Tanya Domi: The West is soft with Vučić, Serbia is working against American interests in the Balkans

The West has chosen a soft approach towards the president of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, because Serbia has deployed 8,000 soldiers on the border with Kosovo and is being armed by China and Russia, says in an interview for The Geopost, Tanya L. Domi, Professor of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University and she appeals to the international community to change its soft language towards Serbia.

She points out that Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine caused turmoil in the Balkans, while adding that Russia aims to undermine Western democracy.

It highlights the soft policy of the West towards Serbia, which works against American interests in the Balkans and against the Dayton Agreement.

In this interview, Domi also talks about the impact of the escalation in the Middle East.

Full Interview:

The Geopost: How do you see security in the Balkans two years after the Russian invasion in Ukraine and the attack on Israel?

Domi: I think the Middle East situation is a little bit different. I’m going to talk about Ukraine first. I think Ukraine, the attack in 2022 of armed conflict invasion by Russia into Ukraine sent a shiver through the Balkans. And the reason why is because you have a number of proxies for the Russians operating openly in the Balkans, such as President Vucic of Serbia, who is very close to Vladimir Putin, and secondly, Milorad Dodik in Bosnia-Herzegovina, who also is a Russian proxy, very pro-Moscow.

In Zagreb, there is efforts by Dragan Covic and others to play favor with Moscow. And so all along what Russia intends to do here and has demonstrated and even said it so much is that they want to undermine Western democracy and their conduct shows you that they are the great disruptor, the great interrupter, and for example, on the Dayton Peace Accords, the annual communique by the office of the high representative, Russia refuses to sign a communique formally, and they put it at the bottom of each communique that’s issued about the status of Bosnia. That shows you that they’re working against the sovereignty of Bosnia, which is guaranteed under Dayton, and they’re working against the interests of the United States and the Atlantic Security Alliance. For those reasons, it’s very, very unsettling that this war continues, and the West, including the United States, has not been able to rearm Ukraine, reinforce them right now because of opposition in the Republican caucus in the US Congress. So right now, it’s at a stalemate and it’s quite dangerous.

I don’t want to get to the point where we’re thinking, will Putin win? And if he wins, what does that mean for the Balkans? Then not only is that war been ongoing but on October 7th, 2023 Hamas attacked Israel resulting in over 1200 people dead and of course Israel retaliated against the Hamas and have killed more than 30,000 in the Gaza Strip, and then the response last week from Iran attacking Israel itself and the United States moving against Iran, shooting down missiles, ballistic missiles. That creates just a tenuous situation where people don’t know what’s coming next. And that can be unsettling as far away as the Balkans are, it still is another wrinkle about what could happen, what may happen and I think the escalation of conflict between Serbia and Kosovo at their border of course erupted over the last few years, but then when the Banjska attack happened last September and a number of people died, that seemed really out of control. And actually, one of the reasons the New Line Institute issued a monograph on the security posture in the Western Balkans was because of the Banjska attack and I made a decision we really need to look at the region as a whole and look at the geopolitical challenges that are present in the region. So not only is Russia a major player and a partner to significant people in the Balkans but China too is playing a role and there’s competition so to speak but been playing quite a bit in Montenegro as well. The Montenegrin government has leveraged over several billion dollars to China where they took loans and there’s no way that Montenegro can repay that loan given 600,000 people, a much smaller GDP. So how does China pressure Montenegro to get that money? Well, let’s look at their behavior, perhaps in the Security Council, are they asking, do this for us, pay us back this way? It puts that government that is pro-Russian in a really bad position, and they’re a NATO member, and that also is very disturbing. So, for example, not only is China playing in the region, but there was an attempt by Russian and Serbian nationals to overthrow the Montenegrin government during the election in October 2016. So all this is playing out in the background and it creates a situation where you’re not exactly sure what’s happening but it could get worse. And that’s what I think everybody is kind of holding their breath right now and saying what could happen next. I think that the United States has not done a good job on trying to get the parties to pull back. Of course, the United States doesn’t want a war in the region, but when they’ve been mollifying Vucic and mollifying to a certain extent a number of nationalists in the region, that doesn’t send the right message in my view.

The Geopost: Does the west understands enough the problem of the Russian influence in the Balkan?

Domi: European Union says they’re not going to sanction. I mean that’s their policy, they don’t use sanctions. And so, I think the European Union has been quite weak. And so, because of what I consider a short-sighted strategy by the United States, it’s been even underscored by even weaker EU partner. And what you have to say to people like Vucic who put 8,000 soldiers on Kosovo’s border?

Instead of attacking the Prime Minister of Kosovo, you should be saying to Mr. Vučić, pull back and pull back now, because we’re not going to continue to allow this to play out this way. This is not engaging in democratic practices, this is not showing good faith in your relationship with the United States, and I think it just has not bode well. Now, I want to give Jim O’Brien, who just took over the Europe Eurasia Bureau in Washington State Department, he was a protege of Richard Holbrooke, is the US policy going to change? We have to wait and see, we have to wait and see. But he gave a speech a couple of months ago at the University of Sarajevo, said a lot of the right things. Okay, how do you follow up on those right things beyond Dayton, the broader region? I think they underestimated. I think they underestimated just how much tension there is, just how much animosity there is, and I think to essentially attack the Prime Minister of Kosovo after all the mayors resigned in northers Kosovo, in the minority community, the Serb minority community. I just think that was a really weak, really weak action.

And what it did was, it caused people to say, what is the United States thinking now? We didn’t resign. The Serbian mayors resigned. And then the prime minister wanted to get the Albanian mayors to work safely. That isn’t an anti-democratic move. I actually think that made a lot of common sense. So I’m very disappointed in the US approach for now. And I’d like to see it change to become much more embracing the rule of law, democratic practices and quit playing people, it seemed, playing people against each other, it’s really not a good look for a superpower like the United States of America.

But I think this new Middle East war just throws in more questions, like what else could happen, what more could happen, and we’re seeing that Serbia’s done a major arms buildup. Why are you doing an arms buildup? Why are you buying Chinese drones? Why are you buying arms from France? I mean, France is selling Serbia arms.

And it seems a lot of people have conjectured that the United States is looking past Serbia because they’ve been rearming and selling arms to Ukraine during this war. So, I don’t know, it’s a big who knows what win. But I don’t think it sends a good message as a major power that has played a historical role in the last 30 years. They need to send the messages that they’re here to support people to engage in good behavior in good democratic practices and that’s where you draw the line when they don’t.

/The Geopost