May 30, 2003

THOSE WHO JOIN WILL BE SORRY, THOSE WHO DO NOT WILL PAYSERBIA IN NATO?

An Interview With Srdja Trifkovic

On Thursday, May 29th, Serbia’s top-circulation daily newspaper, Glas Javnosti, published a full-page interview with our foreign affairs editor on the subject of Serbia and Montenegro’s proposed membership of NATO’s Partnership for Peace PfP) program (www.glas-javnosti.co.yu/danas/srpski/T03052801.shtml). Complete translation follows:

Dr. Srdja Trifkovic on the dilemma: Does Serbia need NATO, does NATO need Serbia?

by Srdja Trifkovic

The visit to NATO headquarters in Brussels by Serbia-Montenegro’s defense minister Boris Tadic on May 7 marked another step towards Belgrade’s formal inclusion in the so-called Partnership for Peace, the first step to eventual membership in the North Atlantic Alliance. That this option was in the works became obvious last fall, when two semi-official emissaries from Washington visited Belgrade and said that, in the opinion of President George Bush, Serbia ought to join NATO by 2006. We ask Dr. Srdja Trifkovic, Director of the Center for International Affairs at The Rockford Institute, what advantages would Serbia derive from its membership in PfP and then NATO.

Absolutely none. Partnership for Peace is a waiting room that imposes significant obligations on its members and yields no returns. As for NATO membership, the first point worth making is just how morally problematic it would be to join an organization that carried out an aggressive war against Serbia in 1999, subjected it to 78 days of brutal bombing, and then occupied a part of its sovereign territory [Kosovo] from which the Serbs have been expelled.

That NATO burst into Kosovo as an illegal occupier, thanks to the terrorist bombing of Serbian cities and villages, is beyond any doubt. That occupation is illegal, and Serbia has an inalienable right, sooner or later, to recover its sovereignty over its territory. By entering Partnership for Peace, and perhaps NATO, Serbia would become an accomplice in its own carving up. It would lose the only asset left after the war of 1999: the moral status of a victim of aggression. Let us be clear: By entering NATO Serbia would implicitly accept that the military intervention against it had been justified, with all consequences that would follow from such an admission.

Of course there had been some individuals in Serbia then, as there are some now, who think that this would not be a bad thing, that those were just deserts. By joining NATO they want Lord Robertson to become their secretary-general, and Jamie Shea their spokesman. If such a far-reaching decision was subjected to the democratic decision of the citizens–as it would have to be–there is no doubt they would reject it with disgust.

Wouldn’t it be costly to stay outside NATO?

Quite the contrary, its membership would be very costly. As we’ve seen in other East European countries, by joining PfP and then NATO they were obliged to attune their military to certain standards. Already impoverished, Serbia would be expected to buy expensive military hardware, primarily American-made, that is unnecessary to its real defense needs. How would it help Serbia to have F-16 fighters in the struggle against Albanian terrorists in the region of Bujanovac and Presevo? As we’ve witnessed in Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic, billions of dollars spent on NATO membership are not even subjected to public debate.

Would it not be dangerous for Serbia to be the only Balkan country outside NATO?

There are well-meaning commentators who think that the country should join Partnership for Peace, and then NATO, so as to obtain a more just treatment for Serbia by the power holders in the outside world. There is no proof for this claim. Such membership does not guarantee, by itself, that disputes among members will be mediated in a just and even-handed manner. Specifically, possible disputes between Serbia and central authorities in Bosnia-Herzegovina over the status of the Republika Srpka, or between Serbia and Albania over the status of Kosovo, or between Serbia and Croatia over the return of refugees and their rights, would not be necessarily judged more favorably for the Serb side than before. A good example is provided by the disputes between Greece and Turkey.

In 1974 Turkey carried out an illegal invasion of Cyprus and ethnically cleansed the Greeks from the northern part of the island. This naturally caused deep anger in Greece and was deeply detrimental to Greek national interests, but Greece was powerless to do anything. Both countries were NATO members, but that did not mean that they enjoyed equal treatment. Quite the contrary, throughout the Cyprus crisis it was clear that the Americans were supporting Turkey, not because the Turks had law and justice on their side – which they did not – but because the United States regarded Turkey as a far more important strategic partner.

The advocates of NATO membership also mention processes of integration from which we should not be excluded?

Serbia needs to be integrated into Europe, and North Atlantic Alliance is increasingly seen as a barrier to the process of European integration. Furthermore, let us not forget that by joining NATO a state agrees to have its sovereignty curtailed. It will no longer have a single service, a single document marked “Top Secret,” that will not be subjected to the oversight and control from the outside.

American intelligence officers will no longer need to pay for information obtained from their local agents in cash or restaurant meals. [NB: Allusion to the scandal surrounding former Yugoslav Army Chief of Staff, General Momcilo Perisic. He was videotaped in a restaurant last year by the Yugoslav military counter-intelligence as he handed a folder with secret documents to an American “diplomat” in Belgrade by the name of John Neighbor. Mr. Neighbor gave Gen. Perisic an envelope filled with $100 notes, and was about to pay the bill as they were both apprehended. The diplomat was swiftly withdrawn by the State Department; Gen. Perisic enjoys immunity from prosecution as a government coalition deputy.] Partnership for Peace will be only the first step in a process that demands the full subjugation of the armed forces to the “civilian control.”

When we see who are the “controllers,” both domestic ones who are at least known and foreign ones who are not, we can appreciate the catastrophic consequences of such a move. It is unfortunately in line with the determination of Djindjic’s political heirs to dismantle all institutions – from the Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts to the University – in which the concept of defining and maintaining Serbian national interests has not been completely eradicated.

Would we get something in return?

Nothing! It is obvious that from the point of view of the United States, as the chief NATO Power, all former Soviet satellites in Eastern Europe are to be treated as American satellites and a counterweight to the “Old Europe,” that is, to the Franco-German axis within the European Union. That “Old Europe” is trying to resist faits accomplis, and from the standpoint of national strategy it is a far more natural geopolitical partner to Serbia. Geographically, economically, and culturally the Serb lands also belong to the Mediterranean, Danubian-Panonian, and Central European regions. It is within those parameters that Serbia should evaluate its interests and create its bilateral alliances. NATO membership would disrupt that process. Serbia would tie its hands by entering an organization that, after the collapse of the USSR, has no justification for its continued existence – except as an auxiliary tool of maintaining the only remaining superpower’s global hegemony.

It is not far-fetched to expect that Serbia would be obliged to participate in military interventions similar to the one it has been subjected itself, or else to send its military contingents as part of some future “coalition” in the deserts of Arabia or the wastelands of Central Asia.

Are Serbia and Montenegro obliged to join these organizations [PfP and NATO]?

The basic obligation of political decision-makers in Serbia and Montenegro is to their citizens, and not to some mystical “international community.” That obligation entails defining and promoting national interests in a pragmatic, value-neutral manner. Insistence by the present power structure in Belgrade on drawing closer to NATO would be interpreted by the “Old Europe” as opting for the ranks of the newly-fangled American satellites. Those European countries could respond with certain moves that are detrimental to Serb national interests – specifically in Kosovo and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Let us not forget that in those provinces it is the EU that has controlled all key positions through its local bosses, from Westendorp and Petritsch [in Bosnia] to Haekkerup and Steiner [in Kosovo]. If there was any intent in Belgrade to creatively model different foreign policy scenarios, I think that the current rivalry between the dominant states of the EU on one side and the United States on the other would offer considerable scope for action. Unfortunately, with the current ruling team that is not possible.

[Interviewer: Boba Borojevic]

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