News making rounds in Serbian blogosphere these days: group of 200 intellectuals wrote a letter to the government where they ask for a referendum on whether or not Serbia should join NATO. They believe Serbia should maintain to be “militarily neutral [Serbia], true to herself and her own traditions”. There are couple of interesting elements to this story, so I couldn’t miss the opportunity to share my thoughts on the subject with you, dear readers.
First of all, I don’t know all the names on the “200 intellectuals” list, but I find it to be a too great of a coincidence that there are exactly two hundred of them. This could only mean two things: either not all of them are intellectuals, or there were some intellectuals that had to be removed to achieve the round number (I think we will all agree that “group of 206 intellectuals” sounds stupid).
Second of all, I don’t remember the time when Serbia was military neutral, but I am glad that there are some people (intellectuals, no less!) who had lived in such times.
Third – well, it’s obvious – the most important question of all, and that is – should Serbia join NATO or not? I’m no intellectual, but I would have to add my name to their list, simply because I believe, and I would like to think that the above mentioned intellectuals believe the same, that Serbia does not need to have a military at all, and therefore does not need to join NATO.
What do you think? Answer in comments below
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I question the relevancy of NATA in modern times, as I imagine many Serbs do. But the only real advantage that I can see for Serbia is that it helps illuminate Serbia as a “team player” and surely would help Serbia gain favor with the West as well as that most lucrative EU membership.
It’s an interesting stunt (like all other stunts by self proclaimed intellectuals, obviously).
This is my question: Was there ever even a remote option of Serbia joining NATO WITHOUT a referendum?
My green, pacifist soul says: No way! I’m a lesser intellectual of those 200, so I don’t know exactly how Serbia would ever feasably achieve military neutrality, but I’m not very fond of joining the largest military organization of the world.
My mind has a different opinion though: More international organizations we belong to, more checks there are on the cleptocrats in power here. Just like a loan from IMF: terrible in it’s own rite, but gives us an insight in just how incapable our government is of running a sustainable economy in the country. The same would be the case with NATO.
Also, by what definition are these people intellectuals?
Emir Kusturica, reditelj
Nikola Tomašević, sportista
Dušan Savić, sportista
Milutin Šoškić, sportista
Tadija Kačar, sportista
mitropolit Amfilohije
Really, Dule Savić, an intellectual!?
I don’t think a referendum is needed by default for Serbia to join NATO. Is it?
As for the intellectuals, like I said – it had to be a nice round number, so obviously some people were promoted to intellectuals just for this occasion.
I don’t think it’s required, e.g. there was a big fuss in Croatia about it, and if I remember correctly, they gave up on referendum. However, joining NATO without a referendum would be a HUGE boost for SN/RS and likes.
As far as I remember, during the time Ponoš was the The One With The Biggest Cock in Army, him and Tadić have been preparing ground for joining NATO and gathering popular support for that move. This was especially intensive during the time DS and DSS shared power (that was one helluva year). You remember how loud they were about those joint excercises with Ohio’s National Guards, the Army was constantly in some bilateral operations and what not.
Then, out of blue, there was the Ponoš / Šutanovac split and NATO stopped being an issue all of a sudden.
Well, at least, that’s how I remember it.
Regarding the first point above, its clear that the 200 “intellectuals” are nothing of the sort. As Dejan has revealed above, the list contains artists and sports stars. They may be intelligent, but not intellectuals as the word is commonly understood.
Regarding the second point, the self-proclaimed intellectuals do have a point about Serbia’s military neutrality. From the time of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia onwards, Serbs have only joined wars after being directly attacked or invaded. During the postwar era Yugoslavia was part of the non-aligned bloc (along with the likes of India and China) and considered neutral (it never joined the Warsaw Pact). NATO war planners actually thought that in the event of WW3, Yugoslavia would side with NATO despite being a socialist country.
The third point is, of course, the main point. Should Serbia join NATO? If the political elites determine there is a reason to do so, then the question arises as to whether it is a matter for referendum or not. The constitution should dictate the conditions under which the government can take the country into legally binding international agreements that affect the country’s neutrality.
As pointed out by others, the main “reason” for joining NATO might be to signal that Serbia is firmly in the Atlantic camp. NATO is seen as a sort of EU-lite, joining it is one of the stages on the way to full member status in the Western European fold.
There are benefits too. It is a common defence pact, so the fact that Serbia’s military is currently weak means that it may benefit from the umbrella cover of NATO allies.
I do not think that Serbia should rush into membership. This move requires serious debate and has major geopolitical consequences for Serbia.
Serbia is unique in that it is the only NATO candidate country that was subjected to an illegal war of aggression and civilian bombardment by the organisation. The “intellectuals” are right, NATO was the military instrument used to violate Serbia’s sovereignty and create the mess that is Kosovo. This fact alone complicates matters significantly because the history of that conflict is still disputed and and it’s consequences are still unsettled.
Joining NATO might be presented as Serbia’s “admission of guilt”.
By joining the organisation that bombed it, some might suggest that Serbia is tacitly accepting that what happened in Kosovo was justified, weakening its current negotiating position. Others will see it as surrender, a case of a beaten and bullied former enemy now agreeing that 2+2=5 and therefore welcomed back to the bosom of the West. A case of state level Stockholm Syndrome.
Other things to keep in mind include the fact that membership implies responsibilities and commitments. Serbs will be promising to fight and die for any member state that is attacked, including Turkey, or America. Serb men and women might end up fighting and dying in Afghanistan, or wherever else NATO decides to get involved.
In addition, joining NATO would anger and isolate Russia, a key ally and economic partner (albeit a self-serving one). This really is not something that should be undertaken lightly.
Finally NATO is lost in space and scrambling for relevance at present. The organisation is trying to work out what to do with itself and its strategic direction is not settled yet.
My feeling is that Serbia should wait and see. I think remaining neutral is wise for as long as it is possible, but joining the EU will end that anyway as the EU is gradually moving towards a common defence policy that means de facto military commitment from all members.
The EU may attempt to dodge this bullet by adopting NATO as the military wing of the EU, in which case Serbia would be mad to join NATO as it could enjoy the benefits of EU membership, but carry none of the burdens of military commitments.
NATO is very active in Serbia currently. It is very keen to get Serbia in to the organisation. One has to wonder why? Clearly NATO sees Serbia as strategically key to the region, and it is. The real question is, does a partnership with NATO suite Serbia. That is yet to be determined.
Presumably this has nothing to do with Serbia joining NATO.
Thanks for the insightful comment, Jonathan! I think the analysis is worthy of a blogpost, actually, thanks for sharing it here with us in a comment first.
Insightful? “Serbs have only joined wars after being directly attacked or invaded.”. Well that’s certainly a novel insight. However it does seem to support the IPSOS opinion poll findings.
“Serbia is unique in that it is the only NATO candidate country that was subjected to an illegal war of aggression and civilian bombardment by the organisation. The “intellectuals” are right, NATO was the military instrument used to violate Serbia’s sovereignty and create the mess that is Kosovo. This fact alone complicates matters significantly because the history of that conflict is still disputed and and it’s consequences are still unsettled.”
Quite so, the history of that conflict is still disputed and and its consequences are still unsettled. I believe one of the specific areas of dispute concerns how many candidates for admission to NATO were on the receiving end of illegal wars of aggression and civilian bombardment from fellow candidates. And of course while quite a lot of member states failed to prevent genocide, I don’t think any of them did so in quite such a spectacular way as the candidate whose record provoked the violation of sovereignty that Jonathan refers to.
Oh here comes Owen with his regurgitation of propaganda by proven liars. Those who greatly exaggerated the death toll in the wars and counted military men killed in battles as “civilians” or killed POWs. The fact is that it was more military killed over civilians.
And the wars were set up by NATO countries. Separatists and NATO were tools to dismantle Yugoslavia – a strong competitor against Germany in the construction and military industries in African countries, Kuwait, Pakistan, etc.
There were NATO spies operating in Yugoslavia long before the war and Germany and Austria were working with Slovenia and Croatia towards separation for a decade or more.
Getting NATO/U.S./western Europe control of and/or military bases in the former Warsaw Pact nations, former U.S.S.R. countries, the Balkans is a big part of their game and aggressive expansion of control.
Serbs being the largest of the populations which made up the former Yugoslavia, and them being ethnically cohesive, not wanting to breakup, especially those who lived in Croatia, (several hundreds of thousands, those in Bosnia – around 1.5 million), were in the way, and it took a lot of maneuvering: diplomatic, clandestine (and not so clandestine) military support of non-Serb separatists, propaganda, sanctions, etc. to purge the Serbs, greatly weaken them and/or put them under military occupation and control.
Even UN personnel on the ground have testified to non-Serbs having a policy of provoking and starting the attacks and shelling; to them setting up and staging things; to them repeatedly lying; and so on.
The ICTY court was set up by NATO countries and key people in the attack on Serbia as a political weapon against Serbs and Serbia. An evil thing to “prove” Serbs guilty of all the lying propaganda they promoting to serve their interest.
A parade of perjurers has “testified” at the Hague, some were finally caught and admitted this, but all their earlier “testimony”(= lies and fabrications, often scripted by the Hague and memorized and coached to the “witnesses), still stands. The ICTY has no penalty for perjury.
All the Balkans wars in the 1990s were built on thousands upon thousands of lies to demonize a people and country enough to draw a blank check to commit war crimes upon and demonize its entire people.
Ida, when you talk about lies, what about Mackatica? That was NATO?
http://www.b92.net/english/news/b92_focus.php?yyyy=2004&mm=12&dd=30&nav_id=30957
Owen, take a good look at what the “multicultural” “multiethnic” Bosnian Muslims did to Serbs. These are all fully identified Serbs – look carefully at their bodies to see how “gentle” the “peaceful” Bosniaks were while the media was on about how they were so innocent:
http://real-srebrenica-genocide.blogspot.com/
Those are horrific pictures, Ida, and I don’t question that some Serbs suffered horrifically. But you know very well that there was a difference between individual acts of barbarity and a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide. I’m also aware that misidentification and otherwise misleading attribution of photographs has been employed by Serb propagandists, such as Milivoje Ivanisevic, and Peter Robert North is hardly the most reliable and objective of sources.
“But you know very well that there was a difference between individual acts of barbarity and a systematic campaign of ethnic cleansing and genocide.”
No, Owen. It was SYSTEMATIC on the part of the Croats and Muslims. They were going behind the Serbs backs to plan and then vote on the secession. They were also training and smuggling arms and forming paramilitary. They started already planning and preparing concentration camps and such.
One of the worst was the Silo at Tarcin. This was a grain silo, that just before the war or right when it started was quickly emptied of grain by the Muslims who were giving it away free. As soon as it was emptied captured Serbs were put in it and it was a horrific place. It, as many others, operated all throughout the war.
Also, the Croats and Muslims, when they went to war against each other in 1993 in many parts of Bosnia (southern and central) ended up putting each other in the same concentration camps and jails that they had already used on the Serbs.
Further, it was an open secret (known by the UN, internationals, etc.) that Croatia had military brigades stationed in Bosnia all throughout the war. And a former SFOR officer who served there just after the war was over said that there was a Croatian brigade still stationed near Brcko (I think he said south of Brcko) for several months, if not a year or more, after the Dayton Accords.
Serbs were STILL being held in Muslim and Croat concentration camps throughout 1996 and some even longer.
Ida, you’re right, I shouldn’t have made that absolute black-and-white contrast. But nevertheless if you look at scale there is a very marked difference in the disposition of the shades of grey.
I agree with Jonathan.Serbia doesn’t need to rush into NATO membership because we don’t know how political global scene will develop in the future and joining them is big obligation.After all,there are couple EU countries who are neutral and I don’t see the reason why Serbia shouldn’t do the same.