From the People Who Brought Us WWI and the Yugo...

The following is a letter I wrote to some foreign policy wonk friends of mine. It is in regard to a piece by Hitch in Slate about Kosovo and my personal feelings about U.S. recognition:

For a semester in undergrad, I studied (what was then still a crumbling) Yugoslavia and I also was a student and then TA in a class on Russian/Soviet Foreign policy -- so while I do not even pretend to know as much about FP or even Yugoslavia/Serbia et al., as either of you, I feel I have more than an average lay-person’s grasp on the situation there and the history.

I read [Cato vice president for foreign policy and defense studies Ted Galen Carpenter's] statement on the US recognizing Kosovo, and I must respectfully dissent. I don’t necessarily take the Hitchens line, and I understand the pragmatic problems with recognizing Kosovo in the face of Russian animosity, but it seems to me that if we are to be supportive of freedom, taking an unpopular position (from Serbia and Moscow’s vantage point) on Kosovo is not the worst thing in the world. Certainly, backing the righteous sovereignty of a nation is not a “colossal foreign policy blunder,” at least in this situation. (Taiwan notwithstanding) We can’t promote freedom simply when it is most convenient for us – and this recognition is certainly not coupled with any defense alliance. Thus, the act of recognition is simply an acknowledgement of a free people making a decision to be autonomous – which is the hallmark of our founding.

For all its authoritarian crackdowns and reaping of the financial benefits of oil revenue, Russia does not appear to be in any real position to back Serbia with anything but the obligatory saber-rattling they are so wont to do. Their recent dealings with Great Britain only support the idea that they really aren’t interested in good ties with the West, and that as the Siloviki continue to solidify a perpetual hold on power, the erosion of friendly relations is – in my opinion – nearly a foregone conclusion at this point. So let them rattle their sabers – Kosovo should be autonomous and we should formally back their play. I do not believe that we should turn our back on freedom just because the Kremlin would prefer it.

Now, if this becomes an armed conflict – which I think would have been more likely without the US recognition – I am not behind US military intervention. That said, airstrikes would probably come if Serbia got uppity about this. BUT…

If we had not recognized Kosovo, Serbia could more comfortably believe that any conflict would be viewed by the US as an internal matter for us to stay out of, as we did with Russia and Chechnya. As it stands now, the idea of sustained aerial bombardment from US forces would probably deter Serbia from earnestly seeking to reclaim Kosovo. Of course, we are not obligated to protect the Kosovars – but the Serbs’ memory isn’t so short as to forget what it feels like to be on the wrong end of the American military and are probably not anxious to relive the experience. And without guarantees of any real backing from Russia—which I don’t think is coming— the Serbs would have to be insane to try to forcibly take Kosovo. I’m not putting it past them, but I think it’s less likely after US recognition.