Concessions and blackmail in Arabia and the Balkans

It is well known that giving in to blackmail is a bad idea. It very often leads to higher demands and more blackmail.

This is one of the reasons the Arab Spring isn't going as many would expect. The dictators are usually well aware that their country is ready for some additional freedoms. But they cannot afford to give in too much as it would be seen as weakness and only lead to more protests.

Something similar we see with the "pragmatic" negotiations between Serbia and Kosovo. I was a bit astonished to read the results. What Serbia had conceded was clear but I missed any concrete Albanian concession. It didn't help that some newspaper articles saw Albanian concessions in the fact that they hadn't achieved more.

As I see it the Serbian delegation hadn't done its homework and had not thought up a couple of counterdemands in answer to the predictable Albanian demands. Instead they let themselves be badgered by Cooper who operated with the typical Western arrogance that we often see by Wesern diplomats in the Balkans.

Soon it became clear that my estimate was right. The arrests of Mladic and Hadzic and the concessions at the talks didn't lead to a more benficial view of Serbia. Instead Serbia was seen as a pushover and demands started to stream in. Füle demanded full recognition of Kosovo and Kosovo imposed a ban on the import of Serbian goods.

It looks like Dacic doesn't get this. The primary goal of the EU is to solve the Kosovo problem. But how is of a lesser concern. They will concentrate most of their pressure on that party that seems most likely to give in. At the moment that is Serbia. It looks like the Serbian coalition believes that they can solve all problems and get Serbia into the EU. But you cannot hurry up negotiations. Trying to do so weakens your position and may delay a final solution.

On the other hand I cannot understand the motives of the Kosovo government. The most likely result of the present actions is a reaction from the Serbian government. It may refuse further negotiations or renege the results of the previous negotiations. So Kosovo's boycott will harm its economy and instead of increasing Kosovo's leverage only give it an image of an unreliable partner. The only people who will be benefit from this are Kurti and his ilk.

As a consequence I expect the follow-up negotiations to be much tougher.

Palestinians and Kosovo Albanians

Some time ago I wrote an entry about the similarities between the struggles of the Kosovo Albanians and the Tamils of Sri Lanka. This time I will list some similarities between another minority that has been source of problems for a long time.

Just like the Albanians of Kosovo the Palestinians were the rulers of Israel for a long time. In both cases the new rulers (Serbs and Jews) were more modern what contributed to the marginalization of the Albanians and Palestinians. Their pride as former rulers contributed to make this backwardness last much longer than necessary. You have to swallow your pride to learn from people you consider inferior. Discrimination didn't help as it obscured the benefits of modernization. The result was an uncertain public led by populist politicians that promised the sky but in reality were mostly busy filling their pockets.

As I pointed out in my previous post the absence of exporting companies plays an important part in the irreality of Kosovo's foreign policy as there is no strong voice that advocates normality. We see the same thing with the Palestinians. Israeli propaganda complains endlessly about Palestinians duplicity. Palestinian leaders - also from the PLO - praise suicide attacks and hold for their own population much more belligerent speaches as for the international audience. It reminds one of the internet articles about Albanians sabotating Serbian companies in Kosovo. It is the resistance of people who don't see they have a stake in their own development.

Nowadays Kosovo hardly exports anything and it survives on international aid and emigrant remittances. Nearly the same applies to Westbank and Gaza.

In my opinion it is useless to criticize the Palestinians and the Kosovo Albanians for this situation. This is the politics of dependency. The only thing that will help is making them more responsible for their own fate. In this context it may be good to remember that many poor countries for a long time found themselves in a similar position when most of their budget came from development aid. Only recently has Western policy towards the developing countries shifted to one where the own responsibility is stressed. This has been partly accomplished by lowering import tarifs for their products.

Europe, the US and dealing with separatism

Recently I suddenly realized how different traditions Europe and the US have when it comes to dealing with separatism.

The US has a tradition of suppressing rebellions. Its civil war was the most striking of these but in the first decades when the US was independent there were quite a few smaller rebellions.

Europe's experience is quite different. In the last centuries it has developed more and more towards nation-states. The experience is that when people don't want to live together they sooner or later will find a way to achieve that. Sometimes war played a role, like when the Habsburg empire fell apart after World War I and the many smaller border changes along ethnic lines after World War II. Nowadays nobody is worried about the fact that there is a real chance that in the coming decades Northern Ireland and Scotland may choose to leave the UK. Neither is there much worry about the fact that Belgium may fall apart.

Europe has little choice in this. While in the US after a rebellion was suppressed the people involved reentered the great melting pot in Europe your nationality tends to stay with you. If you are on the losing side of an ethnic conflict you may be subjected to discrimination or even ethnic cleansing. It is not totally impossible to create a melting pot in Europe: Turkey is a recent example. But it requires major commitment. And the melting pot is seldom universal: the US had its Indians and its Blacks and Turkey its Kurds and Greek who were not invited. Commitment to a common identity is rare and efforts to impose it from the outside - as we see in Bosnia - are doomed to fail.

It should be noted that the US is not above fueling ethnic tensions among its adversaries. An important reason that the Habsburg empire fell apart was that the US had been fueling nationalism under its minorities as part of its World War I strategy. The US also liked to fuel ethnic tensions in the USSR and has more recently been accused of fueling ethnic tensions in Iran and China.

Regarding Yugoslavia at first the European method of indulgence towards separatism dominated. It led even to ignoring of the Yugoslav constitution and insufficient attention to negotiations. Interestingly later on the US got involved and it put great value on the territorial integrity of Croatia, Bosnia and Kosovo. This was according to their tradition.

I think that this mix of traditions has led to a worse result than when either of the traditions had been used consistently.

Why Serbia's economic pressure on Kosovo doesn't work

Part of Serbia's strategy to force Kosovo to accept a compromise has been economic pressure - mainly through the refusal to accept documentation that claims Kosovo to be an independent country. Until now it hasn't brought much result.

What made me wonder whether this really works was the lack of demands from Kosovo's society for a solution. It made me wonder whether Kosovo's export sector is simply too small to have political influence.

That would lead to the conclusion that Serbia's best strategy might be to actively encourage Kosovo's export sector. Of course it would need to keep some negotiation chips. But simply hindering Kosovo's exports may be a bad strategy.

The benefits of paralysis

The NY Times has an article (Hip, Hip — if Not Hooray — for a Standstill Nation) in which it discusses the paralysis in the politics in Washington today. The article concludes that it is nothing new and that politics has always been this way:

Moreover, it’s useful to remember that the founders devised the system to be difficult, dividing power between states and the federal government, then further dividing the federal government into three branches, then further dividing the legislative branch into two houses. The idea, James Madison wrote, was to keep factions from gaining too much power, presuming that “a coalition of a majority of the whole society could seldom take place on any other principles than those of justice and the general good.”

This may be good to keep in mind the next time some Western diplomat claims that the mere fact that it has two entities makes Bosnia ungovernable.

Will Turkey go broke?

Amidst all the enthusiasm about Turkey's economic success it is good to read the recent article in Business week about it (Turkey's Moment).

The article is rather short on figures but it creates the impression that with its large account of payments deficit and its huge influx of money it looks a lot like South East Asia at the eve of the 1997 crisis.

It would be bad for the Balkans if after Greece also Turkey falls into a crisis. But at least for the moment Turkey is still very confident.

Western cowardice in the Balkans (2x)

This weeks saw several illustration of Western reluctance to take important decisions, despite evidence that delay may only make matters worse.

The Greek debt
One year ago Greece received a large loan from the EU. Now it is back for more. Unexpected? No! Because Greece didn't keep its commitments? No! It was calculated from the beginning. The only thing that might have prevented a new Greek crisis was when the markets might have suddenly developed faith in Greece and decided to give it new loans against decent rates. But that was very unlikely: Greece was forced to large budget cuts and that usually translates in a shrinking economy; creditors don't like that.

The real problem are Greece's creditors. Because of the uncertainty they change higher interest rates and that put Greece in a hole from which it is difficult to get out. Normally a country's debts is restructured when in such a situation. That may mean that part of the debt is forgiven but it may also mean that the creditors just have to wait a little longer for their money.

And this is where things get dirty. With the first aid operation a year ago their was no "restructuring". It it suspected that Lagarde, who coordinated that support operation and as a consequence has now the best cards to become the next head of the IMF, did so to protect the French banks who are major creditors to Greece. Some people believe that this background and the bad result of the operation make Lagarde a bad choice for this job.

This time another Frenchman, Trichet, the head of the European Central Bank is trying to prevent a "haircut" for the banks. Yet his arguments that such a haircut might have disastrous consequences sound hollow. That countries go broke is a normal thing. If the European financial system cannot bear such a development then that means that Trichet has failed in his job as overseer of the financial sector. he doesn't have much power in this respect but he certainly has a moral authority that he hasn't used.

In the mean time Greece stays in the twilight zone. This has both good and bad consequences. The good thing is that there finally seems to be some momentum to modernize the way Greece is administered. One bad thing is that financial uncertainty leads to stagnation. The longer the situation isn't solved the worse it is for the European economy. Another bad thing is that Greece may be forced to excessive cuts and privatizations that will harm it in the long term. I would advise Greece to simply refuse such prescriptions.

Trichet is both right and wrong. Restructuring the Greek debt may have serious consequences. But delaying it has consequences as well and it is very likely that the longer we delay it the larger the total damage will be. Often the fall of Lehman Brothers that triggered the crisis in 2008 is used as an deterring example. But companies go broke all the time. The real problem with Lehman Brothers was that the central bankers hadn't taken the precautions that made it possible to handle such a bankruptcy in an orderly way.

P.S. Here is an article that discusses the way

Kosovo's borders
While Europe keeps stumbling along with the Greek debt the US showed very similar behavior when Assistant Secretary of State Philip Gordon declared himself against a partition of Kosovo. According to him it would be "a a recipe for disaster for the Balkans".

It looked hardly liked a balanced statement. Being in the Balkan Gordon has very probably heard the usual threats ("if that happens our people will riot") and his statement may have been a result of that.

The result is that Kosovo stays in the twilight zone too. It will not be recognized and its relation with its Serb minority will stay tense. We see something very similar happening in Bosnia.

Here too the West is only delaying. The problem stays, keeps causing harm and may in the end very well be "solved" in a less decent way - like Operation Storm solved Croatia's ethnic trouble. Not to mention that such "solutions" may very well lay the foundation for new conflicts.

So Gordon too takes the way of the coward - avoiding solutions because their implementation is tricky and can get out of hand. This is the wrong way. The West should together with the local ethnic groups find solutions and find ways to implement them. That will take both an open ear, an instinct for fairness and diplomatic skills.

Russia and Brazil

VOA News has an article "Can Russia catch up with Brazil". In this article it mentions similarities between the countries such as that both used to be dictatorships and that both were late abolishing slavery.

But where Russia is tuck with authoritarian Putin Brazil has found the way to democracy. The article's account of how this happened:
I was in Florianopolis, Brazil, lunching on shrimp stew with Roberto Schmidt, a lawyer and veteran of Brazil’s long, slow motion move to full civilian rule.

“Expansion of civil society is the key,” he said. “One year in the early 1980s, neighborhood groups just started forming across Florianopolis.”

As a reporter in Brazil in the early 1980s, I recall thinking that this proliferation of non-governmental groups, neighborhood groups, church groups, green groups, women’s groups, and independent trade unions was a boring story. For news value, how could this grass roots phenomenon compare with the pyrotechnics of civil war in El Salvador, Augusto Pinochet beating heads in Chile, and Maggie Thatcher rolling back Argentina’s occupation of the Falkland Islands?

But for Brazil, this transition to democracy was The Story.

On a political level, these non-governmental groups led to the formation of the Workers Party, Brazil’s first truly grass roots party. This is the party that overturned class expectations and put into the presidential palace Luis Inacio Lula da Silva, a former shoeshine boy whose formal education stopped at the fourth grade.


Unfortunately the US policy of color revolution has made grass root organizations suspect and politicized.

Science and dealing with dictators

For my study I had to read some scientific publication (Less Power or Powerless? Egocentric Empathy Gapsand the Irony of Having Little versus No Power in Social Decision Making.) that has some interesting implications for how to deal with dictators.

It is a well known fact that when people get more power they use or abuse it. But this does not go on endlessly. When they get absolute power they become more generous. I quote one experiment from this article. I have changed it a bit to make it comprehensible without the context:
Participants were read a scenario in which they were asked to imagine themselves as being one of two competing owners of adjacent cafe´s. Both want to use the sidewalk in front of their cafe´s for an outdoor bar. Participants were told that the city council endowed them with 100 m2 that they could use together. As they were the ones that first contacted the city council about this extension of their cafe´, the participants are instructed by the city council to come up with a division of the 100 m2. Allocators could therefore propose a division of the 100 m2 to
their neighbors. In the condition in which the participants were confronted with a powerless neighbor, they were told that they could make any division and that the neighbor is going to have to accept this proposal—the 100 m2 will be divided as they propose.
It is important to note that this is equivalent full power. In the other condition, participants were confronted with a neighbor with a small amount of power. They were told that the neighbor has information that could lead to a decrease of the total space that could be used for the outdoor cafe´. The neighbor has a choice between either accepting the proposal that the participants make or informing the city council that the 100 m2 are too close to the street and that according to the law, 10 m2 would have to remain unused.
This would mean that although the relative sizes of the parts for each cafe´ owner would remain as proposed, the total area to be divided would be reduced by 10%. It is important to note that this situation is equivalent to 90% power. The scenario was accompanied by a map that gave an overview of the layout of the two cafe´s, the area to be divided, and, in the 90% power condition, the area that was too close to the street.
After reading this scenario, participants were asked to indicate what percentage of the total 100 m2 they would allocate to their neighbors.

The result was that the people with 100% power were prepared to give 41.9 square meters compared to 34.35 for the 90% power people. There are numerous experiments with similar results. It appears that when people have all the power they feel responsible: "Noblesse oblige".

Interestingly people don't expect this. When in an experiment people are put in the powerless position and given a little piece of information that they can use against the powerful side nearly everyone discloses this to the other side - seriously harming their receipts.

In this context it is nice to looks at the studies that show that nonviolent protest has the best results. Many people see nonviolence only as a trick: if you can't beat the government with arms it is better not to use them so that when the government uses them people will see it as excessive violence and the government will loose support.

The result is the kind of doomed insurrections as we have seen in Iran, Libya and Syria. Everyone - including the government - knew that the ultimate goal was the fall of the government and the government took accordingly measures to quash the protests. Compare that to Tunisia and Egypt where there were concrete demands like less corruption and the abolishment of the state of emergency. These were moral demands that not directly attacked the government and even when in the end the dictator left much of the established order - including the army - stayed behind.

An important factor behind this illfated strategy is that the CIA is pushing the opposition in those countries in that direction.

If we look to dictatorships that have become democracies it seldom happened at once in a revolution. Usually it happened in small steps that seemed logical at the time. This is how the moral appeals at the "noblesse oblige" of dictators works. With demands for regime change the protesters move themselves to more power. But just as in the experiments that makes the dictator less likely to grant more freedom.

It looks to me that in their present mode the uprising in most Arab countries are doomed to fail. The country were there is best chance for regime change is Syria but that is for the wrong reasons. The Syrian regime has chosen the strategy of massive reaction. As any guerrilla handbook may tell you this is bound to antagonize the population against the regime. It is standard guerrilla tactic to shoot a few cops in order to achieve such a reaction. But even if this strategy of provocation succeeds the humanitarian price may be very high.