by Richard Gowan | Feb 21, 2008 | Conflict and security, Europe and Central Asia
So, Kosovo is burning – but only a little. While protestors in Belgrade grab headlines by attacking the U.S. embassy, a rather more subtle game seems to be playing out in Serb-majority north Kosovo itself. There has been violence, with a series of assaults on UN vehicles and border posts, but it seems to be deliberately limited. When NATO forces turn up, the attackers typically pull back. There has been a notable (and welcome) lack of casualties.
Many Kosovo-watchers, myself included, had feared something worse: large-scale violence intended to inflict some high-profile humiliations on NATO, comparable to those achieved by Albanian rioters in March 2004. Then, many NATO troops retreated into their camps – the French general sent to rebuild the force admitted it had faced “defeat”. While UN and NATO officials don’t like to admit it, this shock created much of the momentum towards the province’s independence (you can find Kosovars who believe the whole thing was rigged by the CIA).
When I visited Kosovo last fall for the Annual Review of Global Peace Operations, it wasn’t hard to locate international officials who thought that the Serb minority would attempt to pull off a similar coup. In an unpublished note I wrote at the time, I reflected on the mood of gloom:
Ask international officials in Kosovo if they think the EU could navigate a crisis, and their response is dark: in a deteriorating security situation, it would not be long before European troops, police and civilians found themselves being shot and killed. The Europeans will have no choice but to lock the situation down. That’s the optimistic take. In the pessimistic version, NATO would wade in to evacuate at-risk internationals – but be unable to halt Serb-Albanian violence.
Some had even grimmer visions of how matters might unfold. Here’s one worst-case scenario penned at about the same time (source: anonymous):
First, stories appear of Kosovo Albanian atrocities against a Serbian family . “Look,” say the Serbs, “Kosovars – and NATO – cannot be trusted to protect us.” Then Kosovar Serbs “spontaneously” rise up to defend themselves from ethnic cleansing, catching the sleepy NATO mission off guard. The Serb army moves into Kosovo – occupying the Serb-dominated areas to save their brethren. Russian President Putin calls for a ceasefire. Belgrade then concedes independence for the rest of Kosovo on condition that northern Kosovo is annexed to Serbia.
And it’s possible that the current, low-to-mid-level violence is the prelude to just that sort of escalation. That’s what everyone seems to be telling the New York Times:
“The Serbs appear intent on provoking an Albanian reaction and to make the international community’s mission here impossible, but we will not allow legal partition,” said one senior EU diplomat. But another European diplomat said that if Serbs pursued de facto division, “there is not a lot that could be done.”
But it’s possible that we’ll get to de facto division without really big violence. In the lead-up to Kosovo’s independence declaration, NATO managed to get a lot of troops – including Americans, French and Germans – into the northern part of the province. These probably have the potential to react pretty effectively to any sustained attack by the Kosovo Serbs (and any incursion by the Serb army would be an open invitation to NATO to use air power). After all, the Chadian rebels who thought that they could frighten off the EU this month with a direct show of force were only temporarily successful – and a lot of them are now permanently dead.
But the Kosovo Serbs may be onto a cleverer strategy: a drip-drip of violence that tires out NATO without being sufficient to provoke retribution, and demonstrating that the international community doesn’t really control the north. As long as the protestors avoid inflicting any major casualties, it will be hard to get really tough with them – the headline “NATO forces cut off Serb right to free speech/protest” isn’t exactly an appealing one. Rather than leave the Europeans and U.S. “with no choice but to lock the situation down”, this sort of persistent trouble-making has the potential to corrode NATO’s sense of purpose. The Kosovo Serbs may be being very cunning. Or they may just be hoping for a bigger fight soon.
by David Steven | Feb 21, 2008 | Conflict and security, Influence and networks
If you’ve never been cornered by a 911 truther then you should definitely read Paul Constant’s excellent profile of the movement for the Utne Reader. Key quote:
The very fact that they’ve branded themselves the “Truth” movement shows a canny grasp of public relations on a level with the Bush administration’s lusty embrace of the word freedom. Who could possibly be against truth? Truth is part of the credo of superheroes, along with justice and the American way. It’s the same kind of organic organizational genius that people who are against abortion drew on when they came up with prolife.
Adopting a powerful, emblematic word like truth or life or freedom gives you an important edge at the start of an argument. It’s more than a statement of purpose; it’s brilliant marketing, and it reveals an organization wise enough to use the same tools as the institutions they’ve sworn to fight.
Truthers get dismissed as idiots on liberal and conservative message boards around the country, but it’s hard to think of another movement that has covered as much ground as quickly, and has defined itself as well, as 9/11 Truth has.
by Alex Evans | Feb 21, 2008 | Conflict and security, UK
FCO has been briefing journalists in the last few minutes: here’s the Times –
David Miliband is expected to apologise to the Commons today as he discloses that two American “extraordinary rendition” flights did, after all, land on British soil.
The Government has always insisted that there was no evidence that such flights had occurred, but ministers have recently received information from Washington that two flights – one en route to Guantanamo Bay and one to Morocco – stopped over at Diego Garcia, the British overseas territory in the Indian Ocean.
The Foreign Secretary is expected to say that the Government did not know of the flights at the time it assured MPs that none had taken place and that efforts are under way that it never happens again.
Miliband is making a statement to the House now – watch it live here. More to follow.
Update: the BBC says both flights landed in 2002. And The Times has now added this:
Campaigners pointed out that when any such flight had landed on British soil it came under British jurisdiction. In late November Jack Straw, the then Foreign Secretary, wrote to the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to ask for clarification on the purpose of some 80 flights that were known to have passed through the UK.
Downing Street denied that UK airports had been used for rendition flights “so far as we are aware”. Questioned by the parliamentary committee on foreign affairs on December 13, Mr Straw denied that any CIA flights carrying prisoners abroad had passed through British airfields.
He dismissed suggestions that a judicial investigation should be launched into reports that over 400 CIA flights have flown in and out of Britain since September 2001, saying the world should accept the “serious assurance” of the United States that it was not transferring prisoners abroad to be tortured.
To which the obvious rejoinder – assuming that the British government really did know nothing about UK airports being used for rendition flights – is: with allies like these…
The Guardian has just added that “Miliband said he had expressed his “deep disappointment” to the US government that the nature of the flights had not been revealed earlier”. Too bloody right.
by Alex Evans | Feb 21, 2008 | Climate and resource scarcity, Global system
Yeah, yeah, it touched the $100 mark on January 2, but that was just a trader paying over the odds and making a loss in the process so that he had “the right to tell his grandchildren he was the one who did it”. Yesterday, though, the West Texas Intermediate price hit $101.32 – having been as low as $86.24 just a couple of weeks ago.
This is interesting, as a lot of hedge fund folk were betting heavily that with the US moving into downturn land, the oil price would ease too. The International Energy Agency had also cut its demand forecast for the year. So what’s the deal? Chris Flood in the FT cites four factors:
– First, demand in emerging economies is proving to be the real engine here: as Paul Horsnell of Barclays Capital puts it, “Shorting oil on account of a negative view on the US economy is always very dangerous and likely to backfire, because global oil demand growth is centered on emerging markets”.
– Second, there are ongoing supply disruptions in places like Nigeria and the North Sea; the supply outlook remains very tight.
– Third, a lot of investor inflows are arriving in the oil sector, seeking fairer climes than are currently available in credit and equity markets.
– And finally, there’s the OPEC factor. At its January meeting, it left production levels unchanged, ignoring calls to increase supplies, including from President Bush himself. Now, there’s speculation that OPEC supply might even be cut.
Various commentaries are wondering whether OPEC’s now actively planning to keep the price above $80. I’m wondering whether OPEC simply doesn’t have any more production capacity to give…
