Escalation of the Conflict in Kosovo - Another War in the Balkans?

...but it's a literal question. The question, rephrased, being "do you disagree with me?" Isn't the way I said it gramm... hm... the same principle applies to the sentence I just made. Perhaps not, then.

I am now known as Flyboy.

In other words, I would agree that what you described would kill idealism.

Let's go back on-topic.

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

I can assure to most of you that real life is neither Call of Duty, nor a Tom Clancy novel nor some other Hollywood pulp fiction. As long as the Serbs remain calm and reasonable nothing should happen since this time it's Thaci who fucked up. And as long as they restrain from violence and other fuck ups like burning the border posts, I doubt that the KFOR would be willing to reenact the Tienanmen massacre.

It has been mentioned that Serbia "started" it by not accepting imports from Kosovo, which is only half true. As Kosovo's unliteral independence is not accepted by Serbia, those goods can only cross the border with an UNMIK stamp on it. Why are the Kosovo Serbs making such a fuss? As Milos pointed out, since the NATO aggression 1999 things went downhill. The Serbs are living in a country that is run by thugs and former KLA terrorists, they are surrounded by an ethnic Albanian majority that is hostile towards them and treats them as second class citizens at best, they have been on the receiving end of ethnic cleansing the last few years with the pogroms of 2004 being the prime example. So it is more or less the Milosevic era all over again with reversed roles.

@ Zarastro: Sounds good and it might even happen once I become the pharao of Egypt.

Personally I think there is no point for Serbia to keep the Albanian parts of Kosovo and the best solution would be that northern Kosovo is annexed by Serbia while Serbia in exchange gives them the Presevo valley. Pristina sends Thaci and his ilk to the Hague, where they spend the rest of their lives with their kindred spirits like Karadžić and Hadžić, and both parties sit together and for the first time seriously talk about everything what happened in the past. But unfortunately common sense and logic seem to be concepts that are alien to the Balkans and lately to Western policy too. It's just like in the song "Never Change" from Puddle of Mud.

edited 29th Jul '11 9:41:05 PM by AdeptusAlpharius

I ♥ the VRS

Speaking of Puddle of Mud...

The Balkan War is shrouded in mystery. Everyone's a hero and a villain, and no one knows who is the victim and who is the aggressor. And what is peace?

edited 29th Jul '11 10:13:42 PM by Gault

yey

Adeptus really said it well. I also think that regaining central Kosovo is nigh impossible, but that the north must be clinged to at any cost. Not really sure if trading the Preševo Valley for it would be a good move, though.

Zarastro asked if Kosovo has an army - no, the peace terms forbid it to have an army, but it compensates for it by having a really heavily armed police which is also used for business more fit of the military (Savage Heathen wouldn't like to live there ), though it still wouldn't be able to hold its ground against a true army. Most of the fight against Serbia would be carried by guerrillas and NATO, which would undoubtedly help Kosovo. Since Albania is also a NATO member, it would probably be used as a NATO base of operations, and KFOR is able to hold a good fight by itself. The Serbian army is not in such a good condition, though, and the fight would be quite evenly matched. Anyway, Serbia has a strategic advantage, and surrounding and taking Priština itself shouldn't be too hard. The very middle of Kosovo is where the front is the most likely to be.

The sin of silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.

So, if this comes to war, is it going to be like the Georgian bullshit back in '08? Georgia started out fine, and it looked like they might just force a stalemate, and then, oops, the bear is awake and dropping special forces on your ass, goodbye chances of victory. Only replace Georgia with Serbia and the Russians with NATO.

I am now known as Flyboy.

Yep, quite much.

The sin of silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.

Basically, yeah.

But since Russia is historically close to Serbia (as opposed to the more opportunistic and short-sighted relationship Washington has with Saakashvili), the wildcard would be whether or not Russia would back them. It wouldn't be the first time Russia rained on NATO's parade.

Damned Serb ninja. :P

edited 30th Jul '11 12:17:58 AM by FFShinra

It would most probably send limited support in arms, maybe even an expeditionary force, but I seriously doubt that it would enter the war fully.

edited 30th Jul '11 12:23:33 AM by MilosStefanovic

The sin of silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.

Oh... shit, shit, shit. Some of the more savvy people in the US were kinda freaked out over the Georgia thing because if Georgia had been in NATO it could have been World War III over nothing. If Russia gets stupid over this... oh, that would be very bad. Very bad indeed. I would be thoroughly depressed... and probably dead, but that's besides the point... if we started another world war over some thing in the Balkans... oh, hey, Bismark gets another repetition of history! Wait, that's not good...

I am now known as Flyboy.

Calm down. There won't be any war. This conflict is about the Kosovo "government" and the local Kosovo Serbs. They just want the northern borderposts to be repositioned by ethnic Serbs and the Serbian goods to enter once again, ergo to return to the status before Pristina's embargo.

I just hope the Serbs hang in there, don't give up and, most importantly, remain calm. As long as the KFOR are unprovoked, I sincerely doubt that they would resort to violence. Think of the KFOR, the EULEX and the other occupation forces what you want but at least they are not the old JNA who would have sent the tanks long ago.

edited 30th Jul '11 5:45:28 AM by AdeptusAlpharius

I ♥ the VRS

The Serbian government has repeatedly stressed that diplomacy is the only option. If war wasn't possible, they probably wouldn't have said that. Rightwingers have already called for the negotiations to come to a halt, and for Serbia to distance itself from the EU and take a more hardline approach. The parliament session is underway, and I'll report when the final declaration is known. The possibility for Serbia intervening and starting a war is extremely small, but it still exists. Even if it happens, it will be no larger in scale than the 1999 one. Russia isn't mad to directly intervene - they have nothing to get out of a Third World War.

The sin of silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.

With due respect to "the more savvy people", I would suspect that the even more savvy people would wonder whether or not the conflict would've occurred, had Georgia been a NATO member. I think I'm somewhat, but not very, "savvy" and it seems exceptionally unlikely to me that Russia would go to war over something like they did in 2008 if the other party was a member in a military alliance, let alone a major one.

If they had gone to war, there's a chance that the UN would've mediated it before NATO could retaliate in any large way. The alliance says that any attack on any member is an attack on all of them and that war is pretty much automatic, but in situations like this, they probably would've just done what they can to stop everything and start frantic negotiations.

Not that Russia is very likely to push things that far with so little to gain and so much to lose.

Besides, Russia's invasion was (allegedly) a retaliation to discrimination and violence against ethnic Russians in Georgia. If Georgia was a NATO member, it's possible that they would've been persuaded to put an end to such practices, easing the tension before it became a conflict.

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

Yeah, if Georgia had been in NATO, I doubt they would have been invaded.

Fight smart, not fair.

Which is sorta why they were scrambling for NATO membership.

The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.

Not the army but you can always count on the volunteers. Personally I think that all sides will reach an agreement with which all involved parties can live with before anything nasty happens.

I ♥ the VRS

Nothing alleged about it. The EU confirmed Russia's reasons for retaliating. Most of the trouble has to do with the sheer magnatude of the counterattack.

Anyway, I agree that Russia won't go full scale on the conflict, but I still think they could involve themselves enough to cause alot of pain. But as I said before, it's a wildcard value.

Look where I put the word "allegedly" in the sentence: not "alleged discrimination", but

In other words, I was questioning whether or not their main motive was the discrimination and violence against ethnic Russians. I wasn't questioning whether or not the discrimination and violence were real.

Truth be told, back in 2008 I read up on the issues and ended up with the opinion that Russia wasn't strictly in the wrong, though their invasion was disproportionate. I've only read about Georgia and the status of Russians in there (as well as the regions that are campaigning for independence in and around Georgia) a couple of times after 2008 and don't remember the details, but if you ask me, Russia's justification for invading was waterproof, though, as I said, they blew it out of proportion.

I inserted the word "allegedly" into my paragraph to acknowledge that their motives aren't necessarily 100% clear, though personally, I'm satisfied with the explanation they gave. In other words, I wanted to concede that that point is still up for questioning.

...Yeah, this is off-topic. Let's not go further on this tangent.

edited 30th Jul '11 11:28:19 AM by BestOf

Quod gratis asseritur, gratis negatur.

Alright - Serbian parliament passed a resolution condemning Kosovo's action and calling it a criminal act, and stating that the non-Albanian population in Kosovo has to be protected at all costs, but that negotiations must continue and war has to be avoided. So, in other words, negotiations will continue, but Serbia will take a lot more agressive stance.

As for the situation in Kosovo - for already two or three days, Serbs are blocking the roads and preventing the Albanian police from reaching the border with Serbia and taking the posts. KFOR peacekeepers have responded by blocking the border and refusing to let anyone, or anything, pass, including food shipments and sick people in need of treatment. Thus, stores in North Kosovo are already almost empty and people are stocking up. They are literally trying to starve the people in order for them to abandon the blockades. Congratulations NATO, we wouldn't have excepted anything else from such staunch defenders of democracy and human rights.

The sin of silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.

I've always wondered how something like this works. What happens in a neighborhood during times like these? Do whole city blocks of people who've lived next to each other for decades just suddenly decide to up and harass/assassinate each other, or is it more like a handful known thugs that start acting like they own the place, and nobody stands up to them?

Eric,

You're talking about violence between civilian ethnic groups? It tends to be a collective effort, but there is always someone, or something, who has to motivate them. Generally, those are somewhat large-scale actions, and people involved are moving from place to place. It is relatively rare that a is outright violent towards another neighbor, but it happens. As for the blockades - North Kosovo is a literal anarchy, so it's just a bunch of guys living in the same place deciding to arm themselves and block the roads.

The sin of silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.

I'm glad that Serbia is taking a rational stance to this, although if I were in charge of NATO I'd be telling KFOR to knock off the whole blockade business, because it's a bit of a dick move. Hopefully, neither side will do something stupid to touch off a whole new conflict, although at this stage I'm not 100% convinced that's what will happen.

Locking you up on radar since '09

I'm honestly surprised NATO hasn't grabbed them by the scruff of the collar for doing this. The Kosovans that is.

The term "Great Man" is disturbingly interchangeable with "mass murderer" in history books.

Not sure if the reaction of Serbia is the right answer. They shouldn't risk ruining their chance of joining the EU for this.

Well, you see that NATO is obviously collaborating with the Kosovars. If not, they wouldn't order a peacekeeping force to close the border and let those people starve.

You see, we still have to keep in mind that Europe doesn't want to expand at this moment, and doesn't need more poor Balkan countries with fragile economies. It seems to me that they are constantly coming up with new conditions for Serbia and other West Balkan countries to join, in order to postpone them joining as much as possible, but still don't want to completely throw out that possibility and say "lol no". And I seriously don't think that sacrificing the homes of 100,000 people in order to achieve something of questionable value that may or may not happen in 5-10 years is a good thing.

The sin of silence when they should protest makes cowards of men.