Trump’s tinderbox: US politics and the next war in the Balkans

Summary:

Over recent years, Serbia's government and Serb nationalists elsewhere in the Western Balkans have increased their revisionist agitation in the region. They recently adopted an “all-Serb declaration” that seeks to overturn the post-Dayton settlement in Bosnia and Herzegovina, and claims Kosovo as an inseparable part of Serbia.

Though some international observers have criticised the Biden administration for its concessions to Aleksandar Vucic, Serbia’s president, it deserves credit for containing Belgrade’s ability to realise its ambitions and preventing two worst-case scenarios: the disintegration of the Bosnian state and armed escalation between Serbia and Kosovo. That fragile status-quo would come under significant threat from a new Trump presidency in the United States of America (USA). Among other risks, his second administration may seek to reverse sanctions that have constrained separatist appetites among Bosnian Serbs and to revive dangerous proposals for a Serbia-Kosovo land swap. Peace in the region is at stake.

Particularly in the event of a Trump victory on 5 November, the European Union (EU) should prepare a package of new deterrence mechanisms that it can apply in the Western Balkans independently from the US and spoiler member states like Hungary. And in either eventuality, it should take more responsibility for stabilising the region.

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