Checkers and chess in Kosovo

May 9, 1999

United Nations--The latest diplomatic initiative to halt the increasingly gruesome Kosovo crisis, involves a plan by the G-8 Foreign Ministers, including Russia, to broker a Balkan peace. The proposal supported by key NATO members as well as by Japan and Russia, offers a seemingly "reasonable" way to solve the crisis--the withdrawal of Serbian security forces from the disputed province, introduction of an international peacekeeping force, and a speedy return of the ethnic Albanian refugees.

The peace plan conceived by Russia and Germany, would have the benediction of the United Nations. It would considerably water down the NATO control and presence in the proposed international force. And while Milosevic will initially balk at grasping at this olive branch, the deal--as with the tainted Bosnian accords--offers him more than half a loaf, not to mention continued tenure as Belgrade's political supremo.

Not surprisingly after more than six weeks of less than crippling air raids on Serbia, President Bill Clinton finally sees his impasse--Slobodan Milosevic is still defiantly standing, some West European allies are standing scared, the U.S. Congress remains divided, and the tempting prospect of sending ground troops becomes too risky a year before the U.S. presidential elections.

Balkan Bill and his faithful British terrier "Tony" need a quick victory or a face- saving exit strategy from the Kosovo quagmire.

Can the Kremlin offer the ultimate exit strategy which can be arranged for a price? Though Boris Yeltsin's political buffoonery has overshadowed Moscow's policy, the calculated moves of Premier Evgeny Primakov bear careful watching. While the Clinton Administration characteristically plays a fast game of political checkers and then on to the next crisis, the Kremlin traditionally plays a very calculated geopolitical chess game in which results and dangers are not immediately apparent.

Russia's "special relationship" with the Serbs has been its undoing in the past but today can be turned into a positive policy. The Kremlin's Balkan troubleshooter Viktor Chernomyrdin descended upon the U.N. for follow-up talks with Secretary General Kofi Annan. Just a week earlier Annan visited Germany and Russia to try to craft a peace deal which would bring the United Nations center stage in any Kosovo settlement. Yet even Chernomyrdin conceded "There must be political will both from Belgrade and NATO."

Germany's Social Democrat/Green government has been sending its Ministers to Moscow in the fervent hope of forging a settlement. Even the conservative Die Welt newspaper speaks of Moscow as the Mecca of Diplomacy and adds editorially that to solve the Kosovo crisis, "All Roads Lead to Moscow."

Likewise the conservative Le Figaro of Paris wrote "It's the future of Europe which is in play. The Americans have embarked in a direction which is not best for Europe. That is why Moscow must be enlisted for the exit to the war." The article added, "France and Europe must put all their weight behind Yeltsin and Primakov in the battle for peace."

London's Observer added, "The West's decision to welcome Russia's diplomatic involvement was not without risk. By putting Moscow at the fulcrum of diplomacy, there is a danger Russia will come to be seen as the arbiters of what constitutes a fair settlement. Moreover, bankrupted by financial collapse last August, gripped by post imperial trauma and stripped of international prestige, Russia may prove a messy mediator."

Germany, France and Italy all have brittle left-wing coalition governments distinctly ill at ease with continued military operations without the parallel balm of diplomatic negotiation.

Should this diplomatic deal take hold--and If is always big in the Balkans--it saves face for all sides but really reinforces the Serbian status quo in Kosovo. Naturally the details which must be defined and refined, must painstakingly pass through the UN Security Council which offers ample maneuver room for Moscow's mischief.

Kosovo is not a virtual reality video game which is clinical, clean and manageable. Witness the 700,000 Kosovar refugees, the killings and the destruction. The latest and hopefully last chapter of the Yugoslav drama now evokes a surrealistic international chess game in which the Serbs having lost key pieces, still could win in a settlement. Tragically, the Albanians have assumed the role of the pawns.

John J. Metzler is a U.N. correspondent covering diplomatic and defense issues who writes weekly for World Tribune.com.