Kosovo Independence- a Strategic Impossibility Without Massive and Expensive Support

By Tracy Dove, Ph.D
Editor, The Russia News Service

December 21, 2007

If Kosovo goes ahead with its plans to declare independence early next Spring, then it is not only Brussels and Washington that will have some re-writing of the diplomacy textbooks to consider. NATO commanders are now contemplating certain unfavorable scenarios that no one wanted to talk about 8 years ago when the war plans were still on the table and an exit strategy could have been forged. While diplomatic recognition can come as swiftly as the victors care to uncap their pens, real control on the ground will be a different matter. The geographic partitioning of Serbia, in this case, will look interestingly similar to another failed peace initiative: the treaty of Versailles and the disappearance of Weimar Germany.

Firstly, there are simple strategic problems on the ground that will deny Kosovo any sovereignty if NATO troops do not commit to a long and drawn-out presence there, because Serbia and the Kosovar Serbians could easily strangle the tiny country into eventual submission for the following reasons. Firstly, Kosovo's only water supply comes from a Serb enclave in the north of the province, and it would take the permanent presence of NATO troops to guarantee that this source is not threatened by the local community or Serbian terrorists. Further, the future of reliable power generation for Kosovo is also at stake for similar reasons. The only electrical plant is old and in need of repairs, and it is likewise located in the Serbian north of the region. Evidence coming from Iraq and Afghanistan attest to the fact that power plants are extremely susceptible to terrorism and political control, and protecting any investment by the international community to upgrade the capacity would require a substantial investment of troops by NATO. Lastly, Serbia has already announced that it would impose a general embargo for the land-locked territory, virtually guaranteeing that the only major trade and travel routes will be subject to Serbian control.

This is where the comparison with post World War I Germany comes in. Just like after the Yugoslav capitulation in 2000, Germany was forced to sign a peace treaty with unpalatable territorial concessions that left the Germans bitter and hostile to the new republics that had sprung up around them: Czechoslovakia and Poland. But the allies who were redrawing the maps in Paris in 1919 were planning ahead. In order to give Poland a good start at its first statehood in 150 years, the allies carved the Danzig Corridor through German Prussia in order to give the underdog Poles access to the sea. The national resentment at having Germany severed through the historically important state of Prussia made for fertile ground when Hitler began preaching about the "November Criminals" who had signed the hated Treaty of Versailles.

The case of Serbia today is not far from the mark. Kosovo is considered the historic incubator of the Serbian national character, and its loss has inspired nationalist leaders who have already pledged disruption in any and all of Kosovo's international aspirations that have anything to do with their common border. Furthermore, Serbia is just as isolated today as Germany was in the 1920's; back then, the League of Nations had belittled Germany after 1920, and it took the United States to step in and safe the country's economy. There is talk today of a fast track for Serbia to membership in the EU if Kosovo is indeed severed from Serbia proper, and this is perhaps the only treatment that might work for the humiliated nation.

We don't need to look too deeply into a crystal ball to see that Kosovo's future is tied to at least a 20 year presence of NATO or other allied troops to protect and support the country, and this we can see, again, from the case of Weimar Germany. By 1925, the League of Nations had petered out as an international body, and France was having difficulty finding any ally who would help enforce the Treaty of Versailles to the letter. Frustrated, the French eventually abandoned their occupation of Germany- for all the wrong reasons- and the world quickly got distracted by the Great Depression and the devastating banking crisis that hit Europe in 1931.

If Kosovo is to be supported by the US and the EU in its bid for independence, then both partners better be ready to commit for the long run. This seems unlikely with Iraq and Afghanistan draining the national morale of the only partner left in the Coalition of the Willing, so it is just as unlikely that Kosovo will survive as a separate. The last parallel can perhaps already be guessed: out in the darkness, beyond the eastern frontier, lies an oil-rich Russia with close ties to Serbia, and just like the Soviet Union became Germany's first ally in 1922, it may be that Kosovo- like Poland- could cost the West's shortsightedness more than was bargained for when the first war began in 1999.

Tracy Dove, editor of The Russia News Service, is a Professor of History and Dean of Summer Programs for the Lessing Institute. He also teaches history at the Anglo-American College in Prague.

See all previous articles by Tracy Dove here.