Western Balkans–Salience and emotion

Ethnic map of the Balkans. Note: Henry Robert Wilkinson published in 1951 the work Maps and politics: a review of the ethnographic cartography of Macedonia where he stated tthat this ethnic map, as most ethnic maps of that time, contained a pro-Bulgarian ethnographic view of Macedonia. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Posted on May 10th, 2012 in the category Western Balkans by TransConflict

Progress toward more effective management of regional disputes will be possible only if leaders emerge inside the region capable and willing to channel their own and their followers’ emotions toward negotiations everyone accepts from the outset will lead to painful sacrifices on everyone’s part.

By David B. Kanin

In a region burdened by frozen conflict, current events are reminding everyone involved of the dangers posed by contested sovereignty.  Kosova’s ill-conceived decision to knuckle under to international pressure and accept the placement of an asterisk on its identity led Pristina to become aggressive in its demand that international overseers prevent Kosovar Serbs from holding local elections in conjunction with Serbia’s just-completed election.  Various Serbian responded to Pristina’s rhetoric by warning darkly of possible violence against Serbs in Kosova.  A few days after what proved to be relatively quiet elections – compared to what went on in France and Greece, Serbia appeared to be Europe’s island of political continuity, and not much at all went on inside Kosova – Kosovar interior minister, Bajram Rexhepi, still hinted at possible use of force north of the Ibar.  At the same time, Serbian police arrested ethnic Albanians in southern Serbia as a part of Ivica Dacic’s campaign strategy – Dacic was accordingly rewarded at the ballot box.

The internationals’ diminution of Kosova’s status put into high relief continuing disarray over what to do in the Balkans; the US and others continue to fail to bring to heel five EU members who refuse to recognize the new state.  Whether and how sputtering negotiations between Belgrade and Pristina resume depends on the outcome of the negotiations that will form the new government in Serbia on how Kosova decides to deal with its externally imposed diplomatic disadvantage.

Macedonia’s inter-communal condition is even more worrying.  Early EU membership is off the table – much as this author would wish it otherwise.  The “name” imbroglio with Greece ensures that the NATO summit in Chicago will be no more satisfying to Macedonia than was the Alliance’s poorly choreographed meeting in Bucharest in 2008.  The arrest of allegedly radical Jihadists for the murder of five Macedonian fishermen tests the stability of a piece of former Yugoslavia so far spared the horrors of major fighting.  The bombastic “Skopje 2014” project highlights ethnic Macedonian insecurity over their identity and reinforces ethnic Albanian irritation with being treated as less than a fully constituent political community.

It is worth remembering that Bosnia too remains a faltering Western enterprise.  The central state is illegitimate (or irrelevant) to two of the country’s three major communities and is too weak to provide much value to the Bosnjak plurality – witness the trade of insults and accusations over the Dobrovoljacka Street commemoration.

Kosovo & Pristina doesn’t really want negotiations on the north

Map of Kosovo UNMIK Mission (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Posted on May 22nd, 2012

The May 17 arrest of a young Serb employee of UNMIK’s north Mitrovica office suggests that the Kosovo Albanians have no intention of accepting a negotiated outcome for the region north of the Ibar River.

By Gerard M. Gallucci

The May 17 arrest of a young Serb employee of UNMIK’s north Mitrovica office removes any good reason for resisting the judgement that the Kosovo Albanians have no intention of accepting a negotiated outcome for the region north of the Ibar River. They do not want negotiations on the north, they just want the north. So, to head off any possibility of having to accept compromise, they will provoke the Serbs there into refusing to deal with them.

The young man arrested frequently travelled to visit family in the mixed north Mitrovica village of Suvi Do. To get there, he’d have to pass through an Albanian area. At that point, he would also have to pass by a unit of the so-called “regional” Kosovo police that EULEX allows free reign in this sensitive area. His routines were known. He could have been stopped at any time, as any of the Serbs living there can be. The decision to arrest him at this point on “suspicion” that he was involved in a demonstration in April to prevent the Kosovo Albanian police from setting up another provocative checkpoint – where there had just been a deadly explosion – was clearly political. (EULEX has still not managed to release any information on who might have been responsible for the explosion.) Many, many Serbs turned out for this. The targeting of a local UNMIK employee also allowed Pristina to take another shot at the UN office in north Mitrovica.

A cynic might say that the arrest was Pristina’s way of “recruiting” Serbs to take part in its “dialogue” over the north that it plans to unilaterally launch in September. The truth, however, is more basic than that. The Kosovo Albanians do not want to negotiate over the north, they want to have their “rule of law” imposed there so that they can use it to enforce more “returns” and eventually push the Serbs out entirely. They expected the internationals to do this for them; first UNMIK, then the ICO and EULEX. Having failed in that, they have mounted steady provocations since July 2011. Now they see the internationals pushing them to talk with the northern Serbs. So they provoke the Serbs, either to set off violence that they can use to justify new repression or to simply strengthen the hands of those Serbs opposed to talks.

Why Philippines Stands Up to China

May 14, 2012 By James R. Holmes

The Philippines is hopelessly mismatched against China in pure military terms. But there are historical reasons why it won’t back down in the South China Sea.

Last month, I wrote a column for Global Times in which I observed that a dominant Chinese Navy lets China’s leadership deploy unarmed surveillance and law-enforcement vessels as it implements policy in the ongoing stand off at Scarborough Shoal. It can flourish a small, unprovocative seeming stick while holding the big stick – overwhelming naval firepower, and thus the option of escalating – in reserve.

That, I wrote, translates into “virtual coercion and deterrence” vis-à-vis lesser Asian powers. If weak states defy Beijing, they know what may come next. Global Times readers evidently interpreted this as my prophesying that Southeast Asian states will despair at the hopeless military mismatch in the South China Sea – and give in automatically and quickly during controversies like Scarborough Shoal.

Not so. Diplomacy and war are interactive enterprises. Both sides – not just the strong – get a vote. Manila refuses to vote Beijing’s way.

Military supremacy is no guarantee of victory in wartime, let alone in peacetime controversies. The strong boast advantages that bias the competition in their favor. But the weak still have options. Manila can hope to offset Beijing’s advantages, and it has every reason to try. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? China has been the weaker belligerent in every armed clash since the 19th century Opium Wars. It nevertheless came out on top in the most important struggles.

That the weak can vanquish the strong is an idea with a long pedigree. Roman dictator Quintus Fabius fought Hannibal – one of history’s foremost masters of war – to a standstill precisely by refusing to fight a decisive battle. Demurring let Fabius – celebrated as “the Delayer” – marshal inexhaustible resources and manpower against Carthaginian invaders waging war on Rome’s turf.

Fabius bided his time until an opportune moment. Then he struck.

Similarly, sea power theorist Sir Julian Corbett advised naval commanders to wage “active defense” in unfavorable circumstances. Commanders of an outmatched fleet could play a Fabian waiting game, lurking near the stronger enemy fleet yet declining battle. In the meantime they could bring in reinforcements, seek alliances with friendly naval powers, or deploy various stratagems to wear down the enemy’s strength. Ultimately they might reverse the naval balance, letting them risk a sea fight – and win.

House Resolution 3523, Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act Bill

by William on 25th Apr 12

The CISPA bill and its content posted abridgedly, and why it affects the citizen more than had the SOPA bill.

As posted on curiosidadesofworld.blogspot.pt

In the spirit of newspapers of record, Urban Times shall publish the current version of the United States’ Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, a piece of legislation similar to the lines of SOPA and PIPA, though with a fundamental difference—whereas SOPA, ACTA, and PIPA dealt with the shutting down of websites “infringing” on copyright, CISPA manages to entice, as opposed to alienate, companies and corporations by encouraging cooperation between intelligence organizations of the United States and the private information held by said corporations, thereby putting all culpability and infringement not upon internet corporations and websites, but upon their users, citizens of the world. Internet corporations are encouraged to share private user information with the United States federal government, in exchange for immunity from prosecution though liability—information shared, not through a forced hand via subpoena or court warrant, but by arbitrary decisions based on the management of said private corporation.

This means that there shall be no great protests directly from Facebook, or Google, against this legislation, for they are supporters of the bill. The bill is up for debate tomorrow, Thursday, April 26th, 2012, and for vote by Friday. It is past the eleventh hour, and many have missed the previous 66 bell tolls warning that once Internet companies are benefited by legislation, they will not care about you, the user. They are corporations. They don’t care about you. A corporation, as much as a person as it may be according to certain laws, has no feelings. It is up to you, the user, to fight back, and knowledge is the first step to understanding your enemy.

There is an idiom that goes, “read between the lines”. Government legislation and law interpretation are truly, truly the times where this idiom is not just good advice to live by, but a necessary thought process for your happiness, well being, and more dramatically, survival, in the face of deliberately misleading rhetoric and ambiguous terminologies.

The bill has been formatted to facilitate its reading.

Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act of 2012

http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/BILLS-112hr3523rh/pdf/BILLS-112hr3523rh.pdf (link)

‘‘(a) INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY SHARING OF CYBER THREAT INTELLIGENCE WITH PRIVATE SECTOR.—

‘‘(1) IN GENERAL.—The Director of National Intelligence shall establish procedures to allow elements of the intelligence community to share cyber threat intelligence with private-sector entities and to encourage the sharing of such intelligence.

Assessing the Growing PLA Air Force Foreign Relations Program

Publication: China Brief Volume: 12 Issue: 9

April 26, 2012 05:03 PM Age: 3 days

By: Kenneth Allen, Emma Kelly

PLAAF Commander Xu Qiliang with Foreign Military Students in China

The People’s Liberation Army Air Force’s (PLAAF) foreign relations program is an increasingly important component of the PLA’s overall foreign relations program. As part of China’s overall program, it gradually has expanded from merely exchanging delegations to conducting combined exercises with individual countries and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO). In 2001, the PLAAF CommandCollege created a program for foreign officers that, since 2009, includes PLAAF officers. In addition, the PLAAF has begun to perform military operations other than war (MOOTW) abroad to support national goals. This article addresses how the PLA interacts with the international community and then discusses the ways in which the PLAAF implements its foreign relations program with a focus at the end on PLAAF relations with the U.S. Air Force (USAF).

How the PLA Interacts with the International Community

The PLA interacts with the international community and foreign militaries through a number of channels. Actual PLA military diplomacy includes, but is not limited to, the following activities:

· Strategic security dialogues;

· The exchange of military attaché offices and the establishment of embassy/consulate websites;

· The establishment of a Ministry of National Defense Information Office and spokesman system;

· High-level military exchanges;

· Functional and educational military exchanges;

· PLA Navy port calls;

· Combined exercises with foreign militaries;

· The opening of military exercises and operational units to foreign observers;

· Peace-keeping, anti-piracy and MOOTW;

· Humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HA/DR) [1].

Insurgency in Xinjiang Complicates Chinese-Pakistani Relations

Publication: Terrorism Monitor Volume: 10 Issue: 8

April 20, 2012 02:50 PM By: Jacob Zenn

Zhou Yongkang (left), member of the Standing Committee of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), shakes hands with a local Uygur farmer in Kashi. (Xinhua)

China typically exercises caution when making public statements about terrorist attacks in Xinjiang. When China blames attacks on Pakistan-based terrorist organizations, such as the possibly defunct East Turkistan Islamic Movement (ETIM), it risks adding tensions to the Sino-Pakistani “all-weather” friendship. [1] However, when China blames attacks on local Uyghurs it is tantamount to an admission that its policies in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region have not created a “harmonious society.”

In unprecedented fashion, China recently pointed the finger at Pakistan after a February 28 attack in Yecheng, a city 200 kilometers from the oasis city of Kashgar, close to the border with Tajikistan. The Chairman of the Xinjiang Regional Government decisively remarked on March 7 that the attackers had “one thousand and one links” to Pakistan (Times of India, March 8). China further implicated Pakistan on April 6, albeit indirectly, when it published on the Ministry of Public Security website profiles of six Uyghurs from China who allegedly operate in “South Asia” as members of the ETIM. [2] Despite these allegations, there is almost no evidence that the recent attack in Yecheng was plotted from Pakistan and there are only inconclusive reports that the two major attacks in Xinjiang in 2011 were planned in Pakistan. there is scant evidence that recent attacks in Xinjiang have actually been plotted from Pakistan. It is possible that China is publically citing Pakistan as the source of terrorism in Xinjiang to put pressure on Pakistan for strategic purposes or to deflect attention from the regional government’s inability to contain outbreaks of violence in Xinjiang.

One of the strongest pieces of evidence establishing a Pakistan tie to terrorism in Xinjiang comes from a martyrdom video posted on the Shmukh al-Islam online forum in September 2011 that showed Memtieli Tiliwaldi training with the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) in what appears to be the mountainous tribal regions of Pakistan (see Terrorism Monitor, January 26). [3] Tiliwaldi had been killed by Chinese security forces days after taking part in attacks on Han Chinese pedestrians and diners in Kashgar on July 30 and July 31, 2011 that left ten people dead. The video, which was allegedly created by Nurmemet Memetmin, one of the six Uyghurs profiled on the Ministry of Public Security website, seems to prove that Tiliwaldi trained in Pakistan with the TIP and then carried out attacks in Kashgar. However, one of several issues with this video is that it is unclear why the TIP would honor only Tiliwaldi and not the other dozen “martyrs” that took part in the Kashgar attacks if the TIP was indeed responsible.

Millet, nation, community

Български: Етнографска карта на Европейска Турция на Ернст Равенщайн. English: Ernst Ravenstein’s Ethnographical Map of Turkey in Europe (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Posted on April 3rd, 2012 in the category Western Balkans by TransConflict

As a signifier, Bosnjak – which is gaining traction as a national identity in Sandjak (in both Serbia and Montenegro), and among Balkan Muslims in Western Europe – is coming to connote a political identity associated with access to state power, “European” credentials and Islamic legitimacy.

By David B. Kanin

“Arab Spring” works too well as a simple slogan; the term permits various protagonists to appropriate fluid, diverse, and interacting developments to serve very different agendas.  Brussels and Washington congratulate themselves as being the indispensable models for democracy and cultural diversity.  This goes beyond government propaganda – one NGO maven was cited in the Washington Post as saying Egypt (for example) had no alternative to moving forward in cooperation with the United States.

The “Occupy” phenomenon, which exists more as twittered electrons than as an effective popular movement, embraces Arab revolts as part of its rhetoric of global revolution.  Western Occupiers, however, have yet to demonstrate anything like the efficacy of those who organized so well and sacrificed so much last year in the Middle East and North Africa.  Asserting that their lack of organization and strategic coherence are strengths rather than weaknesses will get the much less than 99 percent who take to US and European streets only so far.

In turn – outside of Tunisia, perhaps – some of the Arab heroes of 2011 are finding themselves eclipsed by savvy politicians and opportunists associated with old regimes or patronage networks (to include traditional regional and tribal configurations).  Activists in Egypt and elsewhere could suffer the fate of those who drove revolutions in 1789, 1848 and 1968.  Some eventually could follow the example of Serbia’s Otpor, which adjusted to its post-Milosevic popular rejection by translating the credit it gave itself for the events of October 2000 into an entrepreneurial credential used to advertise services to would-be revolutionaries in the Middle East and elsewhere.