosnia in the most serious but at the same time creative manner, I have no doubt that Serwer will have good (critical but well-intentioned) advice for Biden’s team.

On this occasion, I will express just a few thoughts about the Federation. It should not be forgotten that the Washington Agreement was preceded by important changes on the military front. In November 1993, the RBiH army entered Vareš and established territorial continuity between Tuzla and Zenica. As Xavier Bougarel notes in To Outlive the Empires, “in central Bosnia, Herceg-Bosna was reduced to a few exhausted and isolated enclaves”.

At that moment, Washington is not stopping the RBiH Army with threats of NATO strikes or the like. On the contrary, the Americans are taking the opposite step, in order to win the Bosniaks for a peace agreement with the Croats. The USA, says Bougarel, “gives its implicit consent to Iranian arms deliveries to the ARBiH and thereby indirectly puts an end to the UN embargo”. In Zagreb, they then realize that the Bosnian Croat Army has no chance if the conflict continues and opens up space for a peace agreement. In the form of the Federation, the Bosniaks get the support of Croatia (through which the weapons come) for the priority goal: crushing the secessionist ambitions of Republika Srpska.

Biden administration officials, who talked a lot about reaffirming the Federation, failed to actually repeat the structural scenario that led to success in the spring of 1994. Instead of pleasing Dragan Čović, the Americans should help the Bosniaks to once again put pressure on HDZ BiH and bring it to the brink of political collapse. Only then, when Čović is cornered, like Boban at the end of 1993, the Americans need to give Zagreb and HDZ BiH an offer that cannot be refused: if they do not want to be thrown out of power, the “legitimate representatives of the Croats” must actively join the Bosniaks in the fight against Dodik’s secessionism, that is, on the stabilization of conditions in BiH and its progress towards the Euro-Atlantic framework.