NSPM in English

Kosovo as a res extra commercium and the alchemy of colonization

Штампа
Časlav Ocić   
уторак, 12. јануар 2021.

SUMMARY: How much pluralism can democracy withstand? – Global context 1: Quantity vs. quality – Global context 2: Militarization (might vs. right) – Global context 3: Commercialization and corporatization (skill vs. virtue) – Stabilocracy and the new imperialism: Crisis as a permanent situation – Varoufakis: Kosovization of Europe – Hofbauer: Experiment Kosovo – The Return of Colonialism – Is there hope? – Can smaller countries determine their (economic) fate at all? – Strategology: Origins and purpose – The nature of strategy – Three dimensions of strategy – The Kosovo and Metohia issue as a par excellence paradoxical strategic question – From anti-strategy to optimal strategy – Kosovo and Metohia 20 years after the NATO aggression: The situation and recommendations.

KEY WORDS: Kosovo and Metohia, Serbia, the Balkans, Kosovization of Europe, new imperialism, strategology, paradox

HOW MUCH PLURALISM CAN DEMOCRACY WITHSTAND?

One of the most important (existential) questions in contemporary pluralist democracies, most pregnantly asked by the prominent Austrian political philosopher Peter Graf Kielmansegg, is: “How much pluralism can democracy withstand?” According to him, it is “necessary… to differentiate between at least three types of pluralism: pluralism of interests, pluralism of values, and pluralism of identities.

- Pluralism of interests deals with the issue of how to (re)distribute divisible assets;

- Pluralism of values deals with the question of which values to accept as valid;

- Pluralism of identities deals with a question whom the word “we” includes; “Whom do I constitute a community with?” [Kielmansegg 1991: 30–40].

Kielmansegg is of the opinion that “democracy can withstand a substantial amount of pluralism of interests; that it has difficulties with pluralism of values, while it has the greatest problem with pluralism of identities.”[1]

For the Serbs, the Kosovo Issue has for centuries stood “at the very foundations of [their] identity” [Пипер 2017: 281–283]. One’s answer to that prerequisite either lifts him up or brings him down[2]. These who try to make deals concerning it, or do actually make them, will not fare well[3].

GLOBAL CONTEX 1: QUANTITY VS. QUALITY

At the end of the past century most western and transition-era intellectuals believed that instead of a Hungtintonian clash of civilizations, the time of universalization, the era of global civilization, was coming. This is the period when global power-mongers also intensified their work on a specific kind of historical engineering meant to create an uncontested world order with “new rules of the ‘game’” which would guarantee the survival and expansion of the global civilization under the sign of Capital[4]. According to them, no authentic policy and culture should stand in the way of transnational capital’s economic expansion. Not even at the cost of this civilization’s self-destruction, as the global, turbo-capitalist civilization battles against everything that is, in its essence singular, authentic – against nation and national states, against law, science, upbringing and education, against family, religion, tradition in general, and even against work itself. Or, to put it simply, it seems to be innately against quality and in favor of quantity! It disdains value and upholds usefulness, it stands against creativity and favors imitation and simulation, it strives for uniformity and has little use for diversity, the bleakness and dullness of mediocrity disturb it none, as it reaches for maximization of quantity and speed…[5]

GLOBAL CONTEXT 2: MILITARIZATON

(MIGHT VS. RIGHT)

Carl Schmitt used to claim that war is a way out of the crisis: the way out of a small crisis being a small war, and a big war out of a big one! Creating crisis hotspots and launching no-win wars and wars by proxy became, after the Korean War of the mid-20th century (the first such war), a routine approach by the international power-mongers. Apparently, it was also a necessity, because the structure of production and consumption, in the U.S. for example, changed drastically in favor of the military-industrial complex, so that intensifying economic activity to overcome a crisis implies an increase in the production of tools, weapons and ammunition. Moreover, demand too can go up only if a new war is launched. This is where the profits are biggest, and the returns quickest. In other words, in the economies structured in such a way, investments in wars are the most profitable ones[6].

Terms used in the contemporary economic debates are to a great extent defined by the semantic legacy of previous debates. In addition, economic terminology shows a noticeable influence of other, so-called exact sciences: above all physics (“balance”, “oscillatory trends”…), then biology (“circular flow” or “circulation”, “growth”, “development”, “seed capital”), medicine (“shock therapy”) and, increasingly, military science (“economic sanctions”, “economic security”, “economic war”, “hybrid war”, “cost-benefit” analysis of strategic migrations as a weapon of war, “strategic management”… etc.). This semantic militarization of economics is undoubtedly a consequence of the economy’s militarization. Many criticize the use of military terms in the economic sphere considering such militarization as an expression of neo-mercantilism and economic nationalism; according to them, this unavoidably leads to conflicts. Because the real and “surreal” – speculative, or better still, scheming economies based on military and political power instead on economic efficiency – permanently disturb the balance of capital and production necessary for sustainable economic and overall development.

GLOBAL CONTEXT 3: COMMERCIALIZATION AND CORPORATIZATION

(SKILL VS. VIRTUE)

At the same time, the tendencies of commercialization and corporatization are becoming ever stronger. Everything is for sale, including people, their organs, even their souls. Local and regional markets are becoming part of global flea market of lost souls. The mainstream neoliberal doctrine legitimizes this by citing freedom of choice in the only true, worldwide labor market: of people who, without remorse, “honestly” work for those who pay more. Moreover, this market is becoming overcrowded: supply is growing exponentially, that going hand in hand with the general trend of massive impoverishment. That is, most countries of the Second World have descended into the Third World owing to transitional plunder, whereas the gap between the traditionally developed countries and the underdeveloped ones is deepening – with the price of treason, true to theory, plummeting[7].

In this case as well, maximum quantity and maximum speed are the supreme (and only) values, replacing every skill and virtue. Die Schnellen fressen die Langsamen (“The swift gobble up the slow”) wrote Heike Leitschuh-Fechte in a 1997 article entitled “One day we’ll all be The First,” defining the essence of (turbo)capitalist ideology. In other words, more and ever more, faster and faster! That is the only criterion of success. And in order to be successful, we have to be incorporated [8].

STABILOCRACY AND THE NEW IMPERIALISM:

CRISIS AS A PERMANENT SITUATION

What are our chances to see the end of the world economic crisis in our lifetime? Not very great, since it has become a permanent situation that one has to get used to. (For example, this is what TV reality shows are supposed to train us for.) The post-modern ideology relativizes everything, equalizing all values and, by deconstructing the present as well as the past, prepares us all for a post-human – or posthumous – future.

Meanwhile we are being incessantly told that peace and stability should be our ultimate goals. In this context, “stability” – a Newspeak euphemism for “control” (even surveillance!) – actually means that “everything is under control”, i.e. under our[9] control, which is the essence of both old and new imperialism. Under the old imperialism control was executed directly – through application of firm power such as, for instance, a ground invasion – while in the case of the new, so-called economic imperialism, it assumes a subtler form of “soft” and smart power, as defined by Joseph Nye. We use the term “economic imperialism” when one country controls another by using its resources for the purpose. The controller ideologically justifies that by claiming cost-benefits for the victim-country which, therefore, “accepts” such control. Moreover, according to such argumentation, the victim-country can always say “no”, there being no long-term solution, i.e. no permanent economic imperialism, since the domination can last only as long as the resources needed for it are available. The solution, from the point of view of the imperial power’s interests, is to make the victim-country dependent on the “controller’s” resources by, for example, pushing it into indebtedness[10] – a classical occupation being much riskier and costlier.

VAROUFAKIS: THE KOSOVIZATION OF EUROPE

Before our very eyes the “old order” is crumbling or already lies in ruins under the forces of arrogance which see themselves as “the creators of history” as they cynically engage in the “deconstruction” experiment. With burgeoning loss of sovereignty, that is, with the historical loss of national subjectivity, the less numerous and economically less powerful nations are becoming an object (“guinea pigs”) of the “New Order”[11]: “The policies of Europe as it now stands lead to fragmentation. The worst-case scenario of the crisis would be the Kosovization of Greece, Spain, Ireland, Portugal, and Italy, i.e. their turning into protectorates which use the Euro, are ruled by European commissioners and local kleptocrats, and whose youth is their only relevant export asset.”[12]

HOFBAUER: EXPERIMENT KOSOVO – THE RETURN OF COLONIALISM

Hannes Hofbauer’s book Experiment Kosovo: The Return of Colonialism (Experiment Kosovo: Die Rückkehr des Kolonialismus) [Hofbauer 2008, henceforth referred to as EK] is an intellectually honest attempt to understand the current Kosovo situation within a wider historical and international context. The author is not siding with any party to the conflict, nor is he favoring the current “international” rule, neither whose Weltanschauung does he share. He rightfully perceives it not as a genuine ideological belief, but as a cover for extremely pragmatic and aggressive goals. To understand what has led to the creation of the current state of affairs in Kosovo and Metohia – a Mafia state thriving under the thin layer of a colonial, military, police, and political administration – it is necessary to understand its background, i.e. the historical and political context of the Kosovo region and of its immediate surroundings, while not neglecting the wider, geopolitical context [Павић 2009].

Commendably, Hofbauer allows the facts to speak for themselves, which is reason enough to quote him without major interventions.

As an economic and social historian, he is critical of the European Project and examines the Balkans specifically, as a region wherein an imperial policy was pursued by Austro-Hungary in the past and by the EU and the U.S. today. The consequences of such approach are tragic: a major war in former Yugoslavia, hundreds of thousands of lives lost, millions of displaced persons, enormous material destruction, the final blow being the attack on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the forcible separation of Kosovo and Metohia from the sovereign state of Serbia in 2008. Then, “through a unilateral declaration of Kosovo’s independence, the international law was violated and substituted by the rights of man (human rights). The international law is quite clear, while the rights of man can be interpreted in many ways. They are a reflection of economic and military power. What had been resolved in 1945, was again geopolitically reshuffled”[13] i.e. “the bombing of Yugoslavia without a U.N. mandate, initiated the violation of international law, while the recognition of the unilaterally declared independence of Kosovo marked an end of the epoch that began in 1945.” [An interview with Hofbauer at www.blic.rs/politika.php?id=79495]

In other words, the main thesis of Experiment Kosovo is the U.S.’s and EU’s new imperial policy, primarily reflected in NATO’s activities. According to Hofbauer, however, Kosovo is not the first but the second stage in such new installation of imperial rule on the territory of former Yugoslavia, the first occurring in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In both cases a similar scenario was employed: military engagement came first, followed by the introduction of a unique type of rule over the occupied territories: they were subjected to a specific political, social and economic experiment under merged “executive and administrative branches of government” which only as separated powers constitute “the essence of democracy in the West.” [An interview with Hofbauer at https://bit.ly/3oEzxZ9]. Double standards were obviously employed – ones for “civilized” Western democracies, and very different ones for the “semiliterate belligerent savages” in the Balkans, who have to be ruled by an iron fist[14].

The great powers will take advantage of the latest Balkan ethnic turmoil to further their own interests. They have been pulling the strings of all major events in the region since the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century – including the 1912–1913 Balkan Wars, the 1912 creation of Albania, the 1918 creation of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and the Slovenes (from 1929, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia) and the 1943 revolutionary formation of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia… For, according to Michael Weithmann cited by Hofbauer [EK: 45], “all Balkan states have always been the objects and not the subjects of big policies,” i.e. “not one of the ethnic problems has ever been solved. The borders drawn there appear to be a part of a system bound to create ever new hostilities so that the great powers, depending on the situation, could keep the Balkan people cornered and use their discord for their own goals.” [Weithmann 1997: 327]

After describing the past of Kosovo and its inter-ethnic relations from the 14th century until the forming of the first and the second Yugoslavia, Hofbauer proceeds to consider the reasons for the destruction of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, stating that “the Yugoslav catastrophe was generated from within and from the outside.” [EK: 76] He, however, immediately recalls that without understanding world economic relations and dependences, the dissolution of this multi-ethnic state cannot be fully comprehended. For, after the collapse of communism, a redistribution of assets and resources was to be made, and the territory of the Balkans divided into the exclusive zones of interest of certain countries and big capital. In the light of this, “the division into nations and ethnic communities was not only of assistance to, but a precondition for achieving these goals. For, social stratification unavoidably leads to class struggle during the division of the existing pie, while national struggle, on the contrary, leads only to the division of the market.” [EK: 77] In short, disintegration was necessary for new economic integration, to enable “an unhindered circulation of goods, people, ideas and capital.”[15] But, even a mere glance at the winners in the long-lasting clash reveals everything: multinational capital and local elites emerged as the only profiteers.

That is, during the (world) economic crisis of the late 1970s and the early 1980s, the Yugoslav economy began rapidly to sink under the heavy burden of foreign debts and high inflation. Jeffrey Sachs, an IMF expert for curing such economic woes, proposed a plan to establish “the dinar’s convertibility in the country through a social shock therapy by depriving state money of economic life, thus putting to death ‘the Yugoslav socialist self-management’.” [EK: 79].

Hofbauer summarizes the fatal formula guiding the West in resolving the problem that resulted in the tragedy of the Yugoslav peoples in a single slogan: “Solidarity with the national right to self-determination.” Thus, radical demands by the suddenly “nationally and democratically aware” Slovenes, Croats, Muslims and, eventually, Albanians, directed against the Yugoslav federation, found strong supporters and allies in Germany, Austria, France, and U.S. The reason why the West’s politicians, media, leading thinkers and theoreticians interpreted national self-determination as social emancipation can be explained as “a purely colonial aspiration, a colonial call.” In fact, Hofbauer believes that “the war was premeditated and deliberately provoked.”[16] The only element missing was a suitable “philosophical” justification, which was found in a demand that human rights be respected, and followed by military interventions to protect them. These rights thus served to ideologically justify all military actions dubbed “humanitarian interventions.” It is clear today that something entirely opposite lay behind this missionary logic of universally applicable “human rights”. The actual goal was to impose a form of material and social reproduction with “freedom” as its center, but such “liberty” boiled down to license of trade. Capital, i.e. the logic of capitalist expansion, was both the causa eficiens and the causa finalis of the events that took place. This logic of capitalist relations was camouflaged by the West’s advocacy of “universal values” and “human rights”, as a universal world religion of the market and the free flow of people, ideas and goods inseparable from it.

Hofbauer takes a clear stand concerning the war the West launched against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia under the pretext of protecting human rights and preventing a humanitarian catastrophe: “This undeclared NATO war against Yugoslavia was an aggression lacking all legal basis and acceptable reason. It violated all norms of international law, all provisions of the U.N. Charter, the NATO statute, and the constitutions of all member states, especially the German Constitution.” [EK: 118].

In the night of June 9, 1999 an agreement was signed between the FRY and NATO in Kumanovo, Macedonia, on the cessation of hostilities, after which, based on the Agreement’s provisions and U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244, Kosovo was placed under the administration of the U.N. , i.e. KFOR (“Kosovo Force”), whose largest contingent consisted of NATO troops. The Serb province of Kosovo was then divided into occupation zones under the jurisdiction of the U.S., German, Italian, British and French forces, and a U.N. civilian mission, UNMIK, was installed. According to the UNHCR [EK: 123], its population “protected” by Western armies, in the months that followed an Albanian pogrom of non-Albanians took place: innumerable acts of pillage, arson, murder, rape, and abduction were committed, reaching a climax in the expulsion (“ethnic cleansing”) of some 250,000 Serbs, Muslim Slavs, Roma, Egyptians, Ashkalis (the last three categories being self-designations of the minorities previously called “Gypsies”). To illustrate how the operation was conducted, Hofbauer quotes a former Albanian teacher bragging to a reporter of a French news agency: “We went from home to home, giving the Serbs 15 to 30 minutes to disappear.”[17] A U.N. civilian administration was introduced in Serbia’s province which was gradually transformed into a protectorate with “supervised independence”. The UNMIK, established immediately after the war, rested on four pillars: as Hofbauer put it, it is “a state in totality” [EK: 140], because it carries out the executive, judicial, police, and administrative tasks necessary to “build democracy and its institutions.” Over this structure presides the SRSG –a Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary General with unlimited powers.

After “Kosovo” (its full title being “Kosovo and Metohia” /metoh = Church Property/) illegally declared its independence, the Eulex mission replaced UNMIK. According to Hofbauer, in addition there are some 4,500 non-governmental organizations holding various training courses and allegedly building institutions and democracy, while “protecting human rights”… The planetary bible of the free market was put to work as soon as the war ended. Namely, the High Representative Bernard Kouchner seized all movable and immovable property of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in Kosovo. Privatization followed, under the command of the Kosovo Trust Agency and ending in the Heist of the Century[18] from which only mafia structures and the foreign factor[19] profited [EK: 212]. It should also be kept in mind that while poverty and over 60 percent unemployment reign supreme in Kosovo, the international elites enjoy enormous income in exchange for their efforts to establish “peace and democracy.” The economy practically does not exist[20], except for the black market[21] ruled by local mafia clans[22].

To such Kosovo, with its economy devastated and its society in shambles, its foreign tutors granted independence in February 2008. Violating international law, they forcibly took away a part of the sovereign state of Serbia under the excuse that it was a case sui generis with unforeseeable consequences and, by applying the ancient divide and rule adage, continue to determine the fate of small nations…[23]

“Cooperation of UNMIK and EUPT exists in all areas and at all levels. The EUPT, together with the chief of ICO PT, holds bimonthly meetings with SRSG and P/DSRGS.”[24] Hofbauer quotes this statement from a June 2008 communication between international administrators in Kosovo and Metohia to depict “money leakage” channels in occupied Serbian territory, i.e. to show where the numerous billions spent on “The Kosovo Experiment” end up. That is perhaps the best and the most adequate illustration of the cold neocolonial rule over that part of ancestral Serbian lands [Павић 2009]. And its essence lies in the following: “‘Monitored or supervised independence’ was envisaged in advance as joint action of the ruling factors which control the instruments of world-wide rule. A combination of various instruments of direct and indirect foreign governance serves as a pledge for state independence. In that respect, Kosovo/Kosova (Albanian version of the original Serb toponym “The Field of Blackbirds” [Kosovo polje]) offers ideal conditions for experimenting.”[25] [EK: 234] This, of course, is to be achieved with the supporting role played by the former KLA (“Kosovo Liberation Army”) commanders, who in 1999 “acted as NATO ground troops, and now, after changing their guerilla uniforms for civilian suits, are allowed to pose as authorities.” [EK: 6]

Hofbauer’s analysis dispels all the idealists’ illusions – if such still exist – that an “enlightened” international administration can benefit any area under its “care”. “A colonial administration loves abbreviations,” writes Hofbauer [EK: 276], “but behind these anaesthetizing acronyms hides a veritable hell on earth of cynical, colonial pillage[26], of open looting of Serb property by the ‘International Community’ and in favor of Western big capital[27] – and of the omnipresent Albanian mafia which pervades all nooks and crannies of the Kosovo Albanian society.”[28]

Hofbauer particularly points out that given the text of U.N. Resolution 1244, which “guarantees territorial inviolability of the FRY… there was, in fact, nothing to negotiate about” [EK: 236], and wonders “why has Serbia agreed to participate in this obviously premeditated game” [EK: 239] of which the results were: “From the viewpoint of international law, the principles most clearly sacrificed by the establishment of a new order in the Balkans are, in addition to the U.N. Charter and various U.N. resolutions, the final acts of the Helsinki Conference on European Security and Cooperation.” He stresses, once again, that “negotiations on the status of Kosovo were held contrary to all the principles and in violation of all the cited points of the Helsinki Conference” [EK: 242–243]. Still, Russia’s and China’s firm rejection of the unilaterally declared Kosovo independence created “major difficulties for the Western ‘international community of states’,” because “as long as Resolution 1244 exists, there will be two realities in the world community” [EK: 256].

In agreeing with this appraisal Hofbauer believes that his book “strikes at the very center… of the colonial administration in Kosovo,” and that it offers a solution for the future, wherein the focus should be on “potential joint activities in economic development” [EK: 298][29].

IS THERE HOPE?

Does the bleak landscape of the world as it is offer any hope for difference and diversity, for universal principles and rules, for common values, to the small, the weak and the poor, to “the gifted but out of luck”?

Pessimists do not discern it (as Wilde’s weaver, describing the human condition, puts it, “In war, the strong make slaves of the weak, and in peace the rich make slaves of the poor”), while scientists and techno-bureaucrats, shining with optimism, continue to preach uncontestable faith in a bright, inevitable.

And what about the realists? They roll up their sleeves!

CAN SMALLER COUNTRIES INFLUENCE THEIR (ECONOMIC) FATE AT ALL?

In the economic science (understood in positivistic terms as exact) it is generally accepted that the size of a country is measured by the number of its inhabitants, its territorial extension, and its aggregate economic power. But, in addition to such quantitative indicators of a country’s (nation’s) size, the qualitative ones – though difficult or impossible to measure – should also be considered for a more complete and deeper insight. They can be determined by a quality analysis through“ spiritual” scientific disciplines (Diltay), which emphasize the understanding of the purpose and the significance of processes and manifestations, and pays less attention to their explanation – which is the primary task of science as traditionally understood in the West. Thus, cultural, social, economic, political, and geographic particularities of various countries and peoples are interpreted from a historic perspective. Contextualization in space and time, in this sense, analyzes the character and quality of relations between countries, their value systems, their aspirations and ambitions[30], their strategic outlook and actions or a lack of them (i.e. allowing for a free course of events, spontaneity, going along with the forces of nature, or with the “logic of history,” submitting to dictates[31] etc…)

All this forms a field of research for a new scientific discipline – strategology[32].

STRATEGOLOGY: ORIGINS AND PURPOSE

“Strategology… attempts to understand the strategies of all participants in the game of their mutual cooperation and/or competition. It considers conflicts equally possible as is eventual cooperation between various subjects. It does not accept a morally suitable strategy, but exclusively the one that was chosen – either well or wrongly –without any guarantee, and with arguments and chances of failing and losing as much as succeeding.

Strategology offers the most promising chance to those actors who grasp, with the least bias, the rules of the game of which the outcome cannot be fully comprehended. Those blinded by their own ideology have significantly smaller chances to win.” [Konrad 1999: 61].

THE NATURE OF STRATEGY

Since there are so many differing opinions on strategy, instead of reviewing all its definitions or searching for a unified designation, it seems more appropriate to try to identify various strategic issues and the perspectives of their resolution.

For, sundry strategic perspectives, that is, points of view, lay different emphasis on the significance of contrasting strategic tensions. It is customary, therefore, to first hear all pro and con arguments, and then proceed to resolve the tensions. Thus, there are four general approaches to determining and interpreting a strategic tension. It may be perceived in several ways:

1. As a riddle. A riddle comes up in an attempt to solve a problem with a single, optimal solution. Strategic tension can arise in this form, its cause usually stemming from being baffled by the riddle, and not from the riddle’s inherent, contradictory premises;

2. As a dilemma. A dilemma appears when facing a problem with two possible solutions. The most well-known is the “prisoner’s dilemma.”[33] All those who face an either-or problem face a dilemma, each solution having its advantages and disadvantages – none, however, being clearly superior to the other. Strategic tensions may also take the form of a dilemma. In such cases, the strategist has to choose one of the options, for example, either to cooperate (“cooperative strategy”) or to compete (“competing” or “conflict strategy”);

3. As a compensatory relation. A compensatory relation (or “trade-off”) is a situation with many possible solutions, each representing a different ratio of conflicting pressures, wherein more of the one signifies less of another, in a “zero-sum game” i.e. a set-up where what one player gains, the other loses. The outcome may also be described as redistribution with no superior solution, and strategic tensions as compensatory relations resulting from one of the many balancing solutions to a conflict.

4. As a paradox. A paradox is perceived when two ostensibly contradictory or even mutually exclusive factors (A and B) simultaneously appear both truthful and valid. Paradox has no real solution because there is no way to logically integrate the two opposites into a consistent understanding of the problem. As opposed to the either-or of a dilemma, it can be defined as an “and-and” problem – one factor being as true as the opposing one. Thus, both the A and the contradicting B may be desirable: both competition and cooperation; both the market and the plan; more of the market and more of the plan; a better market and a better plan! Strategic tensions can be seen as a paradox too, having no real (“traditional”) solution not only because decisions are made in conditions of risk and uncertainty of a present, but because every strategy is inevitably opened toward a future, which is most frequently unpredictable and unfathomable. Although a successful strategy always contains a futuristic aspect, it is always its weakest part, as it is impossible to make a strategy of innovations. Caught between permanence and changeability, a way out may be found by combining various solutions in a functional compromise to temporarily overcome a paradox. In this case the term “temporarily” implies constant wrangling with a problem (Njegoš’s “unending struggle”) without ever reaching a final solution. Thus, there are no final solutions (which was Dr Strangelove’s[34] dream, known to the Nazis as Endlösungen, and ever so enticing to other ruthless power-mongers the world over), and no strategy that can do away with similar approaches to getting rid of a problem “once and for all”.

But, when a tension does emerge as a paradox,[35] the strategist has to try to accommodate both the A and the B simultaneously. He must search for new (heterodox) ways to reconcile the opposites in the best possible manner, using the advantages of both options (“the best of both worlds;” “have the cake and eat it”), while trying to minimize their damaging effects. In its nature, the new approach of combining the opposites provides incentive to innovation and, in general, to creativity. It is the most difficult and challenging way to solve a strategic problem, but also the most successful, because at the end everyone gains, this being a situation described as a “non-zero-sum game”.

Thus, by its very nature, the Kosovo-Metohia tension is a par excellence example of a strategic question of the paradox type.

THREE DIMENSIONS OF STRATEGY

There are, therefore, three essential dimensions of strategy:

1. Strategic process, which answers the questions of how, who, and when: How is, and how should a strategy be imagined, formulated, analyzed, constructed, controlled, and if need be changed? Who are the participants? When the necessary activities should occur? The product of the strategic process is:

2. Strategic content, which answers the question of what strategy is and what it should be for an individual, a household, a job, a company, an economic sector, a local community, a region, a national economy, a global company, or for a macro-regional integration,

whereas:

3. Strategic context shows where, i.e. in what environment, a strategic process is taking place – that is, what it fits into.

Moreover, process, content and context are not parts but dimensions of strategy. For, strategy is a three-dimensional phenomenon and all its three dimensions should be considered simultaneously.

Further, a strategic process consists of strategic thinking, strategy building, and strategic change. They are marked by the following elements of strategic tension, and the corresponding opposites of strategic perspective:

The strategic content defines the level of strategic thinking and action. It can appear on the level of a function or a job, on a corporate level, a regional or network level, or on a national and international level… In a market economy subjects begin performing strategically on the micro level, the higher levels gradually following suit, whereas in a central plan economy or society strategic policy is dictated from above, to be followed by lower levels divested of all autonomy.

In other words, there exists, and always did exist, some kind of strategy[36] at some level – either competitive or cooperative…

Strategic context, upon which both the theoreticians and the practitioners agree that each is unique, unrepeatable, specific, one of a kind, becomes the subject of contention among them only when the type of contextual influence on strategy is concerned. Thus, determinists believe that the strategists[37] have scant freedom of choice, since both the process and the content are usually the outcome of circumstances which they cannot control. Voluntarists, however, are of the opinion that strategies are not influenced so much by context as by their will to determine and follow a certain course of action. They claim that a strategy should, and can, create “its own” circumstances, instead of accepting the “marching orders” of the conditions it faces. That is, in their view context can be defined by the strategist, instead of being perceived as a given. At the organizational plane the issue is described as “control vs. chaos”, while at the sector level the situation becomes more complex and is seen as “compliance vs. choice.” At the national level, the dilemma intensifies into a “compliance vs. choice” type of a conundrum, which is to say that in that case there is a confrontation of two perspectives, of “(de)evolution vs. creation”[38].

FROM ANTISTRATEGY TO OPTIMAL STRATEGY

The following three proverbs – Pray to God that our goat gets the wolf (Georgian); If the earth shakes under your feet, grab for the skies (Bulgarian), and When the devil knocks on your door, don’t stop doing what you’re at (Serbian) – well illustrate some possible approaches in devising and implementing a development strategy.

These three proverbs, however, can be interpreted in various ways:

One way to react when facing an unavoidable challenge is to take the nihilist or delaying and appeasing approach. If someone utters the first proverb as a wishful “let-it-be,” instead of something like Njegoš’s “May it be as it cannot be!” call to battle, that person does not believe in the positive outcome of his plea and by doing nothing annuls the very idea of strategic thinking and action.

The second proverb’s escapist or potentially mobilizing meaning is also unintelligible outside the context of the times of troubles and defeat, when it may express a need for comfort, a cry for heavenly justice, or a belief that Good will prevail over Evil in this world or the Other one, and may even invigorate the spirit to act and overcome the troubles and misfortune.

The third saying is activist, but does not imply that action should exclude thoughtfulness (in Russian, that word being a synonym for industry, as it is for contemplation, analysis, judgment, reasoning, etc.).

In short, “Pray to God, but sail towards the shore!” is a Russian proverb that pragmatically, and paradoxically, synthesizes the “Action and a sense of purpose” answer to the issue of devising, and the feasibility of realizing a development strategy in a spatial and a historical context.

But, how to think strategically in Serbia, and act accordingly? How are we to transform our 20th century historical experience into a lesson for a successful future? Where is our “Ship of Future” sailing to? This publication[39] is one of the answers to those questions, wherein competent authors have amalgamated their thoughts on the subject by analyzing the established facts and proposing solutions through defining our strategic options of thought and action.

For, “In their actions, the Serbs… have to be not only in full agreement, but persistent and persevering, and not trustful of mere promises even if they are written down and signed, as experience shows that, unfortunately, not even the most hallowed principles have been honored.” This is what a young PhD candidate, Milovan Milovanović, understood over a century ago, sending a message to the Balkan peoples to always keep their powder dry, and their swords honed – the two things no guarantees can replace. For, only those nations which know how to fight will find champions for their cause [Milovanovitch 1888: 4]. We should never forget these metaphorical words of the future advocate of Balkan cooperation and the founder of the Balkan Alliance which, after five hundred years, achieved the most profound transformation of the Balkans. Even in the radically changed circumstances something remains the same – by mobilizing all our physical and intellectual potentials this should be taken advantage of in the moments that may prove crucial. The principles and rules of international law may prove to be the strongest argument in the hands of those who know how to use them “to their own, and general benefit.” [Милојевић 2006: 247]

For, rare were the moments in the turbulent Serbian history that were not crucial. This is especially true today, in conditions of burgeoning global interdependence, and the condensation and acceleration of history, when the Balkans is once more turning into a “seismograph” of world-wide relevance. Therefore, the question-answer “When, if not now?” is of utmost importance since for bureaucrats and quasi-politicians The Moment never comes. As an old adage says: “For soldiers it is always too soon, and for officers ever too late.” Or, as Søren Kierkegaard put it: “To dare may mean to lose ground under your feet for a moment, but not to dare means to lose life itself.”

ČASLAV OCIĆ

Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Belgrade, Serbia

Ова адреса ел.поште заштићена је од спам напада, треба омогућити ЈаваСкрипт да бисте је видели  ;  Ова адреса ел.поште заштићена је од спам напада, треба омогућити ЈаваСкрипт да бисте је видели

 

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INTERNET SOURCES

https://bit.ly/2XzzCBl

https://bit.ly/3qjk3tZ

https://bit.ly/35wuEJW

www.blic.rs/politika.php?id=79495 

 


[1] “Why is that so? Where divisible assets and goods are concerned, there is a possibility for agreement and compromise. The rules of the democratic political process are relatively suitable for reaching such agreements. Where values are concerned, however, there are no like prospects. Where values clash, decisions must follow the ‘either…or’ imperative, they cannot travel the comfortable road of the ‘like this… like that’ solution. Values, on the other hand, have a different, more existential meaning for people than interests do; because of that, the forming of their space of tolerance in this area is much more difficult. Finally, the pluralism of identities means that the consciousness of the ‘we’ is missing. This questions the readiness of all to accept the common rules of the game as an obligation both for us and the others in the event of defeat. Thus, democratic consensus is threatened at its very core from the outset.” [Kielmansegg 1991: 39].

[2] As the Bishop of Ras-Prizren and Kosovo-Metohia Diocese, Teodosije, put it: “For some, Kosovo and Metohia can at the same time be a blessing as well as damnation. Those who live aware of that blessing, who cherish and uphold it, will be happy to have safeguarded what our ancestors have bequeathed us as a token of our choice of the Heavenly Kingdom over the kingdom of this world, which is transient.” [https//:kossev.info/vladika-teodosije-kosovo-i-Metohia-moze-nekom-biti-blagoslov-ili-prokletstvo/]

[3] “For those, though, who will make bargains with their inheritance even at the cost of the people’s ruin this blessing will become their damnation, staying with them during their lifetime in this world, as it will for all eternity. Their name will be written down among the names of those who were destroyers of the Living Church, perjurers and deceivers, whose hypocritical words say one thing but mean something else, who work clandestinely, so as to hide their shame. But may the Lord grant them reason and repentance so that they might turn to Him and understand that their inheritance is not just land, but this part of the heaven on earth, our sacred Kosovo and Metohia, which had for centuries unified our devout people wherever they lived.” [http://www.eparhija-prizren.com/sr/episkop-rasko-prizrenski-i-kosovo-metohijski-g-teodosije]

[4] “We rush head on into destruction created by the market system which transferred the problems from society into the sphere of the market. For this reason the interests of the capital, transnational corporations and financial institutions in the U.S. are placed above the interests of the people.” With these words Noam Chomsky recently warned his fellow countrymen that the U.S. is facing a collapse “because of neoliberalism and the market economy.” [Chomsky 2018].

[5] In fact: “Victory and doing business are its sole imperatives. The tiniest devotion, feeling, law, love, emotion, religion – everything that can endanger the total freedom [of choice, added by Č.O.] is a concession to competition, the stumbling stone, and a sign of defeat. Anything goes, but only once the economic victory is ensured, only once the prevailing [of the capital, added by Č.O] becomes certain,” writes Roberto Saviano in his novel Gomorrah[Saviano 2010].

[6] How this impacts the job market? In addition to increased demand for tools, weapons and ammunition, the demand for mercenaries (“Janissaries”), prostitutes and both willing and unwilling organ donors is also on the rise. But, given that for a long time now we have been living in a post-heroic world, all this is considered “normal,” and those who become successful in the field of such “new” services, become the heroes of the “New Reality” (such for example being Bernard Kouchner, the head of one of global Mafia organizations trafficking in human organs, who is frequently in conflict of interest with NATO’s organizational units engaged in similar “missions”).

[7] What used to be a common opinion on the issue? “A nation can survive its fools, even its overly ambitious men. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly, while a traitor moves inside the city walls freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, reaching […] the very halls of the government. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims; his face and apparel are similar to theirs, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. The traitor rots the soul of the nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared – the traitor is the plague!” wrote Cicero two thousand years ago. What has changed since? But, following the end of the Second World War much has changed, as can be seen from the example of England, as documented in The Meaning of Treason by the unsurpassable Rebecca West [Вест 2013]. See also: [Чворовић 2006].

[8] Governments have become corporations, parties have become corporations, hospitals are corporations as well; corporations are schools, scientific and research institutes, even the Church; armies have become professional, i.e. paid (consisting of soldiers who kill for soldi, as Italians call money)… A corporation’s goal is maximum profit. In other words, the school no longer educates and forms, scientists do not search for the truth, soldiers do not defend their country, politicians do not take care of public good (statesmanship being derided as an atavism), priests do not attend to the believers’ souls, the economy has taken the place of religion, in the business sector everyone is rushing to grab as much as possible. The dominant tendencies in the world are replacing culture with entertainment (in Slavic languages, that word is closely related to “oblivion”), training replaces education, mind changing persuasion techniques (Mind Genomics) suppress and even abolish science, while the political scene increasingly resembles a circus or a cattle market. By such discrediting, the autonomy of certain social spheres (politics, science, health care, education, sports, media…) is being lost, their quality degraded, their authenticity and raison d’ȇtre on the way to disappear. More and more people are becoming reduced to “individuals”, their human worth limited to being mere taxpayers and consumers – whereas the number of producers available for taxation and able to use their earnings to create demand on the consumer market is dwindling. Budget revenues are dropping, as is the demand – all adding up to the reason why crises occur.

[9] Who are ours, and who stabilocrats – see [Bieber 2018: 176–185].

[10] The case of the Greek debt bondage is indicative and paradigmatic. Yanis Varoufakis, a former Greek finance minister, summarized the problem on February 6, 2015 in a single sentence: “The confused and muddled political actors, negating the systemic nature of the crisis, follow a policy similar to carpet bombing proud European nations in order to salvage them.”

[11] The use value of the term „new world order“ (or „globalization“) seems to be rapidly „evaporating“; therefore Claus Schwab (and other Davos ideologues) are trying to replace it with new one: Great Reset [ and Malleret 2020].

[12] This is how at the end of 2014 Varoufakis described Europe’s and Greece’s post-crisis development would look like unless a radical way out of the gravest financial and economic crisis after WWII is found.

[13] “By this decision (to build its base Bondsteel in Kosovo and Metohia) [the U.S. has shown that it] is planning its military presence in Kosovo in the decades to come and has openly demonstrated that [this action] is a final point of a geopolitical strategy, long in preparation, that should correct the division of Europe into spheres of influence agreed at the beginning of 1945 at the Yalta Conference.” From the 2000 letter sent by Willi Wiemer to German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, available at http://starisajt.nspm.rs/PrenetiTekstovi/arhivanspm/2008_vimer1.htm, published also in the weekly NIN on February 8, 2007.

[14] See [Kuper 2007]. The EU mediator in the dialogue between Belgrade and Priština, Robert Cooper, is a British diplomat and senior intelligence officer, security expert, the head of the Foreign Office Service for Political Planning, Deputy Secretary of Defense and Overseas Affairs, a person close to Tony Blair, and the author of the doctrine of the “new liberal imperialism” and the “new liberal empire” to be installed in the Yugoslav territory. More on him, his ideas and activities in: [Кљакић 2011].

[15] “Disintegration” followed by “integration” follows the alchemic formula of solve et coagula.

[16] Writing about what was behind Yugoslavia’s dissolution, Hofbauer clearly states: “The war, in fact, was planned in advance, it was provoked deliberately. Foreign forces believed in that solution more than the local nationalists did. They even adopted a philosophical justification for it: the rights of man, i.e. their violation… The vagueness and elasticity of the concept of human rights provided for its use depending on political expediency, so it served to interpret what is good and what is not as one pleased. Debates about values that were held in connection with this not only did not allow any discussion about interests, but prevented it.” [EK: 86]

[17] The fact that after the entry of NATO forces in the province, the Jewish Municipality in Priština no longer exists testifies to the true nature of the “new” Kosovo as a multi-ethnic community, which was the proclaimed objective of the war.

[18] In his work “Socially Owned Companies in Kosovo and Metohia in 1990” (a part of the collection of papers titled The Kosovo Vertical or a Neocolonial Horizontal[КВилиНХ 2019: 140] Miodrag Skulić asks a relevant question: What is the ownership structure of the Kosovo economy today?

[19] According to Czech media, “The former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright made 20 million Euros from the sale of Kosovo Telekom”. The Prague-based portal Parlamentarni listy reported that she was guided solely by personal interests when advocating the bombing of the FRY in 1999, and the creation of so-called independent Kosovo. The portal also said that after the international administration in Kosovo and Metohia was instituted, and owing to her close ties to Kosovo Liberation Army leaders, most of all Hashim Thaçi, she privatized the Kosovo telephone company IPKO, which her company later sold to the Slovenian Telecom Slovenija. [https://www.espreso.rs/vesti/drustvo/362957/olbrajtova-debelo-zaradila-od-nezavisnog-kosova-zgrnula-milione-cifra-je--vrtoglava?utm_medium=push&utm_source=pushpushgo&utm_campaign=CampaignName]

[20] The share of [Kosovo’s] industry in GDP dropped in the 1998–2006 period from 47 percent to 17 percent. In 2006, goods worth 1.25 billion Euros were imported, while its export was worth 77 million! See [EK: 202–203]. The first part of the collection The Kosovo Vertical or a Neocolonial Horizontal (pp. 29–88) contains two seminal (and in many elements pioneering) works that in a systematic way offer information on the demographic, economic, social and ecological changes in Kosovo in this century (Gojko Rikalović and Dejan Molnar: (Un)Success of the Euro-Atlantic State Formation Project: Demographic, Economic, Social and Ecological Changes in Kosovo and Metohia in the First Two Decades of the 21st Century: [Рикаловић and Молнар 2019: 21–62]), which deal with the scenarios of future changes in the context of Kosovo’s economic and social sustainability (Milenko Dželetović and Bojan Dimitrijević: Possible Scenarios for the Future of Kosovo and Metohia in the Context of Its Economic and Social Sustainability: [Џелетовић and Димитријевић 2019: 63–80]).

[21] In 2007 the annual value of illegal deals in Kosovo reached some half a billion Euros! See [EK: 228].

[22] Who has the main say in Kosovo and who actually rules it is stipulated by one of the articles of the “Kosovo Constitution” based on the Martti Ahtisaari Plan: “In the event of discord between the constitutional provisions, the laws and provisions of the Draft Agreement on the Status of Kosovo of March 26, 2007 (provisions of the Ahtisaari Plan, XX), the latter, i.e. the Ahtisaari document, shall hold precedence.”

[23] German politician Willi Wiemer, onetime vice-president of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and a former German deputy defense minister, included in his May 2000 letter to the then German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, the conclusions of a security conference held shortly before in Bratislava, Slovakia, where U.S. representatives presented their reasons for bombing Yugoslavia by quoting, among other, the correction of the already mentioned “Dwight Eisenhower’s mistake” from 1945. The bombing of Yugoslavia, thus, can be seen in this light, and not as an expression of any “humanitarian” concerns: the goal was the (re)distribution of market and the integration of this part of post-Socialist Europe in a new (victorious), neoliberal, globalist economic order, and the already mentioned use of the Kosovo and Metohia case as a blueprint for future colonial expansion in other regions.

[24] The EUPT stands for the European Union Planning Team for Kosovo, ICO PT is the abbreviation for the International Civilian Office, Preparation Team, and SRSG – the Special Representative of the Secretary General (of the United Nations), while DSRSG stands for the latter’s deputy.

[25] “The constitution maker expresses his ‘intention for the state of Kosovo to fully participate in the process of Euro-Atlantic integrations’.” [EK: 286] It is clear that “the constitution maker,” is the so-called international community, which Hofbauer always places inside quotation marks. Also indicative are recommendations by the “International Commission on the Balkans,” which in its 2005 report proposed “independence without full sovereignty” for a Kosovo under the EU supervision, which, later on, should lead to “association, i.e. absorption” (International Commission on the Balkans, The Balkans in Europe’s Future, 2005, quoted in [EK” 279]). According to Hofbauer, these ambitions will not be limited to Kosovo: “‘Supervised independence’ is a seed of the New Order that in the future could be imposed on other periphery states if the dominant powers find convenient political, financial, and military means to achieve that.” [EK: 244]

[26] The seizure of Kosovo’s natural resources by foreign capital… has been planned in every detail and much in advance.” [EK: 217] On the other hand, “trade unions in Kosovo are perceived as insignificant non-governmental organizations: ‘Our views are simply ignored, they pass, so to say, unnoticed,’” Hofbauer was told by Haxhi Arifi, chairman of the Association of Independent Trade Unions in occupied Kosovo [EK: 216].

[27]“With incomes tenfold higher than the locals can earn, people from non-governmental organizations [so-called MANGOs, i.e. Mafia NGOs] have become a special stratum outside the society they allegedly want to help” [EK:155–156]. In addition, “Senior UNMIK officials and EULEX personnel are paid 5,000 Euros or more per month” [EK:231].

[28] “The only branch of the economy that is flourishing is grey economy and the illegal sector – i.e. the mafia economy” [EK: 200], while the title of an article in Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung on March 16, 2008, says: “The crime actually pays off. With the declaration of Kosovo’s independence, organized crime has obtained a state of its own” [EK: 226].

[29] This position could be considered valid, were it not for the legacy of the past 60 years which irrefutably reveals that not even Josip Broz Tito’s policy of “brotherhood and unity of nations and nationalities” – backed by considerable financial funds – could stop the Kosovo Albanians’ aspirations to secede, or their mass intolerance of all non-Albanians. For, as Hofbauer puts it, “The religion of Albanians is‘Albanianhood’.” [EK: 187]

[30] Relevant is Vladan Ivković’s attempt to offer a typology of relations between countries (nations, i.e. their elites) on a freedom-slavery scale: “If we were to categorize European nations as political communities by ambition and by roughly outlined political mentality, I would propose the following four basic categories: the slaves, the dependents, the independents and the conquerors. Falling into these categories, of course, would be conditioned by historical periods and observation during several epochs, and most nations would be found to belong to more than one category.”

[…] Therefore, “the basis of this categorization is ambition: […] there are nations which are not doing their best, are not capable, or think they have no right to pull themselves out of the claws of subservience to other nations and empires.

There are those who love to rely on the might of others, who think something is owed to them, but seek a higher power to provide them with what they seek […] or cannot gain what they want without reliance on protector forces. There are those who know that freedom or material gain belongs to them and are ready to organize into a defensive order even if their country, due to geopolitical conditions, is not fully capable of making decisions completely independently – if this is possible anywhere and at all. […]

The strongest are those nations who snatch and grab regardless of whether they think that belongs to them or not, i.e. those who think that everything in their possession belongs to them, including that which they still haven’t laid their hands on. […]

To lack the freedom-loving ambition, however, is not the same as to lack material stability. There are nation-slaves who can say that from the material point of view they live quite well. […]

Conqueror nations have to know how to build civilization based on sustainable administration. Slave nations, on the other hand, have to be of use to the conquerors in order to survive. Dependent nations are best recognized by their aspiration toward progress in one sense, for instance, material, because of which they sacrifice their independence and their freedom to fight for non-material interests. Independent nations are always on the verge of war; they cannot survive without fighting, wars against them are always waged because they are the target. […] This [‘experimental’] classification is one of the paradigms within a broad geopolitical matrix built on historical experience and the role and potential of individual European nations. With the passage of time, nations as nominal political communities may change their capacities, appetites, degrees and the form of organization, as well as the quantity of control over their elites. These changes, created from within and from the outside, position and re-position nations inside geopolitical dynamics of might. Thus, the basic elements of mentality of historical nations and the knowledge of them, including self-knowledge, are the key pillars in building a strategy that is to serve either as an obstacle and enemy to such elements, or as their ally or vassal” [Ивковић 2017].

[31] “The study [Geopolitical Constraints on Development Policies of Small Countries] ends up with a recommendation that small countries should aspire to fit themselves into the interests and policies of the great powers, to invest equally in choosing suitable allies, as well as to pragmatically adjust their pretensions, and – depending on given circumstances – even to follow their orders.” (Madžar 2017: 11]; See also [Madžar 1979] and [Madžar 2013]. As a counterweight to this servile attempt at mind-changing, see: Slobodan Antonić’s articles Serbia’s road toward the status of a colony” [Антонић 20017a] and Self-occupation in culture [Антонић 2017b]. See also: [Томаш 2016], [Оцић 1996, 1998, 2017] and [Senior and Singer 2011].

[32]As an insight into an attempt to formulate a contemporary Serbian strategology, see [Оцић 2015, 2017] and [MCPC 2014].

[33] The “prisoner's dilemma” is a standard example of a game analyzed in game theory that shows why two completely rational individuals might not cooperate, even if it appears that it is in their best interests to do so.

[34] An insane U.S. general who orders a first strike nuclear attack on the Soviet Union in Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 eponymous political satire-black comedy movie that found its place in the first group of films deserving preservation in the U.S. National Film Registry for being of cultural, historical or aesthetical significance.

[35] And this happens invariably, especially when small countries and freedom-loving nations are concerned. For them it is a matter of survival, while for the big and the powerful it a question of prestige and/or material interests – guaranteed by absolute concentration of might, domination, hegemony, exploitation… See [Robinson 2012].

[36] It appears that present-day Serbia is an exception, especially when it comes to a so-called grand or state strategy. Numerous “stillborn” sector strategies –some 200 of them – are not considered here. See [SBSSANU 1: 3–12]

[37]For what an optimal strategist should look like, see chapter “Strategist – Homo Paradoxicus” in: [Оцић 2015, ²2017: 16–18].

[38] This is very well illustrated by numerous “public debates” about a “new” reality which leaves us powerless, and with no option but of bowing down. See footnote 30!

[39] This text was initially published as an introductory essay to The Kosovo Vertical or a Neocolonial Horizontal collection of essays [КВилиНХ 2019].

 
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