Serbian PM Vojislav Koštunica called for a massive, peaceful protest this week to show the world Serbian dignified indignation at Kosovo being allowed to declare independence. Today, those protests occurred:

Serb rioters broke into the U.S. Embassy Thursday and set fire to the facade after a massive protest against Kosovo’s independence.

Masked attackers were seen climbing over a first-floor railing on the building and trying to throw furniture from an office. A blaze broke out along the mission’s front facade.

Glad to see the government took all the necessary precautions to safeguard against such behavior. Again, charming.

Matt thinks the main price of Kosovo’s independence will be paid by the Georgians as Russia retaliates by establishing mini-states in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Well, maybe and maybe not.¹ I don’t think that Russia would waste such a winning hand in a fit of pique over Kosovo. It’s far more likely that they’ll agitate over Georgia when it suits the West least. As I’ve written before, Russia doesn’t much care for consistency in the international system, nor does it actually care about their Serbian “brothers”. It’s all about power politics and establishing spheres of influence in its near-abroad.

It does make Georgia’s bid for NATO membership far more problematic, and brings John McCain’s severe hawkishness into relief. Is he willing to say that the U.S. would commit troops to Georgia to ensure its territorial integrity in the face of Russian aggression?

They done gone ahead and did it—Kosovo has declared independence. They’ve elected to use a flag with motifs reminiscent of the EU’s own standard: blue background, gold color, and stars. They’ve also chosen to use a map of the territory of Kosovo as an element in the flag, much like another long-suffering, partitioned country: Cyprus. If the Serbs do manage to establish de facto independence for the northern parts of Kosovo, however, it’s not likely that they would declare autonomy like the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, but would rather be annexed outright by Serbia.

One has to think that this obvious parallel was not lost on the Kosovars, and that they opted for this flag design as an explicit reminder to the West to not let the same thing happen to them as has befallen the wretched Cypriots. Whether symbolism is an effective means of communicating with the wretched Eurocrats remains to be seen.

Boris Tadić wins, and the (small part of the) world (that cares about the Balkans) lets out a sigh of relief. Nikolić would have been darkness for Serbia and the broader region had he squeaked into office. Though the presidency does not wield much power in Serbia, keeping the Radicals in the wilderness was an important victory any way you look at it.

This young interviewee puts it best:

“I am Tadić’s opponent, but I voted for him because this election is not about him but about progress,” said Branislav Jovanović, a 22-year-old student, at a Belgrade polling station. “People are sick of isolation and wars and misery.”

Tadić’s widely-reported EU enthusiasm only stands up to scrutiny when held up against Nikolić’s retrograde nationalism and rabid Russophilia. Tadić played up his nationalist bona fides during the campaign, perhaps to sap some support from Nikolić, and it remains to be seen whether his supposed EU-love will continue in the wake of the Kosovo declaration of independence which should happen some time this week. Here’s to hoping that he opts for trying to be a transformational figure in Serbian politics.

Anatol Lieven has an important (yet in my view flawed) take on the significance of Kosovo in the Financial Times (via Steve Clemons). I don’t feel particularly great right now so I won’t delve into it too deeply, but my disagreement with Lieven comes down to this:

Kosovo’s independence will inevitably have repercussions for the Georgian separatist regions and Nagorno- Karabakh and Trans Dnestr. For the west to say Kosovo is a unique case is empty, given the obvious parallels.

To resolve these issues and restore elementary consistency to its own position, the west does not need to recognise Abkhaz and South Ossetian independence - something for which Moscow is in any case not asking, given the obvious lessons for some of Russia’s own restive minorities.

Russia’s backing of Serbia’s claims to Kosovo doesn’t have anything to do with them feeling that the rules of the international system are being applied arbitrarily—Russians couldn’t care less about fairness or the international system. They are establishing spheres of influence in Serbia through the purchase of a majority stake in the Serbian oil monopoly (Naftna Industrija Srbije - NIS). There are also plans afoot for gas pipelines to Serbia which could end up serving most of Central Europe, thereby pre-empting the Western-backed Nabucco Pipeline project.

This is pure power politics, and should not be mistaken for anything else. It’s about regional influence and energy dependency. Restoring “elementary consistency” to our positions doesn’t matter one whit. Richard Holbrooke had the right idea back in November of last year—Russia needs to be confronted on this.

Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica threatened thusly:

With such an illegal decision, the EU would seriously violate the UN Charter and Resolution 1244, which would automatically mean that there is the Stabilization and Association Agreement is no longer *[sic]*. After this, only in case that the EU withdrew its decision on sending the mission would Serbia be able to discuss the Agreement once again.

That’s right, he’s threatening that he will junk the SAA agreement which the EU extended to Serbia as a measure of goodwill if the EU goes on with its Kosovo plans.

Imagine you have a petulant child. You buy the child a present in order to quiet him down. The child threatens to destroy the present if you don’t do exactly as it demands.

As parents well know, there’s no negotiating with children.

Headline Junky enters the fray:

But its heavy-handed dissection of Serbia’s territorial integrity would deal Russia another humiliation at a moment when Moscow increasingly feels the need to demonstrate its resurgent influence.

Russia deciding to inject itself into this process does complicate things, to be sure. But people should try to keep recent history in mind when they write about these issues. Kosovo’s story is long and tortured, but in modern times it existed as a semi-autonomous body in the context of Yugoslavia, and it had its sovereignty severely curtailed by Milosevic only in 1989. That the current Serbian government is motivated by the same raw myth-driven nationalism which brought Milosevic to power should not be lost on the commentariat either.

Those interested in gaining a deeper understanding of the Kosovo problem need look no further than Noel Malcolm’s superb Kosovo: A Short History. While you’re at Amazon, go ahead and buy Malcolm’s Bosnia: A Short History as well, since Bosnia is up next for Serbian irredentism.

Expect more of this in the coming weeks:

“If the independence of Kosovo is recognized, it would not be the final stage of the disintegration of the former Yugoslavia, but the first stage of new disintegration and secession in the Balkans,” Serbia’s Kosovo minister, Slobodan Samardzic, said.

For those not up to speed on what’s going on inside Serbia, this is a good primer on the political dynamics. The DSS is the party of Vojislav Kostunica, who was until recently fêted in the Western press as a welcome change after Milosevic. Whoopsie!

Signs point to most Balkan specialists still not really “getting” it. The International Herald Tribune runs an article titled “A Balkan crisis that some see as overblown”, which cites a certain European study:

In a recent paper published by the European Stability Initiative, a group based in Berlin that advocates the EU’s expansion throughout the western Balkans, argues that contrary to the rhetoric by Kostunica and Gregorian, Bosnia has made enormous strides in recent years, and this current crisis is political, not interethnic.

Fools!¹ It’s always been political, not interethnic! That’s the single biggest misapprehension of the recent Balkan wars: that they were the product of inscrutable ethnic hatreds. I’ve got an article coming out in the next issue of The American Interest on this very topic.

Stay tuned…