Latest / Prof James Ker-Lindsay / 007. Can Serbia Ever Escape Its History? | How Nations Think

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007. Can Serbia Ever Escape Its History? | How Nations Think · Prof James Ker-Lindsay

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: If I were to give the most uh brutal assessment of what I think is Serbian foreign policy on Kosovo, I don't think that any Serbian leadership, despite their public utterances, believe that they can retrieve full control over that territory.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_00: You're listening to me, James Kerlinzi.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_00: In each episode, my guests and I go beyond the headlines to bring you a central commentary on international relations and global affairs.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: Serbia has a long and complex history.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: From its struggle for independence in the 19th century to Yugoslavia's leadership of the non-aligned movement, the wars of the 1990s, and the Kosovo dispute, the past has shaped its worldview.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Today, Serbia is engaged in a balancing act.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: It wants to join the European Union, yet maintains close ties with Russia and China.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_00: To some, this is a pragmatic strategy for preserving its independence.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: To others, though, it's an increasingly unrealistic policy.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_00: So, how does Serbia see its place in the world?
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: And can it really keep its options open?
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_00: To discuss all this, I'm joined by Dr.
• 1:06
  SPEAKER_00: Vuk Vuksanovic from King's College, University of London, author of Serbia's Balancing Act between Russia and the West.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: So, hi Vuk.
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for joining us.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_00: As with so many countries, there is so much history involved.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: And Serbia, for all sorts of reasons, history is such an important dimension of how we understand its foreign policy.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's been through a lot of changes.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: But I think perhaps the easiest place to start is talking about the emergence of Serbia in the 19th century.
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: It emerged obviously from the Ottoman Empire.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: What were the main themes of Serbian foreign policy as it emerged?
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: It held a very interesting status within the Ottoman Empire before it became fully independent, of course.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_00: How did all this shape its outlook and what were its priorities?
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: What were its relations with key powers?
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, of course.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh Serbia began to reawake, so to speak, and to be reborn.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: After medieval Serbia fell under the Ottomans, it began to be reborn as a modern nation-state in the early 19th century.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, there was a very powerful echo of the American and French revolution, which of course spurned nationalism across the Western world and, of course, began to transform traditionally feudal aristocracy-ruled societies.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: The story, of course, began with the first Serbian uprising, which began in 1804, which initially began as an uprising against Dachie, the rogue Janissaries, which eventually also emerged into a rebellion against the Ottoman rule.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_01: From that moment on, the main point as the first signs of Serbian autonomy within the Ottoman Empire began to be established, these structures aimed first at liberating Serbia and creating a state which would be composed out of territories inhabited by the ethnic Serbs.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, with the passage of time, we also had a very, very powerful component of Pan-Slavicism, which involved Serbia potentially joining or at least leading the uprising of other South Slavic nations, and not just South Slavic nations.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, in the mid-19th century, a whole set of revolutionaries combating not just against the Ottoman Empire, but also against the Habsburg Empire as well as the Russian Empire were conspiring and coordinating with the Serbia.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: So you basically had Polish, Hungarian, Czech, Romanian, Greek, Bulgarian revolutionaries all with the passage of time, Croatian and Italian revolutionaries all coordinating with the Serbian structures on how to overthrow these old empires.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: So throughout the 19th century, this was the main theme.
• 4:04
  SPEAKER_01: But during, of course, the 19th century, as of course there was a crisis of uh and uh always a question mark what will happen with this with the Ottoman uh with the with the Ottoman territories in the Balkans that created, of course, that famous theme, which of course in the 19th century is now known as the Eastern Question.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_01: What will happen with these territories?
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_01: And uh we always had this problem that uh great powers were always uh uh having uh quite a dubious uh stance towards this.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_01: Uh on one hand, uh there were uh liberal empires like uh French and the British Empire, which on one hand were uh occasionally introlled by the liberal principles, but at the same time they were engaged in the so-called Great Game with particularly the British Empire with the Russians.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_01: So they were frequently weary if we allowed independence of the Serbs and other Balkan nations, will that also involve uh a stronger Russian presence in the Balkans to fill in the vacuum?
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_01: The Russians at the same time were frequently aiding uh South Slavic nations in their struggles against the Ottomans, but at the same time they were also frequently treating them as a bargaining chip.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: In that context, the Serbs, uh the nations like Serbs were frequently a bargaining chip for the Russians, while actually their main target, the main treat were the Black Sea literal nations of Romania and Bulgaria, actually in the Balkans.
• 5:24
  SPEAKER_01: Uh Austria, Austria later transformed into Austria-Hungary, uh, was a very powerful source of cultural and economic influence, but everybody knew that it is also a potentially rapacious empire, which, if uh the Ottoman Empire collapsed, would uh be very, very quick to consume Serbia, Bosnia, and the remaining uh Ottoman uh Ottoman territories.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_01: So uh what was probably the most powerful legacy of the 19th century in Serbian foreign policy was this idea that uh great powers are predatory actors, that uh you should uh, of course, uh as a small country, that you need to engage them, that you need to avoid uh being their open enemy, but at the same time that you should also be very, very careful about being uh too close in one of their embraces, because even if that embrace is friendly, it can still be suffocating for your uh political autonomy as a small state.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: So this tendency, which I think uh perseveres to this very day, of uh playing off uh great powers against each other, where you try basically to uh extract and exploit their own resources to help boost uh and uh further your own uh local aims while still preventing from being sucked into unnecessary conflict and preserving your foreign policy and tonomy.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: I would say that this uh historical legacy, this historical impulse still informs uh the thinking uh of uh the elites uh in a very and and the wider population when they think about uh international currencies.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, this is obviously going to be a theme we'll return to towards the end of the interview.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I I guess what I'd like to turn to next is the start of the 20th century.
• 7:11
  SPEAKER_00: Uh that we start we saw a very, very significant transformation.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, the the old adage of the Ottoman Empire as being the sick man of Europe.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, this was really a transformative period, wasn't it, for Serbia as a kingdom, and it had become a full kingdom by that point.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um we had the Balkan Wars, uh, which saw Serbia team up with several of its its its sort of Balkan neighbors to fight off the Ottoman Empire, and then fight another one as they turned against Bulgaria or Bulgaria turned against them.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, the first world war.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_00: And the first world war is a conflict that's uh in so many ways is synonymous with with Serbia.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: Uh how how would you characterize uh the way that all these events shaped Serbia, leading up, of course, to the end of the First World War and the coming together, the creation of the first Yugoslav kingdom?
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh, in a way, uh, Serbia's victory in the first two Balkan wars, as well as the fact that they were on the winning side uh in the Great War, or as the First World War, as we now refer it, uh, effectively uh trusted uh Belgrade in the very center of uh international relations politics of the Balkans.
• 8:27
  SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, I think that this uh it may have been uh true in the past, but I think that it became even more powerful as Serbia emerged victorious from these three wars, this uh notion that uh in the Balkans you can do a lot of things against Belgrade, but if you want to get things done in the very end, you cannot do it without having Belgrade on board.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: This uh new historiography, which for example uh blames uh Serbia for the outbreak of World War I, is I would say one uh example of the intellectual tensions that exist between uh Serbia and the Western world, because Serbian interpretation number one is that uh apart from of course the historiographical debate about how much did the government uh have control over the assassination in Sarajevo, and how much, of course, was uh done by the by the rogue uh security state, of course, or the fact that perhaps sometimes uh Austria-Hungary today is perceived as uh very much uh uh rose-stainted uh glasses.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, but the big, of course, issue is that uh Serbs uh primarily perceive World War I as uh something uh for which uh the pave was uh the road was already paved by the great powers already.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: So they believe that what happened in 1914 was uh basically just an excuse for the car crash, which was already begging uh to happen from their respective perspective.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: But in a sense, the the big casualties that uh Serbia had, losing a large portion of its uh male population, and probably the best and intellectually more productive and intellectually most dynamic part of its population, the people who were highly deserving of the fact that Serbia acquired its uh independence back, uh was uh is uh to this very day a major trauma for Serbia and basically another indicator about how small states suffer as a result of great power politics.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: But uh at the same time, for many Serbs, it was probably the apex of both uh Serbia's contribution to Allied victories in the Balkans as well as the fact that uh uh the international uh respect that Serbia acquired among countries like France, United States, and the United Kingdom over its battle against uh the Habsburg Empire, primarily against the Habsburg Empire, but also indirectly, of course, uh against uh Kaiser Germany and Bulgaria.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh these uh these were at that point in time for many probably the apex of uh international respect that uh a small country can potentially enjoy.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: So uh World War I is being perceived as something of a national tragedy, but also as a source of uh greatest uh pride in terms of uh uh in terms of international reputation and uh accomplishment that a small state can achieve.
• 11:19
  SPEAKER_00: And uh of course, I mean the the major outcome of the First World War for Serbia was the creation of the kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes.
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, which then in 1929 became the kingdom of Yugoslavia.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um how did that transform Serbia's world outlook?
• 11:43
  SPEAKER_00: Because suddenly it it found itself part of this union of South Slavic states.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, what were the foreign policies that it pursued, especially in that interwar period?
• 11:53
  SPEAKER_00: And and how did how did Serbia respond and the other countries respond to the creation of this new state after having been a kingdom?
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, in some ways, you had uh some parts which were very familiar to the Serbs, uh, you know, Montenegro, for example, joining the Union, um, but other parts which have been under Austro-Hungarian rule, um, which would have had a very, very different cultural background.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: We could go into the whole story.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_00: I I know the Balkans quite well, as you know, um, that you you can still see that fault line, even to this day, to a certain degree, um, in Serbia.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_00: But how did that that effect um uh affect Serbia's position and and the new state's outlook to the rest of the region and the wider world?
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, well, uh in a sense, uh, the history of monarchist uh Yugoslavia, or as you said initially, the the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, as it was uh in originally called, uh, has uh been a part of a general uh messiness and instability, which I think uh characterize uh the interwar period uh in entire Europe, but especially in wider Eastern Europe, on that hand.
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_01: Because uh there was a fact that uh yes, uh Serbia in a way uh lost its identity by integrating itself uh in a much larger political unit.
• 13:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, the Serbs were the dominant factor numerically and politically, particularly given that it was ruled by the Serbian dynasty, Kara Georgievich.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_01: But uh this was a very, very dysfunctional uh state and a very, very messy and dysfunctional union.
• 13:31
  SPEAKER_01: And I would say that pretty much uh the seeds uh which are of frustration which exists and which are now frequently invoked by nationalists on all sides basically originates from this particular union.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_01: Where, for example, Serbian, uh Serbian nationalists frequently say that uh Serbia was sucked into a union with nations, primarily referring to uh Croats and Slovenes, uh South Slavic nations, but which were still ruled by Vienna and Budapest for a very long time, which of course waged war against Serbia as part of the as part of the Austria-Hungary, which were basically liberated, but uh which did not respect uh Serbian uh casualties and Serbian sacrifice from the previous war.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: That was that is the Serbian narrative.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: While of course the Croatian and Slovenian narrative was frequently, they were sucked into from being uh part of uh of a sometimes conservative uh and sometimes repressive empire of uh Austria-Hungary.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_01: Now they were sucked into a much smaller, more dysfunctional state, which people with whom they have had similarities, but with whom they also had some uh cultural uh differences in culture and uh mentality.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_01: And that they were sucked basically into a union in which uh Bellwave exploited them.
• 14:48
  SPEAKER_01: Now, of course, uh, as the reality usually goes, uh the reality was much more complicated for all of the involved parties, but this is of course the historical source of the narrative which continues uh to permeate the thinking of uh these particular uh ethn groups uh to this to this very day.
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: When it comes, of course, to foreign policy.
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_01: Uh now naturally the newfound uh newly formed uh Yugoslavia was dealing with the condition of a general geopolitical vacuum which emerged uh in Eastern Europe with the collapse of all of the major empires, uh the the the Kaiser Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Russian Empire, and of course the Ottomans.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_01: So this uh created a vacuum where, of course, primarily France, but with the passage of time, also Britain, were concerned, both of the Bolshevik Russia, later the Soviet Union, but also of potentially resurgent Germany.
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: So Eastern Europe was potentially always perceived as this uh empty space where these two revenuist powers will either expand or uh a space over which they would clash.
• 15:56
  SPEAKER_01: During this time, France was uh the main security backer of Eastern Europe, where Serbia, of course, was uh joining uh a whole set of uh alliances which were sponsored by France, alongside uh Romania and Czechoslovakia, the little Entente, as it was called, aimed of both containing, uh acting as a buffer both between Germany and the Soviet Union, but also against Hungary, which was displeased at these three countries over lost territories from Trianon peace, uh peace treaties.
• 16:28
  SPEAKER_01: So during this time we have a general condition of Serbia being fearful of uh resurgent Germany, of being fearful of uh the Bolsheviks who were very hostile at Yugoslavia, both because they perceived it as a bourgeois multi-ethnic state which needed to be dismembered, and not to mention, of course, the fact that there were a lot of uh white Russians who found refuge uh in Belgrade, and the fact that Kara Georgievich and Romanov dynasty were relatives, so that certainly didn't make uh Belgrade uh a friend in the eye of the new regime uh in Moscow.
• 17:01
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, of course, there was a hostility between several of the other neighboring countries, primarily Mussolini's Italy, which uh was interested in expanding in uh Dalmatia at the expense of Yugoslavia, and of course uh Bulgaria, which had ambitions uh vis-a-vis uh vis vis-a-vis uh Yugoslavia in regards to Macedonia.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_01: So it was a general period of instability, insecurity, and of course, what happened was that it was uh the the trauma of World War II where the country eventually fell to the Nazis, and uh it was its territory was dismembered alongside other members of the of the Hitler's Tripite Pact, including Hitler's allies like Hungary, uh Bulgaria, and uh Italy.
• 17:48
  SPEAKER_01: And a whole set of uh collaborationist uh regimes was established on the territory, of which probably the most uh vicious and murderous one was uh independent state of Croatia, which uh gathered territories of present-day Croatia, Bosnia, as well as a small section of Serbia.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: The Second World War was, I I think for anyone who has studied Yugoslav history, um, realized just how utterly complex it was.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: And effectively what you had, as I think you clearly pointed out, was that you had a lot of outside powers which were sucked into what was Yugoslavia, but also essentially a complex series of civil wars that were going on within the country, um, not just between the different nations of Yugoslavia, uh, but also on a political basis.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that lays the the groundwork for the next stage of the story, uh, which of course was um socialist Yugoslavia that emerged at the end of the Second World War, that uh Yugoslavia got rid of its monarchy.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: And then, of course, you had this figure of Tito.
• 18:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so it would be really interesting to discuss a little bit about how that fundamentally transformed um Yugoslav, so and we'll we'll refer to it as Yugoslav at this stage, even though you know there is a really interesting question still about Serbia's position in all of this.
• 19:12
  SPEAKER_00: That relationship between Belgrade or Yugoslavia and Moscow, um, and then the splits between Tito and Stalin, how Yugoslavia then emerged as this absolutely central player in the non-aligned movement during the Cold War?
• 19:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so essentially, how how did all of this at the end of the Second World coalesce into the Yugoslavia that I think we came to see, which probably reached its apogee in the 1960s and 70s?
• 19:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I mean, first before before I uh venture into the Cold War uh territory, I think that it is uh also important to stress uh several things.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, the reason why uh communists uh could take over the country were multiple.
• 19:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, number one was, of course, uh the socioeconomic uh inequality which plagued the entire Eastern Europe after the First World War.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: So they uh could uh very they have been tapping into this sentiment for several decades quite effectively.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: Also the fact that communist ideology was uh, or at least was claiming to be sopranational.
• 20:15
  SPEAKER_01: So it was able to acquire its uh followers among uh numerous uh ethnic and religious groups which constituted Yugoslavia, so it could go beyond ethnic uh borders.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, it was also uh the great powers.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_01: Because uh, number one, uh the it wasn't just uh Stalin who was uh uh who uh who is uh deserving of the fact that Yugoslavia became a communist.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_01: It was also another leader who was also not from the Soviet Union but communist, it was, of course, Vincent Church.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, it was the famous uh percentage agreement uh from uh from Moscow between the two leaders on uh how they divide it, how they should divide uh influence in uh what was the wider Southeastern Europe, where allegedly the formula was supposed to be 50-50.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, uh that didn't happen, and we all very soon know that uh in his famous uh speech from uh Fulton in Missouri about the Iron Curtain, uh Churchill referred to Belgrade as one of the famous uh great cities which are now on the other side of the iron, which are now on the other side of the Iron Curtain under the Soviet, uh under the Soviet domain.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_01: But I think that these uh people keep uh forgetting that there were multiple Titos uh throughout history.
• 21:29
  SPEAKER_01: The first Tito was, of course, the one who was uh agent of Moscow and then agent of Comintern, and who once uh uh once emerging as a powerholder in Belgrade, from 1945 up until 1948, uh Yugoslavia was uh Yugoslavia was in a way the most probably the most loyal ally and most powerful ally of Moscow in Eastern Europe, for that matter.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_01: Now, of course, what bothered Stalin was uh frequently the power and independence that Yugoslavia was.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_01: The communist Yugoslavia was acquiring from in the Balkans, which was not necessarily dictated by Moscow.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: Frustrated over Yugoslav dispute with Italy over the city of Trieste.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: Frustrated over the fact that Yugoslavia was backing a communist in Greece during the Greek Civil War.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: Frustrated over Yugoslav military presence in Albania, and frustrated over the fact that Yugoslavia was negotiating a Balkan Federation with Bulgaria.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_01: So all of this was telling to Moscow that Yugoslav comrades were both politically too ambitious and ideologically too independent.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_01: And what came about was the famous resolution of coming form, of course, the coordination body of communist parties in Europe, which was at that time headquartered in Belgrade, where Stalin, where the Soviet Union effectively manipulated Yugoslav representatives to condemn the ineffective communist parties of Western Europe, despite the fact that these communist parties of Western Europe were acting on based on Stalin's instructions.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: So for Stalin, this was an effective way both to isolate diplomatically the Yugoslav communists while at the same time criticizing the ineffective Western European comrades without attracting any ire or any risk for himself.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_01: This resulted in the famous Tito-Stalin split.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_01: And uh today this is of course a little bit uh to uh there is the communist propaganda, which uh believe it or not uh exists to this very day, in a sense, uh has uh made uh a too idealized version of Tito's uh heroic uh no to Stalin.
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_01: It turned out that it wasn't such a heroic no.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_01: You can find that even up until the very last minute, Tito was still glorifying uh Stalin and Lenin in all of his party speeches.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_01: While, of course, this little episode was uh used by Tito to basically cleanse uh the communist rank, not just of uh sympathizers of the Soviet Union, but anyone who would be deemed uh a threat to the regime.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_01: But and this is of course the part where it all gets very, very interesting was the fact that West made an outreach towards Belgrade, because at that time, of course, uh the idea, George Cannon's idea of containment, began to take uh hold, but also the idea of so-called uh West strategies, the idea that the West should encourage perhaps communist regimes which are uh operating independently from Moscow to saw this unity in the Soviet bloc.
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_01: The idea was that you can show that if there is uh a successful communist regime which does not take uh which uh does not take dictate Moscow's dictates, then that can prove uh to others in the Eastern Bloc that they can rebel against uh against the Soviet uh Union.
• 24:50
  SPEAKER_01: And so, of course, this uh allowed Tito to acquire Western financial aid, which allowed him first to survive, of course, uh the breakup of relations with the Soviet, with the wider Soviet bloc.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_01: And uh during a couple of years, Tito was even in security domain much uh closer to the West than he was to Moscow, as uh exemplified in uh 1950 uh Balkan Pact, with 1950s, early 1950s Balkan Pact, which existed between uh Yugoslavia, Greece, and Turkey.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_01: This uh pact was pretty soon dissolved because of the Greek uh Greek uh Turkish dispute over Cyprus, which heated up uh several decades afterwards, which you know better than I do.
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_01: But uh but also because of the fact that after Stalin's uh split, uh Tito began to establish uh uh better relations with the Soviet Union.
• 25:40
  SPEAKER_01: So, in a way, Tito now realized that the the first Tito was uh the agent of Moscow, the second Tito was uh the one who was closer to the West.
• 25:51
  SPEAKER_01: But the third Tito was the one who said uh it is better to play them off uh against each other and preserve uh autonomy that way.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so yes, the legacy of Tito Yugoslavia is powerful, but we if we take account the 19th century history, which we have already mentioned, what Tito was doing had a very rich uh historical and political uh pedigree uh in the Balkans.
• 26:13
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I would say that these uh three pedigrees in a way uh shape uh the present-day thinking in the Balkans.
• 26:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because if we take a look at the local elites in the Balkans, uh there are very few who can actually be described as being uh loyal uh to Moscow.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: There are some who basically want who are uh Tito in the early 1950s, being closer to the West, but who want to inflate the Russian threats, uh, hoping that that way they can extrapolate Western support and resource by uh inflating the Russian threats and by portraying themselves as being uh Western bulwark against Russian influence.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I in my opinion, probably the most dominant, the probably the most dominant pattern when it comes to Serbia's behavior, and particularly when it comes to its incumbent leadership, is uh Tito post-Stalin's death, the one who likes to play uh the two parties against each other.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so this legacy perseveres, but also there is also another legacy which also perseveres, the fact that uh the West was frequently turning the blind eye to repression in Yugoslavia.
• 27:22
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, Yugoslavia was uh after uh Stalin's death and after Tito's opening to the West was more liberal and more open compared to the other Soviet uh clients in the Soviet bloc, but it was still a communist dictatorship.
• 27:36
  SPEAKER_01: But uh the West didn't pay that much attention but glorified uh Tito.
• 27:40
  SPEAKER_01: Why?
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_01: Because uh I I don't want to swear, but this has been, of course, that historical uh quote which uh permeates, of course, the US diplomatic history.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_01: He is a son of a bitch, but he's our son of a bitch.
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_01: That has been repeated, particularly by Dwight Eisenhower's administration in in reference uh to Tito.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_01: And I think that this also shows you the tendency of present-day elites who also believe that if they show themselves useful to the West by, for example, uh invoking the Russian factor to scare the West or by portraying themselves as uh loyal Western allies, they believe that the West will turn a blind eye to their localized corruption or their localized uh authoritarian tendency.
• 28:20
  SPEAKER_01: So, this is, I will say, a very, very powerful legacy of uh Yossip Ross Tito and his Yugoslavia, which uh another, of course, important uh part of this legacy uh has been uh the leadership of the non-aligned uh movement, which were basically Tito's, I mean, and um this is of course perhaps very educational for the uninstructed viewers, because even in former Yugoslavia, you would be surprised at the number of people who actually conflate uh neutrality and non-alignment.
• 28:49
  SPEAKER_01: Where be where because uh the neutrality is effectively a legal status which you permanently have, but non-alignment is actually a bargaining principle.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_01: Where probably the best definition of uh non-alignment is that you choose uh every issue on its own individual merit and you basically choose your partner for that individual issue.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_01: So saying on point A, it is my best interest to go alongside the Americans, or point B with the Russians, on point C with the Europeans.
• 29:17
  SPEAKER_01: And uh so this was uh the version of that uh Tito's Yugoslavia was advocating, tapping into the resources of both superpowers without being overly close to either one of them.
• 29:27
  SPEAKER_01: Uh this uh has uh allowed some benefits to, for example, to Yugoslav state-owned companies of securing contracts across what was then referred to as the third world.
• 29:38
  SPEAKER_01: Of course, the the negative legacy of it so was that it also created very, very corrupt uh structures uh which uh stretched both in the Yugoslav state enterprises as well as in the political structures, as well as in the military and security services, which were profiting from uh from uh trading arms with the third world.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_01: So these were both uh positive and negative elements of this uh particular legacy.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_01: But uh this there was also a very, very dark legacy as well.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_01: Uh why?
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh number one was uh the fact that uh unlike uh the other uh countries of the of the communist uh Eastern Europe, uh the Yugoslavs were not that uh aware of the changes that were transpiring as the Berlin Wall felt in 1989.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_01: So for uh many of them, at least in Serbia, they didn't think that this was uh that much uh important.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: It turned out that it was a mistaken, uh a mistaken perception very much.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_01: But also the fact that Yugoslavia was now losing its uh international, the reputation which it had as a buffer between the two superlocks was that reputation and that status was disintegrating as the Cold War rivalry was also disintegrating.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: So that also meant that it was losing its international weight.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, given that it was losing its international weight, the domestic dysfunctions were also kicking in.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_01: Both the economic bankruptcy, but also the corrupt elites, which now realized that if they are to maintain their fold of power, their wealth and privileges, they have to resort to new uh ideological precepts.
• 31:16
  SPEAKER_01: And what was the most effective ideological precept to replace a collectivist ideology of communism?
• 31:23
  SPEAKER_01: But it was, of course, the other collectivist ideology, which was nationalist.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: Now, in to be fair, of course, uh some of the Western campaigns in the 1970s and 1980s aimed particularly at piercing uh the Soviet bloc, were aimed at strengthening nationalism in Eastern European countries.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_01: But in Eastern European countries, of course, it was easy for nationalists to find a boogeyman, which was of course the external power coming from Moscow.
• 31:51
  SPEAKER_01: But uh, given that, of course, the Yugoslavs uh could Serbs and the other countries of Yugoslavia could not uh blame themselves.
• 31:59
  SPEAKER_01: Anyone, they could not blame Moscow for being communist.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_01: Communism, Yugoslav communism had its own dynamism, it went its own way while criticizing the Soviet model.
• 32:09
  SPEAKER_01: So uh, in order to make that shift from uh communism into nationalism, you needed an enemy.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: But given that they couldn't uh rely project that image on Moscow, who was the best way to project that image of an enemy uh one against each other?
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_01: And so, of course, as Yugoslavia was collapsing, uh the new slash old uh elites had emerged, or the more perhaps a more precise term was old elites with the new ideological flag, perhaps.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um, one thing that, you know, one hears a lot, you know, is this idea that you know the collapse of Yugoslav was essentially driven by outside forces, murky outside forces that came in that wanted to break up the country.
• 32:52
  SPEAKER_00: But what I would really be keen to look at next is the wars obviously uh fundamentally transformed uh Serbia's place in all sorts of ways, that it had been part of this Yugoslavia, which had been very internationalist.
• 33:09
  SPEAKER_00: And I think you presented this really interesting picture of you know how it had engaged with with the wider world.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it broke up, you had the emergence of the other republics, Serbia then found itself essentially in a union with Montenegro, which eventually collapsed in 2006.
• 33:24
  SPEAKER_00: Under Milosevic, it became incredibly isolated on the world stage.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: How did that all change Serbia's foreign policy?
• 33:34
  SPEAKER_00: Who did it reach out to during that period?
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, especially as it, you know, it it had these tensions and Russia wasn't this reliable ally and that relations had broken down with the West.
• 33:46
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing I'd be keen to look at is, you know, we know about the devastation that was caused by the wars during the 1990s.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_00: And just to talk a little bit about how Serbia's relationship with its neighbors evolved after that and where things stand today, essentially to talk about the legacy of the wars of the 1990s and what this did to Serbia, what it did to its standing, and what it's did to its relations, and how it's tried to deal with those relationships uh ever since.
• 34:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, well, I mean, uh, first perhaps I uh should underscore something which you may have uh mentioned uh in your question about uh the culprits for the collapse of Yugoslavia.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, my uh idea has always been that the main culprits were uh domestic, but as I uh but that the great powers or external great powers were all uh acting uh in an opportunistic way depending on their uh interest of the day.
• 34:37
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, on that point I always like to say vultures do not uh circle around uh the healthy tissue, but once they see uh an animal which is about uh to die.
• 34:46
  SPEAKER_01: And in that particular context, I also like to say uh if you today, for example, treat the Balkan nations solely as uh obedient proxies or external powers without their respective agency, then you're also very, very much uh wrong because uh the external powers cannot be successful in the Balkans without having uh local calipers and uh receptive uh partners.
• 35:09
  SPEAKER_01: So this is always uh something which is very important to under to understand in the Balkans.
• 35:14
  SPEAKER_01: It was important in the early 1990s and it is important in the 19th century and it is important to this very day.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_01: Now, uh when it uh comes, of course, to the 1990s, it was an enormous shock.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_01: I think that the 1990s even created an impulse which uh still exists in Serbian foreign policy, which some of my Belgrade-based uh academic colleagues uh refer to as the complex of the 1990s.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: This uh trauma that Serbia is now of a sudden all alone, that it has no uh partner, no friends, no great power backers, no great power allies, and that uh it is completely isolated and uh decimated uh economically and, as it turned out, uh a target of uh military intervention.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_01: So uh I think that in a sense there was both a geopolitical shock, uh, where uh at one point the leadership of Belgrade found itself uh on the bad side of the US at a at the moment where the US was uh at the height of its uh power of during the unipolar moment.
• 36:19
  SPEAKER_01: It was also uh facing uh isolation from its main um markets and partners in Europe as Europe as Europe was getting transformed into what we today know in the U as the European Union.
• 36:30
  SPEAKER_01: China was uninterested in the Balkan affairs.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_01: And uh Russia was of course, this also corresponded with the period in which uh Russia was at its weakest point.
• 36:41
  SPEAKER_01: We can say that for probably for Serbia and for Russia, the 1990s were the period in which the two countries were at their lowest points, both uh in terms of their international status, but also in terms of where they were as uh as decaying, collapsing societies.
• 36:58
  SPEAKER_01: Now, Yeltsin, of course, wasn't particularly fond of uh Milosevic, among other things, because uh Yeltsin was uh backing the failed uh coup of the KGB hardliners against Mikhail Gorbachev, was one probably one of the only leaders in Europe who backed it, a failed assessment.
• 37:16
  SPEAKER_01: But uh we also saw during this period that uh Serbia and Russia like to manipulate uh each other.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_01: Russia was uh, on one hand participating in a whole set of conflict resolution mechanisms, but at the same time it was frequently displaying uh dissatisfaction at the belligerence and uh and treachery of uh of their Serbian uh interlocutors, while on the other hand, Serbian interlocutors were always concerned that the Russians will sell them out.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_01: So uh I think that in a sense, uh the all the Serbian context uh and partnerships with uh, not all of them, but most of them were uh defunct and uh decaying all the partnerships with what was then referred to as the third world, particularly since many of them were Islamic countries who were uh angry at the Serbia over Muslim Tjažukis from the Bosnian War.
• 38:07
  SPEAKER_01: So this was probably a period uh where Serbian international connections and status were at its at it at a lower point uh ever since probably being uh subjugated by the Ottomans, probably.
• 38:20
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you know, the wars were devastating.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_00: Uh and and obviously we we can think of what had happened in Croatia and Bosnia, but of course, you had all the other republics.
• 38:29
  SPEAKER_00: You you had the relationship with Slovenia, there was a short war there, I mean, literally just days, but nevertheless, uh you then had um what is now North Macedonia to the south, you had the relationship with Montenegro.
• 38:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um how have those all changed?
• 38:46
  SPEAKER_00: And how has Serbia sought to engage with those uh since the 1990s?
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: Well, uh on one hand, there were after the overthrow of Milosevic's regime, there were uh some uh many attempts by many of the leaders which uh held power in Belgrade, whether it was Jinjic, Zoran, the assassinated Prime Minister Zoran Gzincic, or uh voice of Kosunica, who was both Yugoslav president and Serbian Prime Minister, by uh President Boris Tadic, all of whom have uh tried uh setting up better relations, and there were even some hopes that something's work happening.
• 39:22
  SPEAKER_01: Uh logically, there are there are uh the the communication exists between Serbia and its neighbors.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_01: There is trade going both ways, there are people-to-people content given that it is such a small space.
• 39:36
  SPEAKER_01: Uh but uh there is, of course, a problem of uh the legacy of the 1990s still uh shaping uh public opinion in all of these countries, at least on the emotional level.
• 39:49
  SPEAKER_01: And of course, we now have leadership in Belgrade, which uh frequently likes to uh invoke and create uh tensions with uh with some of its neighbors, primarily to accumulate uh points uh domestically in its electoral race or to divert attention from domestic problems.
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_01: So uh there is uh Serbian responsibility, yes, for uh some of these relations remaining poor.
• 40:15
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, I have to say that uh I am uh I have a slight degree of criticism towards uh towards some of Serbia's neighbors uh for the for the simple reason that when I read accounts of the people who used to be in government uh in early 2000s, despite the fact that these were anti-war leaders who risked their lives overthrowing Milosevic, all of them were describing how some of the Serbia's uh neighbors from former Yugoslavia were still looking at them with suspicion, despite the fact that they were the ones who overthrew uh Milosevic.
• 40:48
  SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, I like to say to uh all of my colleagues coming from uh neighboring countries, perhaps you will not always be fond of everyone who is in power in Belgrade, but uh uh in the end you will have to choose someone who is uh good enough for you, because in the end, you did result in the incumbent leadership led by uh Alexander Vucic, uh semi now semi-nationalist after being a full-fledged nationalist in the 1990s, uh, who is uh now basically uh constantly creating uh at least artificial tensions.
• 41:24
  SPEAKER_01: So at one point you will also have to pick someone in Belvic who is good enough, with whom you will not only see an eye to an eye with, but with whom you can uh do business with.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_00: One thing now that you know to turn to is is the huge question of Kosovo.
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, because we saw NATO's bombing of Serbia in in 1999 over Kosovo.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Kosovo declared independence in 2008.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: Serbia has been vehemently against this.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Kosovo's status as an independent country has been recognized by pretty much all of the European Union.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there are the non-recognizers, um, you know, Spain, Romania, Slovakia, Greece, and Cyprus.
• 42:05
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, the United States recognized it as as well.
• 42:09
  SPEAKER_00: Um there is dispute as to how many UN members have recognized it.
• 42:13
  SPEAKER_00: It depends because some have de-recognized.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_00: But if we work on the rough basis that half the countries of the UN recognize Kosovo, um this has had an enormous impact because obviously Serbia has said we do not recognize Kosovo as an independent state, and it's been so central to its foreign policy.
• 42:31
  SPEAKER_00: How do you think that has evolved?
• 42:33
  SPEAKER_00: How powerful does Kosovo really remain in Serbian foreign policy?
• 42:37
  SPEAKER_00: Or perhaps maybe take a step back and say, you know, how how did it shape its relations?
• 42:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you had a government that after Milosevic was trying to build up relations with the West, and then this happened, which in many ways seemed to be a setback to that developing relationship with the West.
• 42:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, well, I mean, on that point, we can say that the two years which uh from the standpoint of Serbia's new history represent the periods before and after, are 1999 and 2008.
• 43:06
  SPEAKER_01: 1999, the year of NATO uh campaign against Yugoslavia, and 2008, uh the year when Kosovo declared uh its uh independence.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_01: Uh now there are very few Serbs, and most of them are uh liberal Serbs who are a numerical minority who come from uh bubble domains, like for example Serbian NGO sectors, who basically subscribe to the Western uh to the Western narrative of Kosovo war as being a case study of liberal humanitarian uh intervention.
• 43:38
  SPEAKER_01: For nationalist conservative Serbs, this was an injustice and aggression imposed to them by the West.
• 43:45
  SPEAKER_01: While for the other Serbs, which are not hyper liberal but simply liberal, they they, for example, have no problem of criticizing the Milosevic regime, but still believe that uh injustice was done against the Serbs.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_01: number one for conducting uh uh for making an exception and uh conducting uh conducting a military intervention against Belgrade without UN Security Council approval over a conflict which was not transpiring between the two sovereign states but over a conflict which was transpiring within its own sovereign territory and uh number two there were also those who still and then of course comes uh the 2008 independence of uh Kosovo uh in a sense uh the 2008 was uh uh if the 1999 was uh an injury the 2008 was uh insult added uh to the injury from the Serbian from the standpoint of Serbian uh mindset because uh many were saying uh well Kosovo and uh I know you're aware of it because having conducted your own uh research on this uh about uh Serbia's counter-secessionist policy on Kosovo where leadership of the time this was perhaps rhetoric frequently conveyed by uh pro-EU left center president of Serbia Boris Stadić and at the time and his uh foreign minister Vuk Yeremich who were frequently constantly saying to the West why did you uh give uh Milosevic a face-saving settlement to Milosevic's regime a face-saving settlement while to the US pro-EU Serbs who overthrew him you you imposed independence on us and left us vulnerable uh to domestic attack from the nationalist forces from uh within so from the nationalist uh independence of Kosovo was uh another confirmation of their view worldview of Western uh West being a hostile power while for many of the liberal Serbs it was essentially uh just a confirmation that even that Serbs are not being fully accepted as a partner even uh even with the different uh leadership so from that moment on Serbian foreign policy completely transformed and it became very obsessed about counter-secessionism and uh if I were to give the most uh brutal assessment of what I think is Serbian foreign policy on Kosovo I don't think that uh any Serbian leadership despite their public utterances believe that they can retrieve uh full control over their that territory but they want to play a tough bargain kick the can down the road until a new opportunity emerges so that they can acquire some face-saving settlement of this dispute in which Serbia is not being perceived as the sole loser of the Kostel Sag.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_01: In which they can say at least we got something and at least we got something that we hope can be sold to our own domestic public opinion and our own domestic constituency.
• 46:38
  SPEAKER_01: This has been of course the case for both liberal as well as illiberal governments in Serbia like the ones that we uh have right now and uh I'm afraid that this is a dispute which will permeate even the potential uh regime change uh in uh Belgrade and which will continue to shape Serbian foreign policy.
• 46:58
  SPEAKER_00: That brings us neatly on to uh the question of Serbia's relationship with the European Union because uh in in many ways you know this has been a a huge element uh of Serbia's sort of uh foreign policy but Kosovo comes smack bang up against it.
• 47:15
  SPEAKER_00: Um now I I remember you know a decade ago there was a lot of talk that you know Serbia would be in the European Union by 2025.
• 47:23
  SPEAKER_00: That has come and gone.
• 47:25
  SPEAKER_00: How would you say that the relationship between Serbia and the European Union has evolved um and and where do we stand at the moment on Serbia's EU membership and and I I think just one thing I'll sneak into that which relates one to Kosovo but also to to the accession process.
• 47:43
  SPEAKER_00: And we can maybe talk a little bit more about Russia more widely in a minute but um the Ukraine war for example because this is one area where uh the rest of Europe has come together you've got a fairly clear or a very clear European Union policy on the Ukraine war.
• 48:01
  SPEAKER_00: Uh the process of EU accession requires alignment on key foreign policy issues and Serbia hasn't been willing to sign up to that.
• 48:09
  SPEAKER_00: So how would you say that relations between Serbia and the European Union are at the moment?
• 48:15
  SPEAKER_01: Well uh I mean first of all I have to say I think that the Serbian foreign policy still pretty much lives and operates in the world which was ushered in 2008.
• 48:25
  SPEAKER_01: The first process was of course the one that we already described and mentioned which was the independence of Kosovo.
• 48:32
  SPEAKER_01: The second one was the global financial crisis of 2008 because the global financial crisis uh left a certain vacuum because the Balkans was put by the by the crisis led in Europe on the back burner.
• 48:46
  SPEAKER_01: So that effectively meant that uh Serbian leadership uh was stuck on the European periphery with the unresolved territorial dispute so that's a let us see what what uh other arrangements we can do with the Russian Chinese uh Turks Israelis uh United Arab Emirates Azerbaijanis whoever so we are uh currently at a stage uh at a paradoxical stage where European Union is yes uh uh Serbia borders European Union we are surrounded on all sides by the European Union we are a country deep uh in on European soil and it is uh absolutely Serbia's main economic partner by all parameters but that does not necessarily translate into a political heft or political uh sway of the European Union uh in uh Serbia uh because in uh during some of the prior Serbian elections like for example 2000 when the Milosevic was being overthrown this theme of uh returning Serbia to Europe was pretty much prevalent in 2008 the motive of the European Union also played a very big role for uh President Adic and for his Democratic party to win that respective elections but now European Union no longer has this uh sway and I think that there are uh the reason for this I think that there is plenty of blame to be shared both with Europeans and both with the Serbs when it comes to the European problems uh number one problem is that since 2008 all the way up until now the only news which the Serbs encountered when they listened about the European Union was bad this from Eurozone crisis, Brexit, migrant crisis, handling of the pandemic, handling of divisions between Eastern European and Western European member states from handling Ukraine to of course do the idea of a general European decline in the century of Sino-American rivalry.
• 50:40
  SPEAKER_01: All of these have been bad news that the Serbs encountered when they would open up their newspapers or okay 21st century or when they would click on the news that's number one.
• 50:50
  SPEAKER_01: Number two is the fact that European Union has been putting the region on the back burner for a very very long time and now European Union is a very bad where many Serbs are now saying it has been 26 years since Milosevic was overthrown.
• 51:04
  SPEAKER_01: If they wanted us in we would be in by three times by now.
• 51:07
  SPEAKER_01: So this of course even with a even with the reasonably liberal urban center pro-European Serbs this skepticism exists.
• 51:18
  SPEAKER_01: Also the fact that European Union has uh pretty much compromised itself frequently by uh turning a blind eye to the transgression of the incumbent leadership where for example you you basically have uh all of these European officials who are incapable of uh formulating a sentence without the word values being a part of this sentence but then next uh next you basically uh help uh legitimize uh the incumbent leadership and you basically tolerate the many of the transgressions which were happening in the country like corruption media freedom suppression of protests uh what else is there also uh also the fact that European Union has uh has made a terrible own call with a country that we all uh know and love which is Macedonia of course a country which uh sacrificed everything for the sake of European uh leadership for the sake of European membership by resolving a tough dispute with uh Greece over uh over its uh constitutional name and in the end this country was of course uh blackmailed uh by uh EU member state Bulgaria so this means that for the Serbian leadership all of this means if I uh tomorrow accept to joining EU sanctions against Russia, if I sever my ties with Moscow and Beijing if I resolve Kosovo dispute will I still be accepted in the European Union or will they find some other excuse uh to put a veto on me and to put me on the back burner as they did to as they did in case of Macedonia so you can see how European Union and of course this is the part where I'm uh critical of the Serbian side as well is that since 2014 when we take a look at the media content of the pro-government media machinery in Serbia European Union has been a very very uh big uh punching back where of course uh despite the fact that you was our main uh economic partner European Union was frequently used uh as uh for bashing whenever they needed to project an external enemy or to divert uh attention away from uh domestic trouble so as you can see in my version of the story it there is a lot of blame to go around I I want to come back to Russia but I I suspect that this is going to be a a complex one um but China maybe let let's let's look at China um I guess talking about this multivectoral foreign policy that people talk about of sort of saying look uh even though trying to move towards European Union membership it's about having good relations with various parts of the world and I I think it'd be interesting to talk a little bit about the global south in in a minute but um the relationship with China how would you define uh Belgrade's policies towards Beijing?
• 53:58
  SPEAKER_01: Yes well I can tell you I think that in the past uh eight years it is China who has emerged as Belgrade's uh primary partner outside of the Western uh world overshadowing even uh Russia for that matter I mean in that uh context we can say that uh uh Belgrade was uh impressed with the fact that China is a rising superpower and particularly rising uh geoeconomic and economic power and it is also impressed that it is a permanent member of the UN Security Council which hasn't recognized Kosovo.
• 54:30
  SPEAKER_01: So a non-recognizer of Kosovo which can also provide a lot of economic resources that Russia cannot provide and which is also able to step in when European Union is not willing to provide, when European Union is not willing to finance infrastructural projects or when the European companies are not willing to take over all the industrial facilities originating from former Yugoslavia that employ local workforce, the Chinese state-owned companies are willing to go these places.
• 55:00
  SPEAKER_01: Now this partnership is I would say much more substantial than anything that Russia has to offer.
• 55:06
  SPEAKER_01: It now spans political dialogue between the two governments and two ruling political parties it is Chinese economic statecraft as expressed in credit lines and expressed in investment it is presence of Chinese tech companies like Huawei and other tech giants it is also the pinnacle probably of Chinese influence in the Balkans medical uh medical assistance during the pandemic and uh increasingly dynamic uh security cooperation where Serbia is buying a lot of military hardware from the from the Chinese.
• 55:41
  SPEAKER_01: So we see a lot of substance there I would say that this uh uh relationship will probably survive uh because uh even if there is a regime change in Belgrade uh this uh the the successor government will still have a low to middle income economy depending on who is doing the metrics which will be hungry for easy capital and for a quick infrastructural work.
• 56:10
  SPEAKER_01: And if the European Union is slow to deliver it then you still need to rely on partners like China, Azerbaijan and United Arab Emirates and whoever else is willing.
• 56:20
  SPEAKER_01: The successor government will probably try to renegotiate some of these deals with China so that they are not as detrimental for environmental standards or labor rights or public health violations as we have seen in the past several years, but they will still need that money.
• 56:37
  SPEAKER_01: But the key challenge for Sino-Serbian relations that is of course the key geopolitical challenge for any country on planet earth in the 21st century will be how to navigate in the age of Sino-American uh rivalry.
• 56:52
  SPEAKER_01: And uh my guess uh as I said I have no fixed view on this uh but my guess is that uh Serbia will that uh impulse the old Yugoslav impulses will kick in where whoever shapes Serbian foreign policy will say ah Cold War we've been here before we know how this game is played so they will probably say we will continue treating uh China as a diplomatic friend we will still try to do business economically with China but we will probably have to step back from partnership with China when it comes to the areas which the Americans find most sensitive whether it is buying military hardware or whether it is allowing the penetration of key technological infrastructure by the Chinese companies or whether when it comes to the rare earth minerals.
• 57:39
  SPEAKER_01: I believe this is probably how the Belgrade will play the game and as I said this is just my opinion.
• 57:44
  SPEAKER_00: You know you you you raise that vital point about Serbia's relationship with the United States.
• 57:49
  SPEAKER_00: I mean notwithstanding the fact that you know Trump is presents all sorts of interesting elements to that and there's been all sorts of speculation about you know Trump family interests in Belgrade and what's I mean how would you characterize that relationship between Serbia and the United States today?
• 58:07
  SPEAKER_01: Now this relationship historically had um is a quite a weird one because in previous major geopolitical conflicts Belgrade and Washington found itself on the same side whether it is the two world wars or whether it is of course the fact that Belgrade as a capital of Yugoslavia was much more open to Washington than other Eastern European communist capitals of that time there is a powerful American cultural influence just like anywhere else.
• 58:35
  SPEAKER_01: But still of course the legacy of the 1990s and the fact that the US is the main reason why Kosovo is independent is probably the biggest the biggest eyesore in that relationship.
• 58:48
  SPEAKER_01: So ever since the overthrow of the Milosevicist regime the two countries have been somewhat of a formal but weary friends because there has been a very tough legacy but of course everyone in Belgrade knew that you cannot particularly after the experience of the 1990s that you cannot openly challenge uh the openly challenge the US so uh Trump again is a very very awkward uh figure in this little drama because on one hand not the Serbs are certainly not crazy about what they are seeing what they saw in Venezuela and certainly not crazy what they saw in um what they are seeing in Iran but at the same time uh many are saying uh many are still uh perhaps instinctively believing if the European Union is not performing then even the US uh under Trump might be attractive because uh while uh they of course ridicule uh Trump's behavior just like everyone else they are also aware of the geopolitical uh heft that the country that over which he presides uh still has as opposed to somewhat uh slow and increasingly factless and ineffective Europeans so again even for a successor government they might make an overture towards the European Union but if the European Union is uh not uh willing to step up and provide something concrete then of course even a potential successor to Vuci Jim Belway might also say well why am I bothering with this uh facless taseless bureaucracy in Brussels perfect so let me try what I can what type of deal I can make with the Americans so again uh this is a very very uh strange uh hot and warm relationship there are so many aspects of uh of Serbian policy which is sort of is coming out very clearly in the interview um but if we if we think about the wider world the global south and and even parts of the Middle East I mean what's been interesting is that Serbia has often held this up that it's not when it you know works works with different actors the United States it's not just Europe it's not just Russia it's not just China it's also many other parts of the world and and we saw about a decade ago that you know the relationship between Serbia and the United Arab Emirates for example was a very very important dimension of Serbian foreign policy.
• 1:01:06
  SPEAKER_00: How much does this still affect Serbia and and Belgrade's outlook that's sort of saying look you know we've got all these great powers but we've also got a rest of the world there that we've traditionally had good relations with um how much does it want to continue that yes I mean on that point I can perhaps disaggregate my response from the Middle East and then into the wider global south.
• 1:01:28
  SPEAKER_01: Now when it comes to the Middle East of course uh we have to be aware the bulk of the three European Mediterranean peninsula the Iberian uh the Balkan Peninsula the Balkan peninsula is the one closest to Middle East and North Africa geographically and this reality has shaped the Balkans throughout the history uh significantly so of course while Serbia does not have the geopolitical heft to uh to shape any of the geopolitical outcomes in the Middle East it is absolutely aware that what happens in the Middle East can affect the Balkans whether it is the energy prices or whether as we have seen in 2015 the flows of refugees and migrants to the Middle Eastern geopolitical rivalries between I don't know Iran Israel and Turkey or the or the religious radicalization of low wolf attackers or various Islamic groups.
• 1:02:20
  SPEAKER_01: They are not perhaps engaged in some deep minded geostrategic analysis but they are cognizant and aware of it instinctively.
• 1:02:29
  SPEAKER_01: Now of course the relationship with Middle Eastern countries uh I think it has several components number one is who has recognized Kosovo and who has not on that point uh Iran is of course uh an important partner despite the fact that the Serbs and Irans were even enemies during the Bosnian war for that matter uh the also uh the fact that uh there is uh is something very important which is weapons deliveries uh to customers like United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia which are major customers for the Serbian arms industry uh always potentially looking for investments from the Gulf even though so far the United Arab Emirates have been the preferable uh partner and uh I think that there is also an element of uh wider relations with uh the uh Islamic world where of course Serbia uh wants to uh show uh to the wider Islamic world that for example the Bosnian war was not uh a war of uh Christianity versus uh Islam but that it was a more localized uh Balkan conflict for example in that context Serbia having communication with the organization of Islamic countries or establishing for the first time diplomatic relations with the Saudi Arabia back in 2012 are somewhat uh symbolic diplomatic uh points in that context.
• 1:03:50
  SPEAKER_01: Now when it comes to the global south this is very very important and yes there is perhaps a legacy of the non-aligned movement uh at the same time when we talk for example of Serbia being one of the rare countries in Europe which hasn't introduced uh sanctions against Russia well when you compare Serbia to the Western Balkans and to the Eastern Europe Serbia appears as the outlier but when you put them in the global South basket all of a sudden you see that many of the diplomatic posturing that Serbia exhibited in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine is much more a global South rubric rather than post-communist Eastern European rubric.
• 1:04:26
  SPEAKER_01: For example condemning Russian invasion of Ukraine in the UN but at the same time still keeping in mind about the wider great power logic uh condemning Russia but uh avoiding to introduce sanctions against Russia and being afraid of any economic or security overspill.
• 1:04:46
  SPEAKER_01: So you can see a very very powerful global south instinct and global south logic in Serbian foreign policy behavior.
• 1:04:54
  SPEAKER_01: But I would say that at this moment in time the two probably the two teams around which Serbian policy towards global south countries including places like Africa revolves because diplomatic engagement and economic engagement exchange is limited but uh it is being mindful which countries did not recognize independent Kosovo and number two finding markets for Serbian weapons industry.
• 1:05:21
  SPEAKER_01: Everything else is secondary mere bonus but I would say that these are the two major points of Serbian policy towards places like Africa and the wider global south.
• 1:05:30
  SPEAKER_00: I think the relationship between Serbia and Russia is is so incredibly important because it's it it's one of it's one of the sort of things um to many on the outside especially in Europe especially North America there is deep concern about the nature of this relationship how deep it is um but it it's it's a far more complicated relationship than I think people often realize and I think you hinted at that even in the 19th century it wasn't as straightforward as people might like to imagine.
• 1:05:59
  SPEAKER_00: How should we Understand this relationship and how does Ukraine fit into this?
• 1:06:06
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I mean I have a forthcoming uh academic uh publication about Serbo-Russian relations throughout history, and I uh called it uh opportunistic brotherhood.
• 1:06:16
  SPEAKER_01: So, but uh there is uh some degree of sympathies.
• 1:06:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yes, I mean I don't fully discount elements like uh Slavic ties or uh orthodoxy or shared context from uh history, but I think that uh there is uh a lot of, first of all, uh intellectual laziness about reducing this relationship solely to Slavic and Orthodox links.
• 1:06:38
  SPEAKER_01: And number two, there is a lot of uh scaremongering uh presenting Belgrade as some platform from which Russians will take over the Balkans or uh Europe for that matter.
• 1:06:49
  SPEAKER_01: I think that despite the warm facade, for the past 200 years, this has been an opportunistic relationship which always existed on two things.
• 1:06:58
  SPEAKER_01: Number one, what is the geostrategic balance of power at the given moment in history?
• 1:07:02
  SPEAKER_01: And number two, who are the elites in power in the two respective uh countries?
• 1:07:07
  SPEAKER_01: Therefore, uh, despite the warm facade of friendship and brotherhood, I think that there is a hidden mistrust behind closed doors because Russians know that the Serbs are only using them to blackmail the West and to get a better bargain from the West.
• 1:07:24
  SPEAKER_01: While on the other hand, Serbs are always fearful that uh the Russians will sell them out in some hypothetical great power bargain with the West.
• 1:07:33
  SPEAKER_01: In this case, it can mean uh being uh being sold out uh in some great power bargain between Moscow and Washington.
• 1:07:42
  SPEAKER_01: And this, of course, comes, if you want an example of this, this is, of course, the issue of Kosovo, where yes, Serbia does rely on Russian support in the UN Security Council on Kosovo.
• 1:07:53
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, they also see how Russia is weaponizing the Kosovo precedent in Crimea, in Donbas, and also in Georgia in 2008 with Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
• 1:08:04
  SPEAKER_01: And they know perfectly well that if the Russians would get the Americans to recognize Crimea as Russian territory in exchange for Russian recognition of independent Kosovo, they know that the Russians will do it right away.
• 1:08:17
  SPEAKER_01: So again, this is a very, very perfect example of this relationship where they cooperate.
• 1:08:23
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, Russia primarily has its own great power interests and ambitions, while on the other hand, Serbia always has to use Russia for its own domestic ends without preventing being uh sacrificed.
• 1:08:36
  SPEAKER_01: So, as I said, this goes uh counter to this uh logic.
• 1:08:40
  SPEAKER_01: And uh, if we were to basically summarize what are the remaining pillars of Russian influence in both Serbia and the Balkans, number one, uh yes, number two, unresolved Kosovo dispute, and number three, Russian popularity among uh the local population.
• 1:08:58
  SPEAKER_01: Now, how does Ukraine fit in?
• 1:09:00
  SPEAKER_01: I think it fits in on one hand.
• 1:09:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh the fact is that uh Russian popularity is so high at this moment in time in the Serbian public, among other things, because of the media campaign conducted by the incumbent Serbian government, that you cannot uh alienate Russia without alienating a significant part of your own uh population.
• 1:09:21
  SPEAKER_01: There is, of course, also the pro the troubling analogies between Serbia and Russia in the 1990s, where many Serbs are now saying, okay, invasion of Ukraine is one thing, and as I said, Serbia has uh has basically voted in favor of UN resolutions condemning the act of invasion.
• 1:09:40
  SPEAKER_01: But at the same time, uh there is constant analogy.
• 1:09:42
  SPEAKER_01: Why should we, for example, sanction Russia to please countries which have recognized independent costs?
• 1:09:48
  SPEAKER_01: So, again, being being back to this old four, and plus this instinct that uh Ukraine war is not Serbia's conflict, that this is something for which Serbia can only be harmed, and that it has very, very little benefit, uh, of course, also shows you this.
• 1:10:05
  SPEAKER_01: So, uh, how does Serbia act?
• 1:10:07
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, again, opportunistically, as we have seen, uh, on one hand, uh one moment you're basically exporting ammunition uh to Ukraine, the next moment you hear it, you hear uh rumors about um about the Russian intelligence services operating uh from Belgrade territory in uh in Moldova.
• 1:10:28
  SPEAKER_01: So that uh actually tells you something else.
• 1:10:31
  SPEAKER_01: Uh I say to them, if you believe that either one of these episodes means that Belvide is tilting one way or the other, Western or Russian way.
• 1:10:38
  SPEAKER_01: No, that is actually not true.
• 1:10:40
  SPEAKER_01: Just take into account that during the Yugoslav that during the Iraq-Iran war in the 1980s, Yugoslav military was supplying uh weaponry and ammunition to both sides.
• 1:10:50
  SPEAKER_01: It is basically the idea that uh the regime can survive by basically doing dirty favors to both of the two conflicted uh great power blocks.
• 1:10:58
  SPEAKER_00: Savuk, I I think final question, and and I really appreciate the time that you've given on all of this, is where where does Serbia go from here on all of this?
• 1:11:09
  SPEAKER_00: You painted this picture of it trying to balance between all these different forces, but ultimately, and uh you know, this is a conversation I I have with people, for example, about Turkey, is that it's all very well from internally there's a logic to trying to engage and balance between all of this.
• 1:11:28
  SPEAKER_00: The danger is that none of them end up trusting uh you if you if you try and do that.
• 1:11:34
  SPEAKER_00: They look at you and they they they would say you're pro-Russian when you think it's gonna serve you this way, you're pro-European when you think it's gonna serve you that way.
• 1:11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, how does Serbia square all this?
• 1:11:45
  SPEAKER_00: Where does it go?
• 1:11:46
  SPEAKER_00: NATO, for example, the vast majority of EU member states are uh part of NATO.
• 1:11:52
  SPEAKER_00: There are four countries that aren't within the EU that aren't, so it's not a requirement to join the European Union, whatever anyone in Serbia might say.
• 1:11:59
  SPEAKER_00: But there is a sense that, you know, Serbia is going to have to make that decision at some point.
• 1:12:05
  SPEAKER_00: Where does it want to be?
• 1:12:06
  SPEAKER_00: If that's even not joining NATO, it's about taking a much closer position on Europe.
• 1:12:10
  SPEAKER_00: Can it actually do that?
• 1:12:12
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I mean, the problem is that we are in a point we are at a stage of such uh international uncertainty that this international uncertainty is probably much more uh reinforcing the Belgrade's tendency to balance rather than forcing it uh to choose uh to choose path.
• 1:12:30
  SPEAKER_01: As I said, in in less than 10 years we will have the elections, but let's do a very, very good uh counterfactual.
• 1:12:38
  SPEAKER_01: Even if there is a government change, many of the international and domestic structures which are compelling Serbian foreign policy behavior will still remain in play.
• 1:12:49
  SPEAKER_01: You will still have a European Union which will not be able to guarantee Belgrade anything.
• 1:12:54
  SPEAKER_01: Uh NATO will still be uh effectively a boogeyman for the public opinion, so no NATO membership.
• 1:13:00
  SPEAKER_01: And plus, uh, let's also be frank, in the age of Trump, NATO no longer uh appears as uh stable as before.
• 1:13:09
  SPEAKER_01: Russians will still be far away, but at the same time, even the successor government will say, okay, we can uh we can dilute the pro-Russian campaign in the Serbian media, and we can definitely downgrade the cooperation with the Russian intelligence services, but we have very, very little interest in joining uh the hawkish policies as uh exhibited by uh Poland or the Baltic countries.
• 1:13:33
  SPEAKER_01: While at the same time, they will also say we also need the money from all sides, so we cannot say no to the Chinese, the Gulf, or the Azerbaijan.
• 1:13:41
  SPEAKER_01: So we might we will probably see uh and also let's also not forget that the successor government will be potentially if we do see a regime change, the successor government will be so vulnerable from within and so burdened with its own domestic troubles and getting its own house in order that it will that uh bold major U-turns of foreign policy fronts will be very, very difficult to implement.
• 1:14:05
  SPEAKER_01: So it is my guess that we will probably be uh we will be seeing some readjustments, uh trying to be more cautious towards uh the European Union, but but still being slightly skeptical towards them for turning a blind eye to Vucic for such a long time.
• 1:14:21
  SPEAKER_01: Uh being skeptical towards the Russians for conducting uh pro-Vucic campaign of labeling these protests as Western black alert revolutions, while still avoiding uh joining, I don't know, uh going full Baltic on the Russians, saying to the Chinese, uh you can invest in Serbia, but at least we treat you not to but to treat our workers better.
• 1:14:44
  SPEAKER_01: While at the same time to the US, they will always say you are a superpower, so we have to treat you as such.
• 1:14:50
  SPEAKER_01: So as I said, uh where do we go from here?
• 1:14:54
  SPEAKER_01: That is impossible for me to tell you, but at this moment in time, I'm I think that given the uh the both domestic vulnerabilities and general state of international uncertainty and instability and unpredictability, I believe that one domain of the public policy that is most difficult to change in Serbia, even in case of uh of a government and regime change, that will be foreign policy.
• 1:15:17
  SPEAKER_00: Boog, um thank you so much for such an all-encompassing interview.
• 1:15:22
  SPEAKER_00: It was it was wonderful to talk to you about Serbia's foreign policy.
• 1:15:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh a fascinating story, is as we discussed, it's been through all sorts of um trials, tribulations, and I think you have you've explained it brilliantly.
• 1:15:36
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you so, so much for taking part.
• 1:15:39
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 1:15:40
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks so much for listening.
• 1:15:42
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• 1:15:50
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• 1:15:55
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• 1:16:10
  SPEAKER_00: I'll put the links in the show notes below.
• 1:16:13
  SPEAKER_00: Many thanks again for joining me and catch you in the next episode.