The EU needs a Bismarck in Kosovo

The term Realpolitik tends to be bandied about somewhat recklessly, often as a code for hardnosed policy that is necessary, if unpopular. Most recently, the term has been applied to Kosovo's declaration of independence and the EU's mission there - as if it could explain the inadequacies and incompetence associated with these moves. If nothing else, this is an insult to history.

Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor of Prussia, is often credited with being the father of Realpolitik - which is actually not the case, since it was a 19th century German writer and politician, who coined the phrase in reference to Prince Metternich's machinations to maintain the Great Power system. Nonetheless, Bismarck was undoubtedly one of the main practitioners of the art, not least because he was a brilliant strategist. From his perspective, the need for Realpolitik rested upon a very long-term vision of German unification, brought about at the territorial expense of neighbouring states which would suffer national humiliation. He was aware of the possible consequences of having to fight a war on two fronts.

Bismarck's actions, like Metternich's, are far from being admirable - but in both cases they were clearly thought out, with a specific end in mind. Much the same is true of the most noted - or notorious - modern statesman deemed a master of Realpolitik, Henry Kissinger, a biographer of Metternich, though in his case the aim was to find an equitable and pragmatic accommodation among powerful states, at the expense of doctrine or ideology. But the point remains the same: he had a clear vision that stretched beyond the immediate future, and it was within that context that he pursued his policies.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of developments in Kosovo, or EU involvement in them - either in the past or the present, which means they are ultimately a hostage to fortune. The very starting point of the chronology, with the bombing in 1999, was retrospective rather than forward-looking, since it was about the Bosnian war and the European shortcomings in it, most specifically the disaster of Srebrenica, rather than about a coherent understanding of the region and its future. And while guilt and the need somehow to compensate for years of inadequacy are no bad thing, they cannot serve as a basis for a strategy.

This became apparent very quickly indeed once the bombing campaign against Serbia ended and NATO and the international community occupied Kosovo - with the realisation that they were now responsible for the citizens of the province and its overall management. As soon as that point became clear, the states that had spearheaded the bombing sought to rid themselves of the problem of Kosovo, but it was not easy: having bombed Serbia, there was no desire fully to return the province to it.

There was also no apparent wish to develop a full and proper relationship with Serbia since, under Slobodan Milosevic, it would not comply with the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia's demands to turn in war criminals. But the regimes that followed Milosevic since 2003 have been far more compliant, with only Ratko Mladic and Radovan Karadzic remaining at large - and while they are undoubtedly extremely significant, the EU should long since have been far more creative in bringing Serbia into the fold, thereby creating a viable regional policy within which the future of Kosovo could have been resolved.

Most insiders agree that there is much merit to this argument, but that it has been effectively blocked by the Dutch, who have the greatest guilt complex about Srebrenica, having withdrawn their troops as the enclave was falling rather than attempt to save the Bosniaks trapped there. While this is understandable, it also serves to underline the basic point: deciding that Kosovo should go independent was not a strategic move or an act of Realpolitik so much as a function of desperation and weakness. Worse still, coupling this move with the deployment of the EU's European Security and Defence Policy mission more or less undermined it from the start - since for the Kosovar Serbs, not to mention Serbia and Russia, it is immediately identified with the new government rather than the international community, thereby ensuring it is deemed partial.

Bismarck was a great strategist to the last - not least because he knew that besides vision there is a need for responsible leadership. Out of office, shortly before his death, he noted: "If the country is well ruled, the coming war may be averted; if it is badly ruled, that war may become a Seven Years War!" If the EU is to avoid another war in the Balkans, it must therefore at the very least manage Kosovo well. If not, the consequences will indeed be dire.

• Ilana Bet-El is an academic, author and policy adviser based in Brussels.

The term Realpolitik tends to be bandied about somewhat recklessly, often as a code for hardnosed policy that is necessary, if unpopular. Most recently, the term has been applied to Kosovo's declaration of independence and the EU's mission there - as if it could explain the inadequacies and incompetence associated with these moves. If nothing else, this is an insult to history.