Nicholas Burns is a professor at Harvard University and former undersecretary of state. He is an adviser to the Joe Biden campaign. Frank Wisner is senior adviser at Squire Patton Boggs and was special representative for Kosovo in the administration of President George W. Bush.
President Trump’s grand plan to invite Kosovo’s President Hashim Thaci and Serbia’s Aleksandar Vucic to meet at the White House on June 27 may be falling apart before it begins, after the Kosovo Specialist Chambers announced on Wednesday indictments against Thaci and others on war crimes charges.
Since Kosovo declared its independence in early 2008, with the strong support of President George W. Bush, it has been recognized by scores of countries, but not by Serbia, from which it seceded. The Trump administration was hoping to encourage the two leaders to put aside their many legal and political differences and begin working toward mutual recognition.
Trump’s team is arguing that an infusion of international private investment will provide a foundation for an eventual settlement. This is a big bet by an administration that has shown little interest in Europe, yet alone the Balkans, during the past 3½ years. There are several potential problems with Trump’s plan, and the indictment against Thaci should provide the administration an additional reason to reconsider its approach to the negotiations.
First, Trump has been conducting a solo diplomatic campaign in Kosovo rather than working in tandem with the European Union, including major allies Germany and France. He spurned the E.U.’s own negotiator and even French President Emmanuel Macron, who had also volunteered to host a summit. The United States and the E.U., for the first time in two decades, are leading separate and often conflicting negotiating campaigns, confusing both Serbs and Kosovars. This threatens to slow, rather than advance, ultimate progress toward an agreement.
Second, the E.U. has a strong case to lead diplomatically, rather than the United States. As poor Balkan countries with collapsing infrastructures and few growth engines in their economies, their greatest need is European economic aid and investment and, at some point in the future, association with or membership in the E.U. The United States, by contrast, has a far weaker economic presence in the region. By muscling the E.U. out of way, Trump’s diplomatic gambit divides the region’s friends and actually decreases the probability of a successful outcome. It is hard not to suspect that one of Trump’s motives is spite, given his open and shameful contempt for German Chancellor Angela Merkel as well as his proclivity, unique among modern U.S. presidents, to refuse to work closely with the European allies on nearly any issue of consequence.
Third, the Balkans is a graveyard for high-profile diplomatic gambits. Many in the region doubt Trump and his emissaries have done the necessary spadework to produce much more than a photo op at the White House. We suspect Trump’s real motive is to produce a high-profile but short-lived agreement to strengthen his thin foreign policy accomplishments before the Nov. 3 election. There’s fear Trump might ultimately push Kosovo to make territorial concessions to Serbia that would be a potentially incendiary precedent in the unstable Balkan region.
As veterans of Kosovo diplomacy ourselves, we certainly wish the administration well. We doubt, however, the wisdom and potential success of such a unilateral approach. Presidents Bill Clinton, Bush and Barack Obama all started from a common premise that the Balkan countries — most notably Serbia, Kosovo, Bosnia, North Macedonia, Montenegro and Albania, as well as Bulgaria, Croatia, Greece and Slovenia — should be secure in their borders and attached ultimately to both NATO and the European Union for their future security and prosperity.
The United States has always opposed territorial adjustments for fear of unleashing conflict and has specifically opposed a “Greater Albania,” recognizing that its emergence would spark conflict with Serbia and others. Pushing Kosovo and Serbia to redraw their borders is a dangerous precedent that could undermine relations between North Macedonia and Greece as well as unravel the hard-earned Dayton peace agreement in Bosnia.
The United States has been a good friend to Kosovo since our intervention with NATO allies to prevent the massacre of ethnic Kosovar Albanians by the Serb army back in 1999. We ended that war. NATO forces, including U.S. contingents, have kept the peace since then. Our Foreign Service officers and military worked hard to help Kosovo attain and secure peace and independence.
The Trump administration’s open pressure on Kosovar leaders in recent months, and its more accommodating posture to an authoritarian Serb government, has been crassly inconsistent with our friendship and has weakened Kosovo’s fragile governing institutions.
The smarter move by Trump would be to join forces with Europeans, Kosovars and Serbs to agree on measures that will increase investment in the region’s infrastructure and reduce barriers to trade and mobility. The western Balkans need to be linked to Europe and provided with an economic framework that will offer its inhabitants a more hopeful future. Without serious attention to the region’s economic conditions, the future will be compromised by the flight of its young people.
U.S. aims are even more important now that Russia and a newly assertive China are seeking to divide Europe and to ace out Europe and the United States in the Balkans. Our support for a strong, active NATO presence in the region is the best investment we can make in ensuring peace. The Trump administration’s threat to remove U.S. forces from the NATO mission in Kosovo would also be a serious mistake.
There are no “quick fixes” in the Balkans for a president notoriously fixated on that brand of diplomacy. Trump should adjust his course, lower his ambitions and lay the groundwork for a careful, patient American strategy before he commits additional damage to the fragile Balkans and our already weakened credibility in Europe.
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