McNair Paper Number 20 Chapter 3, August 1993
During the rest of this decade, and the first years of the next century, acute security crises in the "Balkans," the former Communist states of Albania, Bulgaria, Romania and Yugoslavia, will once again afflict all of Europe. Here lies an unbounded supply of irredentism and diasporas--the main source of intra- and interstate conflict. This article discusses the causes of the Balkan imbroglio and the conditions that exacerbate the region's instability. Unless there is a radical and purposeful shift of Western policy toward mechanisms for collective security and conflict prevention, we are apt to see far more conflict than security in the Balkans.
During the abbreviated life of "Europe whole and free"--rhetoric born of 1989 euphoria--a common future was implied for the entire Euro-Atlantic community. That goal was dead on arrival.
Now our concern must turn to avoiding a collision which would destroy not only the grand plans of the Western democracies in Maastricht, but also efforts to ensure free markets and free governments in the Continent's eastern half. Misgivings about West European economic and political union have grown stronger, while domestic right-wing extremism has gained in Germany, France, Belgium and other countries.
The link between these developments and trauma in post-Communist Europe is direct; East European economic migrants and war refugees streaming into Western Europe at a time of recession contributes to the appeal of extremist parties and movements. Further, the nationalist rhetoric heard from within Russia, Poland and elsewhere fosters counter-nationalism in the West, and vice-versa. The absence, on the one hand, of an unambiguous single threat, and the emergence, on the other, of many new threats for which there is no simple antidote (e.g., NATO cannot use its force to halt migration), enhances popular frustration which serves as a useful lever for demagogues.
More intensely than any other region in Europe's eastern half, the southeastern peninsula of the Continent between the Adriatic, Black and Aegean seas--the "Balkans"--is linked to the future of European security. In the bounded geography of the Balkans lie an unbounded supply of irredentism and diasporas--the "stuff" of intra- and interstate conflict.
In the past century and a quarter, wars involving major European powers, devastating rebellions and civil wars, and dictatorships of the right and left have all afflicted this corner of Europe. Such afflictions will undoubtedly continue into the future, affecting all of Europe. Intrastate and interstate conflicts are numerous and intense, with ample opportunity for heightened tension and animosity throughout the next decade or two.
An analysis of this region must consider the core issues of the Balkans' security dilemma and policies to ameliorate the factors most associated with an increase in the frequency or intensity of conflict. No one can prescribe an elixir guaranteed to rid the Balkans of conditions that disrupt peaceful development. Nevertheless, larger goals of U.S. and European foreign policies--to ensure that a Cold War victory was not ephemeral--require that we ignore neither the threats to such goals from a Balkan imbroglio nor the conditions that exacerbate the region's instability.
Bitter Legacies
"[T]he historical cleavages of Southeastern Europe have...penetrated and 'overcome' the veneer of late-20th century alliances."1 This early 1990 assessment has now been overtaken. Historical cleavages have recurred, the Warsaw Pact has disbanded, and NATO's raison d'etre has been recoded and recalibrated in an effort to keep the venerable alliance alive.2 The erstwhile Cold War divide in the Balkans among Warsaw Pact states (Romania and Bulgaria), NATO members (Greece and Turkey), and "non-aligned" (Yugoslavia and Albania) is now a receding memory.
Far more lasting are conflicts that predate both modern ideologies and alliances. Romania and Hungary disagree over the treatment of ethnic Hungarians in Transylvania--an issue that has roots, most recently, in the 1920 Treaty of Trianon, but which may be traced back centuries earlier.3 Animosity between Greece and Turkey has been heightened by contemporary problems--Cyprus, control of airspace and the continental shelf in the Aegean, etc. Yet, this too is a conflict of centuries' duration.
Europe's southeastern corner has been forced to deal with the legacy of conquest.4 In the past five hundred years, the Turks, Hapsburgs, Germans and Russians have all had their "turn" with the Balkans. The Ottoman Turks, of course, had the most lengthy presence, lasting (in the case of Thrace, Bulgaria and Macedonia) over five centuries. Hapsburg rule was brief, but the effects were powerful insofar as the economic ties with Vienna and Budapest created profound transformations.5
Similarly, a German military occupation, confined to the few years of World War II, was nevertheless preceded by decades of economic suzerainty by Berlin. Russian control, sought during the heyday of Pan Slavism in the late 19th century, was effected by the Red Army in late 1944; although Yugoslav, Albanian, Greek and Turkish territories were never occupied by Soviet forces, Moscow's insertion into the Balkans was heavy-handed and ominous.
A legacy of imperial conquest in the Continent's eastern half is obvious. Today's Balkan peninsula was molded by the expansion and contraction of these empires, and by their combat against each other and native peoples. The distribution of ethnic groups, languages and faiths is a direct consequence of migration--often because of imminent threat--and colonization due to conquest.6 The landowners, administrators and clergy of victors moved in behind their armies, while existing populations fled if they were able.
Diasporas of every nation and irredentist claims of every state are the residue of empires. An intermingling of peoples and borders leaves a high-threat environment for today's low-capacity states. Without exception, the Balkans have been an arena from which human and material resources were extracted, while the indigenous conditions decayed. Poor, underdeveloped and with Europe's highest population growth rates, the Balkans' potent admixture is an invitation to instability.7
Efforts to address these problems have been inconsistent and desultory. After gaining independence from the Turks and Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I, Balkan elites added to their nations' difficulties by favoring "military preparedness and national expansion over internal development...."8 Military coups, royal dictatorships, fascist and Communist agitation meant that sovereignty gained in 1918 remained disassociated from security. Underdeveloped and without self-governing experience, the Balkans were ripe for domination by larger European powers and for destabilization by extremist ideologies.
Peripheral Systems: Weakness, Dependence, Conquest
The cycle of weakness, dependence and conquest is characteristic of peripheral systems. That one imperialism ends matters little; in the wake of empires lie institutions and societies too fragmented to avoid a quick return to dependence.
In the last decade of the 20th century, the principal news from Europe's eastern half has been the demise of Communist regimes and the Soviet Union's disintegration. But the Balkan peoples have had little enthusiasm for commemorations to celebrate the lifting of yesterday's repression. Instead, there is a desperate search underway for 21st-century institutions that will constrain 19th-century conflicts.
For the North Atlantic community, Southeastern Europe may appear less able to achieve a stable democratic future and thus merit less of an "investment" than the favorite sons of Poland, Hungary and the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic. Indifference to the Balkans fostered by such an assessment, however, are perilous.
Threats emanating from an unstable Balkan peninsula will affect the rest of Europe. The prognosis for Hungarian democracy, Austrian and Italian prosperity, Ukraine nationalism, etc. will all be affected immediately by Balkan conflagration.
Far beyond these pragmatic issues lies the wider concept of a new security for all of the Euro-atlantic community. At Helsinki in 1975, and again in the Paris Charter of November 1990, all states in the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (CSCE) committed themselves to a new vision of human rights and security from the "Atlantic to the Urals." The testing of this vision began in the Balkans as nations within Yugoslavia warred against each other in 1991. The belated Euro-atlantic response to Serb-Croat bilateral suicide and the passing of this intractable conflict to the United Nations when it spread to Bosnia-Hercogovina, do not engender confidence about our collective resolve.
Bulgaria
Instead of gaining clear and prompt assurances from the West about its role in democratic Europe, Bulgaria was slow to appear on the screens of Western political radar. When then-Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger finally addressed Bulgarian concerns in early March 1992 on the eve of Prime Minister Filip Dimitrov's first visit to Washington, D.C., Bulgaria was characterized as a new-found discovery of democratic progress for American policy-makers--Europe's "best-kept secret."9
Bulgaria must grapple with a new regional disorder that has visceral effects on its well-being. The realities of Yugoslav wars, Soviet dismemberment, and cascading NATO weapons from Central Europe to flanks (particularly to Turkey) have been among the principal events from which knots are created in the stomachs of Sofia's new policy planners.10
External threats are not imminent but have enormous potential. Turkey has been an adversary for centuries. Although there is now no expectation of an armed conflict, and assiduous efforts have been made to develop bilateral confidence and security-building measures (CSBMs), Bulgarian military officials still compare their force structure and weapons with those of Turkish armed forces. Most often these comparisons are subtle--referring, for example, to "military imbalances remaining from the time of bloc confrontation...."11 Such comparisons became more vociferous as excess weapons, including Abrams M1 tanks, have been provided to the Turks by the United States and other NATO allies. Considerable Bulgarian effort has been directed at achieving a reduction of Turkish troop and equipment strength in Eastern Thrace (European Turkey, bordering Bulgaria), where the Turkish First Army is deployed.12
With more than 10 percent of Bulgaria's population of Turkish background and/or the Islamic faith, there is an omnipresent feeling of sociocultural division. Ethnic Bulgarians regard such a Turkish diaspora as dangerous, and strong resentment is stirred when egalitarian policies are pursued by the government, regardless of that government's political identity. The de facto partnership of the Turkish Movement of Rights and Freedom led by Ahmed Dogan and the Union of Democratic Forces government of Filip Dimitrov, beginning in 1991, has complicated this matter. Given the still considerable strength of the Bulgarian Socialist Party in rural areas, Dimitrov had no choice but to seek key parliamentary votes from Dogan's MRF. Dimitrov cannot, however, be seen as too close to Dogan for fear of alienating the UDF's constituency. Perhaps a half-million Gypsies also live in Bulgaria, although their political position is far weaker.13
In his waning years as Communist dictator, Todor Zhivkov pulled out the "Turkish card" and sought to clothe himself and the Bulgarian Communist Party in the mantle of Bulgarian nationalism. A 1984-1989 campaign to forcibly assimilate Turks and Pomaks (Bulgarian Moslems) included an insistence that these people adopt Bulgarian surnames, a prohibition on Turkish-language broadcasts and classroom instruction, and constraints on Islamic religious observance. He failed, and the policy was repudiated by successor governments. Yet, there is a vocal minority of Bulgarian public opinion that is intolerant of laws to protect minority rights.
Bulgaria and the Issue of Macedonia
Serbia, and its national Communist leader, Slobodan Milosevic, became threatening in 1991-1992 because of Belgrade's role in regenerating Macedonia as a regional issue. Bulgarians see Macedonia as generically Bulgarian, and suspect strongly that Serbs have been trying since the late 1980s to once again foment the claims of Macedonians to part of Bulgaria--a claim vehemently rejected by Sofia. The "Ilinden" Macedonian nationalist organization in Bulgaria is proof enough of such covert Serbian involvement, according to many in Sofia. "Ilinden's" goal is to strip away "Pirin Macedonia" from Bulgaria and to incorporate that territory into an independent Macedonia.
Yet that Bulgaria recognized an independent Macedonia in January 1992 over strenuous Greek opposition is understandable from one respect; Sofia prefers an independent Macedonia to a territory remaining within a Serbian-dominated federation. With an independent Macedonia, notwithstanding severe limitations on Skopje's ability to act autonomously, Bulgaria can do more to counter Serbian efforts to dominate this core of the Balkans.
Were war to spread from Bosnia-Hercogovina into Macedonia, however, Bulgarian interests--reiterated by both Bulgarian socialists and Filip Dimitrov's UDF--would pull Sofia inexorably towards a direct military role.14 Bulgaria would not stand by as a Serbian army occupied all of Macedonia, and might well cooperate with Greece in dividing Macedonia (i.e., the territory of the former Yugoslav republic by that name), rather than seeing it fall entirely into Belgrade's hands. Athens and Sofia do not, of course, see eye to eye on Macedonia, and such cooperation would be short-lived, inviting further conflict.
Well into the next century, however, the Macedonian heart of the Balkans will remain tinder dry, awaiting any spark that might ignite a multi-state war. Bulgaria's involvement in such a war, once begun, is preordained and Bulgarian democracy would not stand in the way. No one--not even Bulgarian military officers--expect that such conflict would exhibit any of the precision of Desert Storm. An inefficient mayhem, following on the "model" of the Serb siege of Vukovar, would likely be replicated a thousand times over with ample efforts at "ethnic cleansing." From this, Bulgaria would not shrink.
Bulgarians, Romanians and Russians
A border that had been deceptively quiet to the north became far more tense after the demise of Communist regimes. Bulgarian concerns about air pollution emanating from Romania were raised, and even for a time encouraged by the Zhivkov regime in the 1980s.15 The Bulgarian Danube city of Ruse had (and still has) exceptionally foul-smelling air, but the fact that the pollutants seemed to be carried across the Danube from Giurghiu, Romania, made the matter more unpleasant. After governments changed in 1989, this issue expanded rather than contracted. Bulgarians continued to charge the Romanian side with willful pollution that endangered lives, to which the Romanians responded with charges of their own about Bulgarian nuclear power-plant safety violations, especially regarding the Kozlodoy plant which provides more than a third of all Bulgarian electrical generating capacity. Sofia has shut down one or more of Kozlodoy's reactors, but cannot close it entirely because of the huge proportion of the country's electrical energy supplied by the site. The acrimony engendered because of these charges and countercharges will not soon dissipate.
None of this is the "real" issue at hand, however. In environmental concerns such as these, there are serious and potentially deadly violations occurring.16 Yet, both countries have economic and territorial issues in mind--most notably, Dobrudja, which changed hands several times between the late nineteenth and mid-20th century--for which the environmental disputes may be a stalking horse.17
Bulgarians and Russians have residual affinity derived from czarist support against Ottoman Turks. No Communist regime was closer to Moscow over the decades after World War II than Todor Zhivkov. To see the Soviet ruin today is discomfiting to even the most ardent anti-Communist Bulgarians because Russians, and the USSR, had been an immense economic partner. Because of the USSR's dominant role in Eastern Europe, 80 percent of Bulgarian trade in the mid-1980s was intra-CMEA.18 This interweaving of the Bulgarian economy was so thorough that, as the Soviet market collapsed, the Bulgarian economy suffered (proportionately) the largest contraction in Eastern Europe.
Further, Bulgarians long looked to Moscow for security guarantees vis-a-vis external threats (against Turkey and Serbia, for example). In the 1990s, suddenly released from the Soviet grip, Bulgarians found that there was nothing on which to lean. Bulgaria's scramble to develop close associations with NATO, the United States, France and other countries outside the Balkans is no surprise.19 The blatant appeals of some groups in Sofia for Western attention, however, will not elicit guarantees from Brussels or Washington.20
Bulgarian Nationalism
Yet the Bulgarian president, Zhelyu Zhelev (re-elected rather narrowly in early 1992), and other non-Communist leaders seem convinced that external threats may be secondary to their country's greatest danger, Bulgaria's own nationalism. Principal Bulgarian policymakers have raised the concern that external perils were dangerous primarily because extremist forces could use them to enhance their appeal within Bulgaria.21 And, with some irony, the former Communists (now the Bulgarian Socialist Party or BSP) have become a principal source of nationalist rhetoric. In both the parliamentary elections of October 1991 and the February 1992 presidential vote, BSP candidates stressed the threats to Bulgaria from external and internal enemies.
The Bulgarian Army's history raises the question of its nationalist and authoritarian potential. For now, younger officers and the Union of Democratic Forces are making progress in depoliticizing the military, although the BSP continues to criticize reforms as weakening the country's defense capacity.22 To ensure its orientation toward a democratic polity, however, will take both the retirement or isolation of Communists and careful monitoring for any signs of extreme right-wing cells. A critical step toward ridding the army of Communist-era leadership was taken in the summer of 1991 when a wholesale turnover of the general staff was instituted on the orders of President Zhelev, with a dozen officers brought in from lower ranks. The chief of the general staff, General Minchev, was among those who departed.
When the UDF government of Filip Dimitrov was elected in October 1991, changes in the Ministry of Defense were accelerated; the first civilian defense minister, Dimitur Ludzhev, was named (as General Mutafchiev was moved to the post of chief inspector of the armed forces) and numerous posts were eliminated within the ministry to enable Ludzhev to clean house. That Prime Minister Dimitrov and Ludzhev later disagreed about ministerial autonomy and the degree of funding cuts and restructuring temporarily slowed civil-military transitions, and led to Ludzhev's ouster in spring, 1992.
In Bulgarian society generally, fertile ground may develop for chauvinistic appeals as the pain of marketization intensifies in the mid- to late-1990s. To the public squalor of Bulgaria's Communist era is now added burdensome debt payments, high inflation, severe recession and mounting unemployment (which reached over 11 percent by mid-1992).23 For politicians to divert attention to external threat has a perilous logic given that, once encouraged, there are few means with which to control nationalism.
Such linkages endanger more than Bulgaria and southeastern Europe. If small, weak countries such as Bulgaria cannot be secured sufficiently in the new Europe, we can expect the old rhetoric and behavior of Balkan nationalism to gain ascendancy.
Romania
Romanian insecurity originates within the country. Yet, Romania's external environment makes long-term stability far less likely.
International sympathy for Romania was considerable in the weeks immediately following the December 1989 fighting that overthrew the Ceausescu tyranny. Yet, the country's image was tarnished badly during the first half of 1990. The National Salvation Front (FSN) government was accused by urban intellectuals and students of stealing the revolution and being run by crypto-Communists. Then, a mid-March 1990 confrontation between Hungarians and Romanians in Tirgu Mures left several dead, and a videotape of such fighting was shown around the world.
The first post-Communist election in May 1990 saw an overwhelming FSN victory that, notwithstanding a fair vote, was clouded by incidents of intimidation and media manipulation during the campaign. Then, in mid-June 1990, the government of President Ion Iliescu made matters worse by ordering that demonstrators who had occupied a central Bucharest square for two months be forcibly evicted. A violent reaction to such police action led the Iliescu government to appeal for support from loyal elements of organized labor. Coal miners from the Jiu Valley responded with wanton abandon, beating demonstrators and ransacking opposition offices.
These episodes (plus images of infants infected with AIDs, towns suffocating on air pollutants, etc.) spawned a decidedly negative Western reaction to Romania's plight. Whether or not the West ought to have been punitive may be debated.24 The ostracism of Romania during 1990-1991, however, was clear. Alone among post-Communist Eastern Europe, Romania was considered unworthy of American and (for the most part) Western largesse.
The door to Western attention remained barely ajar for several years, exacerbating socioeconomic problems and leaving unattended conditions that contribute to Romania's insecurity. The continued American refusal to grant Most-Favored-Nation (MFN) trading status through the fall of 1992, despite free and fair national elections held in September of that year, heightened the potential for unrest within Romania. By 1992 it seemed to be the goal of some interests in Washington, D.C.--reminiscent of U.S. policy toward the Chilean government of Salvador Allende in the early 1970s--to create unrest in Romania that would destabilize the government of President Ion Iliescu, notwithstanding his substantial support in the Romanian population.
Ethnic Minorities in Romania
Heterogeneity in the Balkans heightens insecurity. Adding the Hungarians (roughly 2.0 million), Gypsies (conservatively another 1.5 million) and other less numerous minorities within Romania, at least 17-18 percent of the population is non-Romanian. Because ethnic Hungarians are the biggest component of a diaspora to which Hungary's current government makes frequent reference, and since the Gypsy population may be increasing by more than 3 percent annually, the minority issue is highly volatile.
Potential for unrest and the sense of peril do not arise merely from the numerical strength of minorities. Instead, Romanians and any government in Bucharest recognize clearly the appeal of the Hungarian state to ethnic kin inside the Romanian state. This attraction is particularly strong insofar as Hungary offers more economic, cultural or educational opportunities. Romanians suspect, not without historical cause, that such appeal will detract from the control of Bucharest over Transylvania. Budapest's efforts to strengthen its cultural or economic presence within Transylvania are, thus, resisted by Romanian governments regardless of their ideology.
Contributing to ethnic unrest has been the creation of rabid anti-Hungarian, anti-Semitic political organizations such as Vatra Romaneasca.25 The ethnic hatred fanned by Vatra is opposed by most Romanians and by responsible elements of the political spectrum.26 Yet, there has been some growth of Vatra, and political candidates and parties expressing such viewpoints performed quite well in Transylvania. Gheorghe Funar won most of his votes in Romania's September 27, 1992 presidential election in Transylvanian counties, totaling 11 percent nationally, resulting in a third-place finish out of six candidates. Organizational efforts by the Romania Mare party within the Romanian Army and other institutions (although denied by Defense Minister Spiroiu) could have destabilizing effects even if votes for such a party are a small minority.27
Economic Conditions
Disastrous economic conditions, not ethno-nationalism, are at the core of Romanian domestic insecurity. Extremism and the appeal of scapegoats would be negligible were the well-being of many Romanians not being threatened by impoverishment and malnutrition.
Ceausescu's policies had left the country with no "cushion" in its living standard; his forcible austerity had squeezed from the population the money to repay his own regime's foreign loans, leaving no hidden savings and no family treasures to sell.28 Efforts to convert Romania's highly Stalinist economy of 1989 into a free market are arduous and destabilizing. Huge cost of living increases, as price controls were ended, were registered from late 1990 through 1992. The Romanian leu continued to fall in value relative to the dollar in the same period, reaching 430 to the dollar by October 1, 1992; National Bank officials, however, anticipated greater exchange rate stability in 1993.29 Opening the country to imports, while exports dropped precipitously, quickly created massive balance of payments deficits. And, as privatization was begun, unprofitable enterprises began to close. All of this led to strikes, an erosion of the National Salvation Front's support--especially in cities--and a rise of "economic fear."30
Unease exists within Romania about the residual presence of Ceausescu's Securitate, inside and outside the new Romanian Intelligence Service (SRI). More dubious is the loyalty of the Army to democratic ideals, with both concerns fueling domestic insecurity.31 These institutional uncertainties, however, might be handled by a government that had the unquestioned legitimacy of economic performance, Western support, and an untarnished electoral victory. Romania is unlikely to soon achieve all these desiderata at once.
Romania and Hungary
From outside, Romania must deal with strained relations with Hungary, violence in Moldova that endangers the ethnic Romanian majority of that newly independent country, tension with Bulgaria, and concerns regarding the emergence of a Greater Serbia.
The Transylvanian issue, as noted earlier, seems intractable. From the standpoint of Bucharest, almost regardless of political orientation, statements by Hungarian Prime Minister Antall (that he was to be prime minister of all fifteen million Hungarians, i.e., a number including the entire diaspora), and by Defense Minister Lajos Fur (regarding Budapest's responsibility to defend Hungarians elsewhere) are bound to be interpreted in a threatening manner. Although the militaries of Romania and Hungary seem to have every intention to avoid any mistake that could lead to conflict, politicians have been less cautious.
The early 1991 "Open Skies" accord between the two countries was important for its symbolism, not its military significance. Allowing only four overflights per year, without any surprise inspection option, there is unlikely to be any militarily interesting observations. Yet, transparency is served by such gestures and there may be more potential to keep Transylvania relatively tranquil than most outsiders assume--if, that is, military leaders retain their sense of rationality in the face of nationalist appeals.
Meanwhile, politicians who have now begun to meet regarding a basic Romanian-Hungarian treaty--long sought by Budapest--quickly encountered a sizeable roadblock in their first series of meetings in early 1992. Romania wants an unequivocal written statement in the treaty by which Hungary renounces any territorial claim in Transylvania--a demand that Hungary rejects as being unnecessarily provocative given that both countries have already signed the Helsinki Final Act and Paris Charter. Romania's position is adamant; if Budapest really has no claims, let them put their guarantee in writing.32 Hungary's pages of detailed minority rights demands were, in turn, rejected by Romania as being intrusive--constituting an infringement on sovereignty.33 The negotiations, although continuing, will be arduous.
Romania and Moldova
Sustained fighting between Moldovan police and irregulars of the break-away "Dniester Republic" (where the majority is Russian and Ukrainian) began in March 1992 and elicited calls from Romanian political parties of the center and right for a more forceful Romanian role. The Russian 14th Army commanded by General Lebed intervened directly against the Moldovans, changing the course of fighting in the city of Bendery and elsewhere. Romanian arms and some volunteers may have entered the fighting on the Moldovan side.
During the electoral campaign in the summer of 1992, the fate of Moldovan kin was among the principal issues around which the nationalist "credentials" of parliamentary and presidential contenders was tested. That the Moldavian candidate for the Romanian presidency, Mircea Druc, received only a few percent of the vote implies a lack of interest in trying to absorb Moldova soon. That policy of greater caution, advocated by President Iliescu, may avoid Romanian military engagement beyond the Prut. Further, a peacekeeping arrangement involving Russian, Moldovan and Trans-Dniestrian forces dampened the crisis in the fall of 1992. Within a few years, however, these temporizing measures will be exhausted, at which point a more or less permanent multilateral peacekeeping force may be the only alternative to renewed combat.
In none of these cases are there imminent military threats. Rather, each represents a further strain on a country that has ample internal insecurities and significant constraints on its ability to respond to threats. Romania has not cut the size of its military to the same degree as Czechoslovakia or Hungary, retaining an active-duty force of 170,000. On the other hand, the effectiveness of Romania's army remains in question: high-ranking military officials themselves admit to doubtful combat readiness of troops and equipment.34 While insisting that the Army is disciplined and loyal, the Defense Minister recognizes that modernization is lagging, and budgets are so limited that merely maintaining existing equipment is difficult.35
But Romania's principal route to security will have little to do with its armed forces--a fact recognized by the National Salvation Front leadership during 1990-1991. Regional and multilateral security ties--with the EC, a Danubian basin cooperative group, the Black Sea Economic Cooperation zone, and other endeavors--form a vision of interlocking "harmonious relationships amidst the new all-European architecture and its sub-regional components" sought by the FSN government.36
Romania's future governments will have little choice but to continue this multifaceted approach to security. Particularly after the presidency of Ion Iliescu, whose much-criticized leadership nevertheless did provide continuity and experience, Romania will have to identify foreign policies that reinforce domestic stability. For example, heightened emphasis on absorbing Moldova and risking war would run counter to public opinion in Romania, while accepting a radical acceleration of privatization as sought by international financial organizations would also encounter stiff domestic resistance. Romania needs a cautious, risk-adverse foreign policy guided by the country's resource deficits and fragile social cohesion, with heavy emphasis on cementing strong relations to multilateral organizations vis-a-vis looking for a patron among larger powers.
Yugoslavia
Yugoslavia died violently in 1991. Thousands of martyrs, and monuments such as the rubble of Vukovar and Sarajevo, will remind future generations of ethnic enmity that erupted into a kind of suicide pact. After Tito's death in 1980, and the end of a Soviet threat, no "Yugoslav" institutions were sufficient to hold the disparate state together. A Communist party discredited long ago by its corruption, and an army that was primarily an instrument of its Serbian-dominated officer corps, were inadequate centripetal forces in the face of historic and cultural distinctions, ethno-nationalism, and socioeconomic inequalities.
Against the clear potential that "progressive internal disintegration" would be manipulated by external forces,37 Tito had pursued greater stability in the region while he cast a much wider net for Yugoslav security. The Non-Aligned Movement was that broader framework, in which Tito, Nehru and Nasser played the formative roles at the 1961 Belgrade conference. Non-alignment as opposed to neutrality enhanced Yugoslav visibility and brought an element of respect and assistance that Belgrade might not have otherwise obtained. By the mid-1970s, the Non-Aligned Movement began to splinter, with more radical Third World voices pushing the "message" towards North/South divisions rather than the dangers of superpower-led military alliances.38
In the aftermath of warfare in the early 1990s, however, no remnant of the old Yugoslav federation will play a significant international role. Obtaining security for a rump Yugoslavia, consisting of Serbia and Montenegro, or for independent states of Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, or Bosnia-Hercogovina will bear little resemblance to Tito's security policies. None of these smaller entities, notwithstanding the higher living standards of Slovenia or the larger population of Serbia, have the capacity to act outside the confines of contiguous areas.
Unquestionably, however, the territory and peoples that comprised Yugoslavia now require new sources of security, and will be perceived by those around them as a source of regional insecurity for years to come. A February 24, 1992 meeting between Bulgarian Foreign Minister Ganev and Romanian President Iliescu, for example, focused (in addition to bilateral relations) on the need for both of their countries to avoid any action that would unsettle the delicate movement toward a UN peacekeeping force to end Serb/Croat fighting. Specifically, there was agreement that Bucharest and Sofia would renounce any territorial claims and consider a regional collective security enterprise for guaranteeing borders.39
Slovenia and Croatia
Slovenia, having expelled the Federal (i.e., Serbian) Army in the early summer of 1991, is not under an imminent military threat. The strong support of Germany for Slovene and Croat independence resulted in EC (and, by spring 1992, American) recognition. High-visibility trips by figures such as Hans-Dietrich Genscher to Slovenia and Croatia in February 1992, in which he called for immediate UN and CSCE membership for both states, underscores a commitment to Ljubljana's security.40
But Slovenia's Christian Democratic government will be highly insecure for some time, and was confronted in February 1992 by a parliamentary test of no confidence demanded by independent and Democratic Party deputies, which it survived by a slim margin. Unrest due to a steep economic decline in a country accustomed to high living standards is very possible, as few of the immediate benefits of independence have become apparent.
For Croatia, the warfare against Serbs in Krajina and Slovonia, supported by the Serbian-led federal army, carried an extremely high cost. The vast majority of an estimated 15,000 deaths from July 1991 through the spring of 1992 (when 14,000 UN troops were deployed) were Croats. In Vukovar alone, perhaps 2,000 civilians died during the prolonged siege. The Zagreb government of Franjo Tudjman lost control of virtually all of both Krajina and Slovonia, and substantial portions of the southern Dalmatian coast, together amounting to roughly a third of the pre-war Croatian territory. The Croatian economy suffered, beside physical destruction of towns, roads, bridges and other infrastructure, an enormous disruption of commerce that will not easily be resumed. And, even after the imposition of a UN-monitored ceasefire in Croatia, the Tudjman government threw its support behind the Bosnia Croats, committing the Croatian National Guard to active combat roles that continued the erosion of resources even as Bosnian lands were taken.
The deployment of the 14,000 United Nations troops in disputed zones of Croatia, authorized by the Security Council on February 21, 1992, ensures that no further territorial losses will take place while the troops remain on station. Yet the presence of UN troops also risks the de facto separation of these lands from Croatia. Tudjman's early 1992 vacillation on accepting UN forces reflects a frustration among the Croatian military that they were nearing a point when a counter-offensive could have been begun to retake lost territory. At the same time, Tudjman's own nationalist leadership had suffered considerably during the fighting, and his vow that "Croatian legal order" would be reestablished even in areas where Serbs are not disarmed is a posture that his weak political position seems to demand. It is also, however, a position that directly contradicts UN Secretary General Boutros-Ghali's commitment to deploy forces in Krajina and Slovonia without a return to Croatian administrations. Indeed, this issue may bring an end to the UN mandate in Croatia in the spring of 1993 or at any time thereafter. When that happens, the Serb-Croat war resumes.
That the United Nations action will provide no lasting security for Zagreb's control over Croatian territory as defined before the war--even if all Serb military units are withdrawn--is understood by Croats and outside observers. Enlarging Croatian military capacities has been undertaken41; but this, too, would assume that the military balance would change sufficiently to enable a decisive Croat counter-offensive. Much more likely in the next decade--absent a large and permanent peacekeeping force--is that a Croatian buildup will engender a Serbian pre-emptive attack, particularly given the desire to avoid a repetition of Serbian tactical errors during 1991 fighting.42
Bosnia-Hercegovina
And, for the Serbs, a respite from fighting in Croatia will not produce assured peace and well-being. Serbs in Bosnia-Hercogovina are the principal actors in the extension of the Yugoslav battleground. After Croats and Muslims in that republic sought to implement a late-February 1992 referendum for independence, fighting began in earnest, and no recitation of the horrors during 1992 is required here. Within Serbia, the Albanian population concentrated in Kosovo has been denied any autonomy due to constitutional changes imposed by Slobodan Milosevic's nationalist government in Belgrade. The chance that this conflict, too, may surge back toward significant violence is always present and grows with each day that Serb forces consolidate their hold in Bosnia-Hercogovina. For those who wholeheartedly back Radovan Karadzic and the Bosnian Serbs, there is eager anticipation that greater Serbia can now be reestablished, and that Kosovo is next on the list. November 1992 violence in Pristina, which may have been provoked by Serbs or their agents, could have been a harbinger of further tragedies.
Recognizing that future confrontations are more likely than not, Milosevic has sought to ensure "normal" relations with other neighbors. His February 21, 1992 visit to Bucharest, for example, was a clear attempt to obtain Romanian commitments to continue their policy of uninterrupted commercial relations that allow a supply of oil and other commodities critical to Serbia's economic survival. Following on the heels of EC action, Romania had also recognized Slovenia and Croatia, and Milosevic's trip was an attempt--largely successful--to maintain access to critical supplies via Romania.43 Subsequent UN, NATO and EC pressure in late 1992, however, led Romania to inaugurate boarding of vessels on the Danube (rather than merely examining a manifest), with Romanian border police and customs agents joined by foreign observers in inspecting cargos bound for the former Yugoslavia.
The widely predicted warfare in Bosnia-Hercegovina has had horrible consequences.44 At issue in this complex republic was the challenge by two of its three principal ethno-religious groupings--the Croats and Muslims--to join Slovenia and Croatia in the march toward independence. The republic's Serbs, about 31 percent of the 4.3 million inhabitants, resisted such a notion and boycotted the referendum. Led by people such as Radovan Karadzic, they have used unrestrained violence, supported fully by the Serbian Army, to oppose the republic's departure from Yugoslavia. At first, armed Serbs threw up roadblocks around Sarajevo on March 1-2 in a temporary blockade of the city. Two days of violence left several people dead. Armed groups had been created throughout the republic in 1991-early 1992, and they were prepared to engage in fierce combat. The Army's many important bases, weapons depots, and military-industrial sites in the republic meant that it, too, was ready to fight. Croat paramilitary units had proliferated in the first months of 1992 and were prepared for the battle in Bosnia-Hercogovina. As the republic has been torn apart, and tens of thousands killed, Serb and Croat units have established de facto control over almost all territory, forcing out or murdering Muslims and anyone other than their own nationality, in vicious "ethnic cleansing" campaigns.
Albania and the Albanian Diaspora
The Balkan problem is exacerbated by the weakness and instability of Albania, not to mention the Albanian diaspora (nearly two million Albanians in Kosovo and about a third of Macedonia's total population) that heightens ethnic strife elsewhere. Because of its poverty, population growth and political instability, Albania is both insecure and a source of regional instability for the foreseeable future.
The problems that involve Albanians--in the Albanian state of today or the Albanian diaspora--have been managed (not solved) in the past via external dominance. In the Communist period, the country swung from Moscow to Beijing. Earlier in this century, the Italians played a similar and more proximate role.
But a return to Albanian dependency--particularly a renewed dependence on Italy--is no solution. Were each country in the Balkans to be allotted, by default if not by design, as the primary concern of a particular major power, then the prospects for anything approaching free market democracy in the region are gloomy. Italy will secure itself from Albanian threats--principally uncontrolled migration. But Italy's security will not enhance Albania's capacities to meet threats--from domestic upheaval due to popular desperation or from Serbia. And, unless a country is secure, the chance to nurture democracy will be minimal indeed.
As for the diaspora, it will take only one or two deaths, Albanian or Moslem, in Kosovo or Macedonia to precipitate the endgame of the Yugoslav wars: a far wider conflict in the south. If fighting envelops Kosovo and Macedonia, neighboring states will become involved in the fighting. Such a final step--a true Balkan War--can be expected in the next decade or so as long as there is no large international peacekeeping presence in those regions. Tensions are far too high, and the attitude that "we have nothing to lose" is far too prevalent. The recent warnings issued by the United States to Serbia regarding Macedonia indicate the potential seriousness of a conflict here.
The Future Balkan Security Dilemma
Southeastern Europe will not avoid a major war during the next decade and a half unless there is more frequent and substantial multilateral engagement by the West in the region. In a region of very few capacities--political, economic or military--there is little chance that insecurities can be resolved by a resort to war or confrontation. No state, even if temporarily victorious, will be able to defend and keep the spoils of conflict. During the 1990s and into the first decade of the next century, we are very likely to see more Balkan conflict and little Balkan security.
Political units within a region troubled by interwoven peoples and borders, poverty and high population growth rates among some groups are unable to obtain lasting solutions to their region's security needs. Whenever there is no imposed hegemonic "solution", outside guarantors have always been sought.
Outside guarantors in the Balkans' past have been adjoining powers--the Ottoman Turks, Russia, Germany, the Hapsburg Empire, Italy, i.e., those powers most prone to impose their dominance. France or Britain came into the Balkan conundrum late, and were distant and less effective security partners of the early 20th century. After World War II, Soviet hegemony and American influence, in part exercised through NATO, "secured" Balkan states by imposing an East-West veneer over the region's intrinsic disputes. Regardless of direction, however, the Balkans fell into behavior typical of peripheral systems wherein weakness and dependency reinforce each other.
At the core of these debilitating conditions is the erroneous equation of security with power. This is a region where any attempt to obtain or enlarge military or economic strength will threaten others, requiring protection from elsewhere and/or the resort to authoritarian solutions domestically. Each of these systems exhibits a high degree of internal insecurity, which heightens greatly the sensitivity to perceptions of external threat. The attempts by any state to enlarge security via heightened capacities or through the aid of an external benefactor thus initiates a threat cycle: a slippery slope of perceived peril that resolutely pulls the Balkans back into the cauldron of its past.
Balkan insecurity is deeply rooted in the historic uncertainty of political boundaries, the high degree of heterogeneity within each political unit, underdevelopment relative to the rest of Europe, high population growth rates among some groups, and the absence of stable, legitimate government. In the Balkan environment, these conditions have been strongly associated with a high frequency or intensity of intra- and interstate conflict.
Such threats, in turn, damage the prognosis for pluralistic and open political systems. Demagogues of the right and left characterize democracy as a frivolous luxury, and attack free speech and other liberties. Where democracy cannot be nurtured during a prolonged infancy, its survival is doubtful. The advantage of democracy for Balkan security is clear insofar as democracies are less likely to initiate war on their neighbors. Unfortunately, the high level of insecurity within the Balkans makes the achievement of stable democracies difficult. A vicious circle of authoritarianism and insecurity cannot be broken solely from within the region.
Moreover, conditions that foster insecurity are not amenable to regional control. These states, regardless of political leadership, cannot adjust borders, move people or monitor the well-being of all minorities, finance developmental programs, etc. Outside frameworks and processes are essential foundations for Balkan security.
Those frameworks and processes are thus far absent. United Nations' peacekeeping forces were deployed in Croatia after thousands had died, while Lord Carrington and then Lord Owen sought a political settlement on behalf of the European Community. We should not expect, however, the UN-EC combination to end other conflicts that could arise throughout Southeastern Europe, or that Yugoslav wars will remain permanently in remission.
The Balkans require ways in which to avert war and costly confrontations, not to halt the killing after thousands have died and cities have been destroyed. Additional martyrs and monuments cannot be viewed as an acceptable outcome in a Europe envisioned by the Charter of Paris signed in November 1990.
An ongoing system of Euro-Atlantic collective security, not a last-ditch peacekeeping effort by the United Nations coupled with desperate political intervention by the European Community or a NATO-enforced embargo, is the Balkans' best hope. Another attempt at a Balkan Union or merely a number of bilateral arrangements will never suffice. A holistic approach to Euro-Atlantic security, adopted in both the Helsinki Final Act and refined by the Charter of Paris, underscores the belief that the inviolability of borders, rights of minorities, transparency of military activities and other principles are the business of everyone. Unless these principles are enforced externally by an entity far more powerful than the Balkan states can ever be, the region will be unable to avoid calamity.
By the early 21st century, we are likely to have seen things get far worse in the Balkans before they have begun to get better--unless there is a radical and purposeful shift of Western policy towards conflict-prevention mechanisms invested in a collective security organization. Lacking indications that a rosier scenario will soon begin to unfold, we can expect that fledgling democratic institutions will be pushed aside, and that nationalist and militaristic parties of the right or left will gain ascendancy, perhaps including countries (such as Greece) where democracy has a longer contemporary record.
This is a bleak reading of prospects beyond 2000. But, for those who think of these views as hyperbole, listen to the pronouncements of Karadzic in Bosnia, Funar in Romania, Csurka in Hungary and other demagogues, for whom ethnic hate is a route to political prominence. And, with an eye toward history, compare the mounting tolls from war in 1991-1992, and ask if we can expect vengeance and retribution not to play significant roles in the next decade of Balkan experience.
1. Daniel N. Nelson, Balkan Imbroglio (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1991), 29.
2. The degree to which this effort has been successful is debatable. For a critique, see Daniel N. Nelson, "NATO--Means But No Ends", Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January/February 1992.
3. For a Romanian view of the Transylvanian issue, see Miron Constantinescu, et al., eds., Unification of the Romanian National State: The Union of Transylvania with Old Romania (Bucharest: Academy of the Socialist Republic of Romania, 1971).
4. Cf. Barbara Jelavich's two-volume History of the Balkans (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1983).
5. The pronounced role of the Austro-Hungarian Empire in bringing industrialization to Bosnia, for example, which was in Vienna's control only after 1878, is discussed in Peter Sugar's Industrialization of Bosnia-Hercegovina, 1878-1918 (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1963).
6. Roy E. H. Mellor, Eastern Europe (New York: Columbia University Press, 1975).
7. Albania's rate of population increase exceeds 3 percent per year; Turkey has averaged 2.4 percent over the 1980s. The Albanian population in Yugoslavia has increased at a rate of close to 3.4 percent per year. The basis for such statistics can be found in a data source such as the Central Intelligence Agency's Handbook of Economic Statistics (annual) (Washington, DC: CIA, Directorate of Intelligence).
8. Barbara Jelavich, op. cit. Vol. 2, 3.
9. Eagleburger's speech of March 4, 1992, reported in Sofia on March 5 in the daily Demokratsia
10. During September 1991 and December 1991 interviews in Sofia, I met with Ministry of Foreign Affairs and political party officials (both BSP and UDF). Concern about Bulgarian insecurity due to these and other matters weighted very heavily in most of these discussions.
11.President Zhelyu Zhelev, in an address to an international conference on "The Army in Democratic Society, in Bulgarska Armiya, November 18, 1991, 1.
12. The First Deputy Chief of the Bulgarian General Staff, for example, went to Turkey in
November of 1991 for the specific
purpose of discussing such a draw-down of Turkish forces. See reports on this visit in
Bulgarska Armiya, such as the
interview with General Stoyan Topalov on November 20, 1991 ( 1 and 4). The Ministry of
Defense spokesman comments
with some frequency about the disposition of Turkish forces. For example, see the text of a news
conference by Major
General Stoimen Stoimenov on November 28, 1991, as reported by BTA, and reprinted in
Foreign Broadcast Information
Service
13. See Luan Troxel, "Bulgaria's Gypsies: Numerically Strong, Politically Weak", RFE/RL
Research Report, March 6, 1991,
58-61.
14. Bulgarian parliamentarians accompanying Prime Minister Dimitrov to Washington, DC in
March 1992 made this
abundantly clear in interviews with the author.
15. Daniel N. Nelson, "The Rise of Public Legitimation in the Soviet Union and Eastern
Europe," in S. Ramet, ed.,
Adaptations and Change in Eastern Europe (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1992).
16. See for example, "Kozlodoui Nuclear Plant: Few Pros, Many Cons", The Bulgarian
Watcher, January 30-February 5,
1992, #22.
17. Author's interview with Romanian Foreign Minister Adrian Nastase, Bucharest, Romania,
November 1991. Stefan Tavrov,
in an interview two months before he was named Bulgaria's Deputy Foreign Minister, offered a
parallel assessment of
Romania's motives.
18. In 1987, for example, only about $2.8 billion of Bulgaria's almost $17 billion in exports
went to non-CMEA states, while
a little more than $3 billion of over $17 billion in imports came from non-CMEA sources. CIA,
Handbook of Economic
Statistics, op. cit., 1988, 168 and 169.
19. An example of this Bulgarian full-court press for security guarantees was President
Zhelev's trip, accompanied by Foreign
Minister Ganev, to France in February 1992. There, the Bulgarians signed a treaty of friendship
and cooperation that
included provisions for security cooperation, and full French endorsement of Bulgaria's
integration with the European
Community.
20. An "Atlantic Club" with NATO membership as its goal was created in early 1991 in Sofia
with the blessing of the UDF.
NATO Secretary General Woerner has visited Sofia, and numerous NATO delegations have been
in the country.
Membership, however, remains distant.
21. Interviews by the author.
22. A representative view was expressed by Vasil Popov in Duma, November 25,
1991, 4.
23. Cf., "Sofia Brauchte Hilfen", Die Presse (Vienna), December 17, 1991, 11.
24. Daniel N. Nelson, "Romania Needs Help Not Sanctions", The New York Times,
June 19, 1990.
25. Dennis Deletant, "Convergence Versus Divergence in Romania: The Role of the Vatra
Romaneasca Movement in
Transylvania", paper presented at the SSEEES 75th Anniversary Conference, December 8-14,
1990.
26. See the Declaration of the Democratic Anti-Totalitarian Forum in Romania Libera,
July 2, 1991, 2; also, the Ministry of
Culture's condemnation of Vatra's publications such as Romania Mare in Romania
Libera, July 24, 1991, 1.
27. Constantin Vranceanu, Romania Libera, July 6-7, 1991, 3. In an interview with
Defense Minister Spiroiu in September
1992, I inquired about such reports, which he vigorously denied.
28. Mugur Isarescu (Governor of the National Bank of Romania), "Romania's Economic
Reform", in Daniel N. Nelson,
Romania After Tyranny (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1992).
29. Interviews with Dr. Mugur Isarescu, Governor of the National Bank of Romania, in
Bucharest, September 1992.
30. Daniel N. Nelson, "Romanian Security", in Mediterranean Quarterly 3, no. 1,
1992.
31. See, for instance, the interview of Mihai Stan, the principal deputy director of SRI, in
Tineretul Liber, February 8 and 9,
1991. Also see Larry Watts, "The Romanian Army After December, 1989", in Daniel N. Nelson,
ed., Romania After
Tyranny, op. cit.
32. Author's interviews with President Ion Iliescu in Bucharest, Romania, September 1991,
Foreign Minister Adrian Nastase
in Bucharest and Washington, DC, and Ioan Mircea Pascu, Iliescu's foreign policy advisor, in
Washington, DC in March
1992.
33. Author's conversations with Hungarian Foreign Minister Geza Jeszensky and State
Secretary Geza Entz in Budapest and
in Washington, DC, February and March 1992.
34. Author's interviews with General Culda and Col. Vaduva in Bucharest, Romania,
September and November 1991. Also
see Defense Minister Spiroiu's candid admission that equipment and standards for conscripts
require urgent attention in
an interview by Octavian Andronic in Libertatea, July 4-5, 1991, 1-2.
35. Interviews with Defense Minister Spiroiu, September 1992.
36. Ion Iliescu conveyed this image when he spoke to a seminar on "Perceptions and Concepts
of Security in Eastern Europe"
in Bucharest on July 4, 1991.
37. James F. Brown, Eastern Europe and Communist Rule (Durham, NC: Duke
University Press, 1988), 363.
38. Alvin Z. Rubinstein, Yugoslavia and the Nonaligned World (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1970); Richard
L. Jackson, The Non-Aligned, the UN, and the Superpowers (New York: Praeger, 1983),
24-36.
39. Author's interview with Dr. Ioan Mircea Pascu, foreign policy advisor to Romanian
President Iliescu.
40. Genscher's trip was reported most fully in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung,
February 24, 1992.
41. "Croatia to Set up Air Force," Jane's Defence Weekly, February 29, 1992,
343.
42. General Veljko Kadijevic, thought to be relatively moderate, and most of the non-Serbs in
top military posts (such as
Admiral Stane Brovet, a Slovene, and General Zvonko Jurjevic, a Croat), were removed at the
end of February. They were
blamed for the poor performance of the military and, in all likelihood, suspected as having mixed
loyalties that were no
longer appropriate for a truly Serbian army.
43. Author's interview with Dr. Ioan Mircea Pascu, foreign policy advisor to Romanian
President Iliescu, March 12, 1992.
44. Daniel N. Nelson, "Why We Need to Act on Yugoslavia," Philadelphia Inquirer,
September 29, 1991.
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