Author: Jasmin Mujanovic
The Serb nationalist paramilitary attack in Banjska, in northern Kosovo, which resulted in the deaths of one Kosovo police officer and the wounding of two more, represents the most serious instance of violence in the country since the end of the 1999 war and the accompanying NATO intervention.
In Banjska we see demonstrative proof that Belgrade has a renewed willingness to use violence to shape political conditions in neighboring states. The direct involvement of Serbian state security services in the attack – through their suspected provision of weapons and munitions, the use of their facilities for the attack’s preparation, and the known links of the attackers to the upper echelons of the Serbian leadership – demands a substantial reaction from Quint capitals and Kosovo’s own government.
The following report lays out five policy recommendations to appropriately respond to the events in Banjska, ensuring above all that Belgrade will not risk any further escalation of violence. Credible consequences and the establishment of convincing deterrence capacities in Prishtina are key to ensuring both the stability of Kosovo and the entire Western Balkans region. If Serb nationalist elements are allowed to believe that violence is once again a permissible tool of political influence, they will not merely endanger the security, sovereignty, and territorial integrity of Kosovo. In time, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro too are likely to be targeted. The same would also result in still further democratic backsliding in Serbia, which would then likewise increase the odds of interstate conflict in the region.
Neither NATO nor the EU can afford another multifront crisis in the region, especially given the sharp decline in global geopolitical conditions since February 2022. Accordingly, the recommendations in this report, if implemented, would not only significantly improve the stability and security of Kosovo, but would also likewise secure the interests of the West in maintaining a peaceful environment across the Western Balkans.
That, in the final analysis, is also the key analytical thrust of this text: stressing that it is in the interests of the Euro-Atlantic community, first and foremost, to have a sovereign, democratic Kosovo, whose security is credibly maintained by its own law enforcement and security services. In this respect, Serbia, on its present course, is an adversary, not a partner. But by cementing Western support for and commitments to Kosovo, we can, in time, ensure that Serbia’s political class will recognize that its current maximalist trajectory is a losing proposition: internationally, but also domestically. A strong, sovereign Kosovo state – along with Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro – are far and away the greatest tools available to the Euro-Atlantic community to finally facilitate genuine acceptance in Serbian society that the Yugoslav Wars are over, and that the Serb nationalist-expansionist project – whether styled as “Greater Serbia” or the “Serbian World” – have been defeated.
Recommendation 1: Freeze the Prishtina-Belgrade Dialogue Pending a Full and Impartial Report on the Events in Banjska by a NATO Taskforce
Attempting to resume the Prishtina-Belgrade Dialogue presently is unwise and unreasonable. First, considering the absence of formal sanctions against Serbia by both the U.S. or EU following the events in Banjska, such an effort implicitly sends the signal that the political West is willing to tolerate the use of force to shape and direction of political negotiations between the two sides. As a signal to the entire Western Balkans region too, this is deeply destructive to the West’s own interest in promoting international norms and the rule of law. Nor can Kosovo, as a sovereign state, allow itself to be coerced into political or diplomatic negotiations with a government fomenting violence on its territory; it is a politically suicidal proposition for any democratic government.
Secondly, the insistence on resuming the dialogue flies in the face of clearly stated Western policy principles in other ongoing geopolitical flashpoints, above all Ukraine and Israel. In both the case of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine and Hamas’ terrorist attacks against Israel, the U.S. and other Quint capitals have rejected negotiations as a plausible alternative to the bedrock security interests of the Ukrainian and Israeli states. Although Kosovo is not in a state of active war, Serbia has clearly launched a hybrid campaign against the country and its citizens, and as such Kosovo must insist on the same basic security principles as Ukraine and Israel. Namely, it must ensure complete legal-political control over every portion of its territory before it can credibly consider any alternative administrative-constitutional reform(s) of the state.
Failure to do so will only facilitate the emergence of a parallel, adversarial political regime on Kosovo’s territory, even if the same is nominally incorporated into the country’s constitutional order. One need only look to the Republika Srpska entity in BiH, and its secessionist authorities, to recognize that dialogue and devolution without a functional, rational judicial-security apparatus, operating freely on the entire territory of the state, will produce only more chaos. As such, restoring the possibility for the resumption of dialogue requires a full accounting of the events in Banjska by an impartial, third-party entity such as KFOR or an associated Atlantic intelligence service. Once the facts of the attack have been fully established, and the perpetrators have been appropriately sanctioned (in a political and legal sense), the dialogue can be resumed with an eye towards creating an equitable but also functional framework for Kosovo’s future governance.
Recommendation 2: Increased Security Assistance to the Kosovo Police and Kosovo Security Force
As noted above, Kosovo must be recognized as a sovereign party within the context of the dispute with Serbia, regardless of the position(s) of Belgrade and the five EU non-recognizers. Accordingly, Kosovo is entitled to all the same provisions of statehood as any other sovereign actor, the most fundamental aspect of which is a security monopoly over the entire territory of the state’s territory. The Kosovo police and Kosovo Security Force (KSF) therefore require continued but also increased support to be able to project force and maintain law and order in all parts of Kosovo, including the north.
During the Banjska attack, the Kosovo police showed themselves to be an efficient and professional force, capable of ably rebuffing a highly sophisticated, state-backed paramilitary assault. But Serbia doubtlessly continues to enjoy a significant military advantage against Kosovo. It is thus of the utmost importance that NATO assists Kosovo’s law enforcement and security agencies in (re)establishing a credible deterrent capacity, with an eye towards establishing a broader, regional balance of power against Belgrade.
Kosovo’s authorities should communicate to the Quint and NATO what precise resources they require but it is apparent this list will necessarily include additional high-mobility armored vehicles for the Kosovo police, anti-armor, and anti-artillery systems for the KSF, as well as utility helicopters for the country’s emergency services (cf. the 2022 delivery of American Huey II helicopters to Bosnia and Herzegovina’s Armed Forces).
Recommendation 3: Reversal of U.S. and EU Measures Against Kosovo
In the interim, it is imperative that U.S. and EU measures against Kosovo, imposed earlier this year following the Serb nationalist riot in Zvecan, which resulted in injures for more than two dozen KFOR soldiers, be reversed. These quasi-sanctions doubtlessly further emboldened Vucic and associated Serb extremist elements in the lead-up to the Banjska attack and increased the existing asymmetry in the international community’s posture towards the two sides.
Western officials may continue to be aggrieved by the Kurti government’s opposition to the unilateral implantation of the 2013 Brussels Agreement, that is, the further devolution of local governance authorities to the handful of Serb-majority municipalities in the north without any political movement from Belgrade. But the Kurti government has both offered reasonable concessions towards the realization of the same, and its concerns about Serbia’s weaponization of criminal and extremist elements within the north have, sadly, proven prescient and accurate. Especially with respect to Prime Minister’s frequent likening of the existing U.S. and EU-backed “Association of Serbian Municipalities” modalities to the failed Republika Srpska model from Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Conversations between Prishtina and the Quint concerning alternative governing schemes for Kosovo’s north can and must continue; not least because Prishtina appears to be only party to the dispute willing to discuss and debate these matters. But such talks can only be genuinely fruitful if the U.S. and EU remedy the error of their earlier measures against Kosovo. For Prishtina, ensuring this policy reversal is a basic question of democratic accountability to its own citizens, who have clearly shown that they will not tolerate governments which compromise on the country’s baseline security and political interests. Alas, given the absence of genuine democratic processes in Serbia, the same cannot be said of the regime in Belgrade.
Recommendation 4: Immediate Admittance of Kosovo into the NATO Partnership for Peace
Small but tremendously significant moves should also be undertaken to improve Kosovo’s standing within the international community. Arguably, the most impactful of these – which would also improve the country’s security posture and capacities – would be Prishtina’s admittance into NATO’s Partnership for Peace (PfP) program.
This is a decision which NATO can deliver without the consent or input of Serbia, Russia, or China. The most significant barrier is the non-recognition of Kosovo’s sovereignty by four of NATO’s own member states. Yet the Alliance doubtlessly has the capacity to ensure Kosovo’s admittance into the PfP program even if the non-recognizers formally maintain their existing postures; they would simply have to not oppose Kosovo’s entry into the program. That is, they need not support Kosovo’s PfP aspirations, they need only abstain.
This would be a sensible compromise as it would allow the four non-recognizers to broadly maintain their current diplomatic postures, while improving Kosovo’s international standing, and NATO’s ability to modernize and develop Prishtina’s defensive capabilities. It would also send a necessary signal to Belgrade that its obstructionist activities will not be tolerated indefinitely by the Atlantic community. Finally, it would also be a shot across the bow of Russia and China, who have increasingly come to the view that it is they – not NATO – which set the terms of engagement in the Western Balkans.
Recommendation 5: Increased Diplomatic Pressure on 5 EU Non-Recognizers to Unlock Kosovo’s EU and NATO Prospects
As noted throughout this text, the present asymmetry in the international statuses of Serbia and Kosovo, respectively, has only exacerbated the apparent intractableness of the dispute. Specifically, it has artificially strengthened Serbia’s obstructionist posture, even as the U.S. and EU have expended tremendous diplomatic and political capital to move the two sides towards normalization. Yet it is not Serbia per se that has allowed for this asymmetry to persist; it is the obstinate attitudes of the EU’s five non-recognizers that have allowed this problem to metastasize into a major geopolitical weak point for the entire Euro-Atlantic community.
The Quint capitals must exert far greater diplomatic pressure on their counterparts among this group to move them, individually and collectively, towards full recognition of Kosovo’s sovereignty. It must be explained, in clear terms, that this is no longer a question of purely domestic priorities; it is a question of the credibility and integrity of the entire Euro-Atlantic project, in the Western Balkans and beyond. At present, for instance, both the EU’s foreign policy chief and the EU’s Prishtina-Belgrade dialogue envoy hail from non-recognizer states. This is preposterous, and naturally undermines the credibility of the EU as an honest broker in this dispute.
A shift in just one of the five non-recognizer capitals (among whom Athens is widely considered as the most likely to budge) would significantly alter the strategic landscape of the Kosovo-Serbia relationship, and ultimately make a final settlement far more likely. It would substantially undermine the credibility of the hardline nationalist establishment in Belgrade and send a clear signal to the entire Serbian political class that the Euro-Atlantic community will move ahead with Kosovo’s integration into the democratic order – regardless of Belgrade’s protests, or those of its partners in Moscow and Beijing.
Conclusions
These recommendations, even if implemented, would not immediately deliver a permanent solution to Kosovo-Serbia dispute, largely because the essence of the problem remains, as it has been for the better part of the last three decades, in the intransigent nationalist political consensus in Belgrade. But these recommendations offer a pathway towards decreasing our collective dependence on the (non-existent) goodwill of the Vucic regime. Instead, it emphasizes actionable measures which can be taken today by the Euro-Atlantic community, largely without concern or interaction with Belgrade or its partners in Kremlin or Beijing.
This text makes clear that the future of Kosovo’s security and sovereignty does not require the consent of the West’s geopolitical adversaries, both those great and small. The Euro-Atlantic community can make massive strides towards bringing this young democratic polity into its fold purely through its own volition, and at a time when the West sorely needs strategic and symbolic victories. The successful realization of this program would also pay dividends for the security and stability of neighboring states, above all Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro, and thus improve the collective security of the entire region.
It remains to be seen whether European and American decision makers have the political will to move towards a more stable and secure Western Balkans.