PRESS RELEASE Kosovar Institute for Policy Research and Development (KIPRED) has published the policy report “Kosovo in the Security and Defence Context of the Western Balkans”. This report analyses national security and defence policies of the Western Balkans counties, their military capabilities, the impact of NATO-s military involvement and its integration instruments on regional security, Kosovo’s security dilemmas and defence challenges, as well as opportunities for building NATO’s official cooperation with Kosovo. This report draws the following conclusions. • The Western Balkans countries have achieved a major progress in reforming their security and defence policies in line with the requirements of NATO membership and Partnership for Peace Program. However, according to the countries’ national security and defence documents, there are several key risks that may destabilize the region and bring re-emergence of armed conflicts, including conventional responses, among which the major ones are threats of political nature - nationalistic/ethnic and religious, of state formation, and of contested/undetermined borders. In essence, despite the formal commitment of all the Western Balkans countries to good neighbouring relations and to contributions to regional stability and security, within them is still prevalent a certain obvious degree of anxiety, due to their evident lack of trust about the future behaviour of certain other countries of the region. • In terms of military capabilities and of defence spending and industries, Serbia and Croatia are two dominant countries of the region. The military capabilities of other countries of the region are marginal when compared with those of these two countries. The possible creation of the Kosovo Armed Forces will not have any significant effect in changing regional balance of power. • NATO’s involvement in the Balkans had four major effects. Firstly, its military involvement as a deterrent and stabilizing force has discouraged armed disputes and has transformed the region from that of war torn societies and hostile neighbouring relations, into a relatively stable one. Secondly, NATO exercised a decisive influence on changing the patterns of hard balancing and the doctrines of massive armies that were based on territorial defence and deterrence: thus, the national armed forces were transformed into professional armies, and their offensive capabilities against their neighbours were significantly reduced. Thirdly, NATO’s enlargement in the Western Balkans has a fundamental role in locking the interstate borders of the individual countries of the region. And, fourthly, Partnership for Peace has ended all the hopes for bilateral or regional defence counterbalancing collaboration, by making the cooperation exclusively through Brussels a price for membership. • A complicating factor for regional security, and a matter of high concern, is Serbia’s defence cooperation with Russia, which entails three components: The establishment of the Joint Serbian-Russian Centre for Reaction to Emergency Situations, which is the first one of this kind that Russia has opened in Europe after the Cold War; Joint military exercises, where the first is planned to take place this autumn; and the Serbia’s Observer Status in the Parliamentary Assembly of the Russian led intergovernmental military alliance - Collective Security Treaty Organization. • By using Serbia as a harbour of its interests and intentions against the West, Russia is re-exerting its influence in the Western Balkans by exploiting the region’s uneasy ethno-national relations, and weaknesses of the states that are not full members of the European Union and NATO, namely, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Macedonia. Russia will continue to have a fertile ground for achieving its aims as long as the Brussels indecisiveness and the lack of a strong US leadership regarding further enlargement of NATO and of EU will continue to prevail. • Kosovo faces a favourable, but also a complex security and defence environment. Its immediate neighbours, Albania and Macedonia exclude any direct threat that might come from Kosovo, while Montenegro sees it as an unfinished story in terms of regional stability and security; and Serbia projects it as a direct conventional threat and rogue entity, rather than as a neighbour with whom it has not settled relations, at the same time when it shares the aim of European Union membership. • Serbia has most probably in place contingency military planning against Kosovo, which is assumable because of the Belgrade’s hostile security and defence policies against Prishtina. Any strategic option that may be used if Serbia chooses to attack Kosovo, except for the conventional offensive for “annexation” of the territory North of the river Ibar, will hardly determine the winner of a war, and in such cases both sides may suffer a more or less equal internal and external political vulnerability in a prolonged conflict. • Hard balancing of Kosovo against Serbia is not economically and militarily a rational option that will ensure its successful defence and deterrence of Belgrade’s possible offensive intentions. Only normalization of the defence relations between Kosovo and Serbia, through confidence building measures, as well as the PfP membership of Kosovo, will open a venue for KFOR’s withdrawal that would leave behind stability and security in the entire region. This report draws following recommendations: a) Modalities for possible dialogue between Prishtina and Belgrade on Normalization of Defence Relations: • Facilitation of the dialogue has to be done jointly by EU and NATO. • Confidence building measures between two countries can be based on the OSCE model on Confidence and Security–Building Measures. • Demilitarization of the North of Kosovo, as well as of Presevo Valley, until Kosovo gets Membership Action Plan by NATO, and Serbia becomes an EU member. • Changes of Belgrade’s security and defence policies towards Kosovo, National Security Strategy, and Defence Strategy. • Representation of Kosovo Serbs in the leadership of future armed forces of Kosovo. • Full membership of Kosovo in the South – Eastern Europe Defence Ministerial. a) Components for possible structural dialogue of NATO with Kosovo: • Assistance and assessment of the Defence Sector Development of Kosovo, based on NATO’s Partnership Action Plan (PAP) on Defence Institution Building (DIB). • Assistance and assessment of the development of interoperability of the future Kosovo armed forces, based on NATO’s Planning and Review Process of the Partnership (PARP). • Upgrade of the NATO Liaison and Advisory Team and of the NATO Advisory Team into a single NATO’s Liaison Military Office in Prishtina, and establishment of Kosovo’s Liaison Office to NATO. • The dialogue has to be viewed as a temporary measure for building relations between NATO and Kosovo. Only full membership in PfP and in the Euro-Atlantic Council will enable Kosovo to become part of NATO led security and defence cooperation mechanism. b) Containment of Russia’s hostile intentions in the Western Balkans: • NATO and EU should put clear redlines to Serbia regarding its military and security cooperation with Russia. • NATO’s Secretary General and member state supporters should take a concerted leadership for a fast track membership of Kosovo in Partnership for Peace and Euro-Atlantic Council, and for membership of Macedonia, Montenegro and Bosnia and Herzegovina in NATO. c) Legal framework for involvement of military forces of the Western Balkans countries in fighting terrorism: • The involvement of military forces in the fight against terrorism has to be defined strictly by law, in order to disable the misuse of these forces by national governments for political purposes, as well as to prevent the violation of human and national minority rights.
Posted on: Fri, 19 Dec 2014 11:33:25 +0000
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