“So, what does Karadzic’s arrest mean? Probably not a lot in the long-term, because hardly anything ever means much in the long-term when it comes to Serbia. It is, however a potentially handy short-term bit of PR for the current Serbian government.”

Karl Haudbourg
Ambassador of Serbia to the world

The current ‘pro-west’ government in Belgrade needed some seri?us backing and promises and threats from the EU to even come into its slim existence, not to mention an unparalleled interference in to another sovereign states elections – but hey, they’re all a bunch of barbarians who would certainly profit from outside help, much as the Congress of Berlin in 1878 did, much as the A-H helpful annexation of BiH in 1908 (a plenty good enough reason for a bunch of bosnian serbs, moslems and others to want to whack the Archduke) and A-H’s Ultimatum to Serbia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_Ultimatum) etc. etc.

Of course foreign interference in the Balkans has made it such a safe place. The Serbs have no ‘identity crisis’ at all, it is just that the ascendant powers, i.e. the West at the moment, has decided that Serbia is an enemy (1990s+) rather than an ally (WWI & WWII) and needs to be civilized – no so far from the view of the Ottomans that that British and French stopped the Ottoman empire from collapsing ran out of money in the mid-1850s and set up the first ottoman bank…

The real question is how long will it be before the Serbs tell the EU to shove it? The EU has been long on promises, short on delivery. It may well be that it is the EU that terminates Tadic’s freak circus of a government. The electorate are expecting results and they will only hold out for the illusion only so long. Without Serbian interest in EU membership, what does that mean for the Stability pact, corridor 8 (or whatever). Serbia is a strategically important geographical region.

Bulgaria may have fallen to all sorts of threats and promised to ‘recognize’ Kosovo despite publicly announcing not to do so and only Romania has told the EU to shove it. Does the EU and NATO somehow expect both these countries to come on board and intimidate Serbia? Both were immensely damaged when sanctions were placed on the FRY in the 1990s and will be exceedingly reluctant to even threaten as much.

Turkey, for all its US ally goodness is still pissed off with them as after all the support they gave the US in the first gulf war, not to mention the very large loss of trade due to sanctions imposed on their neighbor, the US ordered them to let it use their territory to invade Iraq for a second time. Turkey refused, the US blamed Turkey for its own failure in Iraq, and the marvelous relationship has faltered and become strained with NATO’s most important member.

Still, whilst we can be smug over Karadzic in the Hague, we can conveniently ignore the West’s reheated relations with Indonesia and total lack of action since those fun events in east timor….