A Stability-Seeking Power: U.S. Foreign Policy and Secessionist Conflicts 9780773591028

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a stability-seeking power

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A Stability-Seeking Power U.S. Foreign Policy and Secessionist Conflicts J O N AT H A N PA Q U I N

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Ithaca

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© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2010 isbn 978-0-7735-3736-1 (cloth) isbn 978-0-7735-3737-8 (paper) Legal deposit second quarter 2010 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. McGill-Queen’s University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (bpidp) for our publishing activities.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Paquin, Jonathan, 1975– A stability-seeking power : U.S. foreign policy and secessionist conflicts / Jonathan Paquin. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-7735-3736-1 (bnd) isbn 978-0-7735-3737-8 (pbk) 1. United States – Foreign relations – 1989–. 2. Autonomy and independence movements. I. Title. e183.7.p19 2010

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c2010-900470-1

This book was typeset by True to Type in 10.5/13 Sabon

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To the memory of Marie-Berthe and Jules Paquin, and Marie-Eva and Xavier Gauthier

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Contents

Acknowledgments ix 1 Explaining U.S. Foreign Policy Variations toward Secessionist Conflicts 3 2 The Stability-Seeking Argument 13 3 The U.S. Recognition of Croatia and Slovenia 53 4 Macedonia: A U.S. Delay of Recognition in Five Episodes 75 5 Kosovo: The Long March toward U.S. Recognition 101 6 Eritrea’s Independence and U.S. Regional Interests 128 7 Somaliland: A Non-recognized Independent State 152 8 Theoretical and Empirical Findings 171 Notes 185 Bibliography Index 225

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Acknowledgments

All through the research process leading to the completion of this book I had in mind Robert O. Keohane’s observations in International Institutions and State Power (29) about academic research: “The essence of discovery is being deeply puzzled about questions on which one is supposedly an expert.” When I undertook this research project, I felt I knew about u.s. foreign policy and about secessionist conflicts extensively, but I was deeply puzzled and even confused about how these topics interrelated. Writing this book was, therefore, quite an endeavour, and Robert Keohane was right. The research puzzle I had in mind, which can be contained within a single sentence, occupied most of my academic life for several years. This project led me, among other things, to spend a semester as a visiting researcher in the Department of Government at Georgetown University in order to conduct research and interviews in Washington, dc. Fortunately, during the process of writing this book I received the advice of several people. My greatest debt is to Stephen Saideman, who read several drafts of each chapter and provided important criticisms and suggestions during the writing process. I would also like to thank Louis Bélanger, Mark Brawley, David Edelstein, Julian Durazo Hermann, Patrick James, Jean Laponce, Nelson Michaud, and Sid Noel for their sound and relevant comments on various chapters of the book. Anonymous reviewers at Foreign Policy Analysis also provided important criticisms that helped to refine my article published there (October 2008), which is partly based on this book. Thanks also to the Department of Government at George-

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town University for its support and hospitality. More specifically, I would like to thank Charles Kupchan and Andrew Bennett. Finally, special thanks to Catherine Thomassin, who helped a great deal with the index. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation of the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Program. The book also benefited from the support of the Fonds québécois de la recherche sur la société et la culture (fqrsc), the J.W. McConnell McGill Major Fellowship, the Research Group in International Security (regis) at McGill University, King’s University College at the University of Western Ontario, and the Faculty of Social Sciences at Université Laval. Without their financial help it would have been difficult, maybe even impossible, to finish this book. The completion of this research would also have been much harder without the support of my friends and family members. I would like to express my appreciation to all of my friends who made my life more enjoyable during these intense years of research. Last but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to my parents Jocelyne and Claude Paquin for their unfailing support, understanding and love.

Parts of chapter 4 have been published in a revised form. See Jonathan Paquin, “Managing Controversy: u.s. Stability-Seeking and the Birth of the Macedonian State,” Foreign Policy Analysis, Vol. 4, no. 4 (October 2008), pp. 441–62. I would like to thank the publishers of Foreign Policy Analysis for their permission to reproduce portions of this article.

Explaining u.s. Policy Variations

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1 Explaining U.S. Foreign Policy Variations toward Secessionist Conflicts

introduction As the most powerful state in the current international system, the United States has been quite concerned with the rise of intrastate wars since the end of the Cold War and has been relentlessly called on to mediate and resolve these conflicts in places like Somalia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Rwanda. The resurgence of ethno-nationalism and ethnic tensions following the collapse of the Soviet Union has also brought the United States face-to-face with a new foreign policy dilemma: Should it play the role of a policeman of the world by intervening without discrimination in foreign ethnic wars, or should it limit its involvement to issues that are directly linked to its core national interests? During the last two decades, scholars have extensively studied the international dimension of ethnic conflicts. Among them, David Carment and Patrick James have focused their attention on theorizing this facet of international politics.1 Others, like David Lake and Donald Rothchild, have questioned whether ethnic conflicts spread internationally through escalation and diffusion. What has been less emphasized, however, is that intrastate conflicts have created an important international challenge for the u.s. superpower: how to deal with secessionist conflicts. Scholars have neglected the study of secessionist struggles by often treating them as a sub-category of intrastate wars and ethnic conflicts. Yet secessionism has its own set of implications. Being located, in the words of Donald Horowitz, “squarely at the junction of internal and international politics,”2 secession is the process by which several states are born and others cease to exist. In the last twenty years only, secessionism

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has caused significant international disruption. Secessionist forces in Croatia and Slovenia led to the disintegration of Yugoslavia, Slovak nationalism initiated the breakup of Czechoslovakia, and secessionism in Eritrea caused the separation of Ethiopia. nato air strikes against Serbia in 1999, the war between Russia and Georgia in the summer 2008, and more recently the humanitarian crisis in Yemen were also related to secessionist struggles.3 Despite the crucial importance of secessionism for understanding recent geopolitical transformations, little is known about the behaviour of the American superpower towards this political force. Declarations made by top American officials indicate that for the sake of a stable international order the United States is careful not to encourage secessionist movements abroad. During the Cold War, the White House was systematically opposed to secessionist selfdetermination movements (e.g., in Biafra, Eritrea, Kurdistan, Quebec, the Southern Sudan). The containment of the Soviet empire made the preservation of the territorial status quo a cardinal principle that guided the approach of the United States toward secessionist conflicts. The recognition of Bangladesh’s secession by the Nixon administration in 1972 is the exception that proves the rule. It was the only case of u.s. recognition of a non-colonial secessionist state from 1945 to 1990. Bangladesh was recognized by the White House because India and the Soviet Union had made its secession a fait accompli and, more importantly, to fight growing Soviet influence in the new-born state.4 In the post–Cold War era, Washington maintained this anti-secessionist bias. Secretary of State Warren Christopher pointed out during his Senate confirmation hearing in 1993 that since the world is made up of thousands of ethnic minorities and less than two hundred sovereign states, allowing the right of external self-determination to those ethnic minorities would lead to permanent turmoil in the international system.5 Joseph Nye, a former assistant secretary of defence, made a similar argument when he asserted that the political precedent that the United States “would create by endorsing a general right of self-determination could have disastrous consequences.”6 He argued that the United States should be extremely cautious about demands for secession because they could create enormous violence. This position was reiterated by President Clinton in a speech on federalism in 1999, when he declared that if every ethnic group became independent, “we might have 800 coun-

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tries in the world and have a very difficult time having a functioning economy or a functioning global polity.”7 The historical background of the United States, in particular, the painful experience of the Civil War, coupled with its current leading status in the world, probably reinforces its apprehensive attitude toward secessionism and its search for a stable international system. This historical background may not be significant enough to shape American responses to secessionist crises in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, but it certainly influences Washington’s perception of secessionist conflicts abroad. According to former u.s. ambassador James Blanchard, “the vast majority of Americans, inside and outside the government, have absolutely no sympathy or patience for the notion of secession. That’s rooted, reasonably or not, in our own Civil War.”8 Declarations and speeches, however, do not tell us much about how the United States does respond to secessionist crises. And if the events of the last two decades have shown that secessionism is an important security concern and is likely to remain so in the twentyfirst century, it is still largely unexplored from a u.s. foreign policy point of view, and important foreign policy questions remain unanswered. For instance, what are the motives and interests guiding Washington’s foreign policy toward secessionist conflicts in the post–Cold War? Does the United States tend to get involved in the resolution of these crises? Will Washington always support the central states struggling with secessionist groups as a matter of principle? Or are there any moral considerations that may lead it to support secessionist ambitions? These questions are important since, despite its anti-secessionist bias, the United States has recognized the independence of several secessionist states in the last twenty years, which is a significant departure from its Cold War policy. The purpose of this book is therefore to understand what determines the American reaction toward secessionist conflicts in the post–Cold War era. More specifically, the research focuses on the puzzling variation in the u.s. response to secessionist attempts. Washington has seemingly reacted in a contradictory manner to secessionist conflicts by backing central governments in some cases, while recognizing the independence of secessionist states in others. Why has it done so? Why, for instance, did it recognize the secession of Croatia, Eritrea, and Kosovo but remain categorically opposed to the independence of Abkhazia and Somaliland? How

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can we explain this policy variation? What accounts for the u.s. departure from its a priori support for stable international borders? Can this apparent inconsistency be explained by the legitimacy of each case of secession, by the regional environment in which secessionist movements emerged, by the lobbying of u.s. ethnic groups in Washington, mobilized for the independence of their ethnic kin abroad or against the breakup of their homeland? This research puzzle raises an important challenge in u.s. foreign policy, but the existing literature does not tackle this critical issue properly.

the argument Existing theories of foreign policy and international relations as they relate to ethnic and secessionist conflicts do not alone account for the research questions under investigation. Current systemic and domestic arguments are based on assumptions that fail to capture the logic and preferences behind American behaviour toward secessionist struggles. The research presented in this book remedies this problem by developing an argument built on the defensive version of the realist paradigm of foreign policy. It argues that the United States is a “defensive positionalist” state that stresses the importance of regional stability in the management of secessionist struggles. It maintains that the search for stability is the United States’ paramount interest, one that explains the variation in the American response to these conflicts. This stability-seeking argument, which is delineated in the next chapter, asserts that the United States supports central states facing secessionist crises as long as they can guarantee the stability of their international borders. When these states are unable or unwilling to maintain the stability of their borders and refuse to negotiate with secessionist leaders, the United States will shift its policy and consent to recognize the respective secessionist states if, and only if, the secessionists can demonstrate their ability to maintain stability. This idea explains when and why Washington has departed on multiple occasions from its anti-secessionist policy.

why this topic? One might ask why understanding how the United States approaches secessionist conflicts matters. I argue that grasping the causes of

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the fluctuations of u.s. policy towards secessionist struggles is pressing for several reasons. First, secessionist movements constitute, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, an enduring security challenge to the lone American superpower, as well as to the international community. The American war in Iraq, for instance, had the undesired effect of exacerbating the issue of Kurdish secessionist ambitions, which poses a problem for stability in the Middle East. The recent military confrontation between Georgia and two of its secessionist regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, destabilized the Caucasus and spoiled the already tense relationship between Russia, which supported the secessionist states, and the United States, an ally of Georgia. In a study published by the Carnegie Corporation in 2002, David Callahan argued that “ethnic conflicts and quests for self-determination around the world are likely to be among the most important factors driving international politics in the next decades.”9 I agree with this assertion and I would add that secessionism is especially important as it targets the territorial integrity of existing sovereign states, which are the central actors in international relations. Thus, by understanding why the u.s. response to secessionist struggles varies greatly, we will be in a better position to explain and predict the American response to this enduring security challenge in the twenty-first century. Furthermore, because the United States stands unrivalled in the international system, its actions can directly affect the success or failure of secessionist states. Indeed, there is a direct connection between a state’s relative power and the effectiveness of its diplomatic recognition: recognition by the American superpower has a greater impact on the process of secession than recognition by any other state. The reason is simple: because of the size of its power, defined in military, economic, and diplomatic terms, the United States has the greatest political leverage to make secession a fait accompli. u.s. recognition of a secessionist state can significantly increase the credibility of the secession, regardless of the qualitative value and merits of the case.10 This explains, for instance, why Biafra failed to secede from Nigeria in the late 1960s, but why Kosovo recently succeeded. Biafra managed to be recognized by some foreign states, but failed to obtain recognition from the United States or from other great powers and was unable to sustain its independence. Kosovo, however, was recognized by the United

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States and its allies (the United Kingdom and France, among others) which made Kosovo’s secession a fait accompli, even though Serbia, Russia, and China were opposed to it. As Horowitz points out, “whether a secessionist movement will achieve its aims … is determined largely by international politics, by the balance of interests and forces that extend beyond the state.”11 Without great power recognition, and especially u.s. recognition, secessionist states cannot normally function in the interstate system, and their independence has almost no value on the international scene. These states are likely to fail to be admitted as members of the United Nations, since one or several permanent members of the Security Council can veto their application. Moreover, unrecognized secessionist states can hardly request economic support from the International Monetary Fund (imf) and the World Bank. The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (fyrom) faced this problem from 1991 to 1994, and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and Somaliland are still struggling with it. For these reasons, it is crucial for scholars and policy-makers to understand the motives behind the American response to secessionist crises. In this book I hope to make a significant contribution to the literature on American foreign policy and on third state intervention in secessionist conflicts.

terminology This research focuses on the American decision to grant or not grant diplomatic recognition to secessionist states, as opposed to simply supporting or not supporting secessionist movements. There is a major difference between granting diplomatic recognition and demonstrating solidarity through material and political means. Secessionist ambitions can be supported in various ways, such as by providing sanctuary, humanitarian aid, and funding, as well as by supporting the right of self-determination and military intervention.12 Granting diplomatic recognition, however, is the ultimate level of political-diplomatic support, and it has serious implications. It leads to the acceptance or refusal of new sovereign entities into the community of sovereign nations and, consequently, to the maintenance or disintegration of existing independent states. It is common to argue that material support is crucial for a secessionist state, as opposed to political support, which is often por-

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trayed as cheap and inconsequential. David Carment argues, for instance, that “demonstrating solidarity with an ethnic group has low cost implications. That is, decision makers can practice diplomacy ‘on the cheap.’” He adds, “states may become involved by applying political or diplomatic pressures, especially when they are unwilling or incapable of providing resources.”13 I agree with Carment that expressing solidarity can be cheap. In the end, however, it is political support that makes or breaks internationally recognized states, not material support. Alexis Heraclides is right when he maintains that “ultimately, it is numerous recognitions that will transform a secessionist entity (unilaterally declared state contravening the strict self-determination principle) into a state.”14 Thus, I focus not on the u.s. response toward all groups expressing secessionist ambitions but rather on conflicts in which secessionist states are formally attempting to split from their central state. More specifically, my research highlights how the United States uses its power to grant or deny diplomatic recognition in order to increase its political leverage in secessionist conflicts and to maximize its national interests. Over the years, there has been great confusion over the meaning of the words used to describe the process leading states to achieve independence. Some authors have used the words separation and secession interchangeably, while others have given a particular meaning to each of these concepts. Heraclides makes a clear distinction between these terms, which is important in the context of the present research. He explains that separatism is a movement seeking political autonomy within a state, such as federal status. Secessionism is a more radical enterprise to the extent that it is a movement seeking independence from a state.15 I believe that such a distinction is important to make in order to avoid confusion. In this book, I deal specifically with the issue of secession, which I define as the withdrawal of a political unit from an existing sovereign state to create a new independent and sovereign entity. The concept of stability-seeking, which is at the center of this book, should also be clarified. Stability is defined as a state of peace existing between sovereign states in a region. It implies the maintenance of and respect for international borders (including no refugees flowing across international borders) and non-intervention in states’ internal affairs. Taken together, these elements constitute the main interest of the United States toward secessionist conflicts.

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research methods This book focuses on six cases of u.s. response to secessionist crises: Croatia, Eritrea, Kosovo, Macedonia, Slovenia, and Somaliland. This choice allows me to study the variation in the u.s. response by focusing on u.s. recognition, delay of recognition, and non-recognition, thereby limiting the problem of selection bias and strengthening the external validity (or the generalizability) of the research. Moreover, I deal with cases from two different regional environments, the Balkans and the Horn of Africa so that I can not only measure variations between cases from the same regional setting but also appraise cross-regional variations. To evaluate the robustness of the stability argument presented in the next chapter, this research combines the methods of “structured, focused comparison” and “process-tracing”. This methodological combination allows me to focus systematically on facts that are relevant for the measurement of the argument as well as to make the appropriate connections between the stability argument and observable outcomes. I also look at two competing domestic arguments – related to ethnic politics and business interests – and compare them to the stability argument. This allows me to assess whether the proposed argument offers better explanations and predictions than the two main domestic propositions. This comparison should contribute to the debate concerning the main sources of u.s. foreign policy. Data Collection I have gathered information from various sources. Through the Freedom of Information Act (foia), I requested and obtained the declassification of cables and analyses produced by the State Department and by u.s. embassies on the selected cases. These documents were highly relevant for process-tracing, as they allowed the recreation of parts of the debates and discussions within the u.s. government leading to the recognition or non-recognition of the cases studied. Moreover, several interviews were conducted in Washington, dc, with former officials from the National Security Council and the State Department who worked on secessionist conflicts under the administrations of George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. I also relied on memoirs written by former

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u.s. officials who were involved in the formulation of the u.s. response to the selected cases.

the structure of this book Chapter 2 introduces the different theories of international relations and foreign policy that deal with foreign intervention in ethnic and secessionist conflicts. It shows that none of the existing arguments, whether domestic or international, provide satisfactory explanations for the research puzzle under investigation. As a result, the chapter proposes a new model of u.s. foreign policy. It delineates the stability argument by presenting its assumptions and logic, as well as by establishing a clear connection between u.s. interests and the concept of stability. Chapters 3 through 7 are empirical. They examine how the United States reacted to secessionist crises in the post–Cold War era and measure the stability theory, as well as competing domestic arguments. Chapter 3 focuses on the secessionist crises in Croatia and Slovenia that occurred in 1991–92. It explains why the United States initially refused to recognize the independence of these Yugoslav republics and why it shifted in favour of their recognition nine months later. Chapter 4 deals with the complex case of Macedonia, which unfolded from 1991 to 2004. It reviews how the crisis started and why it took thirteen years for the United States to complete the process of Macedonia’s diplomatic recognition. Chapter 5 completes the study of the Balkan region with the case of Kosovo, focusing on the unfolding of the crisis and analyzing the factors that led the White House to deny Kosovo’s recognition from 1991 to 2007 but to reverse its decision in early 2008. Macedonia and Kosovo provide interesting instances of u.s. recognition delay. Chapter 6 and 7 concentrate on the variation in the u.s. position towards two cases of secession in Africa: Eritrea and Somaliland. Chapter 6 highlights the reasons that led the United States to grant Eritrea’s recognition in 1993, after having supported Ethiopia, the central state, for more than forty years. The last empirical case, presented in Chapter 7, is that of Somaliland. I show why the u.s. government refused to support and to recognize this de facto independent state even though Somalilanders fulfilled most of the u.s. stability prerequisites. Finally, chapter 8 presents theoretical and empirical findings by reviewing the performance of the stability argument, as well as the

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competing domestic propositions. The broader theoretical contributions of the book are also presented, and the implications of the argument for states that are currently experiencing secessionist struggles are finally addressed.

the united states and secessionism in the twenty-first century The main objective of this book is to set the ground for future research on the United States and secessionism. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the United States still sits at the top of the international system and remains involved, at various levels, in the different regions of the world, seeking to fulfil its global interests. It is, therefore, very likely that the American superpower will be confronted with many other secessionist crises that will jeopardize its interests in the future. In a globalized world in which people tend to use identity and cultural differences as a basis for political demands, minority nationalism and secessionist claims will remain security concerns for Washington. Scholars have recently found that there are approximately five thousand ethno-linguistic groups in the world and that about three hundred of them are politically mobilized to defend their interests.16 This indicates that secessionism is and will continue to be a great source of international disruption for the United States, even if only a small portion of these groups seek secession. I do not pretend that secessionism is the most important security concern for the United States. Issues related to terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear weapons, for instance, certainly rank higher on the u.s. national security scale. However, secessionist conflicts have the potential to alter regional order by creating fluctuations in the distribution of states’ power, and they can disrupt international stability by undermining the territorial integrity of u.s. allies. In this respect, secessionism is an important security concern for the United States in this century, and a book dedicated to this subject is therefore required.

2 The Stability-Seeking Argument

introduction Despite the great number of intrastate conflicts in which the United States has been involved since the end of the Cold War, the literature on its foreign policy toward ethnic conflicts, and more specifically toward secessionist movements, is scarce. Several books and articles have been published on how the United States and the international community have responded to specific intrastate crises, but little work has focused on the u.s. response to secessionist conflicts. Those who have dedicated books to this issue have often been more interested in the normative aspect of the debate than in the theoretical one. Among the questions that are often addressed in the literature on u.s. interventions in ethnic conflicts, one appears to be central: under what conditions should the United States intervene in these conflicts? Although stimulating for intellectual discussions, this question does not contribute to the scientific understanding of when and why it does intervene in these conflicts. For instance, based on an analysis of successful and failed cases of u.s. prevention of and intervention in ethnic conflicts, David Callahan formulates normative proposals for avoiding future ethnic conflicts and suggests circumstances under which the United States should intervene when they do occur.1 His rich empirical analysis of several ethnic crises contributes to the debate regarding u.s. policy toward secessionist self-determination; however, he does not attempt to explain the variation in the u.s. decisions to intervene. Neither does he develop a theoretical argument that could be systematically applied to empirical cases to explain this puzzle. The same criticism can be addressed to Morton Halperin, David Scheffer, and Patricia

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Small, who dedicated a book to how the United States and the international community should respond to separatist self-determination in what they call the New World Order.2 Driven by normative considerations, their analysis, conducted in the early 1990s, is empirically strong but does not include any theoretical framework that could explain patterns of foreign policy behaviour. They are more interested in what should be than in what is. Henry Bienen has also focused on u.s. foreign policy toward ethnic conflicts.3 Even though he raises several interesting questions regarding why and when the United States should intervene, his analysis is purely normative and motivated by the desire to formulate responses to ethnic nationalism that best suit American capacity and interests, rather than by the aim of understanding a defined research puzzle. Evelyn Farkas, adopts a different approach. She compares three instances of intra-state conflicts in the 1990s (i.e., Iraq in 1991, Ethiopia, and Bosnia) in an attempt to explain u.s. policy regarding state partition.4 Although interesting and comprehensive, her work is not theoretically driven and does not allow the development of a consistent theoretical model that explains and predicts the behaviour of the United States toward secessionist crises. Farkas does identify some factors that influence policy-makers, but she does not insert them into a coherent theory of foreign policy. In a recent book, Steven David argues that civil wars have replaced international conflicts as the pre-eminent threat to vital American interests. According to him, certain states that are strategically important to the United States, such as Pakistan and China, are likely to fall into civil war, which would significantly damage American vital interests.5 David argues that civil wars are the greatest threat to the United States in the twenty-first century because they are impossible to deter and, even if they are not directed toward the United States, their consequences can be catastrophic for it (e.g., if they result in the use of weapons of mass destruction or the collapse of the world capitalist system). His speculative work is well documented and focuses on an area of research that is increasingly important for u.s. national security. David builds his research on an interesting theoretical assertion: he maintains that “in the post–Cold War world America’s security and economic well-being depend upon order being maintained in certain key states.”6 This argument, however, is not grounded in the literature

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and does not flesh out the theoretical mechanism that connects order to u.s. foreign policy. Moreover, his research deals with the prospect of instability in four states identified as vital to u.s. interests and does not explain or predict u.s. foreign policy response toward these potential intra-state conflicts. Thus, recent studies that have focused on American foreign policy toward intrastate, ethnic, or secessionist conflicts have failed to produce theoretical models that make sense of the American policy response (including its variation over time) toward these conflicts. What’s more, these studies have neglected the issue of secessionism per se, and none of them have addressed our research puzzle. Aside from the u.s. foreign policy literature on ethnic conflicts, the literature in international relations has attempted to identify the factors that explain third state intervention in ethnic and secessionist conflicts. Experts in international relations often divide these factors into two categories: systemic and domestic. The former category assumes that the international environment is the central determinant of third state intervention. As for the latter, it asserts that a third state’s internal politics best explain intervention and that domestic groups within the state have the greatest impact on foreign policy decision making. The question is whether this international relations literature can explain the foreign policy puzzle under investigation.

security and power Neo-realists argue that security and power are the central determinant of interstate interaction and that states follow the same rationale when deciding whether to intervene in internal conflicts. In recent years, debates among realists have brought out two competing versions of realism, known as offensive and defensive realism.7 According to offensive realists, security can be only partially assured, because states cannot be certain of the intentions of others. As a result, they will try to increase their power in order to achieve more security by aggressively competing with one another.8 Defensive realists, on the contrary, argue that international anarchy makes states anxious about their security, which inevitably leads them to balance power and threat in order to weaken hegemonic states and prevent stability gaps and vulnerability.9

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Stephen Saideman is one of the few scholars who has extended the defensive realist rationale to secession. By applying Stephen Walt’s balance of threat argument to secessionist conflicts, he evaluates whether security considerations drive states to support secessionist movements abroad to diminish threatening states. His objective is to measure whether or not secessionist groups within strong states receive more support than those in weaker states. As he points out, “since balancing is ‘the most central pattern’ in international relations for realists, we ought to expect that states will tend to support the weaker states and assist separatist movements in the stronger, more threatening states.”10 By analyzing three secessionist crises (in the Congo, Nigeria, and Yugoslavia) from which he compiled a total of forty-three cases of third-state intervention, Saideman demonstrates that this argument is weakly supported by empirical evidence. His study shows that the balance of threat argument was right in predicting only fifteen of the forty-three cases of interventions, indicating that the balance of threat logic is not the driving force behind state intervention in secessionist conflicts. Moreover, this argument often leads to unpredictable observations: it is unable to predict the behaviour of states that are neither entirely threatened by central states nor entirely threatened by secessionist movements.11 Alexis Heraclides also shows that security concerns fail to explain third party intervention. His analysis suggests that during the Cold War, superpowers did not balance their power by supporting opposing sides in secessionist conflicts in order to increase their security.12 On the contrary, the United States and the Soviet Union tried to avoid antagonistic policies on these issues. Furthermore, I maintain that in addition to being empirically weak, the balance of threat cannot be used in a credible argument to explain the behaviour of the United States towards secessionist movements. Did the United States recognize Chechnya, Tibet, and Taiwan in order to sap the strength of Russia or China? The answer is no. Although the United States raised the issue of human rights abuses in Chechnya throughout the 1990s, it maintained that the Chechen secessionist issue was a Russian internal matter. Moreover, it refused to adopt a double foreign policy toward China in order to deal separately with Taiwan, and it did not question China’s sovereignty over Tibet. We can assume that u.s. support for major powers’ secessionist movements would be likely to produce retaliation

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against it, instead of producing greater security. For all of the above reasons, the security assumption is a weak one that is not supported by empirical evidence. Offensive realism leads to a different argument. By focusing on power maximization, rather than on security, it assumes that strong states like the United States are tempted to support secessionist groups in weaker states to increase their relative power in geostrategic areas. This argument maintains that weak states cannot effectively retaliate against strong interveners and therefore that the cost of supporting secessionists is inconsequential to dominant powers. This argument is consistent with Mearsheimer’s assertion that “great powers are rarely content with the current distribution of power” and that “they face a constant incentive to change it in their favor […] if they think it can be done at a reasonable price.”13 Research demonstrates, however, that secessionist groups evolving in weak states are not more likely to obtain greater foreign support from strong states than from other states.14 In other words, third states’ relative power does not affect the level of support granted to their secessionist movements. As for the specific case of the United States, one could argue that u.s. support for secessionist groups in weaker states cannot be provided at a “reasonable price,” because such a decision would be likely to produce instability resulting from ethnic tensions, civil war, and secessionist diffusion. The United States has been opposed to secessionist efforts in both strong and weaker states mainly for stability considerations. The maximization of power argument, therefore, is not convincing enough to be retained as a credible hypothesis to explain u.s. behaviour toward secessionism. In sum, the logic of a balance of threat and power maximization would lead to effects that were counter-productive to the United States’ interest.

regimes and norms Liberal institutionalists argue that because the stability of the international system is the basis for cooperation among states and for economic prosperity, states obey an anti-secessionist regime that emanated from un declarations and treaties on self-determination; they do so in order to preserve the territorial status quo. Mark Zacher indicates that this regime is founded on a principle of terri-

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torial integrity that was strongly supported by the United Nations, the Arab League, and the Organization of American States in the aftermath of the Second World War, and later by the Organization of African Unity.15 The objective of the normative regime against secession is to limit the circumstances under which nations have the right to independence. It was created around three types of norms that are not mutually exclusive but that must be understood as forming an international code of conduct. First, only peoples under colonial rule have the right to declare their independence by claiming selfdetermination. Second, states must conform to the norm of diplomatic recognition: only self-determined entities (i.e., entities evolving under colonial rule) can be recognized as sovereign states. Finally, the non-intervention norm forbids states from intervening in others’ internal affairs.16 A third state recognizing a secessionist movement that did not qualify as a self-determined unit would be intruding in the internal affairs of another state. Liberal institutionalists argue that states conform to these norms of behaviour because they strengthen the structure of the international system by promoting stability, which guarantees mutual and absolute gains among sovereign states. Liberal institutionalists maintain that this international regime constitutes a strong barrier against secession. They have overstated, however, the impact of this regime on states’ foreign policy. Indeed, states have departed on multiple occasions from this regime by supporting secessionist movements. Belgian support for Katanga and French support for Biafra in the 1960s or Russian military and economic support for Trans-Dniester in the early 1990s are good examples. Some states have even extended unilateral recognition to secessionist states, which constitutes a violation of the secessionist regime. The recognition of Biafra’s secession in the 1960s by Gabon, the Ivory Coast, Tanzania, and Zambia, the Indian recognition of Bangladesh in 1971, the Turkish recognition of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in the early 1980s, the unilateral German recognition of Croatia and Slovenia, and, more recently, the u.s. recognition of Kosovo’s secession and Russia’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia are interesting cases of defection from regime cooperation. It is true that during the Cold War the United States’ attitude towards secessionist efforts conformed to the normative regime

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against secession. In fact, the measures contained in the un Charter regarding secessionist self-determination were largely a reflection of u.s. interests. The United States repeatedly condemned secessionism as highly disruptive and was strongly committed to states’ territorial integrity in order to maintain the stability of the bipolar system.17 Facts indicate, however, that the end of the bipolar era strongly reduced the impact of anti-secessionist norms on u.s. behaviour towards secession, since Washington departed on several occasions from that regime. The examples of u.s. recognition of Croatia, East Timor, Eritrea, and Kosovo show the failure of the liberal institutionalist argument. The proposition of an anti-secessionist regime cannot therefore explain the inconsistency in the u.s. response to secessionist efforts since the early 1990s.

civilizational ties In an article published in Foreign Affairs, Samuel Huntington argues that cultural ties between political entities – which he calls civilizations – will replace ideological confrontations and considerations of power politics as the main source of domestic and international conflicts in the post–Cold War era. Huntington asserts that from now on, wars will mainly occur across cultural fault lines dividing world civilizations. According to him, “groups or states belonging to one civilization that become involved in war with people from a different civilization naturally try to rally support from other members of their own civilization.”18 In other words, political entities sharing the same religious roots and a similar politicoeconomic evolution support and defend one another. To demonstrate the accuracy of his argument, Huntington gives several examples where cultural differences are a great incentive to interstate and intrastate conflicts. He maintains, for instance, that thirdstates’ responses to secessionist quarrels are shaped by cultural ties. A foreign state would, therefore, support the side in a secessionist conflict with which it shares civilizational kin. Huntington argues that Germany, the European Community, and the United States supported and recognized the independence of Croatia and Slovenia from Yugoslavia in 1992 because these two Yugoslav Roman Catholic republics were part of Western civilization, while the other republics were either part of the Slavic-Orthodox or the Islamic cultural alliance.

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Although interesting and imaginative, the cultural-ties argument is flawed, at least when applied to American behaviour toward secessionism. The United States recognized Bosnia-Herzegovina’s independence in the early stage of the Yugoslav conflict, even though Bosnia amalgamated Muslim, Slavic-Orthodox, and Western cultures. The United States also led a nato intervention against Slavic-Orthodox Serbia to defend and support the political autonomy of Muslim Kosovo and eventually recognized its unilateral secession from Serbia. How would the proponents of the culturaltie argument explain these decisions? Christian Serbia had closer ties to Western civilization than did Muslim Albanians from Kosovo. The United States should therefore have supported Serbia’s struggle against secessionists of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Moreover, how can Huntington explain why the United States was the first state to recognize the independence of Eritrea, which is predominantly Muslim, from Christian Ethiopia? Again, if the civilizational argument were right, the United States would have stood by its “coreligionists” and supported Ethiopia’s territorial integrity. The motivations behind the u.s. decision to support one party in a secessionist conflict have therefore to be found elsewhere. Other scholars have focused their attention on domestic politics to explain third-states’ foreign policy toward ethnic and secessionist conflicts. They assume that decision makers are rational actors who try to stay in power by maintaining domestic support and by taking into account the strengths and weaknesses of their state when making foreign policy decisions toward secessionist movements. Based on these premises, scholars have developed three main arguments that examine the topic through the lens of internal vulnerability, ethnic politics, and business interests.

internal vulnerability Neoliberals argue that a state’s own vulnerability to internal ethnic turmoil inhibits it from supporting foreign secessionist movements. This proposition, known as the vulnerability argument, was first applied to the African regional context.19 According to this claim, vulnerability explains why states embrace international norms of cooperation such as the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other states. Neoliberals assert that the common vulnerability of African states is a strong incentive for cooperation

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because defection in this case would be likely to result in a dangerous domino effect leading to the infinite redrawing of African borders.20 Neoliberals therefore argue that African states persist over time despite the strength of secessionist movements because leaders have no choice but to accept rules and norms of cooperation. Some observers have demonstrated that vulnerable third states (including African states) are not deterred from supporting secessionist groups elsewhere and that international norms of cooperation among vulnerable states do not account for foreign policy decision-making.21 Although straightforward and parsimonious, this argument has recently been proven false. Some commentators have also shown that multiethnic states (especially those vulnerable to separatism) are not less likely to support secessionists than homogenous states.22 This argument is different from the regime/norms proposition described previously, since it presumes that domestic vulnerability to secessionism, rather than an international regime, provides the central motive that inhibits states from intervening in intrastate conflicts. However, the expectation of both propositions is basically the same, since they both assert that states follow international norms of non-intervention. It is also interesting to note that by refuting the vulnerability argument, analysts have also demonstrated that norms of cooperation do not really inhibit states from supporting secessionist efforts. Furthermore, the vulnerability argument is not appropriate for understanding the foreign policy behaviour of the United States. If it was vulnerable to secessionism, how could we explain the observation that it has supported and recognized secessionist states? Vulnerability cannot account for the fluctuation of the American response to secessionist crises since the early 1990s. Moreover, the multicultural composition of u.s. society and its emphasis on civic and constitutional nationalism makes it resistant to secessionist claims. The indivisibility of the u.s. republic, which resulted from the Civil War, is a constitutional principle that has been an integral part of the American political culture for almost 150 years. Obviously, that does not mean that the United States is totally invulnerable to secessionist aspirations. Texas and Hawaii, for example, have a long history of separatist claims. Latin Americans are also increasingly powerful in the southwest states and may eventually develop separatist ambitions. But overall, we can argue that the

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United States has a low level of vulnerability to secessionism compared to other Western states such as Canada, the United Kingdom, or France, which are facing strong secessionist movements, respectively, in Quebec, Scotland, and Corsica. Thus, in addition to being empirically refuted by scholars, the vulnerability argument seems very unlikely to explain the u.s. attitude toward secessionist movements.

domestic ethnic lobbies In the post–Cold War era, several analysts have moved away from external sources of foreign policy to concentrate on domestic factors. The context of the 1990s engendered a broad range of research that scrutinized, among other things, the impact of domestic ethnic lobbies on the decision-making process.23 Ethnic lobbies are important agents of foreign policy because they can influence decisions with money and votes. Several ethnic lobbies contribute financially to the campaign of presidential candidates and often influence the vote of u.s. ethnic diasporas during elections.24 As Ambrosio points out, “politicians often appeal to the interests of key ethnic identity groups in order to tap into the ‘ethnic money’ and to garner more votes.”25 For these reasons, the ethnic-lobby argument, which was seen as idiosyncratic a few years ago, has been increasingly theorized in the last two decades, and several analysts now argue that u.s. foreign policy is increasingly the product of these lobbies. Henry Nau maintains, for instance, that u.s. ethnic groups are now a major determinant of American foreign policy. According to him, u.s. foreign policy has been transformed “into a patchwork of ethnic … particularisms.”26 Yossi Shain even questions whether u.s. foreign policy still promotes the national interest or whether it has been undermined by diaspora interests.27 This is not a new issue. Glazer and Moynihan, for example, argued in the 1970s that ethnic influence was “the single most important determinant of American foreign policy.”28 John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have recently jumped into the debate on the role of ethnic lobbies, which has given additional weight to this argument. Mearsheimer and Walt make the case that the Jewish American lobby has “managed to skew” u.s. foreign policy in the Middle East by convincing the American people that u.s. and Israeli interests are identical.29 Former u.s. national

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security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski has also questioned the effect of these lobbies. According to him, ethnic groups are increasingly powerful and have a major impact on the definition of the American national interest.30 Brzezinski believes that the academic and foreign policy communities must have a “serious debate” on this important issue. This ethnic domestic angle of foreign policy analysis matters greatly in the context of this book because it has been used to explain the American response to ethnic conflicts and secessionist movements since the 1990s. Yossi Shain, for example, asserts that some ethnic groups in the United States have been able to pressure u.s. leaders to adopt supportive policies towards national self-determination movements in Central and Eastern Europe.31 His argument implies that u.s. ethnic lobbies often influence which side the United States supports in a secessionist conflict abroad, and he gives the example of the Croat-Americans who led an active campaign for the American recognition of Croatia in 1991–92.32 Ethnic politics has been increasingly regarded as a central motive for third-state intervention in ethnic conflicts. Saideman argues, for instance, that states support the side of an ethnic conflict that shares ethnic ties with leaders’ constituents: “ethnic politics serves as a critical dynamic compelling some politicians to support secession elsewhere while constraining others.”33 His work clearly demonstrates that there is a strong relationship between ethnic ties and third-state foreign policy toward secessionist crises.34 However, despite the persuasiveness of his argument, it falls short in predicting u.s. foreign policy. As Saideman himself notes, the United States deviates from the ethnic-ties explanation and, therefore, does not conform to the argument. He explains the anomaly of this situation by arguing that low levels of competition between ethnic groups for government’s attention could account for the wrong prediction. We could also argue that the u.s. multicultural composition transforms ethnic groups into antagonist forces that cancel out each others’ efforts to influence American decision makers or that the executive branch of the u.s. government does not pay much attention to ethnic considerations when they concern a small portion of the u.s. electorate. Nevertheless, the ethnic-lobby argument continues to be a serious alternative explanation to the research puzzle under investigation, and it is now used as a core argument to explain u.s. policy toward

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secessionist movements. It has been studied in several policy-oriented works. However, it has not been systematically evaluated by social-scientific inquiries. In some cases, analysts seem to raise examples that support their ethnic-lobby assumptions well, but they never perform scientific work to test their argument. Moreover, few ethnic groups are well organized in the United States, with the exception of groups of Greek, Jewish, and Irish descent, as well as Cuban Americans. As John Stack points out, “In the United States, ethnic involvement in foreign policy has been only as effective as the national security elite allowed it to be.”35 Most of the groups are small associations that are not powerful enough to affect u.s. foreign policy. Most of them have little money, little political influence, and little or simply no access to the government. I am not arguing here that ethnic lobbies are not important political actors in the United States. I maintain, however, that their impact on the formulation of American policy toward secessionist movements must be weighed against the impact of other factors. Since no scientific work has been conducted in the United States to verify this assertion, the research presented here will attempt to systematically measure the accuracy of the ethnic-lobby argument.

business interests According to some observers, American private business interests strongly affect u.s. policy towards secessionist conflicts and account for the variation in Washington’s responses. David Gibbs argues that politicians make policies that are in the interest of corporations with which they share strong ties. As he mentions, “politicians and business people act rationally to further their respective self-interests, and such rational behaviour influences the conduct of foreign policy.”36 Gibbs assumes that u.s. economic groups are divided according to different interests and compete to maximize those interests. As a result, the u.s. government is frequently torn between conflicting foreign economic interests when making policies. Gibbs argues, however, that at the end of the day, the private economic connections of u.s. decision makers are strongly reflected in American foreign policy towards secessionist movements. He tests his argument using the Congo crisis of 1960 and shows that some u.s. economic groups favoured the secession of Katanga from the Congo because they were expecting to replace

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Belgian industries in the seceding province, while other business groups opposed secession because they were tied to Belgium and, therefore, their interests lay in a united Congo. Gibbs’s analysis also demonstrates that u.s. foreign policy towards the Congo fluctuated from the Eisenhower to the Kennedy administration because each government was tied to different business interests. The business-interest argument is interesting; however, Gibbs’s analysis focuses only on the Congo case, which greatly limits the validity and robustness of his model. Despite this empirical weakness, he maintains that the argument can also apply to other situations with even more relevance, because u.s. businesses had less interest in the Congo than in other regions. We can disagree with this claim and counter-argue that secessionist attempts often arise in developing countries (e.g., Eritrea, East Timor, Somaliland) where the United States has little economic interest, contrary to the case of the Congo, which had enormous reserves of diamonds, gold, and silver. Therefore, it is doubtful that the business-interest argument effectively accounts for u.s. foreign policy variation in other cases. Considering that secessionist efforts are often disruptive, it is far from obvious that u.s. business groups could benefit from secession. Think about Bosnia-Herzegovina, East Timor, and Eritrea, for example, where ethnic tensions led to political and economic chaos. One could argue, rather, that u.s. business groups always favour stability and secure investments to any secessionist changes, whatever their interests in the host state. Furthermore, Alexis Heraclides refutes the neo-colonialist argument, according to which industrialized states benefit from secessionist conflicts by treating secessionist leaders as political puppets to maximize their material interests. His research, based on seven postwar secessionist movements, demonstrates, on the contrary, that Western developed states are in fact less likely than developing countries to support secessionist efforts.37 In 1960 the Congo was a freshly born state with a high level of economic dependency on Belgium and strong polarization between foreign economic interests. Consequently, the case of the Congo appears to be the exception rather than the rule. Moreover, there is a surprising weakness in Gibbs’s approach, which does not pay much attention to the relative importance of business interests. He does not make a distinction, for instance, between strategic and non-strategic materials as a determinant of

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policies: diamonds versus oil, for example. Yet, strategic and nonstrategic goods probably have a different impact on u.s. policy toward secessionist crises. Despite these weaknesses, Gibbs’s business-interest argument needs more investigation. After all, it is common to assume that the United States’ economic interest is the driving force behind its foreign policy and that the American response to secessionist crises varies on the basis of its economic preferences. This common belief must be challenged by testing it on other empirical cases. Additional testing might also reveal whether strategic and non-strategic interests cause a fluctuation in the u.s. response to secessionist crises. Table 2.1 gives an overview of the different arguments on third states’ intervention in secessionist conflicts that have been presented above.

discussion This overview of the different foreign policy and international relations arguments relevant to the puzzle under investigation shows that this study of the American response to secessionist conflicts fits into broader questions of interest to international relations specialists. There is, indeed, a rich body of literature examining third states’ motives for intervention. Several arguments have also been developed to explain why states might decide to support secessionist movements and under what circumstances they may be inhibited from doing so. However, it appears that scholars are mainly interested in generating large-scale theories of third-party intervention, rather than foreign policy arguments adapted to particular states. Analyses of u.s. foreign policy toward ethnic conflicts continue to be too general in scope, and they fail to perform systematic measurements of the assertions and arguments that they put forward. They remain in the policy realm and seem better at raising issues than at risking potential answers. In addition, most of the work done on this subject deals with third-state support for ethnic and secessionist groups, rather than with third-state recognition or non-recognition of secessionist states. This matters greatly. As mentioned in the introduction, there is a difference between a third party’s ideological encouragement to a secessionist movement and the extension of politico-diplomatic

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Table 2.1 Competing Arguments about Interventions in Secessionist Conflicts Type

Argument

Systemic factors

Security States support secessionist states abroad to weaken threatening powers. Thus, secessionist groups within threatening states receive more support than those in weaker states. Power Strong states support secessionist groups in weaker states to increase their relative power. Norms States obey anti-secessionist norms because these norms strengthen the structure of the international system by promoting stability. This favours mutual gains among sovereign states. Civilizational tie States support the side in a secessionist conflict with which they share a civilizational bond.

Domestic factors

Vulnerability States’ own vulnerability to internal ethnic turmoil inhibits them from supporting foreign secessionist states abroad. Ethnic Lobbies* U.S.-based diasporas affect the conduct of American foreign policy toward secessionist conflicts in their homelands. Business Interests* The private economic connections of u.s. decision makers are strongly reflected in American foreign policy towards secessionist crises.

* Arguments need further testing and will be systematically measured.

recognition to a secessionist state. A third state that supports a secessionist group does not necessarily want to grant it formal recognition and may simply use the issue as a political tool to achieve other goals. International support for secessionist groups has been relatively frequent and expressed in different ways.38 Diplomatic recognition of statehood has been, however, quite rare

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since 1945. Because of this substantive difference between simple support and formal recognition of secession, it would be wrong to conclude that factors explaining third-state intervention in ethnic conflicts are logically the same as those explaining diplomatic recognition of secessionist states. The literature on third party intervention in ethnic conflicts, therefore, has limitations in explaining international recognition. In the light of the theoretical evidence, a new theoretical model focusing on American foreign policy toward secessionism is needed for the following reasons: •

•

•

•

•

•

The rare analyses of u.s. foreign policy toward ethnic conflicts are too broad and suffer from a lack of methodological rigour. Domestic arguments concerning u.s. foreign policy toward secession appear to be overstated – namely, arguments concerning business interests and ethnic politics. Current systemic models (neorealist and neoliberal) of third states’ intervention are empirically refuted and deductively fail to account for the u.s. response to secessionist efforts. Scholars have focused their attention on third states’ support for secessionist groups rather than on third states’ recognition of secessionist states, which is substantively different. Scholars have neglected the study of the u.s. superpower’s foreign policy towards secessionism, which is a crucial aspect of the international dimension of secession. Because secessionist movements remain an enduring challenge to international stability at the dawn of the twenty-first century, a coherent model of American policy toward secessionism is needed.

a n e w t heoreti cal explanati on: stability-seeking This book builds on the defensive version of realism. It asserts that the United States is a “defensive positionalist” state, a term that was initially coined by Joseph Grieco and that refines defensive realism.39 According to defensive positionalism, states are unitaryrational agents that seek to maintain their relative position and are “sensitive to any erosion of their relative capabilities” since the preservation of their power guarantees their security in a self-help international system.40 States therefore prefer to work in favour of

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the status quo rather than against it; they are not “gap maximizers” but “gap avoiders.”41 They consider stability gaps as security threats rather than as power opportunities. Thus, they try to avoid instability and insecurity because such conditions increase their vulnerability and could help other states to improve their relative power. In sum, states focus on the preservation of their position in the system rather than on power maximization. The United States as a Stability-Seeking Power I argue that defensive positionalism applies in great depth to the United States, because the American superpower sits at the top of the international power structure. Its position in the international system and its security are maintained by the prevention of power losses that could originate from instability in the system. This is why regional stability matters greatly for Washington. I assert that minimizing stability gaps, that is reducing or eliminating relative gains (whether economic, military, or political ones) that could favour rival states or enemies, defines u.s. interests. In recent history, the United States has attempted on several occasions to minimize stability gaps. During the Cold War, for instance, it relied on export controls to weaken Soviet economic and military resources, in order to eliminate potential gains for the ussr made at u.s. expense.42 Implications for U.S. Policy toward Secessionist States Washington addresses secessionist issues not from an objective and neutral point of view but from a pessimistic one. The need to prevent power losses and to minimize stability gaps explains why the United States has been cautious in not encouraging secessionist states abroad.43 The fear that such an action might encourage other secessionist movements to seek independence, which would endanger the management of world peace, has led the United States to maintain an anti-secessionist bias. As Henry Bienen correctly points out, u.s. decision makers have been more concerned “with stability of the state system … more concerned about not opening the Pandora’s box of ethnically based demands for new nation-states, than they have been concerned to support self-determination everywhere as a principle.”44 It is, therefore, not surprising that the United

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States prefers the maintenance of large multinational countries that can accommodate nationalities and minorities rather than small destabilizing secessionist states. Historically, secessionist movements have stood out as one of the factors most disturbing to stability in the world.45 They have created geopolitical turbulence and threatened to alter international borders. They have provoked, among other things, civil wars in places like Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Moldova. They have also led to the escalation of conflict by generating foreign states’ incentives to intervene. India’s intervention in favour of the Tamils in Sri Lanka, Armenia’s support for Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan, and Albania’s support for Kosovo are three examples showing the propensity of secessionist crises to become internationalized. This pattern has led Alexis Heraclides to argue that secession is “the most unmanageable of the great security challenges of the post–Cold War era.”46 As a stability-seeking state, the United States, therefore, favours the containment of secessionist claims within existing sovereign states as a way to preserve the stability of regional systems. But then the central puzzle remains: if the United States is a stability-seeking power, or a defensive positionalist state, how can we explain its recognition of the secession of several states in the post–Cold War era? How can we explain the fact that it agreed to such territorial modifications? I argue that the United States is sometimes compelled to break with its state integrity policy because supporting territorial sovereignty is not always a guarantee of stability and can actually become, under certain conditions, a serious cause of regional disruption. For example, a state that persecutes its secessionist minority in the name of territorial integrity may end up creating regional instability, as well as international tensions with other states. The Serbian military repression of secessionist Albanians in Kosovo in 1998–99 produced such an outcome and led nato forces to intervene against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (fry). Before the nato intervention, the un high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) estimated that more than ninety thousand Kosovar Albanians had fled to Albania and Macedonia in reaction to Serbian violence, which produced regional disturbance.47 Thus, providing support to central states that are disruptive is not always in the best strategic interest of the United States, because

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such a policy can end up encouraging regional disorder. I maintain that under certain specific circumstances and in order to avoid or reduce stability gaps, the United States can choose to end support for a central state and to assist instead one or several of its secessionist entities. The argument proceeds in two steps. Here is how it works. First Step: The United States Supports State Integrity scenario 1. The United States will support state unity as long as the central government of a state maintains external stability by containing – either peacefully or by force – a secessionist crisis within its borders. Canada is a prime example of a state that peacefully managed a secessionist movement and preserved external stability. The referendum on secession held by the Quebec government in 1995 was a democratic exercise that had the approval of the Canadian state. The debate over Quebec’s independence was peaceful and democratic, and it was limited to Quebec and Canada. No international dispute resulted from this event. During the referendum campaign, the Clinton administration supported Canadian national unity but stated, at the same time, that the issue was an internal Canadian affair.48 scenario 2. The United States will adopt a similar policy in favour of state integrity in cases where a central government maintains external stability but relies on military repression to prevent territorial breakup. The Indonesian war against secessionists in Aceh – the far west province of Indonesia – is a good example of this scenario. Following the Indonesian military crackdown in the secessionist province, the United States reaffirmed its support for Indonesia’s territorial integrity and encouraged Jakarta to improve its political relationship with the Aceheses so that unity could be maintained. u.s. support was reiterated, despite Jakarta’s military operations in Aceh, which caused more than fifteen thousand deaths and six thousand displaced persons from 1977 to 1999 and about two thousand deaths in recent years.49 Moreover, u.s. support was reaffirmed even though the Indonesian government constantly rejected Aceh’s proposal to hold a democratic referendum on the political future of the province. As the two cases just mentioned show, secessionists can be treated very differently by their central governments. Quebecers were

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allowed to express themselves in a referendum on secession, while Aceheses were brutally repressed. But what is important here is that both Canada and Indonesia managed to contain secessionism within their borders in their regional environment (North America and Southeast Asia, respectively). This explains, according to the stability-seeking argument, why the United States responsed in a similar way to both cases. scenario 3. When a central state is unable to guarantee external stability but is open to negotiation with secessionists and/or to third-party mediation, the United States will remain committed to state integrity. It will estimate that supporting the central government remains the best way to restore order (i.e., to eliminate stability gaps). The expected stability benefits that would eventually procure the unity of the central state will exceed the cost of the external disorder currently produced by the secessionist conflict. Therefore, as long as the central state demonstrates its openness and/or capacity to settle its internal secessionist crisis, the United States will categorically oppose secessionist efforts and support state unity. This explains why, for instance, the American government remained committed to Moldova’s unity during its war against Trans-Dniester’s secessionists. Following Trans-Dniester’s declaration of independence in 1991, the Moldovan government was unable to contain the conflict within its borders, and the crisis created important regional disorder. Russian forces intervened in Trans-Dniester to protect Russian populations, and Romanian citizens crossed the border to express their solidarity with Moldovan authorities.50 Within a few months, several thousands of Russianspeaking Transdnistrians fled to Ukraine because of the war, and by the summer of 1992 there were more than one hundred thousand refugees.51 At the same time, however, the government of Moldova demonstrated its desire to settle the issue by initiating negotiations with secessionists and by accepting foreign mediation. It agreed to provide economic and cultural autonomy to Trans-Dniester, and a political agreement sponsored by Russia, Ukraine, and the osce was reached by the two parties in 1997. Throughout the conflict, the United States supported Moldova’s government. Although Washington was not directly involved in peace negotiations, it was represented within the osce. The attitude shown by the Moldovan

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state during the secessionist conflict had a decisive impact on the evolution of the u.s. policy. Moldova’s will to resolve the crisis led the Americans, as well as regional powers, to uphold their support in favour of its integrity and to oppose the self-proclaimed Transdniestran Moldovan Republic. Had Moldova acted in bad faith by opposing political negotiations and mediation, the stability-seeking argument predicts that the United States would have reconsidered its diplomatic options and might have supported Trans-Dniester’s independence. So far, the logic of the stability-seeking argument leads us to predict that the United States will support central states either because they contain their secessionist factions within their borders or because the maintenance of their integrity provides opportunities for the restoration of stability. The regional-stability argument maintains, however, that this consistency in the u.s. response to secessionist crises will not hold in cases where the central state is neither open to negotiations and/or foreign mediation nor able to contain its secessionist crisis within its borders. scenario 4. If the central state fails both at the domestic and at the external level, the theory predicts that the u.s. calculation of costs and benefits will radically change and that the presidency will be pressed to modify its position. The United States will conclude that the central state no longer has the capacity to resolve the crisis and that it is a central obstacle to the restoration of regional stability. American decision makers will regard the support and recognition of secessionist states as a political tool to bring back stability and peace in the disputed region. At some point, Yugoslavia fell into that category of states (see chapter 3). The Yugoslav federal government was paralyzed in the early 1990s as a result of Serbian and Croatian opposition to state reforms, which led Slovenia and Croatia to secede from the federation in 1991, with several major consequences: it resulted in a war between Croatia and Serbia that quickly spread to Bosnia, it precipitated Yugoslavia’s disintegration, and it produced large numbers of refugees who fled to neighbouring states. As a result of the disturbance, Yugoslavia could no longer either initiate domestic negotiations between its republics or contain the conflict within its borders. When it became clear that the federation would no longer hold and that the recognition of secessionist republics was the only

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way to slowly restore stability in the Balkans, the United States shifted its policy and acknowledged independence in 1992, even though it had been one of the strongest supporters of Yugoslavia’s territorial integrity. Yugoslavia serves, therefore, as an unfortunate example of what happens when external stability and internal negotiations fail. This raises another important theoretical question: what constitutes “stability-seeking” and how can it be systematically measured? The next section delineates a series of indicators that define the notion of regional stability and provides theoretical mechanisms that establish a clear connection between u.s. foreign policy and stability-seeking. Measuring the First Step of the Stability-Seeking Argument The factors of external stability and internal negotiation are at the center of u.s. decisions to support or not to support central states and constitute the first step of the stability-seeking argument. It is important to mention that the central state must simultaneously fail internally and externally for u.s. policy to change. The external-stability factor is intimately linked to the Westphalian conception of sovereignty, which is based on states’ territoriality and on the principle of the non-violation of states’ sovereignty. A derogation of this principle will produce interstate instability. But how do we know whether a central government fails to maintain external stability? What accounts for its variation? Two indicators allow the fluctuation in stability to be measured. The presence or absence of cross-national refugees is the first. Intrastate conflicts resulting from secessionist attempts can produce international refugees, which constitutes a violation of sovereign states’ borders. Cross-national refugees are likely to disrupt the internal order of neighbouring states, to unbalance their ethnic composition, to inflict higher economic costs on them, and even to foment ethnic conflicts. Central states that fail to contain their populations within their borders while struggling against secessionists will, therefore, cause regional instability. In a recent study, Salehyan and Gleditsch show that cross-national refugees are a major cause of the diffusion of intrastate conflicts and of regional instability.52 The second indicator has to do with whether or not protagonists violate the territorial integrity of contiguous states during the seces-

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Table 2.2 First Step of the Argument External Stability Indicators of a Central State’s External Instability: The secessionist conflict produces a cross-national refugee flow. Protagonists in a secessionist conflict violate the sovereignty of neighbouring states. Internal Negotiations Indicators of a Central State’s Failure to Negotiate: The central government refuses to negotiate with secessionists. The central government rejects third party mediation. Central authorities exercise military repression against secessionists. The central state is paralyzed or collapses.

sionist dispute. The intrusion, for instance, of secessionist fighters or of the central government’s military into neighbouring states as part of a political or military tactic may create great regional disturbances and increase the chances of interstate disputes. Heraclides demonstrates that contiguous states are naturally inclined to intervene in secessionist conflicts at their doorstep.53 It is, therefore, reasonable to assume that the territorial violation of a contiguous state by either the central state or the secessionists risks accelerating the intervention of the contiguous state in the conflict.54 Indicators of the failure of internal negotiations are very straightforward. They are essentially the factors preventing a political resolution of a given secessionist crisis. The central state will fail at the internal level if it is categorically opposed to political negotiations with secessionists, if it rejects the mediation of third states or international organizations (e.g., the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the African Union, the European Union, etc.), if it uses military repression against secessionists, or finally, if the central government is paralyzed or collapses, thereby making any resolution of the conflict impossible (see table 2.2 for a summary). The stability-seeking argument assumes that the central state does not necessarily have to exhibit all these types of instability to

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be considered a disturbing agent by the United States. Rather, the United States may undertake a significant political shift in favour of the secessionists if at least one external and one internal indicator simultaneously show a breakdown in stability. Thus, a central state can fail lamentably at the external level by causing strong regional disorder and still be backed by the United States if it demonstrates internal efforts to settle the issue. Conversely, the u.s. presidency will support a central state that contains secessionism even if it does so through political and military repression. Second Step: U.S. Support for Secessionism as a Last Resort In the event that the central state fails at both levels, the stability-seeking argument predicts that the United States will raise the possibility of supporting secessionists. As Heraclides indicates, “For a secessionist movement to claim legitimacy, it should be obvious that the central government is not prepared to negotiate or otherwise afford a degree of meaningful self-rule to the separatist group.”55 Before proceeding further in that direction, however, the United States will want the assurance that secessionist leaders can sustain the stability of their emerging state. Based on defensive positional assumptions, we can deduce that the United States will assess the domestic structures of the secessionist state, as well as the regional environment in which it evolves, before making a decision. Secessionist groups will need to show proof of internal and external stability in order to be recognized by Washington. It is unlikely that the United States would be interested in recognizing a new state that was likely to replicate the stability gap of the predecessor state. If the secessionist state was unable to achieve stability, the stability-seeking argument maintains that u.s. recognition will be postponed or simply denied.56 Moreover, a secessionist movement that would act in bad faith in the first phase of the negotiation process with the central government, in order to force a political deadlock or purely to provoke the collapse of the host state, would be unlikely to qualify for recognition, since the United States would perceive that movement as a disruptive force on regional stability. scenario 5. If the secessionist group succeeds in showing internal and external stability, the United States will grant recognition,

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which would be expected to produce a net gain in regional stability. For instance, as I argue in chapter 6, the United States committed itself to recognize Eritrea’s independence because the Ethiopian government had become unable to assure regional stability, while the Eritrean authorities fulfilled domestic and external criteria of stability. scenario 6. If the secessionist state is unable to achieve stability, however, the u.s. recognition will be denied and the status quo maintained. I assume that this is what happened to Kosovo, which failed to obtain international recognition before 2008 because of a lack of internal and external stability. But what constitutes “stability-seeking” in such a case, and how can it be measured? Measuring the Second Step of the Stability-Seeking Argument As with the first part of the argument, the second step is composed of two factors: internal stability and external stability. The internal dimension of stability refers, among other things, to the domestic definition of sovereignty, which is “the organization of public authority within a state and the level of effective control exercised by those holding authority.”57 Secessionist leaders who fail to achieve effective control of the territory might face recurrent instability. Another important aspect of internal stability is whether or not secessionists hold a referendum on independence. This popular consultation on independence has to be held by secessionist authorities – assisted by international actors, if necessary – to measure the extent to which the population living in the secessionist territory agrees to secede and to renounce being part of the predecessor state. The referendum result will be a measure of the likelihood of future intrastate conflicts. Respect for and the protection of minorities and human rights will also be taken into account by the United States as an important aspect of internal stability. A military junta that unilaterally proclaimed independence without taking into account the will of the people and human rights would definitely fail the test of internal legitimacy and could create a stability gap. David Callahan points out that “democratically inclined secessionists present a better case for independence than do nationalists who seek statehood for chauvinistic reasons and offer no guarantee of democracy.

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There is little appeal in backing the creation of new states that are likely to be authoritarian.”58 These considerations are purely instrumental, however, since the protection of human and minority rights will be seen by decision makers in Washington as a means to strengthen stability. This approach is, therefore, consistent with the stability-seeking argument and does not represent an incursion into the liberal paradigm of foreign policy. Moreover, secessionist authorities must provide guarantees that their state’s internal boundaries will be maintained following independence. Any change of intrastate boundaries undertaken by secessionist leaders will necessitate public consent. This principle of the unchangeability of borders is contained in the Helsinki Accords that were signed by the members of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (csce) which included the United States.59 As for the external requirements of stability, a secessionist group must first have a defined territory within the host state (i.e., a region, canton, province, republic, or state) to qualify for recognition. Secessionists who cannot tie their claim to secession to a defined territory will fail to be recognized, since international recognition implies that the recognized unit exercises sovereignty over a defined piece of land. A secessionist group that lacked legally defined internal boundaries within a state would likely be the victim or the instigator of territorial revisionism and might experience political crises over territory with foreign contiguous states and/or with its predecessor state. Not only must a secessionist group have a defined territory but it must also accept its former internal boundaries as its new international borders. Territorial revisionism through irredentism, for instance, would not be tolerated. Mark Zacher shows that since 1945 all the new states that were created through state breakups have kept their former internal borders as legal international ones (whether or not they wanted to). He points out that “states generally desire predictability regarding the international territorial order. They do not like secessions, but if secessions are going to occur, they do not want the successor states fighting over what their boundaries should be.”60 I argue that, as a defensive positional state, the United States is especially hostile to the alteration of international borders, since such a change may create stability gaps and therefore security threats. Secessionist states must also avoid intervention in the internal affairs of other sovereign states. Secessionist governments pur-

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Table 2.3 Second Step of the Argument Internal Stability Indicators of Internal Stability of the Secessionist State: Secessionist authorities achieve effective control of the territory. Leaders respect internal boundaries, or modify them with public consent. Secessionists agree to hold a democratic referendum on secession. The new state respects human and minority rights. External Stability Indicators of External Stability of the Secessionist State: The secessionist state has a defined territory within the central state (region, canton, province, republic, state, etc.). The secessionist state accepts its former internal boundaries as its new international borders. Secessionists respect international borders (including no cross-national refugees). Secessionists demonstrate that no interstate war is likely to occur following independence (absence of irredentism, revenge, and aggression).

suing political revenge or an aggressive foreign policy toward neighbouring states will clearly fail the test of external stability. As explained in chapter 4, Greece argued that the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia had irredentist ambitions because it referred to itself as Macedonia, which was already the name of a Greek province. This partly explains why the United States suspended its decision to recognize Macedonia’s independence. Secessionist leaders who produce cross-national refugees by their policies and actions will also fall short. Indeed, refugees are a source of instability, since they could, for instance, alter the demographic equilibrium of neighbouring states. Moreover, secessionist states must be at peace with their neighbours when asking for recognition. As a stability-seeking power, the United States will be reluctant to recognize a secessionist entity that might engage in an interstate war following its independence. Table 2.3 summarizes the second step of the stability-seeking argument. All the above criteria will logically be considered by the United States when the issue of state recognition surfaces. Unlike the first

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part of the argument, in which the central state could fail at one level and still be supported by the United States, the stability-seeking criteria for recognition represent a much harder test for those who want to break up an existing state. Not only must secessionists succeed at maintaining external and internal order but they must also obtain domestic legitimacy in order to be recognized by the United States. This difficult test is justified by the fact that secession has more international implications than the maintenance of the territorial status quo. Indeed, secessionist states break with the international principle of states’ integrity and may occasion unexpected consequences such as the spill-over effect. The international recognition of secession is, therefore, a risky exercise. As Robert Young points out, “even peaceful secessions are times of much disruption and uncertainty. They mark profound changes in the relations between peoples and between states.”61 The stability-seeking argument holds that before providing support and recognition to secessionists, the United States will make sure that the seceding state meets stability criteria defined in terms of state authority, territorial control, and popular consent. Figure 2.1 provides a diagrammatic summary of the steps in a secessionist crisis guiding u.s. decision making. Additional Predictions The stability-seeking argument predicts that the United States will delay or withhold recognition if a secessionist group partially meets the criteria of external and internal stability. Diplomatic recognition will then be withheld until secessionists demonstrate sufficient capability to maintain order. Moreover, it is important to note that not all empirical cases will follow the two steps of the argument chronologically. Some secessionists can clearly demonstrate, right from the beginning of the crisis, that they are able to maintain stability, but they will not be recognized by the United States because their central state will be able to properly manage the conflict. Furthermore, if a central state that has initially failed to maintain external stability and to negotiate with secessionists improves its ability to handle the secessionist crisis, the United States could move back to the first step of the process and focus its diplomatic efforts on supporting the integrity of the state. This is an important theoretical prediction that makes the stability argument more of an

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Secessionist Crisis

Central state able to maintain stability of international borders: the U.S. supports the central state

Central state unable to maintain stability of international borders

Central state open to negotiation with secessionists and/or open to third-party mediation: the U.S. supports the central state

Central state not open to negotiation with secessionists and not open to third-party mediation: recognition of the secessionist state becomes an alternative to restore regional stability

Secessionists unable to maintain external and internal stability: the U.S. does not recognize the secessionist state (status quo)

Secessionists able to maintain external and internal stability: the U.S. recognizes the secessionist state

Figure 2.1 Steps in the stability-seeking argument

axis of foreign policy options than a one-way linear process. The United States will not hesitate to move back and forth from one step of the process to another in order to maximize what it perceives as an improvement in regional order. The theory also argues that the United States will not recognize the independence of great powers’ secessionist movements (e.g., Chechnya, Corsica, Northern Ireland, Tibet), because to do so would be extremely harmful to its stability and security interests. Even if the United States is the dominant power, its support for secessionist states evolving within other great powers could lead the

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American government to face economic reprisals, military escalation, and perhaps even nuclear threats from these states. It is therefore very unlikely that the Americans would support the independence of Taiwan or Chechnya, for instance, if China and Russia became at some point highly disruptive states and failed to contain their secessionist movements. Moreover, the great powers (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom) are all permanent members of the un Security Council. Supporting their secessionist groups could significantly harm the conduct of international diplomacy and the management of the international political system. It would be, therefore, irrational to argue that the United States would support great powers’ secessionist movements to maximize its stability benefits, since it is evident that such an action would jeopardize its security. The expected reaction of the United States toward secessionist conflicts occurring within great powers is, therefore, consistent with the regional stability argument. Unless a great power disintegrates, as in the case of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States will not move to the second step of the stability-seeking process to recognize secessionist states, regardless of how great powers deal with their secessionist movements.

the role of regional and great powers The international dimension of secessionist conflicts is of course more complex than simple, dyadic interstate relations between the United States and the actors in a secessionist crisis. The u.s. decision-making process is affected not only by its relationship with the central state and with the secessionist movement but also by the position of regional and great powers on the issue. As one unit of the international system (albeit the most powerful unit), the United States must interact with the other states of the system, and some of them may play an important role in the secessionist conflict. For this reason, Washington’s response to secessionist movements is multi-dimensional, and the actions of other powers can affect the application of u.s. policy toward secessionist crises. As a result, the recognition/non-recognition of secessionist states by regional or great powers will be treated as an intervening factor. This will allow for the measurement of the real impact of regional stability on the United States’ reaction to secessionist attempts by showing the

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extent to which other powers can compel it to recognize secessionist states or inhibit it from doing so. This intervening factor is defined in terms of recognition versus non-recognition of secessionist states by regional or great powers, rather than in terms of support versus non-support for these states. Indeed, supporting a secessionist movement is likely to increase tension between a third state and a central state struggling against secessionism, but it will not produce structural changes. The diplomatic recognition of a secessionist state, however, has a direct impact on the regional system, that is to say on the regional environment of the secessionist state, since it can make independence a fait accompli. Thus, whether or not other powers choose to recognize secessionist states can affect u.s. decision making. The stability-seeking theory asserts, however, that although the American government takes into account other states’ foreign policy when making its own decisions, the cost-benefit analysis of the u.s. presidency will be first and foremost dictated by its regional stability interests, no matter what the policy of other great powers may be on the issue. As far as theoretical assumptions are concerned, the stabilityseeking argument asserts that rational choices determine u.s. foreign policy on secessionism. The theory first assumes that American foreign policy is the result of rational decisions made by the presidency, that is, an institution composed of several agents and advisors (e.g. the secretary of state, the national security advisor, the cia director, the secretary of defence) who do not necessarily have the same interests and who may disagree over policies and actions. It is important to specify that the stability-seeking argument focuses on the executive branch of government, since the power to recognize foreign governments and states is an exclusive prerogative of the president, and the Congress cannot legally oppose such a presidential decision. The presidency has, therefore, a high level of autonomy in these matters.62 The second assumption is that the presidency seeks to further its subjectively defined goals, which are here identified in terms of regional stability. This argument assumes that the presidency selects, on the basis of cost-benefit analysis, the course of action that will bring the greatest expected stability out of each secessionist crisis. United States foreign policy is, therefore, motivated by instrumental rationality leading to informed decisions.63 This

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assumption does not pretend that the presidency is omniscient or that it has all the relevant information to make enlightened choices. It assumes only that it is purposive, rational, and pragmatic. Third, on the basis of the two previous assumptions, the stabilityseeking argument assumes that the u.s. presidency possesses a fixed set of preferences towards secessionist crises (listed below and ranked in order of priority) and that these preferences determine u.s. policy choices, depending on the evolution of each secessionist crisis. The U.S. Stability Preferences Stability-seeking defines the United States’ preferences towards secessionist conflicts. The preferences are ranked as follows: 1 The central state is able to maintain external stability and negotiates with secessionists and/or is open to third-party mediation. Outcome: regional stability. Examples: Canada (Quebec), France (Corsica), Spain (Basque Country). 2 The central state is able to maintain external stability but rejects negotiations with secessionists and third-party mediation. Outcome: stability, but a risk of regional disorder. Example: Indonesia (Aceh). 3 The central state is unable to maintain external stability but is open to negotiation and/or to third-party mediation. Outcome: instability, but the restoration of regional order remains possible. Examples: Moldova (Trans-Dniester). 4 The secessionist state demonstrates an ability to maintain external and internal stability, while the central state does not. Outcome: the United States extends diplomatic recognition to the secessionist state. Examples: Eritrea (Ethiopia), Slovenia (Yugoslavia). 5 The secessionist state is unable to guarantee external/internal stability and the central state represents a clear obstacle to regional stability. Outcome: the status quo. The United States does not recognize secession. Example: Kosovo from 1991 to 2008. Built on defensive positional assumptions and previous deductions regarding the behaviour of u.s. foreign policy towards secessionist crises, the stability-seeking argument generates the following test-

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able hypotheses: Stability-Seeking Hypotheses h1 The United States opposes secession if the central state maintains the stability of its international borders. h2 It opposes secession if the central state is open to negotiation with secessionists and/or to third party mediation. h3 It recognizes the secessionist state if it demonstrates the ability to maintain internal and external stability, while the central state does not. h4 It opposes secession if the secessionist state does not demonstrate a clear ability to maintain internal and external stability, even if the central state likewise lacks the ability to maintain order. These hypotheses will be systematically compared to the contending domestic arguments concerning ethnic lobbies and business interests. Hypotheses about Domestic Ethnic Groups Based on the logic of the contending claims, we generate the following testable hypotheses: h5 The United States’ position toward a secessionist conflict reflects the interests of the ethnic group that exercises the most pressure on the u.s. government. h6 The United States’ position toward a secessionist conflict reflects the interests of the ethnic group that represents the largest number of u.s. voters. Hypotheses about Business Interests h7 The United States’ position toward a secessionist conflict reflects the interests of American corporations. h8 The United States’ position toward a secessionist conflict reflects the interests of American corporations with which u.s. executive agents share strong ties.

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This set of hypotheses, derived from the three theoretical arguments, will provide a more structured analysis of the selected cases.

theoretical contributions Defining regional stability as a u.s. interest allows us to rigorously analyze foreign policy. To put it simply, the stability-seeking interest provides a rationale for u.s. actions toward secessionist crises. Most of the time, the concept of stability is imprecisely used in the literature on u.s. foreign policy, and very little explanation is offered as to how this concept affects the behaviour of the United States. As for the notion of national interest, for example, the concept of stability is often used without proper definition and often draws from intuitive thinking, rather than from sound theoretical justifications and explanations. Alexander George and Robert Keohane point out that national interest is “so elastic and ambiguous a concept that its role as a guide to foreign policy is problematical and controversial.”64 The same observation applies to the concept of stability. It performs poorly as a scientific concept when not properly defined and operationalized. This research, therefore, clarifies the ambiguous notion of stability that is often used to explain u.s. policy toward secession. The stability-seeking argument provides theoretical mechanisms that establish a clear connection between u.s. foreign policy and regional stability. On the basis of these mechanisms, the theory generates a rationalist explanation that accounts for the fluctuation of u.s. foreign policy toward secessionist states. The proposed argument is testable and refutable. It could be refuted if one could demonstrate, for instance, that the United States recognized a secessionist state while the central state was still able to maintain external stability or was open to negotiations. It could also be refuted if Washington extended recognition to a secessionist group that could not maintain stability or, conversely, if a state was not recognized by Washington after having fulfilled the above stability criteria. The argument would also be disproved if empirical evidence showed that considerations other than regional stability, such as u.s. domestic factors or moral considerations, explained the u.s. calculation toward secessionist strife. What are the implications of the argument for other states facing a similar dilemma? As indicated previously, the defensive position-

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al assumptions on which the stability-seeking argument is built fit the behaviours of the United States because it is the superpower. In other words, the proposed argument applies to predominant powers at any given time but not to other states, because they do not sit at the top of the international hierarchy. Thus, this theory could apply to China or India at some point during the twenty-first century if they became superpowers. Finally, it should be kept in mind that the function of a theory is to simplify the complexity of a phenomenon without losing the essence of what we perceive as reality. As Kenneth Waltz indicates in his seminal Theory of International Politics, a theory “is not an edifice of truth and not a reproduction of reality … A theory is a depiction of the organization of a domain and of the connections among its parts.”65 The stability-seeking argument seeks to isolate the main factors that affect American foreign policy and to explain how they interact to produce the observable outcomes.

methodology In order to test whether the stability argument accurately explains u.s. foreign policy variations toward secessionist conflicts, the theory will be compared to the propositions concerning business interests and ethnic politics presented earlier. These hypotheses concerning domestic considerations are arguably the most serious rivals to the stability model, since they have been relatively influential in recent years. The objective here is to demonstrate that the fluctuation of American policy toward secessionist quarrels does not depend primarily on its domestic political process but rather on the systemic effects of international relations. To achieve this objective, empirical cases of secessionist attempts that are likely to validate the arguments from ethnic politics and business interests have been selected. For each of these cases, the stability argument is tested and compared to competing theories. If the domestic explanations are as good as their proponents suggest, they should pass these empirical tests. Case Selection Since instances of secession are limited, the selection of cases cannot be randomly generated. For this reason, I have selected cases

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that are significant for the measurement of my research hypotheses. Here I proceed to a systematic analysis of cases picked from two different regional contexts: the Balkans and the Horn of Africa. For each region, recognized and unrecognized cases of secession have been assembled. The cases are those of Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia and Slovenia (the Balkans), and Eritrea and Somaliland (the Horn of Africa).66 Croatia and Slovenia are treated together, since the United States issued a common policy toward them and recognized their independence at the same time. I compare Croatia and Slovenia to Kosovo and Macedonia because these cases evolved in a similar regional context, although they had very different political fates. Croatia and Slovenia are former Yugoslav republics that were recognized by the United States in 1992. Macedonia and Kosovo had a different fate. Macedonia’s independence was declared in 1991, but it was recognized by the United States only in 1994, and the Clinton administration waited until 1996 to send an ambassador to Skopje, the Macedonian capital. Kosovo failed to achieve recognition for almost twenty years before Washington finally recognized its secession in 2008. As for Eritrea, it is the only successful case of secession in Africa in the post–Cold War era. Eritrea formally seceded from Ethiopia in 1993, after more than thirty years of war. As for Somaliland, Eritrea’s secessionist neighbour, it attempted to secede from Somalia in 1991 by declaring itself the independent Republic of Somaliland. However, unlike Eritrea it has never been recognized by the international community or by the United States. Thus, although these two cases are very similar, given that they come from the same subregional context and given that they both emerged from collapsing states in the early 1990s, they experienced very different outcomes. Selection bias is always a concern, which is why I selected cases based on the dependent variable (i.e., recognition vs non-recognition) and from two different regional environments. These cases provide different dynamics, as well as a good representation of u.s. foreign policy variation toward secession. Thus, this selection (summarized in table 2.4) represents the whole range of possibilities on the empirical axis of cases and allows for a proper estimation of the strength of the stability-seeking argument, as well as of the competing explanations.

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Table 2.4 Case Studies of Secessionist Conflicts U.S.

Response

Region

Recognition

Non-recognition or Delay of Recognition

Balkans

Croatia Slovenia Eritrea

Macedonia Kosovo Somaliland

Horn of Africa

Cases of secession from the Soviet Union were not selected, since the ussr was a superpower. Therefore, as long as the Soviet federation remained, the United States did not step forward to recognize the Baltic States, for instance, which were the first to secede.67 The United States recognized these former Soviet Republics only once Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine had agreed to dismantle the Soviet state in December 1991. Acting otherwise could have jeopardized u.s. security and stability interests. Framing U.S. Foreign Policy Decisions To be accurate, the stability-seeking argument must take into account the internal process of u.s. foreign policy decision making so that it can explain the causal mechanism that generates observable outcomes (i.e., recognition or non-recognition of secessionist states). This is not an easy task. The u.s. foreign policy apparatus includes a large number of actors, and information concerning inter-agency debates on foreign policy issues is sometimes scarce. Shedding light on the causal process or sequence of events that intervenes between the u.s. search for regional stability and observable outcomes is therefore a challenge. To achieve this objective, I use the method of process-tracing.68 By tracing the decision-making process through detailed case studies, this method helps to circumscribe the number of potential causes that might explain variations in the u.s. response. The method allows me to demonstrate the extent to which stability really influences u.s. decision makers. Understanding the causal explanation is crucial. As Alexander

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George and Andrew Bennett argue, “even when rational choice theory or other formal models predict outcomes with a fairly high degree of accuracy, they do not constitute acceptable causal explanations unless they demonstrate (to the extent the evidence allows) that their posited or implied causal mechanisms were in fact operative in the predicted cases.”69 Thus, each case study will attempt to reconstitute the decision-making process. To do so, the analysis will focus on what George calls the individual and the small-group contexts of u.s. policy making. The individual context concentrates on the discussions that the president has with one of his Cabinet members or close advisors (e.g., his secretary of state). The smallgroup context focuses on the president’s meetings with a few advisors coming from different governmental spheres (e.g., National Security Council meetings, Oval Office meetings with foreign policy experts).70 One of the core assumptions of the model is that the presidency makes rational decisions but that it is not a monolithic body. Several executive agents and advisors have their own views on foreign policy issues, which often lead them to compete to influence the president’s decisions. By focusing on the individual and the smallgroup contexts, my research attempts to identify, among those who have foreign affairs responsibilities, executive actors who emphasize the importance of stability at the expense of other interests, and to analyze whether these actors are the most influential in the decision making concerning secessionist conflicts. For the stability argument to be valid, the analysis should demonstrate that executive agents who promote regional stability have more influence than those who emphasize other policy concerns such as ethnic politics or private business interests. The study should also show that the preponderant influence of stability-seeking agents is consistent throughout the different cases. Measuring Stability and Domestic Factors To achieve the task I have outlined, I combine the method of “structured, focused comparison” with the method of “process-tracing.”71 I formulate a limited number of theoretical questions that are systematically asked for all cases in order to measure the veracity of competing arguments. The aim of asking such standardized questions is to structure empirical inquiry. This systematic mea-

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surement will produce comparable data and will facilitate the identification of similarities and differences among chosen cases. More generally, as George mentions, “these questions are designed to illuminate the orientations of a leader to the fundamental issues of history and politics that presumably influence his calculation and choice of foreign policy.”72 Moreover, the “structured, focused comparison” is also characterized by the fact that it selectively analyzes aspects of historical cases that are relevant to the analysis. Therefore, the historical accounts of secessionist conflicts that occurred in Central Europe and in the Horn of Africa in the post–Cold War era are limited to what is relevant to answer the standardized questions. The set of questions that will be systematically asked are as follows. stability-seeking. Does the u.s. presidency always support the central state when it maintains the stability of its international borders? If so, does the United States sustain this policy in cases in which the central state is unable to guarantee external stability but attempts to negotiate with secessionists and is willing to let a third party intervene? If this is the case, what happens when a central state fails to maintain external stability and refuses to negotiate with secessionists; does the United States revise its policy and consider recognizing secession? If so, is u.s. recognition of secessionist states granted only to those that achieve internal and external stability? If yes is the answer to these four questions, it will be possible to conclude that the stability-seeking argument explains u.s. behaviour and that it can be generalized to other empirical cases. Moreover, a few questions derived from process-tracing of u.s. foreign policy decision making are included in the analysis. Do executive agents promoting the interest of stability have the most influence on the president’s decisions? Is this influence consistent through time? rival domestic arguments. A set of questions concerning rival theories will also be applied to selected cases, and they are as follows. Are u.s. ethnic groups that share ties with protagonists in the secessionist conflict abroad well-organized at the national level? Do these groups represent a considerable number of u.s. voters? If so, do these ethnic groups exercise pressure on the u.s. government and, more specifically, on the executive branch? Is the foreign poli-

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cy decision regarding the secessionist crisis in accordance with the interests of the strongest ethnic group involved in the issue? As for the business interest argument, do American multinational corporations (mncs) have significant economic interests in the central state or in the secessionist entity? If they do, do American firms influence the decision-making process? Does the u.s. executive response to the secessionist effort conform to the interests of powerful mncs or, more specifically, to u.s. firms with which u.s. executive agents keep strong ties? These straightforward questions provide clear research guidance and will allow us to compare empirical findings.73

3 The U.S. Recognition of Croatia and Slovenia

introduction The secessions of the Yugoslav republics of Croatia and Slovenia from the Socialist Federation of Yugoslavia in 1991 were among the first instances of effective secessions in a non-colonial context since the foundation of the United Nations.1 By precipitating the disintegration of Yugoslavia, the Croatian and the Slovenian governments compelled the United States to formulate a response to their claims and to express its preferences toward secessionist issues in the emerging post–Cold War order. Before measuring how the stability-seeking argument applies to the u.s. response to Croatia and Slovenia’s secessions, I will set the political context in which the United States got involved in the conflict by describing the events leading to the Yugoslav secessionist crisis.

a brief review of the secessionist crisis The secession of Croatia and Slovenia arose from the failure of Yugoslav political elites to create a new state designed to accommodate growing divergent interests among the republics. At the beginning of the 1990s, the central source of contention in Yugoslavia concerned the issue of power sharing between the federal government and the republics. Croatia and Slovenia, which were more economically developed than the southern republics, favoured a strong decentralization of power from the central government and the creation of a Yugoslav confederation. Two main factors explain these demands: Croats and Slovenes wanted to safe-

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guard their economies from Yugoslavia’s rapid economic decline, as well as to limit Serbia’s growing influence in the central government. Serbia and Montenegro, on the contrary, supported the maintenance of a centralized federal government, as well as strong federal control of the economy. The polarization between these republics was intensified by the rise of Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia in the late 1980s and by the election of nationalist parties in Croatia and Slovenia in the first multi-party elections in 1990. Following the elections, the Croatian and the Slovenian parliaments declared the sovereignty of their respective republics (i.e., the right to make all kinds of decisions including the right to secede) and adopted constitutional amendments to suspend federal laws on their territory. The turning point of the Yugoslav crisis came in May 1991, when Serbia, Montenegro, and the no longer autonomous republics of Kosovo and Vojvodina opposed the election of Croatia’s Stjepan Mesic as the new Yugoslav president, in order to protest against Croatia’s constitutional demands.2 This incident transformed political tensions into a major constitutional crisis that led to the collapse of the entire federal system. Constitutionally, the failure to elect Mesic at the rotational presidency left Yugoslavia without a state president and without a commander in chief of the Yugoslav People’s Army (ypa). Yugoslav Prime Minister Ante Markovic was therefore solely in charge of the political crisis. Following this political rebuff on the part of Serbia and Montenegro, Croatia and Slovenia held referendums on independence to press demands for the creation of a Yugoslav Confederation. Their strategy was simple: either negotiate a confederal union that would provide greater autonomy to republics, or else secede from Yugoslavia if no confederal agreement can be reached. Facing Serbia’s refusal of decentralizing federal powers, Croatia and Slovenia unilaterally declared their independence on 25 June 1991 and seized control of their borders. The Yugoslav federal government declared these unilateral actions illegal and ordered units of the ypa stationed in Croatia and Slovenia to take control of Yugoslavia’s international frontiers. This intervention marked the beginning of a ten-day war with Slovenia’s national troops, which eventually transformed into a major ethnic conflict over internal borders in Croatia, and later in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

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the united states’ response The resolution of the Yugoslav constitutional crisis was not a top priority for the administration of George H.W. Bush. In the summer of 1991, the United States was dealing with major international transformations, among which the Soviet political disintegration was certainly the most demanding. This issue was directly related to the security of the United States, since it raised concerns about the Soviet nuclear arsenal and the stability of the Eurasian continent. The political aftermath of the Gulf War was also at the center of President Bush’s foreign policy. The State Department was deeply involved in the Middle East peace negotiations that followed the liberation of Kuwait and suffered, in the words of Richard Holbrooke, from a “post-Iraq fatigue.”3 The relative weight of the Yugoslav crisis was therefore minor for the Bush administration, and u.s. policy-makers treated it as a regional dispute. As Brent Scowcroft, President Bush’s national security advisor, would later observe about the Yugoslav conflict: “[Secretary] Baker would say ‘we don’t have a dog in this fight.’ The President would say to me once a week ‘tell me again what this is all about.’”4 With the end of the Cold War, Yugoslavia was no longer the neutral buffer zone protecting Western Europe from a potential Soviet continental invasion, and as a result it lost its geopolitical importance in Washington. For this reason, the United States was not inclined to take a leading role in the Yugoslav conflict and was pleased to follow the leadership of the European Community (ec) on this matter. As u.s. secretary of state James Baker indicates, “the Bush administration felt comfortable with the ec’s taking responsibility for handling the crisis in the Balkans. The conflict seemed to be one the ec could manage. More critically, Yugoslavia was in the heart of Europe, and European interests were directly threatened.”5 The European Community had indeed much more at stake in the Yugoslav conflict than the United States. Two of its members, Greece and Italy, respectively shared borders with the Yugoslav Republics of Macedonia and Slovenia, and the prospect of Yugoslavia’s disintegration raised the issue of ethnic conflicts and instability in the whole region.

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The U.S. Support for Yugoslavia’s Unity Even if the Bush administration did not see the Yugoslav crisis as a central issue, it did formulate clear preferences regarding it. The primary u.s. interest was to avoid war in the Balkans. From the early days of the Yugoslav secessionist crisis to the formal disintegration of Yugoslavia, which happened in the fall of 1991, the United States supported the unity of the federation and was categorically opposed to the unilateral secession of its constituent republics. Before Croatia and Slovenia’s unilateral declaration of independence, President Bush had clearly underlined that the United States “would not reward” republics that would choose to secede unilaterally.6 During his visit to Yugoslavia, a week before Croatia and Slovenia declared independence, Secretary Baker mentioned that “instability and break-up of Yugoslavia, we think, could have some very tragic consequences, not only here, but more broadly, in Europe, as well.”7

the yugoslav state’s maintenance of stability The unilateral declarations of independence issued by Croatia and Slovenia in June 1991 had a disastrous effect on the Yugoslav state. The central government was increasingly paralyzed as Croatian and Slovenian federal officials gradually returned to their republics. Yugoslav prime minister Ante Markovic, however, was still in a position to exercise control over the ypa and his decision to send troops into Slovenia asserted – at least in the short term – Yugoslavia’s sovereignty. The Yugoslav state, therefore, managed to contain secessionists inside its borders, no cross-national refugees resulted from secessionist attempts, and Belgrade remained at peace with its foreign neighbours. At the internal level, Prime Minister Markovic demonstrated his willingness to negotiate with secessionists in the summer of 1991 by welcoming ec mediation. Markovic was even ready to accept the secession of the republics as long as it would be democratically negotiated with the federal government.8 In addition to being able to maintain the stability of Yugoslavia’s international borders and being open to negotiations, Prime Minister Markovic had been strongly supported by the United States since his accession to power in 1989. With the collapse of commu-

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nism in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s, Markovic came to symbolize democracy and market reforms in Yugoslavia. Within the Bush administration, Markovic was seen as a democratic figure who should receive support.9 Markovic’s openness had also allowed the European Community to negotiate a ceasefire between the Yugoslav army and Slovenian troops in July 1991. This demonstrated the goodwill of the central government and illustrated Belgrade’s determination to settle the crisis. The ceasefire supervised by Brussels established a three-month moratorium on Croatia and Slovenia’s secession, which sought to facilitate a political compromise on Yugoslavia’s future.10 Moreover, Serbia had consented in early July to the election of the Croatian candidate, who had initially been boycotted by Milosevic, to the post of president of the collective state presidency. This was seen in the United States and among ec members as a positive step forward toward the resolution of the conflict. In this context and despite the fact that the Yugoslav central government was increasingly paralyzed, the United States did not consider the recognition of secessionist states, since the Yugoslav central state was not only able to maintain its external stability but was also open to negotiating with the secessionists. During this period, the question of recognition was not even debated among u.s. foreign policy agencies. This political situation, however, did not last very long, and European efforts to settle the dispute collapsed in the fall of 1991, when the ypa agreed to retreat from Slovenia but moved simultaneously to Croatia to bring assistance to the Serbian minorities living in the Krajina and Slavonia regions. The intervention of the ypa in Croatia complicated the nature of the Yugoslav conflict by emphasizing its ethnic dimension. This event had a major impact on the u.s. perception of the conflict. The intervention of the ypa in Croatia was seen in Washington as a Serbian war of aggression against the Croats, and the Bush administration, as well as the European leaders, began to seriously question the legitimacy of the ypa and its real motivation in the conflict. The secession of Croatia and Slovenia had led to a rapid “serbianization” of the Yugoslav army, and the ypa quickly became a military instrument at the service of Serbian interests. As Richard Holbrooke would later argue, “In the brief war in Slovenia the Yugoslav Army seemed to be defending the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia; when that same army went to war only a few weeks later against

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Croatia, it had become a Serb army fighting for the Serbs inside Croatia.”11

the emergence of external instability At the first meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Yugoslavia in September 1991, the United States for the first time adopted a proactive attitude toward the conflict. James Baker expressed his great concern about Yugoslavia’s external stability as several thousand Croats began to flee to other countries to escape Serbian aggression. The Secretary of State declared that the Bush administration was highly concerned about “the dangerous impact on Yugoslavia’s neighbours who face refugee flows, energy shortfalls, and the threat of a spillover in the fighting.”12 Robert Pearson, who was the executive secretary of the State Department, also noted that Hungary was in the process of democratization and that Yugoslav refugees were threatening its stability, as well as the stability of central Europe.13 Refugees were mainly fleeing to Austria, Germany, and Hungary. Six months after Baker’s address to the un Security Council, the cia reported that Germany had taken more than 135,000 refugees and Hungary 48,000.14 Secretary Baker also pointed out that Serbia and the ypa bore a special responsibility for the Yugoslav conflict and warned Serbia that the use of force to modify Yugoslavia’s internal or external borders would not be tolerated. The issue of safeguarding Yugoslavia’s internal borders was extremely important to the United States. Like the Europeans, the United States believed that changes in republics’ intrastate borders would create more violence and would open a Pandora’s box to the revision of internal boundaries throughout Yugoslavia. This is why the United States refused, for instance, to address the issue of Croatia’s self-proclaimed Serbian republic of Krajina. Baker’s speech to the Security Council marked a turning point in the evolution of the u.s. policy toward Yugoslavia. For the first time, Washington designated Serbia and the former Yugoslav army as the main aggressors in the conflict and as a threat to regional stability. In an attempt to restore peace and to establish a ceasefire in the Croatian republic, the United States voted in favour of un resolution 713 establishing a “general and complete embargo on all deliveries of weapons and military equipment to Yugoslavia.”15

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Then in November, un secretary-general Javier Pérez de Cuéllar named former u.s. secretary of state Cyrus Vance as his personal envoy to mediate the war in Croatia. Vance’s objective was twofold: to reach a cease-fire in Croatia and to eventually establish a un peacekeeping operation in the country. The ypa’s aggressive behaviour significantly intensified in Croatia in the fall of 1991, leading Yugoslav President Mesic to officially declare on 16 September that Yugoslavia had ceased to exist. This declaration came following the refusal by the Yugoslav minister of defence to comply with President Mesic’s request that the ypa stop fighting in Croatia. By then, the United States was much more realistic in its approach. The Bush administration concluded that Yugoslavia could not be saved and that the secessionist republics would eventually have to be recognized as sovereign states. As Lenard Cohen points out, “By this point in time, it had become apparent to most observers that there was very little chance of restoring Yugoslavia’s unity … and that the most urgent matters at hand were to end the fighting in Croatia and to prevent a further expansion of violence.”16 The question was no longer how the United States could help to maintain Yugoslavia together but when and under which conditions it should recognize secessionist states.

the conditionality of u.s. recognition In the fall of 1991, the State Department knew that u.s. recognition of secessionist states could be used to contain and reinforce regional stability in the Balkans. The main question was how to play the “recognition card.” Even if the Yugoslav state had collapsed, the secessionist states were still not in a position to keep the stability of their borders, since war was raging in Croatia and could spread to Bosnia-Herzegovina. The State Department and the National Security Council (nsc) believed, therefore, that premature or uncoordinated recognition of secessionist republics would risk intensifying violence by irritating Serbia and members of the former ypa.17 James Baker reported to President Bush that the United States should coordinate a policy of non-recognition with the European Community to invalidate, or at least to reduce, the destabilizing effect of secession. Such a common policy was seen as an important political lever to moderate the behaviour of Yugoslavia’s protagonists and to find a peaceful agreement between them. As Baker

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indicates in his memoir, “each of the republics craved legitimacy in the West, and withholding recognition (or conferring it) was the most powerful diplomatic tool available. Earned recognition was one of our key points of leverage over the combatants.”18 In this context, the United States decided, in conjunction with the European Community, that the recognition of Croatia and Slovenia would be withheld as long as the Yugoslav conflict was not resolved peacefully. Moreover, on the basis of a policy recommendation issued by the State Department, which suggested that the United States should develop a practical framework to evaluate the merits of the Yugoslav secessionist states, the State Department unveiled in the fall of 1991 a list of criteria for state recognition. These guidelines listed five criteria that would guide the executive in its decision to grant or deny recognition to Yugoslav secessionist republics: •

• •

•

•

Determining the future of the country [i.e., the seceding republic] peacefully and democratically. Providing respect for internal and external borders. Providing support for democracy and the rule of law by promoting the democratic process. Safeguarding human rights, including equal treatment of minorities. Providing respect for international law and obligations, especially the Helsinki Final Act and the Charter of Paris.19

The u.s. guidelines for state recognition reflected u.s. democratic values and its strong interest in regional stability.20 They reveal the importance that the u.s. executive placed on the internal and external stability of the secessionist states, which indicates that the u.s. administration framed the issue along the lines of the stability-seeking argument. Although these criteria are not mutually exclusive, points 1, 3, and 4 refer to internal stability and to the governing ability of the secessionist states. Principles 2 and 5 refer to both internal and external elements of stability. Point 2 implies, for instance, that a secessionist state that either pursued irredentism or unilaterally redrew its internal territorial divisions would fail the test. As for point 5, it requests that secessionist leaders obey international norms of state conduct, such as respecting the territorial integrity of other states.

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By designing these guidelines, the State Department wanted to ensure that recognized republics would not perpetuate instability by replicating Yugoslavia’s ethnic tensions on a smaller scale, that newborn states would conform to certain standards of internal order and governance so that regional stability would endure. More generally, the conditionality of recognition provided a way to socialize seceding states so that they would conform to the rules and principles of the international system and would not develop into aggressive (or revisionist) states.21 These principles of state recognition also reflected the evolution of the u.s. policy toward secessionist movements. For the first time in its history, the United States elaborated clear principles on which its decisions to recognize or not to recognize secessionist states would be made. The guidelines not only sought to address the Yugoslav crisis but were actually seen as a standard for evaluating future independentist claims around the world. It is not a coincidence that the guidelines were set down in late 1991. With the forthcoming disintegration of the Soviet Union, the United States suddenly had the opportunity to emphasize liberal principles throughout Central and Eastern Europe without fearing political tensions with the ussr. To a certain extent, criteria contained in the u.s. guidelines for state recognition were a prelude to the set of conditions that Central and Eastern European States would have to meet to join nato and the European Union later in the 1990s. The evolution of the Western policy toward the Yugoslav conflict, however, was not a linear process. Indeed, in December of 1991 Germany decided to break from the common Western policy by recognizing the independence of Croatia and Slovenia, despite widely expressed objections by the United States and ec members.22 In order to avoid diplomatic confrontation and disunity within the community, ec foreign ministers reluctantly agreed to follow Germany and granted recognition to the two republics in January 1992. This decision resulted in several international consequences: it ended the Western diplomatic front toward the issue of recognition, it marginalized the u.s. policy of non-recognition; and it made the secession of Croatia and Slovenia a fait accompli. The Bush administration, however, remained steadfast in its policy and hoped that its position would counterbalance the effect of the ec recognition of the two republics. The United States was worried that recognition would break the Serbian-Croatian ceasefire

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that had been reached in early January by un envoy Cyrus Vance.23 The main objective of the United States was to preserve the ceasefire so that the United Nations could begin the deployment of its peacekeeping force in the region. These two elements were seen in Washington as the main conditions for the restoration of stability in the Balkans. Indeed, as long as war was raging in the former Yugoslavia, secessionist states could hardly secure their national borders.

the u.s. recognition of secessionist states In early 1992, the prospect of a war in multiethnic Bosnia-Herzegovina had a major impact on the u.s.’s perception of the Yugoslav conflict. Ethnic tensions between Croats, Serbs, and Muslims were intensifying as the Bosnian government announced its intention to hold a referendum on independence in late February. The United States predicted that ethnic conflict in Croatia would soon spread to Bosnia, as the Bosnian Serbs were expected to oppose independence and react violently to the results of the referendum. This led the United States to undertake a major transformation in its strategy. While until then recognition had been seen as a disruptive action that could intensify violence by irritating Serbian authorities, the United States came to the conclusion that non-recognition would not stop Serbia’s violent irredentist ambitions and could even promote greater instability. A few days before the Bosnian referendum, Thomas Niles, the assistant secretary of state for European affairs, wrote to James Baker that since it was almost certain that the Bosnian Muslims and Croats would vote for Bosnia’s independence, the United States should recognize this republic to “reinforce stability” and to deter Serbia’s eventual attempt to annex Bosnia’s territory populated by Serbs.24 This position was also supported by the National Security Council. Brent Scowcroft formulated the same recommendation: “We were hoping that the conflict would not spread into Bosnia and that we might be able to keep the Yugoslav army from invading Bosnia if we recognize the independence of Bosnia.”25 Niles also recommended that in order to maximize the effect of this strategy, the United States should coordinate common Western recognition of Bosnia. This strategy would render Bosnia’s independence effec-

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tive and would deter violence between Serbs and Croats. Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger added another dimension to this strategy. He recommended that the United States recognize the Yugoslav republics that sought international recognition all at once (i.e., Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, and Slovenia).26 According to him, non-recognition of some republics would leave them vulnerable to potential aggressive actions on the part of the new sovereign republics. Eagleburger wrote, “My concern all along has been that a halfway policy on recognition would invite Serbian and Croatian adventurism in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Macedonia.”27 This argument convinced Baker to adopt a global policy on recognition to avoid violence that would result from a differential treatment of the republics. Thus, in the winter of 1992 the Bush administration came to see diplomatic recognition as a stability-making action, rather than as a desruptive one. Since recognition was to transform Yugoslavia’s internal boundaries into international borders, Washington saw it as a political dam against Serbia’s ongoing aggression against neighbouring territories and expected that it could slow down the diffusion of war. Recognition of Croatia’s international boundaries, for instance, meant that Milosevic could not hope to obtain a recognized conquest of Croatia’s territory. Moreover, the diplomatic recognition of secessionist republics meant that the United Nations would take actions in cases where the sovereignty of these states was violated. This was seen as a deterrent to Serbia’s aggressive ambitions.28 When Bosnia declared its independence, the Yugoslav federation no longer existed and the deployment of the United Nations Protection Forces (unprofor) in Croatia, comprised of fourteen thusand un peacekeepers, provided stability guarantees for recognition. With a major contingent of un peacekeeping troops in place (the second-largest un force deployed since 1945), the United States believed that the recognition of the northern republics of Bosnia, Croatia, and Slovenia was a more realistic and efficient way to restore stability than waiting for a general agreement among republics, which became unlikely as time went on. Although changing its policies, the Bush administration remained constant in its objectives of containing war and restoring regional stability in the Balkans. The u.s. support for Bosnia’s independence was also a strategic move to regain political leverage on the Yugoslav issue and

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to be diplomatically consistent with Western Europe. By extending recognition to Bosnia, Washington moved away from its diplomatic isolation and was able to work in tandem with the Europeans. The United States and the European Community finally reached an agreement in Brussels in March 1992.29 The United States then convinced the ec to recognize Bosnia and proposed in return to recognize Croatia and Slovenia. The Washington-Brussels agreement was to guarantee the territorial integrity of Bosnia and to preserve stability in the Balkan area. The common u.s.-ec declaration emphasized the need for internal stability in the secessionist republics by pointing out that the internal borders of Yugoslav republics should be maintained and that they should not be changed by force or without mutual consent. The United States extended recognition to Croatia and Slovenia, as well as to Bosnia-Herzegovina, on 6 April 1992, one day before the arrival of unprofor in Croatia and accepted the republics’ precrisis borders as their legitimate international frontiers.30 Macedonia, however, was left out and failed to obtain u.s. recognition, even though it pursued independence democratically and without any violence. The next chapter deals extensively with this issue.

the question of the stability of croatia and slovenia Slovenia was a good candidate for recognition as it quickly achieved internal and external stability. Fighting in Slovenia was brief, and the Yugoslav army quickly withdrew from the territory, which stabilized the Slovenian state. This event made Slovenia a de facto independent state. The ethnic homogeneity of the republic also facilitated peaceful relations with both Croatia and Serbia, and it contributed to fostering Slovenia’s external stability. The Slovenian government also demonstrated that it fully respected international borders. Moreover, the Slovenian referendum on independence showed clear public consent for secession and gave strong internal legitimacy to secessionist leaders. Following the referendum, constitutional reforms were also adopted that guaranteed minority rights. In fact, the only reason why Washington did not recognize Slovenia before April 1992 was the instability in Croatia. The Bush administration thought that simultaneous recognition of both republics

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would avoid disruption. Thus, although the political situation in Slovenia was better than the one in Croatia, the American government did not make a distinction in terms of policy, and Slovenia remained in the u.s. “diplomatic waiting room” until Croatia was able to offer some guarantees of stability. In contrast to Slovenia, Croatia only partially met the u.s. requirements for stability, which shows that this case does not perfectly fit the stability-seeking argument. In terms of external stability, the Croatian government of Franjo Tudjman respected international borders (although his government would eventually pursue irredentism in Bosnia), and it had consented to a ceasefire with the Serbs under the supervision of the United Nations. The un agreement, however, was precarious and did not constitute a solid guarantee that no interstate war would occur following recognition (the ceasefire indeed lasted only a few months). At the internal level, the Croatian government had held a democratic referendum on independence in which an overwhelming majority of Croats had supported secession. However, despite the referendum result and the mandate to achieve independence, the Tudjman government did not have complete control of Croatia’s territory. Zagreb had lost onethird of its territory to Serbian troops in the fall of 1991 (i.e. the Krajina and Slavonia regions). Furthermore, Tudjman had failed to provide sufficient constitutional guarantees to its sixty-thousand ethnic Serbs. How can we explain, then, the United States’ consent to recognize the independence of Croatia even though Zagreb did not obtain a very high stability score? The complexity and the magnitude of the Yugoslav conflict led the State Department and the National Security Council to conclude that the ceasefire between Serbs and Croats and the un peacekeeping operation in Croatia provided sufficient conditions for stability for Croatia to be recognized.31 The fact that Washington perceived recognition as a strong deterrent to Serbian aggression in Croatia and Bosnia also accelerated the decision to recognize the republic. Even if the Croatian state was not as stable as Slovenia, its recognition by the United States sought to prevent a much greater level of instability in the region. At that time, the behaviour of the Serbian army was inappropriate, and the u.s. administration felt that there was no other choice but to recognize Croatia. David Gompert, nsc senior director for Europe and Eurasia, emphasizes the difficulty of the issue

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for u.s. foreign policy makers: We were trying “to maintain some principles, trying to keep our eye on everything else that was going on in the world, but … we were also trying to make decisions in a way that would not foster violence in the former Yugoslavia.”32 The American attitude toward Croatia’s secession, therefore, fell into the larger framework of stability, even if each of the internal and external indicators of stability were not met by the Croatian government. On the day the United States recognized Croatia, Margaret Tutwiler, the assistant secretary of state for public affairs, made clear, however, that despite its decision to recognize the independence of Croatia, the u.s. government expected Zagreb to conform to the u.s. principles of internal stability, especially those regarding minority rights.33

inside the executive black box The literature on the Yugoslav disintegration, declassified documents from the State Department, and interviews conducted in Washington, dc, show that executive agents who worked on the resolution of the Yugoslav issue in 1991–92 stressed the importance of regional stability over other considerations such as domestic factors. In the State Department, Dennis Ross, the director of the policy planning office; Robert Pearson, the executive secretary of the department; Thomas Niles, the assistant secretary of state for European affairs; Warren Zimmermann, the u.s. ambassador to Yugoslavia; Lawrence Eagleburger, the deputy secretary; and James Baker, the secretary of state, emphasized stability issues. In the National Security Council, main actors like David Gompert, the special assistant to President Bush and senior director for Europe and Eurasia; Jonathan T. Howe, the nsc deputy assistant to President Bush; and nsc advisor Brent Scowcroft also emphasized regional stability in their assessment of the crisis. These policymakers all supported the continuation of Yugoslavia until the federation fell apart.34 There was also a consensus among these agents that recognition of independence should be conditional on the domestic stability of seceding republics, as well as on their respect for international borders. In sum, there was no interagency disagreement on the course of action to follow. There was, rather, a consensus that both internal and external dimensions of stability should guide the u.s. response toward the issue, even if the case of Croatia shows

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that broader stability considerations also guided the u.s. decision to grant recognition.

the influence of the regional and the great powers Another important question to ask is what kind of impact regional and great powers (the intervening variable) had on u.s. behaviour toward the Yugoslav secessionist crisis? To measure the importance of this variable, we have to look for critical events or turning points in the evolution of the international dimension of the secessionist crisis that were caused by regional or great powers and to see whether the u.s. behaviour changed accordingly. The German decision to unilaterally recognize Croatia and Slovenia in December 1991 was the only significant critical junction produced by a regional power to disturb the linearity of the Western response to the crisis. This event led the European Community as a whole to recognize the two republics in January of 1992, and several other countries (Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Hungary, Malta, Norway, Poland, Romania, Sweden, and Switzerland) followed suit.35 However, as shown above, this event did not change u.s. policy. The strong consensus existing within the presidency on the fact that the basic conditions for stability would have to be in place before recognition could be granted led the Bush administration to withhold Slovenia and Croatia’s recognition for another three months. The Bush administration patiently waited for a un mission to be deployed in Croatia before making its move. The u.s.-ec agreement on the recognition of secessionist republics reached in Brussels in March 1992 stipulated that the United States’ support for Croatia’s and Slovenia’s independence had to go together with the deployment of the un peacekeeping force.36 This shows the determination with which the Bush administration treated the issue, as well as the emphasis that it placed on regional stability. The empirical record indicates, therefore, that the German defection from the Western consensus on non-recognition did not directly affect Washington’s response to the issue. The disintegration of Yugoslavia in the fall of 1991 had made the independence of Croatia and Slovenia inevitable, and the United States was fully aware of this. The German action simply stressed this inevitability.

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the impact of ethnic politics Here I focus on the impact of the Croatian American lobby on the u.s. executive decision to recognize the independence of Croatia. I have chosen to set aside the study of the impact of the Slovenian American community, since this diaspora is much smaller and less organized than its Croatian counterpart. The Croatian Americans represent a relatively powerful ethnic group. This community, comprised of around 2.5 million people, is well organized at the national level, and large clusters are located in swing states such as Ohio. Thus, by concentrating on the activities of the Croatian Americans, I choose the case that is more likely to validate the proposition, sustained by many scholars, that ethnic groups affect the formulation of u.s. foreign policy toward secessionist conflicts. Indeed, to return to the competing domestic hypotheses introduced in chapter 2, proponents of the ethnic lobby argument would assert that the u.s. position toward a secessionist conflict reflects the interests of the ethnic group that exercises the most pressure on the u.s. government and/or that Washington’s position toward such a conflict would reflect the interests of the ethnic group that represents the largest number of u.s. voters. To measure the accuracy of these hypotheses, I looked at variations in the u.s. policy toward Croatia that could have been caused by Croatian American lobbies. The evidence indicates that the Croatian American community was highly mobilized throughout the Yugoslav conflict and very active in promoting the cause of Croatia’s self-determination following the secession of the republic in June 1991. The Croatian diaspora contributed to the establishment of an office of the Republic of Croatia in Washington, and Croatian organizations launched lobbying campaigns in the White House and Congress. The Croatian organizations also hired professional lobbying firms, such as the public relations firm Ruder Finn Global Public Affairs, to promote Croatia’s claim for independence and to shape the debate in Washington in a way that would provide a positive image of the Croatian government. Croatian American associations also helped to organize u.s. Congressional hearings on the situation in Croatia and were successful in enlisting well-known congressmen, such as Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (r-Kansas), to support Croatia’s declaration of independence.37 Moreover, in the summer of 1991 more than thirty-five thousand

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Croatian Americans rallied in Washington, urging the Bush administration to recognize the secession of Croatia. According to Pero Novak, who lobbied the u.s. government in favour of Croatia’s recognition and who is now president of the Ohio chapter of the Croatian American Association (caa), the American Croats clearly had an impact of the final u.s. decision to recognize Croatia.38 Thus, there is evidence that the Croatian American lobby put strong political pressure on both Congress and on the White House (political rallies, letters to Congress members, etc.) in the summer and fall of 1991. However, if Croatian-Americans were so proactive in the weeks and months following Croatia’s secession and obtained the support of influential members of Congress like Robert Dole, why did u.s. recognition of Croatia come only in April 1992, almost ten months following the independence of the republic? One would expect that if Croat Americans had been truly influential, the United States would have proceeded earlier with recognition, perhaps even before Germany unilaterally recognized the republic in December 1991. Yet in the summer and the fall of 1991 the State Department and the nsc were working toward the formulation of a coherent Western policy of non-recognition for the Yugoslav secessionist states. Despite the strong political determination of Croatian American organizations, the Bush administration was strongly opposed to Croatia’s secession and maintained this position even after Germany and the other ec members recognized the republic. Until the fall of 1991, the United States was convinced that a unified Yugoslavia offered the best opportunity to maintain stability in the region. The question of whether or not the United States should recognize Croatia was not even an issue. There is no evidence indicating that the Bush administration was influenced by the Croatian lobby during that time. It seems that the Croatian Americans were simply ignored by the Bush administration. According to Thomas Niles, who was assistant secretary of state for European affairs and later worked closely on Croatia and Slovenia’s recognition, u.s. decision makers paid no attention to these ethnic lobbies when they formulated the u.s. position toward the issue.39 David Gompert who was involved in the recognition of the Yugoslav republics and who often met with Croat American organizations also categorically dismissed the Croatian American lobby as an important factor in President Bush’s decision to recognize

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Croatia. “I learned from them,” he did remark, “but at no point, as far as I know, did somebody in the White House make a calculation that, if we recognize Croatia, we will pick up some votes in Cleveland. It really wasn’t the way that the White House functioned.”40 In his memoir, James Baker explains that the u.s. government resisted pressure from the Croatian Americans to recognize Croatia because it believed that a premature recognition could compromise the United Nations’ effort to achieve a ceasefire in the former Yugoslavia. Baker indicates: After the ec decision, I had Larry Eagleburger talk to Cy Vance. He told us to wait at least two weeks, and preferably a month, before moving ahead with recognition. That would allow time to begin the deployment of a u.n. peacekeeping force. Vance felt that our decision to withhold recognition had had an important restraining effect on the Serbs and had discouraged Milosevic and Tudjman from carving up Bosnia. This put us in a difficult position domestically with the Croatian-American lobby, but I told the President at lunch on January 24, “We can and should take the public and congressional heat. We should do all we can to support Vance’s efforts, because our best hope for resolving the crisis is maintenance of the cease-fire and introduction of u.n. peacekeepers.” The President agreed, and so we waited.41 President Bush’s decision to focus u.s. attention on regional stability considerations alienated him from the Croatian community at home. As Gompert notes, all along during the Yugoslav crisis, “George Bush declined to recognize Croatia despite intense pressure from the influential Croatian American community, which as a result deserted him in the election of 1992.”42 One could wonder, however, whether the Serbian American lobby was partly responsible for President Bush’s refusal to recognize Croatia. This would imply that a “horse race” between the two diasporic communities was the reason why u.s. recognition came so late. It is true that Serbian Americans were mobilized in the early 1990s (mainly through the Serbian Unity Congress, or suc) and that the Serbian diaspora tried to influence the debate in Washington. However, Congressional representative Helen Delich Bentley (one of the most prominent Serbian American voices in the United States) indicates that the Bush administration quickly identified the

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Serbs as the aggressors in the conflict and opposed Slobodan Milosevic’s policies. With such a clear bias against the Serbs, it was difficult for the Serbian community to influence the Bush administration. Despite one million Serbian Americans, the Serbian lobby was unable to orchestrate a public relations campaign in favour of Serbia, while the Croatian lobby was quite successful at rallying support. There was, therefore, no horse race between Serbian and Croatian Americans, and the two communities did not cancel out each other’s effort to influence u.s. decision makers, which could have explained the delay in the u.s. decision to recognize Croatia. Thus, the position of the Bush administration did not reflect the interests of the Croatian Americans, even though this ethnic group put more pressure on the White House and represented more American voters than the Serbian Americans. I do not pretend that the Croatian community failed to affect the u.s. perception of Croatia’s bid for independence or that it did not help to shape the debate in Washington. I do assert, however, in light of the previous analysis, that Croat American pressure did not affect the process by which the Bush administration came to recognize the Republic of Croatia, nor did it influence the speed with which u.s. recognition was granted.

the impact of monetary interests David Gibbs maintains that connections between decision makers and private business interests affect the conduct of u.s. foreign policy toward secessionist crises. Based on his theoretical argument, we can hypothesize that, first, the United States’decision to support the central state or to recognize the independence of the secessionist state conforms to the interests of powerful American corporations and, second, that the u.s. position on the matter reflects the interests of multinational corporations with which u.s. executive agents have strong ties. Did American decision makers share ties with u.s. corporations involved in Yugoslavia in the early 1990s? If so, were the private economic interests of u.s. executive agents strongly reflected in the American response to the Yugoslav secessionist crisis? Following the demise of Yugoslavia in 1992, policy analysts and some State Department officials argued that Lawrence Eagleburger and Brent Scowcroft – who were, respectively, deputy secretary of

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state and national security advisor under President Bush – had supported for too long the unity of Yugoslavia and failed to respond adequately to inter-ethnic violence in the Balkans because they had cultivated strong ties over the years with the Yugoslav regime. Some even suggested that because they had business interests in Yugoslavia in the 1980s, both officials had a strong bias against Croatia’s and Slovenia’s secessionist attempts. According to Roy Gutman, the pro-Yugoslav bias of Eagleburger and Scowcroft led them to support the State Department view according to which Yugoslavia should be supported as long as possible and Croatia and Slovenia should not be recognized.43 As u.s. Ambassador to Yugoslavia from 1977 to 1981, Lawrence Eagleburger established close connections with the Yugoslav political elites and became friends with Slobodan Milosevic, who was then the head of the largest bank of Serbia. Once retired from the u.s. government, Eagleburger and Scowcroft worked from 1984 to 1988, respectively as president and vice-president of Henry Kissinger Associates Inc., a New York consulting firm that offered strategic consulting services to international companies. During this time, both men maintained close ties with Yugoslav leaders and dealt with several Yugoslav and Serbian state-owned companies. As president of Kissinger Associates, Eagleburger joined the board of Yugo America, the American division of a Serbian car company that was owned by Global Motors Inc., and served on the board of the Ljubljana Bank. The money Eagleburger earned from business dealings with Yugoslav state companies, however, represented only a small fraction of his salary at Kissinger Associates. According to David Binder, Eagleburger earned $5,000 a year from business ties to Yugoslavia (e.g., to Yugo America and the Ljubljana Bank), while his total income at Kissinger Associates was $900,000 a year.44 Moreover, Yugo America went bankrupt and closed its doors in 1989, which greatly reduced Eagleburger’s economic involvement with Yugoslavia. Upon returning to the State Department and the nsc in 1989, Eagleburger and Scowcroft attempted to stay away from the Yugoslav crisis to avoid being subject to particular scrutiny, even if they no longer had official business ties to Yugoslavia. There is little doubt that Eagleburger and Scowcroft were biased in favour of Yugoslavia’s state unity. For decades they had built strong relationships with Yugoslav leaders throughout the federa-

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tion.45 However, that their past private business interests in Yugoslavia, which had been relatively minor, guided their actions toward the crisis is doubtful. President Bush and Secretary Baker were also strongly in favour of the maintenance of Yugoslavia, and yet they had not maintained business ties with Yugoslav companies in the past. It seems that the aversion of the Bush administration to changes in international politics, as well as Eagleburger’s and Scowcroft’s personal attachment to Yugoslavia, explain why the u.s. overlooked the obvious collapse of the federation and why they were slow to react. Eagleburger and Scowcroft simply could not conceive – despite the information they received from the cia and the Embassy in Belgrade – that Yugoslavia would break apart. In fact, the u.s. belief that state unity was the only possible way to avoid war, led it to adopt an approach based on wishful thinking that confused its desire for unity with the reality of the conflict. Moreover, even if business interests could explain why the United States waited so long before granting recognition to Croatia and Slovenia, they would still not have elucidated why the Bush administration decided to reverse its policy in April 1992. Thus, David Gibbs’ argument also fails to explain the change of policy in favour of recognition. In sum, no evidence has been found to support the hypotheses according to which the United States position conformed to the interests of multinationals with which u.s. executive agents shared strong ties, or simply, that the American response reflected the interests of u.s. corporations.

conclusion The evidence points in the direction of the stability-seeking argument. In the initial phase of the Yugoslav conflict, the United States conformed to the first step of the theory. It supported the central state, which attempted to maintain external stability by securing its international borders. The Yugoslav federal government, led by Prime Minister Markovic, was also willing to negotiate with Croatia and Slovenia’s secessionist leaders and welcomed the European Community’s efforts at mediation. The United States revised its policy once it became clear, in the fall of 1991, that Yugoslavia was disintegrating and could no longer handle constitutional reforms or maintain its international borders. The Bush administration, however, did not immediately

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proceed to the recognition of Croatia and Slovenia, since war in the Croatian republic produced a high level of instability. The ceasefire and the deployment of un peacekeepers were essential conditions for recognition to be granted by the United States. The analysis suggests that the case of Croatia does not perfectly fit the second step of the stability-seeking argument. This does not mean, however, that the case goes against the logic of the proposed theory. Indeed, the search for regional stability was clearly the main motive behind the u.s. recognition of Croatia. The purpose of recognition was to improve the security of the Croatian state and to discourage Serbia’s aggressive behaviour toward neighbouring states. The American decision was, therefore, shaped by stability considerations.

4 Macedonia: A U.S. Delay of Recognition in Five Episodes introduction The American recognition of Macedonia’s independence is an interesting case of foreign policy making, as the u.s. did not follow the normal process by which it usually grants recognition to emerging states. It took more than twelve years and three successive presidencies for the White House to complete the process of Macedonia’s diplomatic recognition. The saga began in the spring of 1992, when the Bush administration decided to delay recognition. Then the Clinton administration recognized the independence of Macedonia in 1994 under the temporary designation Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (fyrom). Yet the first u.s. ambassador to Skopje, Macedonia’s capital, was named only in 1996, after the White House had delayed extending full diplomatic relations to fyrom at the ambassadorial level. Finally, in November 2004 the administration of George W. Bush, in an unexpected and unilateral decision, recognized the republic under its constitutional name, the Republic of Macedonia, in a decision that was opposed by the European Union and vehemently opposed by Greece. The question that this chapter addresses is, why was u.s. recognition of Macedonia’s independence such a long and difficult process? The research shows that the United States is a stabilityseeking power. Throughout the Macedonian saga, u.s. administrations consistently pursued the interest of strengthening regional stability in the South Balkans, which was at risk because of a profound geo-political disagreement between Greece and Macedonia. This chapter suggests that stability considerations defined American policy toward the controversial birth of the Macedonian state

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and justified the slowness with which the United States granted recognition. As a result of its complexity and richness, the case of u.s. recognition of Macedonia is well-suited for intra-case comparisons and systematic analysis. For the purpose of the current study, the different “episodes” of the Macedonian saga are broken down into five different units of interactions that are treated as separate cases. The benefit of the intra-case comparison is that it looks at variation within one defined political context, which allows us to identify the fluctuations in the u.s. position and the factors that account for them. This comparative method increases the number of points of measurement for a more accurate and systematical evaluation of the proposed arguments.1 Five intra-cases are investigated here: (1) The u.s. strategy of withholding Macedonia’s recognition in 1992, (2) American diplomatic recognition of fyrom in 1994, (3) backtracking by the Clinton administration on its initial decision to extend full diplomatic relations to fyrom, (4) the extension of full diplomatic relations to the republic in 1995–96, and (5) President Bush’s recognition of Macedonia’s constitutional name in 2004. Using these five subunits of analysis, this chapter will evaluate whether Macedonia’s internal and external stability were the main factors explaining the American behaviour toward the republic across time and, more specifically, whether these factors account for the u.s. delay in diplomatic recognition. Competing propositions will also be measured. The facts show that the independence of Macedonia awakened the powerful Greek American lobby, which opposed, for historical reasons, the recognition of the Yugoslav republic under the name Macedonia. The strength of the Greek American community and its mobilization against recognition will allow a serious test of the validity of the ethnic-group hypotheses. The analysis will look at the evolution of the American stance toward Macedonia, to detect whether the pressure exercised by the Greek Americans may have caused the u.s. policy toward the issue to fluctuate over time. The ethnic-lobby argument is a serious alternative explanation for the u.s. response to Macedonia’s independence, since this case has been one of the standard bearers for the ethnic-lobby argument. Indeed, Macedonia has been one of the most frequently cited examples to support the ethnic lobby argument. Authors including

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Stephen Saideman, Paul Hockenos, John Shea, and Hanna Rosin have argued that the Greek-American lobby strongly influenced u.s. policy toward Macedonia.2 More specifically, they assert that the United States delayed the recognition of Macedonia’s independence because of the successful mobilization of the Greek Americans, who strongly opposed recognition. I propose, therefore, to evaluate this argument by bringing the theoretical debate to the forefront. As for the business interest argument, the fact that Macedonia’s secession originates from the same political context as that of Croatia and Slovenia limits the addition of new and relevant information to validate or refute this proposition. This chapter, therefore, provides only a brief treatment of this argument.

a q u ic k l ook at the secessi oni st cri si s Before the outbreak of the Yugoslav crisis in 1991, the Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia was in favour of the maintenance of a strong federal government. As Yugoslavia’s poorest republic and as one of the smallest in terms of population (around two million inhabitants), Macedonia greatly benefited from federal economic resources, as well as from Belgrade’s military protection. When Croatia and Slovenia raised their voices in favour of a Yugoslav confederal arrangement, however, the Macedonian government chose to support decentralization. Kiro Gligorov, the president of Macedonia, believed that by fulfilling Croatia’s and Slovenia’s political demands, Yugoslavia would remain united, which was in the best interest of his republic. Political events did not turn out as Gligorov expected, however. Consecutive meetings held by the presidents of the six Yugoslav republics in the spring of 1991 resulted in a major political failure to compromise on the country’s future. As seen in chapter 3, Serbia and Montenegro firmly rejected the idea of massive decentralization of federal powers and vetoed the election of the Croatian candidate to the rotating Yugoslav presidency. Moreover, Serbian officials declared that in the event that Yugoslavia did collapse, Serbia would annex the “artificial nation” of Macedonia to recreate the Greater Serbia of the pre-1945 era.3 The increasing domination of Serbia on the federal political scene and its overt territorial aspirations over Macedonia compelled Skopje to rethink its political

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options. In May of 1991, Gligorov declared that in the event of Croatian and Slovenian secession, Macedonia would follow suit to preserve itself from Serbia’s domination. When Croats and Slovenes seceded from Yugoslavia in June of 1991, the Macedonian parliament immediately adopted a declaration asserting Macedonia’s right to secede, and the government announced that a referendum on independence would be held.4 Macedonia participated nonetheless in political negotiations sponsored by the European Community in the summer of 1991 in the hope of finding a solution to the Yugoslav crisis. However, when the Serbian-dominated Yugoslav People’s Army (ypa) invaded Croatia, hope for a peaceful compromise vanished, and Macedonia chose the path to independence. The option of remaining within a reconfigured Yugoslav state controlled by Serbia was clearly not viable. As a result, a referendum on Macedonia’s independence was held in September of 1991 and secession was officially declared by the Macedonian parliament in November.5 The case of Macedonia is very similar to that of Croatia and Slovenia, to the extent that it emerged from the same constitutional crisis. What is different, however, is that Skopje did not achieve the same political outcome as the two northern republics. While Croatia and Slovenia were recognized as sovereign states by the European Community and by the United States, respectively in January and in April of 1992, Macedonia was left in the diplomatic waiting room, and Washington denied it recognition for more than two years. How can we explain this u.s. diplomatic deferral? Why is it that the Bush administration, which refused to deal separately with Croatia and Slovenia, withheld Macedonia’s recognition at the expense of increasing the insecurity and the vulnerability of the republic? This chapter provides an explanation.

episode 1: the bush administration’s delay of macedonia’s recognition The Yugoslav federation was in an advanced stage of disintegration when Macedonia declared its independence.6 In contrast to Croatia, and to a lesser extent Slovenia, Macedonia managed to break from Yugoslavia without any violence. By March 1992, the Macedonian government had removed all its representatives from feder-

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al institutions, and the Yugoslav People’s Army (ypa) had completed its withdrawal from the republic.7 The fact that the former ypa was already involved in a brutal war in Croatia (and later in Bosnia) partly explains Macedonia’s ability to secede peacefully. The peaceful and democratic nature of Macedonia’s secession placed the republic in a good position to be recognized by the United States. In early 1992, the Badinter Commission had ruled that Macedonia and Slovenia were the only two republics to meet the European criteria for state recognition.8 Macedonia was also in line with the principles included in the u.s. guidelines for state recognition (see chapter 3). Consequently, the Bush administration assessed that Macedonia was a first-rate candidate for diplomatic recognition, which would bolster its stability in an uncertain environment. The National Security Council (nsc) and the State Department thought that recognition should be granted, since it would bring greater stability to Macedonia by transforming its republican frontiers into international borders. Recognition was seen as a major deterrent against hypothetical Serbian or Greek aggression against Macedonia, which could have inflamed the South Balkans. In a note sent to Secretary of State James Baker in the winter of 1992, Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger warned that the non-recognition of Macedonia “could create real instability, which less than mature players in Serbia and Greece might decide to exploit.”9 Eagleburger also stated his appreciation of Macedonia’s process toward independence and praised what can be identified as the internal and the external stability of the republic. In terms of internal stability, Macedonia had held a successful referendum on independence with a majority of three-quarters in favour of it. The fact that Macedonia’s Albanian minority had boycotted the referendum was not raised by u.s. officials in the assessment of the stability of the republic. The Macedonian government had also achieved effective control of the republic’s territory, it respected internal borders, it guaranteed minority rights, and it was committed to liberal democracy. A new Macedonian constitution had also been adopted that guaranteed civil rights to all Macedonian citizens and described Macedonia as a civil state, as opposed to the “state of the Macedonian nation,” as it was previously defined, in order to reassure its own minorities.10 As for the external dimension of its stability, Macedonia had a well defined territory (i.e., it recognized republican borders) and

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respected international borders. The Macedonian government had also amended its constitution to prove that it had no irredentist ambitions toward Greece’s neighbouring province of the same name. The amendment denied any territorial ambitions, “prohibiting interference in the internal affairs of other states, and reaffirming the inviolability of existing frontiers.”11 The Entry of Greece: Instability Arises The Greek government of Prime Minister Constantine Mitsotakis quickly cast a shadow on Macedonia’s hope to achieve international recognition. Greece argued that because Macedonia was the name of its northern province, famously known for being the native soil of Alexander the Great and Aristotle, the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia had no right to refer to itself as “Macedonia.” Athens requested that the government of Skopje remove the word Macedonia from its constitutional name as a condition for recognition, even if the republic had adopted constitutional amendments to eliminate any irredentist suspicions that the Greek authorities may have had. As a member of the European Community, Greece led a vigorous campaign against recognition and managed to veto the ec decision to recognize the republic in the spring of 1992. Since Prime Minister Mitsotakis was an advocate of the Maastricht Treaty, ec members agreed to delay recognition of Macedonia in order to save the Mitsotakis government from falling. The name had become a burning political issue in Greece, and the option of supporting Macedonia’s recognition was politically untenable. Brussels also consented to delay recognition to preserve a single and united European front at the crucial time when the Common Foreign and Security Policy (cfsp) was coming into existense. In return, Mitsotakis consented to sign the Maastricht Treaty, which gave birth to the European Union, and supported ec economic sanctions against Serbia. Although the State Department and the nsc had initially concluded that Macedonia had fulfilled its stability criteria for recognition and that its diplomatic recognition would be the best option to reinforce stability in the South Balkans, the Bush administration reversed its initial decision and delayed recognition in April of 1992 because of growing political tension between Greece and Macedonia. Washington assessed that the government of Skopje was not in

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a position to demonstrate that no interstate war would occur with Greece. The Greek opposition had a major impact on the u.s. policy, not so much because the Bush administration was supportive of or empathetic with Athens’s position, but because the nsc feared that the recognition of Macedonia would intensify the already exacerbated Greek nationalist feeling toward the issue, and might provide the justification for a Greek-Macedonian conflict.12 Following Macedonia’s declaration of independence in 1991, hundreds of thousands of Greeks had demonstrated for months against Macedonia’s recognition, and the Greek army had been very active on the Macedonian border, conducting maneuvers to intimidate Skopje. The u.s. executive branch was also worried that a conflict between Greece and Macedonia could spark a regional conflict in which Greece and Turkey, two nato members, could clash against each other. The presence of a large Muslim minority in Macedonia provided for speculations in the State Department about a possible Turkish intervention on the side of Macedonia in the case of a conflict with Greece. As peace in the South Balkans was connected to the stability of Macedonia, the Bush administration withheld recognition. Two other factors contributed to the u.s. decision. First, Greece was a nato ally, and the United States had historically maintained close ties with Greek governments, which the Bush administration did not want to spoil by recognizing Macedonia. Second, the United States desired to act in conjunction with the Europeans on the issue. The United States and the ec (from now on the European Union – eu) had just ended their disagreement over the recognition of Bosnia, Croatia, and Slovenia in the spring of 1992, and President Bush was, therefore, reluctant to move unilaterally on Macedonia. One question remains, however: if the Bush administration believed that Macedonia deserved recognition in the fall of 1991, why did it not recognize the republic then? Why did the executive choose to wait until April 1992 to delay recognition? The u.s. administration made the decision in the fall of 1991 to wait for a general resolution of the Yugoslav war – which was raging in Croatia and was slowly moving to Bosnia – before extending recognition to Yugoslav republics like Macedonia. This conditionality of recognition was used to compel Yugoslav republics to peacefully resolve their conflict, which was expected to reduce the level of instability

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in the region. This strategy was dropped a few months later when the peaceful settlement of the Yugoslav conflict became unlikely as time went on. At this time, however, tensions between Greece and Macedonia had become a major concern for the Bush administration and prevented the United States from granting recognition to the republic. The first episode of this saga demonstrates that policies and politics obey very different rationales. On paper, Macedonia was a good candidate for recognition. In practice, however, the Macedonian issue threatened to destabilize the southern Balkans and, ironically enough, the peaceful Macedonian state turned out to be the only former Yugoslav republic that directly threatened the interest of a nato and an eu member state. In April 1992, the United States extended recognition to Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and Slovenia, but Macedonia was left in the diplomatic waiting room. The United States indicated that the purpose of the delay was to allow Greece and Macedonia to settle their dispute. In a letter sent to a member of Congress who requested that the State Department clarify its stance on Macedonia, acting assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs, Steven Berry, summarized the u.s. position: While the United States takes very seriously Greek concerns regarding its security and is sensitive to the Greek government’s concerns about the potential for instability on its northern border as violence in Yugoslavia continues, President Bush fully endorses Macedonian President Gligorov’s efforts to maintain calm and stability and to lead his people to full independence through negotiations with the ec. The United States in no way condones the spread of violence to Macedonia. Above all, we seek solutions which are acceptable to the ec, Greece, and Macedonia noting that a close and friendly relationship between Greece and Macedonia is an important element in Balkan stability and regional prosperity.13 This statement reveals the extent to which tensions between Athens and Skopje inhibited the United States from recognizing the republic. The Role of Greek Americans If the ethnic politics argument is right, withholding Macedonia’s recognition must have been influenced by the Greek American lobby

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which was categorically opposed to recognition. Evidence suggests, however, that the Greek diaspora was not an important factor in the u.s. cost-benefit analysis. The Greek American campaign against Macedonia’s recognition began only in the summer of 1992, a few weeks after the United States had decided to delay recognition. It was only then that the Greek Americans launched an aggressive campaign to transform President Bush’s policy into permanent rejection of Macedonia’s independence. The Hellenic-American National Council then sent letters to members of Congress and sponsored a rally in Washington, dc, against recognition, which brought together more than twenty-thousand Greek Americans.14 A Hellenic organization called the “Americans for the Just Resolution of the Macedonian Issue” even paid for two full-page advertisements in the New York Times to make its case against the recognition of Skopje under the name Macedonia, a manoeuvre directed toward President Bush. The organization argued that the “recognition of Skopje as the Republic of Macedonia would only legitimize its extremist and false claims upon sovereign Greek territory.”15 The mobilization of the Greek American lobby is undeniable, but it came only after the fact. The lobbying of the Hellenic community was not the cause of the delay. Moreover, no evidence indicates that this ethnic group had any impact on the u.s. decision to extend its delay. State Department archives on the issue, which were recently unclassified, do not suggest that the Greek American lobby played a role. Former nsc and State Department officials who were interviewed for this book indicate that this ethnic lobby was insignificant in the formulation of the u.s. response in 1992. According to David Gompert, who acted as the Senior Director for Europe and Eurasia in the National Security Council, the administration of George H.W. Bush was relatively insensitive to the Greek American lobby.16 Thomas Niles, the former under secretary of state for European affairs, concurs. In his view, the pressure exercised by the Greek Americans was not a major issue for the Bush administration.17 Of course, one could question the validity of their assessment, as Gompert and Niles were not neutral actors but government officials directly involved in the issue. However, the fact that these former officials acknowledged that the Greek Americans had a strong impact on the position of the White House in 1994, as episode 3 will demonstrate, enhances their credibility. This adds more weight to their claim that the ethnic group was not in the balance when President Bush delayed recognition in 1992. Thus, it

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appears that the ethnic domestic issue at stake was minor for the White House in comparison to international issues related to Macedonia’s stability. Enter President Clinton The Greek-Macedonian struggle reached new height in the summer of 1992, when Greece decided to close its border to the republic and impose an oil embargo. This decision came in response to Macedonia’s adoption of a new national flag that pictured the Star of Vergina, which appeared on the tomb of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great. This move was seen by the Greek authorities as a falsification of Greece’s history and a direct provocation. This event bolstered Greek nationalist passions and dashed hopes for a quick resolution of the conflict.18 It is at this time that Democratic president Bill Clinton was elected. The shift of political party in the White House did not result, however, in a transformation of the u.s. policy on Macedonia. Like the previous government, the Clinton administration emphasized the importance of regional stability to justify non-recognition of the republic. As time went on, however, and as the conflict resulting from Yugoslavia’s disintegration threatened to consume the whole southern Balkans, the u.s. interest in the region slowly moved from a peripheral to a core concern. As the u.s. recognition of Macedonia depended on the resolution of the Greek-Macedonian dispute, the Clinton administration made two important decisions that strengthened the stability of the republic without aggravating the tense political situation with Greece. First, the White House consented to send u.s. troops to the Macedonian republic as a substitute for diplomatic recognition in order to reinforce Macedonia’s security. As Richard Holbrooke points out: “The situation was so explosive that the United States made its only exception to the policy of not sending troops to the region … in order to prevent the war in Bosnia from spreading to the south and igniting a general Balkan conflict.”19 This decision came after the Central Intelligence Agency (cia) had warned the White House that a Serbian attack on Macedonia was imminent and that this conflict could consume the region. In May of 1993, three hundred u.s. soldiers joined the United Nations Protection Force (unprofor) for Macedonia, which already numbered seven hundred un

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troops.20 The deployment of these troops along the Macedonian border with Serbia gives a clear indication of the importance that the United States placed on the stability of the republic, especially given that the government of Skopje had not formulated demands for any u.s. protection force. This decision was part of the u.s. containment strategy, which attempted to build a cordon sanitaire around Serbia to prevent Milosevic’s regime from committing further aggression. The decision was also driven by President Clinton’s need to be pro-active in the region at a time when members of Congress were upset about the brutal ethnic strife in the Balkans and the lack of u.s. executive action in this regard. This measure, however, placed the Clinton administration in a very odd position, as American troops were sent to protect the territorial integrity of a state that the United States did not recognize. Second, the Clinton administration agreed to sponsor the admission of Macedonia to the United Nations in April of 1993. The objective here was to encourage Greece and Macedonia to settle the name issue through the auspices of the United Nations. Greece had reluctantly agreed to the un admission of the Yugoslav Republic under the provisional name Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (fyrom), in order to show its good faith and its will to resolve the issue. Macedonia was thus admitted under the name fyrom as the 181st member of the un through a Security Council resolution. Macedonia’s admission allowed the United States (and eu members) to advance its stability agenda in the Balkans without increasing tensions between Athens and Skopje. Welcoming fyrom as a member of the un also bolstered the stability of the republic by underlying the inevitability of its independence. This was achieved without compelling the Clinton administration to reverse its official position on the issue.21

episode 2: president clinton’s recognition of macedonia as fyrom Toward the end of 1993, six members of the eu (Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, and the Netherlands) disregarded Greece’s sensibilities toward Macedonia and recognized its independence under the name fyrom.22 This decision was prompted by Greece’s suspension of its negotiations with Macedonia under the

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supervision of the un, which upset eu members and the United States. Moreover, the eu was dissatisfied overall with Greece’s counter productive campaign on the name issue, which impeded progress on the matter for almost two years. The non-recognition of Macedonia also had a negative effect on the u.s./eu attempt to strengthen un sanctions against Serbia in 1992-93. Indeed, since Macedonia was not recognized and could not, therefore, obtain economic support from the United States or from international economic organizations, Skopje was compelled to violate un sanctions by trading with Serbia in order to sustain its economy. The decision of eu members to disregard Greece’s objection created a window of opportunity for Washington. The Clinton administration had the option to move, along with the Europeans, to advance its stability agenda in the Balkans without being condemned by Greece as the instigator of the measure. The timing for recognition was also better than in 1992, since tensions between Greece and Macedonia had significantly diminished now that the two parties had undertaken negotiations under un auspices. In early 1994, Washington decided to follow eu members, despite Greece’s strong resistance. The Clinton administration justified its decision to recognize fyrom by stating that there was “a potential for instability to grow” in the South Balkans and that the recognition of the republic as a sovereign state would increase its stability. The White House emphasized the internal and the external stability of the republic in the justification of its decision: Today, the United States extended formal recognition to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and declared its intent to establish full diplomatic relations … This action will help promote stability in the region. We join nearly every other country of Europe in taking this step. In extending formal recognition, we have taken into account the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’s commitment to peaceful cooperative relations and its respect for the territorial integrity of all of its neighbors, and the inviolability of existing boundaries … We recognize that Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia have outstanding differences which we expect will be resolved through good faith negotiations … We also take note of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’s commitment to democratic principles, to human rights, to the creation of an

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open, free market economy and to its desire to seek peaceful solutions to problems in the regions.23 Matthew Nimetz, who was President Clinton’s special envoy to Macedonia in charge of the Greek-Macedonia crisis in 1993–94, confirms that recognition had first and foremost the objective of fostering Macedonia’s stability. The purpose was “to reinforce the recognition of sovereignty and to give them the Macedonians equality with countries that might be hostile.”24 Greece’s reaction to the u.s. decision was immediate. President Clinton was depicted as a traitor, and the u.s. consulate in Thessaloniki was attacked by angry Greek protesters, who threw eggs at the consulate’s windows. More importantly, and as a direct reaction to the u.s. recognition of fyrom, Greek prime minister Andreas Papandreou – who had defeated Mitsotakis in the 1993 election – announced the imposition of a major trade embargo against Macedonia to retaliate against Washington’s recognition of the republic.25 Greek Americans vs. Macedonian Americans The decision to recognize fyrom’s independence was made despite the strong opposition expressed by the Greek American community. This indicates that the Greek diaspora failed to transform the u.s. delay into permanent non-recognition of Macedonia. But could the mobilization of the Macedonian American community have triggered this policy shift? According to Ivan A. Lebamov, president of the Macedonian Patriotic Organization (mpo), even if they were not a unified group, the Macedonian Americans played a significant role in the u.s. recognition of fyrom. The Macedonian Patriotic Organization, a pro-Macedonian association based in Indiana, whose central aim was to promote Macedonia’s independence, lobbied several members of Congress, and “there were many trips to Washington, thousands of letters, hundreds of faxes and tons of paper used by the Macedonian Tribune,” the mpo’s newspaper, to promote the independence of the republic.26 It is clear for Lebamov that the Macedonian Americans played a key role in the u.s. decision to recognize the republic. The mpo, however, was the only significant political organization in 1994 that promoted Macedonian American interests in Wash-

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ington.27 Moreover, during their battle for recognition the Macedonian Americans, who numbered less than forty thousand, were competing against the Greek American lobby, one of the most effective ethnic groups in Washington, which represents around three million Americans (the largest Greek community outside of Greece).28 If the Greek Americans, who had strong connections in both Houses of Congress and ties to an influential member of the White House staff (President Clinton’s senior advisor George Stephanopoulos), failed to dissuade President Clinton from recognizing fyrom, it is very unlikely that the Macedonian Americans were able to influence the White House. Indeed, we can seriously doubt that the White House made the calculation that it would be profitable to please the Macedonian Americans at the expense of alienating the large Greek American community in a mid-term election year. The second episode of the saga suggests once again that the United States is a stability-seeking state that focused on Macedonia’s internal and external stability. These considerations shaped the u.s. response to the controversial Macedonian question, and the efforts of the Greek American lobby to influence the course of that policy remained a peripheral concern.

episode 3: the backtracking of the clinton administration The recognition of fyrom had a major impact on the mobilization of the Greek Americans. Within a few days, the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association collected thirty thousand signatures against President Clinton’s decision.29 Several leaders of the community, including Representative Michael Bilirakis of Florida and Senator Paul Sarbanes of Maryland, asked President Clinton to reverse his decision and managed to convince George Stephanopoulos to consult President Clinton about it. Members of a national Hellenic group also pressured the u.s. Congress “to urge that President Clinton rescind American recognition of the Republic of Macedonia,” which led Congress to pass a resolution asking the president to reconsider the decision.30 Under the auspices of George Stephanopoulos, leaders of the Greek American community (Greek Orthodox Archbishop

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Iakovos, Senator Sarbanes, and a dozen prominent Greek Americans) managed to meet with President Clinton in a private meeting at the White House to discuss the Macedonian problem. The meeting was attended by Vice-President Al Gore and National Security advisor Anthony Lake. Neither Secretary of State Warren Christopher nor any State Department officials were present. Following the meeting, President Clinton backtracked from his initial decision to extend full diplomatic relations to fyrom (e.g., to send an ambassador and open an embassy in Skopje). The president indicated that no ambassador would be sent to Skopje as long as the name and the flag issue remained unresolved between Greece and Macedonia. Interagency Disagreement By delaying the establishment of diplomatic relations with fyrom, President Clinton was hoping to avoid further antagonizing the Greek American community. This decision, however, led to an important interagency disagreement between the White House and the State Department. Following the u.s. recognition of fyrom in February of 1994, Secretary of State Christopher had urged President Clinton to name an ambassador to Skopje to give added weight to recognition. Officials from the State Department were therefore upset about the drastic turn of events and openly denounced the White House decision, contending that President Clinton was “bowing” to pressure from the Greek Americans. Former secretary of state James Baker also characterized the Clinton administration as “confused” and “inconsistent” on the issue and accused the president of “failure to stand up to pressure from the Greek American community.”31 In an article in the Washington Post, State Department officials were quoted as declaring that to delay establishing full diplomatic relations with Macedonia would empower and legitimate Greece’s recent decision to impose a trade embargo against Macedonia.32 Facing this interagency discord, the White House defended its decision by pointing out that it had succeeded in reaching a middle ground. Its recognition of the republic satisfied the need for greater stability in the South Balkans, and the delay in sending an ambassador satisfied the Greek American community. White House officials also argued that the maintenance of the decision to recognize

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fyrom was a clear demonstration that the administration had not “caved in to political pressure.”33 The Impact of Greek Americans on the Process The intervention of the Greek American community did cause the reversal of President Clinton’s decision to establish diplomatic relations with fyrom. However, the United States did not reverse its recognition of the republic. As President Clinton’s nsc advisor, Anthony Lake, points out, this decision did not signify a “reversal of course.”34 Even if Greek American pressure slowed the process by which full diplomatic relations were established following fyrom’s recognition, it failed to stop it. In fact, the Greek Americans were condemned to lose the battle over the recognition of Macedonia. They managed to win a fight by making the Clinton administration retreat from its earlier decision to send an ambassador, but they could hardly manage to win the war of recognition.

episode 4: the u.s. extension of f u l l d i pl omati c relati ons to fyrom In the months following the admission of fyrom to the United Nations, talks hosted by the un on the name issue failed to produce any significant progress. Things started to move forward in the fall of 1995, however, when u.s. assistant secretary of state Richard Holbrooke (who was working on a peace plan to end the Bosnian war) undertook discussions with Greek and Macedonian leaders. After a few back-and-forth visits to Skopje and Athens, Holbrooke squared the circle by persuading Greece and Macedonia to sign an interim agreement of mutual recognition in which they consented to normalize their relations. Under this agreement, the two states agreed to recognize their mutual frontiers, the inviolability of their borders, and their respective independence. Macedonia also agreed to adopt a new flag, and, in return, Athens lifted its economic embargo.35 The two states also exchanged liaison officers and agreed to begin commercial negotiations. More importantly, both parties began serious negotiations on the name issue. It was in the context of mutual agreement between Greece and Macedonia that the United States established diplomatic relations

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with fyrom at the ambassadorial level by upgrading its liaison office to an embassy in February of 1996. The u.s. decision was made after both parties had shown a clear commitment to respect each other’s sovereignty and had made efforts to find a solution to the name dispute. This interim accord was the piece of the puzzle that could guarantee interstate stability in the South Balkans. As a result of the accord, political tensions dropped significantly and virtually eliminated the probability of an interstate conflict between the two states.36 For Matthew Nimetz, who became un special envoy to Macedonia in 1994, the establishment of a u.s. embassy in Skopje greatly strengthened the security of the Macedonian state. He indicates that “in smaller countries, you have to understand how important it is to have an Ambassador of the large superpower and until that happens there is always a question of whether there will be support for the very survival of the country. And this is a country in the Balkans that never had a history of being an independent country. So, I think that it was a high priority in Skopje to have not only formal u.s. recognition, and a membership in the un, but a tangible u.s. demonstration of support.”37 After signing the accord with Athens, Macedonia was also able to internationalize and to institutionalize its status as a sovereign state by joining a series of international organizations such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (osce), and nato’s Partnership for Peace (pfp).

episode 5: the u.s. recognition of fyrom as t h e r e p u b l i c o f m ac e d o n i a The fifth and last episode of the Macedonian saga took place under the presidency of George W. Bush. It concerns u.s. recognition of the fyrom as the Republic of Macedonia, which, at the time of this writing, is still opposed by Greece. Conventionally, the diplomatic recognition of a new state comes with the recognition of its constitutional name. Macedonia once again failed to experience the conventional process of recognition, as the United States recognized its constitutional name ten years after it recognized its independence. The question to ask here is why the United States suddenly felt the need to recognize the name Macedonia while Athens and Skopje

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had still not entirely resolved their dispute regarding this issue? This is even more puzzling considering that the eu members were waiting for a final agreement on the name before completing Macedonia’s recognition process. What kind of incentives led the United States to make such a bold decision? Once again, defensive positionalism offers an explanation. Macedonia’s Growing Instability Following its independence, Macedonia faced growing internal divisions between some elements of the Christian Orthodox majority and the Muslim Albanian minority. Ethnic Albanians were poorly represented within Macedonia’s institutions, and only a few government ministers were Albanian Muslims. In the second half of the 1990s, some ethnic Albanians rose up against the discrimination and began to express their grievances more vocally. They requested more political autonomy and better constitutional recognition. Macedonia soon went from the status of a secessionist state struggling for independence to a host state facing an Albanian autonomist movement. The growing political tension in Macedonia eventually led to ethnic violence in early 2001. Ethnic Albanian insurgents formed a paramilitary force, the National Liberation Army (nla), and launched several attacks in the northwest of the republic. The conflict produced more than 120,000 displaced persons before a ceasefire between the nla and the Macedonian authorities could be reached in July.38 With the assistance of special representatives from the United States and the eu, a political accord known as the Ohrid Agreement was signed in August.39 The implementation of the accord, however, was more difficult than expected. Although the agreement had officially put an end to the crisis, ethnic tensions persisted, and a significant portion of the Christian Orthodox majority opposed certain dispositions of the agreement. One of the central political contentions dividing many Orthodox and Muslim members of the population concerned the modification of the municipal boundaries, which was to give more power to the ethnic Albanians in important Macedonian cities. In the summer of 2004, Orthodox nationalists mobilized and called for a referendum on a proposal to override a decentralization law that was to redraw certain municipal boundaries. Ten days before the referendum, opin-

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ion polls showed that no less than 43.5 percent of Macedonians would oppose the decentralization law. The referendum threatened to put an end to the three-year peace agreement that had been sponsored in 2001 by the United States and the eu. In early November 2004, officials from the Macedonian government called on the Bush administration for help and support.40 As a key instigator of the Ohrid peace plan, the u.s. administration saw the accord as the best way to preserve stability in the South Balkans. The agreement was seen in Washington as Macedonia’s first step toward a successful multi-ethnic state and as the only solution that would ensure Macedonia’s eventual integration into the eu and nato. The State Department was worried that if the referendum was won, it might destabilize Macedonia and that ethnic conflicts might resurface. In this context, the Macedonian issue literally became a short-term crisis management issue for the u.s. administration.41 On 3 November, the day after the re-election of President George W. Bush, members of the State Department and the nsc met to discuss measures to secure the survival of the Ohrid agreement. During the meeting, the option of recognizing Macedonia’s constitutional name was retained as a measure to appease Orthodox nationalists who had been struggling for the right to use the name Macedonia since the independence of the republic in 1991. Recognition was expected to bring more confidence to the Christian majority, as well as more evidence of United States support for Macedonia’s territorial integrity. This explains why the recognition of the constitutional name was warranted in 2004, as opposed to 2001, when domestic political tensions exploded. Recognition in 2001 would have been an inappropriate measure for bolstering internal stability. The Albanian minority was discontented with its political status within Macedonia, and the recognition of the constitutional name could have been interpreted as a proOrthodox measure. Certain members of the State Department who attended the meeting pointed out, however, that the Greek American community would clearly be angry at the United States if the Bush administration was to move on with recognition.42 Despite this domestic consideration, Secretary of State Colin Powell advised President Bush to extend recognition. The decision was made in a short time and resulted from a relatively large consensus between the State Department and the nsc. It is not a coincidence that the Bush

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administration went ahead with the recognition twenty-four hours after the u.s. presidential election. The administration knew that the decision would alienate the Greek American community and was aware that it would have been politically costly to make such a unilateral decision before the election. At the State Department daily press briefing that followed the u.s. decision, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher declared: The fact that the [Macedonian] referendum is coming up is part of the equation. We are certainly looking for ways to support the full implementation of the Ohrid Agreements, including the decentralization that’s so important to that, and we felt therefore this was the appropriate time to take the step … The point is to show support for a multiethnic society in Macedonia as they proceed in a direction that we feel contributes to their own stability and the stability of the region, and by taking this step in terms of recognizing Macedonia under its chosen name we feel that we bolster that progress.43 For the first time since the break-up of Yugoslavia, the United States had made a decision on recognition without consulting its European counterparts beforehand. The United States did not attempt to bring eu countries on board because it had no wish to offend and isolate Greece, which still opposed the fyrom’s use of the name Macedonia. The Bush administration, however, was so determined to save the Ohrid agreement that it informed the Greek government of its decision to recognize Macedonia only once the decision was made, a lack of delicacy that infuriated Athens. As much as Secretary of State Colin Powell repeated that the u.s. decision “was not aimed at upsetting Greece,” this did not prevent Athens from taking offence at the u.s. decision.44 The Greek government declared that regardless of the u.s. stance on the issue, it would not recognize the fyrom as the Republic of Macedonia and that it would oppose its integration into the eu and nato as long as a compromise was not reached on the name of the republic. This last episode of the saga shows that the u.s. cost-benefit analysis produced a different outcome from the one reached ten years earlier. It was more important in 2004 to foster Macedonia’s internal order and cohesion than to manage Greece’s feelings toward the issue. This can be explained by the fact that the Greek-

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Macedonian tension of the early 1990s, which inhibited President H.W. Bush from recognizing the republic, was much less significant in 2004. Indeed, as a result of the 1995 interim accord, Athens and Skopje had normalized their relations, and Greece had become the largest economic investor in Macedonia. In the late 1990s, the two states also agreed to build an oil pipeline that crossed both states and signed a bilateral security accord. Moreover, Greece had supported the Macedonian government during the 2001 conflict against nla insurgents.45 This growing economic and military interdependence made any interstate conflict very unlikely, and this explains why this factor was no longer part of the u.s. cost-benefit analysis. The Macedonian referendum proposal to overturn decentralization was ultimately defeated on 7 November 2004 because of a low turnout. It is difficult to measure whether the u.s. decision to recognize Macedonia really had affected the referendum result. We can assume, however, that it did influence the outcome in a positive way as supporters of the proposal to override the decentralization law were fewer than polls had shown the week before. According to James Pettifer, “The great short term achievement of the American recognition decision is that it cut the ground from under the feet of the rejectionists in the Slavophone community, and reinforced the minority who are prepared to accept, if not like, the Ochrid Accords.”46 Those who saw the u.s. move as a reward for Macedonia’s help during the Kosovo war and for its support in the invasion of Iraq in 2003 have misread the meaning of Bush’s decision. As a defensive positional state, the u.s. extended recognition to help maintain Macedonia’s internal stability and reinforce order within the region. This episode shows that recognition was a tool to foster the American stability interests in the Balkans and that this focus remained consistent over the years. The Second Crusade of the Greek Americans Twenty-four hours after the Bush administration recognized the Republic of Macedonia, the head of the Greek-American Church, Archbishop Demetrios, sent a letter to President Bush asking him to revoke his decision. Ten days later, Archbishop Demetrios, accompanied by members of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese and Greek

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American leaders from Boston, New York, and Washington, dc, met with top u.s. officials hoping to persuade them to change their mind. At the State Department, the Greek American lobby met in private with Secretary Colin Powell, Undersecretary for Political Affairs Marc Grossman, and Assistant Secretary for European Affairs Elizabeth Jones.47 During the meeting, Powell explained that the decision to recognize the name was irrevocable. According to a State Department official, Secretary Powell declared, “We knew that the decision would create great pain to you but we had no choice. The objective was to reinforce stability in Macedonia.”48 The Greek American delegation then headed to the nsc to meet with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. Deputy National Security Advisor Fran Townsend and President Bush’s senior political advisor Karl Rove attended the meeting. Once more, the archbishop asked that the u.s. revoke its decision but received the same answer from the nsc. The delegation finally went on to Capitol Hill to meet with Greek Americans from the House of Representatives and to conduct strategic meetings with Greek American senator Paul Sarbanes from Maryland. In the weeks following its visit to Washington, the Greek American delegation sent numerous letters to members of Congress in an ultimate attempt to influence the White House decision. Despite the time and energy spent, the Greek American lobby failed to modify the u.s. decision to recognize the Republic of Macedonia.

regional stability or ethnic politics? The within-case analysis performed suggests that the quest for regional stability is the main factor explaining the u.s. delay of Macedonia’s recognition. The search for the stabilization of the South Balkans was consistent during most of the Macedonian saga. Recognition was initially delayed in large part because it would have encouraged the possibility of a military conflict between Greece and Macedonia. Then recognition was conferred on the fyrom in 1994 in order to reduce its vulnerability to Serbian aggression once the prospect of a war with Greece became less of a concern and once Macedonia could guarantee that no interstate war would occur. Diplomatic relations were extended in 1996 once a u.s.-sponsored agreement reinforced stability in the region by opening a constructive dialogue between Greece and Macedonia.

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Finally, the constitutional name of the republic was recognized by Washington in 2004 in an attempt to secure the implementation of the Ohrid agreement, which aimed to strengthen the internal stability of the republic and, by extension, prevent disorder from spreading in the South Balkans. The facts conform to the initial hypotheses of this book: as a stability-seeking power, the United States only recognizes the independence of a secessionist state that can simultaneously maintain its internal and its external stability. In the case where stability would not be guaranteed by the secessionists, the u.s. maintains the status quo and/or delays recognition. This chapter also demonstrates that the three successive presidencies that tackled the controversial Macedonian question (i.e., those of George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush) made a connection between the internal and the external dimensions of Macedonia’s stability and that this connection guided the American response toward this emerging state.49 This chapter also shows that the fluctuation of the u.s. position over time was caused not by a disparity in u.s. foreign policy interests but rather by a consistent set of preferences that produced different outcomes depending on the nature of each intra-case analyzed. The research also cast serious doubt on the validity of the ethnicpolitics argument for explaining u.s. behaviour toward secessionist movements. The case of Macedonia is, therefore, important for theory development. Indeed, the stability-seeking argument challenges the reliability of the ethnic-lobby proposition used to explain the u.s. behaviour toward Macedonia, a case that is often brought up by the advocates of this liberal argument. The Greek American lobby was not a major variable in the Bush administration’s decision to delay recognition in 1992. This lobby failed to prevent President Clinton from recognizing the independence of the republic in 1994 and failed again ten years later when it attempted to reverse George W. Bush’s decision to recognize Macedonia’s constitutional name. The Greek Americans had an impact only in one specific instance, that is on the u.s. decision to delay the extension of full diplomatic relations to the fyrom in March 1994. Thus, even though the Greek Americans exerted more pressure on the u.s. government and represented more American voters than the Macedonian Americans, the position of the u.s. government did not reflect their interests. Although one would expect the ethnic argument to

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perform well in the Macedonian case owing to the strength of the Greek American community in Washington, this chapter shows that this proposition performs poorly overall.

the business interest argument Chapter 3 has shown that the Bush administration had a clear preference for Yugoslavia’s unity but that the business interest model developed by David Gibbs did not account for this inclination nor for the reversal of policy that led the United States to recognize Croatia and Slovenia in 1992. This argument faces the same problem in the present case study. How could private business interests explain the u.s. delay of Macedonia’s recognition for almost two years while Yugoslavia had already ceased to exist? The United States had no economic investment in Macedonia in the years following its independence. Marshall Freeman Harris, who accompanied u.s. Ambassador Robert Frowick to Skopje in 1992 to establish an observation mission of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (csce), recalls that “we were virtually the only Westerners in town” and that “there was only an American library in the city,” illustrating the absence of u.s. private investors in the republic.50 In fact, if top u.s. officials had been involved in multinational corporations that were interested in doing business with Macedonia, we can assume that the u.s. government would logically have been opposed to the Greek economic embargo against the republic in 1992 and in 1994. The American government would have also certainly been eager to recognize the independence of Macedonia in order to provide development aid to sustain its economy. This, however, did not happen. Thus, the empirical evidence tends to invalidate the business interests hypotheses. The business interest argument, however, was seriously raised in 2004 to explain the u.s. decision to recognize the constitutional name of the republic. John Phillips argues, for instance, that the Bush administration was really concerned about the stability of Macedonia because its interest lay in the construction of a 1.13 billion dollar pipeline that would run from the Black Sea to the Adriatic to supply the u.s. demands for oil. Phillips writes, “American commercial interests in Macedonia center on a project to build a trans-Balkan pipeline designed to secure a passage for oil from the

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Caspian Sea.”51 It was expected that the pipeline would run through Albania, Bulgaria, and Macedonia and that it would transport oil extracted in Central Asia. In February 2005, three months after the u.s. recognition of Macedonia’s constitutional name, the president and ceo of the Albanian-Macedonian-Bulgarian Oil Corporation (ambo), Edward Ferguson, indicated that he was negotiating with Exxon Mobil and Chevron Texaco to build the line.52 One can, therefore, wonder whether the decision to recognize Macedonia’s name had as its main objective the preservation of internal stability in the republic in order to maintain the confidence of private investors. This argument was, however, strongly refuted by State Department officials.53 It is a fact that the u.s. government ordered studies to evaluate the feasibility of the project (the u.s. Trade and Development Agency had published papers on the issue in May 2000), but the trans-Balkan pipeline project was apparently not part of the decision to recognize Macedonia’s constitutional name.54 The project was apparently not even raised as a concern when u.s. officials debated the issue of recognition in November of 2004. And when I asked whether u.s. officials had personal economic interests in corporations that were doing business with Macedonia in 2004, without surprise a State Department official replied, “You are totally off the track.”55 The constraints of space and time do not allow me to provide a definitive answer to whether private economic interests affected the u.s. position on the constitutional name issue in 2004. This question deserves further investigation. This chapter demonstrates, however, that profound security issues were related to the survival of the Macedonian state and that these issues were at the center of the u.s. decision-making process. In this context, it appears very unlikely that any economic interests that governmental officials could have had in the first years of this century were important enough to influence the course of u.s. decision making toward Macedonia.

conclusion This chapter shows that the defensive realist paradigm is useful in explaining the United States response to the Macedonian saga. Indeed, the United States acted along the lines of defensive positionalism, as Joseph Grieco and Michael Mastanduno would pre-

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dict. At first glance, the evolution of the American policy toward Macedonia seems rather inconsistent. The u.s. response went from a withholding policy in the early 1990s to a unilateral recognition of Macedonia’s constitutional name in 2004. The analysis demonstrates, however, that the search for the stabilization of the South Balkans was consistent during most of the Macedonian saga. As for competing domestic propositions, this case study invalidates the ethnic group hypotheses and partly suggests that business interests did not affect u.s. foreign policy.

5 Kosovo: The Long March toward U.S. Recognition

introduction The United States recognized the secession of Kosovo from Serbia in 2008, after having been opposed to it since the collapse of Yugoslavia in 1991. The purpose of this chapter is straightforward. Its aim is to answer two simple and interrelated questions: What have the core u.s. interests been toward the issue of Kosovo’s secession? And how can we explain the u.s. policy shift toward it? Although the issue of Kosovo’s self-determination is well documented and a lot has been published on the 1999 nato intervention against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (fry), no research has provided a sound, comprehensible, and exhaustive answer to these research questions. This chapter demonstrates the consistent approach of successive u.s. administrations to strengthening stability in Kosovo and explains how the United States came to perceive the recognition of Kosovo’s unilateral secession as the only viable option to promote stability. In the last section, the chapter evaluates the importance of u.s. ethnic lobbies in the formulation of the American policy toward Kosovo. In contrast to the two previous chapters, however, the business interest argument is not addressed here. The Kosovo crisis does not allow validation or refutation of David Gibbs’s argument according to which American policy toward secessionist movements reflects the interest of corporations with which u.s. foreign policy makers share strong ties. Indeed, there were virtually no u.s. business interests in Serbia or in Kosovo during the 1990s. The disintegration of Yugoslavia, the war in Bosnia, and the Kosovo crisis repelled u.s. private investors.1 Moreover, throughout most of the 1990s, the United States maintained economic sanctions against

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Belgrade, which inhibited multinational corporations from investing in the fry.2 Thus, Kosovo is not a fertile ground on which the business argument can be seriously evaluated.

the difficult case of kosovo The adoption of a new Yugoslav constitution in 1974 gave considerable political autonomy to Kosovo. The status of a republic was never conferred on the province, however, and it remained part of Serbia, mainly because ethnic Albanians, who formed the majority of the Kosovo population, were recognized as a national minority rather than as a Yugoslav nation.3 Nevertheless, Serbia perceived Kosovo’s constitutional gains as a political loss over its own republican affairs. Tensions rose in the 1980s between the ethnic Albanian majority – who controlled Kosovo’s political institutions – and Kosovo Serbs.4 Ethnic Albanians wanted Kosovo to be recognized as a full Yugoslav republic, while Kosovo Serbs argued that they were discriminated against and repressed by the Albanian-dominated authorities. These political tensions were further intensified by the political ascension of Slobodan Milosevic, who became president of Serbia in 1987. Milosevic made himself the defender of the Serbian minority of Kosovo and engaged his regime in a re-conquest of Serbia’s control over the autonomous province. In 1989, the Kosovo Assembly was forced to vote for a constitutional amendment that revoked the autonomy of the province.5 Milosevic argued that the intervention of Serbia within Kosovo’s internal affairs was necessary to counter Albanian secessionism and to end the Albanian repression of the Serbian minority. The decision to repeal Kosovo’s autonomy initiated a sequence of events that further antagonized Serbs and Albanians. In July of 1990, the provincial Assembly of Kosovo unilaterally declared the province an independent Yugoslav republic.6 Belgrade reacted to the secessionist attempt by dissolving the provincial government of Kosovo and by taking executive and administrative control of the province. A new Serbian constitution was adopted, which defined Kosovo as a region within the Serbian Republic.7 This led Kosovo Albanian deputies in exile to create the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo, which had its headquarters in Zagreb (Croatia). Kosovo Albanians launched a campaign of civil disobedience and refused to

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be involved in the official state structures controlled by Belgrade. The Democratic League of Kosovo (ldk), headed by Ibrahim Rugova, put in place a set of parallel institutions (including schools, hospitals, and local governments) that coexisted with the official state structure.8 Although Belgrade declared these institutions illegal, Milosevic never used force to bring them down, mainly because Rugova’s opposition movement was peaceful and Belgrade was able to keep control of the province without military intervention.9 The disintegration of Yugoslavia, however, which began with the secession of Croatia and Slovenia in the summer of 1991, radically modified the political calculation of Kosovo Albanians. With the departure of the northern republics, there was no longer a counterweight to Serbia’s political power within the federation. In this context, members of the Kosovo Assembly in exile in Croatia adopted a declaration of independence from the rump Yugoslav federation, and in late September of 1991 the assembly organized a non-authorized referendum across Kosovo to validate the declaration. Among the 87 percent of Kosovars who cast their ballot, 99.87 percent voted for independence.10 Belgrade immediately declared the referendum unconstitutional and the declaration of independence “null and void.” Despite Serbia’s opposition, the Assembly of Kosovo officially declared the independence of the province in October of 1991. A few days later, Albania became the first and only state to recognize Kosovo’s independence.

the u.s. response: no to secession but no to aggression The administration of George H.W. Bush initially followed the European Community’s leadership on the Yugoslav crisis and rejected Kosovo’s request for international recognition. The argument put forward by Brussels was that Kosovo was an integral part of Serbia, rather than a constituent republic of the Yugoslav federation and, therefore, that it did not have the right to secede.11 This legal argument, however, was used as a tool to avoid endless division of the Yugoslav territory. The argument was mainly rhetorical and was more a reflection of Washington’s will to follow the ec leadership than the expression of a well defined policy. According to a top advisor to President Clinton and Secretary of State Albright for Kosovo, “it was easy to base a decision on the fact that Kosovo

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was different from the Yugoslav republics … It was a convenient way of making a distinction, which served a purpose. The analysis was that the recognition of Kosovo’s independence would create more conflict, more violence, and more confrontation in the region.”12 The United States adopted a more proactive approach toward the Yugoslav crisis when the conflict in Croatia spread to Bosnia and expanded the zone of instability. The American position, which until then had echoed the ec legal assessment of the right of each Yugoslav republic to secede, was replaced by a more geostrategic and pragmatic assessment of the conflict. In the spring of 1992, the main questions tackled by the u.s. National Security Council and the State Department were how to terminate the war in Yugoslavia and how to stabilize the Balkan region. It was with these puzzles in mind that the United States approached the Kosovo crisis. The Maintenance of External Stability by the FRY In the fall of 1992, the Bush administration evaluated the internal and external stability of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Although Belgrade was using political repression against Kosovo Albanians and depriving them of their basic constitutional rights, Serbia was able to contain the effects of the Kosovar secessionist crisis within its national borders. As Secretary of State Madeleine Albright writes in her memoir, “Kosovo was extremely tense but not at war.”13 Slobodan Milosevic was also able to preserve the external stability of the fry. There was no flow of Kosovo-Albanian refugees crossing international borders (unlike in Bosnia and Croatia) or any other type of interstate disruption. As a central state, the fry succeeded where the former Yugoslav federation had failed in 1991. As seen in chapter 3, the Yugoslav People’s Army had intervened to prevent the secession of Croatia and Slovenia. This response provoked internal disorder (especially in Croatia) and external instability, as a large number of refugees crossed the border to find safe haven in Hungary, Austria, and Germany. In the case of the fry, the declaration of independence of Kosovo did not produce war or significant disruption, and as a result, the United States maintained its support for the fry. Moreover, the idea of recognizing Kosovo’s secession was perceived as the worst option for stability in the Balkans. In a region

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where ethnicity and borders did not match, the cohesion and survival of the states surrounding Kosovo (i.e., Albania, Bosnia, and Macedonia) became a central geopolitical concern in Washington, and the recognition of Kosovo was perceived as a threat to the cohesion of neighbouring states. In a cable sent to the u.s. Embassy in Belgrade, Secretary of State Eagleburger wrote, “While there is terrible human suffering in Bosnia, Kosovo exceeds its potential for destabilizing the area beyond former-Yugoslavia’s borders. The u.s. supports restoration of Kosovo’s autonomy, but is not in favor of independence.” Then he added that “nothing should be done that would encourage the Kosovars to rebel. They would be crushed.”14 In addition to Secretary Eagleburger’s opposition to Kosovo’s independence, the u.s. embassy in Belgrade concluded in an analysis that “a shift in Western policy to support Kosovo independence … could embolden Albanian extremists and/or trigger an irrational response from Milosevic (or local Serb extremists) that would have the support of most Serbs and provoke the feared confrontation.”15 If the White House was against Kosovo’s secession, it also made it clear that it was opposed to Serbia’s military repression against Kosovo Albanians. In late December of 1992, the u.s. secretary of state Lawrence Eagleburger sent a warning to Serbian president Milosevic – known as the Christmas Warning – in which he informed Belgrade that the United States would not hesitate to use force against Serbia if it ever used military repression against Kosovo.16 This warning, which became an integral part of the u.s. policy toward Kosovo, was reaffirmed by Secretary of State Warren Christopher a few weeks after President Clinton took office. The destabilizing effect of a potential Serbian attack against Kosovo was seen in Washington as a direct threat to the stability of the Balkans and, by extension, to the stability of the European continent, which the United States viewed as a national interest. The Christmas Warning was, therefore, motivated by regional stability motives rather than by human rights principles. In the early 1990s, both the secession of Kosovo and Serbia’s military crackdown in the province to prevent secession would have destabilized Kosovo and probably inflamed the whole southern region of the Balkans. This fear was expressed well by David C. Gompert, who served as the special assistant to President Bush and as the senior director for Europe and Eurasia on the National Security Council:

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Washington feared that a Serbian assault against the Albanian Kosovars would consume the entire Southern Balkan region in a conflagration that would pit one nato ally against another. Hostilities in Kosovo would probably spill into Albania proper. This in turn could incite the large Albanian minority in Macedonia and lead to Serbian or Greek intervention there. Bulgaria and Turkey would then feel pressure to act in order to prevent Greek control of Macedonia. Where the Bosnian war could be contained, conflict in Kosovo most likely could not.17 The Christmas Warning may have affected Belgrade’s treatment of Kosovo, since no attack was launched against ethnic Albanians from 1992 to 1998. It is hard, however, to measure the real impact of it, since we do not know how Milosevic would have behaved otherwise. What we do know is that the failure of Serbia to intervene militarily in Kosovo cannot be attributed solely to the u.s. military threat in this respect. Indeed, Serbia was already militarily involved in Croatia and Bosnia, and the opening of a third military front in Kosovo would have been difficult to manage. The case of Kosovo is different from those of Croatia, Macedonia, and Slovenia, where the United States quickly moved to the second step of the stability-seeking argument by considering the recognition of their independence. In this case, Rugova’s peaceful resistance movement for independence, the absence of Serbia’s military crackdown in the province, and the ability of the fry to maintain stable international borders explain why the United States kept supporting the fry’s territorial integrity. Some members of the Bush administration also feared that the recognition of Kosovo would create a precedent that would further destabilize the region by bolstering other secessionist movements such as the Serbs in Krajina (Croatia) or in Bosnia-Herzegovina, who sought international recognition of their independence. This unique combination of factors also explains why Kosovo received relatively little attention from Washington for most of the 1990s in comparison to Croatia or Bosnia. As Tim Judah explains, “Kosovo was always just an after-thought. It was the place that the diplomats knew they should do something about, but were not sure what and anyway had more important things to do.”18 Throughout the 1990s, the Bush and Clinton administrations avoided taking concrete actions in Kosovo that could have generated regional dis-

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order. They estimated that it was better to do nothing than to risk causing violence in the province and the region by intervening in one way or another. In a document entitled “u.s. Policy on Kosovo,” sent by the State Department to u.s. embassies in the Balkans in the summer of 1993, the American position on the issue was clearly exposed: •

•

•

We have been concerned about the situation in Kosovo because of longstanding tensions there arising from Serb repression of ethnic Albanian Kosovars and because of the high risk of conflict there spreading into – or involving – neighboring countries which have Albanian populations. We seek to deter the Serbs from taking violent action in Kosovo. President Bush’s “Christmas” message to Milosevic was specific and clear: We are prepared to respond against Serbia in the event of a conflict in Kosovo caused by Serbian action. In our frequent contacts with Albanian Kosovar leaders such as Dr. Bukoshi and Dr. Rugova, we have made clear that they must continue to exercise caution in their approach to the Serbian and “fry” governments so as not to provide Serbian authorities an excuse to initiate a violent crackdown. We also have made clear repeatedly that we do not support their independence.19

This document shows that the United States was concerned by the fry’s potential external instability, which could have been caused by Serbia’s military crackdown in Kosovo. The Christmas Warning clearly underlined the American concern.

towar d i nstabi li ty i n the fry The Dayton peace agreements, which brought the Yugoslav wars to an end, had the ironic effect of radicalizing the Kosovo secessionist movement. Since the success of the agreements depended in large part on Slobodan Milosevic’s good faith and willingness to negotiate with his Croatian and Bosnian counterparts, chief American negotiators Richard Holbrooke and General Wesley Clark agreed to exclude the issue of Kosovo from the peace talks, as requested by Milosevic. This political concession on the part of the United States facilitated negotiations and helped peace to be reached in Bosnia.

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This decision, however, had a counterproductive effect in Kosovo. The fact that Kosovo representatives were muzzled at Dayton was perceived in Pristina as an act of betrayal and contributed to radicalizing the secessionist movement. The Dayton episode demonstrated that Ibrahim Rugova was unable to make tangible progress toward independence and international recognition. Rugova gradually lost credibility among his people, and a growing number of Kosovars became convinced that armed resistance was the only way to achieve independence.20 These events favoured the emergence of the Kosovo Liberation Army (kla). In 1996 the kla launched several attacks against Serbian police officers and ethnic Serb civilians, and this served as a pretext for Milosevic to launch military operations in the province. Soon, the relative state of peace that had existed in Kosovo since 1991 was transformed into a state of recurrent mutual aggression between ethnic Albanians and Serbian troops. The FRY as an Obstacle to Regional Stability As mutual attacks between Serbian troops and members of the kla became frequent in the fall of 1997, the International Contact Group – a transatlantic group of government officials composed of the United States, Russia, England, France, Germany, and Italy – urged Belgrade to negotiate with Kosovo secessionists, to allow the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (osce) to send an observation mission into Kosovo and Vojvodina and to grant special status to Kosovo. The Contact Group issued the following statement: “We do not support independence and we do not support maintenance of the status quo. We support an enhanced status for Kosovo within the fry.”21 Belgrade rejected the demands formulated by the Contact Group and argued that the issue of Kosovo was an internal affair and nobody else’s business. Milosevic refused to adopt a conciliating approach toward Kosovo, arguing that kla members were pursuing a full-fledged civil war to obtain independence. Belgrade maintained military pressure on Kosovo secessionists, and the province gradually fell into a state of war in early 1998. In Washington, the State Department and the Department of Defense (dod) debated whether to update President Bush’s 1992 Christmas Warning. A Clinton administration official stated that

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“the United States’ view remains the same as it was in December 1992 – that we’re not going to sit back and accept a major Serb military operation in Kosovo.”22 Secretary of State Madeleine Albright condemned Belgrade for the instability and violence in Kosovo and made clear that Slobodan Milosevic had to accept third-party mediation or face reprisals. Albright declared that “Kosovo had implications for the entire region. We could not allow the Serbs to define it as a purely internal matter.”23 In addition to the increasing internal disorder within Kosovo, the government of the fry gradually lost control over its external stability. In June 1998, after the kla had seized about 40 percent of Kosovo’s territory, Belgrade launched an attack against Albanians with tanks and helicopters to crush the secessionist movement. This action produced thousands of Albanian refugees, who fled to Albania and Macedonia to escape the war. By the fall, the un High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that there were around ninety thousand Kosovo refugees in neighbouring states.24 By the end of the year, Serbia’s military intervention had produced an international refugee crisis that disrupted the entire southern Balkan region. The effect of the crisis was felt particularly in Macedonia, where the presence of a large number of Kosovo Albanian refugees threatened to change the ethnic composition of the country. Macedonian authorities were worried that the presence of more Albanians would lead them to make more political demands and to a stronger claim for the creation of a Greater Albania, which would imperil the survival of the Macedonian state.25 The war in Kosovo really became a top u.s. priority in the fall of 1998, once it became clear that the government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had refused to negotiate with secessionists and had failed to maintain its external stability. The Clinton administration was highly concerned that the situation in Kosovo could end up being a repetition of the 1992–95 Bosnian war. Secretary Albright declared that “we are not going to stand by and watch the Serbian authorities do in Kosovo what they can no longer get away with in Bosnia.”26 Christopher Hill, the u.s. ambassador to Macedonia, who worked closely with Richard Holbrooke to end the war in Bosnia in 1995, was then appointed special envoy to Kosovo. His mission was to find a political settlement to the crisis. Hill came up with a proposal calling for a ceasefire, for the withdrawal of Serbian police

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and the fry military forces from Kosovo, and for the return of Kosovo Albanian refugees in the province. The plan was backed by the threat of nato military intervention in the event that Milosevic refused to comply with u.s. demands – this was referred to as “coercive diplomacy.” Acting under the threat of air strikes, Milosevic agreed to reduce the number of Serbian military forces in the province and to allow eighteen hundred international observers to enter the province under the supervision of the osce.27 This agreement eventually failed because Kosovo’s shadow government and kla representatives were not bound by the accord. Secessionists quickly took advantage of the fact that Milosevic was constrained by nato to intensify their military campaign against Serbian troops in Kosovo. These actions caused fighting to resume and led to the collapse of the agreement. Albanian secessionists were the main actors responsible for the failure of the accord, and in early 1999 the United States and Western Europe were back to square one as far as diplomatic initiatives were concerned.

the use of force as a last resort With the assistance of Madeleine Albright’s closest advisor, James O’Brien, u.s. ambassador Christopher Hill elaborated a new plan in early 1999 that attempted to reconcile the interests of Belgrade and Pristina. The Hill-O’Brien proposal, which was introduced and debated at Rambouillet (near Paris), specified that Kosovo would remain part of Serbia but that it would enjoy a large degree of selfdetermination. The plan included the deployment of an international implementation force with a large nato military component to enforce the agreement. The proposal also called for a three-year interim period before the issue of Kosovo’s independence would be addressed. The option of independence remained on the table to please Kosovo Albanians and to insure their cooperation.28 Kosovo representatives approved the proposal, but this time Serbian authorities rejected it because they refused the deployment of foreign forces on their territory. The failure of this “last chance” accord sealed the fate of the fry. The Milosevic regime was identified as the main obstacle to the reestablishment of stability in Kosovo, and in March of 1999 nato began its air strikes (Operation Allied Force) against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The purpose of the war was to compel

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Milosevic to accept the Rambouillet terms. In a sense, the nato campaign was the multilateral application of the Christmas Warning issued six years earlier by President Bush.

kosovo’s failure of the test of stability The question of whether Kosovo’s secession should be recognized was raised within the u.s. foreign policy apparatus in the late 1990s but was never seriously debated. A consensus existed on the fact that Kosovo did not possess the necessary attributes to be recognized as a sovereign state, and the State Department and the nsc agreed that recognition would create more problems than it would resolve, for three main reasons. First, Kosovo Albanians were not in a position to maintain the internal stability of their province. The province had no viable state structure and offered no guarantee that the Serbian minority would be represented in, and protected by, Kosovo’s institutions.29 Moreover, Kosovo did not possess coercive capacities. It did not have a national army to defend itself against Serbia, and the United States was not interested in sending troops to Kosovo against active Serbian opposition in order to secure its independence.30 The international borders of Kosovo constituted another problem. Serbia and Macedonia had not demarcated their common border when Yugoslavia broke out in 1991. As a result, the southern frontier of Kosovo, which bordered Macedonia, was still not officially demarcated.31 James O’Brien, who negotiated the Rambouillet agreements in 1998–99, points out that Kosovo “had none of the attributes of a state. It didn’t have recognized international boundaries. It didn’t have control over its territory. It didn’t have the ability to secure its borders. And it didn’t have a government of its own. It had elected a shadow government and established quite remarkable shadow institutions, but it did not have any of the attributes. This is part of why no government considered seriously recognizing a Kosovo independent state.”32 Second, Kosovo failed to guarantee its external stability. There was a real concern in the Clinton administration that the recognition of Kosovo would be the first step toward the creation of a Greater Albania. According to a 1995 survey, 43 percent of Kosovo Albanians expressed their desire to join Albania rather than to obtain inde-

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pendence.33 kla representatives had declared in early 1998 that its armed struggle against Serbia had the main objective of unifying Kosovo and Albania. This was a clear indication that Kosovo Albanians would not have restricted their political ambitions to the national borders of Kosovo. Daniel Hamilton, who acted as the u.s. special coordinator for Southeast European stabilization in the late 1990s, emphasized this problem: “If you listen to some of the more extreme elements in Kosovo, recognition was simply the first step toward a greater Albania, which would have gone far beyond the borders of a Kosovar state.”34 This point of view was also shared by a former high-ranking u.s. official: “The ideologues who have talked about a greater Albania were a great concern. And the fear of borders being redrawn by force or by coercion was a real fear.”35 While international recognition had been used by the United States as a political tool to reinforce regional stability in Croatia, Macedonia, and Slovenia, it was viewed in Kosovo as a stimulus for greater disorder and bloodshed. As a former advisor of President Clinton on Kosovo argues, “The reason why we didn’t recognize Kosovo was largely a result of our analysis of the likely consequences of such a step for stability in the Balkans … The analysis was that the recognition of Kosovo’s independence would create more conflict, more violence, and more confrontation in the region.36 Secretary Albright also emphasized this stability concern before the u.s. Institute of Peace a month before nato launched its military campaign. She declared that “the kla, as it is known, offers a deceptively simple answer to the tragedy of Kosovo – independence from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. But there is no guarantee that independence would lead to peace in Kosovo and ample reason to fear that it could undermine stability elsewhere in the region.”37 Third, the opposition of the European Union to the independence of Kosovo was another element in the u.s. calculation. Brussels refused to accept the emergence of a new Muslim state on the doorstep of Western Europe. Furthermore, South Balkan states with Albanian minorities, such as Macedonia and Greece, saw the recognition of Kosovo as a threat to their national unity because it might bolster the idea of a Greater Albania. In her memoir, Madeleine Albright writes: Our reluctance to endorse independence was shaped less by principle than by a pragmatic assessment of attitudes in the

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region. Macedonia and Greece strongly opposed independence for Kosovo because they feared it might inflame separatist ambitions within their own ethnic Albanian populations … More generally, some Europeans feared that an independent Kosovo would become a hotbed of Islamic extremism and organized crime. We couldn’t achieve our goals in Kosovo without support from Europe, and we wouldn’t have Europe’s support if we backed independence for Kosovo.38 The fact that European allies were opposed to Kosovo’s independence probably dissuaded the Clinton administration from looking further in that direction. The United States did not want to isolate itself on the issue and was not ready to accept the consequences of recognition on its own. This point, however, appears less convincing than the two previous arguments presented above. It seems that the United States did not promote the independence of Kosovo, not mainly because the European Union opposed it, but because the province was a hopeless case for independence, for which it was not worth fighting. It would have been pointless to persuade Brussels of the need to recognize Kosovo if the secessionists were a priori unable to guarantee the internal and the external stability of their state. We can assume, however, that if Kosovo had been stable (i.e., if it had had functioning institutions, armed forces, a defined territory, minority rights) and if the unification with Albania had not been one of the arguments for independence, the United States would probably have considered recognition and tried to convince its European counterparts to accept it. Madeleine Albright’s determination to use force against Serbia despite Brussels’s initial reluctance is a good example showing that the United States can convince its European partners when necessary. In sum, in the late 1990s the fry represented a major obstacle to regional stability, but Kosovo was not recognized as an independent state, because it was not in a position to ensure its own stability. As Morton Abramovitz bluntly points out, the United States did not recognize Kosovo “because it wanted to end the war and it didn’t feel that it could end it if it had recognized independence.”39 In this context, a u.s.-led nato intervention appeared to be the only viable option for moving forward toward peace and stability in the Balkans. The nato air campaign lasted seventy-eight days until Milosevic consented to the terms of the Rambouillet proposal.

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kosovo as a un protectorate Resolution 1244 adopted by the un Security Council in June 1999, following the nato air campaign, stipulated that Kosovo was officially part of Serbia but that it would be administrated by the United Nations. The resolution established the un Mission in Kosovo (unmik) as the ultimate authority in the province, but did not address Kosovo’s final status. unmik’s main task was to build up a civil administration in the province and to gradually transfer political authority to the government of Kosovo in Pristina. The resolution also authorized nato to be in charge of a Kosovo peacekeeping force (the Kosovo Force – kfor), which included fifty thousand nato troops, as well as Russian forces. kfor’s mission was to secure the environment and to supervise the disarmament of kla members. Moreover, the resolution called for the withdrawal of all Serbian forces from Kosovo and for the return of Albanian refugees to their home. In a word, resolution 1244 transformed Kosovo into a de facto un protectorate but reaffirmed at the same time the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the fry. One of unmik’s central objectives was to provide Kosovo with democratic state structures in order to better evaluate its long-term viability before making a final decision on its status. In this respect, the un mission elaborated a Constitutional Framework for Provisional Government in 2001. The first elected government was formed in Kosovo in 2002 and democratic elections were held in the fall of 2004. Another objective of the un mission was to play for time. By putting the final political status of Kosovo on hold, the United States and Europe wanted to let the political context evolve so that new solutions could emerge. Washington was hoping that a new generation of leaders in Serbia would eventually replace the Milosevic regime and be more open toward Kosovo. The un presence in Kosovo also allowed for changes to the nature of the debate. unmik emphasized the importance of democratic standards. The issue of whether Kosovo and the fry would eventually integrate into the eu became one of the focal points of discussion with the adoption of the Standards before Status policy. With this policy, the United States and the European Union proposed a bargain to the Balkan region. They agreed to integrate the Balkans into the Euro-Atlantic community but asked that Balkan states (including Kosovo) conform to European political standards.

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This conditionality policy, however, was badly received by Kosovo Albanians, and many believed that this approach was intended to weaken their aspirations for independence.

instability on the horizon After more than half a decade of un administration in Kosovo, the population remained polarized along ethnic lines, and the Serbian and Albanian positions appeared difficult to reconcile. Belgrade remained firmly opposed to the independence of the province, while ethnic Albanians in Kosovo still called for a referendum on independence. The three-year interim period that was supposed to culminate with a referendum on Kosovo’s final political status in 2002 was extended several times by unmik for two main reasons. First, the un mission was focusing on the implementation of the liberal standards of governance in Kosovo, which took time. Second, the Security Council of the un, which was responsible for resolution 1244 and for the creation of unmik, was divided on the issue of the political status of Kosovo and, therefore, favoured the extension of the interim period. Hence, five years after unmik was established, the status of Kosovo remained the main puzzle that confronted the United States and Europe. The view that the un presence in the province was a measure to defer Kosovo’s independence indefinitely was shared by an increasing portion of the Albanian majority. Political leaders in Pristina also argued that the failure to resolve the status of Kosovo was economically costly because the province could not find foreign investors or obtain loans.40 Furthermore, because Kosovo was not a sovereign state, it could not join international organizations. In March 2004, inter-ethnic relations were tense in Kosovo and culminated in a riot led by ethnic Albanians against the Serbian minority, a riot that left nineteen dead and nine hundred injured in Pristina. Orthodox churches and monasteries were vandalized, and several Serbs fled Kosovo. The Bush administration then realized that further delaying the final status of Kosovo might be a time bomb that could create chaos and bloodshed. Following these events, un secretary-general Kofi Annan appointed Norwegian diplomat, Kai Ede, as the representative in charge of assessing Kosovo’s future. Ede concluded that additional progress in the province was impossible without the resolution of its political status.

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In Washington, a consensus among experts slowly emerged in 2005 on the fact that Washington needed to recognize the independence of Kosovo.41 Returning to the stability-seeking argument, one of its main assumptions is that the u.s. presidency chooses, on the basis of cost-benefit analysis, the option that brings the greatest expected regional stability. As time went on, it appears that the option of independence for Kosovo was likely to bring more stability than alternative policies. A former advisor to President Clinton on Kosovo, who asked to remain anonymous, pointed out in April 2005, “I think the United States will recognize Kosovo’s independence in the next two or three years for the same reasons it didn’t before. Because we think that recognition will not create further fragmentation in the region and a failure to recognize would actually create a higher danger of instability.”42 This argument was captured by Charles Kupchan in an article in Foreign Affairs a few months later: “harsh realities on the ground make independence for Kosovo the only viable option … Pretending otherwise and denying or delaying independence risks a return to disorder and bloodshed – and is therefore the greater of two evils.”43 While the international recognition of Kosovo had been viewed by the Clinton administration as a measure that would encourage disorder and bloodshed in the Balkans, the Bush administration reached the opposite conclusion in the mid-2000s as ethnic tensions rose in the province.44 In the fall of 2005, the un secretary-general named the former president of Finland, Martti Ahtisaari, as un special envoy to Kosovo to undertake the final negotiations over its status. The Contact Group, which brought together France, Germany, Italy, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, agreed to set up the guidelines for Ahtisaari’s negotiations. The group stated that there should be no alteration of Kosovo’s boundaries, that the solution should conform to Kosovars’ political will, but that the creation of a greater Albania would not be accepted. These principles focused on the promotion of regional stability and multi-ethnic political accommodation.45 To be consistent with the stability-seeking model, Kosovo needed to guarantee both its internal and its external stability to obtain u.s. recognition. Facts indicate that throughout the first decade of the twenty-first century, the United States, as well as the European Union, pushed for unmik to adopt policies that focused on this

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double dimension of stability. A document called “Standards for Kosovo,” set out by the un mission in 2003, emphasized the importance of the rule of law and of minority rights in the province. The document also pointed out that Kosovo would have to be “in stable and peaceful relationships with its regional neighbours” before any decision on its status could be made.46 Of course Kosovo’s relations with Serbia remained tense, but the province had focused on building democratic institutions, which strengthened its internal stability. Moreover, the settlement of the Macedonian crisis through the Ohrid Agreement (see chapter 4), which gave greater representation to the ethnic Albanian minority, increased stability in the region and reassured u.s. policy-makers that the recognition of Kosovo would not destabilize Macedonia, the neighbouring state. In early 2006, u.s. special envoy to Kosovo, Frank Wisner, made a private promise to leaders in Pristina that the United States would recognize the secession of Kosovo once Pristina had committed itself to multi-ethnic arrangements within the province to ease ethnic tensions with the Serbian minority.47 By then, elites in Pristina felt confident that political concessions would be rewarded by u.s. and European recognition. Indeed, this is how the White House had handled the Macedonian crisis over the Ohrid agreement in 2004. Then, the Bush administration had recognized Macedonia’s constitutional name to reward the Macedonians for agreeing to support the agreement, which increased decentralization and minority rights for the Albanian minority. Thus, leaders in Kosovo committed themselves to implementing policies that would decentralize central authority to municipalities and proposed the creation of new Serbian-majority municipalities in the north of Kosovo. In April 2007, Martti Ahtisaari submitted his final report on Kosovo’s future status to the un Secretary General. Ahtisaari recommended that Kosovo be recognized as an independent state supervised by the international community.48 The plan was welcomed and supported by the United States and by the main European powers (i.e., the United Kingdom, France, and Germany). The Ahtisaari plan included provisions for the protection of the rights of the Serbian minority, as well as for the protection of its cultural and religious institutions. Serbs in Kosovo would enjoy greater powers in municipalities where they constituted the majority through decentralization measures. The package also guaranteed them fair representation in the central government in Pristina. The

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plan addressed the issue of the land dispute between Kosovo and Macedonia. In 2001 Serbia had agreed to transfer more than two thousand hectares of land from Kosovo to Macedonia (see chapter 4). Pristina, however, was unhappy with the settlement and wanted a revision of the agreement. This point of contention raised concern over the external stability of Kosovo, but the Ahtisaari plan settled the dispute. Ahtisaari convinced Kosovo authorities to acknowledge and respect the 2001 agreement with Macedonia.49 The plan, however, was firmly rejected by Serbia, which refused to lose the territory of Kosovo, and by the Serbian minority in Kosovo, which despite guarantees of greater political power and constitutional rights under the Ahtisaari plan, refused to be separated from Serbia. Moreover, the Serbian minority questioned the good faith of the Albanian majority and wondered whether the promises made by Pristina and the principle of a multi-ethnic society would unravel once secession had been achieved. The categorical rejection of the proposals by ethnic Serbs had a major impact on the negotiations over the political future of Kosovo in the Security Council of the un, which was ultimately in charge of deciding on the political status of Kosovo. In the summer of 2007, the Security Council wrestled with the conclusions of the Ahtisaari plan, and Russia systematically blocked its adoption. Moscow indicated that it would not consent to a resolution that did not receive the approval of Serbia, its historical ally. After a final round of negotiations in the fall of 2007 between the United States, the European Union, and Russia, which attempted to end the political deadlock between leading Western states and Russia on the issue of Kosovo’s status, Washington reached the conclusion that no common ground could be found within the Security Council. Since Russia threatened to use its veto power, the United States, along with France and the United Kingdom, chose to break with the status quo by acting outside the Security Council to implement the Ahtisaari plan.

the u.s. recognition of kosovo’s unilateral secession There was no perfect solution for the resolution of Kosovo’s political status. The status quo was no longer an option, as the 2004 ethnic riot had demonstrated. As for the idea of giving Kosovo back to

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Serbia, considering that the Serbian government had perpetrated ethnic cleansing against Kosovo Albanians in the late 1990s, this option was perceived in Washington and in Europe as a counterproductive and dangerous measure for the stability of the Balkans. The alternative of partitioning Kosovo, which was encouraged by some commentators in Serbia and in Russia, was also rejected by the Bush administration. The United States was intolerant of changes to international borders, and such a decision could have increased ethnic tensions in the province, as Serbian and Albanian Kosovars were not clearly divided into two homogenous groups.50 As a result, secession, or more specifically “supervised independence,” was seen in Washington as the least worse alternative of all, despite the expected short-term result of spoiling its relations Kosovo Serbs, with Belgrade, and with Moscow. Washington was also fully aware that an international presence would be needed to sustain, in the short and medium term, the functionality of the state of Kosovo, as well as its economic development. But despite this, supervised independence was identified by the State Department and by the nsc as the only viable solution for Kosovo to stay on the path of progress, stability, and economic development. In early 2008, the Bush administration concluded that Kosovo Albanians had negotiated in good faith during the Ahtisaari negotiation phase. Moreover, the internal and external stability of Kosovo was in much better shape in 2008 than it had been in 1999, when unmik took charge of the province. First, unmik created state structures, and Kosovo Albanians offered constitutional guarantees to their minorities during the Ahtisaari negotiations. In addition, Pristina possessed coercive means to maintain civil order and could count on eu police forces and on nato troops to remain on the territory for, at least, the implementation of the Ahtisaari plan. As for the border issue with Macedonia, it was no longer a point of contention, since Kosovo had pledged to respect this agreement. Finally, the government of Kosovo rejected the idea of creating a greater Albania by integrating Kosovo with Albania following its independence. This had been an important argument in Washington against Kosovo’s independence in the 1990s. In sum, Kosovo had several of the attributes of a state. On 17 February 2008, Kosovo prime minister Hashim Thaci, in an address to parliament in Pristina, declared the independence of Kosovo. Thaci addressed the parliament in Albanian and in Serbian

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to underline the fact that independence was an inclusive measure.51 The great majority of deputies in the parliament supported the declaration, but Serbian deputies boycotted the vote. According to some observers, the declaration of independence had been written mainly by the u.s. State Department, and its orchestration was planned by the United States and the main European powers.52 Russia and Serbia argued that this declaration violated international law, since it contravened the un Security Council resolution 1244 adopted in 1999, which stated that Kosovo formally remained under Serbia’s sovereignty. According to them, the secession of Kosovo was not constitutional, since Serbia was vehemently opposed to secession and saw it as an attack on its territorial sovereignty. Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica declared in a televised address that “for as long as the Serbian nation exists, Kosovo will remain Serbia … We do not recognize the forced creation of a state within our territory.”53 Despite these intense protests from Belgrade and Moscow, President Bush declared that “On Kosovo, our position is that its status must be resolved in order for the Balkans to be stable. Secondly, we have strongly supported the Ahtisaari plan. Thirdly, we are heartened by the fact that the Kosovo government has clearly proclaimed its willingness and its desire to support Serbian rights in Kosovo.”54 The next day, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice announced that the United States had recognized the secession of Kosovo as a sovereign and independent state. She pointed out that “Last year, un Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari developed a plan to build a democratic and multi-ethnic Kosovo and recommended Kosovo be independent, subject to a period of international supervision. In light of the conflicts of the 1990s, independence is the only viable option to promote stability in the region.”55 In her statement, Secretary Rice also focused on the fact that Kosovo was a unique case and, therefore, that it should not be seen as a precedent to justify the secession of other states.56 The u.s. recognition caused a quick backlash in the streets of Belgrade. More than one thousand Serbian protesters attacked the u.s. Embassy and at least one hundred broke into the building, which had not been protected by Serbian police.57 The recognition of Kosovo’s secession marked the beginning of the transition of the un authority in Kosovo to the European Union, which had agreed to be in charge of implementing the Ahti-

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saari plan. With eu supervision, Russia no longer had the procedural power to block the implementation of the plan. Pristina has been under the control of the European Union since 2008. Brussels sent hundreds of lawyers, civil administrators, and police officers to replace unmik. Moreover, the nato-led force (kfor), which had been constituted following the 1999 war, has remained in Kosovo to insure its security and its stability. Pristina can still count on more than sixteen thousand nato troops stationed on Kosovo’s territory, which includes sixteen hundred American troops.58 Finally, Western states, such as the United States, have increased their economic aid to Kosovo to make its sovereignty irreversible and its economy more viable. In 2007, the bilateral aid of the u.s. government to Kosovo totalled $77 million. In 2008, the assistance package was up to $335 million.

collision course with russia Kosovo’s declaration of independence amplified the division among the permanent members of the Security Council on the final status of Kosovo. The United States, the United Kingdom, and France quickly recognized Kosovo’s secession, while Russia and to a lesser extent China were opposed to it. Such a division was also present among European states. Germany, Turkey, and the three permanent members of the Security Council mentioned above recognized the sovereignty of Kosovo, while Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Romania, Bulgaria, and Slovakia refused to recognize the newborn state. A similar division existed in Asia, as Taiwan and Australia welcomed Kosovo’s independence but China, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka were against it.59 These states, which were vulnerable to secessionist movements, were afraid of creating a precedent that would bolster secessionist ambitions in their respective states. It was with Russia that tensions were the most acute, since Moscow had been involved in the Ahtisaari negotiations and was Serbia’s main ally. The Russian governement immediately declared Kosovo’s independence “null and void” and called for an emergency session of the un Security Council to condemn the declaration. Russian president Vladimir Putin indicated that such a declaration without Serbia’s and the United Nations’ approval would set a dangerous precedent and would bolster secessionist movements in the former Soviet Union.60 Foreign minister Sergey Lavrov declared,

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“We expect the un Mission in Kosovo and the nato-led Kosovo Force to take immediate action to fulfill their mandates … including voiding the decisions of the Pristina local government.”61 The Security Council session produced no resolution, since there was a deep division on the issue. This led Moscow to move from a legal to a more political strategy. The Russian government indicated that if Kosovo was to be recognized, other secessionist movements in the caucasus should be independent as well.62 The Russian parliament released a statement indicating its intention to recognize Georgia’s secessionist provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, in order to express its discontent.63 Despite these serious tensions with Russia, the Bush administration did not budge. It did not suspend or reverse its decision in order to provide additional time for negotiation with Moscow. The White House recognition of Kosovo’s secession represents one more bit of evidence that supports the stability-seeking argument. As the theory predicts, the impact of great powers on the American policy toward secessionist states is secondary. Even though Russia, and to a lesser extent China, were strongly opposed to the independence of Kosovo and reacted strongly to the u.s. recognition and even if there was no consensus among European states on this issue, the Bush administration did not change its policy and fulfilled its regional stability agenda. Hence, these events reinforce the validity of the regional-stability argument.

ethnic politics in washington Interestingly enough, despite its rather small size, the Albanian American lobby was more active and influential than the Serbian Americans with respect to the Kosovo issue. The Albanian community, which includes between 350,000 and 400,000 people clustered mainly in Boston, Chicago, Detroit, and New York, managed to be heard in Congress and was successful at framing the debate in Washington. In the early 1990s, Albanian Americans appealed to State Department officials, to members of Congress, and to the media to heighten government awareness of the problem of human rights in Kosovo and to promote the idea of independence. The impact of this diaspora was tangible. From January to March of 1992, four resolutions were introduced by senators and representatives in favour of the recognition of Kosovo.64 Meanwhile, Joe DioGuardi, the former

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Congressman and founder of the Albanian American Civic League, urged the Bush administration to grant recognition to Kosovo. For the period 1988–96, conservative estimates suggest that the Albanian American diaspora spent more than eleven million dollars on public relations, political contributions, and lobbying in Washington.65 Despite these efforts, Albanian Americans were unable to convince the Bush and the Clinton administrations that Kosovo’s secession was in the interest of the United States. When the Kosovo crisis re-emerged in 1998, the Albanian community already had several allies in Congress, such as Tom Lantos, Bob Dole, Joe Biden, and John McCain. Senator Bob Dole, being the better known, promptly argued for nato intervention against the fry. During that year, the National Albanian American Council (naac) and the Albanian American Civic League were very active and influential. They collected over $120,000 for members of Congress who were sympathetic to the Kosovo cause.66 During 1998, most Albanian Americans changed their strategy by shifting their political and financial support from Rugova’s Democratic League of Kosovo to the kla, sending, among other things, weapons to the organization.67 Regardless of the number of supporters for Kosovo’s independence in the u.s. Congress, however, the decision to recognize new states is the prerogative of the executive branch of government. This is why Albanian Americans requested meetings with White House officials. The naac had regular access to members of President Clinton’s foreign policy team in the 1990s. naac leaders, for instance, met with Richard Holbrooke, u.s. envoy to the Balkans; Jim Steinberg, deputy national security advisor; James O’Brien, senior advisor to Secretary Albright; Walter Slocombe, under secretary of defence; Marc Grossman, assistant secretary of state for Europe; and Stephen Flanagan, senior advisor to President Clinton.68 Each time, naac members pressed for a referendum on Kosovo’s independence. Despite its active involvement in the Kosovo crisis in 1998–99, the Albanian American lobby made no progress on the issue that mattered most to Kosovo Albanians, namely, the independence and diplomatic recognition of the province. No matter how many meetings Albanian Americans had with White House officials, the administration of Bill Clinton remained systematically opposed to Kosovo’s secession.

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Despite these setbacks, the Albanian American community remained active in the first years of the twentieth century. On the day of the u.s. recognition of Kosovo, leaders of the Albanian American Civic League declared that their organization had “finally convinced the State Department that Kosova’s independence provided the only way to bring peace and stability to the Balkans.”69 It is doubtful that after almost twenty years of lobbying and setbacks, the Albanian Americans suddenly succeeded in reversing the u.s. position. But if this assertion is true, leaders of the Albanian American Civic League confirm my theoretical assumption that the u.s. government shifts its position only to maximize its stability interests in secessionist regions. Indeed, the administration of George W. Bush favoured Kosovo’s secession once it became clear that the status quo was likely to create greater instability in Kosovo. In sum, it was not domestic ethnic factors that prompted a policy shift but the search for stability in Kosovo. The Serbian Americans Was the Serbian American community, which includes around one million Americans, powerful enough to prevent u.s. recognition of Kosovo from 1991 to 2008? The facts indicate that the Serbian American community was politically weak and badly organized throughout the 1990s. The anti-Milosevic bias, the fragmented nature of the Serbian American community, and its lack of involvement in the public relations battle in Washington account for the failure of the Serbian Americans to affect the formulation of u.s. foreign policy towards Kosovo. In a discussion with Acting Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger in 1992, Congressmember Helen Delich Bentley, a leading Serbian American figure, was told, “If you want to help your people, dump Milosevic.”70 This shows how negative the State Department’s views were toward the Serbian regime already in the early 1990s. Representative Bentley was really the only point of access that the Serbian American lobby had in Congress. Years later she recalled, “We wanted to lobby for the Serbian cause to let people know that Serbians aren’t all bad guys. People were only getting one side of the story [in the United States].”71 And when Bentley left Congress in 1994, the Serbian community lost most of its political strength on Capitol Hill.

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Moreover, despite its large size the Serbian American community had no strong tradition of political organization and was divided over whether or not to support the Milosevic regime. This lack of cohesion, which remained throughout the 1990s, significantly weakened the Serbian lobby in Washington. The Bosnian tragedy also seriously damaged the credibility of the Serbian Americans in their attempt to influence the White House. Serbian American organizations that had supported Serbia before and during the Bosnian war were embarrassed and remained relatively quiet on the Kosovo issue in the second half of the 1990s.72 When the Kosovo crisis became internationalized in 1998, the Serbian Unity Congress (suc), one of the most influential and bestorganized Serbian interest groups in the United States, strongly opposed the nato use of force against Serbia. The organization sent letters to the press, to members of Congress and to the Clinton administration. The suc also sponsored a demonstration against the use of force before the State Department in October of 1998.73 These actions, however, did not prevent the Clinton administration from bombing Serbia. Finally, while Albanian Americans relied on public relations firms in Washington to promote the independence of Kosovo, Serbian Americans were not significantly involved in the public relations battle. As Danielle Sremac points out, “The Serbs did not hire professional help and missed out on establishing contacts with u.s. policymakers and opinion makers in Washington.”74 Overall, the impact of the Serbian Americans was overshadowed by the actions of other Yugoslav ethnic groups, including the Albanian Americans. As a result, the u.s. view on the whole Yugoslav crisis quickly went in a direction that was against perceived Serbian American interests. In the middle of the first decade of the twenty-first century, when a consensus emerged in Washington on the need to recognize Kosovo’s secession, Serbian American lobbies in Washington, such as the Serbian Unity Congress and representatives of the Orthodox Church in the United States launched a final effort to prevent Kosovo’s secession and attempted to secure the partition of Kosovo. The American Council for Kosovo, another Serbian American lobby, attempted to scare u.s. officials by warning them that Kosovo was “Europe’s black hole of organized crime activities” and that Kosovo Albanian leaders had ties to jihad terrorists.75 These attempts did not change the u.s. course of action.

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Thus, ethnic groups in Washington failed to influence the u.s. government on the issue of Kosovo’s secession. To return to the domestic ethnic-group hypotheses, from 1991 to 2008, the u.s. position toward the Kosovo secessionist conflict did not reflect the interests of Albanian Americans, who exerted the most pressure on the u.s. government. Moreover, neither did the White House policy reflect the interests of the Serbian Americans, who represented the largest number of u.s. voters. The White House remained opposed to independence until the middle of the decade for reasons of stability, not to please Serbian Americans. As for Albanian Americans, they were effective and had strong advocates in Congress. However, the support expressed by some members of Congress in favour of independence throughout the 1990s was not acted on by the u.s. presidency until 2008. Despite Ambrosio’s claim that decision-makers often attempt to satisfy ethnic-lobby interests “in order to tap into the ‘ethnic money’ and to garner more votes,”76 what the previous section has shown is that successive u.s. governments consistently obeyed the rationale of regional stability, rather than domestic ethnic considerations. Moreover, every former State Department official and former u.s. negotiator involved in the Kosovo crisis who was interviewed for this research pointed out that ethnic lobbies were insignificant in the formulation of the u.s. response. As Daniel Hamilton indicated, “These ethnic groups were just too small and the stakes here were too big. They did not have any influence [on the issue of recognition].”77

conclusion The United States did not recognize the independence of Kosovo before 2008 for two main reasons: first, although the u.s. government developed a strong bias against the regime of Slobodan Milosevic throughout the 1990s, the Federal Republic of Yugoslav succeeded in containing the crisis from 1991 to 1998; second, Kosovo failed the test of internal and external stability at the end of the 1990s, when Belgrade became the main obstacle to the restoration of stability in the province. Under the un administration after 1999, Kosovo slowly strengthened its government structures, and ethnic Albanians offered guarantees of minority rights to ethnic Serbs. The progress toward sta-

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bility in Kosovo in the years beginning in 2000 and the risk of falling back into ethnic chaos if the political status of the province was not settled once and for all led the United States to favour the secession of Kosovo and to recognize its independence in 2008. Before extending recognition, Washington obtained guarantees from Pristina that it would respect the political criteria contained in the Ahtisaari proposals. The u.s. strategy of using diplomatic recognition to prevent greater instability in Kosovo resembles, both in its means and in its projected end, the 2004 decision of the Bush administration to recognize the constitutional name of Macedonia. In both cases, recognition was a reward to prevent ethnic violence and to encourage Pristina and Skopje to persist in behaving according to liberal norms in order to increase stability in the Balkans. Finally, despite Serbia’s strong opposition to the secession of Kosovo and Russia’s frustration at Washington’s decisions, the Bush administration chose to fulfill its stability agenda in the Balkans. This case tends to validate the stability argument. It highlights the crucial importance that regional stability played in the American response to the Kosovo crisis and justifies the variation in the White House foreign policy concerning the issue.

6 Eritrea’s Independence and U.S. Regional Interests

introduction The independence Eritrea achieved from Ethiopia in 1993 is the only case of successful secession to take place in post-colonial Africa. It was the first time that a secessionist state had achieved independence from a sovereign African state. While several African secessionist movements had failed to break from their central state (e.g., Biafra, Cabinda, Casamance, Katanga, Southern Sudan, Western Sahara), Eritrea was able to do so and obtained diplomatic recognition after thirty years of war against Ethiopia, in the longest secessionist struggle ever fought in Africa. Eritrea is a unique case to the extent that the Ethiopian government agreed to its secession in 1991 mainly because it no longer had the power and the authority to oppose it. In the beginning of the 1990s, the Eritrean secessionist army of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (eplf) had become more powerful than the troops of the rump Ethiopian government, which collapsed in May of 1991, and had a greater military capacity than the transitional government that eventually took control of Ethiopia in July of 1991. This unusual situation, therefore, compelled Addis Ababa to negotiate the secession of Eritrea. The refusal to allow Eritrea’s independence would have led Eritrean secessionists to resume fighting and eventually to defeat the central government of Ethiopia. The case of Eritrea is highly relevant to this research because the fate of this secessionist state was partly linked to u.s. geostrategic interests. From 1952 to 1991, American governments consistently opposed the secession of Eritrea because it was perceived as going against their interest of maintaining stability in the Horn of Africa. Interestingly enough, the United States reversed position in 1991 in

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favour of Eritrea’s independence in order to pursue the same objective: regional stability in a changing political context. Moreover, the United States played a crucial role in the process leading to Eritrea’s secession. In contrast to the Yugoslav secessionist crises, in which other foreign powers were involved (i.e., members of the European Union), the United States was the only foreign power engaged in the resolution of the Eritrean issue. Hence, regional and great powers did not act as a determining variable in the u.s. decision process, as was partly the case, for instance, with Germany toward Croatia and Slovenia or Greece toward Macedonia.1 This chapter takes a detailed look at the critical period that began in 1989 with u.s. involvement in the Ethiopian civil war and ended in 1993 with the official recognition of the independence of Eritrea. This focus allows us to evaluate whether the stability-seeking argument explains the initial u.s. policy in favour of Ethiopia’s unity, as well as the shift in favour of Eritrea’s secession that occurred in 1991.

historical background In contrast to almost all African states, Ethiopia does not have a colonial past. It was a member of the League of Nations in the 1920s and 1930s and was occupied by a colonial power (i.e., Italy) only for a short time from 1936 to 1941, until the allies liberated the Horn of Africa from Mussolini’s imperialist ambitions. Eritrea, however, has a very different political history. It was an Italian colony from 1889 to 1941 and was administered by the British as a United Nations trust territory during the 1940s. This colonial legacy strengthened Eritrea’s separate identity and complicated its relations with Ethiopia after the Second World War.2 In 1950 the political future of Eritrea was debated between the great powers, but no consensus could be reached on its final status. The Soviet Union argued that Eritrea should become an independent state, while the United States and the United Kingdom supported a federal union of Ethiopia and Eritrea. The British, who were still administering the territory by then, relegated the issue to a un commission of investigation, which recommended the creation of a federation with Ethiopia. Even though a large segment of the Eritrean population wanted independence (mainly among the Eritrean Muslim populations), the un Security Council adopted a

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resolution creating an Ethio-Eritrean federation that went into effect in 1952. This resolution made Eritrea an autonomous unit under Ethiopia’s sovereignty. A separate Eritrean constitution was established, as well as an Eritrean parliament in Asmara, the capital of Eritrea. Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, however, never fully accepted the idea of a federation and consented to it to maintain a close relationship with the United States. Haile Selassie’s ultimate objective was to annex Eritrea under a greater Ethiopian Empire. In this respect, the autonomy of Eritrea was systematically violated by the Ethiopian authorities during the 1950s. The Eritrean flag was abolished, and the Eritrean constitution was suspended. The Ethio-Eritrean federation officially ended in 1962, when Eritrea was annexed to Ethiopia and declared the fourteenth province of the Ethiopian empire.3 The erosion of Eritrea’s autonomy before 1962 led to the emergence of secessionist organizations. The Eritrean Liberation Movement (elm), which consisted mainly of Christians, and the Eritrean Liberation Front (elf), a Muslim dominated organization, rose up respectively in 1958 and 1960. The Ethiopian authorities responded with violence to these secessionist insurgencies but failed to resolve the Eritrean secessionist issue. This political stalemate was partly responsible for the creation of a military committee in Ethiopia known as the Derg (which means “council” in Amharic – an Ethiopian language). This Marxist military committee ultimately overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974, and Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam became the head of the government of the People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (gpdre).4 After a brief attempt to appease Eritrea’s secessionist demands, Mengistu chose to pursue Haile Selassie’s repressive policy against Eritrean secessionists. The brutal rule of Mengistu and his will to crush secessionism by any means galvanized Eritrean nationalism and mobilized the population (Muslims as well as Christians) in favour of independence. Within a few years, the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front – formerly the elf – , and the elm successfully fought Ethiopia’s troops and were able to take control of most of Eritrea’s territory, with the exception of Asmara and some major towns.5 Moreover, the creation of the Marxist republic of Ethiopia favoured the emergence in the province of Tigray of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (tplf), a non-secessionist organization that fought to replace the repressive Marxist regime of Mengistu.

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The tplf, which originally was a small rebellion group, was trained and armed by the eplf. From 1975 to 1991, in coordination with the eplf, the tplf achieved several military victories over the gpdre. This circumstantial alliance between the Eritrean secessionists and the Tigrean rebels ultimately led them to defeat the central government of Mengistu in May of 1991. Following the fall of the gpdre, the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front entered Asmara and established control over Eritrea’s territory, which made the province a de facto independent state. Meanwhile, the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front took control of Addis Ababa with the help of eplf units and formed an Ethiopian transitional government. This new government recognized Eritrea’s right of self-determination and agreed to a referendum on Eritrea’s independence. In April of 1993, when asked the question, “Do you want independence from Ethiopia?” 99.8 percent of the 98.5 percent of Eritreans who cast ballots voted in favour of secession in a referendum monitored by the United Nations. Following this result, Eritrean leaders officially declared independence and the United States recognized the new state.

washington’s support for ethiopia’s unity: 1952–91 In 1948, Emperor Haile Selassie and u.s. secretary of state John Marshall agreed that the United States would maintain its military presence at the Asmara station in exchange for its support of the integration of Eritrea into Ethiopia.6 Following the recommendation of the un commission of investigation, the United States (backed by England) managed in 1950 to make the Security Council vote on a resolution that created the federation of Ethiopia and Eritrea, despite the reluctance of the Soviet Union. Following this resolution, the United States signed a mutual defence treaty with Ethiopia, and Radio Marina (renamed Kagnew Station) was converted into a $60 million military complex.7 Eritrea became an important link in the world-wide u.s. communication network. As Okbazghi Yohannes points out, “The Ethiopian-Eritrean federation was installed by the Western powers under the leadership of the United States purely for geopolitical considerations. This un-sanctioned federation in essence became a denial of Eritrea’s right to national self-determination.”8 When Ethiopia annexed Eritrea by

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force in 1962, the United States remained silent because this action served its interests. The annexation increased Addis Ababa’s control over Eritrea’s political life, facilitating u.s. operations in the province. A Decrease in U.S. Interests in Ethiopia but Continuing Support for Unity With the development of satellite technology in the 1960s and 1970s, the communication facilities of the Kagnew Station became obsolete and, as a result, the United States gradually lost interest in Eritrea as a geostrategic position. When the Ethiopian emperor was overthrown by a Marxist military coup in 1974, the United States had already reduced its military personal and investment in the region. Moreover, the rise of Mengistu to power in the mid-1970s ended friendly u.s.-Ethiopian relations. The new Marxist regime abrogated the mutual defence treaty with the United States, and by the late 1970s the influence of the u.s. government in Ethiopia barely existed, as Mengistu broke his relations with the West and moved into the Soviet orbit.9 Despite its ideological setback and regardless of its aversion to Mengistu’s Marxist regime, the United States maintained an antisecessionist policy toward Eritrea. Washington expressed its desire for internal negotiation between Addis Ababa and Asmara and wished that the conflict would be resolved within the Ethiopian political frame. Interestingly enough, the u.s. government did not redefine its policy in the Horn by supporting Eritrea’s independence in order to weaken the Ethiopian regime and Soviet influence in the region. Even if Ethiopia was using brutal military means to crush secessionism in Eritrea, including the bombing of major Eritrean cities and even if Ethiopia’s repressive rule resulted in over one hundred thousand casualties and caused a major famine, the United States categorically refused to support eplf leaders because they advocated Eritrea’s secession. Moreover, Washington’s mistrust of Eritrea’s long-time inclination to socialism and the precedent that u.s. support for secessionism would have established (bolstering secessionist movements across Africa) led the United States to adopt a different strategy. Instead of violating the norm of states’ territorial integrity cherished by the Organization of African Unity (oau),

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Washington applied the containment doctrine to prevent Marxist diffusion in the Horn. The strategy consisted of encircling Ethiopia by arming its neighbours (Somalia, Sudan, and Kenya) and by investing in Somalia, which became the new u.s. client state in the region. As u.s.-Ethiopian relations worsened after 1974, the United States increased its military and economic assistance to the Somali government and made its embassy in Mogadishu (the capital of Somalia) one of the most important diplomatic missions in Africa.10 Thus, despite the variation over time of u.s. strategic interests in Ethiopia and despite the rather drastic change in the nature of its relations with the Ethiopian regime, the United States remained committed to Ethiopia’s territorial integrity.

u.s. involvement The reasons leading the United States to become involved in the Ethiopian-Eritrean conflict in the late 1980s were far different from those behind Washington’s involvement in the Yugoslav conflict. The Horn of Africa was not part of the main u.s. strategic interests, and with the end of the Cold War, this region had lost much of its strategic value. If the Yugoslav war threatened the security and stability of the European continent, the brutal conflict in Ethiopia did not affect the well-being of the United States or that of any of its allies. Thus, the Ethiopian civil war was not a priority for the Bush administration, and before the 1990s, the United States had never seriously attempted to resolve this secessionist conflict (especially from 1952 to 1974, when it had a great influence in Ethiopia). So why did the United States intervene in the Ethiopian conflict if it no longer had influence or apparent interests in Ethiopia? The administration of George H.W. Bush got involved in the Ethiopian civil war for three main reasons. First, the Bush administration wanted to increase its cooperation with the Soviet Union on international issues. At that time, the Soviet Union wanted to disengage from Ethiopia, as it was going through an economic crisis and could no longer provide assistance to it. For this reason, Moscow was in favour of u.s. involvement in the conflict, and Washington saw the issue as a good opportunity to strengthen ties with the Soviet government of Mikhail Gorbatchev.11 Hence, after fifteen years of quasi-absence from Ethiopia (the u.s. no longer had an ambas-

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sador in Addis Ababa and was represented only by a chargé d’affaires), the United States took up the challenge. Second, in the late 1980s, around twenty thousand Jewish Ethiopians (the Falashas) wanted to emigrate to Israel to escape the intense civil war and the famine. This issue became a major concern in Washington, and President Bush expressed a personal interest in the fate of the Falashas. Members of the u.s. Congress who represented Jewish constituents also raised their concerns and pressed the Bush administration to take concrete actions to facilitate the departure of the Jewish Ethiopians. This was one more incentive for the United States to get involved in the resolution of the war. Third, hunger in Ethiopia was another concern in Washington. Throughout the 1980s, the u.s. government had been one of the main providers of humanitarian aid to Ethiopia to counter the famine in the region. By the late 1980s, the Bush administration reached the conclusion that by intervening, it could help to end the civil war and the humanitarian crisis. As a result, the Jewish Ethiopians could more easily depart from Ethiopia. All of these factors were part of the equation that motivated the initial u.s. decision to intervene. The issue of Eritrea’s secession, however, did not play in u.s. decision. In fact, it just happened that the Falashas and the hunger issues were intimately linked to the tough secessionist war in Eritrea. The u.s. intervention did, however, turn out to have a more far-reaching effect than expected. As the next section will show, American officials decided at some point to address the Eritrean secessionist question in order to strengthen regional stability in the Horn.

toward the collapse of the ethiopian government: 1989–91 The reign of the Derg regime was marked by a progressive loss of political control over Ethiopia’s territory. Throughout the 1980s, the regime of Mengistu fought on several fronts against the eplf, which captured most of Eritrea’s strategic locations. The Derg also fought against the tplf, which occupied most of Northern Ethiopia. Toward the end of the 1980s, other liberation movements such as the Oromo Liberation Front also emerged in the south of the country. In early 1990, Mengistu acknowledged for the first

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time that the Ethiopian state was on the verge of dismemberment and that the national army had to fight with more determination against the multiple insurgent fronts to keep Ethiopia united. External Instability and Internal Negotiations When the United States became involved in the conflict, the external stability of Ethiopia was no longer preserved. The Ethio-Eritrean war had created a major spillover effect, and between five hundred and six hundred thousand civilians had taken refuge mainly in Sudan, but also in Kenya and Djibouti. There were also a considerable number of emigres and exiles to Arab states (between eighty and one hundred thousand).12 According to Robert Houdek, who was the u.s. chief of mission to Ethiopia from 1988 to 1991, the refugee crisis was taken very seriously by the State Department, and it was one more reason why Washington got involved in the conflict.13 In terms of internal negotiations, Mengistu had refused to negotiate with Eritrean secessionists until the late 1980s and had used military means to bring Eritrea to heel. The rapid decline of Soviet aid and the severe famine, however, compelled the Ethiopian government to come up with a peace initiative that included negotiations with Eritrean secessionists. Following his first official meeting with u.s. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Herman J. Cohen, Mengistu expressed the desire to end the war. He introduced market-oriented reforms and promised to facilitate the emigration of Jewish Ethiopians. At this point, there was external instability resulting from the conflict, but Mengistu was open to change and accepted third-party mediation. Thus, as the stabilityseeking argument predicts, this openness was good enough for the United States to maintain its support of Ethiopia’s unity. In 1989, former u.s. president Jimmy Carter was chosen by Ethiopian and Eritrean leaders to conduct peace negotiations. The semi-official talks, however, did not produce any significant progress. Negotiations held in Atlanta and in Nairobi in the fall of 1989 failed because the Derg regime refused to allow a un observer mission to assist negotiations, as requested by Eritrean secessionists. Addis Ababa argued that allowing a un presence in Ethiopia would further internationalize the conflict.14 Mengistu was also opposed to the implementation of a ceasefire during the

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peace negotiations, a proposition that had been put forward by the United States. Eritrean secessionist leaders were not more inclined to compromise, since their military victory had started to alter the balance of force in their favour.15 Following these negotiation attempts, the eplf launched an attack against the Ethiopian army on the Red Sea coast and captured Massawa – Eritrea’s main port. This victory marked the beginning of the end for Mengistu, as his troops located in Asmara were isolated and could no longer be supplied on the ground. The Tigrean People’s Liberation Front also made significant progress against Mengistu’s army and was able to move closer to Addis Ababa. In light of a rapidly declining military situation, Mengistu appeared willing to resume peace talks with secessionists under the auspices of the United States and showed signs of flexibility. To demonstrate its good faith, the gpdre allowed international food relief to reach the Eritrean population, which until then had been forbidden. State Department officials also hosted informal talks in Washington between the Ethiopian government and Eritrean secessionists in the fall of 1990. On this occasion, the representative of the Ethiopian government, Tesfaye Dinka, introduced the draft of a new Ethiopian constitution that guaranteed special autonomy for Eritrea. Assistant Secretary Cohen declared, “I believe the Ethiopian government has effectively shown great flexibility in recent weeks and I would ask the eplf to reciprocate.”16 eplf leaders, however, kept requesting a referendum on independence, which was the centerpiece of their strategy, and categorically refused the idea of political autonomy within Ethiopia. Mengistu’s Bad Faith Although the Ethiopian central government seemed open to negotiations and ready to devolve constitutional power to Eritrea, it soon appeared that Mengistu was not acting in good faith and that the gpdre was not really interested in achieving a negotiated peace settlement with the secessionists. The State Department realized that the Ethiopian central state was involved in peace negotiations to buy time in order to re-establish its military authority in Ethiopia and defeat the insurgent movement. To achieve this objective, the Ethiopian government made two tactical decisions. First, it sup-

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ported the u.s. coalition against Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait (Ethiopia had a seat at the un Security Council at the time of the Gulf War). Mengistu believed that cooperating with the United States on the Iraqi issue could be the first step toward a u.s.Ethiopian alliance against Arab influences in the Horn of Africa. Through this alliance, Mengistu was hoping to defeat secessionist insurgents in Eritrea (even if secessionists were from both Muslim and Christian backgrounds) and to consolidate his regime. Mengistu’s second tactical decision was his “visas for arms” policy. To rebuild his military, the Ethiopian leader used the Falashas in an attempt to obtain weapons from Israel. Mengistu literally blackmailed the Israeli government by making it clear that there would be no Falasha emigration without arms in exchange. Thus, in early 1991 the Bush administration came to the conclusion that the regime of Mengistu was an obstacle to the resolution of the civil war and that his policy of an open hand toward Eritrea was a bluff. In April of 1991, after several unsuccessful attempts at peaceful negotiations, the eplf and tplf launched their final offensive against the Mengistu regime. In Washington, the issue of the Falashas became central. Both the White House and members of Congress worried that Ethiopian Jews could be the victims of the intensification of the civil war. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Shamir even appealed to President Bush for intervention in favour of the Falashas. In response to this appeal and to pressure from Congress, President Bush named Rudy Boschwitz, a former Republican senator who had the fate of the Falashas at heart, as his special envoy to Ethiopia. Boschwitz’s first assignment was to deliver a message asking the Ethiopian government to facilitate the departure of the Jews.17 The u.s. government also intensified its involvement in the conflict by sending high-level officials to Ethiopia. In addition to Rudy Boschwitz, nsc director for Africa Robert Frasure and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Irving Hicks also travelled to Ethiopia to push for the departure of the Falashas and to find a peace agreement between the gpdre, the eplf, and the tplf. American officials first met with Mengistu in Addis Ababa. During the meeting, he consented to a rapid departure of the Falashas if the United States agreed to cover the costs of the airlift operation. The Ethiopian leader also asked the Bush administration to organize a new round of peace negotiations with the insurgent

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movement. The State Department agreed to do so but indicated that the negotiations would begin only once the emigration of the Falashas was under way.18 The peace conference finally began in London on 27 May following the rapid and successful departure of most of the Falashas. The Disintegration of Ethiopia’s Central Government In the days preceding the London conference, the political context in Ethiopia changed substantially. The eplf launched its final attack on Asmara, forcing two hundred thousand Ethiopian troops to surrender. The Eritrean secessionists then established a Provisional Government in Eritrea (pge), which was in control of the entire Eritrean territory. Meanwhile, the tplf army was literally waiting at the doors of Addis Ababa, ready to enter the city. Facing his imminent defeat, Mengistu abandoned his government on 21 May, fleeing to Zimbabwe.19 Before leaving, he designated his vice president, Tesfaye Gebre-Kidan, as the new president of Ethiopia. Soon after the u.s. delegation began negotiating with representatives of the different parties in London, the u.s. chargé d’affaires in Addis Ababa, Robert Houdek, informed Assistant Secretary Cohen that the Ethiopian government was no longer able to defend the capital against rebel factions. Since the central government of the Derg was in an advanced stage of disintegration, the u.s. government made an important decision. Assistant Secretary Cohen, who chaired the peace talks in London, agreed to let the tplf enter Addis Ababa to maintain order. This was part of Herman Cohen’s strategy of a “soft landing,” that is, to settle the conflict by minimizing turmoil and violence. The United States was very concerned that the collapse of the Mengistu regime could produce chaos that would aggravate the war. The State Department was still shaken by the collapse of law and order that resulted from the overthrow of the Liberian government in 1990 and of the government of Somalia in early 1991, and Cohen was determined to prevent a similar state of anarchy from emerging in Ethiopia. The u.s. decision to support the tplf entry into Addis Ababa, however, became highly controversial because it was made without the approval of Ethiopia’s prime minister, Tesfaye Dinka, who attended the London conference.20 This decision drastically changed the dynamics of the talks in London. Representatives of

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the gpdre, led by Tesfaye Dinka, refused to acknowledge the disintegration of their regime and chose to leave the conference to protest against what they called “Cohen’s Coup.” Several Ethiopians were also opposed to the tplf ’s takeover in Addis Ababa and saw it as the replacement of one dictatorial regime by another. Many in Ethiopia argued that the United States had literally authorized a military coup.

u.s. support for eritrea’s right to secede The second major u.s. decision in London was even more surprising than the first. At a press conference, Secretary Cohen declared that he was in favour of a referendum on Eritrea’s independence, while stating that he hoped that Eritreans would choose to remain in Ethiopia. This declaration had the effect of a bomb having been dropped. Riots emerged in the streets of the capital, and Ethiopians protested against the u.s. support for a referendum on Eritrea’s independence. For the first time since the Second World War, the United States expressly supported the right of a secessionist state to conduct a referendum on independence. It goes without saying that this statement departed from the traditional u.s. policy of supporting Ethiopia’s territorial integrity. It was the first time in almost fifty years that the United States recognized Eritrea’s right to become a sovereign state. Cohen justified this decision by emphasizing that Eritrea’s situation, from a legal point of view, was different from the other African secessionist movements. The assistant secretary stressed that Eritrea had never been allowed to exercise its right of selfdetermination. Eritreans were indeed compelled to join the EthioEritrean federation in 1952, following a un Security Council decision, and Eritrea was illegally annexed by Ethiopia in 1962. Hence, supporting a referendum on Eritrea’s independence was a way to repair a historical mistake. The unique character of Eritrea, however, was a constant, rather than a variable. Eritrea’s right of self-determination had been denied since 1952, and successive u.s. administrations from President Truman to President Reagan had never attempted to rectify this injustice. Therefore, this argument cannot explain why the United States suddenly reversed its policy. Assistant Secretary Cohen even recognized years later, during an interview with the

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author, that this legal argument was an excuse to justify u.s. support for self-determination. “We felt it helped us feel comfortable because we were always worried with the Organization of African Unity (oau). But the oau reached the same conclusion as we did, which was that secession was inevitable and that we couldn’t stop it.”21 The emphasis on this international legal argument also aimed to prevent criticism of u.s. foreign policy for inconsistency in matters of international recognition. It was a way to avoid creating a political precedent. Explaining the U.S. Policy Shift The u.s. decision to support Eritrea’s referendum on independence was surprising, since the u.s. delegation went to the London conference with a policy of not supporting secession.22 So why did this shift happen? The explanation must be found in the political rather than in the legal realm. The central government of Ethiopia was no longer viable when the parties met in London in May of 1991, and the disintegration of the regime had become a great source of instability. Moreover, the Mengistu government had failed to contain the secessionist crisis within its borders and had used peace negotiations to buy time against Eritrea’s secessionists. The central government of Ethiopia was, therefore, a major obstacle to stability. The facts indicate that the United States consented to a referendum on Eritrea’s independence because this was the only option to end the war and to reestablish stability in the Horn. In other words, the independence of Eritrea, or at least the right to conduct a free referendum on the issue, was seen as a tool to foster regional stability in both Eritrea and Ethiopia, the only way to stop civil war and the devastating famine. A denial of Eritrea’s right to secede may have caused war to resume in Ethiopia. In addition, the fact that the eplf had a more powerful military than the tplf, which was then in control of Addis Ababa, contributed to the u.s. policy shift. Eritrea was a de facto independent state in May of 1991, and any attempt by the new Ethiopian transitional authority to reclaim Eritrea by force would have resulted in failure. Thus, the changing nature of the domestic context in Ethiopia forced the United States to formulate a new pragmatic approach. Since Eritrea’s independence was unstoppable

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and since the Ethiopian host state was powerless toward it, the United States decided to use its power to grant recognition in order to facilitate the resolution of the conflict (as in the case of Croatia and Kosovo) and to impose, as will be shown later, conditions of recognition. This was the only way that the United States could keep certain control over the process leading to the inevitable independence of Eritrea. Dealing with the OAU The u.s. delegation in London declared itself in favour of the referendum on Eritrea’s secession before consulting with the Organization of African Unity on the subject, which was unprecedented. Before pushing further in that direction, however, the United States checked with the oau to see whether it supported its new stand. The United States had always backed the oau’s principle of the maintenance of post-colonial international borders to contain potential secessionist aspirations.23 This time, however, the United States went ahead of the oau by supporting Eritrea’s right to selfdetermination, which left the organization with very little option but to back this policy. In this context, the oau recognized that Eritrea had never had the chance to decide its own political future and that a referendum on secession was, therefore, a legitimate action. American officials also sought the approval of surrounding states (i.e., Djibouti, Egypt, Kenya, and Sudan), which all gave their consent to Eritrea’s secession. This was a way for the United States to secure regional stability following Eritrea’s independence.24

the absence of a consensus within the u.s. government The consensus that existed between u.s. foreign policy agencies on the issue of Ethiopia was based on the need to collaborate with Gorbachev, to change the Ethiopian regime, and to end the war. Before Herman Cohen’s unilateral decision to support a referendum on Eritrea’s independence, there were serious doubts among u.s. national-security bureaucrats about the positive aspect of Eritrea’s independence. The Department of Defence (dod) and the National Security Agency (nsa) worried that an independent Eritrea could

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become a hotbed for Islamic extremism. Following the policy shift, the State Department argued that the new Eritrean government was in control of its borders and, therefore, that it was not susceptible to manipulation by radicals or by regional powers hostile to u.s. interests.25 The decision of Assistant Secretary Cohen to support Eritrea’s right to secede was made without prior approval by the State Department or the National Security Council. To the question, “Why did the u.s. change its policy toward Eritrea’s right to secede?” Walter Kansteiner, who worked for the Policy Planning staff at the State Department before replacing Robert Frasure as nsc Director for Africa, declared that “the u.s. didn’t [change its policy], Cohen just said it. That’s the wonderful thing about being the Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, no one else cares.”26 In this case, however, the Bush administration did care, and the latitude of the assistant secretary created tensions and disagreement within the State Department. A few hours after his controversial statement, Cohen received a call from Secretary Baker. The secretary expressed strong concern about the new and unexpected policy toward Eritrea. As Cohen himself recalls: Baker expressed concern about my endorsement of self-determination in Eritrea … The German government, he explained, was exerting pressure on the United States to recognize the independence of Slovenia and Croatia. The United States was resisting because we feared that unilateral declarations of independence in Yugoslavia could lead to violence. My support for a referendum in Eritrea could open the door to press accusations of policy inconsistency. If self-determination is good enough for Eritrea, why isn’t it good enough for Croatia and Slovenia? I protested that consistency is not necessarily the best way to deal with specific country problems, an argument he found naïve.27 In an interview, Cohen added that “Baker didn’t really disagree [with my decision]. I think that if I had asked his opinion before I did what I did, he would have said: well you should stay out of it. Let them make their own announcement.”28 Baker was apprehensive and anticipated tough questions from the press, such as why the United States opposed Croatia’s and Slovenia’s independence, which

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both had held a winning referendum on independence, while it supported a referendum on Eritrea’s secession. Fortunately for Baker (and for Cohen), the press did not emphasize the inconsistency. This intra-agency debate could have been avoided if Cohen had obtained the approval of Secretary Baker before making such a substantial policy modification. This disagreement could also have been avoided if the representative of the nsc at the London peace conference, Robert Frasure, had made sure that this decision regarding Eritrea did not conflict with other u.s. positions. If the American participation in the relief of the Jewish Ethiopians was an express decision from the White House, u.s. involvement in the resolution of the Eritrean secessionist conflict and in the partition of Ethiopia were initiated by one man, Assistant Secretary Herman J. Cohen. At no point did the White House instruct the u.s. diplomat to work on the Eritrean secessionist question and even less to preside over the splitting up of Ethiopia.29

the u.s. opposition to unilateral secession To achieve their “soft landing” strategy, American officials in London discouraged eplf leaders from issuing a unilateral declaration of independence (udi) in 1991, because they believed that it would further destabilize Ethiopia. Assistant Secretary Cohen also warned Isaias Afwerki, the leader of the eplf, that the United States and the Western European states would not recognize Eritrea if it seceded from Ethiopia. Cohen went even further by indicating that the United States would withhold the recognition of both the new Ethiopian government and of the Eritrean secessionist state if Addis Ababa and Asmara concluded an immediate separation. Cohen also stressed that it was important for Eritrean secessionists to withhold their declaration of independence for a period of two years and that they should wait for a un sponsored referendum before officially seceding from Ethiopia. This two-year period was meant to allow for the new Ethiopian and Eritrean governments to consolidate their power, to facilitate economic negotiations, and to establish favourable conditions for a stable transition toward Eritrea’s independence. In this context, secessionist leaders calculated that the costs of issuing a udi would clearly exceed the benefits. For one thing,

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Eritrea was already a de facto independent state. A unilateral secession would not have granted much additional power to Eritrea and, on the contrary, would have deprived Eritreans of Western recognition and of un endorsement. Such a disruptive decision could also have strained cooperation with Addis Ababa and with Western capitals at a time when Eritrea needed economic emergency relief to recover from its civil war. Thus, a udi would not have been a rational decision. Commenting on the eplf decision, Robert Houdek, who was the u.s. chargé d’affaires in Addis Ababa from 1988 to 1991 and who became the first u.s. ambassador to Eritrea from 1993 to 1996, declared: “It was a very smart maneuver. If the eplf had declared independence the day they walked into Asmara, a lot of African members [and the United States] would have been uncomfortable with that.”30

the 1991–93 transitional period At the end of the London peace conference, the parties agreed to meet in Addis Ababa in July to decide on the transitional phase. By then, the Mengistu regime had disintegrated. From May to July, there was no official government in Ethiopia, and the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front assumed the function of the transitional government. It is ironic that the tplf, which was helped and trained by the Eritrean secessionist front in the 1970s and 1980s, came to power in 1991 as the new government of the central state from which Eritreans attempted to secede. In July, three important decisions were made at the Addis Ababa conference. First, the tplf officially recognized the right of Eritreans to decide on their political future in a referendum supervised by the United Nations. Even if some members of the transitional government of Ethiopia were opposed to the independence of Eritrea, there was nothing that the transitional government could have done to prevent it.31 The eplf had the strongest military, and it was in Ethiopia’s interest to maintain friendly and cooperative relations with Eritrea. Meles Zenawi, the tplf leader, called the anticipated secession of Eritrea an “unfortunate” event but argued that the maintenance of good economic relations with Asmara would minimize the disruptive effect of the breakup. Zenawi also made clear to u.s. officials that Ethiopian nationalists would not go to war in the future to reclaim Eritrea. Ethiopia’s consent on the secession of

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Eritrea facilitated the international community’s acceptance of the breakup. It avoided creating a political precedent in which a secessionist state would have unilaterally seceded without the approval of its central state. The second decision made at Addis Ababa was that the eplf, which attended the conference as an observer, announced that Eritrea would stay out of the new Ethiopian transitional government, as they had already set up their own government in Eritrea. The eplf also agreed to defer for two years the referendum on Eritrea’s independence. And third, the Ethiopian government negotiated free access to the Eritrean port of Assab on the Red Sea.32 It became a free transit port for goods entering Ethiopia. From May of 1991 until the referendum on independence in 1993, Eritrea was an independent state in all but name. Neighbouring states like Sudan, Egypt, and Yemen even established an official diplomatic presence in the Eritrean capital. Eritrea, however, remained officially part of the Ethiopian state until it formally proclaimed its independence in April 1993. Strengthening Eritrea’s Internal and External Stability American representatives also established conditions for eventual recognition of Eritrea’s independence. In addition to compelling Eritrea to renounce unilaterally declaring secession and to agree to hold a democratic referendum, the United States expected Eritrean secessionists to create basic democratic institutions, to enact freemarket reforms, and to maintain peaceful relations with neighbouring states. These facts tend to validate the stability-seeking argument. The United States persuaded Eritrean leaders that they first needed to establish their legitimacy and show that they could maintain internal and external stability before being recognized. During these two years, relations between Ethiopians and Eritreans were constructive. The Transitional Government of Ethiopia (tge) reaffirmed its decision to support Eritrea’s right to secede and indicated that it would recognize the result of the referendum.33 Addis Ababa and Asmara worked together to implement democratic reforms and affirmed that regional stability and peace were prerequisites for economic development in the Horn. The two states signed trade and communication agreements and established a mutual defence pact.34 The Provisional Government of Eritrea also

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proceeded to initiate major political reforms. It introduced, among other things, the rule of law and conducted a civic education program. Meanwhile, Ethiopia’s transitional government drafted a new constitution that proclaimed a new peaceful and democratic order. Then, in late 1992, the oau announced that it would send observers during the referendum process, and the un General Assembly passed resolution 47/114 establishing the United Nations Observer Mission to Verify the Referendum in Eritrea (unover). In 1993, when the referendum was held, Eritrea had shown evidence of internal and external stability. The referendum was finally held on 23–25 April 1993. Observers from the United States, the un, the oau, the Arab League, the United Kingdom, Ethiopia, Egypt, Russia, Yemen, Sudan, and Tunisia were present, for a total of 536 foreign observers.35 Following the vote, oau representatives validated the result, and Eritrea declared its independence on 27 April. The United States immediately recognized the new state, and the international community followed suit.36 Ethiopia formally granted recognition to Eritrea on 3 May, and the official celebration of independence was held on 24 May, the day of the second anniversary of the liberation of Asmara by eplf troops. Eritrea became a member of the United Nations in June of 1993, and its diplomatic recognition allowed it to join the International Monetary Fund (imf) and the World Bank.

eritrea and the stability-seeking argument Does the Eritrean case validate the stability-seeking argument? The answer is yes. As long as the Mengistu regime was in power and showed willingness to resolve the Eritrean secessionist conflict, the United States remained committed to Ethiopia’s unity, even though external stability was no longer preserved (i.e., massive cross-national refugee flows occurred). From the day of the u.s. involvement in 1989 to the collapse of the Ethiopian government in 1991, Assistant Secretary Cohen and the State Department remained patient and attempted on multiple occasions to bring the parties together. Thus, the case of Eritrea does validate the first step of the stability theory. At no time before the collapse of the Mengistu regime, did the United States support Eritrea’s secessionist aspirations.

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The argument also explains the u.s. policy shift in favour of Eritrea’s independence. Not only did the secessionist war cause external instability but the central government was not seriously interested in negotiating; it was ultimately paralyzed and collapsed. Taken together, these indicators caused the u.s. policy shift. One could wonder, however, whether the factors of internal and external stability really justify the shift in u.s. policy. The fact that the Eritrean secessionist army was the predominant military force in Ethiopia in 1991 made Eritrea’s secession unstoppable, and this could be enough to explain why the United States supported Eritrea’s secessionist self-determination. To this we can answer that from 1989 to 1991, secessionist rebels were more powerful than the central government and won most of the fights against it. Yet the United States maintained its support for Ethiopia’s integrity. The fact that Mengistu became an obstacle to internal negotiations, combined with the cross-national refugee problem, is what initiated the u.s. policy shift. As for the distribution of power, which was increasingly favourable for the Eritrean secessionists, it accelerated the shift. The second step of the stability argument also explains the u.s. management of the last phase of the conflict. Between 1991 and 1993, the u.s. negotiating team was focusing on the internal and external stability of Eritrea. First, Cohen received the assurance that the Eritreans would pursue a cooperative foreign policy with Ethiopia, as well as with neighbouring states, which all accepted Eritrea’s secession. External stability was thus quickly secured at the Addis Ababa conference in July 1991. As for internal stability, the eplf already had effective control of Eritrea’s territory when it took over Asmara in May of 1991, and secessionist leaders rapidly established a well-functioning government. During the two-year transition period, the Eritrean government implemented democratic and liberal reforms, followed by a democratic referendum on independence. As Evelyn Farkas indicates, “the [u.s.] decision to allow partition was made to advance the prospects for stability and security on the Horn. The means by which it was implemented demonstrates most clearly the u.s. concern about stability.”37 In April of 1993, Eritrea fulfilled the u.s. criteria of stability and was ready to be recognized. Overall, the stability argument performs well in this case.

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competing arguments To what extent do ethnic politics and private business interests explain the fluctuation in the u.s. position toward Eritrea? As far as ethnic lobbies are concerned, there was a consensus among Ethiopian and Eritrean Americans on the need to overthrow the Mengistu regime. This consensus reflected the cooperation between the tplf, the eplf, and the other rebel factions that were fighting against the Derg regime. Until 1991, Ethiopian and Eritrean American lobbies spoke with the same voice in favour of a regime change in Addis Ababa. Both diasporic communities, however, which together consisted of around one hundred thousand u.s. citizens, could only agree on the overthrow of Mengistu. There was no consensus on who should rule in Addis Ababa following the downfall of the Derg, and most Ethiopian Americans were opposed to Eritrea’s independence. When the u.s. government decided to support a referendum on Eritrea’s secession, cooperation between Ethiopian and Eritrean Americans abruptly ended. The Ethiopian American community mobilized and demonstrated against the u.s. policy shift. One leader of the Ethiopian community declared that “if [the u.s. government] lets Eritrea secede, there is no way the government can deny it to any other group, which is the dismemberment of Ethiopia.”38 Eritreans in the United States were less numerous than the Ethiopian Americans, but they were unified behind the eplf. A large majority of them were in favour of Eritrea’s independence when the Mengistu regime fell apart, and they all pushed in the same direction, even if they were not organized into one main ethnic association. Moreover, Eritrean Americans were successful in lobbying members of Congress and convinced some of them of the importance of Eritrea’s secession. They gained support especially among the Subcommittee on African Affairs of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.39 Even though Eritrean Americans were vocal on Capitol Hill and pressured members of Congress, the facts indicate that they failed to affect the Bush administration. As one policy-maker points out, “the demonstrations in the streets of Washington really didn’t matter. What mattered were the conversations we had with Meles Zenawi [the tplf leader] in London.”40 Moreover, as mentioned

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previously, the u.s. decision to support Eritrea’s right to secede was made by Assistant Secretary Cohen, and the decision was taken in London, far from Washington’s political scene. No evidence indicates that the Eritrean American community influenced Herman Cohen’s perception of the issue in the weeks before the London conference. Generally speaking, ethnic lobbies are influential to the extent that they can affect the election or re-election of politicians. This is why elected representatives usually pay attention to the opinion of ethnic communities, especially when they are concentrated in important states or ridings. In the case of Eritrea, the u.s. decision to support self-determination was made not by the president or by his political entourage but by a non-elected high-level public servant, who had not consulted the White House before making the decision. The phone conversation between Assistant Secretary Cohen and Secretary Baker, hours after the controversial declaration, shows that the State Department and the White House had not planned this policy shift. It is therefore very unlikely that the Eritrean American diaspora played a role in the redefinition of the policy. In fact, Baker and Cohen were both focusing on international factors. Secretary Baker was trying to preserve Yugoslavia’s unity and was worried about policy inconsistency, while Assistant Secretary Cohen’s main objective was the end of the Ethiopian war and the stabilization of the Horn of Africa. Thus, the ethnic politics argument falls short in explaining the policy variation. Facts also indicate that the business interest argument does not explain the situations under investigation. In the aftermath of the Second World War, American corporations did have economic interests in Ethiopia. Pan-American airlines obtained landing rights from the Ethiopian government for its long-distance trip to Asia. The New York–based Sinclair Oil Company explored petroleum on Ethiopian territory. And Shell operated an oil reserve in Massawa (Eritrea) for the use of the u.s. navy.41 In the mid-1970s, however, colonel Mengistu nationalized u.s. properties without providing any compensation in return, and as a result, American business interests in Ethiopia became non-existent. By the time the Bush administration came to power, u.s. corporations had received compensation from Mengistu, but Ethiopia was no longer seen as a safe place to invest.42 Ethiopia was still officially a communist state, and the thirty-year civil war had destroyed infrastructures and produced

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a high level of instability. During the rule of the Derg, the only substantial u.s. investment in Ethiopia was made by the Kalamazoo Spice Company from Michigan. The u.s. chargé d’affaires in Addis Ababa, Robert Houdek, does not recall that u.s. corporations ever pressured the Bush administration for or against Eritrea’s secession. He points out that “the only kind of business interests that I was pushing for was with Ethiopian airlines. I wanted to make sure that they continue to buy Boeings. And they bought Boeings with Pratt and Wittney’s engines on.”43 Boeing had helped the Ethiopian government to create Ethiopian Airlines following the Second World War, and this u.s. corporation wanted to maintain this long-standing tradition following the downfall of Mengistu. Assistant Secretary Cohen concurs with Houdek. He has never been aware of any private u.s. firms that could have pressured the Bush administration in one way or the other on the issue of Eritrea.44 The u.s. decision to support Eritrea’s independence, therefore, can hardly be explained by u.s. business interests in the region. The central question that should be asked is, how can the political outcome of the Eritrean issue (i.e., independence from or unity with Ethiopia) affect the interests of u.s. corporations if there was effectively no u.s. investment in Ethiopia or in Eritrea? In this context, it is hard to see how an independent Eritrea could have bolstered or damaged u.s. business interests. It could be argued, however, that the liberalization of Eritrea’s economy and the overthrow of the communist regime in both Eritrea and Ethiopia during the transition period did fall under medium- and long-term u.s. economic interests, as these two events created private investment opportunities.

conclusion The instability of Ethiopia’s international borders was not sufficient in itself to compel the United States to move to the second step of the stability theory. The United States shifted its policy in favour of Eritrea’s independence only once it became clear that the central government of Addis Ababa was no longer able and willing to resolve its internal secessionist crisis. It was only at this point that the idea of secession emerged as a tool to restore order.

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The events of the transitional period of 1991–93 also tend to validate the model. The United States persuaded Eritrean leaders that a unilateral declaration of independence would isolate Eritrea. Secessionist leaders were encouraged, rather, to establish a functioning and democratic government. Then they strengthened their ties with the new Ethiopian government and proceeded with a referendum on independence supervised by the United Nations to validate the legitimacy of the breakup. It was only once Eritrea fulfilled these criteria that the United States extended recognition.

7 Somaliland: A Non-recognized Independent State

introduction The purpose of this chapter is to understand why Somaliland, the northwest region of Somalia that seceded in 1991, is still unrecognized as an independent state, despite its relatively high level of stability in comparison to the rest of Somalia. More specifically, this chapter attempts to explain why the United States, whose role was central in the independence of Eritrea (the neighbouring state), has been opposed to Somaliland’s secession for almost twenty years. I argue that until 1997, the United States did not seriously raise the issue of Somaliland’s recognition because, like the rest of Somalia, it was unstable. Since 1997, however, Somaliland has experienced a period of uninterrupted stability and democratization. Its government has developed a dynamic economy and created functional democratic institutions, and it now has most of the attributes of statehood. It has its own passport, national currency, flag, and license plates. Meanwhile, the rest of Somalia has undergone war and chaos and has been without effective government since 1991. Yet despite Somaliland’s achievements, which have been made without any foreign assistance, it is worth noting, the United States remains opposed to its secession. If we follow the assumptions of the stability-seeking argument, the United States should now recognize Somaliland in order to promote regional stability in this turmoiled region of Africa, but it does not do so. Why? Somaliland represents an exceptional case. The failure of the u.s. assault mission in Mogadishu in October 1993, during which eighteen u.s. Army Rangers were killed, partly explains why Washington has still not granted recognition to Somaliland, despite its fulfillment of most of the stability indicators of the stability-seeking

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model. Since the failed military operation of 1993, a “Somalia aversion” has affected the conduct of the u.s. policy toward Somalia and Somaliland. The American government has refrained from being involved in the Somalian quagmire, and the State Department does not see how it could be beneficial to be involved one way or another. Thus, the u.s. casualties in Mogadishu are causally relevant in the explanation of the u.s. attitude toward Somaliland and partially undermine the predictive nature of the stability argument. Before I go any further, the time frame of this chapter must be delimited, since the Somaliland secessionist issue is still under way. The scope of the analysis here is limited to the 1991–2005 period and does not include recent developments such as the overthrow of the Transitional Government of Somalia by Islamic extremists in 2006.

historical background After more than sixty years as a British colony (1897–1960), British Somaliland (currently Somaliland) declared its independence from England on 26 June 1960 and was recognized by thirty-five states, including the United States.1 British Somaliland joined with Italian Somaliland (currently Somalia) five days later to form the Republic of Somalia, in order to pursue the dream of uniting all the Somali people within one state.2 Although the two Somalilands had different colonial pasts, their union was looked upon as a great prospect for political stability, since the new Republic of Somalia was the only state in Africa that was ethnically, linguistically, and religiously homogeneous. Despite their common attributes, the two former colonies failed to develop a sense of nationhood. They had very different economies, unique colonial experiences, and different institutions. Moreover, political parties were based on clan loyalties, which emphasized regional interests and divided the North and the South. These discrepancies led British and Italian Somaliland to disagree on the terms of the Act of Union, and the new President of Somalia, Aden Abdilla Osman, decided to unilaterally authorize unification through a political decree that established a unitary state. The Act of Union thus never obtained the consent of politicians from former British Somaliland, and no official international treaty on the union was ever signed between the two states.3

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Furthermore, Somalilanders opposed the adoption of Somalia’s constitution, because the document was seen as reflective of Southern thinking and Italian values. Nevertheless, the constitution was adopted because the large majority of the population in former Italian Somalia (which represented two-thirds of the total population of Somalia) voted in favour of it. The Somalia experiment, therefore, started off on the wrong foot and suffered from a deficit of legitimacy.4 A military coup, orchestrated in 1969 by Somalia’s chief of the armed forces Siad Barre, drastically transformed Somalia’s political landscape. The constitution and the assembly of the Republic were suspended, private industries were nationalized, and the new military regime established a socialist state with the support of the Soviet Union.5 In the second half of the 1970s, Siad Barre pursued an aggressive foreign policy that aimed to unite all the Somali people living in Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Kenya into a Greater Somalia. The first action undertaken by Barre was to invade Ethiopia’s Ogaden region in 1977, which caused his regime to lose the support of the Soviet Union in favour of Ethiopia. This event eventually compelled Barre to withdraw his troops from Ethiopia and to carry out a major political realignment. In 1978, following the war with Ethiopia, Somalia requested u.s. economic and military assistance, and soon the Americans became the most important provider of foreign aid to Somalia.6 In exchange, the United States obtained the right to use naval and military facilities in the port of Berbera, located in Somaliland, which had previously been used by the Soviets. The u.s. support of Somalia was purely pragmatic and must be viewed through the lens of Cold War politics. As former assistant secretary of state for Africa Herman J. Cohen indicates, “Because of Somalia’s strategic position, u.s. diplomacy felt obliged to cultivate close and cordial relations with one of the world’s most vicious despots, Mohammed Siad Barre.”7 The Emergence of the SNM In the early 1980s, a group of exiled Somalilanders in London created the Somali National Movement (snm). This movement brought together businessmen, religious leaders, intellectuals, and former army officers from the Isaak clan – the largest family clan in

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Somaliland – and its main objective was to overthrow Barre’s regime.8 Military operations conducted by the snm were based in Ethiopia, with Addis Ababa’s support. It is worth noting that the snm, which eventually declared the independence of Somaliland, was initially not a secessionist movement. In the 1980s most of its members saw Somalia’s unity as being inviolable and fought for the establishment of a federal state. The snm’s war against the central government reached its peak in 1988, when the snm made significant progress by defeating the troops of Siad Barre in Hargeisa (the capital of Somaliland) and in Burao. The response of the central government was brutal. Barre ordered aerial bombardments on Somaliland’s cities. The effects of this countermeasure were atrocious. By 1990, at least fifty thousand Somalilanders had died in the fighting between the snm and the national army, and these events strengthened popular support for secession. The snm was not the only rebellious movement in Somalia. During the 1980s, two other organizations from the South also fought for the overthrow of Barre’s authoritarian regime: the United Somali Congress (usc) and the Somali Patriotic Front (spf). In concert with the snm, these movements coordinated their military efforts and accelerated the fall of Barre. In May of 1990, warlords from different clans and rebellious movements controlled large parts of Somalia, and the government of Mogadishu could no longer carry out its normal administrative functions. In January 1991 the state of Somalia disintegrated when the troops of the United Somali Congress, under the authority of General Aidid, entered Mogadishu and forced Siad Barre to flee.9 The Rise of Pro-Secessionist Sentiment In the months following the exile of Siad Barre, snm leaders who were by then in control of Somaliland, were highly dissatisfied with the way the post-Barre transition was going. There was a lack of consultation between the three rebellious movements, and the national conference on transition that had been planned before the collapse of the Barre regime never convened. Furthermore, a faction of the usc decided unilaterally to form a government in Mogadishu and named its leader, Ali Mahdi, as interim president without any prior consultation with the snm. This decision not only alienated

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Somalilanders but initiated a war between the two dominant figures of the United Somali Congress: Ali Mahli and General Aidid. This war was the main cause of starvation and suffering in Somalia during the 1990s. In the face of these developments, snm leaders declared the independence of the Republic of Somaliland in Burco on 18 May 1991 and repealed the Act of Union of 1960. The Burco proclamation stated that Somaliland would keep the borders of the former colony of British Somaliland, and the leader of the snm, Abd-er-Rahman, also known as Tur, was named president of the new republic. Secessionist leaders also argued that since Somaliland had been a distinct geopolitical entity before 1960 and had declared independence and obtained international recognition in June 1960, the Burco declaration was not an act of secession but a dissolution between sovereign states. However, since there was no longer a central government in Mogadishu to consent (or not) to the dissolution, the declaration was one of secession stricto sensu.

the american reaction The stability-seeking argument is measured here in the post–May 1991 era, that is to say, after Somaliland declared independence. Before then, there was no secessionist crisis in Somalia, and the Bureau of African Affairs of the State Department was focusing only on the resolution of the civil war.10 In the days following Somaliland’s unilateral declaration of independence, the State Department made its position clear: the u.s. government would not recognize any new entity in Somalia. In a cable sent to American embassies in Africa, Secretary of State James Baker wrote: The Somali National Movement (snm) recently announced northern Somalia’s secession under the name “Somaliland Republic,” with boundaries apparently the same as the old British Somaliland protectorate. The import of this move is not entirely clear. It may not be fully accepted even within the snm and may also be designed as a bargaining chip for snm use with the self-proclaimed provisional government in Mogadishu. The u.s. of course does not recognize any new entity in Somalia. As we have made clear elsewhere, we do not think declaratory acts hold the key to solving Somalia’s or the horn’s problems. Only

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negotiations can do that. snm’s unilateral declaration of independence could also serve to complicate a possible initiative by African states or the oau on the political front by introducing new juridical problems. In our actions and statements with respect to Somalia, we wish to call as little attention as possible to the snm’s udi.11 The u.s. position of non-recognition was shaped by various factors that, when taken together, led the Bush administration to conclude that the partition of Somalia would lead to the emergence of another unstable state in the Horn of Africa. First, there was a chaotic situation in Mogadishu, and the Bush administration wanted to avoid any hasty decision that could have worsened the situation in Somalia. Second, in the absence of a central government in Mogadishu, the United States did not trust any rebellious groups or clans that pretended to speak in the name of the Somali people. As Assistant Secretary Cohen points out, “We did not recognize the new entity Somaliland, because we had no confidence in any declarations in Somalia.”12 Third, the u.s. government could not gather reliable information on the political course of events in Somalia, mainly because the United States no longer had an embassy in Mogadishu – violence in the capital had forced the u.s. government to evacuate and close its embassy in January 1991. In addition, as unclassified cables show, u.s. embassies in Djibouti and Kenya were unable to communicate valuable information on what was happening on the ground: “We have received no reliable information on what is actually happening in the north.”13 In this context, the United States was not in a position to make a sound and enlightened decision on the issue of Somaliland. Fourth, unlike Eritrea, which ultimately seceded with the consent of Ethiopia, Somaliland never received the approval of Somalia to leave, since there was no constitutive government in Somalia in the aftermath of Siad Barre’s departure. The United States was clearly aware of this fact and raised it as an objection against secession, because it feared that recognition in such a context would create a precedent.14 Finally, the Organization of African Unity (oau) was opposed to Somaliland’s secession and the United States was not interested in violating the sacred principle of state integrity cherished by the oau.15 The oau’s approach to Somaliland was far different from

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its approach toward Eritrea for the reason mentioned in point four. Thus, in this context there was no benefit for the United States in supporting Somaliland’s independence, and the costs of making such a decision would have been considerable, since they might have worsened the political environment in the Horn.

awaiting the formation of a somalian government Following the departure of Siad Barre, the United States focused its attention on the global settlement of the Somalian crisis and, in the words of Secretary Baker, called “as little attention as possible to the snm’s udi.”16 The Bush administration, however, was not as directly involved in the resolution of the Somalian conflict as it was in Ethiopia, for instance, during the same period. At that time, the Bureau of African Affairs was already involved in the resolution of several other African conflicts, in Angola, Ethiopia, Liberia, Mozambique, and Sudan, and thus suffered from “bureaucratic fatigue.” As Herman Cohen points out, “with u.s. forces well accommodated directly in the Gulf, and with our embassy closed, we more or less dropped Somalia from our radar screens.”17 In the weeks following the collapse of Somalia, the Bush administration expressed support for the restoration of a central Somalian government and encouraged Djibouti in its initiative to host reconciliation talks in June and July of 1991. The United States saw the restoration of peace and order in Somalia as essential to setting the stage for an international relief effort, and it remained confident that Somalia could establish a functioning government.18 The peace negotiations held in Djibouti in the summer of 1991 failed, however, because some warlords did not attend the talks and because snm representatives refused to participate, claiming that their party was not one political faction among others but the representative of the Republic of Somaliland. Ironically, these talks, which aimed to reunite Somalia, accelerated its collapse. While Somalian political parties attempted to secure a peace agreement, Somalilanders were on a different trajectory. In the fall of 1991, snm leaders travelled to Western countries to seek international recognition and humanitarian assistance.19 In Washington, snm representatives delivered the following message to State

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Department officials: (1) The Isaaks and the other clans in Somaliland support secession; (2) Law and order prevail on the ground; (3) Somaliland is committed to liberal democracy; (4) A referendum on Somaliland’s constitution will be held within two years (the referendum was actually held in 2001); and (5) Somalilanders favour a market-oriented economy.20 Despite this charm offensive carried out by the secessionists, the State Department adopted a wait-andsee approach and expressed its preference for a global peace solution to end the Somalian crisis.

degeneration into chaos, 1992–96 The peaceful state of affairs in Somaliland that was depicted by snm representatives in Washington did not last. Clan conflicts erupted in March of 1992, when Somaliland’s government attempted to take control of the Red Sea port of Berbera against the will of the local clans and warlords. This conflict was the result of the government’s failure to establish demobilization programs for veteran fighters. Sub-clan conflicts also caused Somaliland’s emerging economy to crumble after a few months of sustained economic activities. The absence of international recognition also worked against the economy of Somaliland, since it could not acquire loans from international institutions. In less than a year after its udi, Somaliland was internally unstable, and all the political and military factions in Somalia were opposed to its secession, which indicates that Somaliland was evolving in a semi-hostile international environment. These events confirmed the assessment of the State Department that the whole region was unstable and that a global solution had to be found, starting with the establishment of a central government in Mogadishu. The Elders at the Center of Somaliland’s Conflict Resolution Process In late 1992, elders from the different sub-clans in Somaliland gathered in a shir (assembly) to find a solution to the crisis, in what became the first national reconciliation conference. A political settlement that, among other things, allocated a greater share of parliamentary seats to minority clans was reached in the spring of

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1993. This unique way of solving political problems was part of the traditional Somaliland conflict resolution structure. This mechanism would prove its effectiveness throughout the 1990s, and it explains, in large part, why Somaliland would eventually become a stable political entity in comparison to the rest of Somalia. Following the reconciliation conference, Mohamed Haji Ibrahim Egal (who had been prime minister of Somalia in the late 1960s) was selected as the president of Somaliland and Tur (who had been the first president of Somaliland in 1991) was chosen as vice-president. Egal made significant progress towards political stability. He demobilized the militias that were created in the 1980s to fight against Siad Barre, and he re-established a secure environment for economic activity. The new president was unable, however, to extend administrative control over all of Somaliland’s territory, and he met with resistance from some Isaak sub-clans over the issue of power sharing. Moreover, rebellious groups loyal to the unity of Somalia (called the federalists) and allied with Somalian General Aidid opposed Egal’s government. The fight between the secessionists and the federalists caused Somaliland to fall into a second civil war in late 1994, during which Hargeisa and Burco were seriously damaged, and 180,000 people were displaced throughout Somaliland.21 This second war validated, once again, the American assessment of the situation in Somaliland and kept the issue of recognition off the u.s. foreign policy agenda.

from internal strife to growing stability (1997–2005) Somaliland’s internal war ended with the convening of a second national reconciliation conference, held in Hargeisa from October 1996 to February 1997. In retrospect, this conference marked the beginning of Somaliland’s institutionalization and democratization process. Isaak sub-clans, which had been fighting each other sporadically over the control of resources, decided to put an end to their division and to work together for the improvement of viable political institutions.22 This state of mind had a snowball effect. It improved the minority clans’ trust of the Isaaks and favoured their involvement in the institutionalization process. Representatives at the conference also established a parliament with a two-chamber assembly inspired by the Westminster model of

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government. The Lower House serves as an elected assembly, and the Upper House serves as the Senate of the Clans, also called the House of Elders. Although Somaliland president Egal failed to achieve international recognition for Somaliland, he succeeded in establishing a democratic and stable government, and he was able to resume economic activities. In 1997, for instance, the port of Berbera became a central import-export location on the Red Sea and overshadowed the port of Djibouti in terms of goods traded. In the late 1990s, exchanges through the port doubled from what they had been before the 1988 war against Siad Barre. A vibrant private sector also emerged. Airline companies, as well as electricity and telephone companies, were created in order to help rebuild Somaliland’s infrastructure. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the economy of Somaliland was getting stronger and was in a much better position than Somalia’s, even though it was assisted by international organizations. On the political front, President Egal carried out a political transition toward a multi-party democracy, which added value to Somaliland’s democratic process. His government also signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and drafted a constitution that guaranteed universal suffrage. Moreover, in May 2001 a new constitution was validated by 97 percent of Somaliland’s voters in a referendum supervised by international observers. The result of the referendum showed that a clear majority supported Somaliland’s independence, as the first paragraph of the constitution stipulated that Somaliland was an independent state.23 The death of President Egal in 2002 was the first serious democratic test for Somaliland, since his death necessitated political transition. The test was successfully passed when power was transferred to new president Dahir Riyale Kahin according to the constitution. This showed the viability and stability of the political system.24 Finally, in September 2005 the first multi-party parliamentary elections were held in what was seen as a major step in the democratization process and as proof that Somaliland was now becoming a stable multiparty democracy.25 Today, Somaliland has functioning democratic institutions, including a judicial system and a free press, and it no longer generates refugees, which greatly contributes to its external stability. Somalilanders also have a legitimate constitution, an army, and

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police forces. As indicated in the introduction to this chapter, it also has the main attributes of statehood, including a flag and its own currency, passports, and license plates. Somalilanders also obtained quasi-recognition from several states: Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Djibouti exchanged quasi-ambassadorial envoys with Hargeisa. After numerous threats to its existence in the first half of the 1990s, Somaliland managed to survive as a de facto independent state on the path to prosperity. Since 1997, Somaliland has experienced a period of uninterrupted stability. Somaliland’s External Stability Even though Somaliland no longer produces refugees, its external stability is not as strong as its internal stability. In the late 1990s, Somaliland’s territorial integrity was disputed by Puntland, a nonsecessionist autonomous state established in 1998 on the northeastern side of Somalia, which claimed Somaliland’s regions of Sanaag and Sool. The dispute emerged when members of minority clans in Somaliland (the Dulbahante and the Warsangeli) who lived near the Puntland border felt divided in their affiliation and wanted to associate with Puntland. Somaliland argued that the two regions were part of former British Somaliland, while Puntland authorities maintained that the representatives of Sanaag and Sool expressed their desire to join Puntland and should have the right to do so.26 Tensions arose in 1999 when the government of Puntland attempted to establish control over parts of Sanaag and Sool, an action that led to a political crisis. Until recently, Somaliland’s integrity remained threatened by Puntland. It seems, however, that the Somaliland/Puntland border dispute has not been a major factor influencing the u.s. non-recognition policy. None of the u.s. government officials interviewed for this chapter raised the Puntland issue as an obstacle to Somaliland’s recognition, and the literature on Somaliland written from a u.s. perspective does not raise this subject either.

the constancy of u.s. policy In the second half of the 1990s and in the early twenty-first century, the United States continued to focus on the establishment of a central government in Mogadishu. The objective was straightfor-

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ward: to prevent Somalia from becoming a hotbed for Islamic fundamentalism.27 During these years, the United States has remained categorically opposed to Somaliland’s independence. In 1999, Somaliland president Mohamed Haji Ibrahim Egal visited the United States and raised the issue of recognition with State Department officials. The u.s. policy remained unchanged, however, and the State Department indicated, as it had in 1991, that a global solution must be found in order to resolve the Somalian crisis. This time, the u.s. government agreed to supply more aid to Hargeisa. The u.s. government even sent a delegation of the u.s. Agency for International Development (usaid) to the secessionist state in 2000. Headed by the u.s. ambassador in Djibouti, it met with President Egal; such a visit to an African secessionist state was unprecedented. As former assistant secretary of state for Africa Herman J. Cohen pointed out, “while awaiting for some eventual Somalian government, we are doing what we could have done if we [had] recognized Somaliland. We are giving aid. So the situation on the ground is not so different.”28 In 2001 the United States supported the Arta peace process that established the Transitional National Government of Somalia (tng).29 This was the twelfth attempt at peace negotiation since the collapse of Somalia in 1991. Since its creation, the transitional government has not been able, however, to establish its authority over Somalia, and the whole region remains an administrative “black hole.”

reasons for the u.s. refusal to recognize somaliland If the Somaliland/Puntland border dispute does not bother u.s. decision makers, why is it then that the United States still refuses to recognize this secessionist state, which meets most of the traditional u.s. requirements for recognition? Why is it that the American government persists in supporting the formation of a Somalian government after almost two decades of failures in negotiations between the different family clans at the same time that Somaliland is stable, peaceful, and democratic and has sought recognition? The stability theory predicts that the United States should quickly move ahead with recognition in order to bolster stability in the region.

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The key to understanding this puzzle lies in what can be referred to as the “Somalia aversion,” which is unique to this case. To understand the impact of this intervening factor in the u.s. regionalstability calculation, we must go back to 1993. The Somalia Aversion Following the collapse of Somalia in 1991, Mogadishu became the scene of inter-clan fighting for the control of food and other resources. In early 1992, the humanitarian crisis in Somalia hit the news in the United States, and cnn provided extensive coverage of the issue. Somalia soon became a burning issue in u.s. politics. As Herman Cohen recalls, cnn, which “showed starving Somali mothers and babies on American television daily had a strong impact. Congress was inundated with mail calling for Washington to do something to stop the suffering.”30 With a u.s. presidential election coming in November, President Bush estimated that it was worthwhile to tackle the Somalia issue. After being abandoned by the Americans in January 1991, Somalia became a top u.s. foreign policy issue less than a year later. In August, the White House announced that the Department of Defence (dod) would launch an emergency food airlift to Somalia called “Operation Provide Relief.”31 The u.s. operation, however, encountered the resistance of warlords in Mogadishu, who blocked the distribution of food. In the weeks following his presidential defeat against Bill Clinton, President Bush remained steadfast about resolving the problem of hunger in Somalia. In December 1992, twenty-eight thousand u.s. troops were dispatched as part of the United Nations Unified Task Force – unitaf. The objective of the mission was to take control of the ports of Mogadishu in order to assure the distribution of relief supplies. Throughout 1993, un peacekeepers were being repeatedly attacked by guerrilla groups led by General Mohammed Aidid. They wanted the un to withdraw from Somalia in order to maintain their power. In reaction, President Clinton, who had inherited the case from his predecessor, authorized u.s. troops to use force against General Aidid, with the consent of the un. The operation, however, turned into a chaotic battle in the streets of Mogadishu. Two u.s. Black Hawk helicopters were shot down by Aidid’s rebels, and eighteen American soldiers were killed during the operation.

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This marked the end of the u.s. operation in Somalia and brought into question the very reason for this involvement. Many have considered the Battle of Mogadishu unjustifiable, since u.s. national interests were not at stake in Somalia, and it created an aversion among the u.s. foreign policy community that has kept the American government away from Somalia and Somaliland. Somalia remained off Washington’s radar screen in the second half of the 1990s,32 and received attention again only following the terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11 2001. When asked why the u.s. government was not directly involved in the resolution of the Somalian conflict and why it does not recognize the independence of Somaliland, a high-ranking former u.s. official who was posted in the Horn of Africa in the 1990s answered, “Frankly there is a Somalia fatigue. What’s really in it for us? Why get involved and open an embassy if it’s going to get bombed the next week? Once upon a time we had 28,000 troops there and we walked out with our tail between our legs.”33 Even though Somaliland now lives in a different political reality from that of Somalia, in that it has been stable for more than ten years, the American government refrains from making any bold decision on the issue, because it feels that it has nothing to gain from it. The Somalia aversion argument, of course, is not part of the official justification for non-recognition. The two factors that are most often brought up are, first, that Somaliland never got the approval of Somalia to secede, and, second, that the oau rejects the secession of Somaliland. Yet previous chapters have shown that the United States did recognize secessionist states that went through “non-consensual divorce.” Kosovo, for instance, was recognized by the United States even though it seceded unilaterally from Serbia. As for Croatia, Macedonia, and Slovenia, it is true that Yugoslavia had ceased to exist when the Americans granted recognition to these Yugoslav republics, but Somalia also ceased to exist as a coherent political entity almost twenty years ago. If the fear of creating a political precedent is what precludes u.s. recognition of Somaliland, it would seem that this precedent has already been created, especially with the case of Kosovo. Furthermore, the case of Eritrea (chapter 6) shows that the oau did not stop the u.s. delegation in London from supporting Eritrea’s right of self-determination in 1991. So, is the unilateral character of Somaliland’s secession and

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the oau opposition enough to explain the u.s. policy of non-recognition? The answer is, no. In fact, if the United States was convinced that the recognition of Somaliland would bring more stability to the region, it would certainly push for it. It would also have some solid arguments to justify its preference for recognition. First, Somaliland was a sovereign state recognized by the United States before it joined Somalia in 1960, a status that Eritrea did not have before being integrated into Ethiopia in 1952. Second, Somalilanders never fully consented to the terms of the Act of Union signed in 1960, which gives greater legitimacy to secession. Together, these arguments are a solid justification for secessionist self-determination and constitute a fence against the spread of secessionist movements in Africa since Somaliland is a unique case. As for the moral aspect of the issue, the United States could emphasize the fact that Somalilanders experienced political and economic discrimination, as well as military repression, throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Despite these strong arguments for recognition, the American government is far from being convinced that recognition would bring more stability. Washington still views the whole region as unpredictable, and this assessment is “path dependent” on the military defeat in Mogadishu, which was a defining stage in the temporal sequence of events that shaped the u.s. policy toward Somaliland. The current dominant view in the National Security Council and in the State Department is that as long as there is no central government in Mogadishu, nothing can be done to restore order. Some commentators in the foreign policy establishment even argue that Somaliland did well and is relatively stable precisely because it was not recognized.34 This would suggest that the hope of obtaining recognition forced Somalilanders to behave and to adopt a democratic system. This argument maintains that since Somaliland is already stable, international recognition would not bring more stability to it. Therefore, there is no rush to issue diplomatic recognition, and the American government should continue to focus on a global peace initiative that will bring order to Somalia as a whole. Another approach, which obtains increasing support from the academic community, argues that u.s. recognition of Somaliland would in fact improve regional stability by sending a message to the rest of Somalia that if Somalians would come together and imple-

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ment democratization, as did Somalilanders, the United States would be more supportive and helpful.35 For now, however, this view has not been endorsed by u.s. foreign policy officials.

within the u.s. executive “black box” The Somaliland issue has never produced any significant disagreement between u.s. foreign policy agencies. In the early 1990s, the question of Somaliland’s recognition was not even on the agenda. The secession of Somaliland was treated as an epiphenomenon of Somalia state collapse and as one source of trouble among many. In early 2000, however, the issue of Somaliland’s recognition was seriously studied by the African bureau of the State Department.36 Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Walter Kansteiner came to the conclusion, however, that recognition would produce very few benefits, with significant costs. Former assistant secretary of state Cohen reached a similar conclusion: “The oau cooperates with us in anti-terrorism and in all sorts of economic issues. If you weigh all that against getting them upset about Somaliland, on balance it’s not worth it.”37

the ethnic-politics argument There has been no major variation in the u.s. policy toward Somaliland since 1991, which makes it difficult to analyze the impact that Somalian and Somalilander Americans had on the u.s. position. The evidence indicates, however, that Somalian Americans, who form a community of over one hundred thousand people in the United States, have not been politically organized in Washington, dc, unlike Ethiopian Americans, for instance. The Somalian diaspora is divided by clans, it has been ineffective at raising its voice, and it has failed to come up with a coherent position regarding the future of Somalia.38 No evidence indicates that the u.s. position on the matter could have been influenced by this ethnic group. As for Somalilander Americans, they did organize demonstrations in Washington in favour of Somaliland’s independence, but they were not well organized either, partly because they constitute a very small community in the United States: most of Somaliland’s diaspora is located in England.39 As the u.s. position toward Soma-

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liland has remained unchanged since 1991, we must conclude that Somalilander Americans have had very little or no influence at all on the u.s. position. As a result, this case study tends to render invalid the ethnic-group hypotheses according to which the United States position is shaped by the ethnic group that exercised the most pressure on the u.s. government and/or by the ethnic group that represented the largest number of u.s. voters.

business interests Oil corporations such as Exxon Mobil, Total, Amoco, and Chevron held exploration concessions in the north of Somalia in the late 1980s. When Somalia collapsed in 1991, these companies declared force majeure, which exempted them from their legal obligations toward the government of Somalia, because of conditions beyond their control.40 Parts of the concessions that were held by these oil corporations in the late 1980s are now located within the Republic of Somaliland. However, since the United States does not recognize the secessionist state, these companies have been left with a complex legal situation and hope that one day their oil concessions will be honoured if a central government is re-established in Somalia. In 1991, Conoco and Phillips (now merged into ConocoPhillips), one of the largest energy companies in the United States, discovered oil fields in the North-East of Somalia close to the Somaliland border, and some of that oil lay under Somaliland’s soil. The sites were expected to produce up to three hundred thousand barrels of oil per day.41 Following Somaliland’s secession, Conoco and Phillips worried about the juridical situation in Somaliland and consulted with u.s. government officials to evaluate whether it was safe to start oil exploration in the north.42 The problem was that international law did not apply to the self-declared republic and, therefore, that Conoco and Phillips and the other corporations that chose to do business in Somaliland had no juridical appeal. That being said, no evidence indicates that one or several of these oil firms have influenced, in one way or the other, the U.S policy toward Somalia and Somaliland. And no information specifies that there might be a connection between u.s. executive officials and the interests of oil corporations that were operating in Somalia and Somaliland. The literature on the Somalian crisis does not address

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this issue, and unclassified documents from the State Department do not mention or imply that politicians from the White House elaborated a policy toward Somaliland that was in the interest of American corporations or of corporations with which u.s. executive officials shared ties. Interviews conducted with current and former nsc and State Department officials did not shed any light on this issue. Furthermore, the United States has been constantly opposed to Somaliland’s independence since 1991, which suggests that if indeed private corporations did try to pressure the White House, they failed in their attempt. This chapter is not arguing that the business interest argument falls short in explaining the u.s. foreign policy toward Somaliland, although previous chapters have demonstrated that this model is unconvincing. It is simply indicating that very little information is available on this issue and, therefore, that no conclusion can be reached at this stage on the ability of this argument to explain the current case study.

conclusion The performance of the stability-seeking argument here is not as strong as it is in the other cases. In fact, the argument performs better in the period of 1991–97 when Somaliland was facing internal wars. Somaliland was perceived as one zone of conflict among many in Somalia, and the diplomatic recognition of this secessionist state was, therefore, not even on the u.s. agenda. The 1997–2005 period is a different story, however. Somaliland went through a sustained process of democratization and institutionalization. Yet, while the indicators of the stability theory, taken together, predict the u.s. recognition of Somaliland, the American government holds fast to its policy of non-recognition. Somaliland is an exception to the extent that an ad hoc factor explains the current u.s. policy. The failed combat operation conducted in Mogadishu in 1993 has kept the American government away from Somalia and Somaliland. There are not many instances of u.s. military defeats in recent history. The Viet Nam war and the Battle of Mogadishu are probably the only two instances, and their effects on the conduct of u.s. foreign policy should not be understated. The defeat in Mogadishu has tainted the u.s. government’s

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assessment of the evolution of Somaliland. Regardless of the considerable progress that Somalilanders have made over the years to build a stable and liberal democracy, Washington is apparently unable to extricate Somaliland from the whole Somalian picture. For this reason, this case does not fit the argument perfectly, owing to its very unique character.

8 Theoretical and Empirical Findings

introduction The research in this book brings external factors back to the forefront of the theoretical debate on u.s. policy-making toward foreign intrastate conflicts. While the United States was consistent in its approach toward secessionism during the Cold War by systematically supporting states experiencing secessionist crises, its response to secessionist conflicts in the post–Cold War period was more confusing, because it varied from case to case. Until now, no theoretical argument has addressed this variation in the u.s. response to secessionist states and explained the apparent inconsistency of its policy. This book remedies this research problem by showing that the United States is a stability-seeking power, which explains the research puzzle under investigation. The stability argument consistently offers better explanations and predictions than the ethnicpolitics and business interest arguments and challenges liberal claims that domestic politics define American foreign policy. By comparing intra-cases (i.e., the variations within each case), by looking at different secessionist crises taken from the same regional environment, and by contrasting the u.s. reaction to secessionism in the Balkans and in the Horn of Africa, this research maximizes the points of measurement of the theory and increases its external validity. Tables 8.1 and 8.2 highlight the “score” of the stability-seeking argument. The first step of the argument is correct in explaining the u.s. reaction in three of the four central states studied – Yugoslavia, the fry, and Ethiopia. The United States supported these states as long as they were open to negotiation and able or willing to negotiate. It

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Table 8.1 Typology of the Stability-Seeking Model: First Step of the Argument External Stability

Internal Negotiations

U.S.

Reaction

Central Government Negotiates with Secessionists

Military Repression Against Secessionists

Central State Paralyzed or Collapses

U.S.

Expected Response

Actual Response

Yugoslavia

Yes

No

Yes/then No

Yes

Yes

End support for Yugoslavia’s integrity

End support for Yugoslavia’s integritya

The fry (SerbiaMontenegro)

Yes

Yes

Yes/then No

Yes

No

End support for fry’s integrity

End support for fry’s integritya

Ethiopia

Yes

No

Yes/then No

Yes

Yes

End support for Ethiopia’s integrity

End support for Ethiopia’s integritya

Somalia

Yes

No

No

Yes

Yes

End support for Somalia’s integrity

Support for Somalia’s integrityb

a

Successful prediction. Incorrect prediction that necessitates an ad hoc explanation.

b

A Stability-Seeking Power

Violation of Contiguous States’ Sovereignty

U.S.

Central State

CrossNational Refugees

Table 8.2 Typology of the Stability-Seeking Model: Second Step of the Argument External Stability

Internal Stability

Respect of Internal Borders

Democratic Referendum/ Respect for Minorities

Secessionist State

Defined Territory

Slovenia (1991–92)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Croatia (1991–92)

Yes

Yes

No

No

Macedonia (1991–2004)

Yes

Yes

Yes But tension with Greece

Yes

Kosovo (1991–2008)

Yes

Yes

Eritrea (1989–93)

Yes

Somaliland (1991–2005)

Yes

U.S.

Expected Response

Actual Response

Yes / Yes

Recognition of Secession

Recognition of Secessiona

No

Yes / No

Non-recognition of Secession

Recognition of Secessionb

Yes

Yes / Yes

Recognition of Secession

Recognition of Secessiona (delayed)

Yes But tension with Serbia

Yes Yes With eu and nato help

Yes / Yes

Recognition of Secession (delayed)

Recognition of Secessiona

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes / Yes Sponsored by u.n.

Recognition of Secession

Recognition of Secessiona

Yes

Yes Yes But tension with Puntland

Yes

Yes / Yes

Recognition of Secession

Non-recognition of Secessionb

173

U.S.

Successful predictions. Incorrect predictions that necessitate an ad hoc explanation.

b

Reaction

Theoretical and Empirical Findings

Effective Control of Territory

Respect of At Peace International with Borders Neighbours

a

U.S.

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was only once these central authorities failed to offer prospects for stabilization that the u.s. government considered the recognition of secessionist states as an alternative. As for the case of Somalia, an ad hoc explanation is necessary to understand why the United States keeps supporting a unified Somalian state, while the stability indicators anticipate the opposite decision. This case is an exception to the extent that it is linked (even if indirectly) to the u.s. military defeat in Mogadishu in 1993 and to the “Somalia aversion” that resulted from it. The second step of the theory also performs well. Out of the six cases of secession examined, the argument is successful in explaining five of them. Eritrea, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Slovenia were recognized by the United States because they fulfilled criteria of internal and external stability and their recognition had the purpose of bolstering their security. Croatia, however, represents a minor deviant case, since it did not entirely conform to expectations. Broader stability considerations were at play in this case. The recognition of Croatia was part of a u.s. strategy to contain Serbia’s aggressive behaviour. This consideration explains why Croats obtained recognition even though they did not entirely meet the stability conditions fixed by the u.s. government. The American strategy was more focused at that time on the transformation of Croatia’s republican boundaries into international borders than on internal stability. The u.s. policy toward Croatia was driven by regional stability, but the means to achieve it were partly different from those defined in the argument. The theoretical assumption of the argument still holds, therefore, in this case, and the American position toward Croatia suggests that the power to grant, to withhold, and to oppose diplomatic recognition is a powerful tool to manage secessionist crises. Somaliland is a more important challenge to the argument. In contrast to Croatia, the theory expected this secessionist state to be recognized by the United States, since Somalilanders have established a stable state since the second half of the 1990s. Yet, the American government still refuses to grant recognition to Hargeisa. Again, this case is an exception for reasons mentioned in the previous chapter. In sum, in most of the cases the facts concur with the hypotheses of the stability-seeking argument. First, as a stability-seeking power, the United States supports the integrity of sovereign states as long

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as they can contain the effects of secessionist struggles inside their borders and/or as long as they are willing to negotiate with secessionists to end the conflict. Second, the United States recognizes the independence of a secessionist state only if it can simultaneously maintain its internal stability and its external stability. In cases where stability would not be guaranteed by secessionist leaders, the United States maintains the status quo and/or delays recognition as in the examples of Kosovo and Macedonia.

domestic arguments This book shows that the ethnic-politics and business interest arguments do not perform well: the evidence generally does not fit their respective hypotheses. These theoretical propositions fail to explain the u.s. reaction to almost all the cases studied. The information collected indicates that these domestic sources of foreign policy were secondary factors and often marginal ones at that. In only one brief instance was an ethnic group able to affect the conduct of u.s. policy toward a secessionist crisis. The Clinton administration reversed its decision to exchange diplomatic relations with the fyrom in 1994 because of the pressure exercised by the Greek American lobby. The impact of this ethnic group remained limited, however, as it did not lead the United States to reverse its recognition of the republic. In all the other cases and intra-cases studied, from the Balkans to the Horn of Africa, domestic ethnic politics in the United States was always a secondary thought that could not seriously compete with issues of war and peace in Ethiopia, the fry, Somalia, and Yugoslavia. The case studies also show that ethnic lobbies can oppose u.s. recognition of secessionist states, as well as seek it. For each of the cases, different ethnic lobbies were opposing each other in Washington in order to influence decision makers in one way or another. Overall, the research demonstrates that domestic ethnic groups did not matter much in either direction, in causing or stopping u.s. recognition. The u.s. position toward the cases studied almost never reflected the interests of the domestic groups that exercised the most pressure on the United States government or that represented the largest number of American voters. As for the business interest argument, the cases of Croatia and Slovenia, which were arguably the most important in terms of u.s.

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business interests because of their geographic location and the size of their economies, show quite clearly that business interests were not an important factor in the foreign policy decision making. However, in contrast to the assessment of the ethnic-politics argument, a categorical answer cannot be formulated toward the business interest argument, since the information available to measure it was sometimes scarce. For instance, I had to renounce analyzing this proposition in the chapter on Kosovo, because I was unable to collect sufficient facts. Moreover, it was not possible to identify whether strategic interests such as oil had a bigger impact on the behaviour of the United States than non-strategic ones, since the collected evidence indicates that the United States did not have serious economic interests in any of the secessionist crises studied for which I had data.

theoretical contributions It is always interesting, from an academic point of view, to challenge a conventional wisdom and to prove it wrong. Such an endeavour makes our work original and potentially significant as far as future paths of research are concerned. The stability-seeking argument, however, does not challenge common wisdoms but decodes, operationalizes, and validates a common intuition about u.s. foreign policy. The model articulates the broad and abstract notion of stability, which is often used intuitively to explain the American reaction to secessionist quarrels, and it shows how it plays in the formulation of foreign policy. Thus, the contribution and the originality of the theoretical argument is not so much that it argues that stability matters but rather that it depicts the mechanisms that connect the u.s. interest in stability and the observable outcomes. It is at this level that the research makes a contribution to the literature and debates on u.s. foreign policy toward secessionist strives. Some critics might argue that to make some claim to universality, the argument should explain u.s. foreign policy across a broader time range and that it should not be limited to the unique post–Cold War era. This depends on one’s definition of universality. The stability argument can explain the American response to secessionist struggles since the end of the bipolar world order and for the foreseeable future. This is a significant theoretical contribu-

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tion to the literature on u.s. foreign policy and foreign intervention in ethnic conflicts. If the time range of the research was extended, the dynamics of the Cold War, which included the notions of nuclear deterrence, Soviet containment, and spheres of influence, would necessarily have to be considered, even if it is no longer relevant for understanding current and future u.s. responses to secessionist conflicts. Realism and U.S. Foreign Policy This book shows that realist notions provide a good theoretical understanding of u.s. foreign policy toward secessionist conflicts. It conforms to the defensive-realist paradigm as clarified by Joseph Grieco’s defensive positionalism. With the end of the bipolar international structure, some analysts, like John Stack, have maintained that realism, which had been the main theoretical frame for explaining balance-of-power politics and nuclear deterrence during the Cold War, was ill equipped to explain the emergence of ethnic conflicts as a central force of international politics.1 J. Lewis Rasmussen has even argued that realism has failed “as a prescriptive device for foreign policy practitioners who are confounded by the vicissitudes of numerous post–Cold War conflicts.”2 Despite what these critics have argued, this research shows that realism, as a prescriptive device of u.s. foreign policy, is quite useful for understanding the international dimension of ethnic and secessionist conflicts in the post–Cold War era.3 One important theoretical conclusion of my defensive-realist argument is that status quo and stability do not have the same meaning: they imply different things. If, on the one hand, the United States is the predominant power and greatly values the international status quo, on the other hand, the American government has never supported as many secessionist states as it has since the end of the Cold War, which seems to go against the previous assertion. This is because the status quo (i.e., the established order) does not always play in favour of the stability of the regional sub-systems and, therefore, in the interests of the United States. Thus, in certain situations, the United States chose to break with the status quo because it generated instability and offered no real solution for ending secessionist conflicts. The recognition of secessionist states, which represents a violation of the status quo and an alteration of

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established regional orders, can thus become a credible tool to reestablish stability in regions affected by secessionism. In light of the collected evidence, we can conclude that, everything being equal, the United States favours the maintenance of the status quo and has an anti-secessionist bias, but only as long as an established regional order serves its stability interests. When it no longer does so, the American government will not hesitate to alter the status quo. Hence, stability, rather than status quo, defines u.s. security. This leads me to assert that the United States is not always a status quo power but that it is consistently a stability-seeking power. This distinction, which has an ontological dimension, refines the defensive positional approach of u.s. foreign policy.4 Stability Rather than International Law The u.s. position toward secessionist crises is ultimately about stability, not international law. In the post–Cold War world international law has been transgressed on multiple occasions by the United States in the management of secessionist crises. In certain instances, Washington has used international law as a tool to foster its stability interests, but only as long as it served that purpose. Kosovo stands out as a case in point. The White House denied it recognition in 1991 because Kosovo was a province of Serbia, unlike the six Yugoslav republics, and therefore did not have the constitutional and international right to secede. This legal argument was used by Washington to prevent the endless division of the Yugoslav republics. It was a convenient way to contain disintegration. Yet in 2008 the Bush administration chose to recognize the unilateral secession of Kosovo, achieved against Serbia’s consent, which violated international law. This decision was recommended by the State Department and the National Security Council as the best option to strengthen stability in Kosovo. This recognition created a precedent, which was then used by Russia to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia a few months later. Eritrea is another interesting case. For stability considerations, the Bush administration allowed Eritreans to secede from Ethiopia in the early 1990s, despite legal arguments used by previous u.s. administrations to oppose it. In both of these cases Washington justified its policy by the fact that these secessionist states were unique cases. As a result, the

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United States presided over the alteration of state borders in Serbia and Ethiopia and was the leading architect of Kosovo’s and Eritrea’s secession. What the United States really means by “unique cases,” however, is that at some point in the evolution of these secessionist crises, the application of international law conflicted with u.s. stability interests. The fact that the White House has both supported and defied international legal instruments in support or denial of secessionist struggles in the post–Cold War is interesting. Ironically, Washington went against the anti-secession regime that it helped to develop following the Second World War. As explained in chapter 2, the measures contained in the un Charter regarding secessionist selfdetermination were largely a reflection of u.s. interests. More broadly, the international regime against secession was built on a series of resolutions, strongly supported by the United States, that were adopted not only by the United Nations but also by the Arab League, the Organization of American States, and the Organization of African Unity. These resolutions emphasized the principle of territorial integrity and denied non-colonial secessionist movements the right to secede.5 The American response to secessionist crises in the last twenty years shows that international norms against secession, which were important for the United States during the Cold War, no longer inhibit Washington’s attempt to maximize its regional-stability interests in the current unipolar international system. The Limited Impact of Regional and Great Powers The research in this book demonstrates that the impact of regional and great powers on the position of the United States toward secessionist conflicts is a secondary consideration. Germany did, to a certain extent, have an impact on the conduct of u.s. policy toward Croatia and Slovenia, and Greece had a similar impact on the American government in the case of Macedonia. To a lesser extent, the European Union also influenced the u.s. perception of the issue of Kosovo’s independence. But the Balkan cases clearly indicate that these regional powers never diverted the u.s. government from pursuing its main interest: strengthening regional stability. The Bush administration categorically opposed Helmut Kohl’s decision to recognize Zagreb and Ljubljana in December 1991 and waited for

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A Stability-Seeking Power

a ceasefire to occur between Croatia and Serbia, as well as for the deployment of a large un contingent of peacekeepers in Croatia and Bosnia, before granting recognition to these new states. In the case of Macedonia, the strong Greek reaction against fyrom’s determination to use the name Macedonia created significant tensions between Athens and Skopje, which inhibited the u.s. government from moving forward with its initial decision to recognize the republic. This factor, even if it delayed recognition, did not prevent the Clinton administration from finding alternative ways to promote regional stability by deploying, for instance, u.s. troops at the Serbian-Macedonian border to contain potential Serbian aggression. And ultimately, the American government recognized Macedonia despite Greece’s objection, which tends to show that the impact of regional powers is limited. In Kosovo, the European Union may have influenced the American perception of the issue in the 1990s but the Kosovo state’s lack of internal and external stability is really what explains the Clinton administration’s decision to oppose recognition in 1998–99. Ten years later, when the Bush administration decided to recognize the unilateral secession of Kosovo, Washington remained steadfast, despite China’s and Russia’s strong opposition to that decision and President Putin’s threat to use this precedent to recognize Georgia’s breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. This is a clear indication that the opinion of great powers ultimately does not prevail in u.s. rational calculations. Moreover, in the case of Eritrea and Somaliland, the opinion of regional and great powers had a very marginal impact, if no impact at all, on the formulation of the u.s. response. The United States initially became involved in Ethiopia because the Soviet Union could no longer play a role in the region and because the administration of George H. W. Bush wanted to cooperate with Moscow on international issues. When the Ethiopian crisis intensified in 1991, the u.s. government was really the only power involved in the resolution of the conflict. As a former colonial power, Italy had attempted a few years before to help resolve the war but had been unsuccessful and did not influence Washington in favour of or against the independence of Eritrea. As for Somaliland, Djibouti and Kenya particularly have been involved in the numerous attempts to resolve the Somalian civil war, but their opposition to Somaliland independence does not

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explain the position of the United States. In sum, regional and great powers had a secondary impact on the conduct of American foreign policy toward secessionism. The Spheres of Interest The u.s. government did not react with the same intensity and diligence to secessionist movements in the Balkans and in the Horn of Africa, which is interesting. Washington reacted more promptly to secessionism in Yugoslavia than it did toward secessionism in Ethiopia and Somalia. The American government was more concerned, for instance, about the refugees coming out of the Yugoslav secessionist wars than it was about similar problems in Ethiopia and Somalia. The reason is simple. The United States has more economic and political interests in Europe, and the secessionist crises in the Balkans threatened to destabilize its European economic partners and nato allies. In the case of the Horn of Africa, secessionism did not significantly disrupt u.s. economic interests or the stability of American allies. The differing u.s. reactions toward the Balkans and the Horn underline the idea that stability drives American foreign policy, as Washington focuses on stability where it matters most. This is another implication of the stability-seeking argument. A Contribution to Conflict Mediation and Resolution The theoretical and empirical findings reported here contribute to the literature on conflict mediation and resolution by providing a better understanding of the means used by the American superpower to mediate and resolve secessionist conflicts. Jacob Bercovitch asserted in the late 1990s that large states “often create the opportunity to mediate and use the mediation as a vehicle to protect or promote their own interests.”6 My research confirms this assertion. The United States used its diplomatic power to recognize or deny secession as a political tool to increase its leverage in the management of secessionist struggles. First, it denied recognition in order to strengthen the unity of central states, like Somalia and Yugoslavia, experiencing internal secessionist struggles. Second, Washington delayed recognition of secessionist states to press for the implementation of stability measures within newborn states.

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A Stability-Seeking Power

This strategy, which is known in the literature on ethnic conflict resolution as ‘conditionality,’ links diplomatic recognition to the cooperative behaviour of secessionist elites and was applied, for instance, in the case of Eritrea and Kosovo.7 Third, recognition was granted by the United States as a reward to secessionist states that complied with stability incentives and was sometimes granted as a preventive measure to avoid greater tensions and bloodshed. The recognition by the Bush administration of the constitutional name of Macedonia in 2004 stands out as a case in point. William Zartman has argued that “since conflict resolution is a crucial component of global leadership, it should be a leading plank in the foreign policy of the state with the widest global interests, the United States.”8 My book shows that this is the case for secessionist conflicts. The United States has been quite active at resolving them in the last twenty years in order to promote its global-stability interests. This research also demonstrates that when a secessionist conflict emerges abroad, the United States consistently supports governmental decentralization and better representation of minorities, as opposed to measures that would centralize political power in the hands of the central state to fight secessionist aspirations. This inclination for power sharing has guided Washington’s mediation and conflict resolution attempts for each of the cases studied in this book. The Absence of a Coherent Policy toward Secessionism This research shows that the United States does not have a written policy toward secessionist crises. The American government has never developed a grand strategy toward secessionist aspirations that would explicitly promote, for instance, the status quo or, conversely, the aspirations of secessionist movements. The only document that comes close to stating such a policy contains the guidelines for recognition that were elaborated by the State Department in 1991 (see chapter 3) when the Bush administration was facing the emergence of secessionist states in the Balkans. With the multiplication of ethnic and secessionist conflicts since the end of the Cold War, political analysts like David Callahan and Patricia Carley have attempted to craft a coherent u.s. foreign policy to deal with these issues by tackling the fundamental dilemma

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of “weighing the risks to international stability of a policy that tends to favour the status quo as against a policy that indulges nationalist aspirations.”9 In the light of this research, I argue that this is a false debate. As shown in this book, the main issue is not whether or not the United States should in principle support the status quo or secessionist changes but, rather, how it should maximize regional stability when secessionist crises occur. As a defensive positional state, the United States focuses on this fundamental interest, and the empirical evidence indicates that the search for stability was consistent throughout all of the cases studied in this book. Stability is what guided the u.s. response; not principles, not international law, not domestic considerations, and certainly not a standardized policy on the matter. It is illusive to look for a one-size-fits-all foreign policy that could address the myriad of secessionist crises. What really matters is to identify the preferences that guide the u.s. response, and this is precisely what the stability-seeking theory does. From the Balkans to the Horn of Africa, the American government chose the option that provided the most stable outcome, depending on the profile and on the evolution of each secessionist crisis. This is why the United States did recognize some secessionist states, while it remained opposed to the independence of other ones. This apparent inconsistency is, therefore, an illusion or an inconsistency “de façade,” to the extent that it is the result of a coherent set of interests that produced different results for different crises. If we focus only on the results, the u.s. approach seems inconsistent, but if we pay attention to the process, or to the causal mechanisms leading to these outcomes, the United States has been consistent through time.

policy implications What are the implications for Canada, Georgia, India, the Philippines, or Spain, which are all dealing with secessionist movements? What are the implications for secessionist groups in Kashmir or in Turkish Kurdistan that are hoping to achieve secession and obtain u.s. diplomatic recognition? This research shows that central-state leaders clearly have an advantage over secessionist elites. As long as a central state is able to keep control over its international borders, Washington will consistently support its territorial integrity. Moreover, the means

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employed by central governments to maintain control over international borders do not affect the u.s. position. Yugoslavia and Ethiopia used violence against secessionists and were nonetheless supported by Washington in the first phase of their secessionist conflicts. However, military repression tends to cause greater instability and ultimately a loss of control over international borders. In such a case, this research suggests that the United States will keep supporting unity if the leaders of the central state consent to thirdparty mediation and/or agree to negotiate with secessionist elites. Bluntly speaking, this means that if central states are efficient at crushing their secessionist movements without causing external disruption or if they act in good faith and are open to conflict resolution after external instability has occurred, Washington will remain on their side and secessionist elites will not control the agenda as far as diplomatic recognition is concerned. It is only when there is a combination of external instability and bad faith on the part of a central state that the United States will shift its position to consider the recognition of its secessionist state. These implications are relevant not only to secessionist movements in the developing world but also to radical elements in wellestablished democracies who are advocating unilateral secession from their central state in places like Quebec, Scotland, and the Spanish Basque Country. This research suggests that, following unilateral secession, independentist leaders have very few windows of opportunity for achieving u.s. recognition and that these windows generally open when secessionist conflicts become highly violent and chaotic, which is far from being desirable.

8 Notes

chapter one 1 See Lake and Rothchild, The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict. See also Carment and James, Wars in the Midst of Peace. 2 See Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict, 230. 3 According to Ernest Gellner, “Nationalism is primarily a political principle, which holds that the political and the national unit should be congruent.” From Gellner’s assertion it is obvious that in the post–Cold War era nationalist movements have increasingly perceived secession as a solution for achieving their political claims in societies where ethnicity and borders did not match. Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, 1. 4 See Haendel, The Process of Priority Formulation. 5 Callahan, Unwinnable Wars, 27. 6 Nye, The Paradox of American Power, 152. 7 Clinton, “Address,” 30. 8 Blanchard, Behind the Embassy Door, 67. 9 Callahan, The Enduring Challenge. 10 The data shows that since 1945 the United States has intervened in intrastate conflicts more often than any other major power. Patrick Regan points out that among the seventy-six cases of intervention carried out by major powers between 1945 and 1994, the United States accounted for 46 percent of them. For the same period, the Soviet Union (Russia after 1991) accounted for only 21 percent of these interventions, France for 13 percent, Britain for 12 percent, and China for 8 percent. Regan’s analysis is a clear indication that the United States is the most important intervener in internal conflicts and that it has arguably the most impact. See Regan, “Conditions of Successful Third-Party Intervention,” 345.

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Notes to pages 8–16

11 Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict, 230. 12 Alexis Heraclides proposes two different scales of international support for secessionist movements, one material and the other politicaldiplomatic. He points out that material support for secessionist movements includes, among other things, humanitarian aid, non-military involvement, and full-scale military intervention in favour of the secessionists. As for the political-diplomatic scale, Heraclides maintains that it refers to words and ideas such as a call for negotiated settlements, support for the right of self-determination, or the recognition of a secessionist state, which is the ultimate level of politicaldiplomatic support. See Heraclides, The Self-Determination of Minorities, 48–49. 13 Carment, “The Ethnic Dimension,” 563. 14 Heraclides, The Self-Determination of Minorities, 49. 15 Heraclides, “Secession, Self-determination and Nonintervention: In Quest of a Normative Symbiosis,” 400. 16 Gurr, Minorities at Risk. For a list of ethnic groups discriminated against see the Minorities at Risk Project. www.cidcm.umd.edu/inscr/mar (accessed June 2009).

chapter two 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

12

Callahan, Unwinnable Wars. Halperin, Scheffer, and Small, Self-Determination. Bienen, “Ethnic Nationalisms.” Farkas, Fractured States. David, Catastrophic Consequences. Ibid., 12. Walt, “The Realist Tradition”; Zakaria, “Realism and Domestic Politics.” For more on offensive realism, see Mearsheimer, Great Power Politics, 3. See also Labs, “Beyond Victory.” See Walt, The Origins of Alliances, 263; Mastanduno, “Do Relative Gains Matter?” Van Evera, Causes of War. Saideman, The Ties That Divide, 9. Ibid., 61. Among Saideman’s forty-three cases of third state intervention to which the balance of threat argument was applied, nineteen were classified as indeterminate observations. Ibid., 62, 95, and 145. Heraclides focuses his analysis on the following secessionist movements: Katanga, Biafra, the Southern Sudan, Bangladesh, Iraqi Kur-

Notes to pages 17–23

13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23

24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

187

distan, Eritrea, and the Moro region of the Philippines. See his “Secessionist Minorities and External Involvement.” Mearsheimer, Great Power Politics, 2. Saideman, “Discrimination in International Relations.” The csce Helsinki Final Act in 1975 and the Charter of Paris in 1990 reiterated these norms. Zacher, “The Territorial Integrity Norm,” 221–2. See Heraclides, Self-Determination of Minorities. See also Little, Intervention, 15–32. Again, the American recognition of Bangladesh in 1972 was the only exception. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?” 35. Herbst, “National boundaries in Africa”; Jackson and Rosberg, “Africa’s Weak States.” Cervenka, The Organization of African Unity, 232–3. Saideman analyzes thirty cases of highly vulnerable third states that intervened in three secessionist crises: the Congo, Nigeria, and the Yugoslav conflict. His work demonstrates that among the thirty highly vulnerable states, at least sixteen supported secessionist movements. Saideman, Ties That Divide, 65, 98, and 147. Heraclides, Secesionist Minorities and External Involvement. See Mearsheimer and Walt, The Israel Lobby. See also Hockenos, Homeland Calling; Nau, At Home Abroad; Ambrosio, “Ethnic Identity Groups”; Shain and Wittes, “Peace as a Three-Level Game”; Deconde, Ethnicity, Race, and American Foreign Policy. Shain and Barth, “Diasporas and International Relations Theory”; Haney and Vanderbush, “The Rope of Ethnic Interest Groups.” Ambrosio, Ethnic Identity Groups. Nau, At Home Abroad, 82–4. Shain, “Multicultural Foreign Policy.” Glazer and Moynihan, Ethnicity, 23–4. Mearsheimer and Walt, “The Israel Lobby.” Brzezinski, “A Dangerous Exemption,” 63–4. Shain, Marketing the American Creed Abroad, 51–66. Ibid. Saideman, “Secessionist Conflicts,” 725–6. Saideman studies three cases: the Congo, Nigeria, and Yugoslavia. His work shows that where leaders’ constituents share ethnic ties with secessionists, they support secession in twenty-one cases out of twenty-two. However, when leaders’ constituents have ethnic ties

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35 36 37 38

39 40 41 42 43 44 45

46 47

48

Notes to pages 24–31

with the host state, third-state leaders support the central government in fifteen out of seventeen cases. See Saideman, Ties That Divide. Stack, “The Ethnic Challenge,” 20. Gibbs, Third World Intervention, 33. Heraclides, “Secessionist Minorities.” For instance, for the years 1990 to 1992, phase iii of the Minorities at Risk Project (mar) indicates that thirty-five foreign states have expressly supported eighteen separatist movements, in ways ranging from simple ideological encouragement to full-scale military intervention. See Bélanger, Duchesne, and Paquin, “Foreign Interventions,” 443–4. Grieco, “Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation,” 498. See also Grieco, Cooperation among Nations. Grieco, “Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation,” 498; Grieco, Cooperation among Nations. Mastanduno, “Do Relative Gains Matter?” 265. Mastanduno, Economic Containment. Halperin, Scheffer, and Small, Self-Determination. Bienen, “Ethic Nationalisms,” 160. Here I define the notion of “stability gap” as the increasing disjunction between the way a given regional order was configured and the current state of affairs generated by a secessionist conflict. Heraclides, “Secessionist Conflagration,” 283. The unhcr also indicates that about 410,000 ethnic Albanians were internally displaced following Serb military operations. See iciss, The Responsibility to Protect, 113. The traditional u.s. policy toward the Quebec secessionist issue can be summarized as follows: first, the u.s. preference is for a united Canada, and, second, the United States does not want to interfere in Canadian internal affairs. When President Clinton visited Ottawa in February 1995, five months after the election of the secessionist Parti Québécois in Quebec, he clearly stated the u.s. position regarding the issue: “In a world darkened by ethnic conflicts that literally tear nations apart, Canada has stood for all of us as a model of how people of different cultures can live and work together in peace, prosperity, and respect.” He added, “The United States, as many of my predecessors have said, has enjoyed its excellent relationship with a strong and united Canada, but we recognize ... that your political future is, of course, entirely for you to decide.” See Blanchard, Behind the Embassy Door, 211.

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49 See Snyder, From Voting to Violence, 359. See also Jha, “Indonesia and the ‘Free Aceh Movement.’” 50 Russia armed and trained Trans-Dniester’s paramilitary forces in early 1992, and some Russian leaders described the new Trans-Dnister republic as “Russian soil.” Later that year, the Russian Fourteenth Army became directly involved in the secessionist crisis by engaging in a full-scale battle against Moldovan arm forces. See Socor, “Moldova’s ‘Dnister’ Ulcer,” 13–14. 51 Aklaev, “Moldova–Trans-Dniester.” 52 Salehyan and Gleditsch, “Refugees and the Spread of Civil War.” 53 Heraclides, “Secessionist Minorities.” Siverson and Starr argue that most of the states can use their military capability only for short distances. Therefore, neighboring conflicts represent a real opportunity for states to intervene. See Siverson and Starr, The Diffusion of War. 54 The large number of East Pakistanis who flew to India as a result of the West Pakistani repression against the Bengali secessionist movement in the early 1970s accelerated India’s involvement in the secessionist crisis and led to an Indo-Pakistani war in 1971. 55 Heraclides, “Secession, Self-determination and Nonintervention,” 414. 56 The gain in stability, however, would be an expectation rather than a certainty, since the United States, like any other state, operates in a state of uncertainty and usually possesses incomplete information for making foreign policy decisions. 57 Krasner, Sovereignty, 9. 58 Callahan, Unwinnable Wars, 33. 59 The Helsinki Act established principles guiding relations between states, such as territorial integrity, the inviolability of frontiers, respect for minority rights, and the peaceful settlement of disputes. See Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, Final Act. 60 Zacher, “Territorial Integrity,” 234–5. 61 Young, “How Do Peaceful Secessions Happen?” 782. 62 Following the recognition of the Soviet Union by President Roosevelt in 1933, the Supreme Court of the United States stated that the recognition and the establishment of diplomatic relations with the u.s.s.r. were clearly decisions of the president. See Henkin, Foreign Affairs. See also Adler, “The President’s Recognition Power.” 63 I borrow James Morrow’s definition of rationality: “choosing the best means to gain a predetermined set of ends. It is an evaluation of the consistency of choices and not of the thought process, of implementa-

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tion of fixed goals and not of the morality of those goals.” See Morrow, Game Theory, 17. George and Keohane, “The Concept of National Interests,” 217. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 8. The case of Bosnia-Herzegovina was left out because it is not an instance of secession but rather the result of Yugoslavia’s disintegration. When the Bosnian population opted for independence in late February 1992, Yugoslavia had already ceased to exist. Gvosdev, “American Response to Lithuanian Independence.” See George and Bennett, Case Studies, especially chapter 10. Ibid., 208. George, Presidential Decision Making, 11. George also mentions the organizational context as part of the foreign policy machinery. This context involves the whole bureaucracy that is concerned with foreign policy issues. I have chosen not to integrate this third context into the analysis. Although relevant for certain types of foreign policy studies, the organizational context would move the analysis away from the straightforward objective of finding whether agents and advisors who emphasize stability considerations have the most influence in the decision-making process. For a complete explanation of this comparative method of research, see George, “Case Studies.” Some interesting research has used structured, focused comparison. See, for instance, Kupchan, Vulnerability of Empire; George and Smoke, Deterrence. George, “Case Studies,” 56. The “structured, focused comparison” is a good answer to Kenneth Waltz’s observation that “without some guidance we can know neither what information to gather nor how to put it together so that it becomes comprehensible.” Waltz, International Politics, p. 11.

chapter three 1 Bangladesh was the only other successful case. 2 Together, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Vojvodina had the majority of representatives in the Yugoslav federal council. See Andrejevich, “State Presidency Deadlocked, 21. 3 Holbrooke, To End a War, 26. 4 Ibid., 27. 5 Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, 636. 6 President Bush declared a few months earlier that the United States

Notes to pages 56–8

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“would not reward” republics that would choose to secede unilaterally. See The Economist, “The Road to War,” 45. Baker, “u.s. Concerns,” 468. The fear inspired by the breakup of Yugoslavia led the u.s. government to support a variety of constitutional reforms, such as a confederal arrangement. The Bush administration even indicated that it would accept a peaceful disintegration of Yugoslavia. Secretary Baker writes in his memoir: “while we supported the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia and existing republic borders and would not accept unilateral changes, the international community, of course, recognized that if the republics wanted to change borders by peaceful, consensual means, that was an altogether different matter.” Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, 480. Zimmermann, Origins of a Catastrophe, 135. Zimmermann, “Yugoslavia,” 183. Cohen, “The Disintegration of Yugoslavia,” 373. Holbrooke, To End a War, 29–30. Because of the intensification of the conflict in Croatia, the three-month moratorium on independence reached in early July 1991 did not help to resolve the crisis. At the expiration of the three-month period in October, Croatia and Slovenia declared formal and immediate secession. See Facts On File, “New Yugoslavia Truce,” 762. The changing nature of the Yugoslav conflict led the Europeans to call for u.n. peacekeeping intervention in Yugoslavia. The European Community also created a Peace Conference on Yugoslavia chaired by Britain’s former foreign secretary Lord Carrington, as well as an Arbitration Commission. The role of the commission, headed by the French constitutional judge Robert Badinter, was to establish criteria for international recognition and to evaluate the merits of the republics’ secessionist claims in the light of these criteria. The Bush administration strongly supported these initiatives but was still reluctant to be involved in the crisis. The u.s. presidential election was just a year away, and President Bush’s advisors thought that nothing could really be done to stop the conflict. Baker, “Violent Crisis in Yugoslavia.” Interview with Robert Pearson, Washington, dc, 14 February 2005. Ambassador Pearson was the executive secretary of the Department of State from 1991 to 1993. Central Intelligence Agency, “Yugoslavia.” The estimated number of Yugoslav refugees in Europe in the summer of 1992 was 415,795. See Dominis and Bicanic, “Refugees and Displaced Persons,” 2. According to Sabrina Petra Ramet, by the summer of 1992, the number of

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Notes to pages 58–61

refugees in Germany was up to 200,000, and several other countries had taken refugees: Sweden, 40,000; Switzerland, 13,000; Netherlands, 4,000. See Ramet, “War in the Balkans,” 79. According to Judith Pataki, 12,000 Yugoslav refugees, mainly from Croatia, had already fled to Hungary in September 1991. See Pataki, “Refugee Wave from Croatia,” 12. u.n. Security Council, Resolution 713; Facts on File, “ec Imposes Sanctions,” 858–9. See also Binder, “u.s. Suspends Trade Benefits.” Cohen, Broken Bonds, 232. Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, 638. Ibid. These criteria were unveiled before the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (csce) in the fall of 1991. Henkin, Pugh, Schachter, and Smit, International Law, 250. The Charter of Paris, signed by csce members in 1990, had the objective of reinforcing the protection of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law in countries in Europe that were part of the Helsinki Final Act. For more information on the Charter of Paris, see Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, Charter of Paris for a New Europe. These criteria were codified in the Helsinki Final Act and in the Charter of Paris. In December 1991, the European Community issued its own guidelines for recognition. The guidelines were very similar to those of the United States. The ec Doctrine of Recognition included the five following criteria: (1) Respect for the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations, the Final Act of Helsinki, and the Charter of Paris with regard to the rule of law, democracy, and human rights; (2) Guarantees for the rights of minorities and for the rights of ethnic and national groups; (3) Respect for the inviolability of all frontiers, which can only be changed by peaceful means and by common agreement; (4) Acceptance of disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation; (5) Commitment to settle by agreement all questions concerning state succession and regional disputes. See European Community, Declaration on the Guidelines, 1487. This extensive list of criteria departed from the traditional standard of state recognition, which was developed in the 1930s at the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of the State. This convention had ruled that to be recognized as a sovereign entity, a state had to possess four qualifications: a permanent population, a defined territory, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states. See Weller, “The International Response,” 588.

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22 For a good analysis of the German defection, see Crawford, “Explaining Defection.” 23 The unconditional ceasefire between Croatia and Serbia set the ground for the deployment of the United Nations Protection Forces (unprofor) in Croatia in April 1992. 24 Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, 639. 25 Interview with Brent Scowcroft, Washington, dc, 8 February 2005. 26 This chapter does not focus on the case of Macedonia, which is the topic of the next chapter. Macedonia declared independence in September 1991, following a winning referendum on independence. In January 1992, the Badinter Commission, which was in charge of evaluating whether seceding republics met the ec criteria for recognition, ruled that Macedonia met them all. 27 Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, 640. 28 Phone interview with Peter W. Galbraith, 23 January 2005. 29 This agreement included a common policy of recognition toward secessionist states. u.s. officials declared that they were ready to work in tandem with the ec now that the Bosnian referendum had been held and that a un peacekeeping force was to be sent to the former Yugoslavia. Crossette, “Baker Hints at u.s. Shift.” According to David Binder, the Bush administration’s “rationale was that it would serve no purpose to extend recognition until the United Nations had completed plans for positioning a peacekeeping force of 14,400 in the war zones of Croatia.” See Binder, “u.s. Set to Accept Yugoslav Breakup.” 30 Facts on File, “Bosnia-Herzegovina,” 252. u.s. recognition came three months after the European Community’s decision to recognize Croatia and Slovenia and more than nine months following Ljubljana’s and Zagreb’s unilateral declarations of independence. The European Community recognized the independence of Bosnia the day before the United States did. 31 The ceasefire did not last very long, since a few months later the Croatian army fought to regain control over its Serbian-populated regions. Ceasefires reached in 1993 and 1994 between Serbs and Croats were also broken by Croatia, which led military offensives to get control of the Serbian region of Krajina. The facts reveal that the un intervention in Croatia and the u.s. recognition of the republic did not solidify Croatia’s internal stability. Croatia finally agreed to a permanent ceasefire in December 1995 by signing the Dayton agreement. See Department of State, “Background Note: Croatia.”

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32 Interview with David C. Gompert, Washington, dc, 25 January 2005. 33 Tutwiler, Daily Press Briefing. 34 Thomas Niles declares: “There was uniform support within the national security agency for effort to preserve the unity of a Yugoslav state. Nobody thought, as far as I can recall, that the disintegration of Yugoslavia was a desirable thing to happen.” Phone interview with Thomas M.T. Niles, 29 January 2005. 35 Moore, “Diplomatic Recognition of Croatia and Slovenia,” 9. 36 Moore, “The International Relations of the Yugoslav Area,” 33. 37 Hockenos, Homeland Calling, 130. 38 Correspondence with Pero Novak, 26 January 2005. 39 Phone interview with Thomas M.T. Niles, 29 January 2005. This view is shared by David Gompert. Interview with David C. Gompert, Washington, dc, 25 January 2005. 40 Interview with David C. Gompert, Washington, dc, 25 January 2005. 41 Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, 639. 42 Gompert, “The United States,” 129. 43 Gutman, A Witness to Genocide, xxiv–xxv. See also Binder, “Eagleburger Anguishes.” 44 Binder, “Eagleburger Anguishes.” 45 Brent Scowcroft was assistant air attaché to Belgrade in the early 1960s while Eagleburger worked for the economic section of the u.s. Embassy in Belgrade.

chapter four 1 Within-case analysis is critical in small-n analysis. As Alexander George and Andrew Bennett explain, it is “an alternative that compensates for the limits of both statistical and comparative case analyses. For more on within-case analysis, see George and Bennett, Case Studies, 178–9. See also Lebow, “What’s So Different about a Counterfactual?” 562. 2 See Saideman, The Ties That Divide; Hockenos, Homeland Calling; Shea, Macedonia and Greece; Rosin, “Why We Flipped on Macedonia.” 3 Perry, “Macedonia,” 113. 4 See Reuter, “Policy and Economy in Macedonia,” 33. 5 Among those who cast a ballot, 74.4 percent opted for independence.

Notes to pages 78–84

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However, Macedonia’s Albanian minority boycotted the election. See Phillips, Macedonia, 50. A few days after Macedonia declared its independence, Yugoslav President Mesic proclaimed the end of Yugoslavia. See chapter 3. Serbia’s president Slobodan Milosevic, who was in control of the ypa, was reluctant to open another front by launching a war in Macedonia. Moreover, Serbia had little incentive to fight in Macedonia, since very few Serbs were living in this republic. It was in this context that the Macedonian government managed to sign an agreement with Milosevic on the withdrawal of former Yugoslav troops from Macedonia. See Perry, “Macedonia,” 37. As explained in chapter 3, the Badinter Commission was the European Community’s commission headed by the French constitutional judge Robert Badinter. The role of the commission was to evaluate which Yugoslav republic met the ec criteria for state recognition Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, 640. See Moore, “The International Relations of the Yugoslav Area,” 33. The issue of rights under the new Macedonian constitution, however, remained contentious between Macedonian politicians and members of ethnic Albanian minority throughout the 1990s until the outbreak of the 2001 conflict. Under the new Macedonian constitution, minorities did not have the right of proportional representation within governmental institutions. Moreover, the right that ethnic Albanians had under the former Yugoslavia to fly the Albanian flag on certain occasions was removed from the constitution. See Pettifer, “The Albanians in Western Macedonia,” 138 and 143. These elements, however, were not apparent and were not taken into account in 1991 when the United States assessed the stability of the republic. Perry, “Macedonia,” 40. Interview with General Brent Scowcroft, Washington, dc, 8 February 2005. Department of State, 22 October 1992. Unclassified Document, case 200502041. Unclassified on 15 June 2005. Perry, “Macedonia,” 40. Ibid. Interview with David C. Gompert, Washington, dc, 25 January 2005. Phone interview with Thomas M.T. Niles, 29 January 2005. Kofos, “Greek Policy Considerations”; Zahariadis, Essence of Political Manipulation.

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Notes to pages 84–91

19 Holbrooke, To End a War, 122. 20 New York Times, “300 u.s. Troops in Macedonia.” The unprofor in Macedonia had been authorized by the un Security Council in late 1992. Its mandate was to protect Macedonia’s border with Albania and Serbia. The creation of unprofor-Macedonia was recommended by the un secretary-general following a request made by the Macedonian government. See Woodward, Balkan Tragedy, 295. 21 According to Marshall Freeman Harris, who served in Macedonia in the early 1990s as a State Department official, the un recognition of the fyrom was seen in Washington as a first step in the inevitable process of Macedonia’s recognition. Interview with Marshall Freeman Harris, Washington, dc, 17 February 2005. 22 Lewis, “Europe to Defy Greece.” 23 White House, “u.s. Recognition.” 24 Phone interview with Matthew Nimetz, 18 February 2005. 25 Greek prime minister Papandreou declared that he was forced to impose the embargo to protect Greece’s national security. He pointed out: “this is a real threat to our national security, because Skopje’s aim is to gain an exit to the Aegean Sea … We had to remind the world there is a problem concerning stability and security in the region.” See Shea, Macedonia and Greece, 285. 26 Ibid., 183. 27 In the early 2000s, the Macedonian Americans became better organized and represented in Washington by creating organizations such as the Macedonian American Friendship Association (mafa) in 2001 and the United Macedonian Diaspora in 2004. 28 The 2000 u.s. census listed 38,051 Macedonian Americans. Michigan contained the largest cluster of Macedonian Americans, with 7,801. 29 Rosin, “Why We Flipped,” 11. 30 Shea, Macedonia and Greece, 186. 31 Ibid., 365. 32 Steven Greenhouses, “State Department Criticizes White House.” 33 Ibid. 34 Interview with Anthony Lake, Washington, dc, 4 April 2005. 35 Holbrooke, To End a War, 121–7. 36 In response to the u.s. recognition, Macedonian prime minister Branko Crvenkovski declared: “The establishment of full diplomatic relations with the u.s.a. at ambassadorial level, is an event of exceptional, I’d say historic, significance for the republic of Macedonia. It’s something we have been anticipating for a long time, aware that this

Notes to pages 91–7

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would contribute, to a great extent, to the strengthening of Macedonia’s position not only on a bilateral basis in relations with the u.s., but overall in the international community, as well.”. See Shea, Macedonia and Greece, 306. Phone interview with Matthew Nimetz, 18 February 2005. Liotta, “Spillover Effect,” 97. This agreement addressed the core Albanian demands: greater civil rights were guaranteed for Albanians (i.e., political, cultural, and religious rights); better representation was provided for Albanians in the civil service and in the police force; the Albanian language was recognized as an official language in districts where Albanians formed the majority; and a double-majority parliamentary system was created that gave Albanians a veto power over Macedonia’s political life. See Carpenter, “Kosovo and Macedonia,” 30. Following the signing of the agreement, nato sent ground troops – as requested by Macedonian prime minister Hari Kostov – to lead “Operation Essential Harvest,” which consisted of demilitarizing the nla and restoring order in the republic. Interview with a State Department official who asked to remain anonymous, Washington, dc, 25 February 2005. Interview with a State Department official who asked to remain anonymous, Washington, dc, 10 March 2005. Interview with a State Department official who asked to remain anonymous, Washington, dc, 25 February 2005. Richard Boucher, Daily Press Briefing. Quinn, “Greece Complains.” Greece offered, among other things, material support to Skopje to prevent the breakup of the state. See Zahariadis, “External Interventions,” 277. See Pettifer, Macedonia, 4. World Council of Hellenes Abroad, “Powell and Rice.” Interview with a State Department official who asked to remain anonymous, Washington, dc, 25 February 2005. Matthew Nimetz argues that u.s. administrations made a clear connection between the internal and the external dimensions of Macedonia’s stability during the whole saga of recognition. The first concern for the United States was the “stability of international borders,” declares Nimetz, “then internal stability was connected to it. Is this country going to be stable internally or will Macedonia enter into internal black-holes without a leadership and with internal strife? …

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Elements of internal strife could have affected Macedonia’s international stability because of its ethnic issues.” Phone interview with Matthew Nimetz, 18 February 2005. Harris, “Macedonia,” 44. Phillips, Macedonia, 62. Ibid., 63. Interview with a State Department official who asked to remain anonymous, Washington, dc, 10 March 2005. Ibid. Interview with a State Department official who asked to remain anonymous, Washington, dc, 25 February 2005. Interview with a State Department official who asked to remain anonymous, Washington, dc, 10 March 2005.

chapter five 1 Interview with James O’Brien, Washington, dc, 12 April 2005. Phone interview with Daniel Hamilton, 11 April 2005. 2 Ibid. 3 In the post–World War II era, Yugoslav leaders decided that the ethnic Albanians of Yugoslavia were not entitled to the status of a constitutive nation of the federation because Albania was the nation of all ethnic Albanians. Caplan, “International Diplomacy,” 748. 4 Kosovo is comprised of Albanians (88 percent), Serbs (7 percent) and other minorities (i.e., Bosniak, Gorani, Roma, Turk, Ashkali, Egyptian), together amounting to 5 percent of the population. See cia World Factbook. 5 On the day of the vote, the Kosovo Assembly was surrounded by Serbian tanks and police officers. See Judah, Kosovo, 56. 6 Andrejevich, “Kosovo,” 26. What is unusual here is that Kosovo Albanians attempted to secede from a federated state (Serbia) rather than from the federation. Secession was not used as a means to achieve independent statehood but rather to reach equality with the other republics. An outright declaration of secession from Yugoslavia would have provided Serbia with the legitimacy and the excuse to crush Kosovars’ aspirations, while seceding from Serbia did not imperil the existence of Yugoslavia. 7 Salla, “Kosovo,” 428. The province of Vojvodina also lost its autonomy. Around 25 percent of the population of Vojvodina consisted of ethnic Hungarians, and the large majority of its population was Ser-

Notes to pages 103–7

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bian. This is far different from Kosovo: nearly 90 percent of its population consisted of ethnic Albanians in the early 1990s. In the 1990s, Ibrahim Rugova was elected and re-elected president of Kosovo. Belgrade, however, has never recognized the legality of these elections. In a cable sent to the State Department, the u.s. Embassy in Belgrade mentioned that “this precarious balance between Kosovo and Serbia is based on fear, however, and could crumble quickly if extremists on either side push too hard.” u.s. Department of State, August 1992; unclassified document e53, case 200502018; unclassified on 13 December 2005. Malcolm, Kosovo, 347. This double standard, based on the international law principle of uti possidetis juris, served Brussels and Washington’s diplomatic objectives of containing the war in Yugoslavia and stopping the endless division of the Yugoslav republics. According to uti possidetis juris, the former boundaries of the constitutive units of a state become international borders protected by international law when the central state ceases to exist. This principle aims to protect the territorial integrity of states by avoiding the endless division of their territory. Thus, the six Yugoslav republics had a right to secede and to transform their national borders into international ones. Kosovo, however, which had the status of an autonomous province, had no right to break apart from Serbia. See Weller, “The International Response,” 86. Interview with a former u.s. official who asked to remain anonymous. Virginia, 28 April 2005. Albright, Madam Secretary, 483. u.s. Department of State, December 1992; unclassified document e15, case 200502018; unclassified on 29 November 2005. u.s. Department of State, December 1992; unclassified document e45, case 200502018; unclassified on 30 November 2005. The cable warning was sent to the u.s. chargé d’affaires in Belgrade. The cable was accompanied by an instruction that the message be read to Milosevic “verbatim, without elaboration, and face to face.” See Judah, Kosovo, 73–4. Gompert, “The United States,” 136–7. Caplan, “International Diplomacy,” 92. u.s. Department of State, July 1993; unclassified document e28, case 200502018; unclassified on 29 November 2005.

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20 This opinion was enhanced by the fact that the Bosnian Serbs, who had used force against Bosnian Croats and Muslims in their fight for independence, had gained significant concessions at Dayton. The Dayton Peace Accord created two political entities within BosniaHerzegovina: the Bosnian-Croatian Federation and the Serbian Republic of Bosnia (Republika Srpska). Bosnian Serbs obtained control of a large part of Bosnia-Herzegovina (49 percent of the territory) and got control of their own political system. 21 See Leurdijk and Zandee, Kosovo, 29. This position was reiterated several times by the State Department. See New York Times, “u.s. Reinstates Sanctions.” 22 See Shenon, “u.s. Says It Might Consider Attacking Serbs.” 23 Albright, Madam Secretary, 485. 24 International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (iciss), The Responsibility to Protect, 113. 25 Albania’s independence was recognized by Western powers in 1913. However, the state included only half the Albanian population of the Balkans. Large Albanian minorities remained in the western part of Macedonia and in Kosovo. This is a patent example of political and ethnic borders not matching. 26 Albright, Madam Secretary, 485. 27 As a result of Serbia’s compliance with the u.s. requirements, u.s. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright suspended the u.s. threat to use force against Belgrade without lifting, however, the order authorizing nato air strikes. 28 Because Kosovo Albanians repeatedly asked for a referendum on independence, the United States consented during the Rambouillet negotiations to write a letter to the Albanian delegation promising a referendum after three years. This promise, however, was not respected. 29 Phone interview with Daniel Hamilton, 11 April 2005. 30 This point was raised by James O’Brien, who negotiated the Rambouillet agreement in 1998–99. See interview with James O’Brien, Washington, dc, 12 April 2005. 31 The frontier was finally demarcated in 2001 following an agreement between Serbia-Montenegro (formerly fry) and Macedonia. 32 Interview with James O’Brien, Washington, dc, 12 April 2005. 33 The remaining 57 percent desired independence. See Daalder and O’Hanlon, Winning Ugly, 8. 34 Phone interview with Daniel Hamilton, April 11, 2005.

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35 Interview with a former u.s. official who asked to remain anonymous. Virginia, 28 April 2005. 36 Ibid. 37 Albright, “The Importance of Kosovo,” 4. 38 Albright, Madam Secretary, 490. 39 Interview with Morton Abramovitz, Washington, dc, 2 May 2005. 40 Wood, “Still Deeply Divided.” 41 See interview with James O’Brien, Washington, dc, 12 April 2005. Phone interview with Daniel Hamilton, 11 April 2005. Moreover, in a 1999 interview, u.s. officials declared that Kosovo would eventually become independent. See Smith, “Kosovo Independence.” 42 Interview with a former u.s. official who asked to remain anonymous. Virginia, 28 April 2005. 43 Kupchan, “Independence for Kosovo,” 14–15. 44 Testifying before Congress in May of 2005, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns recognized that the status quo in Kosovo was “no longer sustainable or desirable.” Woehrel and Kim, Kosovo and U.S. Policy, 20. 45 Wisner, “The United States and the Balkans,” 191. See also International Crisis Group, “Kosovo,” 1–2. 46 United Nations, Kosovo Standards Implementation Plan. 47 International Crisis Group, “Kosovo Status,” 4. 48 For a good analysis of the Ahtisaari Plan see International Crisis Group, “Kosovo: No Good Alternatives.” 49 International Crisis Group, “Kosovo’s First Month,” 3n11. 50 The u.s. government has traditionally opposed partition and has instead advocated multinational societies where power sharing and minority rights are guaranteed. More generally, the idea of partition is not welcomed in academic circles in the United States. Scholars like Chaim Kaufmann, who argue that territorial partition is necessary following high-scale ethnic conflicts have been strongly criticized. See Bloom and Licklider, “What’s All the Shouting About? 51 Finn, “Kosovo Declares Its Independence.” 52 International Crisis Group, “Kosovo’s First Month,” 4. See also Kole and Qena, “Kosovo Declares Independence from Serbia.” 53 Finn, “Kosovo Declares Its Independence.” 54 New York Times, “u.s. Will Work to Prevent Kosovo Backlash.” 55 Secretary Condoleeza Rice, U.S. Recognizes Kosovo as Independent State. 56 Secretary Rice declared, “The unusual combination of factors found

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Notes to pages 120–6

in the Kosovo situation – including the context of Yugoslavia’s breakup, the history of ethnic cleansing, and crimes against civilians in Kosovo, and the extended period of un administration – are not found elsewhere and therefore make Kosovo a special case.” See ibid. On the same day, President George W. Bush sent a letter to the president of Kosovo in which he agreed to his proposal to establish formal diplomatic relations. See Kim and Woehrel, “Kosovo and u.s. Policy.” Videmsek and Bilefsky, “Protesters Attack u.s. Embassy.” Mastnak, “Kosovo: A New Versailles?” Bradsher, “Fears of Secession.” Washington Post, “Bush Recognizes Kosovo’s Independence.” Finn, “Independence Is Proclaimed by Kosovo.” Baker, “u.s. Extends Formal Recognition of Kosovo.” Kulish and Chivers, “Kosovo Is Recognized.” Alphonse D’Amato (r-New York), Bob Dole (r-Kansas), Larry Pressler (r-South Dakota), and Claiborne Pell (d-Rhode Island) were the main supporters of Kosovo’s independence in the Senate. William Broomfield (r-Michigan), Ben Gilman (r-New York), Tom Lantos (dCalifornia), and Dick Swett (d-New Hampshire) were the strongest proponents of its independence in the House of Representatives. See Prifti, Confrontation in Kosova, 206–7. Hockenos, Homeland Calling, 243. Sremac, War of Words, 217. See Sullivan, “From Brooklyn to Kosovo,” 52. National Albanian American Council, “naac Meets with Ambassador Holbrooke”; National Albanian American Council, “White House Meeting.” Albanian American Civic League, “League Applauds Declaration of Independence.” Hockenos, Homeland Calling, 131. Ibid., 128. Interview with James O’Brien, Washington, dc, 12 April 2005. Paul, “Serbian-American Mobilization,” 104–5. Sremac, War of Words, 5. American Council for Kosovo, “About American Council for Kosovo.” Ambrosio, “Ethnic Identity Groups,” 1–19. Phone interview with Daniel Hamilton, 11 April 2005. This was also the opinion of Morton Abramovitz, James O’Brien, and Morton Halperin. Morton Halperin was the director of the policy planning

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staff in the State Department. He was also advising Secretary Albright on Kosovo. See interview with Morton Halperin, Washington, dc, 21 April 2005.

chapter six 1 The position of the European Community toward the Eritrean issue was similar to that of the United States, which was to support a federal or confederal arrangement between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Following the u.s. policy shift in May of 1991, the ec aligned its position with the United States and supported Eritrea’s right to secede. 2 Harbeson, “The Horn of Africa,” 221. 3 The Ethiopian army surrounded the Eritrean administrative building in Asmara and compelled members of the Eritrean Assembly to vote in favour of the annexation of Eritrea to Ethiopia. This is reminiscent of how the Serbian government of Slobodan Milosevic ended the autonomous status of Kosovo in 1989. See Iyob, The Eritrean Struggle for Independence, 94. 4 The military coup of the Derg was also motivated by the fact that Emperor Selassie was an autocratic leader who favored Ethiopia’s Christian community at the expense of the Muslims. 5 The elm and the elf (the future eplf) fought against each other in the 1960s and 1970s for control of Eritrea. By the late 1970s, the eplf led by Isaias Afwerki, had become the most prominent front in Eritrea and led the final war of liberation against the government of Addis Ababa in the early 1990s. 6 Yohannes, Eritrea, 91. 7 In exchange, the United States designed most of Ethiopia’s infrastructure following World War II and sent the largest share of its African economic aid to Ethiopia. See Connell, “Eritrea,” 1. 8 Yohannes, Eritrea, 258. Cited in Taras and Ganguly, Understanding Ethnic Conflicts, 216. 9 Mengistu announced that u.s. military facilities in Ethiopia (especially in the Eritrean province) would be closed down. Ibid., 144. Soon after the Derg declared Ethiopia a socialist state, the Soviet Union sent more than $11 billion in arms to Addis Ababa. With this support, Mengistu was able to temporarily reoccupy most of Eritrea’s major cities. However, by the end of the 1980s, the eplf had regained most of the territory it had lost. See Connell, Eritrea, 1. 10 Within a few years, u.s.-Somali relations replaced those that Wash-

204

11 12 13 14 15

16 17 18

19

20

21 22 23 24

Notes to pages 133–41

ington had maintained with Ethiopia over the previous twenty years. The Somali partnership allowed the United States to maintain its influence in the region, as well as to retain a certain control over the Red Sea, as will be seen in more detail in the next chapter. See Cohen, “Somalia.” Cohen, Intervening in Africa, 20. Pool, “Eritrean Independence,” 394. Phone interview with Robert Houdek, 25 May 2005. Mengistu accepted the proposal of a un observer mission only in 1991, when his regime was on the verge of collapsing. Other talks hosted by the Italian government in Rome at the end of 1989 between the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front and the Ethiopian government ended in deadlock for similar reasons. See Young, Peasant Revolution in Ethiopia, 167. Ibid. Goshko, “U.S. Plea.” nsc Director for Africa Robert Frasure travelled to Sudan to meet with Issaias Afwerti, the leader of the eplf, and with Meles Zenawi, the head of the tplf, and they both agreed to meet in London in May to begin peace negotiations with the Mengistu regime. On 24–25 May 1991 the Falashas were airlifted to Israel. The United States and Israel payed $35 million to the Ethiopian government in “exit fees” for the operation. The u.s. chargé d’affaires Robert Houdek convinced Mengistu of “the hopelessness of his situation” and of the inevitable defeat of his army. Houdek’s pressure apparently convinced Mengistu to leave Ethiopia. See Henze, “Ethiopia and Eritrea,” 63. Acting Ethiopian president Tesfaye Gebre-Kidan had apparently informed Robert Houdek that he had consented to let the tplf enter the capital because it was the only way to enforce order in Addis Ababa. This lack of communication between the new Ethiopian president and the prime minister, who was in London attending the peace talks, shows that the Derg regime was in an advanced phase of disintegration. Farkas, Fractured States, 20. Interview with J. Cohen, Washington, dc, 16 May 2005. Correspondence with Herman J. Cohen, 23 May 2005. See Jackson and Rosberg, “Why Africa’s Weak States Persist,” 18. Walter Kansteiner indicates, “If you want to mess with borders, you better get the five surrounding countries and the country that is splitting to all agree.” Interview with Walter Kansteiner, Washington, dc, 18 May 2005.

Notes to pages 142–53

25 26 27 28 29 30 31

32 33 34 35

36

37 38 39 40

41 42 43 44

205

Schraeder, “u.s. Intervention in the Horn of Africa,” 10. Interview with Walter Kansteiner, Washington, dc, 18 May 2005. Cohen, “Somalia,” 54. Interview with Herman J. Cohen, Washington, dc, 16 May 2005. Henze, Ethiopia and Eritrea, 62. Phone interview with Robert Houdek, 25 May 2005. In the early 1990s, Ethiopia was facing five different rebellious movements (e.g. of the Afars, Eritreans, Oromo, Somali, and Tigray), among which the Eritreans and the Tigray where the most powerful. It is important to mention here that the Addis Ababa conference approved the right of the Ethiopian nationalities to self-determination, which included the right to secede. However, only Eritrea used that right and had the actual capacity and will to function independently. Young, Peasant Revolution, 206. See Pateman, Eritrea, 238. See Washington Post, “Ethiopia.” Iyob, The Eritrea Struggle, 139. One quarter of the 1.2 million registered voters were living outside Eritrea in Sudanese refugee camps, in Ethiopia, or in Western countries. Although some states had already given their support and had granted de facto recognition to Eritrea (e.g., Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Yemen), the United States was the first state to recognize de jure the independence of Eritrea following its declaration of independence. See Abraham, Ethiopia, 58. Farkas, Fractured States, 58. Cited ibid., 65. Ibid., 67. Interview with Walter Kansteiner, Washington, dc, 18 May 2005. Robert Houdek agrees with this point of view. Phone interview with Robert Houdek, 25 May 2005. Yohannes, Eritrea, 67–8, 210. Interview with Herman J. Cohen, Washington, dc, 16 May 2005. Phone interview with Robert Houdek, 25 May 2005. Interview with Herman J. Cohen, Washington, dc, 16 May 2005.

chapter seven 1 Srebrnik, “Can Clans Form Nations?” 225. 2 See Omaar, “Somaliland,” 232. 3 Woodward, The Horn of Africa, 65.

206

Notes to pages 154–7

4 The main government positions and the majority of the seats in the Mogadishu Parliament were held by Southern Somalians. Throughout the 1960s, Somaliland felt politically and economically marginalized. See Ahmed and Green, “The Heritage of War,” 116. 5 A treaty of friendship and cooperation was signed with the ussr in 1974. Omaar, “Somalia,” 230. 6 Between 1980 and 1990, 75 percent of all Somalia’s military equipment was coming from the United States. Bryden, “Somalia,” 146. 7 Cohen, Intervening in Africa, 197. 8 The Isaak clan dominates the northwest of Somalia. Around 70 percent of Somalilanders are Isaaks. See Hulianas, “The Viability of Somaliland,” 157. 9 Siad Barre fled to the Kenyan border. One year after his overthrow, Barre had still not been offered sanctuary by any foreign countries. See u.s. Department of State, January 1992; unclassified document e30, case 200502026. Unclassified on 27 January 2006. Barre eventually died in exile in Nigeria. 10 Throughout the 1980s, the United States supported Siad Barre for strategic reasons. As Cohen recalls, “Despite Somalia’s severe internal instability, centcom continued to view the naval/air facility at Berbera as important to the defense of the Gulf. In Tampa, Florida, in late 1989, centcom commander in chief General Norman Schwarzkopf pressed me on the need to maintain access to Berbera.” Cohen, Intervening in Africa, 202. Therefore, even if the government of Siad Barre failed to keep external stability in the 1980s and used brutal repression against the population of Somaliland, the United States chose to turn a blind eye to these atrocities. 11 u.s. Department of State, May 1991; unclassified document e6, case 200502026. Unclassified on 20 January 2006. Moreover, the Organization of African Unity (oau) reaffirmed the founding principles of the organization (i.e., sovereignty, territorial integrity, intangible territorial integrity) and categorically opposed the secession of Somaliland. See u.s. Department of State, June 1991; unclassified document e9, case 200502026. Unclassified on 20 January 2006. 12 Cohen, Intervening in Africa, 204–5. 13 u.s. Department of State, May 1991; unclassified document e4, case 200502026. Unclassified on 20 January 2006. 14 u.s. Department of State, November 1991; unclassified document e28, case 200502026. Unclassified on 27 January 2006. 15 Phone interview with Robert Houdek, Washington, dc, 25 May 2005.

Notes to pages 158–67

207

16 u.s. Department of State, May 1991; unclassified document e6, case 200502026. Unclassified on 20 January 2006. 17 Cohen, Intervening in Africa, 203. 18 u.s. Department of State, July 1991; unclassified document e22, case 200502026. Unclassified on 26 January 2006. 19 Somaliland’s secessionists visited European capitals, the un headquarters, Canada, and the United States. 20 u.s. Department of State, November 1991; unclassified document e28, case 200502026. Unclassified on 27 January 2006. 21 Bradbury, Abokor, and Yusuf, “Somaliland,” 461. 22 Prunier, “Somaliland Goes It Alone,” 228. 23 Kibble, “Somaliland,” 16. The international community was impressed by the referendum process but did not attach any legal value to it because there was no census in Somaliland, and therefore, it was impossible to know the proportion of Somalilanders who favoured independence. 24 The following year, president Kahin was confirmed in his functions in a presidential election. 25 Simanowitz, “Democracy Comes of Age.” 26 Bradbury, Abokor, and Yusuf, “Somaliland,” 457. 27 Huliaras, “The Viability of Somaliland,” 171. 28 Interview with Herman J. Cohen, Washington, dc, 16 May 2005. 29 Arta is a city in Djibouti where negotiations occurred. 30 Cohen, “Somalia.” 31 The operation was baptized “Operation Restore Hope” by the Department of Defense. A few weeks later, the un Security Council adopted resolution 794 establishing a safe environment for humanitarian aid in Somalia. Woodward, The Horn of Africa, 76. 32 See Kansteiner, Somalia. 33 Phone interview with a former State Department official who asked to remain anonymous, 25 May 2005. 34 Interview with a State Department official who asked to remain anonymous, Washington, dc, 4 May 2005. 35 Ibid. 36 Interview with Walter Kansteiner, Washington, dc, 18 May 2005. 37 He added, “But logically, philosophically, and morally it’s probably right to recognize them.” Interview with Herman J. Cohen, Washington, dc, 16 May 2005. 38 Interview with Herman Cohen, Washington, dc, 16 May 2005. See also interview with Walter Kansteiner, Washington, dc, 18 May 2005.

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Notes to pages 167–83

39 Interview with a State Department official who asked to remain anonymous, Washington, dc, 4, May 2005. 40 Alexander’s Gas & Oil Connections, “Somalia Welcomes Oil Interest.” 41 u.s. Department of State, June 1991; unclassified document e15, case 200502026. Unclassified on 26 January 2006. 42 u.s. Department of State, June 1991; unclassified document e28, case 200502026. Unclassified on 27 January 2006.

chapter eight 1 Stack, “The Ethnic Challenge,” 19. 2 Rasmussen, “Peacemaking in the Twenty-First Century,” 24. 3 John Stack argues, for instance, “From a neorealist perspective, ethnicity did not count in assessments of superpower and great power national security elites. The importance of ethnicity, one of the most significant forces in the formation of the post–Cold War international system and now a central dimension in the articulation of major power foreign policies, was simply marginalized.” See Stack, “The Ethnic Challenge,” 22–3. 4 The literature on power transition and hegemonic stability focuses on the distinction between status quo and revisionist states. The conclusions of this book contribute to this theoretical distinction by suggesting that the United States is sometimes a status quo power and sometimes a revisionist state that attempts to strengthen stability in regions affected by secessionist conflicts. For more on this distinction see Organski, World Politics; Gilpin, War and Change. 5 See Heraclides, Self-Determination, 21. 6 Bercovitch, “Mediation in International Conflict,” 142. 7 For more on the literature on conditionality, see Kelley, “International Actors”; Linden, “Putting On Their Sunday Best.” 8 Zartman, “Introduction,” 14. 9 Callahan, Unwinnable Wars, 26–7. See also Carley, U.S. Responses; Carley, Self-Determination.

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unclassified documents Macedonia Department of State, 22 October 1992. Unclassified document, case 200502041. Unclassified on 15 June 2005.

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interviews and correspondence Face-to-Face Interviews Abramovitz, Morton, Washington, dc, 2 May 2005. Cohen, Herman J., Washington, dc, 16 May 2005. Gompert, David C., Washington, dc, 25 January 2005. Halperin, Morton, Washington, dc, 21 April 2005. Harris, Marshall Freeman, Washington, dc, 17 February 2005. Kansteiner, Walter, Washington, dc, 18 May 2005. Lake, Anthony, Washington, dc, 4 April 2005. O’Brien, James, Washington, dc, 12 April 2005. Pearson, Robert, Washington, dc, 14 February 2005. Scowcroft, Brent, Washington, dc, 8 February 2005.

Telephone Interviews Galbraith, Peter W., 23 January 2005. Hamilton, Daniel, 11 April 2005. Houdek, Robert, 25 May 2005. Howe, Jonathan T., 3 March 2005 Niles, Thomas M. T., 29 January 2005. Nimetz, Matthew, 18 February 2005.

Anonymous Interviews State Department Official, Washington, dc, 25 February 2005. State Department Official, Washington, dc, 10 March 2005. Former u.s. official, Virginia, 28 April 2005.

Correspondence Correspondence with Herman J. Cohen, 23 May 2005. Correspondence with Pero Novak, 26 January 2005.

8 Index

Abkhazia, 5, 7, 18, 122, 178, 180 Abramovitz, Morton, 113 Aceh, 31 Afwerki, Isaias, 143 Ahtisaari, Martti, 116–18, 120 Aidid, Mohammed, 155–6, 160, 164, Albanian American Civic League, 123–4 Albanian American lobby, 122–3 Albanian-Macedonian-Bulgarian Oil Corporation (ambo), 99 Albright, Madeleine, 103; and Kosovo, 104, 109, 112–13 Ambrosio, Thomas, 22, 126 American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association, 88 Annan, Kofi, 115 Badinter Commission, 79 Baker, James, 55–6, 59–60, 89; and Macedonia, 79; and recognition of Croatia, 70; and referendum in Eritrea, 142–3, 149; and Security Council, 58; and Somaliland, 156–8 Bangladesh, 4

Barre, Siad, 154–5 Bennett, Andrew, 49 Bentley, Helen Delich, 70, 124 Bercovitch, Jacob, 181 Berry, Steven, 82 Biafra, 4; and recognition, 7, 128; and secession, 7, 18 Bienen, Henry, 14, 29 Blanchard, James, 5 Boschwitz, Rudy, 137 Bosnia-Herzegovina, 3; and referendum, 62; and u.s. recognition, 64, 82 Boucher, Richard, 94 Brzezinski, Zbigniew, 23 Bush administration, 55; and Macedonia, 81 Bush, George H.W., 133 Bush, George W., 120; and Ethiopia, 133; and Macedonia, 83; and secession of Croatia and Slovenia, 55; and secession of Kosovo, 103, 124 Callahan, David, 7, 9, 13, 37, 182–3 Canada, 31–2; and National Unity, 31, 44, 183

226

Index

Carley, Patricia, 182–3 Carment, David, 3, 9 Carter, Jimmy, 135 Chechnya, 16, 41–2 Christopher, Warren, 4, 89 Clark, Wesley, 107 Clinton, Bill, 4–5, 84, 123, Clinton administration, 48, 175; and Canadian unity, 31; and recognition of fyrom, 86; and Kosovo, 106; and Macedonia, 75, 84–5 cnn, 164 Cohen, Herman J., 135–6, 138, 147, 149; Cohen’s coup, 139, 141–2; referendum in Eritrea, 139–40 Somalia, 154; Somaliland, 157–8, 163, 167 Cohen, Leonard, 59 Common Foreign and Security Policy (cfsp), 80 conflict mediation, 181–2 Congo crisis, 24–5 ConocoPhillips, 168 Contact Group, 108, 116 Croatia, 4–5, 10–11, 33, 48, 53; and conditionality of recognition, 59–62; declaration of independence, 54, 56; and German recognition, 67; and secessionist crisis, 53–4; and stability, 64–6; and u.s. recognition, 19, 23, 53, 62–6 Croatian American Association (caa), 69 Croatian American lobby, 68 Croatian Americans, 23, 68–71 Dayton Peace Agreements, 107 David, Steven, 14

defensive positionalism, 6, 28, 30, 44, 177 defensive realism, 15, 16, 28 Democratic League of Kosovo (ldk), 103 Derg Regime, 134–5, 148 Dinka, Tesfaye, 138 Dole, Bob, 68–9 Eagleburger, Lawrence, 63; and business interests, 71–3; and Christmas warning, 105; and Kosovo, 105; and Macedonia’s recognition, 79; and u.s. recognition, 70; and Yugoslavia, 72 Egal, Mohamed Haji Ibrahim, 160–1; and the United States, 163 Eritrea, 4, 5, 11, 37, 48, 128–9; history of, 129–31; referendum, 131, 139–40, 142, 149 Eritrean Americans, 148 Eritrean Liberation Front (elf), 130 Eritrean Liberation Movement (elm), 130 Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (eplf), 128, 134, 136, 140 Ethio-Eritrean Federation, 130 ethnic lobby, 22–4, 68, 76, 83, 97, 126 Exxon Mobil, 168 Falashas, 134, 137–8 Farkas, Evelyn, 14, 147 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, 30, 101; and stability, 104; and war in Kosovo, 109–10 Ferguson, Edward, 99 Frasure, Robert, 137, 142–3

Index

Gebre-Kidan, Tesfaye, 138 George, Alexander, 46, 49–50 Georgia, 4, 7, 122, 180, 183 Germany, 67; and recognition of Croatia and Slovenia, 67, 69 Gibbs, David, 24–6, 71, 73, 98, 101 Glazer, Nathan, 22 Gleditsch, Skerde, 34 Gligorov, Kiro, 77 Gompert, David, 65–6; and Croatian American lobby, 69–70; and Greek American lobby, 83; and Kosovo, 105 Gore, Al, 89 Greece, 80; and conflict with Turkey, 81; and Oil embargo, 84 Greek American lobby, 76, 88, 95–6 Grieco, Joseph, 28, 99–100, 177 Halperin, Morton, 13–14 Hamilton, Daniel, 126 Harris, Marshall Freeman, 98 Hellenic-American National Council, 83 Heraclides, Alexis, 9, 16, 25, 30, 35–6 Hicks, Irving, 137 Hill, Christopher, 109–10 Hockenos, Paul, 77 Holbrooke, Richard, 55, 57; and fyrom, 90; and Kosovo, 107; and Macedonia, 84 Horowitz, Donald, 3, 8 Houdek, Robert, 135, 138, 144, 150 Howe, Jonathan T., 66 Huntington, Samuel, 19

227

Indonesia, 31–2 international law, 178 Iraq, 7 James, Patrick, 3 Judah, Tim, 106 Kansteiner, Walter, 142, 167 Katanga, 24 Keohane, Robert O., ix, 46 Kohl, Helmut, 179 Kosovo, 3, 11, 48, 54, 101, 104–5, 107; and autonomy, 102–3; and repression, 30, 104; and secession, 18, 124; and selfdetermination, 101; and supervised independence, 119; as a un protectorate, 114–15; and u.s. non-recognition, 37, 103–4, 111–13; u.s. policy on, 107; and u.s. recognition, 118–22 Kosovo Force (kfor), 114, 121 Kosovo Liberation Army (kla), 20, 108–10, 123 Kostunica, Vojislav, 120 Kupchan, Charles, 116 Lake, Anthony, 89–90 Lake, David, 3 Lavrov, Sergey, 121–2 Lebamov, Ivan A., 87 liberal institutionalism, 17–18 Macedonia, 11, 48; and referendum on decentralization, 95 Macedonian Patriotic Organization (mpo), 87 Markovic, Ante, 54, 56–7, 73 Marshall, John, 131 Mastanduno, Michael, 99–100

228

Index

Mearsheimer, John, 17, 22 Mengistu, Colonel, 130, 132, 137; Mengistu Regime, 148 Mesic, Stjepan, 54; and Yugoslav disintegration, 59 Milosevic, Slobodan, 54, 57, 63, 102, 107, 110 Mitsotakis, Constantine, 80 Moldova, 32; and Trans-Dniester’s secession, 32 Montenegro, 54 Moynihan, Patrick, 22 National Albanian American Council (naac), 123 National Liberation Army (nla), 92 National Security Council: and Eritrea, 142 ; and the Greek American lobby, 83; and Kosovo, 104–5, 178; and Macedonia’s recognition, 79; and Serb and Croat ceasefire, 65–6 ; and Somalia, 166; and state recognition, 59, 62; nato intervention, 101 Nau, Henry, 22 neoliberalism, 20 neorealism, 15, 177 Niles, Thomas, 62; and Greek Americans, 83 Nimetz, Matthew, 87, 91 Novak, Pero, 69 Nye, Jospeh, 4 O’Brien, James, 110 Ogaden region, 154 Ohrid Agreement, 92–3, 95, 97 offensive realism, 15, 17 Operation Allied Force, 110–11

Operation Provide Relief, 164 Organization of African Unity (oau), 132, 141, 157, 165 Oromo Liberation Front, 134 Papandreou, Andreas, 87 Pearson, Robert, 58 Pérez de Cuéllar, Javier, 59 Phillips, John, 98 Powell, Colin, 93–4, 96 process tracing, 10, 49–50 Puntland, 162 Putin, Vladimir, 121, 180 Quebec, 31; and secession, 31, 184 Rahman, Abd-er, 156 Rambouillet Agreements, 110–14 Rasmussen, J. Lewis, 177 Rice, Condoleezza, 96, 120 Rosin, Hanna, 77 Ross, Dennis, 66 Rothchild, Donald, 3 Rugova, Ibrahim, 103, 108 Russia, 7 Saideman, Stephen, 16, 23, 77 Salehyan, Idean, 34 Scheffer, David, 13–14 Scowcroft, Brent, 55, 62; and business interests, 71–3 Selassie, Haile, 130–1 Serbia, 20, 54 Serbian American lobby, 71, 124 Serbian Unity Congress (suc), 125 Shain, Yossi, 22–3 Shamir, Yitzak, 137 Shea, John, 77

Index

Slovenia, 4, 11, 33, 48, 53; and conditionality of recognition, 59–62; declaration of independence, 54, 56; and German recognition, 18, 67; and secessionist crisis, 53–4; and u.s. recognition, 62–6; Slovenian Americans, 68 Small, Patricia, 13–14 Somalia, 3, 48, 15; history of, 153–6; Somalia aversion, 153, 164–7, 174; and u.s. investments, 133 Somalian Americans, 167 Somaliland, 11, 48; history of, 153–156 Somalilander Americans, 167–8 Somali National Movement (snm), 154–6; and the United States, 158–9 Somali Patriotic Front, 155 South Ossetia, 7, 18, 122, 178, 180 Soviet Union, 48–9 Sremac, Danielle, 125 Stack, John, 24, 177 State Department: and conditionality of recognition, 59; and Croatia and Slovenia, 55, 61, 65–6, 69; and Eritrea, 142, 146; and Eritrean secession, 149; and Ethiopia, 135–6; and Falashas, 138 ; and Greek American lobby, 83, 89, 93, 96; and interagency disagreement, 89; and Kosovo, 104, 111, 119–20; and Macedonia, 79–2, 93–4, 99; and Macedonia’s recognition, 89; and Milosevic, 124; and recognition criteria, 60; and

229

Serbian American lobby, 125; and Somaliland, 153, 163; and Somaliland’s Declaration of Independence, 156, 159; and Somaliland’s recognition, 167; and u.s. policy on, 107; and Yugoslav disintegration, 58 Stephanopoulos, George, 88 structured, focused comparison, 10, 50–1 Thaci, Hashim, 119 Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (tplf), 130, 134, 136, 140 Tudjman, Franjo, 65 Tutwiler, Margaret, 66 United Nations Mission in Kosovo (unmik), 114–17, 119 United Nations Observer Mission to Verify the Referendum in Eritrea (unover), 146 United Nations Protection Forces (unprofor), 63 United Nations Unified Task Force (unitaf), 164 United Somali Congress (usc), 155 United States: Civil War, 5; foreign policy dilemma, 3; recognition criteria, 60–1; response to Croatia’s and Slovenia’s secession, 55–6, 62–4; response to Eritrea’s secession, 139–44; response to Kosovo’s secession, 103–4, 118–21; response to Macedonia’s secession, 78–9, 85–7; response to Somaliland’s secession, 156–8, 162–7; secessionism, 5, 12, 182–3; self-

230

determination, 4; stability interest, 6, 9, 171–5 Vance, Cyrus, 59, 62 Vojvodina, 54 Walt, Stephen, 16, 22 Waltz, Kenneth, 47 Wisner, Frank, 117 Yohannes, Okbazghi, 131 Young, Robert, 40

Index

Yugoslav People’s Army (ypa), 54, 57, 78 Yugoslavia, 4, 33, 53; and disintegration, 53–5, 62–4, 77–9, 103–4; and instability, 58–9; and u.s. support, 56–8. See also Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Zacher, Mark, 17–18, 38 Zartman, William, 182 Zenawi, Meles, 144 Zimmermann, Warren, 66

a stability-seeking power

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preface

A Stability-Seeking Power U.S. Foreign Policy and Secessionist Conflicts J O N AT H A N PA Q U I N

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Ithaca

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iv

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© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2010 isbn 978-0-7735-3736-1 (cloth) isbn 978-0-7735-3737-8 (paper) Legal deposit second quarter 2010 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. McGill-Queen’s University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (bpidp) for our publishing activities.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Paquin, Jonathan, 1975– A stability-seeking power : U.S. foreign policy and secessionist conflicts / Jonathan Paquin. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-7735-3736-1 (bnd) isbn 978-0-7735-3737-8 (pbk) 1. United States – Foreign relations – 1989–. 2. Autonomy and independence movements. I. Title. e183.7.p19 2010

327.73

c2010-900470-1

This book was typeset by True to Type in 10.5/13 Sabon

preface

To the memory of Marie-Berthe and Jules Paquin, and Marie-Eva and Xavier Gauthier

v

preface

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Contents

Acknowledgments ix 1 Explaining U.S. Foreign Policy Variations toward Secessionist Conflicts 3 2 The Stability-Seeking Argument 13 3 The U.S. Recognition of Croatia and Slovenia 53 4 Macedonia: A U.S. Delay of Recognition in Five Episodes 75 5 Kosovo: The Long March toward U.S. Recognition 101 6 Eritrea’s Independence and U.S. Regional Interests 128 7 Somaliland: A Non-recognized Independent State 152 8 Theoretical and Empirical Findings 171 Notes 185 Bibliography Index 225

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ix

Acknowledgments

All through the research process leading to the completion of this book I had in mind Robert O. Keohane’s observations in International Institutions and State Power (29) about academic research: “The essence of discovery is being deeply puzzled about questions on which one is supposedly an expert.” When I undertook this research project, I felt I knew about u.s. foreign policy and about secessionist conflicts extensively, but I was deeply puzzled and even confused about how these topics interrelated. Writing this book was, therefore, quite an endeavour, and Robert Keohane was right. The research puzzle I had in mind, which can be contained within a single sentence, occupied most of my academic life for several years. This project led me, among other things, to spend a semester as a visiting researcher in the Department of Government at Georgetown University in order to conduct research and interviews in Washington, dc. Fortunately, during the process of writing this book I received the advice of several people. My greatest debt is to Stephen Saideman, who read several drafts of each chapter and provided important criticisms and suggestions during the writing process. I would also like to thank Louis Bélanger, Mark Brawley, David Edelstein, Julian Durazo Hermann, Patrick James, Jean Laponce, Nelson Michaud, and Sid Noel for their sound and relevant comments on various chapters of the book. Anonymous reviewers at Foreign Policy Analysis also provided important criticisms that helped to refine my article published there (October 2008), which is partly based on this book. Thanks also to the Department of Government at George-

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Acknowledgments

town University for its support and hospitality. More specifically, I would like to thank Charles Kupchan and Andrew Bennett. Finally, special thanks to Catherine Thomassin, who helped a great deal with the index. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation of the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Program. The book also benefited from the support of the Fonds québécois de la recherche sur la société et la culture (fqrsc), the J.W. McConnell McGill Major Fellowship, the Research Group in International Security (regis) at McGill University, King’s University College at the University of Western Ontario, and the Faculty of Social Sciences at Université Laval. Without their financial help it would have been difficult, maybe even impossible, to finish this book. The completion of this research would also have been much harder without the support of my friends and family members. I would like to express my appreciation to all of my friends who made my life more enjoyable during these intense years of research. Last but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to my parents Jocelyne and Claude Paquin for their unfailing support, understanding and love.

Parts of chapter 4 have been published in a revised form. See Jonathan Paquin, “Managing Controversy: u.s. Stability-Seeking and the Birth of the Macedonian State,” Foreign Policy Analysis, Vol. 4, no. 4 (October 2008), pp. 441–62. I would like to thank the publishers of Foreign Policy Analysis for their permission to reproduce portions of this article.

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1 Explaining U.S. Foreign Policy Variations toward Secessionist Conflicts

introduction As the most powerful state in the current international system, the United States has been quite concerned with the rise of intrastate wars since the end of the Cold War and has been relentlessly called on to mediate and resolve these conflicts in places like Somalia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Rwanda. The resurgence of ethno-nationalism and ethnic tensions following the collapse of the Soviet Union has also brought the United States face-to-face with a new foreign policy dilemma: Should it play the role of a policeman of the world by intervening without discrimination in foreign ethnic wars, or should it limit its involvement to issues that are directly linked to its core national interests? During the last two decades, scholars have extensively studied the international dimension of ethnic conflicts. Among them, David Carment and Patrick James have focused their attention on theorizing this facet of international politics.1 Others, like David Lake and Donald Rothchild, have questioned whether ethnic conflicts spread internationally through escalation and diffusion. What has been less emphasized, however, is that intrastate conflicts have created an important international challenge for the u.s. superpower: how to deal with secessionist conflicts. Scholars have neglected the study of secessionist struggles by often treating them as a sub-category of intrastate wars and ethnic conflicts. Yet secessionism has its own set of implications. Being located, in the words of Donald Horowitz, “squarely at the junction of internal and international politics,”2 secession is the process by which several states are born and others cease to exist. In the last twenty years only, secessionism

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has caused significant international disruption. Secessionist forces in Croatia and Slovenia led to the disintegration of Yugoslavia, Slovak nationalism initiated the breakup of Czechoslovakia, and secessionism in Eritrea caused the separation of Ethiopia. nato air strikes against Serbia in 1999, the war between Russia and Georgia in the summer 2008, and more recently the humanitarian crisis in Yemen were also related to secessionist struggles.3 Despite the crucial importance of secessionism for understanding recent geopolitical transformations, little is known about the behaviour of the American superpower towards this political force. Declarations made by top American officials indicate that for the sake of a stable international order the United States is careful not to encourage secessionist movements abroad. During the Cold War, the White House was systematically opposed to secessionist selfdetermination movements (e.g., in Biafra, Eritrea, Kurdistan, Quebec, the Southern Sudan). The containment of the Soviet empire made the preservation of the territorial status quo a cardinal principle that guided the approach of the United States toward secessionist conflicts. The recognition of Bangladesh’s secession by the Nixon administration in 1972 is the exception that proves the rule. It was the only case of u.s. recognition of a non-colonial secessionist state from 1945 to 1990. Bangladesh was recognized by the White House because India and the Soviet Union had made its secession a fait accompli and, more importantly, to fight growing Soviet influence in the new-born state.4 In the post–Cold War era, Washington maintained this anti-secessionist bias. Secretary of State Warren Christopher pointed out during his Senate confirmation hearing in 1993 that since the world is made up of thousands of ethnic minorities and less than two hundred sovereign states, allowing the right of external self-determination to those ethnic minorities would lead to permanent turmoil in the international system.5 Joseph Nye, a former assistant secretary of defence, made a similar argument when he asserted that the political precedent that the United States “would create by endorsing a general right of self-determination could have disastrous consequences.”6 He argued that the United States should be extremely cautious about demands for secession because they could create enormous violence. This position was reiterated by President Clinton in a speech on federalism in 1999, when he declared that if every ethnic group became independent, “we might have 800 coun-

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tries in the world and have a very difficult time having a functioning economy or a functioning global polity.”7 The historical background of the United States, in particular, the painful experience of the Civil War, coupled with its current leading status in the world, probably reinforces its apprehensive attitude toward secessionism and its search for a stable international system. This historical background may not be significant enough to shape American responses to secessionist crises in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, but it certainly influences Washington’s perception of secessionist conflicts abroad. According to former u.s. ambassador James Blanchard, “the vast majority of Americans, inside and outside the government, have absolutely no sympathy or patience for the notion of secession. That’s rooted, reasonably or not, in our own Civil War.”8 Declarations and speeches, however, do not tell us much about how the United States does respond to secessionist crises. And if the events of the last two decades have shown that secessionism is an important security concern and is likely to remain so in the twentyfirst century, it is still largely unexplored from a u.s. foreign policy point of view, and important foreign policy questions remain unanswered. For instance, what are the motives and interests guiding Washington’s foreign policy toward secessionist conflicts in the post–Cold War? Does the United States tend to get involved in the resolution of these crises? Will Washington always support the central states struggling with secessionist groups as a matter of principle? Or are there any moral considerations that may lead it to support secessionist ambitions? These questions are important since, despite its anti-secessionist bias, the United States has recognized the independence of several secessionist states in the last twenty years, which is a significant departure from its Cold War policy. The purpose of this book is therefore to understand what determines the American reaction toward secessionist conflicts in the post–Cold War era. More specifically, the research focuses on the puzzling variation in the u.s. response to secessionist attempts. Washington has seemingly reacted in a contradictory manner to secessionist conflicts by backing central governments in some cases, while recognizing the independence of secessionist states in others. Why has it done so? Why, for instance, did it recognize the secession of Croatia, Eritrea, and Kosovo but remain categorically opposed to the independence of Abkhazia and Somaliland? How

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can we explain this policy variation? What accounts for the u.s. departure from its a priori support for stable international borders? Can this apparent inconsistency be explained by the legitimacy of each case of secession, by the regional environment in which secessionist movements emerged, by the lobbying of u.s. ethnic groups in Washington, mobilized for the independence of their ethnic kin abroad or against the breakup of their homeland? This research puzzle raises an important challenge in u.s. foreign policy, but the existing literature does not tackle this critical issue properly.

the argument Existing theories of foreign policy and international relations as they relate to ethnic and secessionist conflicts do not alone account for the research questions under investigation. Current systemic and domestic arguments are based on assumptions that fail to capture the logic and preferences behind American behaviour toward secessionist struggles. The research presented in this book remedies this problem by developing an argument built on the defensive version of the realist paradigm of foreign policy. It argues that the United States is a “defensive positionalist” state that stresses the importance of regional stability in the management of secessionist struggles. It maintains that the search for stability is the United States’ paramount interest, one that explains the variation in the American response to these conflicts. This stability-seeking argument, which is delineated in the next chapter, asserts that the United States supports central states facing secessionist crises as long as they can guarantee the stability of their international borders. When these states are unable or unwilling to maintain the stability of their borders and refuse to negotiate with secessionist leaders, the United States will shift its policy and consent to recognize the respective secessionist states if, and only if, the secessionists can demonstrate their ability to maintain stability. This idea explains when and why Washington has departed on multiple occasions from its anti-secessionist policy.

why this topic? One might ask why understanding how the United States approaches secessionist conflicts matters. I argue that grasping the causes of

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the fluctuations of u.s. policy towards secessionist struggles is pressing for several reasons. First, secessionist movements constitute, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, an enduring security challenge to the lone American superpower, as well as to the international community. The American war in Iraq, for instance, had the undesired effect of exacerbating the issue of Kurdish secessionist ambitions, which poses a problem for stability in the Middle East. The recent military confrontation between Georgia and two of its secessionist regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, destabilized the Caucasus and spoiled the already tense relationship between Russia, which supported the secessionist states, and the United States, an ally of Georgia. In a study published by the Carnegie Corporation in 2002, David Callahan argued that “ethnic conflicts and quests for self-determination around the world are likely to be among the most important factors driving international politics in the next decades.”9 I agree with this assertion and I would add that secessionism is especially important as it targets the territorial integrity of existing sovereign states, which are the central actors in international relations. Thus, by understanding why the u.s. response to secessionist struggles varies greatly, we will be in a better position to explain and predict the American response to this enduring security challenge in the twenty-first century. Furthermore, because the United States stands unrivalled in the international system, its actions can directly affect the success or failure of secessionist states. Indeed, there is a direct connection between a state’s relative power and the effectiveness of its diplomatic recognition: recognition by the American superpower has a greater impact on the process of secession than recognition by any other state. The reason is simple: because of the size of its power, defined in military, economic, and diplomatic terms, the United States has the greatest political leverage to make secession a fait accompli. u.s. recognition of a secessionist state can significantly increase the credibility of the secession, regardless of the qualitative value and merits of the case.10 This explains, for instance, why Biafra failed to secede from Nigeria in the late 1960s, but why Kosovo recently succeeded. Biafra managed to be recognized by some foreign states, but failed to obtain recognition from the United States or from other great powers and was unable to sustain its independence. Kosovo, however, was recognized by the United

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States and its allies (the United Kingdom and France, among others) which made Kosovo’s secession a fait accompli, even though Serbia, Russia, and China were opposed to it. As Horowitz points out, “whether a secessionist movement will achieve its aims … is determined largely by international politics, by the balance of interests and forces that extend beyond the state.”11 Without great power recognition, and especially u.s. recognition, secessionist states cannot normally function in the interstate system, and their independence has almost no value on the international scene. These states are likely to fail to be admitted as members of the United Nations, since one or several permanent members of the Security Council can veto their application. Moreover, unrecognized secessionist states can hardly request economic support from the International Monetary Fund (imf) and the World Bank. The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (fyrom) faced this problem from 1991 to 1994, and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and Somaliland are still struggling with it. For these reasons, it is crucial for scholars and policy-makers to understand the motives behind the American response to secessionist crises. In this book I hope to make a significant contribution to the literature on American foreign policy and on third state intervention in secessionist conflicts.

terminology This research focuses on the American decision to grant or not grant diplomatic recognition to secessionist states, as opposed to simply supporting or not supporting secessionist movements. There is a major difference between granting diplomatic recognition and demonstrating solidarity through material and political means. Secessionist ambitions can be supported in various ways, such as by providing sanctuary, humanitarian aid, and funding, as well as by supporting the right of self-determination and military intervention.12 Granting diplomatic recognition, however, is the ultimate level of political-diplomatic support, and it has serious implications. It leads to the acceptance or refusal of new sovereign entities into the community of sovereign nations and, consequently, to the maintenance or disintegration of existing independent states. It is common to argue that material support is crucial for a secessionist state, as opposed to political support, which is often por-

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trayed as cheap and inconsequential. David Carment argues, for instance, that “demonstrating solidarity with an ethnic group has low cost implications. That is, decision makers can practice diplomacy ‘on the cheap.’” He adds, “states may become involved by applying political or diplomatic pressures, especially when they are unwilling or incapable of providing resources.”13 I agree with Carment that expressing solidarity can be cheap. In the end, however, it is political support that makes or breaks internationally recognized states, not material support. Alexis Heraclides is right when he maintains that “ultimately, it is numerous recognitions that will transform a secessionist entity (unilaterally declared state contravening the strict self-determination principle) into a state.”14 Thus, I focus not on the u.s. response toward all groups expressing secessionist ambitions but rather on conflicts in which secessionist states are formally attempting to split from their central state. More specifically, my research highlights how the United States uses its power to grant or deny diplomatic recognition in order to increase its political leverage in secessionist conflicts and to maximize its national interests. Over the years, there has been great confusion over the meaning of the words used to describe the process leading states to achieve independence. Some authors have used the words separation and secession interchangeably, while others have given a particular meaning to each of these concepts. Heraclides makes a clear distinction between these terms, which is important in the context of the present research. He explains that separatism is a movement seeking political autonomy within a state, such as federal status. Secessionism is a more radical enterprise to the extent that it is a movement seeking independence from a state.15 I believe that such a distinction is important to make in order to avoid confusion. In this book, I deal specifically with the issue of secession, which I define as the withdrawal of a political unit from an existing sovereign state to create a new independent and sovereign entity. The concept of stability-seeking, which is at the center of this book, should also be clarified. Stability is defined as a state of peace existing between sovereign states in a region. It implies the maintenance of and respect for international borders (including no refugees flowing across international borders) and non-intervention in states’ internal affairs. Taken together, these elements constitute the main interest of the United States toward secessionist conflicts.

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research methods This book focuses on six cases of u.s. response to secessionist crises: Croatia, Eritrea, Kosovo, Macedonia, Slovenia, and Somaliland. This choice allows me to study the variation in the u.s. response by focusing on u.s. recognition, delay of recognition, and non-recognition, thereby limiting the problem of selection bias and strengthening the external validity (or the generalizability) of the research. Moreover, I deal with cases from two different regional environments, the Balkans and the Horn of Africa so that I can not only measure variations between cases from the same regional setting but also appraise cross-regional variations. To evaluate the robustness of the stability argument presented in the next chapter, this research combines the methods of “structured, focused comparison” and “process-tracing”. This methodological combination allows me to focus systematically on facts that are relevant for the measurement of the argument as well as to make the appropriate connections between the stability argument and observable outcomes. I also look at two competing domestic arguments – related to ethnic politics and business interests – and compare them to the stability argument. This allows me to assess whether the proposed argument offers better explanations and predictions than the two main domestic propositions. This comparison should contribute to the debate concerning the main sources of u.s. foreign policy. Data Collection I have gathered information from various sources. Through the Freedom of Information Act (foia), I requested and obtained the declassification of cables and analyses produced by the State Department and by u.s. embassies on the selected cases. These documents were highly relevant for process-tracing, as they allowed the recreation of parts of the debates and discussions within the u.s. government leading to the recognition or non-recognition of the cases studied. Moreover, several interviews were conducted in Washington, dc, with former officials from the National Security Council and the State Department who worked on secessionist conflicts under the administrations of George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. I also relied on memoirs written by former

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u.s. officials who were involved in the formulation of the u.s. response to the selected cases.

the structure of this book Chapter 2 introduces the different theories of international relations and foreign policy that deal with foreign intervention in ethnic and secessionist conflicts. It shows that none of the existing arguments, whether domestic or international, provide satisfactory explanations for the research puzzle under investigation. As a result, the chapter proposes a new model of u.s. foreign policy. It delineates the stability argument by presenting its assumptions and logic, as well as by establishing a clear connection between u.s. interests and the concept of stability. Chapters 3 through 7 are empirical. They examine how the United States reacted to secessionist crises in the post–Cold War era and measure the stability theory, as well as competing domestic arguments. Chapter 3 focuses on the secessionist crises in Croatia and Slovenia that occurred in 1991–92. It explains why the United States initially refused to recognize the independence of these Yugoslav republics and why it shifted in favour of their recognition nine months later. Chapter 4 deals with the complex case of Macedonia, which unfolded from 1991 to 2004. It reviews how the crisis started and why it took thirteen years for the United States to complete the process of Macedonia’s diplomatic recognition. Chapter 5 completes the study of the Balkan region with the case of Kosovo, focusing on the unfolding of the crisis and analyzing the factors that led the White House to deny Kosovo’s recognition from 1991 to 2007 but to reverse its decision in early 2008. Macedonia and Kosovo provide interesting instances of u.s. recognition delay. Chapter 6 and 7 concentrate on the variation in the u.s. position towards two cases of secession in Africa: Eritrea and Somaliland. Chapter 6 highlights the reasons that led the United States to grant Eritrea’s recognition in 1993, after having supported Ethiopia, the central state, for more than forty years. The last empirical case, presented in Chapter 7, is that of Somaliland. I show why the u.s. government refused to support and to recognize this de facto independent state even though Somalilanders fulfilled most of the u.s. stability prerequisites. Finally, chapter 8 presents theoretical and empirical findings by reviewing the performance of the stability argument, as well as the

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competing domestic propositions. The broader theoretical contributions of the book are also presented, and the implications of the argument for states that are currently experiencing secessionist struggles are finally addressed.

the united states and secessionism in the twenty-first century The main objective of this book is to set the ground for future research on the United States and secessionism. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the United States still sits at the top of the international system and remains involved, at various levels, in the different regions of the world, seeking to fulfil its global interests. It is, therefore, very likely that the American superpower will be confronted with many other secessionist crises that will jeopardize its interests in the future. In a globalized world in which people tend to use identity and cultural differences as a basis for political demands, minority nationalism and secessionist claims will remain security concerns for Washington. Scholars have recently found that there are approximately five thousand ethno-linguistic groups in the world and that about three hundred of them are politically mobilized to defend their interests.16 This indicates that secessionism is and will continue to be a great source of international disruption for the United States, even if only a small portion of these groups seek secession. I do not pretend that secessionism is the most important security concern for the United States. Issues related to terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear weapons, for instance, certainly rank higher on the u.s. national security scale. However, secessionist conflicts have the potential to alter regional order by creating fluctuations in the distribution of states’ power, and they can disrupt international stability by undermining the territorial integrity of u.s. allies. In this respect, secessionism is an important security concern for the United States in this century, and a book dedicated to this subject is therefore required.

2 The Stability-Seeking Argument

introduction Despite the great number of intrastate conflicts in which the United States has been involved since the end of the Cold War, the literature on its foreign policy toward ethnic conflicts, and more specifically toward secessionist movements, is scarce. Several books and articles have been published on how the United States and the international community have responded to specific intrastate crises, but little work has focused on the u.s. response to secessionist conflicts. Those who have dedicated books to this issue have often been more interested in the normative aspect of the debate than in the theoretical one. Among the questions that are often addressed in the literature on u.s. interventions in ethnic conflicts, one appears to be central: under what conditions should the United States intervene in these conflicts? Although stimulating for intellectual discussions, this question does not contribute to the scientific understanding of when and why it does intervene in these conflicts. For instance, based on an analysis of successful and failed cases of u.s. prevention of and intervention in ethnic conflicts, David Callahan formulates normative proposals for avoiding future ethnic conflicts and suggests circumstances under which the United States should intervene when they do occur.1 His rich empirical analysis of several ethnic crises contributes to the debate regarding u.s. policy toward secessionist self-determination; however, he does not attempt to explain the variation in the u.s. decisions to intervene. Neither does he develop a theoretical argument that could be systematically applied to empirical cases to explain this puzzle. The same criticism can be addressed to Morton Halperin, David Scheffer, and Patricia

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Small, who dedicated a book to how the United States and the international community should respond to separatist self-determination in what they call the New World Order.2 Driven by normative considerations, their analysis, conducted in the early 1990s, is empirically strong but does not include any theoretical framework that could explain patterns of foreign policy behaviour. They are more interested in what should be than in what is. Henry Bienen has also focused on u.s. foreign policy toward ethnic conflicts.3 Even though he raises several interesting questions regarding why and when the United States should intervene, his analysis is purely normative and motivated by the desire to formulate responses to ethnic nationalism that best suit American capacity and interests, rather than by the aim of understanding a defined research puzzle. Evelyn Farkas, adopts a different approach. She compares three instances of intra-state conflicts in the 1990s (i.e., Iraq in 1991, Ethiopia, and Bosnia) in an attempt to explain u.s. policy regarding state partition.4 Although interesting and comprehensive, her work is not theoretically driven and does not allow the development of a consistent theoretical model that explains and predicts the behaviour of the United States toward secessionist crises. Farkas does identify some factors that influence policy-makers, but she does not insert them into a coherent theory of foreign policy. In a recent book, Steven David argues that civil wars have replaced international conflicts as the pre-eminent threat to vital American interests. According to him, certain states that are strategically important to the United States, such as Pakistan and China, are likely to fall into civil war, which would significantly damage American vital interests.5 David argues that civil wars are the greatest threat to the United States in the twenty-first century because they are impossible to deter and, even if they are not directed toward the United States, their consequences can be catastrophic for it (e.g., if they result in the use of weapons of mass destruction or the collapse of the world capitalist system). His speculative work is well documented and focuses on an area of research that is increasingly important for u.s. national security. David builds his research on an interesting theoretical assertion: he maintains that “in the post–Cold War world America’s security and economic well-being depend upon order being maintained in certain key states.”6 This argument, however, is not grounded in the literature

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and does not flesh out the theoretical mechanism that connects order to u.s. foreign policy. Moreover, his research deals with the prospect of instability in four states identified as vital to u.s. interests and does not explain or predict u.s. foreign policy response toward these potential intra-state conflicts. Thus, recent studies that have focused on American foreign policy toward intrastate, ethnic, or secessionist conflicts have failed to produce theoretical models that make sense of the American policy response (including its variation over time) toward these conflicts. What’s more, these studies have neglected the issue of secessionism per se, and none of them have addressed our research puzzle. Aside from the u.s. foreign policy literature on ethnic conflicts, the literature in international relations has attempted to identify the factors that explain third state intervention in ethnic and secessionist conflicts. Experts in international relations often divide these factors into two categories: systemic and domestic. The former category assumes that the international environment is the central determinant of third state intervention. As for the latter, it asserts that a third state’s internal politics best explain intervention and that domestic groups within the state have the greatest impact on foreign policy decision making. The question is whether this international relations literature can explain the foreign policy puzzle under investigation.

security and power Neo-realists argue that security and power are the central determinant of interstate interaction and that states follow the same rationale when deciding whether to intervene in internal conflicts. In recent years, debates among realists have brought out two competing versions of realism, known as offensive and defensive realism.7 According to offensive realists, security can be only partially assured, because states cannot be certain of the intentions of others. As a result, they will try to increase their power in order to achieve more security by aggressively competing with one another.8 Defensive realists, on the contrary, argue that international anarchy makes states anxious about their security, which inevitably leads them to balance power and threat in order to weaken hegemonic states and prevent stability gaps and vulnerability.9

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Stephen Saideman is one of the few scholars who has extended the defensive realist rationale to secession. By applying Stephen Walt’s balance of threat argument to secessionist conflicts, he evaluates whether security considerations drive states to support secessionist movements abroad to diminish threatening states. His objective is to measure whether or not secessionist groups within strong states receive more support than those in weaker states. As he points out, “since balancing is ‘the most central pattern’ in international relations for realists, we ought to expect that states will tend to support the weaker states and assist separatist movements in the stronger, more threatening states.”10 By analyzing three secessionist crises (in the Congo, Nigeria, and Yugoslavia) from which he compiled a total of forty-three cases of third-state intervention, Saideman demonstrates that this argument is weakly supported by empirical evidence. His study shows that the balance of threat argument was right in predicting only fifteen of the forty-three cases of interventions, indicating that the balance of threat logic is not the driving force behind state intervention in secessionist conflicts. Moreover, this argument often leads to unpredictable observations: it is unable to predict the behaviour of states that are neither entirely threatened by central states nor entirely threatened by secessionist movements.11 Alexis Heraclides also shows that security concerns fail to explain third party intervention. His analysis suggests that during the Cold War, superpowers did not balance their power by supporting opposing sides in secessionist conflicts in order to increase their security.12 On the contrary, the United States and the Soviet Union tried to avoid antagonistic policies on these issues. Furthermore, I maintain that in addition to being empirically weak, the balance of threat cannot be used in a credible argument to explain the behaviour of the United States towards secessionist movements. Did the United States recognize Chechnya, Tibet, and Taiwan in order to sap the strength of Russia or China? The answer is no. Although the United States raised the issue of human rights abuses in Chechnya throughout the 1990s, it maintained that the Chechen secessionist issue was a Russian internal matter. Moreover, it refused to adopt a double foreign policy toward China in order to deal separately with Taiwan, and it did not question China’s sovereignty over Tibet. We can assume that u.s. support for major powers’ secessionist movements would be likely to produce retaliation

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against it, instead of producing greater security. For all of the above reasons, the security assumption is a weak one that is not supported by empirical evidence. Offensive realism leads to a different argument. By focusing on power maximization, rather than on security, it assumes that strong states like the United States are tempted to support secessionist groups in weaker states to increase their relative power in geostrategic areas. This argument maintains that weak states cannot effectively retaliate against strong interveners and therefore that the cost of supporting secessionists is inconsequential to dominant powers. This argument is consistent with Mearsheimer’s assertion that “great powers are rarely content with the current distribution of power” and that “they face a constant incentive to change it in their favor […] if they think it can be done at a reasonable price.”13 Research demonstrates, however, that secessionist groups evolving in weak states are not more likely to obtain greater foreign support from strong states than from other states.14 In other words, third states’ relative power does not affect the level of support granted to their secessionist movements. As for the specific case of the United States, one could argue that u.s. support for secessionist groups in weaker states cannot be provided at a “reasonable price,” because such a decision would be likely to produce instability resulting from ethnic tensions, civil war, and secessionist diffusion. The United States has been opposed to secessionist efforts in both strong and weaker states mainly for stability considerations. The maximization of power argument, therefore, is not convincing enough to be retained as a credible hypothesis to explain u.s. behaviour toward secessionism. In sum, the logic of a balance of threat and power maximization would lead to effects that were counter-productive to the United States’ interest.

regimes and norms Liberal institutionalists argue that because the stability of the international system is the basis for cooperation among states and for economic prosperity, states obey an anti-secessionist regime that emanated from un declarations and treaties on self-determination; they do so in order to preserve the territorial status quo. Mark Zacher indicates that this regime is founded on a principle of terri-

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torial integrity that was strongly supported by the United Nations, the Arab League, and the Organization of American States in the aftermath of the Second World War, and later by the Organization of African Unity.15 The objective of the normative regime against secession is to limit the circumstances under which nations have the right to independence. It was created around three types of norms that are not mutually exclusive but that must be understood as forming an international code of conduct. First, only peoples under colonial rule have the right to declare their independence by claiming selfdetermination. Second, states must conform to the norm of diplomatic recognition: only self-determined entities (i.e., entities evolving under colonial rule) can be recognized as sovereign states. Finally, the non-intervention norm forbids states from intervening in others’ internal affairs.16 A third state recognizing a secessionist movement that did not qualify as a self-determined unit would be intruding in the internal affairs of another state. Liberal institutionalists argue that states conform to these norms of behaviour because they strengthen the structure of the international system by promoting stability, which guarantees mutual and absolute gains among sovereign states. Liberal institutionalists maintain that this international regime constitutes a strong barrier against secession. They have overstated, however, the impact of this regime on states’ foreign policy. Indeed, states have departed on multiple occasions from this regime by supporting secessionist movements. Belgian support for Katanga and French support for Biafra in the 1960s or Russian military and economic support for Trans-Dniester in the early 1990s are good examples. Some states have even extended unilateral recognition to secessionist states, which constitutes a violation of the secessionist regime. The recognition of Biafra’s secession in the 1960s by Gabon, the Ivory Coast, Tanzania, and Zambia, the Indian recognition of Bangladesh in 1971, the Turkish recognition of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in the early 1980s, the unilateral German recognition of Croatia and Slovenia, and, more recently, the u.s. recognition of Kosovo’s secession and Russia’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia are interesting cases of defection from regime cooperation. It is true that during the Cold War the United States’ attitude towards secessionist efforts conformed to the normative regime

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against secession. In fact, the measures contained in the un Charter regarding secessionist self-determination were largely a reflection of u.s. interests. The United States repeatedly condemned secessionism as highly disruptive and was strongly committed to states’ territorial integrity in order to maintain the stability of the bipolar system.17 Facts indicate, however, that the end of the bipolar era strongly reduced the impact of anti-secessionist norms on u.s. behaviour towards secession, since Washington departed on several occasions from that regime. The examples of u.s. recognition of Croatia, East Timor, Eritrea, and Kosovo show the failure of the liberal institutionalist argument. The proposition of an anti-secessionist regime cannot therefore explain the inconsistency in the u.s. response to secessionist efforts since the early 1990s.

civilizational ties In an article published in Foreign Affairs, Samuel Huntington argues that cultural ties between political entities – which he calls civilizations – will replace ideological confrontations and considerations of power politics as the main source of domestic and international conflicts in the post–Cold War era. Huntington asserts that from now on, wars will mainly occur across cultural fault lines dividing world civilizations. According to him, “groups or states belonging to one civilization that become involved in war with people from a different civilization naturally try to rally support from other members of their own civilization.”18 In other words, political entities sharing the same religious roots and a similar politicoeconomic evolution support and defend one another. To demonstrate the accuracy of his argument, Huntington gives several examples where cultural differences are a great incentive to interstate and intrastate conflicts. He maintains, for instance, that thirdstates’ responses to secessionist quarrels are shaped by cultural ties. A foreign state would, therefore, support the side in a secessionist conflict with which it shares civilizational kin. Huntington argues that Germany, the European Community, and the United States supported and recognized the independence of Croatia and Slovenia from Yugoslavia in 1992 because these two Yugoslav Roman Catholic republics were part of Western civilization, while the other republics were either part of the Slavic-Orthodox or the Islamic cultural alliance.

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Although interesting and imaginative, the cultural-ties argument is flawed, at least when applied to American behaviour toward secessionism. The United States recognized Bosnia-Herzegovina’s independence in the early stage of the Yugoslav conflict, even though Bosnia amalgamated Muslim, Slavic-Orthodox, and Western cultures. The United States also led a nato intervention against Slavic-Orthodox Serbia to defend and support the political autonomy of Muslim Kosovo and eventually recognized its unilateral secession from Serbia. How would the proponents of the culturaltie argument explain these decisions? Christian Serbia had closer ties to Western civilization than did Muslim Albanians from Kosovo. The United States should therefore have supported Serbia’s struggle against secessionists of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Moreover, how can Huntington explain why the United States was the first state to recognize the independence of Eritrea, which is predominantly Muslim, from Christian Ethiopia? Again, if the civilizational argument were right, the United States would have stood by its “coreligionists” and supported Ethiopia’s territorial integrity. The motivations behind the u.s. decision to support one party in a secessionist conflict have therefore to be found elsewhere. Other scholars have focused their attention on domestic politics to explain third-states’ foreign policy toward ethnic and secessionist conflicts. They assume that decision makers are rational actors who try to stay in power by maintaining domestic support and by taking into account the strengths and weaknesses of their state when making foreign policy decisions toward secessionist movements. Based on these premises, scholars have developed three main arguments that examine the topic through the lens of internal vulnerability, ethnic politics, and business interests.

internal vulnerability Neoliberals argue that a state’s own vulnerability to internal ethnic turmoil inhibits it from supporting foreign secessionist movements. This proposition, known as the vulnerability argument, was first applied to the African regional context.19 According to this claim, vulnerability explains why states embrace international norms of cooperation such as the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other states. Neoliberals assert that the common vulnerability of African states is a strong incentive for cooperation

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because defection in this case would be likely to result in a dangerous domino effect leading to the infinite redrawing of African borders.20 Neoliberals therefore argue that African states persist over time despite the strength of secessionist movements because leaders have no choice but to accept rules and norms of cooperation. Some observers have demonstrated that vulnerable third states (including African states) are not deterred from supporting secessionist groups elsewhere and that international norms of cooperation among vulnerable states do not account for foreign policy decision-making.21 Although straightforward and parsimonious, this argument has recently been proven false. Some commentators have also shown that multiethnic states (especially those vulnerable to separatism) are not less likely to support secessionists than homogenous states.22 This argument is different from the regime/norms proposition described previously, since it presumes that domestic vulnerability to secessionism, rather than an international regime, provides the central motive that inhibits states from intervening in intrastate conflicts. However, the expectation of both propositions is basically the same, since they both assert that states follow international norms of non-intervention. It is also interesting to note that by refuting the vulnerability argument, analysts have also demonstrated that norms of cooperation do not really inhibit states from supporting secessionist efforts. Furthermore, the vulnerability argument is not appropriate for understanding the foreign policy behaviour of the United States. If it was vulnerable to secessionism, how could we explain the observation that it has supported and recognized secessionist states? Vulnerability cannot account for the fluctuation of the American response to secessionist crises since the early 1990s. Moreover, the multicultural composition of u.s. society and its emphasis on civic and constitutional nationalism makes it resistant to secessionist claims. The indivisibility of the u.s. republic, which resulted from the Civil War, is a constitutional principle that has been an integral part of the American political culture for almost 150 years. Obviously, that does not mean that the United States is totally invulnerable to secessionist aspirations. Texas and Hawaii, for example, have a long history of separatist claims. Latin Americans are also increasingly powerful in the southwest states and may eventually develop separatist ambitions. But overall, we can argue that the

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United States has a low level of vulnerability to secessionism compared to other Western states such as Canada, the United Kingdom, or France, which are facing strong secessionist movements, respectively, in Quebec, Scotland, and Corsica. Thus, in addition to being empirically refuted by scholars, the vulnerability argument seems very unlikely to explain the u.s. attitude toward secessionist movements.

domestic ethnic lobbies In the post–Cold War era, several analysts have moved away from external sources of foreign policy to concentrate on domestic factors. The context of the 1990s engendered a broad range of research that scrutinized, among other things, the impact of domestic ethnic lobbies on the decision-making process.23 Ethnic lobbies are important agents of foreign policy because they can influence decisions with money and votes. Several ethnic lobbies contribute financially to the campaign of presidential candidates and often influence the vote of u.s. ethnic diasporas during elections.24 As Ambrosio points out, “politicians often appeal to the interests of key ethnic identity groups in order to tap into the ‘ethnic money’ and to garner more votes.”25 For these reasons, the ethnic-lobby argument, which was seen as idiosyncratic a few years ago, has been increasingly theorized in the last two decades, and several analysts now argue that u.s. foreign policy is increasingly the product of these lobbies. Henry Nau maintains, for instance, that u.s. ethnic groups are now a major determinant of American foreign policy. According to him, u.s. foreign policy has been transformed “into a patchwork of ethnic … particularisms.”26 Yossi Shain even questions whether u.s. foreign policy still promotes the national interest or whether it has been undermined by diaspora interests.27 This is not a new issue. Glazer and Moynihan, for example, argued in the 1970s that ethnic influence was “the single most important determinant of American foreign policy.”28 John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have recently jumped into the debate on the role of ethnic lobbies, which has given additional weight to this argument. Mearsheimer and Walt make the case that the Jewish American lobby has “managed to skew” u.s. foreign policy in the Middle East by convincing the American people that u.s. and Israeli interests are identical.29 Former u.s. national

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security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski has also questioned the effect of these lobbies. According to him, ethnic groups are increasingly powerful and have a major impact on the definition of the American national interest.30 Brzezinski believes that the academic and foreign policy communities must have a “serious debate” on this important issue. This ethnic domestic angle of foreign policy analysis matters greatly in the context of this book because it has been used to explain the American response to ethnic conflicts and secessionist movements since the 1990s. Yossi Shain, for example, asserts that some ethnic groups in the United States have been able to pressure u.s. leaders to adopt supportive policies towards national self-determination movements in Central and Eastern Europe.31 His argument implies that u.s. ethnic lobbies often influence which side the United States supports in a secessionist conflict abroad, and he gives the example of the Croat-Americans who led an active campaign for the American recognition of Croatia in 1991–92.32 Ethnic politics has been increasingly regarded as a central motive for third-state intervention in ethnic conflicts. Saideman argues, for instance, that states support the side of an ethnic conflict that shares ethnic ties with leaders’ constituents: “ethnic politics serves as a critical dynamic compelling some politicians to support secession elsewhere while constraining others.”33 His work clearly demonstrates that there is a strong relationship between ethnic ties and third-state foreign policy toward secessionist crises.34 However, despite the persuasiveness of his argument, it falls short in predicting u.s. foreign policy. As Saideman himself notes, the United States deviates from the ethnic-ties explanation and, therefore, does not conform to the argument. He explains the anomaly of this situation by arguing that low levels of competition between ethnic groups for government’s attention could account for the wrong prediction. We could also argue that the u.s. multicultural composition transforms ethnic groups into antagonist forces that cancel out each others’ efforts to influence American decision makers or that the executive branch of the u.s. government does not pay much attention to ethnic considerations when they concern a small portion of the u.s. electorate. Nevertheless, the ethnic-lobby argument continues to be a serious alternative explanation to the research puzzle under investigation, and it is now used as a core argument to explain u.s. policy toward

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secessionist movements. It has been studied in several policy-oriented works. However, it has not been systematically evaluated by social-scientific inquiries. In some cases, analysts seem to raise examples that support their ethnic-lobby assumptions well, but they never perform scientific work to test their argument. Moreover, few ethnic groups are well organized in the United States, with the exception of groups of Greek, Jewish, and Irish descent, as well as Cuban Americans. As John Stack points out, “In the United States, ethnic involvement in foreign policy has been only as effective as the national security elite allowed it to be.”35 Most of the groups are small associations that are not powerful enough to affect u.s. foreign policy. Most of them have little money, little political influence, and little or simply no access to the government. I am not arguing here that ethnic lobbies are not important political actors in the United States. I maintain, however, that their impact on the formulation of American policy toward secessionist movements must be weighed against the impact of other factors. Since no scientific work has been conducted in the United States to verify this assertion, the research presented here will attempt to systematically measure the accuracy of the ethnic-lobby argument.

business interests According to some observers, American private business interests strongly affect u.s. policy towards secessionist conflicts and account for the variation in Washington’s responses. David Gibbs argues that politicians make policies that are in the interest of corporations with which they share strong ties. As he mentions, “politicians and business people act rationally to further their respective self-interests, and such rational behaviour influences the conduct of foreign policy.”36 Gibbs assumes that u.s. economic groups are divided according to different interests and compete to maximize those interests. As a result, the u.s. government is frequently torn between conflicting foreign economic interests when making policies. Gibbs argues, however, that at the end of the day, the private economic connections of u.s. decision makers are strongly reflected in American foreign policy towards secessionist movements. He tests his argument using the Congo crisis of 1960 and shows that some u.s. economic groups favoured the secession of Katanga from the Congo because they were expecting to replace

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Belgian industries in the seceding province, while other business groups opposed secession because they were tied to Belgium and, therefore, their interests lay in a united Congo. Gibbs’s analysis also demonstrates that u.s. foreign policy towards the Congo fluctuated from the Eisenhower to the Kennedy administration because each government was tied to different business interests. The business-interest argument is interesting; however, Gibbs’s analysis focuses only on the Congo case, which greatly limits the validity and robustness of his model. Despite this empirical weakness, he maintains that the argument can also apply to other situations with even more relevance, because u.s. businesses had less interest in the Congo than in other regions. We can disagree with this claim and counter-argue that secessionist attempts often arise in developing countries (e.g., Eritrea, East Timor, Somaliland) where the United States has little economic interest, contrary to the case of the Congo, which had enormous reserves of diamonds, gold, and silver. Therefore, it is doubtful that the business-interest argument effectively accounts for u.s. foreign policy variation in other cases. Considering that secessionist efforts are often disruptive, it is far from obvious that u.s. business groups could benefit from secession. Think about Bosnia-Herzegovina, East Timor, and Eritrea, for example, where ethnic tensions led to political and economic chaos. One could argue, rather, that u.s. business groups always favour stability and secure investments to any secessionist changes, whatever their interests in the host state. Furthermore, Alexis Heraclides refutes the neo-colonialist argument, according to which industrialized states benefit from secessionist conflicts by treating secessionist leaders as political puppets to maximize their material interests. His research, based on seven postwar secessionist movements, demonstrates, on the contrary, that Western developed states are in fact less likely than developing countries to support secessionist efforts.37 In 1960 the Congo was a freshly born state with a high level of economic dependency on Belgium and strong polarization between foreign economic interests. Consequently, the case of the Congo appears to be the exception rather than the rule. Moreover, there is a surprising weakness in Gibbs’s approach, which does not pay much attention to the relative importance of business interests. He does not make a distinction, for instance, between strategic and non-strategic materials as a determinant of

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policies: diamonds versus oil, for example. Yet, strategic and nonstrategic goods probably have a different impact on u.s. policy toward secessionist crises. Despite these weaknesses, Gibbs’s business-interest argument needs more investigation. After all, it is common to assume that the United States’ economic interest is the driving force behind its foreign policy and that the American response to secessionist crises varies on the basis of its economic preferences. This common belief must be challenged by testing it on other empirical cases. Additional testing might also reveal whether strategic and non-strategic interests cause a fluctuation in the u.s. response to secessionist crises. Table 2.1 gives an overview of the different arguments on third states’ intervention in secessionist conflicts that have been presented above.

discussion This overview of the different foreign policy and international relations arguments relevant to the puzzle under investigation shows that this study of the American response to secessionist conflicts fits into broader questions of interest to international relations specialists. There is, indeed, a rich body of literature examining third states’ motives for intervention. Several arguments have also been developed to explain why states might decide to support secessionist movements and under what circumstances they may be inhibited from doing so. However, it appears that scholars are mainly interested in generating large-scale theories of third-party intervention, rather than foreign policy arguments adapted to particular states. Analyses of u.s. foreign policy toward ethnic conflicts continue to be too general in scope, and they fail to perform systematic measurements of the assertions and arguments that they put forward. They remain in the policy realm and seem better at raising issues than at risking potential answers. In addition, most of the work done on this subject deals with third-state support for ethnic and secessionist groups, rather than with third-state recognition or non-recognition of secessionist states. This matters greatly. As mentioned in the introduction, there is a difference between a third party’s ideological encouragement to a secessionist movement and the extension of politico-diplomatic

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Table 2.1 Competing Arguments about Interventions in Secessionist Conflicts Type

Argument

Systemic factors

Security States support secessionist states abroad to weaken threatening powers. Thus, secessionist groups within threatening states receive more support than those in weaker states. Power Strong states support secessionist groups in weaker states to increase their relative power. Norms States obey anti-secessionist norms because these norms strengthen the structure of the international system by promoting stability. This favours mutual gains among sovereign states. Civilizational tie States support the side in a secessionist conflict with which they share a civilizational bond.

Domestic factors

Vulnerability States’ own vulnerability to internal ethnic turmoil inhibits them from supporting foreign secessionist states abroad. Ethnic Lobbies* U.S.-based diasporas affect the conduct of American foreign policy toward secessionist conflicts in their homelands. Business Interests* The private economic connections of u.s. decision makers are strongly reflected in American foreign policy towards secessionist crises.

* Arguments need further testing and will be systematically measured.

recognition to a secessionist state. A third state that supports a secessionist group does not necessarily want to grant it formal recognition and may simply use the issue as a political tool to achieve other goals. International support for secessionist groups has been relatively frequent and expressed in different ways.38 Diplomatic recognition of statehood has been, however, quite rare

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since 1945. Because of this substantive difference between simple support and formal recognition of secession, it would be wrong to conclude that factors explaining third-state intervention in ethnic conflicts are logically the same as those explaining diplomatic recognition of secessionist states. The literature on third party intervention in ethnic conflicts, therefore, has limitations in explaining international recognition. In the light of the theoretical evidence, a new theoretical model focusing on American foreign policy toward secessionism is needed for the following reasons: •

•

•

•

•

•

The rare analyses of u.s. foreign policy toward ethnic conflicts are too broad and suffer from a lack of methodological rigour. Domestic arguments concerning u.s. foreign policy toward secession appear to be overstated – namely, arguments concerning business interests and ethnic politics. Current systemic models (neorealist and neoliberal) of third states’ intervention are empirically refuted and deductively fail to account for the u.s. response to secessionist efforts. Scholars have focused their attention on third states’ support for secessionist groups rather than on third states’ recognition of secessionist states, which is substantively different. Scholars have neglected the study of the u.s. superpower’s foreign policy towards secessionism, which is a crucial aspect of the international dimension of secession. Because secessionist movements remain an enduring challenge to international stability at the dawn of the twenty-first century, a coherent model of American policy toward secessionism is needed.

a n e w t heoreti cal explanati on: stability-seeking This book builds on the defensive version of realism. It asserts that the United States is a “defensive positionalist” state, a term that was initially coined by Joseph Grieco and that refines defensive realism.39 According to defensive positionalism, states are unitaryrational agents that seek to maintain their relative position and are “sensitive to any erosion of their relative capabilities” since the preservation of their power guarantees their security in a self-help international system.40 States therefore prefer to work in favour of

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the status quo rather than against it; they are not “gap maximizers” but “gap avoiders.”41 They consider stability gaps as security threats rather than as power opportunities. Thus, they try to avoid instability and insecurity because such conditions increase their vulnerability and could help other states to improve their relative power. In sum, states focus on the preservation of their position in the system rather than on power maximization. The United States as a Stability-Seeking Power I argue that defensive positionalism applies in great depth to the United States, because the American superpower sits at the top of the international power structure. Its position in the international system and its security are maintained by the prevention of power losses that could originate from instability in the system. This is why regional stability matters greatly for Washington. I assert that minimizing stability gaps, that is reducing or eliminating relative gains (whether economic, military, or political ones) that could favour rival states or enemies, defines u.s. interests. In recent history, the United States has attempted on several occasions to minimize stability gaps. During the Cold War, for instance, it relied on export controls to weaken Soviet economic and military resources, in order to eliminate potential gains for the ussr made at u.s. expense.42 Implications for U.S. Policy toward Secessionist States Washington addresses secessionist issues not from an objective and neutral point of view but from a pessimistic one. The need to prevent power losses and to minimize stability gaps explains why the United States has been cautious in not encouraging secessionist states abroad.43 The fear that such an action might encourage other secessionist movements to seek independence, which would endanger the management of world peace, has led the United States to maintain an anti-secessionist bias. As Henry Bienen correctly points out, u.s. decision makers have been more concerned “with stability of the state system … more concerned about not opening the Pandora’s box of ethnically based demands for new nation-states, than they have been concerned to support self-determination everywhere as a principle.”44 It is, therefore, not surprising that the United

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States prefers the maintenance of large multinational countries that can accommodate nationalities and minorities rather than small destabilizing secessionist states. Historically, secessionist movements have stood out as one of the factors most disturbing to stability in the world.45 They have created geopolitical turbulence and threatened to alter international borders. They have provoked, among other things, civil wars in places like Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Moldova. They have also led to the escalation of conflict by generating foreign states’ incentives to intervene. India’s intervention in favour of the Tamils in Sri Lanka, Armenia’s support for Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan, and Albania’s support for Kosovo are three examples showing the propensity of secessionist crises to become internationalized. This pattern has led Alexis Heraclides to argue that secession is “the most unmanageable of the great security challenges of the post–Cold War era.”46 As a stability-seeking state, the United States, therefore, favours the containment of secessionist claims within existing sovereign states as a way to preserve the stability of regional systems. But then the central puzzle remains: if the United States is a stability-seeking power, or a defensive positionalist state, how can we explain its recognition of the secession of several states in the post–Cold War era? How can we explain the fact that it agreed to such territorial modifications? I argue that the United States is sometimes compelled to break with its state integrity policy because supporting territorial sovereignty is not always a guarantee of stability and can actually become, under certain conditions, a serious cause of regional disruption. For example, a state that persecutes its secessionist minority in the name of territorial integrity may end up creating regional instability, as well as international tensions with other states. The Serbian military repression of secessionist Albanians in Kosovo in 1998–99 produced such an outcome and led nato forces to intervene against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (fry). Before the nato intervention, the un high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) estimated that more than ninety thousand Kosovar Albanians had fled to Albania and Macedonia in reaction to Serbian violence, which produced regional disturbance.47 Thus, providing support to central states that are disruptive is not always in the best strategic interest of the United States, because

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such a policy can end up encouraging regional disorder. I maintain that under certain specific circumstances and in order to avoid or reduce stability gaps, the United States can choose to end support for a central state and to assist instead one or several of its secessionist entities. The argument proceeds in two steps. Here is how it works. First Step: The United States Supports State Integrity scenario 1. The United States will support state unity as long as the central government of a state maintains external stability by containing – either peacefully or by force – a secessionist crisis within its borders. Canada is a prime example of a state that peacefully managed a secessionist movement and preserved external stability. The referendum on secession held by the Quebec government in 1995 was a democratic exercise that had the approval of the Canadian state. The debate over Quebec’s independence was peaceful and democratic, and it was limited to Quebec and Canada. No international dispute resulted from this event. During the referendum campaign, the Clinton administration supported Canadian national unity but stated, at the same time, that the issue was an internal Canadian affair.48 scenario 2. The United States will adopt a similar policy in favour of state integrity in cases where a central government maintains external stability but relies on military repression to prevent territorial breakup. The Indonesian war against secessionists in Aceh – the far west province of Indonesia – is a good example of this scenario. Following the Indonesian military crackdown in the secessionist province, the United States reaffirmed its support for Indonesia’s territorial integrity and encouraged Jakarta to improve its political relationship with the Aceheses so that unity could be maintained. u.s. support was reiterated, despite Jakarta’s military operations in Aceh, which caused more than fifteen thousand deaths and six thousand displaced persons from 1977 to 1999 and about two thousand deaths in recent years.49 Moreover, u.s. support was reaffirmed even though the Indonesian government constantly rejected Aceh’s proposal to hold a democratic referendum on the political future of the province. As the two cases just mentioned show, secessionists can be treated very differently by their central governments. Quebecers were

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allowed to express themselves in a referendum on secession, while Aceheses were brutally repressed. But what is important here is that both Canada and Indonesia managed to contain secessionism within their borders in their regional environment (North America and Southeast Asia, respectively). This explains, according to the stability-seeking argument, why the United States responsed in a similar way to both cases. scenario 3. When a central state is unable to guarantee external stability but is open to negotiation with secessionists and/or to third-party mediation, the United States will remain committed to state integrity. It will estimate that supporting the central government remains the best way to restore order (i.e., to eliminate stability gaps). The expected stability benefits that would eventually procure the unity of the central state will exceed the cost of the external disorder currently produced by the secessionist conflict. Therefore, as long as the central state demonstrates its openness and/or capacity to settle its internal secessionist crisis, the United States will categorically oppose secessionist efforts and support state unity. This explains why, for instance, the American government remained committed to Moldova’s unity during its war against Trans-Dniester’s secessionists. Following Trans-Dniester’s declaration of independence in 1991, the Moldovan government was unable to contain the conflict within its borders, and the crisis created important regional disorder. Russian forces intervened in Trans-Dniester to protect Russian populations, and Romanian citizens crossed the border to express their solidarity with Moldovan authorities.50 Within a few months, several thousands of Russianspeaking Transdnistrians fled to Ukraine because of the war, and by the summer of 1992 there were more than one hundred thousand refugees.51 At the same time, however, the government of Moldova demonstrated its desire to settle the issue by initiating negotiations with secessionists and by accepting foreign mediation. It agreed to provide economic and cultural autonomy to Trans-Dniester, and a political agreement sponsored by Russia, Ukraine, and the osce was reached by the two parties in 1997. Throughout the conflict, the United States supported Moldova’s government. Although Washington was not directly involved in peace negotiations, it was represented within the osce. The attitude shown by the Moldovan

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state during the secessionist conflict had a decisive impact on the evolution of the u.s. policy. Moldova’s will to resolve the crisis led the Americans, as well as regional powers, to uphold their support in favour of its integrity and to oppose the self-proclaimed Transdniestran Moldovan Republic. Had Moldova acted in bad faith by opposing political negotiations and mediation, the stability-seeking argument predicts that the United States would have reconsidered its diplomatic options and might have supported Trans-Dniester’s independence. So far, the logic of the stability-seeking argument leads us to predict that the United States will support central states either because they contain their secessionist factions within their borders or because the maintenance of their integrity provides opportunities for the restoration of stability. The regional-stability argument maintains, however, that this consistency in the u.s. response to secessionist crises will not hold in cases where the central state is neither open to negotiations and/or foreign mediation nor able to contain its secessionist crisis within its borders. scenario 4. If the central state fails both at the domestic and at the external level, the theory predicts that the u.s. calculation of costs and benefits will radically change and that the presidency will be pressed to modify its position. The United States will conclude that the central state no longer has the capacity to resolve the crisis and that it is a central obstacle to the restoration of regional stability. American decision makers will regard the support and recognition of secessionist states as a political tool to bring back stability and peace in the disputed region. At some point, Yugoslavia fell into that category of states (see chapter 3). The Yugoslav federal government was paralyzed in the early 1990s as a result of Serbian and Croatian opposition to state reforms, which led Slovenia and Croatia to secede from the federation in 1991, with several major consequences: it resulted in a war between Croatia and Serbia that quickly spread to Bosnia, it precipitated Yugoslavia’s disintegration, and it produced large numbers of refugees who fled to neighbouring states. As a result of the disturbance, Yugoslavia could no longer either initiate domestic negotiations between its republics or contain the conflict within its borders. When it became clear that the federation would no longer hold and that the recognition of secessionist republics was the only

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way to slowly restore stability in the Balkans, the United States shifted its policy and acknowledged independence in 1992, even though it had been one of the strongest supporters of Yugoslavia’s territorial integrity. Yugoslavia serves, therefore, as an unfortunate example of what happens when external stability and internal negotiations fail. This raises another important theoretical question: what constitutes “stability-seeking” and how can it be systematically measured? The next section delineates a series of indicators that define the notion of regional stability and provides theoretical mechanisms that establish a clear connection between u.s. foreign policy and stability-seeking. Measuring the First Step of the Stability-Seeking Argument The factors of external stability and internal negotiation are at the center of u.s. decisions to support or not to support central states and constitute the first step of the stability-seeking argument. It is important to mention that the central state must simultaneously fail internally and externally for u.s. policy to change. The external-stability factor is intimately linked to the Westphalian conception of sovereignty, which is based on states’ territoriality and on the principle of the non-violation of states’ sovereignty. A derogation of this principle will produce interstate instability. But how do we know whether a central government fails to maintain external stability? What accounts for its variation? Two indicators allow the fluctuation in stability to be measured. The presence or absence of cross-national refugees is the first. Intrastate conflicts resulting from secessionist attempts can produce international refugees, which constitutes a violation of sovereign states’ borders. Cross-national refugees are likely to disrupt the internal order of neighbouring states, to unbalance their ethnic composition, to inflict higher economic costs on them, and even to foment ethnic conflicts. Central states that fail to contain their populations within their borders while struggling against secessionists will, therefore, cause regional instability. In a recent study, Salehyan and Gleditsch show that cross-national refugees are a major cause of the diffusion of intrastate conflicts and of regional instability.52 The second indicator has to do with whether or not protagonists violate the territorial integrity of contiguous states during the seces-

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Table 2.2 First Step of the Argument External Stability Indicators of a Central State’s External Instability: The secessionist conflict produces a cross-national refugee flow. Protagonists in a secessionist conflict violate the sovereignty of neighbouring states. Internal Negotiations Indicators of a Central State’s Failure to Negotiate: The central government refuses to negotiate with secessionists. The central government rejects third party mediation. Central authorities exercise military repression against secessionists. The central state is paralyzed or collapses.

sionist dispute. The intrusion, for instance, of secessionist fighters or of the central government’s military into neighbouring states as part of a political or military tactic may create great regional disturbances and increase the chances of interstate disputes. Heraclides demonstrates that contiguous states are naturally inclined to intervene in secessionist conflicts at their doorstep.53 It is, therefore, reasonable to assume that the territorial violation of a contiguous state by either the central state or the secessionists risks accelerating the intervention of the contiguous state in the conflict.54 Indicators of the failure of internal negotiations are very straightforward. They are essentially the factors preventing a political resolution of a given secessionist crisis. The central state will fail at the internal level if it is categorically opposed to political negotiations with secessionists, if it rejects the mediation of third states or international organizations (e.g., the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the African Union, the European Union, etc.), if it uses military repression against secessionists, or finally, if the central government is paralyzed or collapses, thereby making any resolution of the conflict impossible (see table 2.2 for a summary). The stability-seeking argument assumes that the central state does not necessarily have to exhibit all these types of instability to

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be considered a disturbing agent by the United States. Rather, the United States may undertake a significant political shift in favour of the secessionists if at least one external and one internal indicator simultaneously show a breakdown in stability. Thus, a central state can fail lamentably at the external level by causing strong regional disorder and still be backed by the United States if it demonstrates internal efforts to settle the issue. Conversely, the u.s. presidency will support a central state that contains secessionism even if it does so through political and military repression. Second Step: U.S. Support for Secessionism as a Last Resort In the event that the central state fails at both levels, the stability-seeking argument predicts that the United States will raise the possibility of supporting secessionists. As Heraclides indicates, “For a secessionist movement to claim legitimacy, it should be obvious that the central government is not prepared to negotiate or otherwise afford a degree of meaningful self-rule to the separatist group.”55 Before proceeding further in that direction, however, the United States will want the assurance that secessionist leaders can sustain the stability of their emerging state. Based on defensive positional assumptions, we can deduce that the United States will assess the domestic structures of the secessionist state, as well as the regional environment in which it evolves, before making a decision. Secessionist groups will need to show proof of internal and external stability in order to be recognized by Washington. It is unlikely that the United States would be interested in recognizing a new state that was likely to replicate the stability gap of the predecessor state. If the secessionist state was unable to achieve stability, the stability-seeking argument maintains that u.s. recognition will be postponed or simply denied.56 Moreover, a secessionist movement that would act in bad faith in the first phase of the negotiation process with the central government, in order to force a political deadlock or purely to provoke the collapse of the host state, would be unlikely to qualify for recognition, since the United States would perceive that movement as a disruptive force on regional stability. scenario 5. If the secessionist group succeeds in showing internal and external stability, the United States will grant recognition,

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which would be expected to produce a net gain in regional stability. For instance, as I argue in chapter 6, the United States committed itself to recognize Eritrea’s independence because the Ethiopian government had become unable to assure regional stability, while the Eritrean authorities fulfilled domestic and external criteria of stability. scenario 6. If the secessionist state is unable to achieve stability, however, the u.s. recognition will be denied and the status quo maintained. I assume that this is what happened to Kosovo, which failed to obtain international recognition before 2008 because of a lack of internal and external stability. But what constitutes “stability-seeking” in such a case, and how can it be measured? Measuring the Second Step of the Stability-Seeking Argument As with the first part of the argument, the second step is composed of two factors: internal stability and external stability. The internal dimension of stability refers, among other things, to the domestic definition of sovereignty, which is “the organization of public authority within a state and the level of effective control exercised by those holding authority.”57 Secessionist leaders who fail to achieve effective control of the territory might face recurrent instability. Another important aspect of internal stability is whether or not secessionists hold a referendum on independence. This popular consultation on independence has to be held by secessionist authorities – assisted by international actors, if necessary – to measure the extent to which the population living in the secessionist territory agrees to secede and to renounce being part of the predecessor state. The referendum result will be a measure of the likelihood of future intrastate conflicts. Respect for and the protection of minorities and human rights will also be taken into account by the United States as an important aspect of internal stability. A military junta that unilaterally proclaimed independence without taking into account the will of the people and human rights would definitely fail the test of internal legitimacy and could create a stability gap. David Callahan points out that “democratically inclined secessionists present a better case for independence than do nationalists who seek statehood for chauvinistic reasons and offer no guarantee of democracy.

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There is little appeal in backing the creation of new states that are likely to be authoritarian.”58 These considerations are purely instrumental, however, since the protection of human and minority rights will be seen by decision makers in Washington as a means to strengthen stability. This approach is, therefore, consistent with the stability-seeking argument and does not represent an incursion into the liberal paradigm of foreign policy. Moreover, secessionist authorities must provide guarantees that their state’s internal boundaries will be maintained following independence. Any change of intrastate boundaries undertaken by secessionist leaders will necessitate public consent. This principle of the unchangeability of borders is contained in the Helsinki Accords that were signed by the members of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (csce) which included the United States.59 As for the external requirements of stability, a secessionist group must first have a defined territory within the host state (i.e., a region, canton, province, republic, or state) to qualify for recognition. Secessionists who cannot tie their claim to secession to a defined territory will fail to be recognized, since international recognition implies that the recognized unit exercises sovereignty over a defined piece of land. A secessionist group that lacked legally defined internal boundaries within a state would likely be the victim or the instigator of territorial revisionism and might experience political crises over territory with foreign contiguous states and/or with its predecessor state. Not only must a secessionist group have a defined territory but it must also accept its former internal boundaries as its new international borders. Territorial revisionism through irredentism, for instance, would not be tolerated. Mark Zacher shows that since 1945 all the new states that were created through state breakups have kept their former internal borders as legal international ones (whether or not they wanted to). He points out that “states generally desire predictability regarding the international territorial order. They do not like secessions, but if secessions are going to occur, they do not want the successor states fighting over what their boundaries should be.”60 I argue that, as a defensive positional state, the United States is especially hostile to the alteration of international borders, since such a change may create stability gaps and therefore security threats. Secessionist states must also avoid intervention in the internal affairs of other sovereign states. Secessionist governments pur-

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Table 2.3 Second Step of the Argument Internal Stability Indicators of Internal Stability of the Secessionist State: Secessionist authorities achieve effective control of the territory. Leaders respect internal boundaries, or modify them with public consent. Secessionists agree to hold a democratic referendum on secession. The new state respects human and minority rights. External Stability Indicators of External Stability of the Secessionist State: The secessionist state has a defined territory within the central state (region, canton, province, republic, state, etc.). The secessionist state accepts its former internal boundaries as its new international borders. Secessionists respect international borders (including no cross-national refugees). Secessionists demonstrate that no interstate war is likely to occur following independence (absence of irredentism, revenge, and aggression).

suing political revenge or an aggressive foreign policy toward neighbouring states will clearly fail the test of external stability. As explained in chapter 4, Greece argued that the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia had irredentist ambitions because it referred to itself as Macedonia, which was already the name of a Greek province. This partly explains why the United States suspended its decision to recognize Macedonia’s independence. Secessionist leaders who produce cross-national refugees by their policies and actions will also fall short. Indeed, refugees are a source of instability, since they could, for instance, alter the demographic equilibrium of neighbouring states. Moreover, secessionist states must be at peace with their neighbours when asking for recognition. As a stability-seeking power, the United States will be reluctant to recognize a secessionist entity that might engage in an interstate war following its independence. Table 2.3 summarizes the second step of the stability-seeking argument. All the above criteria will logically be considered by the United States when the issue of state recognition surfaces. Unlike the first

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part of the argument, in which the central state could fail at one level and still be supported by the United States, the stability-seeking criteria for recognition represent a much harder test for those who want to break up an existing state. Not only must secessionists succeed at maintaining external and internal order but they must also obtain domestic legitimacy in order to be recognized by the United States. This difficult test is justified by the fact that secession has more international implications than the maintenance of the territorial status quo. Indeed, secessionist states break with the international principle of states’ integrity and may occasion unexpected consequences such as the spill-over effect. The international recognition of secession is, therefore, a risky exercise. As Robert Young points out, “even peaceful secessions are times of much disruption and uncertainty. They mark profound changes in the relations between peoples and between states.”61 The stability-seeking argument holds that before providing support and recognition to secessionists, the United States will make sure that the seceding state meets stability criteria defined in terms of state authority, territorial control, and popular consent. Figure 2.1 provides a diagrammatic summary of the steps in a secessionist crisis guiding u.s. decision making. Additional Predictions The stability-seeking argument predicts that the United States will delay or withhold recognition if a secessionist group partially meets the criteria of external and internal stability. Diplomatic recognition will then be withheld until secessionists demonstrate sufficient capability to maintain order. Moreover, it is important to note that not all empirical cases will follow the two steps of the argument chronologically. Some secessionists can clearly demonstrate, right from the beginning of the crisis, that they are able to maintain stability, but they will not be recognized by the United States because their central state will be able to properly manage the conflict. Furthermore, if a central state that has initially failed to maintain external stability and to negotiate with secessionists improves its ability to handle the secessionist crisis, the United States could move back to the first step of the process and focus its diplomatic efforts on supporting the integrity of the state. This is an important theoretical prediction that makes the stability argument more of an

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Secessionist Crisis

Central state able to maintain stability of international borders: the U.S. supports the central state

Central state unable to maintain stability of international borders

Central state open to negotiation with secessionists and/or open to third-party mediation: the U.S. supports the central state

Central state not open to negotiation with secessionists and not open to third-party mediation: recognition of the secessionist state becomes an alternative to restore regional stability

Secessionists unable to maintain external and internal stability: the U.S. does not recognize the secessionist state (status quo)

Secessionists able to maintain external and internal stability: the U.S. recognizes the secessionist state

Figure 2.1 Steps in the stability-seeking argument

axis of foreign policy options than a one-way linear process. The United States will not hesitate to move back and forth from one step of the process to another in order to maximize what it perceives as an improvement in regional order. The theory also argues that the United States will not recognize the independence of great powers’ secessionist movements (e.g., Chechnya, Corsica, Northern Ireland, Tibet), because to do so would be extremely harmful to its stability and security interests. Even if the United States is the dominant power, its support for secessionist states evolving within other great powers could lead the

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American government to face economic reprisals, military escalation, and perhaps even nuclear threats from these states. It is therefore very unlikely that the Americans would support the independence of Taiwan or Chechnya, for instance, if China and Russia became at some point highly disruptive states and failed to contain their secessionist movements. Moreover, the great powers (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom) are all permanent members of the un Security Council. Supporting their secessionist groups could significantly harm the conduct of international diplomacy and the management of the international political system. It would be, therefore, irrational to argue that the United States would support great powers’ secessionist movements to maximize its stability benefits, since it is evident that such an action would jeopardize its security. The expected reaction of the United States toward secessionist conflicts occurring within great powers is, therefore, consistent with the regional stability argument. Unless a great power disintegrates, as in the case of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States will not move to the second step of the stability-seeking process to recognize secessionist states, regardless of how great powers deal with their secessionist movements.

the role of regional and great powers The international dimension of secessionist conflicts is of course more complex than simple, dyadic interstate relations between the United States and the actors in a secessionist crisis. The u.s. decision-making process is affected not only by its relationship with the central state and with the secessionist movement but also by the position of regional and great powers on the issue. As one unit of the international system (albeit the most powerful unit), the United States must interact with the other states of the system, and some of them may play an important role in the secessionist conflict. For this reason, Washington’s response to secessionist movements is multi-dimensional, and the actions of other powers can affect the application of u.s. policy toward secessionist crises. As a result, the recognition/non-recognition of secessionist states by regional or great powers will be treated as an intervening factor. This will allow for the measurement of the real impact of regional stability on the United States’ reaction to secessionist attempts by showing the

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extent to which other powers can compel it to recognize secessionist states or inhibit it from doing so. This intervening factor is defined in terms of recognition versus non-recognition of secessionist states by regional or great powers, rather than in terms of support versus non-support for these states. Indeed, supporting a secessionist movement is likely to increase tension between a third state and a central state struggling against secessionism, but it will not produce structural changes. The diplomatic recognition of a secessionist state, however, has a direct impact on the regional system, that is to say on the regional environment of the secessionist state, since it can make independence a fait accompli. Thus, whether or not other powers choose to recognize secessionist states can affect u.s. decision making. The stability-seeking theory asserts, however, that although the American government takes into account other states’ foreign policy when making its own decisions, the cost-benefit analysis of the u.s. presidency will be first and foremost dictated by its regional stability interests, no matter what the policy of other great powers may be on the issue. As far as theoretical assumptions are concerned, the stabilityseeking argument asserts that rational choices determine u.s. foreign policy on secessionism. The theory first assumes that American foreign policy is the result of rational decisions made by the presidency, that is, an institution composed of several agents and advisors (e.g. the secretary of state, the national security advisor, the cia director, the secretary of defence) who do not necessarily have the same interests and who may disagree over policies and actions. It is important to specify that the stability-seeking argument focuses on the executive branch of government, since the power to recognize foreign governments and states is an exclusive prerogative of the president, and the Congress cannot legally oppose such a presidential decision. The presidency has, therefore, a high level of autonomy in these matters.62 The second assumption is that the presidency seeks to further its subjectively defined goals, which are here identified in terms of regional stability. This argument assumes that the presidency selects, on the basis of cost-benefit analysis, the course of action that will bring the greatest expected stability out of each secessionist crisis. United States foreign policy is, therefore, motivated by instrumental rationality leading to informed decisions.63 This

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assumption does not pretend that the presidency is omniscient or that it has all the relevant information to make enlightened choices. It assumes only that it is purposive, rational, and pragmatic. Third, on the basis of the two previous assumptions, the stabilityseeking argument assumes that the u.s. presidency possesses a fixed set of preferences towards secessionist crises (listed below and ranked in order of priority) and that these preferences determine u.s. policy choices, depending on the evolution of each secessionist crisis. The U.S. Stability Preferences Stability-seeking defines the United States’ preferences towards secessionist conflicts. The preferences are ranked as follows: 1 The central state is able to maintain external stability and negotiates with secessionists and/or is open to third-party mediation. Outcome: regional stability. Examples: Canada (Quebec), France (Corsica), Spain (Basque Country). 2 The central state is able to maintain external stability but rejects negotiations with secessionists and third-party mediation. Outcome: stability, but a risk of regional disorder. Example: Indonesia (Aceh). 3 The central state is unable to maintain external stability but is open to negotiation and/or to third-party mediation. Outcome: instability, but the restoration of regional order remains possible. Examples: Moldova (Trans-Dniester). 4 The secessionist state demonstrates an ability to maintain external and internal stability, while the central state does not. Outcome: the United States extends diplomatic recognition to the secessionist state. Examples: Eritrea (Ethiopia), Slovenia (Yugoslavia). 5 The secessionist state is unable to guarantee external/internal stability and the central state represents a clear obstacle to regional stability. Outcome: the status quo. The United States does not recognize secession. Example: Kosovo from 1991 to 2008. Built on defensive positional assumptions and previous deductions regarding the behaviour of u.s. foreign policy towards secessionist crises, the stability-seeking argument generates the following test-

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able hypotheses: Stability-Seeking Hypotheses h1 The United States opposes secession if the central state maintains the stability of its international borders. h2 It opposes secession if the central state is open to negotiation with secessionists and/or to third party mediation. h3 It recognizes the secessionist state if it demonstrates the ability to maintain internal and external stability, while the central state does not. h4 It opposes secession if the secessionist state does not demonstrate a clear ability to maintain internal and external stability, even if the central state likewise lacks the ability to maintain order. These hypotheses will be systematically compared to the contending domestic arguments concerning ethnic lobbies and business interests. Hypotheses about Domestic Ethnic Groups Based on the logic of the contending claims, we generate the following testable hypotheses: h5 The United States’ position toward a secessionist conflict reflects the interests of the ethnic group that exercises the most pressure on the u.s. government. h6 The United States’ position toward a secessionist conflict reflects the interests of the ethnic group that represents the largest number of u.s. voters. Hypotheses about Business Interests h7 The United States’ position toward a secessionist conflict reflects the interests of American corporations. h8 The United States’ position toward a secessionist conflict reflects the interests of American corporations with which u.s. executive agents share strong ties.

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This set of hypotheses, derived from the three theoretical arguments, will provide a more structured analysis of the selected cases.

theoretical contributions Defining regional stability as a u.s. interest allows us to rigorously analyze foreign policy. To put it simply, the stability-seeking interest provides a rationale for u.s. actions toward secessionist crises. Most of the time, the concept of stability is imprecisely used in the literature on u.s. foreign policy, and very little explanation is offered as to how this concept affects the behaviour of the United States. As for the notion of national interest, for example, the concept of stability is often used without proper definition and often draws from intuitive thinking, rather than from sound theoretical justifications and explanations. Alexander George and Robert Keohane point out that national interest is “so elastic and ambiguous a concept that its role as a guide to foreign policy is problematical and controversial.”64 The same observation applies to the concept of stability. It performs poorly as a scientific concept when not properly defined and operationalized. This research, therefore, clarifies the ambiguous notion of stability that is often used to explain u.s. policy toward secession. The stability-seeking argument provides theoretical mechanisms that establish a clear connection between u.s. foreign policy and regional stability. On the basis of these mechanisms, the theory generates a rationalist explanation that accounts for the fluctuation of u.s. foreign policy toward secessionist states. The proposed argument is testable and refutable. It could be refuted if one could demonstrate, for instance, that the United States recognized a secessionist state while the central state was still able to maintain external stability or was open to negotiations. It could also be refuted if Washington extended recognition to a secessionist group that could not maintain stability or, conversely, if a state was not recognized by Washington after having fulfilled the above stability criteria. The argument would also be disproved if empirical evidence showed that considerations other than regional stability, such as u.s. domestic factors or moral considerations, explained the u.s. calculation toward secessionist strife. What are the implications of the argument for other states facing a similar dilemma? As indicated previously, the defensive position-

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al assumptions on which the stability-seeking argument is built fit the behaviours of the United States because it is the superpower. In other words, the proposed argument applies to predominant powers at any given time but not to other states, because they do not sit at the top of the international hierarchy. Thus, this theory could apply to China or India at some point during the twenty-first century if they became superpowers. Finally, it should be kept in mind that the function of a theory is to simplify the complexity of a phenomenon without losing the essence of what we perceive as reality. As Kenneth Waltz indicates in his seminal Theory of International Politics, a theory “is not an edifice of truth and not a reproduction of reality … A theory is a depiction of the organization of a domain and of the connections among its parts.”65 The stability-seeking argument seeks to isolate the main factors that affect American foreign policy and to explain how they interact to produce the observable outcomes.

methodology In order to test whether the stability argument accurately explains u.s. foreign policy variations toward secessionist conflicts, the theory will be compared to the propositions concerning business interests and ethnic politics presented earlier. These hypotheses concerning domestic considerations are arguably the most serious rivals to the stability model, since they have been relatively influential in recent years. The objective here is to demonstrate that the fluctuation of American policy toward secessionist quarrels does not depend primarily on its domestic political process but rather on the systemic effects of international relations. To achieve this objective, empirical cases of secessionist attempts that are likely to validate the arguments from ethnic politics and business interests have been selected. For each of these cases, the stability argument is tested and compared to competing theories. If the domestic explanations are as good as their proponents suggest, they should pass these empirical tests. Case Selection Since instances of secession are limited, the selection of cases cannot be randomly generated. For this reason, I have selected cases

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that are significant for the measurement of my research hypotheses. Here I proceed to a systematic analysis of cases picked from two different regional contexts: the Balkans and the Horn of Africa. For each region, recognized and unrecognized cases of secession have been assembled. The cases are those of Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia and Slovenia (the Balkans), and Eritrea and Somaliland (the Horn of Africa).66 Croatia and Slovenia are treated together, since the United States issued a common policy toward them and recognized their independence at the same time. I compare Croatia and Slovenia to Kosovo and Macedonia because these cases evolved in a similar regional context, although they had very different political fates. Croatia and Slovenia are former Yugoslav republics that were recognized by the United States in 1992. Macedonia and Kosovo had a different fate. Macedonia’s independence was declared in 1991, but it was recognized by the United States only in 1994, and the Clinton administration waited until 1996 to send an ambassador to Skopje, the Macedonian capital. Kosovo failed to achieve recognition for almost twenty years before Washington finally recognized its secession in 2008. As for Eritrea, it is the only successful case of secession in Africa in the post–Cold War era. Eritrea formally seceded from Ethiopia in 1993, after more than thirty years of war. As for Somaliland, Eritrea’s secessionist neighbour, it attempted to secede from Somalia in 1991 by declaring itself the independent Republic of Somaliland. However, unlike Eritrea it has never been recognized by the international community or by the United States. Thus, although these two cases are very similar, given that they come from the same subregional context and given that they both emerged from collapsing states in the early 1990s, they experienced very different outcomes. Selection bias is always a concern, which is why I selected cases based on the dependent variable (i.e., recognition vs non-recognition) and from two different regional environments. These cases provide different dynamics, as well as a good representation of u.s. foreign policy variation toward secession. Thus, this selection (summarized in table 2.4) represents the whole range of possibilities on the empirical axis of cases and allows for a proper estimation of the strength of the stability-seeking argument, as well as of the competing explanations.

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Table 2.4 Case Studies of Secessionist Conflicts U.S.

Response

Region

Recognition

Non-recognition or Delay of Recognition

Balkans

Croatia Slovenia Eritrea

Macedonia Kosovo Somaliland

Horn of Africa

Cases of secession from the Soviet Union were not selected, since the ussr was a superpower. Therefore, as long as the Soviet federation remained, the United States did not step forward to recognize the Baltic States, for instance, which were the first to secede.67 The United States recognized these former Soviet Republics only once Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine had agreed to dismantle the Soviet state in December 1991. Acting otherwise could have jeopardized u.s. security and stability interests. Framing U.S. Foreign Policy Decisions To be accurate, the stability-seeking argument must take into account the internal process of u.s. foreign policy decision making so that it can explain the causal mechanism that generates observable outcomes (i.e., recognition or non-recognition of secessionist states). This is not an easy task. The u.s. foreign policy apparatus includes a large number of actors, and information concerning inter-agency debates on foreign policy issues is sometimes scarce. Shedding light on the causal process or sequence of events that intervenes between the u.s. search for regional stability and observable outcomes is therefore a challenge. To achieve this objective, I use the method of process-tracing.68 By tracing the decision-making process through detailed case studies, this method helps to circumscribe the number of potential causes that might explain variations in the u.s. response. The method allows me to demonstrate the extent to which stability really influences u.s. decision makers. Understanding the causal explanation is crucial. As Alexander

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George and Andrew Bennett argue, “even when rational choice theory or other formal models predict outcomes with a fairly high degree of accuracy, they do not constitute acceptable causal explanations unless they demonstrate (to the extent the evidence allows) that their posited or implied causal mechanisms were in fact operative in the predicted cases.”69 Thus, each case study will attempt to reconstitute the decision-making process. To do so, the analysis will focus on what George calls the individual and the small-group contexts of u.s. policy making. The individual context concentrates on the discussions that the president has with one of his Cabinet members or close advisors (e.g., his secretary of state). The smallgroup context focuses on the president’s meetings with a few advisors coming from different governmental spheres (e.g., National Security Council meetings, Oval Office meetings with foreign policy experts).70 One of the core assumptions of the model is that the presidency makes rational decisions but that it is not a monolithic body. Several executive agents and advisors have their own views on foreign policy issues, which often lead them to compete to influence the president’s decisions. By focusing on the individual and the smallgroup contexts, my research attempts to identify, among those who have foreign affairs responsibilities, executive actors who emphasize the importance of stability at the expense of other interests, and to analyze whether these actors are the most influential in the decision making concerning secessionist conflicts. For the stability argument to be valid, the analysis should demonstrate that executive agents who promote regional stability have more influence than those who emphasize other policy concerns such as ethnic politics or private business interests. The study should also show that the preponderant influence of stability-seeking agents is consistent throughout the different cases. Measuring Stability and Domestic Factors To achieve the task I have outlined, I combine the method of “structured, focused comparison” with the method of “process-tracing.”71 I formulate a limited number of theoretical questions that are systematically asked for all cases in order to measure the veracity of competing arguments. The aim of asking such standardized questions is to structure empirical inquiry. This systematic mea-

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surement will produce comparable data and will facilitate the identification of similarities and differences among chosen cases. More generally, as George mentions, “these questions are designed to illuminate the orientations of a leader to the fundamental issues of history and politics that presumably influence his calculation and choice of foreign policy.”72 Moreover, the “structured, focused comparison” is also characterized by the fact that it selectively analyzes aspects of historical cases that are relevant to the analysis. Therefore, the historical accounts of secessionist conflicts that occurred in Central Europe and in the Horn of Africa in the post–Cold War era are limited to what is relevant to answer the standardized questions. The set of questions that will be systematically asked are as follows. stability-seeking. Does the u.s. presidency always support the central state when it maintains the stability of its international borders? If so, does the United States sustain this policy in cases in which the central state is unable to guarantee external stability but attempts to negotiate with secessionists and is willing to let a third party intervene? If this is the case, what happens when a central state fails to maintain external stability and refuses to negotiate with secessionists; does the United States revise its policy and consider recognizing secession? If so, is u.s. recognition of secessionist states granted only to those that achieve internal and external stability? If yes is the answer to these four questions, it will be possible to conclude that the stability-seeking argument explains u.s. behaviour and that it can be generalized to other empirical cases. Moreover, a few questions derived from process-tracing of u.s. foreign policy decision making are included in the analysis. Do executive agents promoting the interest of stability have the most influence on the president’s decisions? Is this influence consistent through time? rival domestic arguments. A set of questions concerning rival theories will also be applied to selected cases, and they are as follows. Are u.s. ethnic groups that share ties with protagonists in the secessionist conflict abroad well-organized at the national level? Do these groups represent a considerable number of u.s. voters? If so, do these ethnic groups exercise pressure on the u.s. government and, more specifically, on the executive branch? Is the foreign poli-

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cy decision regarding the secessionist crisis in accordance with the interests of the strongest ethnic group involved in the issue? As for the business interest argument, do American multinational corporations (mncs) have significant economic interests in the central state or in the secessionist entity? If they do, do American firms influence the decision-making process? Does the u.s. executive response to the secessionist effort conform to the interests of powerful mncs or, more specifically, to u.s. firms with which u.s. executive agents keep strong ties? These straightforward questions provide clear research guidance and will allow us to compare empirical findings.73

3 The U.S. Recognition of Croatia and Slovenia

introduction The secessions of the Yugoslav republics of Croatia and Slovenia from the Socialist Federation of Yugoslavia in 1991 were among the first instances of effective secessions in a non-colonial context since the foundation of the United Nations.1 By precipitating the disintegration of Yugoslavia, the Croatian and the Slovenian governments compelled the United States to formulate a response to their claims and to express its preferences toward secessionist issues in the emerging post–Cold War order. Before measuring how the stability-seeking argument applies to the u.s. response to Croatia and Slovenia’s secessions, I will set the political context in which the United States got involved in the conflict by describing the events leading to the Yugoslav secessionist crisis.

a brief review of the secessionist crisis The secession of Croatia and Slovenia arose from the failure of Yugoslav political elites to create a new state designed to accommodate growing divergent interests among the republics. At the beginning of the 1990s, the central source of contention in Yugoslavia concerned the issue of power sharing between the federal government and the republics. Croatia and Slovenia, which were more economically developed than the southern republics, favoured a strong decentralization of power from the central government and the creation of a Yugoslav confederation. Two main factors explain these demands: Croats and Slovenes wanted to safe-

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guard their economies from Yugoslavia’s rapid economic decline, as well as to limit Serbia’s growing influence in the central government. Serbia and Montenegro, on the contrary, supported the maintenance of a centralized federal government, as well as strong federal control of the economy. The polarization between these republics was intensified by the rise of Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia in the late 1980s and by the election of nationalist parties in Croatia and Slovenia in the first multi-party elections in 1990. Following the elections, the Croatian and the Slovenian parliaments declared the sovereignty of their respective republics (i.e., the right to make all kinds of decisions including the right to secede) and adopted constitutional amendments to suspend federal laws on their territory. The turning point of the Yugoslav crisis came in May 1991, when Serbia, Montenegro, and the no longer autonomous republics of Kosovo and Vojvodina opposed the election of Croatia’s Stjepan Mesic as the new Yugoslav president, in order to protest against Croatia’s constitutional demands.2 This incident transformed political tensions into a major constitutional crisis that led to the collapse of the entire federal system. Constitutionally, the failure to elect Mesic at the rotational presidency left Yugoslavia without a state president and without a commander in chief of the Yugoslav People’s Army (ypa). Yugoslav Prime Minister Ante Markovic was therefore solely in charge of the political crisis. Following this political rebuff on the part of Serbia and Montenegro, Croatia and Slovenia held referendums on independence to press demands for the creation of a Yugoslav Confederation. Their strategy was simple: either negotiate a confederal union that would provide greater autonomy to republics, or else secede from Yugoslavia if no confederal agreement can be reached. Facing Serbia’s refusal of decentralizing federal powers, Croatia and Slovenia unilaterally declared their independence on 25 June 1991 and seized control of their borders. The Yugoslav federal government declared these unilateral actions illegal and ordered units of the ypa stationed in Croatia and Slovenia to take control of Yugoslavia’s international frontiers. This intervention marked the beginning of a ten-day war with Slovenia’s national troops, which eventually transformed into a major ethnic conflict over internal borders in Croatia, and later in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

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the united states’ response The resolution of the Yugoslav constitutional crisis was not a top priority for the administration of George H.W. Bush. In the summer of 1991, the United States was dealing with major international transformations, among which the Soviet political disintegration was certainly the most demanding. This issue was directly related to the security of the United States, since it raised concerns about the Soviet nuclear arsenal and the stability of the Eurasian continent. The political aftermath of the Gulf War was also at the center of President Bush’s foreign policy. The State Department was deeply involved in the Middle East peace negotiations that followed the liberation of Kuwait and suffered, in the words of Richard Holbrooke, from a “post-Iraq fatigue.”3 The relative weight of the Yugoslav crisis was therefore minor for the Bush administration, and u.s. policy-makers treated it as a regional dispute. As Brent Scowcroft, President Bush’s national security advisor, would later observe about the Yugoslav conflict: “[Secretary] Baker would say ‘we don’t have a dog in this fight.’ The President would say to me once a week ‘tell me again what this is all about.’”4 With the end of the Cold War, Yugoslavia was no longer the neutral buffer zone protecting Western Europe from a potential Soviet continental invasion, and as a result it lost its geopolitical importance in Washington. For this reason, the United States was not inclined to take a leading role in the Yugoslav conflict and was pleased to follow the leadership of the European Community (ec) on this matter. As u.s. secretary of state James Baker indicates, “the Bush administration felt comfortable with the ec’s taking responsibility for handling the crisis in the Balkans. The conflict seemed to be one the ec could manage. More critically, Yugoslavia was in the heart of Europe, and European interests were directly threatened.”5 The European Community had indeed much more at stake in the Yugoslav conflict than the United States. Two of its members, Greece and Italy, respectively shared borders with the Yugoslav Republics of Macedonia and Slovenia, and the prospect of Yugoslavia’s disintegration raised the issue of ethnic conflicts and instability in the whole region.

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The U.S. Support for Yugoslavia’s Unity Even if the Bush administration did not see the Yugoslav crisis as a central issue, it did formulate clear preferences regarding it. The primary u.s. interest was to avoid war in the Balkans. From the early days of the Yugoslav secessionist crisis to the formal disintegration of Yugoslavia, which happened in the fall of 1991, the United States supported the unity of the federation and was categorically opposed to the unilateral secession of its constituent republics. Before Croatia and Slovenia’s unilateral declaration of independence, President Bush had clearly underlined that the United States “would not reward” republics that would choose to secede unilaterally.6 During his visit to Yugoslavia, a week before Croatia and Slovenia declared independence, Secretary Baker mentioned that “instability and break-up of Yugoslavia, we think, could have some very tragic consequences, not only here, but more broadly, in Europe, as well.”7

the yugoslav state’s maintenance of stability The unilateral declarations of independence issued by Croatia and Slovenia in June 1991 had a disastrous effect on the Yugoslav state. The central government was increasingly paralyzed as Croatian and Slovenian federal officials gradually returned to their republics. Yugoslav prime minister Ante Markovic, however, was still in a position to exercise control over the ypa and his decision to send troops into Slovenia asserted – at least in the short term – Yugoslavia’s sovereignty. The Yugoslav state, therefore, managed to contain secessionists inside its borders, no cross-national refugees resulted from secessionist attempts, and Belgrade remained at peace with its foreign neighbours. At the internal level, Prime Minister Markovic demonstrated his willingness to negotiate with secessionists in the summer of 1991 by welcoming ec mediation. Markovic was even ready to accept the secession of the republics as long as it would be democratically negotiated with the federal government.8 In addition to being able to maintain the stability of Yugoslavia’s international borders and being open to negotiations, Prime Minister Markovic had been strongly supported by the United States since his accession to power in 1989. With the collapse of commu-

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nism in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s, Markovic came to symbolize democracy and market reforms in Yugoslavia. Within the Bush administration, Markovic was seen as a democratic figure who should receive support.9 Markovic’s openness had also allowed the European Community to negotiate a ceasefire between the Yugoslav army and Slovenian troops in July 1991. This demonstrated the goodwill of the central government and illustrated Belgrade’s determination to settle the crisis. The ceasefire supervised by Brussels established a three-month moratorium on Croatia and Slovenia’s secession, which sought to facilitate a political compromise on Yugoslavia’s future.10 Moreover, Serbia had consented in early July to the election of the Croatian candidate, who had initially been boycotted by Milosevic, to the post of president of the collective state presidency. This was seen in the United States and among ec members as a positive step forward toward the resolution of the conflict. In this context and despite the fact that the Yugoslav central government was increasingly paralyzed, the United States did not consider the recognition of secessionist states, since the Yugoslav central state was not only able to maintain its external stability but was also open to negotiating with the secessionists. During this period, the question of recognition was not even debated among u.s. foreign policy agencies. This political situation, however, did not last very long, and European efforts to settle the dispute collapsed in the fall of 1991, when the ypa agreed to retreat from Slovenia but moved simultaneously to Croatia to bring assistance to the Serbian minorities living in the Krajina and Slavonia regions. The intervention of the ypa in Croatia complicated the nature of the Yugoslav conflict by emphasizing its ethnic dimension. This event had a major impact on the u.s. perception of the conflict. The intervention of the ypa in Croatia was seen in Washington as a Serbian war of aggression against the Croats, and the Bush administration, as well as the European leaders, began to seriously question the legitimacy of the ypa and its real motivation in the conflict. The secession of Croatia and Slovenia had led to a rapid “serbianization” of the Yugoslav army, and the ypa quickly became a military instrument at the service of Serbian interests. As Richard Holbrooke would later argue, “In the brief war in Slovenia the Yugoslav Army seemed to be defending the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia; when that same army went to war only a few weeks later against

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Croatia, it had become a Serb army fighting for the Serbs inside Croatia.”11

the emergence of external instability At the first meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Yugoslavia in September 1991, the United States for the first time adopted a proactive attitude toward the conflict. James Baker expressed his great concern about Yugoslavia’s external stability as several thousand Croats began to flee to other countries to escape Serbian aggression. The Secretary of State declared that the Bush administration was highly concerned about “the dangerous impact on Yugoslavia’s neighbours who face refugee flows, energy shortfalls, and the threat of a spillover in the fighting.”12 Robert Pearson, who was the executive secretary of the State Department, also noted that Hungary was in the process of democratization and that Yugoslav refugees were threatening its stability, as well as the stability of central Europe.13 Refugees were mainly fleeing to Austria, Germany, and Hungary. Six months after Baker’s address to the un Security Council, the cia reported that Germany had taken more than 135,000 refugees and Hungary 48,000.14 Secretary Baker also pointed out that Serbia and the ypa bore a special responsibility for the Yugoslav conflict and warned Serbia that the use of force to modify Yugoslavia’s internal or external borders would not be tolerated. The issue of safeguarding Yugoslavia’s internal borders was extremely important to the United States. Like the Europeans, the United States believed that changes in republics’ intrastate borders would create more violence and would open a Pandora’s box to the revision of internal boundaries throughout Yugoslavia. This is why the United States refused, for instance, to address the issue of Croatia’s self-proclaimed Serbian republic of Krajina. Baker’s speech to the Security Council marked a turning point in the evolution of the u.s. policy toward Yugoslavia. For the first time, Washington designated Serbia and the former Yugoslav army as the main aggressors in the conflict and as a threat to regional stability. In an attempt to restore peace and to establish a ceasefire in the Croatian republic, the United States voted in favour of un resolution 713 establishing a “general and complete embargo on all deliveries of weapons and military equipment to Yugoslavia.”15

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Then in November, un secretary-general Javier Pérez de Cuéllar named former u.s. secretary of state Cyrus Vance as his personal envoy to mediate the war in Croatia. Vance’s objective was twofold: to reach a cease-fire in Croatia and to eventually establish a un peacekeeping operation in the country. The ypa’s aggressive behaviour significantly intensified in Croatia in the fall of 1991, leading Yugoslav President Mesic to officially declare on 16 September that Yugoslavia had ceased to exist. This declaration came following the refusal by the Yugoslav minister of defence to comply with President Mesic’s request that the ypa stop fighting in Croatia. By then, the United States was much more realistic in its approach. The Bush administration concluded that Yugoslavia could not be saved and that the secessionist republics would eventually have to be recognized as sovereign states. As Lenard Cohen points out, “By this point in time, it had become apparent to most observers that there was very little chance of restoring Yugoslavia’s unity … and that the most urgent matters at hand were to end the fighting in Croatia and to prevent a further expansion of violence.”16 The question was no longer how the United States could help to maintain Yugoslavia together but when and under which conditions it should recognize secessionist states.

the conditionality of u.s. recognition In the fall of 1991, the State Department knew that u.s. recognition of secessionist states could be used to contain and reinforce regional stability in the Balkans. The main question was how to play the “recognition card.” Even if the Yugoslav state had collapsed, the secessionist states were still not in a position to keep the stability of their borders, since war was raging in Croatia and could spread to Bosnia-Herzegovina. The State Department and the National Security Council (nsc) believed, therefore, that premature or uncoordinated recognition of secessionist republics would risk intensifying violence by irritating Serbia and members of the former ypa.17 James Baker reported to President Bush that the United States should coordinate a policy of non-recognition with the European Community to invalidate, or at least to reduce, the destabilizing effect of secession. Such a common policy was seen as an important political lever to moderate the behaviour of Yugoslavia’s protagonists and to find a peaceful agreement between them. As Baker

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indicates in his memoir, “each of the republics craved legitimacy in the West, and withholding recognition (or conferring it) was the most powerful diplomatic tool available. Earned recognition was one of our key points of leverage over the combatants.”18 In this context, the United States decided, in conjunction with the European Community, that the recognition of Croatia and Slovenia would be withheld as long as the Yugoslav conflict was not resolved peacefully. Moreover, on the basis of a policy recommendation issued by the State Department, which suggested that the United States should develop a practical framework to evaluate the merits of the Yugoslav secessionist states, the State Department unveiled in the fall of 1991 a list of criteria for state recognition. These guidelines listed five criteria that would guide the executive in its decision to grant or deny recognition to Yugoslav secessionist republics: •

• •

•

•

Determining the future of the country [i.e., the seceding republic] peacefully and democratically. Providing respect for internal and external borders. Providing support for democracy and the rule of law by promoting the democratic process. Safeguarding human rights, including equal treatment of minorities. Providing respect for international law and obligations, especially the Helsinki Final Act and the Charter of Paris.19

The u.s. guidelines for state recognition reflected u.s. democratic values and its strong interest in regional stability.20 They reveal the importance that the u.s. executive placed on the internal and external stability of the secessionist states, which indicates that the u.s. administration framed the issue along the lines of the stability-seeking argument. Although these criteria are not mutually exclusive, points 1, 3, and 4 refer to internal stability and to the governing ability of the secessionist states. Principles 2 and 5 refer to both internal and external elements of stability. Point 2 implies, for instance, that a secessionist state that either pursued irredentism or unilaterally redrew its internal territorial divisions would fail the test. As for point 5, it requests that secessionist leaders obey international norms of state conduct, such as respecting the territorial integrity of other states.

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By designing these guidelines, the State Department wanted to ensure that recognized republics would not perpetuate instability by replicating Yugoslavia’s ethnic tensions on a smaller scale, that newborn states would conform to certain standards of internal order and governance so that regional stability would endure. More generally, the conditionality of recognition provided a way to socialize seceding states so that they would conform to the rules and principles of the international system and would not develop into aggressive (or revisionist) states.21 These principles of state recognition also reflected the evolution of the u.s. policy toward secessionist movements. For the first time in its history, the United States elaborated clear principles on which its decisions to recognize or not to recognize secessionist states would be made. The guidelines not only sought to address the Yugoslav crisis but were actually seen as a standard for evaluating future independentist claims around the world. It is not a coincidence that the guidelines were set down in late 1991. With the forthcoming disintegration of the Soviet Union, the United States suddenly had the opportunity to emphasize liberal principles throughout Central and Eastern Europe without fearing political tensions with the ussr. To a certain extent, criteria contained in the u.s. guidelines for state recognition were a prelude to the set of conditions that Central and Eastern European States would have to meet to join nato and the European Union later in the 1990s. The evolution of the Western policy toward the Yugoslav conflict, however, was not a linear process. Indeed, in December of 1991 Germany decided to break from the common Western policy by recognizing the independence of Croatia and Slovenia, despite widely expressed objections by the United States and ec members.22 In order to avoid diplomatic confrontation and disunity within the community, ec foreign ministers reluctantly agreed to follow Germany and granted recognition to the two republics in January 1992. This decision resulted in several international consequences: it ended the Western diplomatic front toward the issue of recognition, it marginalized the u.s. policy of non-recognition; and it made the secession of Croatia and Slovenia a fait accompli. The Bush administration, however, remained steadfast in its policy and hoped that its position would counterbalance the effect of the ec recognition of the two republics. The United States was worried that recognition would break the Serbian-Croatian ceasefire

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that had been reached in early January by un envoy Cyrus Vance.23 The main objective of the United States was to preserve the ceasefire so that the United Nations could begin the deployment of its peacekeeping force in the region. These two elements were seen in Washington as the main conditions for the restoration of stability in the Balkans. Indeed, as long as war was raging in the former Yugoslavia, secessionist states could hardly secure their national borders.

the u.s. recognition of secessionist states In early 1992, the prospect of a war in multiethnic Bosnia-Herzegovina had a major impact on the u.s.’s perception of the Yugoslav conflict. Ethnic tensions between Croats, Serbs, and Muslims were intensifying as the Bosnian government announced its intention to hold a referendum on independence in late February. The United States predicted that ethnic conflict in Croatia would soon spread to Bosnia, as the Bosnian Serbs were expected to oppose independence and react violently to the results of the referendum. This led the United States to undertake a major transformation in its strategy. While until then recognition had been seen as a disruptive action that could intensify violence by irritating Serbian authorities, the United States came to the conclusion that non-recognition would not stop Serbia’s violent irredentist ambitions and could even promote greater instability. A few days before the Bosnian referendum, Thomas Niles, the assistant secretary of state for European affairs, wrote to James Baker that since it was almost certain that the Bosnian Muslims and Croats would vote for Bosnia’s independence, the United States should recognize this republic to “reinforce stability” and to deter Serbia’s eventual attempt to annex Bosnia’s territory populated by Serbs.24 This position was also supported by the National Security Council. Brent Scowcroft formulated the same recommendation: “We were hoping that the conflict would not spread into Bosnia and that we might be able to keep the Yugoslav army from invading Bosnia if we recognize the independence of Bosnia.”25 Niles also recommended that in order to maximize the effect of this strategy, the United States should coordinate common Western recognition of Bosnia. This strategy would render Bosnia’s independence effec-

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tive and would deter violence between Serbs and Croats. Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger added another dimension to this strategy. He recommended that the United States recognize the Yugoslav republics that sought international recognition all at once (i.e., Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, and Slovenia).26 According to him, non-recognition of some republics would leave them vulnerable to potential aggressive actions on the part of the new sovereign republics. Eagleburger wrote, “My concern all along has been that a halfway policy on recognition would invite Serbian and Croatian adventurism in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Macedonia.”27 This argument convinced Baker to adopt a global policy on recognition to avoid violence that would result from a differential treatment of the republics. Thus, in the winter of 1992 the Bush administration came to see diplomatic recognition as a stability-making action, rather than as a desruptive one. Since recognition was to transform Yugoslavia’s internal boundaries into international borders, Washington saw it as a political dam against Serbia’s ongoing aggression against neighbouring territories and expected that it could slow down the diffusion of war. Recognition of Croatia’s international boundaries, for instance, meant that Milosevic could not hope to obtain a recognized conquest of Croatia’s territory. Moreover, the diplomatic recognition of secessionist republics meant that the United Nations would take actions in cases where the sovereignty of these states was violated. This was seen as a deterrent to Serbia’s aggressive ambitions.28 When Bosnia declared its independence, the Yugoslav federation no longer existed and the deployment of the United Nations Protection Forces (unprofor) in Croatia, comprised of fourteen thusand un peacekeepers, provided stability guarantees for recognition. With a major contingent of un peacekeeping troops in place (the second-largest un force deployed since 1945), the United States believed that the recognition of the northern republics of Bosnia, Croatia, and Slovenia was a more realistic and efficient way to restore stability than waiting for a general agreement among republics, which became unlikely as time went on. Although changing its policies, the Bush administration remained constant in its objectives of containing war and restoring regional stability in the Balkans. The u.s. support for Bosnia’s independence was also a strategic move to regain political leverage on the Yugoslav issue and

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to be diplomatically consistent with Western Europe. By extending recognition to Bosnia, Washington moved away from its diplomatic isolation and was able to work in tandem with the Europeans. The United States and the European Community finally reached an agreement in Brussels in March 1992.29 The United States then convinced the ec to recognize Bosnia and proposed in return to recognize Croatia and Slovenia. The Washington-Brussels agreement was to guarantee the territorial integrity of Bosnia and to preserve stability in the Balkan area. The common u.s.-ec declaration emphasized the need for internal stability in the secessionist republics by pointing out that the internal borders of Yugoslav republics should be maintained and that they should not be changed by force or without mutual consent. The United States extended recognition to Croatia and Slovenia, as well as to Bosnia-Herzegovina, on 6 April 1992, one day before the arrival of unprofor in Croatia and accepted the republics’ precrisis borders as their legitimate international frontiers.30 Macedonia, however, was left out and failed to obtain u.s. recognition, even though it pursued independence democratically and without any violence. The next chapter deals extensively with this issue.

the question of the stability of croatia and slovenia Slovenia was a good candidate for recognition as it quickly achieved internal and external stability. Fighting in Slovenia was brief, and the Yugoslav army quickly withdrew from the territory, which stabilized the Slovenian state. This event made Slovenia a de facto independent state. The ethnic homogeneity of the republic also facilitated peaceful relations with both Croatia and Serbia, and it contributed to fostering Slovenia’s external stability. The Slovenian government also demonstrated that it fully respected international borders. Moreover, the Slovenian referendum on independence showed clear public consent for secession and gave strong internal legitimacy to secessionist leaders. Following the referendum, constitutional reforms were also adopted that guaranteed minority rights. In fact, the only reason why Washington did not recognize Slovenia before April 1992 was the instability in Croatia. The Bush administration thought that simultaneous recognition of both republics

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would avoid disruption. Thus, although the political situation in Slovenia was better than the one in Croatia, the American government did not make a distinction in terms of policy, and Slovenia remained in the u.s. “diplomatic waiting room” until Croatia was able to offer some guarantees of stability. In contrast to Slovenia, Croatia only partially met the u.s. requirements for stability, which shows that this case does not perfectly fit the stability-seeking argument. In terms of external stability, the Croatian government of Franjo Tudjman respected international borders (although his government would eventually pursue irredentism in Bosnia), and it had consented to a ceasefire with the Serbs under the supervision of the United Nations. The un agreement, however, was precarious and did not constitute a solid guarantee that no interstate war would occur following recognition (the ceasefire indeed lasted only a few months). At the internal level, the Croatian government had held a democratic referendum on independence in which an overwhelming majority of Croats had supported secession. However, despite the referendum result and the mandate to achieve independence, the Tudjman government did not have complete control of Croatia’s territory. Zagreb had lost onethird of its territory to Serbian troops in the fall of 1991 (i.e. the Krajina and Slavonia regions). Furthermore, Tudjman had failed to provide sufficient constitutional guarantees to its sixty-thousand ethnic Serbs. How can we explain, then, the United States’ consent to recognize the independence of Croatia even though Zagreb did not obtain a very high stability score? The complexity and the magnitude of the Yugoslav conflict led the State Department and the National Security Council to conclude that the ceasefire between Serbs and Croats and the un peacekeeping operation in Croatia provided sufficient conditions for stability for Croatia to be recognized.31 The fact that Washington perceived recognition as a strong deterrent to Serbian aggression in Croatia and Bosnia also accelerated the decision to recognize the republic. Even if the Croatian state was not as stable as Slovenia, its recognition by the United States sought to prevent a much greater level of instability in the region. At that time, the behaviour of the Serbian army was inappropriate, and the u.s. administration felt that there was no other choice but to recognize Croatia. David Gompert, nsc senior director for Europe and Eurasia, emphasizes the difficulty of the issue

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for u.s. foreign policy makers: We were trying “to maintain some principles, trying to keep our eye on everything else that was going on in the world, but … we were also trying to make decisions in a way that would not foster violence in the former Yugoslavia.”32 The American attitude toward Croatia’s secession, therefore, fell into the larger framework of stability, even if each of the internal and external indicators of stability were not met by the Croatian government. On the day the United States recognized Croatia, Margaret Tutwiler, the assistant secretary of state for public affairs, made clear, however, that despite its decision to recognize the independence of Croatia, the u.s. government expected Zagreb to conform to the u.s. principles of internal stability, especially those regarding minority rights.33

inside the executive black box The literature on the Yugoslav disintegration, declassified documents from the State Department, and interviews conducted in Washington, dc, show that executive agents who worked on the resolution of the Yugoslav issue in 1991–92 stressed the importance of regional stability over other considerations such as domestic factors. In the State Department, Dennis Ross, the director of the policy planning office; Robert Pearson, the executive secretary of the department; Thomas Niles, the assistant secretary of state for European affairs; Warren Zimmermann, the u.s. ambassador to Yugoslavia; Lawrence Eagleburger, the deputy secretary; and James Baker, the secretary of state, emphasized stability issues. In the National Security Council, main actors like David Gompert, the special assistant to President Bush and senior director for Europe and Eurasia; Jonathan T. Howe, the nsc deputy assistant to President Bush; and nsc advisor Brent Scowcroft also emphasized regional stability in their assessment of the crisis. These policymakers all supported the continuation of Yugoslavia until the federation fell apart.34 There was also a consensus among these agents that recognition of independence should be conditional on the domestic stability of seceding republics, as well as on their respect for international borders. In sum, there was no interagency disagreement on the course of action to follow. There was, rather, a consensus that both internal and external dimensions of stability should guide the u.s. response toward the issue, even if the case of Croatia shows

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that broader stability considerations also guided the u.s. decision to grant recognition.

the influence of the regional and the great powers Another important question to ask is what kind of impact regional and great powers (the intervening variable) had on u.s. behaviour toward the Yugoslav secessionist crisis? To measure the importance of this variable, we have to look for critical events or turning points in the evolution of the international dimension of the secessionist crisis that were caused by regional or great powers and to see whether the u.s. behaviour changed accordingly. The German decision to unilaterally recognize Croatia and Slovenia in December 1991 was the only significant critical junction produced by a regional power to disturb the linearity of the Western response to the crisis. This event led the European Community as a whole to recognize the two republics in January of 1992, and several other countries (Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Hungary, Malta, Norway, Poland, Romania, Sweden, and Switzerland) followed suit.35 However, as shown above, this event did not change u.s. policy. The strong consensus existing within the presidency on the fact that the basic conditions for stability would have to be in place before recognition could be granted led the Bush administration to withhold Slovenia and Croatia’s recognition for another three months. The Bush administration patiently waited for a un mission to be deployed in Croatia before making its move. The u.s.-ec agreement on the recognition of secessionist republics reached in Brussels in March 1992 stipulated that the United States’ support for Croatia’s and Slovenia’s independence had to go together with the deployment of the un peacekeeping force.36 This shows the determination with which the Bush administration treated the issue, as well as the emphasis that it placed on regional stability. The empirical record indicates, therefore, that the German defection from the Western consensus on non-recognition did not directly affect Washington’s response to the issue. The disintegration of Yugoslavia in the fall of 1991 had made the independence of Croatia and Slovenia inevitable, and the United States was fully aware of this. The German action simply stressed this inevitability.

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the impact of ethnic politics Here I focus on the impact of the Croatian American lobby on the u.s. executive decision to recognize the independence of Croatia. I have chosen to set aside the study of the impact of the Slovenian American community, since this diaspora is much smaller and less organized than its Croatian counterpart. The Croatian Americans represent a relatively powerful ethnic group. This community, comprised of around 2.5 million people, is well organized at the national level, and large clusters are located in swing states such as Ohio. Thus, by concentrating on the activities of the Croatian Americans, I choose the case that is more likely to validate the proposition, sustained by many scholars, that ethnic groups affect the formulation of u.s. foreign policy toward secessionist conflicts. Indeed, to return to the competing domestic hypotheses introduced in chapter 2, proponents of the ethnic lobby argument would assert that the u.s. position toward a secessionist conflict reflects the interests of the ethnic group that exercises the most pressure on the u.s. government and/or that Washington’s position toward such a conflict would reflect the interests of the ethnic group that represents the largest number of u.s. voters. To measure the accuracy of these hypotheses, I looked at variations in the u.s. policy toward Croatia that could have been caused by Croatian American lobbies. The evidence indicates that the Croatian American community was highly mobilized throughout the Yugoslav conflict and very active in promoting the cause of Croatia’s self-determination following the secession of the republic in June 1991. The Croatian diaspora contributed to the establishment of an office of the Republic of Croatia in Washington, and Croatian organizations launched lobbying campaigns in the White House and Congress. The Croatian organizations also hired professional lobbying firms, such as the public relations firm Ruder Finn Global Public Affairs, to promote Croatia’s claim for independence and to shape the debate in Washington in a way that would provide a positive image of the Croatian government. Croatian American associations also helped to organize u.s. Congressional hearings on the situation in Croatia and were successful in enlisting well-known congressmen, such as Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (r-Kansas), to support Croatia’s declaration of independence.37 Moreover, in the summer of 1991 more than thirty-five thousand

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Croatian Americans rallied in Washington, urging the Bush administration to recognize the secession of Croatia. According to Pero Novak, who lobbied the u.s. government in favour of Croatia’s recognition and who is now president of the Ohio chapter of the Croatian American Association (caa), the American Croats clearly had an impact of the final u.s. decision to recognize Croatia.38 Thus, there is evidence that the Croatian American lobby put strong political pressure on both Congress and on the White House (political rallies, letters to Congress members, etc.) in the summer and fall of 1991. However, if Croatian-Americans were so proactive in the weeks and months following Croatia’s secession and obtained the support of influential members of Congress like Robert Dole, why did u.s. recognition of Croatia come only in April 1992, almost ten months following the independence of the republic? One would expect that if Croat Americans had been truly influential, the United States would have proceeded earlier with recognition, perhaps even before Germany unilaterally recognized the republic in December 1991. Yet in the summer and the fall of 1991 the State Department and the nsc were working toward the formulation of a coherent Western policy of non-recognition for the Yugoslav secessionist states. Despite the strong political determination of Croatian American organizations, the Bush administration was strongly opposed to Croatia’s secession and maintained this position even after Germany and the other ec members recognized the republic. Until the fall of 1991, the United States was convinced that a unified Yugoslavia offered the best opportunity to maintain stability in the region. The question of whether or not the United States should recognize Croatia was not even an issue. There is no evidence indicating that the Bush administration was influenced by the Croatian lobby during that time. It seems that the Croatian Americans were simply ignored by the Bush administration. According to Thomas Niles, who was assistant secretary of state for European affairs and later worked closely on Croatia and Slovenia’s recognition, u.s. decision makers paid no attention to these ethnic lobbies when they formulated the u.s. position toward the issue.39 David Gompert who was involved in the recognition of the Yugoslav republics and who often met with Croat American organizations also categorically dismissed the Croatian American lobby as an important factor in President Bush’s decision to recognize

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Croatia. “I learned from them,” he did remark, “but at no point, as far as I know, did somebody in the White House make a calculation that, if we recognize Croatia, we will pick up some votes in Cleveland. It really wasn’t the way that the White House functioned.”40 In his memoir, James Baker explains that the u.s. government resisted pressure from the Croatian Americans to recognize Croatia because it believed that a premature recognition could compromise the United Nations’ effort to achieve a ceasefire in the former Yugoslavia. Baker indicates: After the ec decision, I had Larry Eagleburger talk to Cy Vance. He told us to wait at least two weeks, and preferably a month, before moving ahead with recognition. That would allow time to begin the deployment of a u.n. peacekeeping force. Vance felt that our decision to withhold recognition had had an important restraining effect on the Serbs and had discouraged Milosevic and Tudjman from carving up Bosnia. This put us in a difficult position domestically with the Croatian-American lobby, but I told the President at lunch on January 24, “We can and should take the public and congressional heat. We should do all we can to support Vance’s efforts, because our best hope for resolving the crisis is maintenance of the cease-fire and introduction of u.n. peacekeepers.” The President agreed, and so we waited.41 President Bush’s decision to focus u.s. attention on regional stability considerations alienated him from the Croatian community at home. As Gompert notes, all along during the Yugoslav crisis, “George Bush declined to recognize Croatia despite intense pressure from the influential Croatian American community, which as a result deserted him in the election of 1992.”42 One could wonder, however, whether the Serbian American lobby was partly responsible for President Bush’s refusal to recognize Croatia. This would imply that a “horse race” between the two diasporic communities was the reason why u.s. recognition came so late. It is true that Serbian Americans were mobilized in the early 1990s (mainly through the Serbian Unity Congress, or suc) and that the Serbian diaspora tried to influence the debate in Washington. However, Congressional representative Helen Delich Bentley (one of the most prominent Serbian American voices in the United States) indicates that the Bush administration quickly identified the

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Serbs as the aggressors in the conflict and opposed Slobodan Milosevic’s policies. With such a clear bias against the Serbs, it was difficult for the Serbian community to influence the Bush administration. Despite one million Serbian Americans, the Serbian lobby was unable to orchestrate a public relations campaign in favour of Serbia, while the Croatian lobby was quite successful at rallying support. There was, therefore, no horse race between Serbian and Croatian Americans, and the two communities did not cancel out each other’s effort to influence u.s. decision makers, which could have explained the delay in the u.s. decision to recognize Croatia. Thus, the position of the Bush administration did not reflect the interests of the Croatian Americans, even though this ethnic group put more pressure on the White House and represented more American voters than the Serbian Americans. I do not pretend that the Croatian community failed to affect the u.s. perception of Croatia’s bid for independence or that it did not help to shape the debate in Washington. I do assert, however, in light of the previous analysis, that Croat American pressure did not affect the process by which the Bush administration came to recognize the Republic of Croatia, nor did it influence the speed with which u.s. recognition was granted.

the impact of monetary interests David Gibbs maintains that connections between decision makers and private business interests affect the conduct of u.s. foreign policy toward secessionist crises. Based on his theoretical argument, we can hypothesize that, first, the United States’decision to support the central state or to recognize the independence of the secessionist state conforms to the interests of powerful American corporations and, second, that the u.s. position on the matter reflects the interests of multinational corporations with which u.s. executive agents have strong ties. Did American decision makers share ties with u.s. corporations involved in Yugoslavia in the early 1990s? If so, were the private economic interests of u.s. executive agents strongly reflected in the American response to the Yugoslav secessionist crisis? Following the demise of Yugoslavia in 1992, policy analysts and some State Department officials argued that Lawrence Eagleburger and Brent Scowcroft – who were, respectively, deputy secretary of

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state and national security advisor under President Bush – had supported for too long the unity of Yugoslavia and failed to respond adequately to inter-ethnic violence in the Balkans because they had cultivated strong ties over the years with the Yugoslav regime. Some even suggested that because they had business interests in Yugoslavia in the 1980s, both officials had a strong bias against Croatia’s and Slovenia’s secessionist attempts. According to Roy Gutman, the pro-Yugoslav bias of Eagleburger and Scowcroft led them to support the State Department view according to which Yugoslavia should be supported as long as possible and Croatia and Slovenia should not be recognized.43 As u.s. Ambassador to Yugoslavia from 1977 to 1981, Lawrence Eagleburger established close connections with the Yugoslav political elites and became friends with Slobodan Milosevic, who was then the head of the largest bank of Serbia. Once retired from the u.s. government, Eagleburger and Scowcroft worked from 1984 to 1988, respectively as president and vice-president of Henry Kissinger Associates Inc., a New York consulting firm that offered strategic consulting services to international companies. During this time, both men maintained close ties with Yugoslav leaders and dealt with several Yugoslav and Serbian state-owned companies. As president of Kissinger Associates, Eagleburger joined the board of Yugo America, the American division of a Serbian car company that was owned by Global Motors Inc., and served on the board of the Ljubljana Bank. The money Eagleburger earned from business dealings with Yugoslav state companies, however, represented only a small fraction of his salary at Kissinger Associates. According to David Binder, Eagleburger earned $5,000 a year from business ties to Yugoslavia (e.g., to Yugo America and the Ljubljana Bank), while his total income at Kissinger Associates was $900,000 a year.44 Moreover, Yugo America went bankrupt and closed its doors in 1989, which greatly reduced Eagleburger’s economic involvement with Yugoslavia. Upon returning to the State Department and the nsc in 1989, Eagleburger and Scowcroft attempted to stay away from the Yugoslav crisis to avoid being subject to particular scrutiny, even if they no longer had official business ties to Yugoslavia. There is little doubt that Eagleburger and Scowcroft were biased in favour of Yugoslavia’s state unity. For decades they had built strong relationships with Yugoslav leaders throughout the federa-

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tion.45 However, that their past private business interests in Yugoslavia, which had been relatively minor, guided their actions toward the crisis is doubtful. President Bush and Secretary Baker were also strongly in favour of the maintenance of Yugoslavia, and yet they had not maintained business ties with Yugoslav companies in the past. It seems that the aversion of the Bush administration to changes in international politics, as well as Eagleburger’s and Scowcroft’s personal attachment to Yugoslavia, explain why the u.s. overlooked the obvious collapse of the federation and why they were slow to react. Eagleburger and Scowcroft simply could not conceive – despite the information they received from the cia and the Embassy in Belgrade – that Yugoslavia would break apart. In fact, the u.s. belief that state unity was the only possible way to avoid war, led it to adopt an approach based on wishful thinking that confused its desire for unity with the reality of the conflict. Moreover, even if business interests could explain why the United States waited so long before granting recognition to Croatia and Slovenia, they would still not have elucidated why the Bush administration decided to reverse its policy in April 1992. Thus, David Gibbs’ argument also fails to explain the change of policy in favour of recognition. In sum, no evidence has been found to support the hypotheses according to which the United States position conformed to the interests of multinationals with which u.s. executive agents shared strong ties, or simply, that the American response reflected the interests of u.s. corporations.

conclusion The evidence points in the direction of the stability-seeking argument. In the initial phase of the Yugoslav conflict, the United States conformed to the first step of the theory. It supported the central state, which attempted to maintain external stability by securing its international borders. The Yugoslav federal government, led by Prime Minister Markovic, was also willing to negotiate with Croatia and Slovenia’s secessionist leaders and welcomed the European Community’s efforts at mediation. The United States revised its policy once it became clear, in the fall of 1991, that Yugoslavia was disintegrating and could no longer handle constitutional reforms or maintain its international borders. The Bush administration, however, did not immediately

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proceed to the recognition of Croatia and Slovenia, since war in the Croatian republic produced a high level of instability. The ceasefire and the deployment of un peacekeepers were essential conditions for recognition to be granted by the United States. The analysis suggests that the case of Croatia does not perfectly fit the second step of the stability-seeking argument. This does not mean, however, that the case goes against the logic of the proposed theory. Indeed, the search for regional stability was clearly the main motive behind the u.s. recognition of Croatia. The purpose of recognition was to improve the security of the Croatian state and to discourage Serbia’s aggressive behaviour toward neighbouring states. The American decision was, therefore, shaped by stability considerations.

4 Macedonia: A U.S. Delay of Recognition in Five Episodes introduction The American recognition of Macedonia’s independence is an interesting case of foreign policy making, as the u.s. did not follow the normal process by which it usually grants recognition to emerging states. It took more than twelve years and three successive presidencies for the White House to complete the process of Macedonia’s diplomatic recognition. The saga began in the spring of 1992, when the Bush administration decided to delay recognition. Then the Clinton administration recognized the independence of Macedonia in 1994 under the temporary designation Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (fyrom). Yet the first u.s. ambassador to Skopje, Macedonia’s capital, was named only in 1996, after the White House had delayed extending full diplomatic relations to fyrom at the ambassadorial level. Finally, in November 2004 the administration of George W. Bush, in an unexpected and unilateral decision, recognized the republic under its constitutional name, the Republic of Macedonia, in a decision that was opposed by the European Union and vehemently opposed by Greece. The question that this chapter addresses is, why was u.s. recognition of Macedonia’s independence such a long and difficult process? The research shows that the United States is a stabilityseeking power. Throughout the Macedonian saga, u.s. administrations consistently pursued the interest of strengthening regional stability in the South Balkans, which was at risk because of a profound geo-political disagreement between Greece and Macedonia. This chapter suggests that stability considerations defined American policy toward the controversial birth of the Macedonian state

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and justified the slowness with which the United States granted recognition. As a result of its complexity and richness, the case of u.s. recognition of Macedonia is well-suited for intra-case comparisons and systematic analysis. For the purpose of the current study, the different “episodes” of the Macedonian saga are broken down into five different units of interactions that are treated as separate cases. The benefit of the intra-case comparison is that it looks at variation within one defined political context, which allows us to identify the fluctuations in the u.s. position and the factors that account for them. This comparative method increases the number of points of measurement for a more accurate and systematical evaluation of the proposed arguments.1 Five intra-cases are investigated here: (1) The u.s. strategy of withholding Macedonia’s recognition in 1992, (2) American diplomatic recognition of fyrom in 1994, (3) backtracking by the Clinton administration on its initial decision to extend full diplomatic relations to fyrom, (4) the extension of full diplomatic relations to the republic in 1995–96, and (5) President Bush’s recognition of Macedonia’s constitutional name in 2004. Using these five subunits of analysis, this chapter will evaluate whether Macedonia’s internal and external stability were the main factors explaining the American behaviour toward the republic across time and, more specifically, whether these factors account for the u.s. delay in diplomatic recognition. Competing propositions will also be measured. The facts show that the independence of Macedonia awakened the powerful Greek American lobby, which opposed, for historical reasons, the recognition of the Yugoslav republic under the name Macedonia. The strength of the Greek American community and its mobilization against recognition will allow a serious test of the validity of the ethnic-group hypotheses. The analysis will look at the evolution of the American stance toward Macedonia, to detect whether the pressure exercised by the Greek Americans may have caused the u.s. policy toward the issue to fluctuate over time. The ethnic-lobby argument is a serious alternative explanation for the u.s. response to Macedonia’s independence, since this case has been one of the standard bearers for the ethnic-lobby argument. Indeed, Macedonia has been one of the most frequently cited examples to support the ethnic lobby argument. Authors including

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Stephen Saideman, Paul Hockenos, John Shea, and Hanna Rosin have argued that the Greek-American lobby strongly influenced u.s. policy toward Macedonia.2 More specifically, they assert that the United States delayed the recognition of Macedonia’s independence because of the successful mobilization of the Greek Americans, who strongly opposed recognition. I propose, therefore, to evaluate this argument by bringing the theoretical debate to the forefront. As for the business interest argument, the fact that Macedonia’s secession originates from the same political context as that of Croatia and Slovenia limits the addition of new and relevant information to validate or refute this proposition. This chapter, therefore, provides only a brief treatment of this argument.

a q u ic k l ook at the secessi oni st cri si s Before the outbreak of the Yugoslav crisis in 1991, the Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia was in favour of the maintenance of a strong federal government. As Yugoslavia’s poorest republic and as one of the smallest in terms of population (around two million inhabitants), Macedonia greatly benefited from federal economic resources, as well as from Belgrade’s military protection. When Croatia and Slovenia raised their voices in favour of a Yugoslav confederal arrangement, however, the Macedonian government chose to support decentralization. Kiro Gligorov, the president of Macedonia, believed that by fulfilling Croatia’s and Slovenia’s political demands, Yugoslavia would remain united, which was in the best interest of his republic. Political events did not turn out as Gligorov expected, however. Consecutive meetings held by the presidents of the six Yugoslav republics in the spring of 1991 resulted in a major political failure to compromise on the country’s future. As seen in chapter 3, Serbia and Montenegro firmly rejected the idea of massive decentralization of federal powers and vetoed the election of the Croatian candidate to the rotating Yugoslav presidency. Moreover, Serbian officials declared that in the event that Yugoslavia did collapse, Serbia would annex the “artificial nation” of Macedonia to recreate the Greater Serbia of the pre-1945 era.3 The increasing domination of Serbia on the federal political scene and its overt territorial aspirations over Macedonia compelled Skopje to rethink its political

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options. In May of 1991, Gligorov declared that in the event of Croatian and Slovenian secession, Macedonia would follow suit to preserve itself from Serbia’s domination. When Croats and Slovenes seceded from Yugoslavia in June of 1991, the Macedonian parliament immediately adopted a declaration asserting Macedonia’s right to secede, and the government announced that a referendum on independence would be held.4 Macedonia participated nonetheless in political negotiations sponsored by the European Community in the summer of 1991 in the hope of finding a solution to the Yugoslav crisis. However, when the Serbian-dominated Yugoslav People’s Army (ypa) invaded Croatia, hope for a peaceful compromise vanished, and Macedonia chose the path to independence. The option of remaining within a reconfigured Yugoslav state controlled by Serbia was clearly not viable. As a result, a referendum on Macedonia’s independence was held in September of 1991 and secession was officially declared by the Macedonian parliament in November.5 The case of Macedonia is very similar to that of Croatia and Slovenia, to the extent that it emerged from the same constitutional crisis. What is different, however, is that Skopje did not achieve the same political outcome as the two northern republics. While Croatia and Slovenia were recognized as sovereign states by the European Community and by the United States, respectively in January and in April of 1992, Macedonia was left in the diplomatic waiting room, and Washington denied it recognition for more than two years. How can we explain this u.s. diplomatic deferral? Why is it that the Bush administration, which refused to deal separately with Croatia and Slovenia, withheld Macedonia’s recognition at the expense of increasing the insecurity and the vulnerability of the republic? This chapter provides an explanation.

episode 1: the bush administration’s delay of macedonia’s recognition The Yugoslav federation was in an advanced stage of disintegration when Macedonia declared its independence.6 In contrast to Croatia, and to a lesser extent Slovenia, Macedonia managed to break from Yugoslavia without any violence. By March 1992, the Macedonian government had removed all its representatives from feder-

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al institutions, and the Yugoslav People’s Army (ypa) had completed its withdrawal from the republic.7 The fact that the former ypa was already involved in a brutal war in Croatia (and later in Bosnia) partly explains Macedonia’s ability to secede peacefully. The peaceful and democratic nature of Macedonia’s secession placed the republic in a good position to be recognized by the United States. In early 1992, the Badinter Commission had ruled that Macedonia and Slovenia were the only two republics to meet the European criteria for state recognition.8 Macedonia was also in line with the principles included in the u.s. guidelines for state recognition (see chapter 3). Consequently, the Bush administration assessed that Macedonia was a first-rate candidate for diplomatic recognition, which would bolster its stability in an uncertain environment. The National Security Council (nsc) and the State Department thought that recognition should be granted, since it would bring greater stability to Macedonia by transforming its republican frontiers into international borders. Recognition was seen as a major deterrent against hypothetical Serbian or Greek aggression against Macedonia, which could have inflamed the South Balkans. In a note sent to Secretary of State James Baker in the winter of 1992, Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger warned that the non-recognition of Macedonia “could create real instability, which less than mature players in Serbia and Greece might decide to exploit.”9 Eagleburger also stated his appreciation of Macedonia’s process toward independence and praised what can be identified as the internal and the external stability of the republic. In terms of internal stability, Macedonia had held a successful referendum on independence with a majority of three-quarters in favour of it. The fact that Macedonia’s Albanian minority had boycotted the referendum was not raised by u.s. officials in the assessment of the stability of the republic. The Macedonian government had also achieved effective control of the republic’s territory, it respected internal borders, it guaranteed minority rights, and it was committed to liberal democracy. A new Macedonian constitution had also been adopted that guaranteed civil rights to all Macedonian citizens and described Macedonia as a civil state, as opposed to the “state of the Macedonian nation,” as it was previously defined, in order to reassure its own minorities.10 As for the external dimension of its stability, Macedonia had a well defined territory (i.e., it recognized republican borders) and

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respected international borders. The Macedonian government had also amended its constitution to prove that it had no irredentist ambitions toward Greece’s neighbouring province of the same name. The amendment denied any territorial ambitions, “prohibiting interference in the internal affairs of other states, and reaffirming the inviolability of existing frontiers.”11 The Entry of Greece: Instability Arises The Greek government of Prime Minister Constantine Mitsotakis quickly cast a shadow on Macedonia’s hope to achieve international recognition. Greece argued that because Macedonia was the name of its northern province, famously known for being the native soil of Alexander the Great and Aristotle, the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia had no right to refer to itself as “Macedonia.” Athens requested that the government of Skopje remove the word Macedonia from its constitutional name as a condition for recognition, even if the republic had adopted constitutional amendments to eliminate any irredentist suspicions that the Greek authorities may have had. As a member of the European Community, Greece led a vigorous campaign against recognition and managed to veto the ec decision to recognize the republic in the spring of 1992. Since Prime Minister Mitsotakis was an advocate of the Maastricht Treaty, ec members agreed to delay recognition of Macedonia in order to save the Mitsotakis government from falling. The name had become a burning political issue in Greece, and the option of supporting Macedonia’s recognition was politically untenable. Brussels also consented to delay recognition to preserve a single and united European front at the crucial time when the Common Foreign and Security Policy (cfsp) was coming into existense. In return, Mitsotakis consented to sign the Maastricht Treaty, which gave birth to the European Union, and supported ec economic sanctions against Serbia. Although the State Department and the nsc had initially concluded that Macedonia had fulfilled its stability criteria for recognition and that its diplomatic recognition would be the best option to reinforce stability in the South Balkans, the Bush administration reversed its initial decision and delayed recognition in April of 1992 because of growing political tension between Greece and Macedonia. Washington assessed that the government of Skopje was not in

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a position to demonstrate that no interstate war would occur with Greece. The Greek opposition had a major impact on the u.s. policy, not so much because the Bush administration was supportive of or empathetic with Athens’s position, but because the nsc feared that the recognition of Macedonia would intensify the already exacerbated Greek nationalist feeling toward the issue, and might provide the justification for a Greek-Macedonian conflict.12 Following Macedonia’s declaration of independence in 1991, hundreds of thousands of Greeks had demonstrated for months against Macedonia’s recognition, and the Greek army had been very active on the Macedonian border, conducting maneuvers to intimidate Skopje. The u.s. executive branch was also worried that a conflict between Greece and Macedonia could spark a regional conflict in which Greece and Turkey, two nato members, could clash against each other. The presence of a large Muslim minority in Macedonia provided for speculations in the State Department about a possible Turkish intervention on the side of Macedonia in the case of a conflict with Greece. As peace in the South Balkans was connected to the stability of Macedonia, the Bush administration withheld recognition. Two other factors contributed to the u.s. decision. First, Greece was a nato ally, and the United States had historically maintained close ties with Greek governments, which the Bush administration did not want to spoil by recognizing Macedonia. Second, the United States desired to act in conjunction with the Europeans on the issue. The United States and the ec (from now on the European Union – eu) had just ended their disagreement over the recognition of Bosnia, Croatia, and Slovenia in the spring of 1992, and President Bush was, therefore, reluctant to move unilaterally on Macedonia. One question remains, however: if the Bush administration believed that Macedonia deserved recognition in the fall of 1991, why did it not recognize the republic then? Why did the executive choose to wait until April 1992 to delay recognition? The u.s. administration made the decision in the fall of 1991 to wait for a general resolution of the Yugoslav war – which was raging in Croatia and was slowly moving to Bosnia – before extending recognition to Yugoslav republics like Macedonia. This conditionality of recognition was used to compel Yugoslav republics to peacefully resolve their conflict, which was expected to reduce the level of instability

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in the region. This strategy was dropped a few months later when the peaceful settlement of the Yugoslav conflict became unlikely as time went on. At this time, however, tensions between Greece and Macedonia had become a major concern for the Bush administration and prevented the United States from granting recognition to the republic. The first episode of this saga demonstrates that policies and politics obey very different rationales. On paper, Macedonia was a good candidate for recognition. In practice, however, the Macedonian issue threatened to destabilize the southern Balkans and, ironically enough, the peaceful Macedonian state turned out to be the only former Yugoslav republic that directly threatened the interest of a nato and an eu member state. In April 1992, the United States extended recognition to Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and Slovenia, but Macedonia was left in the diplomatic waiting room. The United States indicated that the purpose of the delay was to allow Greece and Macedonia to settle their dispute. In a letter sent to a member of Congress who requested that the State Department clarify its stance on Macedonia, acting assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs, Steven Berry, summarized the u.s. position: While the United States takes very seriously Greek concerns regarding its security and is sensitive to the Greek government’s concerns about the potential for instability on its northern border as violence in Yugoslavia continues, President Bush fully endorses Macedonian President Gligorov’s efforts to maintain calm and stability and to lead his people to full independence through negotiations with the ec. The United States in no way condones the spread of violence to Macedonia. Above all, we seek solutions which are acceptable to the ec, Greece, and Macedonia noting that a close and friendly relationship between Greece and Macedonia is an important element in Balkan stability and regional prosperity.13 This statement reveals the extent to which tensions between Athens and Skopje inhibited the United States from recognizing the republic. The Role of Greek Americans If the ethnic politics argument is right, withholding Macedonia’s recognition must have been influenced by the Greek American lobby

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which was categorically opposed to recognition. Evidence suggests, however, that the Greek diaspora was not an important factor in the u.s. cost-benefit analysis. The Greek American campaign against Macedonia’s recognition began only in the summer of 1992, a few weeks after the United States had decided to delay recognition. It was only then that the Greek Americans launched an aggressive campaign to transform President Bush’s policy into permanent rejection of Macedonia’s independence. The Hellenic-American National Council then sent letters to members of Congress and sponsored a rally in Washington, dc, against recognition, which brought together more than twenty-thousand Greek Americans.14 A Hellenic organization called the “Americans for the Just Resolution of the Macedonian Issue” even paid for two full-page advertisements in the New York Times to make its case against the recognition of Skopje under the name Macedonia, a manoeuvre directed toward President Bush. The organization argued that the “recognition of Skopje as the Republic of Macedonia would only legitimize its extremist and false claims upon sovereign Greek territory.”15 The mobilization of the Greek American lobby is undeniable, but it came only after the fact. The lobbying of the Hellenic community was not the cause of the delay. Moreover, no evidence indicates that this ethnic group had any impact on the u.s. decision to extend its delay. State Department archives on the issue, which were recently unclassified, do not suggest that the Greek American lobby played a role. Former nsc and State Department officials who were interviewed for this book indicate that this ethnic lobby was insignificant in the formulation of the u.s. response in 1992. According to David Gompert, who acted as the Senior Director for Europe and Eurasia in the National Security Council, the administration of George H.W. Bush was relatively insensitive to the Greek American lobby.16 Thomas Niles, the former under secretary of state for European affairs, concurs. In his view, the pressure exercised by the Greek Americans was not a major issue for the Bush administration.17 Of course, one could question the validity of their assessment, as Gompert and Niles were not neutral actors but government officials directly involved in the issue. However, the fact that these former officials acknowledged that the Greek Americans had a strong impact on the position of the White House in 1994, as episode 3 will demonstrate, enhances their credibility. This adds more weight to their claim that the ethnic group was not in the balance when President Bush delayed recognition in 1992. Thus, it

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appears that the ethnic domestic issue at stake was minor for the White House in comparison to international issues related to Macedonia’s stability. Enter President Clinton The Greek-Macedonian struggle reached new height in the summer of 1992, when Greece decided to close its border to the republic and impose an oil embargo. This decision came in response to Macedonia’s adoption of a new national flag that pictured the Star of Vergina, which appeared on the tomb of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great. This move was seen by the Greek authorities as a falsification of Greece’s history and a direct provocation. This event bolstered Greek nationalist passions and dashed hopes for a quick resolution of the conflict.18 It is at this time that Democratic president Bill Clinton was elected. The shift of political party in the White House did not result, however, in a transformation of the u.s. policy on Macedonia. Like the previous government, the Clinton administration emphasized the importance of regional stability to justify non-recognition of the republic. As time went on, however, and as the conflict resulting from Yugoslavia’s disintegration threatened to consume the whole southern Balkans, the u.s. interest in the region slowly moved from a peripheral to a core concern. As the u.s. recognition of Macedonia depended on the resolution of the Greek-Macedonian dispute, the Clinton administration made two important decisions that strengthened the stability of the republic without aggravating the tense political situation with Greece. First, the White House consented to send u.s. troops to the Macedonian republic as a substitute for diplomatic recognition in order to reinforce Macedonia’s security. As Richard Holbrooke points out: “The situation was so explosive that the United States made its only exception to the policy of not sending troops to the region … in order to prevent the war in Bosnia from spreading to the south and igniting a general Balkan conflict.”19 This decision came after the Central Intelligence Agency (cia) had warned the White House that a Serbian attack on Macedonia was imminent and that this conflict could consume the region. In May of 1993, three hundred u.s. soldiers joined the United Nations Protection Force (unprofor) for Macedonia, which already numbered seven hundred un

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troops.20 The deployment of these troops along the Macedonian border with Serbia gives a clear indication of the importance that the United States placed on the stability of the republic, especially given that the government of Skopje had not formulated demands for any u.s. protection force. This decision was part of the u.s. containment strategy, which attempted to build a cordon sanitaire around Serbia to prevent Milosevic’s regime from committing further aggression. The decision was also driven by President Clinton’s need to be pro-active in the region at a time when members of Congress were upset about the brutal ethnic strife in the Balkans and the lack of u.s. executive action in this regard. This measure, however, placed the Clinton administration in a very odd position, as American troops were sent to protect the territorial integrity of a state that the United States did not recognize. Second, the Clinton administration agreed to sponsor the admission of Macedonia to the United Nations in April of 1993. The objective here was to encourage Greece and Macedonia to settle the name issue through the auspices of the United Nations. Greece had reluctantly agreed to the un admission of the Yugoslav Republic under the provisional name Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (fyrom), in order to show its good faith and its will to resolve the issue. Macedonia was thus admitted under the name fyrom as the 181st member of the un through a Security Council resolution. Macedonia’s admission allowed the United States (and eu members) to advance its stability agenda in the Balkans without increasing tensions between Athens and Skopje. Welcoming fyrom as a member of the un also bolstered the stability of the republic by underlying the inevitability of its independence. This was achieved without compelling the Clinton administration to reverse its official position on the issue.21

episode 2: president clinton’s recognition of macedonia as fyrom Toward the end of 1993, six members of the eu (Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, and the Netherlands) disregarded Greece’s sensibilities toward Macedonia and recognized its independence under the name fyrom.22 This decision was prompted by Greece’s suspension of its negotiations with Macedonia under the

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supervision of the un, which upset eu members and the United States. Moreover, the eu was dissatisfied overall with Greece’s counter productive campaign on the name issue, which impeded progress on the matter for almost two years. The non-recognition of Macedonia also had a negative effect on the u.s./eu attempt to strengthen un sanctions against Serbia in 1992-93. Indeed, since Macedonia was not recognized and could not, therefore, obtain economic support from the United States or from international economic organizations, Skopje was compelled to violate un sanctions by trading with Serbia in order to sustain its economy. The decision of eu members to disregard Greece’s objection created a window of opportunity for Washington. The Clinton administration had the option to move, along with the Europeans, to advance its stability agenda in the Balkans without being condemned by Greece as the instigator of the measure. The timing for recognition was also better than in 1992, since tensions between Greece and Macedonia had significantly diminished now that the two parties had undertaken negotiations under un auspices. In early 1994, Washington decided to follow eu members, despite Greece’s strong resistance. The Clinton administration justified its decision to recognize fyrom by stating that there was “a potential for instability to grow” in the South Balkans and that the recognition of the republic as a sovereign state would increase its stability. The White House emphasized the internal and the external stability of the republic in the justification of its decision: Today, the United States extended formal recognition to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and declared its intent to establish full diplomatic relations … This action will help promote stability in the region. We join nearly every other country of Europe in taking this step. In extending formal recognition, we have taken into account the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’s commitment to peaceful cooperative relations and its respect for the territorial integrity of all of its neighbors, and the inviolability of existing boundaries … We recognize that Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia have outstanding differences which we expect will be resolved through good faith negotiations … We also take note of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’s commitment to democratic principles, to human rights, to the creation of an

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open, free market economy and to its desire to seek peaceful solutions to problems in the regions.23 Matthew Nimetz, who was President Clinton’s special envoy to Macedonia in charge of the Greek-Macedonia crisis in 1993–94, confirms that recognition had first and foremost the objective of fostering Macedonia’s stability. The purpose was “to reinforce the recognition of sovereignty and to give them the Macedonians equality with countries that might be hostile.”24 Greece’s reaction to the u.s. decision was immediate. President Clinton was depicted as a traitor, and the u.s. consulate in Thessaloniki was attacked by angry Greek protesters, who threw eggs at the consulate’s windows. More importantly, and as a direct reaction to the u.s. recognition of fyrom, Greek prime minister Andreas Papandreou – who had defeated Mitsotakis in the 1993 election – announced the imposition of a major trade embargo against Macedonia to retaliate against Washington’s recognition of the republic.25 Greek Americans vs. Macedonian Americans The decision to recognize fyrom’s independence was made despite the strong opposition expressed by the Greek American community. This indicates that the Greek diaspora failed to transform the u.s. delay into permanent non-recognition of Macedonia. But could the mobilization of the Macedonian American community have triggered this policy shift? According to Ivan A. Lebamov, president of the Macedonian Patriotic Organization (mpo), even if they were not a unified group, the Macedonian Americans played a significant role in the u.s. recognition of fyrom. The Macedonian Patriotic Organization, a pro-Macedonian association based in Indiana, whose central aim was to promote Macedonia’s independence, lobbied several members of Congress, and “there were many trips to Washington, thousands of letters, hundreds of faxes and tons of paper used by the Macedonian Tribune,” the mpo’s newspaper, to promote the independence of the republic.26 It is clear for Lebamov that the Macedonian Americans played a key role in the u.s. decision to recognize the republic. The mpo, however, was the only significant political organization in 1994 that promoted Macedonian American interests in Wash-

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ington.27 Moreover, during their battle for recognition the Macedonian Americans, who numbered less than forty thousand, were competing against the Greek American lobby, one of the most effective ethnic groups in Washington, which represents around three million Americans (the largest Greek community outside of Greece).28 If the Greek Americans, who had strong connections in both Houses of Congress and ties to an influential member of the White House staff (President Clinton’s senior advisor George Stephanopoulos), failed to dissuade President Clinton from recognizing fyrom, it is very unlikely that the Macedonian Americans were able to influence the White House. Indeed, we can seriously doubt that the White House made the calculation that it would be profitable to please the Macedonian Americans at the expense of alienating the large Greek American community in a mid-term election year. The second episode of the saga suggests once again that the United States is a stability-seeking state that focused on Macedonia’s internal and external stability. These considerations shaped the u.s. response to the controversial Macedonian question, and the efforts of the Greek American lobby to influence the course of that policy remained a peripheral concern.

episode 3: the backtracking of the clinton administration The recognition of fyrom had a major impact on the mobilization of the Greek Americans. Within a few days, the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association collected thirty thousand signatures against President Clinton’s decision.29 Several leaders of the community, including Representative Michael Bilirakis of Florida and Senator Paul Sarbanes of Maryland, asked President Clinton to reverse his decision and managed to convince George Stephanopoulos to consult President Clinton about it. Members of a national Hellenic group also pressured the u.s. Congress “to urge that President Clinton rescind American recognition of the Republic of Macedonia,” which led Congress to pass a resolution asking the president to reconsider the decision.30 Under the auspices of George Stephanopoulos, leaders of the Greek American community (Greek Orthodox Archbishop

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Iakovos, Senator Sarbanes, and a dozen prominent Greek Americans) managed to meet with President Clinton in a private meeting at the White House to discuss the Macedonian problem. The meeting was attended by Vice-President Al Gore and National Security advisor Anthony Lake. Neither Secretary of State Warren Christopher nor any State Department officials were present. Following the meeting, President Clinton backtracked from his initial decision to extend full diplomatic relations to fyrom (e.g., to send an ambassador and open an embassy in Skopje). The president indicated that no ambassador would be sent to Skopje as long as the name and the flag issue remained unresolved between Greece and Macedonia. Interagency Disagreement By delaying the establishment of diplomatic relations with fyrom, President Clinton was hoping to avoid further antagonizing the Greek American community. This decision, however, led to an important interagency disagreement between the White House and the State Department. Following the u.s. recognition of fyrom in February of 1994, Secretary of State Christopher had urged President Clinton to name an ambassador to Skopje to give added weight to recognition. Officials from the State Department were therefore upset about the drastic turn of events and openly denounced the White House decision, contending that President Clinton was “bowing” to pressure from the Greek Americans. Former secretary of state James Baker also characterized the Clinton administration as “confused” and “inconsistent” on the issue and accused the president of “failure to stand up to pressure from the Greek American community.”31 In an article in the Washington Post, State Department officials were quoted as declaring that to delay establishing full diplomatic relations with Macedonia would empower and legitimate Greece’s recent decision to impose a trade embargo against Macedonia.32 Facing this interagency discord, the White House defended its decision by pointing out that it had succeeded in reaching a middle ground. Its recognition of the republic satisfied the need for greater stability in the South Balkans, and the delay in sending an ambassador satisfied the Greek American community. White House officials also argued that the maintenance of the decision to recognize

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fyrom was a clear demonstration that the administration had not “caved in to political pressure.”33 The Impact of Greek Americans on the Process The intervention of the Greek American community did cause the reversal of President Clinton’s decision to establish diplomatic relations with fyrom. However, the United States did not reverse its recognition of the republic. As President Clinton’s nsc advisor, Anthony Lake, points out, this decision did not signify a “reversal of course.”34 Even if Greek American pressure slowed the process by which full diplomatic relations were established following fyrom’s recognition, it failed to stop it. In fact, the Greek Americans were condemned to lose the battle over the recognition of Macedonia. They managed to win a fight by making the Clinton administration retreat from its earlier decision to send an ambassador, but they could hardly manage to win the war of recognition.

episode 4: the u.s. extension of f u l l d i pl omati c relati ons to fyrom In the months following the admission of fyrom to the United Nations, talks hosted by the un on the name issue failed to produce any significant progress. Things started to move forward in the fall of 1995, however, when u.s. assistant secretary of state Richard Holbrooke (who was working on a peace plan to end the Bosnian war) undertook discussions with Greek and Macedonian leaders. After a few back-and-forth visits to Skopje and Athens, Holbrooke squared the circle by persuading Greece and Macedonia to sign an interim agreement of mutual recognition in which they consented to normalize their relations. Under this agreement, the two states agreed to recognize their mutual frontiers, the inviolability of their borders, and their respective independence. Macedonia also agreed to adopt a new flag, and, in return, Athens lifted its economic embargo.35 The two states also exchanged liaison officers and agreed to begin commercial negotiations. More importantly, both parties began serious negotiations on the name issue. It was in the context of mutual agreement between Greece and Macedonia that the United States established diplomatic relations

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with fyrom at the ambassadorial level by upgrading its liaison office to an embassy in February of 1996. The u.s. decision was made after both parties had shown a clear commitment to respect each other’s sovereignty and had made efforts to find a solution to the name dispute. This interim accord was the piece of the puzzle that could guarantee interstate stability in the South Balkans. As a result of the accord, political tensions dropped significantly and virtually eliminated the probability of an interstate conflict between the two states.36 For Matthew Nimetz, who became un special envoy to Macedonia in 1994, the establishment of a u.s. embassy in Skopje greatly strengthened the security of the Macedonian state. He indicates that “in smaller countries, you have to understand how important it is to have an Ambassador of the large superpower and until that happens there is always a question of whether there will be support for the very survival of the country. And this is a country in the Balkans that never had a history of being an independent country. So, I think that it was a high priority in Skopje to have not only formal u.s. recognition, and a membership in the un, but a tangible u.s. demonstration of support.”37 After signing the accord with Athens, Macedonia was also able to internationalize and to institutionalize its status as a sovereign state by joining a series of international organizations such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (osce), and nato’s Partnership for Peace (pfp).

episode 5: the u.s. recognition of fyrom as t h e r e p u b l i c o f m ac e d o n i a The fifth and last episode of the Macedonian saga took place under the presidency of George W. Bush. It concerns u.s. recognition of the fyrom as the Republic of Macedonia, which, at the time of this writing, is still opposed by Greece. Conventionally, the diplomatic recognition of a new state comes with the recognition of its constitutional name. Macedonia once again failed to experience the conventional process of recognition, as the United States recognized its constitutional name ten years after it recognized its independence. The question to ask here is why the United States suddenly felt the need to recognize the name Macedonia while Athens and Skopje

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had still not entirely resolved their dispute regarding this issue? This is even more puzzling considering that the eu members were waiting for a final agreement on the name before completing Macedonia’s recognition process. What kind of incentives led the United States to make such a bold decision? Once again, defensive positionalism offers an explanation. Macedonia’s Growing Instability Following its independence, Macedonia faced growing internal divisions between some elements of the Christian Orthodox majority and the Muslim Albanian minority. Ethnic Albanians were poorly represented within Macedonia’s institutions, and only a few government ministers were Albanian Muslims. In the second half of the 1990s, some ethnic Albanians rose up against the discrimination and began to express their grievances more vocally. They requested more political autonomy and better constitutional recognition. Macedonia soon went from the status of a secessionist state struggling for independence to a host state facing an Albanian autonomist movement. The growing political tension in Macedonia eventually led to ethnic violence in early 2001. Ethnic Albanian insurgents formed a paramilitary force, the National Liberation Army (nla), and launched several attacks in the northwest of the republic. The conflict produced more than 120,000 displaced persons before a ceasefire between the nla and the Macedonian authorities could be reached in July.38 With the assistance of special representatives from the United States and the eu, a political accord known as the Ohrid Agreement was signed in August.39 The implementation of the accord, however, was more difficult than expected. Although the agreement had officially put an end to the crisis, ethnic tensions persisted, and a significant portion of the Christian Orthodox majority opposed certain dispositions of the agreement. One of the central political contentions dividing many Orthodox and Muslim members of the population concerned the modification of the municipal boundaries, which was to give more power to the ethnic Albanians in important Macedonian cities. In the summer of 2004, Orthodox nationalists mobilized and called for a referendum on a proposal to override a decentralization law that was to redraw certain municipal boundaries. Ten days before the referendum, opin-

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ion polls showed that no less than 43.5 percent of Macedonians would oppose the decentralization law. The referendum threatened to put an end to the three-year peace agreement that had been sponsored in 2001 by the United States and the eu. In early November 2004, officials from the Macedonian government called on the Bush administration for help and support.40 As a key instigator of the Ohrid peace plan, the u.s. administration saw the accord as the best way to preserve stability in the South Balkans. The agreement was seen in Washington as Macedonia’s first step toward a successful multi-ethnic state and as the only solution that would ensure Macedonia’s eventual integration into the eu and nato. The State Department was worried that if the referendum was won, it might destabilize Macedonia and that ethnic conflicts might resurface. In this context, the Macedonian issue literally became a short-term crisis management issue for the u.s. administration.41 On 3 November, the day after the re-election of President George W. Bush, members of the State Department and the nsc met to discuss measures to secure the survival of the Ohrid agreement. During the meeting, the option of recognizing Macedonia’s constitutional name was retained as a measure to appease Orthodox nationalists who had been struggling for the right to use the name Macedonia since the independence of the republic in 1991. Recognition was expected to bring more confidence to the Christian majority, as well as more evidence of United States support for Macedonia’s territorial integrity. This explains why the recognition of the constitutional name was warranted in 2004, as opposed to 2001, when domestic political tensions exploded. Recognition in 2001 would have been an inappropriate measure for bolstering internal stability. The Albanian minority was discontented with its political status within Macedonia, and the recognition of the constitutional name could have been interpreted as a proOrthodox measure. Certain members of the State Department who attended the meeting pointed out, however, that the Greek American community would clearly be angry at the United States if the Bush administration was to move on with recognition.42 Despite this domestic consideration, Secretary of State Colin Powell advised President Bush to extend recognition. The decision was made in a short time and resulted from a relatively large consensus between the State Department and the nsc. It is not a coincidence that the Bush

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administration went ahead with the recognition twenty-four hours after the u.s. presidential election. The administration knew that the decision would alienate the Greek American community and was aware that it would have been politically costly to make such a unilateral decision before the election. At the State Department daily press briefing that followed the u.s. decision, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher declared: The fact that the [Macedonian] referendum is coming up is part of the equation. We are certainly looking for ways to support the full implementation of the Ohrid Agreements, including the decentralization that’s so important to that, and we felt therefore this was the appropriate time to take the step … The point is to show support for a multiethnic society in Macedonia as they proceed in a direction that we feel contributes to their own stability and the stability of the region, and by taking this step in terms of recognizing Macedonia under its chosen name we feel that we bolster that progress.43 For the first time since the break-up of Yugoslavia, the United States had made a decision on recognition without consulting its European counterparts beforehand. The United States did not attempt to bring eu countries on board because it had no wish to offend and isolate Greece, which still opposed the fyrom’s use of the name Macedonia. The Bush administration, however, was so determined to save the Ohrid agreement that it informed the Greek government of its decision to recognize Macedonia only once the decision was made, a lack of delicacy that infuriated Athens. As much as Secretary of State Colin Powell repeated that the u.s. decision “was not aimed at upsetting Greece,” this did not prevent Athens from taking offence at the u.s. decision.44 The Greek government declared that regardless of the u.s. stance on the issue, it would not recognize the fyrom as the Republic of Macedonia and that it would oppose its integration into the eu and nato as long as a compromise was not reached on the name of the republic. This last episode of the saga shows that the u.s. cost-benefit analysis produced a different outcome from the one reached ten years earlier. It was more important in 2004 to foster Macedonia’s internal order and cohesion than to manage Greece’s feelings toward the issue. This can be explained by the fact that the Greek-

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Macedonian tension of the early 1990s, which inhibited President H.W. Bush from recognizing the republic, was much less significant in 2004. Indeed, as a result of the 1995 interim accord, Athens and Skopje had normalized their relations, and Greece had become the largest economic investor in Macedonia. In the late 1990s, the two states also agreed to build an oil pipeline that crossed both states and signed a bilateral security accord. Moreover, Greece had supported the Macedonian government during the 2001 conflict against nla insurgents.45 This growing economic and military interdependence made any interstate conflict very unlikely, and this explains why this factor was no longer part of the u.s. cost-benefit analysis. The Macedonian referendum proposal to overturn decentralization was ultimately defeated on 7 November 2004 because of a low turnout. It is difficult to measure whether the u.s. decision to recognize Macedonia really had affected the referendum result. We can assume, however, that it did influence the outcome in a positive way as supporters of the proposal to override the decentralization law were fewer than polls had shown the week before. According to James Pettifer, “The great short term achievement of the American recognition decision is that it cut the ground from under the feet of the rejectionists in the Slavophone community, and reinforced the minority who are prepared to accept, if not like, the Ochrid Accords.”46 Those who saw the u.s. move as a reward for Macedonia’s help during the Kosovo war and for its support in the invasion of Iraq in 2003 have misread the meaning of Bush’s decision. As a defensive positional state, the u.s. extended recognition to help maintain Macedonia’s internal stability and reinforce order within the region. This episode shows that recognition was a tool to foster the American stability interests in the Balkans and that this focus remained consistent over the years. The Second Crusade of the Greek Americans Twenty-four hours after the Bush administration recognized the Republic of Macedonia, the head of the Greek-American Church, Archbishop Demetrios, sent a letter to President Bush asking him to revoke his decision. Ten days later, Archbishop Demetrios, accompanied by members of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese and Greek

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American leaders from Boston, New York, and Washington, dc, met with top u.s. officials hoping to persuade them to change their mind. At the State Department, the Greek American lobby met in private with Secretary Colin Powell, Undersecretary for Political Affairs Marc Grossman, and Assistant Secretary for European Affairs Elizabeth Jones.47 During the meeting, Powell explained that the decision to recognize the name was irrevocable. According to a State Department official, Secretary Powell declared, “We knew that the decision would create great pain to you but we had no choice. The objective was to reinforce stability in Macedonia.”48 The Greek American delegation then headed to the nsc to meet with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. Deputy National Security Advisor Fran Townsend and President Bush’s senior political advisor Karl Rove attended the meeting. Once more, the archbishop asked that the u.s. revoke its decision but received the same answer from the nsc. The delegation finally went on to Capitol Hill to meet with Greek Americans from the House of Representatives and to conduct strategic meetings with Greek American senator Paul Sarbanes from Maryland. In the weeks following its visit to Washington, the Greek American delegation sent numerous letters to members of Congress in an ultimate attempt to influence the White House decision. Despite the time and energy spent, the Greek American lobby failed to modify the u.s. decision to recognize the Republic of Macedonia.

regional stability or ethnic politics? The within-case analysis performed suggests that the quest for regional stability is the main factor explaining the u.s. delay of Macedonia’s recognition. The search for the stabilization of the South Balkans was consistent during most of the Macedonian saga. Recognition was initially delayed in large part because it would have encouraged the possibility of a military conflict between Greece and Macedonia. Then recognition was conferred on the fyrom in 1994 in order to reduce its vulnerability to Serbian aggression once the prospect of a war with Greece became less of a concern and once Macedonia could guarantee that no interstate war would occur. Diplomatic relations were extended in 1996 once a u.s.-sponsored agreement reinforced stability in the region by opening a constructive dialogue between Greece and Macedonia.

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Finally, the constitutional name of the republic was recognized by Washington in 2004 in an attempt to secure the implementation of the Ohrid agreement, which aimed to strengthen the internal stability of the republic and, by extension, prevent disorder from spreading in the South Balkans. The facts conform to the initial hypotheses of this book: as a stability-seeking power, the United States only recognizes the independence of a secessionist state that can simultaneously maintain its internal and its external stability. In the case where stability would not be guaranteed by the secessionists, the u.s. maintains the status quo and/or delays recognition. This chapter also demonstrates that the three successive presidencies that tackled the controversial Macedonian question (i.e., those of George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush) made a connection between the internal and the external dimensions of Macedonia’s stability and that this connection guided the American response toward this emerging state.49 This chapter also shows that the fluctuation of the u.s. position over time was caused not by a disparity in u.s. foreign policy interests but rather by a consistent set of preferences that produced different outcomes depending on the nature of each intra-case analyzed. The research also cast serious doubt on the validity of the ethnicpolitics argument for explaining u.s. behaviour toward secessionist movements. The case of Macedonia is, therefore, important for theory development. Indeed, the stability-seeking argument challenges the reliability of the ethnic-lobby proposition used to explain the u.s. behaviour toward Macedonia, a case that is often brought up by the advocates of this liberal argument. The Greek American lobby was not a major variable in the Bush administration’s decision to delay recognition in 1992. This lobby failed to prevent President Clinton from recognizing the independence of the republic in 1994 and failed again ten years later when it attempted to reverse George W. Bush’s decision to recognize Macedonia’s constitutional name. The Greek Americans had an impact only in one specific instance, that is on the u.s. decision to delay the extension of full diplomatic relations to the fyrom in March 1994. Thus, even though the Greek Americans exerted more pressure on the u.s. government and represented more American voters than the Macedonian Americans, the position of the u.s. government did not reflect their interests. Although one would expect the ethnic argument to

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perform well in the Macedonian case owing to the strength of the Greek American community in Washington, this chapter shows that this proposition performs poorly overall.

the business interest argument Chapter 3 has shown that the Bush administration had a clear preference for Yugoslavia’s unity but that the business interest model developed by David Gibbs did not account for this inclination nor for the reversal of policy that led the United States to recognize Croatia and Slovenia in 1992. This argument faces the same problem in the present case study. How could private business interests explain the u.s. delay of Macedonia’s recognition for almost two years while Yugoslavia had already ceased to exist? The United States had no economic investment in Macedonia in the years following its independence. Marshall Freeman Harris, who accompanied u.s. Ambassador Robert Frowick to Skopje in 1992 to establish an observation mission of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (csce), recalls that “we were virtually the only Westerners in town” and that “there was only an American library in the city,” illustrating the absence of u.s. private investors in the republic.50 In fact, if top u.s. officials had been involved in multinational corporations that were interested in doing business with Macedonia, we can assume that the u.s. government would logically have been opposed to the Greek economic embargo against the republic in 1992 and in 1994. The American government would have also certainly been eager to recognize the independence of Macedonia in order to provide development aid to sustain its economy. This, however, did not happen. Thus, the empirical evidence tends to invalidate the business interests hypotheses. The business interest argument, however, was seriously raised in 2004 to explain the u.s. decision to recognize the constitutional name of the republic. John Phillips argues, for instance, that the Bush administration was really concerned about the stability of Macedonia because its interest lay in the construction of a 1.13 billion dollar pipeline that would run from the Black Sea to the Adriatic to supply the u.s. demands for oil. Phillips writes, “American commercial interests in Macedonia center on a project to build a trans-Balkan pipeline designed to secure a passage for oil from the

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Caspian Sea.”51 It was expected that the pipeline would run through Albania, Bulgaria, and Macedonia and that it would transport oil extracted in Central Asia. In February 2005, three months after the u.s. recognition of Macedonia’s constitutional name, the president and ceo of the Albanian-Macedonian-Bulgarian Oil Corporation (ambo), Edward Ferguson, indicated that he was negotiating with Exxon Mobil and Chevron Texaco to build the line.52 One can, therefore, wonder whether the decision to recognize Macedonia’s name had as its main objective the preservation of internal stability in the republic in order to maintain the confidence of private investors. This argument was, however, strongly refuted by State Department officials.53 It is a fact that the u.s. government ordered studies to evaluate the feasibility of the project (the u.s. Trade and Development Agency had published papers on the issue in May 2000), but the trans-Balkan pipeline project was apparently not part of the decision to recognize Macedonia’s constitutional name.54 The project was apparently not even raised as a concern when u.s. officials debated the issue of recognition in November of 2004. And when I asked whether u.s. officials had personal economic interests in corporations that were doing business with Macedonia in 2004, without surprise a State Department official replied, “You are totally off the track.”55 The constraints of space and time do not allow me to provide a definitive answer to whether private economic interests affected the u.s. position on the constitutional name issue in 2004. This question deserves further investigation. This chapter demonstrates, however, that profound security issues were related to the survival of the Macedonian state and that these issues were at the center of the u.s. decision-making process. In this context, it appears very unlikely that any economic interests that governmental officials could have had in the first years of this century were important enough to influence the course of u.s. decision making toward Macedonia.

conclusion This chapter shows that the defensive realist paradigm is useful in explaining the United States response to the Macedonian saga. Indeed, the United States acted along the lines of defensive positionalism, as Joseph Grieco and Michael Mastanduno would pre-

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dict. At first glance, the evolution of the American policy toward Macedonia seems rather inconsistent. The u.s. response went from a withholding policy in the early 1990s to a unilateral recognition of Macedonia’s constitutional name in 2004. The analysis demonstrates, however, that the search for the stabilization of the South Balkans was consistent during most of the Macedonian saga. As for competing domestic propositions, this case study invalidates the ethnic group hypotheses and partly suggests that business interests did not affect u.s. foreign policy.

5 Kosovo: The Long March toward U.S. Recognition

introduction The United States recognized the secession of Kosovo from Serbia in 2008, after having been opposed to it since the collapse of Yugoslavia in 1991. The purpose of this chapter is straightforward. Its aim is to answer two simple and interrelated questions: What have the core u.s. interests been toward the issue of Kosovo’s secession? And how can we explain the u.s. policy shift toward it? Although the issue of Kosovo’s self-determination is well documented and a lot has been published on the 1999 nato intervention against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (fry), no research has provided a sound, comprehensible, and exhaustive answer to these research questions. This chapter demonstrates the consistent approach of successive u.s. administrations to strengthening stability in Kosovo and explains how the United States came to perceive the recognition of Kosovo’s unilateral secession as the only viable option to promote stability. In the last section, the chapter evaluates the importance of u.s. ethnic lobbies in the formulation of the American policy toward Kosovo. In contrast to the two previous chapters, however, the business interest argument is not addressed here. The Kosovo crisis does not allow validation or refutation of David Gibbs’s argument according to which American policy toward secessionist movements reflects the interest of corporations with which u.s. foreign policy makers share strong ties. Indeed, there were virtually no u.s. business interests in Serbia or in Kosovo during the 1990s. The disintegration of Yugoslavia, the war in Bosnia, and the Kosovo crisis repelled u.s. private investors.1 Moreover, throughout most of the 1990s, the United States maintained economic sanctions against

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Belgrade, which inhibited multinational corporations from investing in the fry.2 Thus, Kosovo is not a fertile ground on which the business argument can be seriously evaluated.

the difficult case of kosovo The adoption of a new Yugoslav constitution in 1974 gave considerable political autonomy to Kosovo. The status of a republic was never conferred on the province, however, and it remained part of Serbia, mainly because ethnic Albanians, who formed the majority of the Kosovo population, were recognized as a national minority rather than as a Yugoslav nation.3 Nevertheless, Serbia perceived Kosovo’s constitutional gains as a political loss over its own republican affairs. Tensions rose in the 1980s between the ethnic Albanian majority – who controlled Kosovo’s political institutions – and Kosovo Serbs.4 Ethnic Albanians wanted Kosovo to be recognized as a full Yugoslav republic, while Kosovo Serbs argued that they were discriminated against and repressed by the Albanian-dominated authorities. These political tensions were further intensified by the political ascension of Slobodan Milosevic, who became president of Serbia in 1987. Milosevic made himself the defender of the Serbian minority of Kosovo and engaged his regime in a re-conquest of Serbia’s control over the autonomous province. In 1989, the Kosovo Assembly was forced to vote for a constitutional amendment that revoked the autonomy of the province.5 Milosevic argued that the intervention of Serbia within Kosovo’s internal affairs was necessary to counter Albanian secessionism and to end the Albanian repression of the Serbian minority. The decision to repeal Kosovo’s autonomy initiated a sequence of events that further antagonized Serbs and Albanians. In July of 1990, the provincial Assembly of Kosovo unilaterally declared the province an independent Yugoslav republic.6 Belgrade reacted to the secessionist attempt by dissolving the provincial government of Kosovo and by taking executive and administrative control of the province. A new Serbian constitution was adopted, which defined Kosovo as a region within the Serbian Republic.7 This led Kosovo Albanian deputies in exile to create the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo, which had its headquarters in Zagreb (Croatia). Kosovo Albanians launched a campaign of civil disobedience and refused to

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be involved in the official state structures controlled by Belgrade. The Democratic League of Kosovo (ldk), headed by Ibrahim Rugova, put in place a set of parallel institutions (including schools, hospitals, and local governments) that coexisted with the official state structure.8 Although Belgrade declared these institutions illegal, Milosevic never used force to bring them down, mainly because Rugova’s opposition movement was peaceful and Belgrade was able to keep control of the province without military intervention.9 The disintegration of Yugoslavia, however, which began with the secession of Croatia and Slovenia in the summer of 1991, radically modified the political calculation of Kosovo Albanians. With the departure of the northern republics, there was no longer a counterweight to Serbia’s political power within the federation. In this context, members of the Kosovo Assembly in exile in Croatia adopted a declaration of independence from the rump Yugoslav federation, and in late September of 1991 the assembly organized a non-authorized referendum across Kosovo to validate the declaration. Among the 87 percent of Kosovars who cast their ballot, 99.87 percent voted for independence.10 Belgrade immediately declared the referendum unconstitutional and the declaration of independence “null and void.” Despite Serbia’s opposition, the Assembly of Kosovo officially declared the independence of the province in October of 1991. A few days later, Albania became the first and only state to recognize Kosovo’s independence.

the u.s. response: no to secession but no to aggression The administration of George H.W. Bush initially followed the European Community’s leadership on the Yugoslav crisis and rejected Kosovo’s request for international recognition. The argument put forward by Brussels was that Kosovo was an integral part of Serbia, rather than a constituent republic of the Yugoslav federation and, therefore, that it did not have the right to secede.11 This legal argument, however, was used as a tool to avoid endless division of the Yugoslav territory. The argument was mainly rhetorical and was more a reflection of Washington’s will to follow the ec leadership than the expression of a well defined policy. According to a top advisor to President Clinton and Secretary of State Albright for Kosovo, “it was easy to base a decision on the fact that Kosovo

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was different from the Yugoslav republics … It was a convenient way of making a distinction, which served a purpose. The analysis was that the recognition of Kosovo’s independence would create more conflict, more violence, and more confrontation in the region.”12 The United States adopted a more proactive approach toward the Yugoslav crisis when the conflict in Croatia spread to Bosnia and expanded the zone of instability. The American position, which until then had echoed the ec legal assessment of the right of each Yugoslav republic to secede, was replaced by a more geostrategic and pragmatic assessment of the conflict. In the spring of 1992, the main questions tackled by the u.s. National Security Council and the State Department were how to terminate the war in Yugoslavia and how to stabilize the Balkan region. It was with these puzzles in mind that the United States approached the Kosovo crisis. The Maintenance of External Stability by the FRY In the fall of 1992, the Bush administration evaluated the internal and external stability of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Although Belgrade was using political repression against Kosovo Albanians and depriving them of their basic constitutional rights, Serbia was able to contain the effects of the Kosovar secessionist crisis within its national borders. As Secretary of State Madeleine Albright writes in her memoir, “Kosovo was extremely tense but not at war.”13 Slobodan Milosevic was also able to preserve the external stability of the fry. There was no flow of Kosovo-Albanian refugees crossing international borders (unlike in Bosnia and Croatia) or any other type of interstate disruption. As a central state, the fry succeeded where the former Yugoslav federation had failed in 1991. As seen in chapter 3, the Yugoslav People’s Army had intervened to prevent the secession of Croatia and Slovenia. This response provoked internal disorder (especially in Croatia) and external instability, as a large number of refugees crossed the border to find safe haven in Hungary, Austria, and Germany. In the case of the fry, the declaration of independence of Kosovo did not produce war or significant disruption, and as a result, the United States maintained its support for the fry. Moreover, the idea of recognizing Kosovo’s secession was perceived as the worst option for stability in the Balkans. In a region

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where ethnicity and borders did not match, the cohesion and survival of the states surrounding Kosovo (i.e., Albania, Bosnia, and Macedonia) became a central geopolitical concern in Washington, and the recognition of Kosovo was perceived as a threat to the cohesion of neighbouring states. In a cable sent to the u.s. Embassy in Belgrade, Secretary of State Eagleburger wrote, “While there is terrible human suffering in Bosnia, Kosovo exceeds its potential for destabilizing the area beyond former-Yugoslavia’s borders. The u.s. supports restoration of Kosovo’s autonomy, but is not in favor of independence.” Then he added that “nothing should be done that would encourage the Kosovars to rebel. They would be crushed.”14 In addition to Secretary Eagleburger’s opposition to Kosovo’s independence, the u.s. embassy in Belgrade concluded in an analysis that “a shift in Western policy to support Kosovo independence … could embolden Albanian extremists and/or trigger an irrational response from Milosevic (or local Serb extremists) that would have the support of most Serbs and provoke the feared confrontation.”15 If the White House was against Kosovo’s secession, it also made it clear that it was opposed to Serbia’s military repression against Kosovo Albanians. In late December of 1992, the u.s. secretary of state Lawrence Eagleburger sent a warning to Serbian president Milosevic – known as the Christmas Warning – in which he informed Belgrade that the United States would not hesitate to use force against Serbia if it ever used military repression against Kosovo.16 This warning, which became an integral part of the u.s. policy toward Kosovo, was reaffirmed by Secretary of State Warren Christopher a few weeks after President Clinton took office. The destabilizing effect of a potential Serbian attack against Kosovo was seen in Washington as a direct threat to the stability of the Balkans and, by extension, to the stability of the European continent, which the United States viewed as a national interest. The Christmas Warning was, therefore, motivated by regional stability motives rather than by human rights principles. In the early 1990s, both the secession of Kosovo and Serbia’s military crackdown in the province to prevent secession would have destabilized Kosovo and probably inflamed the whole southern region of the Balkans. This fear was expressed well by David C. Gompert, who served as the special assistant to President Bush and as the senior director for Europe and Eurasia on the National Security Council:

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Washington feared that a Serbian assault against the Albanian Kosovars would consume the entire Southern Balkan region in a conflagration that would pit one nato ally against another. Hostilities in Kosovo would probably spill into Albania proper. This in turn could incite the large Albanian minority in Macedonia and lead to Serbian or Greek intervention there. Bulgaria and Turkey would then feel pressure to act in order to prevent Greek control of Macedonia. Where the Bosnian war could be contained, conflict in Kosovo most likely could not.17 The Christmas Warning may have affected Belgrade’s treatment of Kosovo, since no attack was launched against ethnic Albanians from 1992 to 1998. It is hard, however, to measure the real impact of it, since we do not know how Milosevic would have behaved otherwise. What we do know is that the failure of Serbia to intervene militarily in Kosovo cannot be attributed solely to the u.s. military threat in this respect. Indeed, Serbia was already militarily involved in Croatia and Bosnia, and the opening of a third military front in Kosovo would have been difficult to manage. The case of Kosovo is different from those of Croatia, Macedonia, and Slovenia, where the United States quickly moved to the second step of the stability-seeking argument by considering the recognition of their independence. In this case, Rugova’s peaceful resistance movement for independence, the absence of Serbia’s military crackdown in the province, and the ability of the fry to maintain stable international borders explain why the United States kept supporting the fry’s territorial integrity. Some members of the Bush administration also feared that the recognition of Kosovo would create a precedent that would further destabilize the region by bolstering other secessionist movements such as the Serbs in Krajina (Croatia) or in Bosnia-Herzegovina, who sought international recognition of their independence. This unique combination of factors also explains why Kosovo received relatively little attention from Washington for most of the 1990s in comparison to Croatia or Bosnia. As Tim Judah explains, “Kosovo was always just an after-thought. It was the place that the diplomats knew they should do something about, but were not sure what and anyway had more important things to do.”18 Throughout the 1990s, the Bush and Clinton administrations avoided taking concrete actions in Kosovo that could have generated regional dis-

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order. They estimated that it was better to do nothing than to risk causing violence in the province and the region by intervening in one way or another. In a document entitled “u.s. Policy on Kosovo,” sent by the State Department to u.s. embassies in the Balkans in the summer of 1993, the American position on the issue was clearly exposed: •

•

•

We have been concerned about the situation in Kosovo because of longstanding tensions there arising from Serb repression of ethnic Albanian Kosovars and because of the high risk of conflict there spreading into – or involving – neighboring countries which have Albanian populations. We seek to deter the Serbs from taking violent action in Kosovo. President Bush’s “Christmas” message to Milosevic was specific and clear: We are prepared to respond against Serbia in the event of a conflict in Kosovo caused by Serbian action. In our frequent contacts with Albanian Kosovar leaders such as Dr. Bukoshi and Dr. Rugova, we have made clear that they must continue to exercise caution in their approach to the Serbian and “fry” governments so as not to provide Serbian authorities an excuse to initiate a violent crackdown. We also have made clear repeatedly that we do not support their independence.19

This document shows that the United States was concerned by the fry’s potential external instability, which could have been caused by Serbia’s military crackdown in Kosovo. The Christmas Warning clearly underlined the American concern.

towar d i nstabi li ty i n the fry The Dayton peace agreements, which brought the Yugoslav wars to an end, had the ironic effect of radicalizing the Kosovo secessionist movement. Since the success of the agreements depended in large part on Slobodan Milosevic’s good faith and willingness to negotiate with his Croatian and Bosnian counterparts, chief American negotiators Richard Holbrooke and General Wesley Clark agreed to exclude the issue of Kosovo from the peace talks, as requested by Milosevic. This political concession on the part of the United States facilitated negotiations and helped peace to be reached in Bosnia.

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This decision, however, had a counterproductive effect in Kosovo. The fact that Kosovo representatives were muzzled at Dayton was perceived in Pristina as an act of betrayal and contributed to radicalizing the secessionist movement. The Dayton episode demonstrated that Ibrahim Rugova was unable to make tangible progress toward independence and international recognition. Rugova gradually lost credibility among his people, and a growing number of Kosovars became convinced that armed resistance was the only way to achieve independence.20 These events favoured the emergence of the Kosovo Liberation Army (kla). In 1996 the kla launched several attacks against Serbian police officers and ethnic Serb civilians, and this served as a pretext for Milosevic to launch military operations in the province. Soon, the relative state of peace that had existed in Kosovo since 1991 was transformed into a state of recurrent mutual aggression between ethnic Albanians and Serbian troops. The FRY as an Obstacle to Regional Stability As mutual attacks between Serbian troops and members of the kla became frequent in the fall of 1997, the International Contact Group – a transatlantic group of government officials composed of the United States, Russia, England, France, Germany, and Italy – urged Belgrade to negotiate with Kosovo secessionists, to allow the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (osce) to send an observation mission into Kosovo and Vojvodina and to grant special status to Kosovo. The Contact Group issued the following statement: “We do not support independence and we do not support maintenance of the status quo. We support an enhanced status for Kosovo within the fry.”21 Belgrade rejected the demands formulated by the Contact Group and argued that the issue of Kosovo was an internal affair and nobody else’s business. Milosevic refused to adopt a conciliating approach toward Kosovo, arguing that kla members were pursuing a full-fledged civil war to obtain independence. Belgrade maintained military pressure on Kosovo secessionists, and the province gradually fell into a state of war in early 1998. In Washington, the State Department and the Department of Defense (dod) debated whether to update President Bush’s 1992 Christmas Warning. A Clinton administration official stated that

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“the United States’ view remains the same as it was in December 1992 – that we’re not going to sit back and accept a major Serb military operation in Kosovo.”22 Secretary of State Madeleine Albright condemned Belgrade for the instability and violence in Kosovo and made clear that Slobodan Milosevic had to accept third-party mediation or face reprisals. Albright declared that “Kosovo had implications for the entire region. We could not allow the Serbs to define it as a purely internal matter.”23 In addition to the increasing internal disorder within Kosovo, the government of the fry gradually lost control over its external stability. In June 1998, after the kla had seized about 40 percent of Kosovo’s territory, Belgrade launched an attack against Albanians with tanks and helicopters to crush the secessionist movement. This action produced thousands of Albanian refugees, who fled to Albania and Macedonia to escape the war. By the fall, the un High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that there were around ninety thousand Kosovo refugees in neighbouring states.24 By the end of the year, Serbia’s military intervention had produced an international refugee crisis that disrupted the entire southern Balkan region. The effect of the crisis was felt particularly in Macedonia, where the presence of a large number of Kosovo Albanian refugees threatened to change the ethnic composition of the country. Macedonian authorities were worried that the presence of more Albanians would lead them to make more political demands and to a stronger claim for the creation of a Greater Albania, which would imperil the survival of the Macedonian state.25 The war in Kosovo really became a top u.s. priority in the fall of 1998, once it became clear that the government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had refused to negotiate with secessionists and had failed to maintain its external stability. The Clinton administration was highly concerned that the situation in Kosovo could end up being a repetition of the 1992–95 Bosnian war. Secretary Albright declared that “we are not going to stand by and watch the Serbian authorities do in Kosovo what they can no longer get away with in Bosnia.”26 Christopher Hill, the u.s. ambassador to Macedonia, who worked closely with Richard Holbrooke to end the war in Bosnia in 1995, was then appointed special envoy to Kosovo. His mission was to find a political settlement to the crisis. Hill came up with a proposal calling for a ceasefire, for the withdrawal of Serbian police

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and the fry military forces from Kosovo, and for the return of Kosovo Albanian refugees in the province. The plan was backed by the threat of nato military intervention in the event that Milosevic refused to comply with u.s. demands – this was referred to as “coercive diplomacy.” Acting under the threat of air strikes, Milosevic agreed to reduce the number of Serbian military forces in the province and to allow eighteen hundred international observers to enter the province under the supervision of the osce.27 This agreement eventually failed because Kosovo’s shadow government and kla representatives were not bound by the accord. Secessionists quickly took advantage of the fact that Milosevic was constrained by nato to intensify their military campaign against Serbian troops in Kosovo. These actions caused fighting to resume and led to the collapse of the agreement. Albanian secessionists were the main actors responsible for the failure of the accord, and in early 1999 the United States and Western Europe were back to square one as far as diplomatic initiatives were concerned.

the use of force as a last resort With the assistance of Madeleine Albright’s closest advisor, James O’Brien, u.s. ambassador Christopher Hill elaborated a new plan in early 1999 that attempted to reconcile the interests of Belgrade and Pristina. The Hill-O’Brien proposal, which was introduced and debated at Rambouillet (near Paris), specified that Kosovo would remain part of Serbia but that it would enjoy a large degree of selfdetermination. The plan included the deployment of an international implementation force with a large nato military component to enforce the agreement. The proposal also called for a three-year interim period before the issue of Kosovo’s independence would be addressed. The option of independence remained on the table to please Kosovo Albanians and to insure their cooperation.28 Kosovo representatives approved the proposal, but this time Serbian authorities rejected it because they refused the deployment of foreign forces on their territory. The failure of this “last chance” accord sealed the fate of the fry. The Milosevic regime was identified as the main obstacle to the reestablishment of stability in Kosovo, and in March of 1999 nato began its air strikes (Operation Allied Force) against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The purpose of the war was to compel

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Milosevic to accept the Rambouillet terms. In a sense, the nato campaign was the multilateral application of the Christmas Warning issued six years earlier by President Bush.

kosovo’s failure of the test of stability The question of whether Kosovo’s secession should be recognized was raised within the u.s. foreign policy apparatus in the late 1990s but was never seriously debated. A consensus existed on the fact that Kosovo did not possess the necessary attributes to be recognized as a sovereign state, and the State Department and the nsc agreed that recognition would create more problems than it would resolve, for three main reasons. First, Kosovo Albanians were not in a position to maintain the internal stability of their province. The province had no viable state structure and offered no guarantee that the Serbian minority would be represented in, and protected by, Kosovo’s institutions.29 Moreover, Kosovo did not possess coercive capacities. It did not have a national army to defend itself against Serbia, and the United States was not interested in sending troops to Kosovo against active Serbian opposition in order to secure its independence.30 The international borders of Kosovo constituted another problem. Serbia and Macedonia had not demarcated their common border when Yugoslavia broke out in 1991. As a result, the southern frontier of Kosovo, which bordered Macedonia, was still not officially demarcated.31 James O’Brien, who negotiated the Rambouillet agreements in 1998–99, points out that Kosovo “had none of the attributes of a state. It didn’t have recognized international boundaries. It didn’t have control over its territory. It didn’t have the ability to secure its borders. And it didn’t have a government of its own. It had elected a shadow government and established quite remarkable shadow institutions, but it did not have any of the attributes. This is part of why no government considered seriously recognizing a Kosovo independent state.”32 Second, Kosovo failed to guarantee its external stability. There was a real concern in the Clinton administration that the recognition of Kosovo would be the first step toward the creation of a Greater Albania. According to a 1995 survey, 43 percent of Kosovo Albanians expressed their desire to join Albania rather than to obtain inde-

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pendence.33 kla representatives had declared in early 1998 that its armed struggle against Serbia had the main objective of unifying Kosovo and Albania. This was a clear indication that Kosovo Albanians would not have restricted their political ambitions to the national borders of Kosovo. Daniel Hamilton, who acted as the u.s. special coordinator for Southeast European stabilization in the late 1990s, emphasized this problem: “If you listen to some of the more extreme elements in Kosovo, recognition was simply the first step toward a greater Albania, which would have gone far beyond the borders of a Kosovar state.”34 This point of view was also shared by a former high-ranking u.s. official: “The ideologues who have talked about a greater Albania were a great concern. And the fear of borders being redrawn by force or by coercion was a real fear.”35 While international recognition had been used by the United States as a political tool to reinforce regional stability in Croatia, Macedonia, and Slovenia, it was viewed in Kosovo as a stimulus for greater disorder and bloodshed. As a former advisor of President Clinton on Kosovo argues, “The reason why we didn’t recognize Kosovo was largely a result of our analysis of the likely consequences of such a step for stability in the Balkans … The analysis was that the recognition of Kosovo’s independence would create more conflict, more violence, and more confrontation in the region.36 Secretary Albright also emphasized this stability concern before the u.s. Institute of Peace a month before nato launched its military campaign. She declared that “the kla, as it is known, offers a deceptively simple answer to the tragedy of Kosovo – independence from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. But there is no guarantee that independence would lead to peace in Kosovo and ample reason to fear that it could undermine stability elsewhere in the region.”37 Third, the opposition of the European Union to the independence of Kosovo was another element in the u.s. calculation. Brussels refused to accept the emergence of a new Muslim state on the doorstep of Western Europe. Furthermore, South Balkan states with Albanian minorities, such as Macedonia and Greece, saw the recognition of Kosovo as a threat to their national unity because it might bolster the idea of a Greater Albania. In her memoir, Madeleine Albright writes: Our reluctance to endorse independence was shaped less by principle than by a pragmatic assessment of attitudes in the

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region. Macedonia and Greece strongly opposed independence for Kosovo because they feared it might inflame separatist ambitions within their own ethnic Albanian populations … More generally, some Europeans feared that an independent Kosovo would become a hotbed of Islamic extremism and organized crime. We couldn’t achieve our goals in Kosovo without support from Europe, and we wouldn’t have Europe’s support if we backed independence for Kosovo.38 The fact that European allies were opposed to Kosovo’s independence probably dissuaded the Clinton administration from looking further in that direction. The United States did not want to isolate itself on the issue and was not ready to accept the consequences of recognition on its own. This point, however, appears less convincing than the two previous arguments presented above. It seems that the United States did not promote the independence of Kosovo, not mainly because the European Union opposed it, but because the province was a hopeless case for independence, for which it was not worth fighting. It would have been pointless to persuade Brussels of the need to recognize Kosovo if the secessionists were a priori unable to guarantee the internal and the external stability of their state. We can assume, however, that if Kosovo had been stable (i.e., if it had had functioning institutions, armed forces, a defined territory, minority rights) and if the unification with Albania had not been one of the arguments for independence, the United States would probably have considered recognition and tried to convince its European counterparts to accept it. Madeleine Albright’s determination to use force against Serbia despite Brussels’s initial reluctance is a good example showing that the United States can convince its European partners when necessary. In sum, in the late 1990s the fry represented a major obstacle to regional stability, but Kosovo was not recognized as an independent state, because it was not in a position to ensure its own stability. As Morton Abramovitz bluntly points out, the United States did not recognize Kosovo “because it wanted to end the war and it didn’t feel that it could end it if it had recognized independence.”39 In this context, a u.s.-led nato intervention appeared to be the only viable option for moving forward toward peace and stability in the Balkans. The nato air campaign lasted seventy-eight days until Milosevic consented to the terms of the Rambouillet proposal.

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kosovo as a un protectorate Resolution 1244 adopted by the un Security Council in June 1999, following the nato air campaign, stipulated that Kosovo was officially part of Serbia but that it would be administrated by the United Nations. The resolution established the un Mission in Kosovo (unmik) as the ultimate authority in the province, but did not address Kosovo’s final status. unmik’s main task was to build up a civil administration in the province and to gradually transfer political authority to the government of Kosovo in Pristina. The resolution also authorized nato to be in charge of a Kosovo peacekeeping force (the Kosovo Force – kfor), which included fifty thousand nato troops, as well as Russian forces. kfor’s mission was to secure the environment and to supervise the disarmament of kla members. Moreover, the resolution called for the withdrawal of all Serbian forces from Kosovo and for the return of Albanian refugees to their home. In a word, resolution 1244 transformed Kosovo into a de facto un protectorate but reaffirmed at the same time the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the fry. One of unmik’s central objectives was to provide Kosovo with democratic state structures in order to better evaluate its long-term viability before making a final decision on its status. In this respect, the un mission elaborated a Constitutional Framework for Provisional Government in 2001. The first elected government was formed in Kosovo in 2002 and democratic elections were held in the fall of 2004. Another objective of the un mission was to play for time. By putting the final political status of Kosovo on hold, the United States and Europe wanted to let the political context evolve so that new solutions could emerge. Washington was hoping that a new generation of leaders in Serbia would eventually replace the Milosevic regime and be more open toward Kosovo. The un presence in Kosovo also allowed for changes to the nature of the debate. unmik emphasized the importance of democratic standards. The issue of whether Kosovo and the fry would eventually integrate into the eu became one of the focal points of discussion with the adoption of the Standards before Status policy. With this policy, the United States and the European Union proposed a bargain to the Balkan region. They agreed to integrate the Balkans into the Euro-Atlantic community but asked that Balkan states (including Kosovo) conform to European political standards.

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This conditionality policy, however, was badly received by Kosovo Albanians, and many believed that this approach was intended to weaken their aspirations for independence.

instability on the horizon After more than half a decade of un administration in Kosovo, the population remained polarized along ethnic lines, and the Serbian and Albanian positions appeared difficult to reconcile. Belgrade remained firmly opposed to the independence of the province, while ethnic Albanians in Kosovo still called for a referendum on independence. The three-year interim period that was supposed to culminate with a referendum on Kosovo’s final political status in 2002 was extended several times by unmik for two main reasons. First, the un mission was focusing on the implementation of the liberal standards of governance in Kosovo, which took time. Second, the Security Council of the un, which was responsible for resolution 1244 and for the creation of unmik, was divided on the issue of the political status of Kosovo and, therefore, favoured the extension of the interim period. Hence, five years after unmik was established, the status of Kosovo remained the main puzzle that confronted the United States and Europe. The view that the un presence in the province was a measure to defer Kosovo’s independence indefinitely was shared by an increasing portion of the Albanian majority. Political leaders in Pristina also argued that the failure to resolve the status of Kosovo was economically costly because the province could not find foreign investors or obtain loans.40 Furthermore, because Kosovo was not a sovereign state, it could not join international organizations. In March 2004, inter-ethnic relations were tense in Kosovo and culminated in a riot led by ethnic Albanians against the Serbian minority, a riot that left nineteen dead and nine hundred injured in Pristina. Orthodox churches and monasteries were vandalized, and several Serbs fled Kosovo. The Bush administration then realized that further delaying the final status of Kosovo might be a time bomb that could create chaos and bloodshed. Following these events, un secretary-general Kofi Annan appointed Norwegian diplomat, Kai Ede, as the representative in charge of assessing Kosovo’s future. Ede concluded that additional progress in the province was impossible without the resolution of its political status.

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In Washington, a consensus among experts slowly emerged in 2005 on the fact that Washington needed to recognize the independence of Kosovo.41 Returning to the stability-seeking argument, one of its main assumptions is that the u.s. presidency chooses, on the basis of cost-benefit analysis, the option that brings the greatest expected regional stability. As time went on, it appears that the option of independence for Kosovo was likely to bring more stability than alternative policies. A former advisor to President Clinton on Kosovo, who asked to remain anonymous, pointed out in April 2005, “I think the United States will recognize Kosovo’s independence in the next two or three years for the same reasons it didn’t before. Because we think that recognition will not create further fragmentation in the region and a failure to recognize would actually create a higher danger of instability.”42 This argument was captured by Charles Kupchan in an article in Foreign Affairs a few months later: “harsh realities on the ground make independence for Kosovo the only viable option … Pretending otherwise and denying or delaying independence risks a return to disorder and bloodshed – and is therefore the greater of two evils.”43 While the international recognition of Kosovo had been viewed by the Clinton administration as a measure that would encourage disorder and bloodshed in the Balkans, the Bush administration reached the opposite conclusion in the mid-2000s as ethnic tensions rose in the province.44 In the fall of 2005, the un secretary-general named the former president of Finland, Martti Ahtisaari, as un special envoy to Kosovo to undertake the final negotiations over its status. The Contact Group, which brought together France, Germany, Italy, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, agreed to set up the guidelines for Ahtisaari’s negotiations. The group stated that there should be no alteration of Kosovo’s boundaries, that the solution should conform to Kosovars’ political will, but that the creation of a greater Albania would not be accepted. These principles focused on the promotion of regional stability and multi-ethnic political accommodation.45 To be consistent with the stability-seeking model, Kosovo needed to guarantee both its internal and its external stability to obtain u.s. recognition. Facts indicate that throughout the first decade of the twenty-first century, the United States, as well as the European Union, pushed for unmik to adopt policies that focused on this

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double dimension of stability. A document called “Standards for Kosovo,” set out by the un mission in 2003, emphasized the importance of the rule of law and of minority rights in the province. The document also pointed out that Kosovo would have to be “in stable and peaceful relationships with its regional neighbours” before any decision on its status could be made.46 Of course Kosovo’s relations with Serbia remained tense, but the province had focused on building democratic institutions, which strengthened its internal stability. Moreover, the settlement of the Macedonian crisis through the Ohrid Agreement (see chapter 4), which gave greater representation to the ethnic Albanian minority, increased stability in the region and reassured u.s. policy-makers that the recognition of Kosovo would not destabilize Macedonia, the neighbouring state. In early 2006, u.s. special envoy to Kosovo, Frank Wisner, made a private promise to leaders in Pristina that the United States would recognize the secession of Kosovo once Pristina had committed itself to multi-ethnic arrangements within the province to ease ethnic tensions with the Serbian minority.47 By then, elites in Pristina felt confident that political concessions would be rewarded by u.s. and European recognition. Indeed, this is how the White House had handled the Macedonian crisis over the Ohrid agreement in 2004. Then, the Bush administration had recognized Macedonia’s constitutional name to reward the Macedonians for agreeing to support the agreement, which increased decentralization and minority rights for the Albanian minority. Thus, leaders in Kosovo committed themselves to implementing policies that would decentralize central authority to municipalities and proposed the creation of new Serbian-majority municipalities in the north of Kosovo. In April 2007, Martti Ahtisaari submitted his final report on Kosovo’s future status to the un Secretary General. Ahtisaari recommended that Kosovo be recognized as an independent state supervised by the international community.48 The plan was welcomed and supported by the United States and by the main European powers (i.e., the United Kingdom, France, and Germany). The Ahtisaari plan included provisions for the protection of the rights of the Serbian minority, as well as for the protection of its cultural and religious institutions. Serbs in Kosovo would enjoy greater powers in municipalities where they constituted the majority through decentralization measures. The package also guaranteed them fair representation in the central government in Pristina. The

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plan addressed the issue of the land dispute between Kosovo and Macedonia. In 2001 Serbia had agreed to transfer more than two thousand hectares of land from Kosovo to Macedonia (see chapter 4). Pristina, however, was unhappy with the settlement and wanted a revision of the agreement. This point of contention raised concern over the external stability of Kosovo, but the Ahtisaari plan settled the dispute. Ahtisaari convinced Kosovo authorities to acknowledge and respect the 2001 agreement with Macedonia.49 The plan, however, was firmly rejected by Serbia, which refused to lose the territory of Kosovo, and by the Serbian minority in Kosovo, which despite guarantees of greater political power and constitutional rights under the Ahtisaari plan, refused to be separated from Serbia. Moreover, the Serbian minority questioned the good faith of the Albanian majority and wondered whether the promises made by Pristina and the principle of a multi-ethnic society would unravel once secession had been achieved. The categorical rejection of the proposals by ethnic Serbs had a major impact on the negotiations over the political future of Kosovo in the Security Council of the un, which was ultimately in charge of deciding on the political status of Kosovo. In the summer of 2007, the Security Council wrestled with the conclusions of the Ahtisaari plan, and Russia systematically blocked its adoption. Moscow indicated that it would not consent to a resolution that did not receive the approval of Serbia, its historical ally. After a final round of negotiations in the fall of 2007 between the United States, the European Union, and Russia, which attempted to end the political deadlock between leading Western states and Russia on the issue of Kosovo’s status, Washington reached the conclusion that no common ground could be found within the Security Council. Since Russia threatened to use its veto power, the United States, along with France and the United Kingdom, chose to break with the status quo by acting outside the Security Council to implement the Ahtisaari plan.

the u.s. recognition of kosovo’s unilateral secession There was no perfect solution for the resolution of Kosovo’s political status. The status quo was no longer an option, as the 2004 ethnic riot had demonstrated. As for the idea of giving Kosovo back to

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Serbia, considering that the Serbian government had perpetrated ethnic cleansing against Kosovo Albanians in the late 1990s, this option was perceived in Washington and in Europe as a counterproductive and dangerous measure for the stability of the Balkans. The alternative of partitioning Kosovo, which was encouraged by some commentators in Serbia and in Russia, was also rejected by the Bush administration. The United States was intolerant of changes to international borders, and such a decision could have increased ethnic tensions in the province, as Serbian and Albanian Kosovars were not clearly divided into two homogenous groups.50 As a result, secession, or more specifically “supervised independence,” was seen in Washington as the least worse alternative of all, despite the expected short-term result of spoiling its relations Kosovo Serbs, with Belgrade, and with Moscow. Washington was also fully aware that an international presence would be needed to sustain, in the short and medium term, the functionality of the state of Kosovo, as well as its economic development. But despite this, supervised independence was identified by the State Department and by the nsc as the only viable solution for Kosovo to stay on the path of progress, stability, and economic development. In early 2008, the Bush administration concluded that Kosovo Albanians had negotiated in good faith during the Ahtisaari negotiation phase. Moreover, the internal and external stability of Kosovo was in much better shape in 2008 than it had been in 1999, when unmik took charge of the province. First, unmik created state structures, and Kosovo Albanians offered constitutional guarantees to their minorities during the Ahtisaari negotiations. In addition, Pristina possessed coercive means to maintain civil order and could count on eu police forces and on nato troops to remain on the territory for, at least, the implementation of the Ahtisaari plan. As for the border issue with Macedonia, it was no longer a point of contention, since Kosovo had pledged to respect this agreement. Finally, the government of Kosovo rejected the idea of creating a greater Albania by integrating Kosovo with Albania following its independence. This had been an important argument in Washington against Kosovo’s independence in the 1990s. In sum, Kosovo had several of the attributes of a state. On 17 February 2008, Kosovo prime minister Hashim Thaci, in an address to parliament in Pristina, declared the independence of Kosovo. Thaci addressed the parliament in Albanian and in Serbian

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to underline the fact that independence was an inclusive measure.51 The great majority of deputies in the parliament supported the declaration, but Serbian deputies boycotted the vote. According to some observers, the declaration of independence had been written mainly by the u.s. State Department, and its orchestration was planned by the United States and the main European powers.52 Russia and Serbia argued that this declaration violated international law, since it contravened the un Security Council resolution 1244 adopted in 1999, which stated that Kosovo formally remained under Serbia’s sovereignty. According to them, the secession of Kosovo was not constitutional, since Serbia was vehemently opposed to secession and saw it as an attack on its territorial sovereignty. Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica declared in a televised address that “for as long as the Serbian nation exists, Kosovo will remain Serbia … We do not recognize the forced creation of a state within our territory.”53 Despite these intense protests from Belgrade and Moscow, President Bush declared that “On Kosovo, our position is that its status must be resolved in order for the Balkans to be stable. Secondly, we have strongly supported the Ahtisaari plan. Thirdly, we are heartened by the fact that the Kosovo government has clearly proclaimed its willingness and its desire to support Serbian rights in Kosovo.”54 The next day, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice announced that the United States had recognized the secession of Kosovo as a sovereign and independent state. She pointed out that “Last year, un Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari developed a plan to build a democratic and multi-ethnic Kosovo and recommended Kosovo be independent, subject to a period of international supervision. In light of the conflicts of the 1990s, independence is the only viable option to promote stability in the region.”55 In her statement, Secretary Rice also focused on the fact that Kosovo was a unique case and, therefore, that it should not be seen as a precedent to justify the secession of other states.56 The u.s. recognition caused a quick backlash in the streets of Belgrade. More than one thousand Serbian protesters attacked the u.s. Embassy and at least one hundred broke into the building, which had not been protected by Serbian police.57 The recognition of Kosovo’s secession marked the beginning of the transition of the un authority in Kosovo to the European Union, which had agreed to be in charge of implementing the Ahti-

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saari plan. With eu supervision, Russia no longer had the procedural power to block the implementation of the plan. Pristina has been under the control of the European Union since 2008. Brussels sent hundreds of lawyers, civil administrators, and police officers to replace unmik. Moreover, the nato-led force (kfor), which had been constituted following the 1999 war, has remained in Kosovo to insure its security and its stability. Pristina can still count on more than sixteen thousand nato troops stationed on Kosovo’s territory, which includes sixteen hundred American troops.58 Finally, Western states, such as the United States, have increased their economic aid to Kosovo to make its sovereignty irreversible and its economy more viable. In 2007, the bilateral aid of the u.s. government to Kosovo totalled $77 million. In 2008, the assistance package was up to $335 million.

collision course with russia Kosovo’s declaration of independence amplified the division among the permanent members of the Security Council on the final status of Kosovo. The United States, the United Kingdom, and France quickly recognized Kosovo’s secession, while Russia and to a lesser extent China were opposed to it. Such a division was also present among European states. Germany, Turkey, and the three permanent members of the Security Council mentioned above recognized the sovereignty of Kosovo, while Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Romania, Bulgaria, and Slovakia refused to recognize the newborn state. A similar division existed in Asia, as Taiwan and Australia welcomed Kosovo’s independence but China, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka were against it.59 These states, which were vulnerable to secessionist movements, were afraid of creating a precedent that would bolster secessionist ambitions in their respective states. It was with Russia that tensions were the most acute, since Moscow had been involved in the Ahtisaari negotiations and was Serbia’s main ally. The Russian governement immediately declared Kosovo’s independence “null and void” and called for an emergency session of the un Security Council to condemn the declaration. Russian president Vladimir Putin indicated that such a declaration without Serbia’s and the United Nations’ approval would set a dangerous precedent and would bolster secessionist movements in the former Soviet Union.60 Foreign minister Sergey Lavrov declared,

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“We expect the un Mission in Kosovo and the nato-led Kosovo Force to take immediate action to fulfill their mandates … including voiding the decisions of the Pristina local government.”61 The Security Council session produced no resolution, since there was a deep division on the issue. This led Moscow to move from a legal to a more political strategy. The Russian government indicated that if Kosovo was to be recognized, other secessionist movements in the caucasus should be independent as well.62 The Russian parliament released a statement indicating its intention to recognize Georgia’s secessionist provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, in order to express its discontent.63 Despite these serious tensions with Russia, the Bush administration did not budge. It did not suspend or reverse its decision in order to provide additional time for negotiation with Moscow. The White House recognition of Kosovo’s secession represents one more bit of evidence that supports the stability-seeking argument. As the theory predicts, the impact of great powers on the American policy toward secessionist states is secondary. Even though Russia, and to a lesser extent China, were strongly opposed to the independence of Kosovo and reacted strongly to the u.s. recognition and even if there was no consensus among European states on this issue, the Bush administration did not change its policy and fulfilled its regional stability agenda. Hence, these events reinforce the validity of the regional-stability argument.

ethnic politics in washington Interestingly enough, despite its rather small size, the Albanian American lobby was more active and influential than the Serbian Americans with respect to the Kosovo issue. The Albanian community, which includes between 350,000 and 400,000 people clustered mainly in Boston, Chicago, Detroit, and New York, managed to be heard in Congress and was successful at framing the debate in Washington. In the early 1990s, Albanian Americans appealed to State Department officials, to members of Congress, and to the media to heighten government awareness of the problem of human rights in Kosovo and to promote the idea of independence. The impact of this diaspora was tangible. From January to March of 1992, four resolutions were introduced by senators and representatives in favour of the recognition of Kosovo.64 Meanwhile, Joe DioGuardi, the former

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Congressman and founder of the Albanian American Civic League, urged the Bush administration to grant recognition to Kosovo. For the period 1988–96, conservative estimates suggest that the Albanian American diaspora spent more than eleven million dollars on public relations, political contributions, and lobbying in Washington.65 Despite these efforts, Albanian Americans were unable to convince the Bush and the Clinton administrations that Kosovo’s secession was in the interest of the United States. When the Kosovo crisis re-emerged in 1998, the Albanian community already had several allies in Congress, such as Tom Lantos, Bob Dole, Joe Biden, and John McCain. Senator Bob Dole, being the better known, promptly argued for nato intervention against the fry. During that year, the National Albanian American Council (naac) and the Albanian American Civic League were very active and influential. They collected over $120,000 for members of Congress who were sympathetic to the Kosovo cause.66 During 1998, most Albanian Americans changed their strategy by shifting their political and financial support from Rugova’s Democratic League of Kosovo to the kla, sending, among other things, weapons to the organization.67 Regardless of the number of supporters for Kosovo’s independence in the u.s. Congress, however, the decision to recognize new states is the prerogative of the executive branch of government. This is why Albanian Americans requested meetings with White House officials. The naac had regular access to members of President Clinton’s foreign policy team in the 1990s. naac leaders, for instance, met with Richard Holbrooke, u.s. envoy to the Balkans; Jim Steinberg, deputy national security advisor; James O’Brien, senior advisor to Secretary Albright; Walter Slocombe, under secretary of defence; Marc Grossman, assistant secretary of state for Europe; and Stephen Flanagan, senior advisor to President Clinton.68 Each time, naac members pressed for a referendum on Kosovo’s independence. Despite its active involvement in the Kosovo crisis in 1998–99, the Albanian American lobby made no progress on the issue that mattered most to Kosovo Albanians, namely, the independence and diplomatic recognition of the province. No matter how many meetings Albanian Americans had with White House officials, the administration of Bill Clinton remained systematically opposed to Kosovo’s secession.

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Despite these setbacks, the Albanian American community remained active in the first years of the twentieth century. On the day of the u.s. recognition of Kosovo, leaders of the Albanian American Civic League declared that their organization had “finally convinced the State Department that Kosova’s independence provided the only way to bring peace and stability to the Balkans.”69 It is doubtful that after almost twenty years of lobbying and setbacks, the Albanian Americans suddenly succeeded in reversing the u.s. position. But if this assertion is true, leaders of the Albanian American Civic League confirm my theoretical assumption that the u.s. government shifts its position only to maximize its stability interests in secessionist regions. Indeed, the administration of George W. Bush favoured Kosovo’s secession once it became clear that the status quo was likely to create greater instability in Kosovo. In sum, it was not domestic ethnic factors that prompted a policy shift but the search for stability in Kosovo. The Serbian Americans Was the Serbian American community, which includes around one million Americans, powerful enough to prevent u.s. recognition of Kosovo from 1991 to 2008? The facts indicate that the Serbian American community was politically weak and badly organized throughout the 1990s. The anti-Milosevic bias, the fragmented nature of the Serbian American community, and its lack of involvement in the public relations battle in Washington account for the failure of the Serbian Americans to affect the formulation of u.s. foreign policy towards Kosovo. In a discussion with Acting Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger in 1992, Congressmember Helen Delich Bentley, a leading Serbian American figure, was told, “If you want to help your people, dump Milosevic.”70 This shows how negative the State Department’s views were toward the Serbian regime already in the early 1990s. Representative Bentley was really the only point of access that the Serbian American lobby had in Congress. Years later she recalled, “We wanted to lobby for the Serbian cause to let people know that Serbians aren’t all bad guys. People were only getting one side of the story [in the United States].”71 And when Bentley left Congress in 1994, the Serbian community lost most of its political strength on Capitol Hill.

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Moreover, despite its large size the Serbian American community had no strong tradition of political organization and was divided over whether or not to support the Milosevic regime. This lack of cohesion, which remained throughout the 1990s, significantly weakened the Serbian lobby in Washington. The Bosnian tragedy also seriously damaged the credibility of the Serbian Americans in their attempt to influence the White House. Serbian American organizations that had supported Serbia before and during the Bosnian war were embarrassed and remained relatively quiet on the Kosovo issue in the second half of the 1990s.72 When the Kosovo crisis became internationalized in 1998, the Serbian Unity Congress (suc), one of the most influential and bestorganized Serbian interest groups in the United States, strongly opposed the nato use of force against Serbia. The organization sent letters to the press, to members of Congress and to the Clinton administration. The suc also sponsored a demonstration against the use of force before the State Department in October of 1998.73 These actions, however, did not prevent the Clinton administration from bombing Serbia. Finally, while Albanian Americans relied on public relations firms in Washington to promote the independence of Kosovo, Serbian Americans were not significantly involved in the public relations battle. As Danielle Sremac points out, “The Serbs did not hire professional help and missed out on establishing contacts with u.s. policymakers and opinion makers in Washington.”74 Overall, the impact of the Serbian Americans was overshadowed by the actions of other Yugoslav ethnic groups, including the Albanian Americans. As a result, the u.s. view on the whole Yugoslav crisis quickly went in a direction that was against perceived Serbian American interests. In the middle of the first decade of the twenty-first century, when a consensus emerged in Washington on the need to recognize Kosovo’s secession, Serbian American lobbies in Washington, such as the Serbian Unity Congress and representatives of the Orthodox Church in the United States launched a final effort to prevent Kosovo’s secession and attempted to secure the partition of Kosovo. The American Council for Kosovo, another Serbian American lobby, attempted to scare u.s. officials by warning them that Kosovo was “Europe’s black hole of organized crime activities” and that Kosovo Albanian leaders had ties to jihad terrorists.75 These attempts did not change the u.s. course of action.

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Thus, ethnic groups in Washington failed to influence the u.s. government on the issue of Kosovo’s secession. To return to the domestic ethnic-group hypotheses, from 1991 to 2008, the u.s. position toward the Kosovo secessionist conflict did not reflect the interests of Albanian Americans, who exerted the most pressure on the u.s. government. Moreover, neither did the White House policy reflect the interests of the Serbian Americans, who represented the largest number of u.s. voters. The White House remained opposed to independence until the middle of the decade for reasons of stability, not to please Serbian Americans. As for Albanian Americans, they were effective and had strong advocates in Congress. However, the support expressed by some members of Congress in favour of independence throughout the 1990s was not acted on by the u.s. presidency until 2008. Despite Ambrosio’s claim that decision-makers often attempt to satisfy ethnic-lobby interests “in order to tap into the ‘ethnic money’ and to garner more votes,”76 what the previous section has shown is that successive u.s. governments consistently obeyed the rationale of regional stability, rather than domestic ethnic considerations. Moreover, every former State Department official and former u.s. negotiator involved in the Kosovo crisis who was interviewed for this research pointed out that ethnic lobbies were insignificant in the formulation of the u.s. response. As Daniel Hamilton indicated, “These ethnic groups were just too small and the stakes here were too big. They did not have any influence [on the issue of recognition].”77

conclusion The United States did not recognize the independence of Kosovo before 2008 for two main reasons: first, although the u.s. government developed a strong bias against the regime of Slobodan Milosevic throughout the 1990s, the Federal Republic of Yugoslav succeeded in containing the crisis from 1991 to 1998; second, Kosovo failed the test of internal and external stability at the end of the 1990s, when Belgrade became the main obstacle to the restoration of stability in the province. Under the un administration after 1999, Kosovo slowly strengthened its government structures, and ethnic Albanians offered guarantees of minority rights to ethnic Serbs. The progress toward sta-

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bility in Kosovo in the years beginning in 2000 and the risk of falling back into ethnic chaos if the political status of the province was not settled once and for all led the United States to favour the secession of Kosovo and to recognize its independence in 2008. Before extending recognition, Washington obtained guarantees from Pristina that it would respect the political criteria contained in the Ahtisaari proposals. The u.s. strategy of using diplomatic recognition to prevent greater instability in Kosovo resembles, both in its means and in its projected end, the 2004 decision of the Bush administration to recognize the constitutional name of Macedonia. In both cases, recognition was a reward to prevent ethnic violence and to encourage Pristina and Skopje to persist in behaving according to liberal norms in order to increase stability in the Balkans. Finally, despite Serbia’s strong opposition to the secession of Kosovo and Russia’s frustration at Washington’s decisions, the Bush administration chose to fulfill its stability agenda in the Balkans. This case tends to validate the stability argument. It highlights the crucial importance that regional stability played in the American response to the Kosovo crisis and justifies the variation in the White House foreign policy concerning the issue.

6 Eritrea’s Independence and U.S. Regional Interests

introduction The independence Eritrea achieved from Ethiopia in 1993 is the only case of successful secession to take place in post-colonial Africa. It was the first time that a secessionist state had achieved independence from a sovereign African state. While several African secessionist movements had failed to break from their central state (e.g., Biafra, Cabinda, Casamance, Katanga, Southern Sudan, Western Sahara), Eritrea was able to do so and obtained diplomatic recognition after thirty years of war against Ethiopia, in the longest secessionist struggle ever fought in Africa. Eritrea is a unique case to the extent that the Ethiopian government agreed to its secession in 1991 mainly because it no longer had the power and the authority to oppose it. In the beginning of the 1990s, the Eritrean secessionist army of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (eplf) had become more powerful than the troops of the rump Ethiopian government, which collapsed in May of 1991, and had a greater military capacity than the transitional government that eventually took control of Ethiopia in July of 1991. This unusual situation, therefore, compelled Addis Ababa to negotiate the secession of Eritrea. The refusal to allow Eritrea’s independence would have led Eritrean secessionists to resume fighting and eventually to defeat the central government of Ethiopia. The case of Eritrea is highly relevant to this research because the fate of this secessionist state was partly linked to u.s. geostrategic interests. From 1952 to 1991, American governments consistently opposed the secession of Eritrea because it was perceived as going against their interest of maintaining stability in the Horn of Africa. Interestingly enough, the United States reversed position in 1991 in

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favour of Eritrea’s independence in order to pursue the same objective: regional stability in a changing political context. Moreover, the United States played a crucial role in the process leading to Eritrea’s secession. In contrast to the Yugoslav secessionist crises, in which other foreign powers were involved (i.e., members of the European Union), the United States was the only foreign power engaged in the resolution of the Eritrean issue. Hence, regional and great powers did not act as a determining variable in the u.s. decision process, as was partly the case, for instance, with Germany toward Croatia and Slovenia or Greece toward Macedonia.1 This chapter takes a detailed look at the critical period that began in 1989 with u.s. involvement in the Ethiopian civil war and ended in 1993 with the official recognition of the independence of Eritrea. This focus allows us to evaluate whether the stability-seeking argument explains the initial u.s. policy in favour of Ethiopia’s unity, as well as the shift in favour of Eritrea’s secession that occurred in 1991.

historical background In contrast to almost all African states, Ethiopia does not have a colonial past. It was a member of the League of Nations in the 1920s and 1930s and was occupied by a colonial power (i.e., Italy) only for a short time from 1936 to 1941, until the allies liberated the Horn of Africa from Mussolini’s imperialist ambitions. Eritrea, however, has a very different political history. It was an Italian colony from 1889 to 1941 and was administered by the British as a United Nations trust territory during the 1940s. This colonial legacy strengthened Eritrea’s separate identity and complicated its relations with Ethiopia after the Second World War.2 In 1950 the political future of Eritrea was debated between the great powers, but no consensus could be reached on its final status. The Soviet Union argued that Eritrea should become an independent state, while the United States and the United Kingdom supported a federal union of Ethiopia and Eritrea. The British, who were still administering the territory by then, relegated the issue to a un commission of investigation, which recommended the creation of a federation with Ethiopia. Even though a large segment of the Eritrean population wanted independence (mainly among the Eritrean Muslim populations), the un Security Council adopted a

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resolution creating an Ethio-Eritrean federation that went into effect in 1952. This resolution made Eritrea an autonomous unit under Ethiopia’s sovereignty. A separate Eritrean constitution was established, as well as an Eritrean parliament in Asmara, the capital of Eritrea. Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, however, never fully accepted the idea of a federation and consented to it to maintain a close relationship with the United States. Haile Selassie’s ultimate objective was to annex Eritrea under a greater Ethiopian Empire. In this respect, the autonomy of Eritrea was systematically violated by the Ethiopian authorities during the 1950s. The Eritrean flag was abolished, and the Eritrean constitution was suspended. The Ethio-Eritrean federation officially ended in 1962, when Eritrea was annexed to Ethiopia and declared the fourteenth province of the Ethiopian empire.3 The erosion of Eritrea’s autonomy before 1962 led to the emergence of secessionist organizations. The Eritrean Liberation Movement (elm), which consisted mainly of Christians, and the Eritrean Liberation Front (elf), a Muslim dominated organization, rose up respectively in 1958 and 1960. The Ethiopian authorities responded with violence to these secessionist insurgencies but failed to resolve the Eritrean secessionist issue. This political stalemate was partly responsible for the creation of a military committee in Ethiopia known as the Derg (which means “council” in Amharic – an Ethiopian language). This Marxist military committee ultimately overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974, and Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam became the head of the government of the People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (gpdre).4 After a brief attempt to appease Eritrea’s secessionist demands, Mengistu chose to pursue Haile Selassie’s repressive policy against Eritrean secessionists. The brutal rule of Mengistu and his will to crush secessionism by any means galvanized Eritrean nationalism and mobilized the population (Muslims as well as Christians) in favour of independence. Within a few years, the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front – formerly the elf – , and the elm successfully fought Ethiopia’s troops and were able to take control of most of Eritrea’s territory, with the exception of Asmara and some major towns.5 Moreover, the creation of the Marxist republic of Ethiopia favoured the emergence in the province of Tigray of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (tplf), a non-secessionist organization that fought to replace the repressive Marxist regime of Mengistu.

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The tplf, which originally was a small rebellion group, was trained and armed by the eplf. From 1975 to 1991, in coordination with the eplf, the tplf achieved several military victories over the gpdre. This circumstantial alliance between the Eritrean secessionists and the Tigrean rebels ultimately led them to defeat the central government of Mengistu in May of 1991. Following the fall of the gpdre, the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front entered Asmara and established control over Eritrea’s territory, which made the province a de facto independent state. Meanwhile, the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front took control of Addis Ababa with the help of eplf units and formed an Ethiopian transitional government. This new government recognized Eritrea’s right of self-determination and agreed to a referendum on Eritrea’s independence. In April of 1993, when asked the question, “Do you want independence from Ethiopia?” 99.8 percent of the 98.5 percent of Eritreans who cast ballots voted in favour of secession in a referendum monitored by the United Nations. Following this result, Eritrean leaders officially declared independence and the United States recognized the new state.

washington’s support for ethiopia’s unity: 1952–91 In 1948, Emperor Haile Selassie and u.s. secretary of state John Marshall agreed that the United States would maintain its military presence at the Asmara station in exchange for its support of the integration of Eritrea into Ethiopia.6 Following the recommendation of the un commission of investigation, the United States (backed by England) managed in 1950 to make the Security Council vote on a resolution that created the federation of Ethiopia and Eritrea, despite the reluctance of the Soviet Union. Following this resolution, the United States signed a mutual defence treaty with Ethiopia, and Radio Marina (renamed Kagnew Station) was converted into a $60 million military complex.7 Eritrea became an important link in the world-wide u.s. communication network. As Okbazghi Yohannes points out, “The Ethiopian-Eritrean federation was installed by the Western powers under the leadership of the United States purely for geopolitical considerations. This un-sanctioned federation in essence became a denial of Eritrea’s right to national self-determination.”8 When Ethiopia annexed Eritrea by

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force in 1962, the United States remained silent because this action served its interests. The annexation increased Addis Ababa’s control over Eritrea’s political life, facilitating u.s. operations in the province. A Decrease in U.S. Interests in Ethiopia but Continuing Support for Unity With the development of satellite technology in the 1960s and 1970s, the communication facilities of the Kagnew Station became obsolete and, as a result, the United States gradually lost interest in Eritrea as a geostrategic position. When the Ethiopian emperor was overthrown by a Marxist military coup in 1974, the United States had already reduced its military personal and investment in the region. Moreover, the rise of Mengistu to power in the mid-1970s ended friendly u.s.-Ethiopian relations. The new Marxist regime abrogated the mutual defence treaty with the United States, and by the late 1970s the influence of the u.s. government in Ethiopia barely existed, as Mengistu broke his relations with the West and moved into the Soviet orbit.9 Despite its ideological setback and regardless of its aversion to Mengistu’s Marxist regime, the United States maintained an antisecessionist policy toward Eritrea. Washington expressed its desire for internal negotiation between Addis Ababa and Asmara and wished that the conflict would be resolved within the Ethiopian political frame. Interestingly enough, the u.s. government did not redefine its policy in the Horn by supporting Eritrea’s independence in order to weaken the Ethiopian regime and Soviet influence in the region. Even if Ethiopia was using brutal military means to crush secessionism in Eritrea, including the bombing of major Eritrean cities and even if Ethiopia’s repressive rule resulted in over one hundred thousand casualties and caused a major famine, the United States categorically refused to support eplf leaders because they advocated Eritrea’s secession. Moreover, Washington’s mistrust of Eritrea’s long-time inclination to socialism and the precedent that u.s. support for secessionism would have established (bolstering secessionist movements across Africa) led the United States to adopt a different strategy. Instead of violating the norm of states’ territorial integrity cherished by the Organization of African Unity (oau),

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Washington applied the containment doctrine to prevent Marxist diffusion in the Horn. The strategy consisted of encircling Ethiopia by arming its neighbours (Somalia, Sudan, and Kenya) and by investing in Somalia, which became the new u.s. client state in the region. As u.s.-Ethiopian relations worsened after 1974, the United States increased its military and economic assistance to the Somali government and made its embassy in Mogadishu (the capital of Somalia) one of the most important diplomatic missions in Africa.10 Thus, despite the variation over time of u.s. strategic interests in Ethiopia and despite the rather drastic change in the nature of its relations with the Ethiopian regime, the United States remained committed to Ethiopia’s territorial integrity.

u.s. involvement The reasons leading the United States to become involved in the Ethiopian-Eritrean conflict in the late 1980s were far different from those behind Washington’s involvement in the Yugoslav conflict. The Horn of Africa was not part of the main u.s. strategic interests, and with the end of the Cold War, this region had lost much of its strategic value. If the Yugoslav war threatened the security and stability of the European continent, the brutal conflict in Ethiopia did not affect the well-being of the United States or that of any of its allies. Thus, the Ethiopian civil war was not a priority for the Bush administration, and before the 1990s, the United States had never seriously attempted to resolve this secessionist conflict (especially from 1952 to 1974, when it had a great influence in Ethiopia). So why did the United States intervene in the Ethiopian conflict if it no longer had influence or apparent interests in Ethiopia? The administration of George H.W. Bush got involved in the Ethiopian civil war for three main reasons. First, the Bush administration wanted to increase its cooperation with the Soviet Union on international issues. At that time, the Soviet Union wanted to disengage from Ethiopia, as it was going through an economic crisis and could no longer provide assistance to it. For this reason, Moscow was in favour of u.s. involvement in the conflict, and Washington saw the issue as a good opportunity to strengthen ties with the Soviet government of Mikhail Gorbatchev.11 Hence, after fifteen years of quasi-absence from Ethiopia (the u.s. no longer had an ambas-

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sador in Addis Ababa and was represented only by a chargé d’affaires), the United States took up the challenge. Second, in the late 1980s, around twenty thousand Jewish Ethiopians (the Falashas) wanted to emigrate to Israel to escape the intense civil war and the famine. This issue became a major concern in Washington, and President Bush expressed a personal interest in the fate of the Falashas. Members of the u.s. Congress who represented Jewish constituents also raised their concerns and pressed the Bush administration to take concrete actions to facilitate the departure of the Jewish Ethiopians. This was one more incentive for the United States to get involved in the resolution of the war. Third, hunger in Ethiopia was another concern in Washington. Throughout the 1980s, the u.s. government had been one of the main providers of humanitarian aid to Ethiopia to counter the famine in the region. By the late 1980s, the Bush administration reached the conclusion that by intervening, it could help to end the civil war and the humanitarian crisis. As a result, the Jewish Ethiopians could more easily depart from Ethiopia. All of these factors were part of the equation that motivated the initial u.s. decision to intervene. The issue of Eritrea’s secession, however, did not play in u.s. decision. In fact, it just happened that the Falashas and the hunger issues were intimately linked to the tough secessionist war in Eritrea. The u.s. intervention did, however, turn out to have a more far-reaching effect than expected. As the next section will show, American officials decided at some point to address the Eritrean secessionist question in order to strengthen regional stability in the Horn.

toward the collapse of the ethiopian government: 1989–91 The reign of the Derg regime was marked by a progressive loss of political control over Ethiopia’s territory. Throughout the 1980s, the regime of Mengistu fought on several fronts against the eplf, which captured most of Eritrea’s strategic locations. The Derg also fought against the tplf, which occupied most of Northern Ethiopia. Toward the end of the 1980s, other liberation movements such as the Oromo Liberation Front also emerged in the south of the country. In early 1990, Mengistu acknowledged for the first

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time that the Ethiopian state was on the verge of dismemberment and that the national army had to fight with more determination against the multiple insurgent fronts to keep Ethiopia united. External Instability and Internal Negotiations When the United States became involved in the conflict, the external stability of Ethiopia was no longer preserved. The Ethio-Eritrean war had created a major spillover effect, and between five hundred and six hundred thousand civilians had taken refuge mainly in Sudan, but also in Kenya and Djibouti. There were also a considerable number of emigres and exiles to Arab states (between eighty and one hundred thousand).12 According to Robert Houdek, who was the u.s. chief of mission to Ethiopia from 1988 to 1991, the refugee crisis was taken very seriously by the State Department, and it was one more reason why Washington got involved in the conflict.13 In terms of internal negotiations, Mengistu had refused to negotiate with Eritrean secessionists until the late 1980s and had used military means to bring Eritrea to heel. The rapid decline of Soviet aid and the severe famine, however, compelled the Ethiopian government to come up with a peace initiative that included negotiations with Eritrean secessionists. Following his first official meeting with u.s. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Herman J. Cohen, Mengistu expressed the desire to end the war. He introduced market-oriented reforms and promised to facilitate the emigration of Jewish Ethiopians. At this point, there was external instability resulting from the conflict, but Mengistu was open to change and accepted third-party mediation. Thus, as the stabilityseeking argument predicts, this openness was good enough for the United States to maintain its support of Ethiopia’s unity. In 1989, former u.s. president Jimmy Carter was chosen by Ethiopian and Eritrean leaders to conduct peace negotiations. The semi-official talks, however, did not produce any significant progress. Negotiations held in Atlanta and in Nairobi in the fall of 1989 failed because the Derg regime refused to allow a un observer mission to assist negotiations, as requested by Eritrean secessionists. Addis Ababa argued that allowing a un presence in Ethiopia would further internationalize the conflict.14 Mengistu was also opposed to the implementation of a ceasefire during the

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peace negotiations, a proposition that had been put forward by the United States. Eritrean secessionist leaders were not more inclined to compromise, since their military victory had started to alter the balance of force in their favour.15 Following these negotiation attempts, the eplf launched an attack against the Ethiopian army on the Red Sea coast and captured Massawa – Eritrea’s main port. This victory marked the beginning of the end for Mengistu, as his troops located in Asmara were isolated and could no longer be supplied on the ground. The Tigrean People’s Liberation Front also made significant progress against Mengistu’s army and was able to move closer to Addis Ababa. In light of a rapidly declining military situation, Mengistu appeared willing to resume peace talks with secessionists under the auspices of the United States and showed signs of flexibility. To demonstrate its good faith, the gpdre allowed international food relief to reach the Eritrean population, which until then had been forbidden. State Department officials also hosted informal talks in Washington between the Ethiopian government and Eritrean secessionists in the fall of 1990. On this occasion, the representative of the Ethiopian government, Tesfaye Dinka, introduced the draft of a new Ethiopian constitution that guaranteed special autonomy for Eritrea. Assistant Secretary Cohen declared, “I believe the Ethiopian government has effectively shown great flexibility in recent weeks and I would ask the eplf to reciprocate.”16 eplf leaders, however, kept requesting a referendum on independence, which was the centerpiece of their strategy, and categorically refused the idea of political autonomy within Ethiopia. Mengistu’s Bad Faith Although the Ethiopian central government seemed open to negotiations and ready to devolve constitutional power to Eritrea, it soon appeared that Mengistu was not acting in good faith and that the gpdre was not really interested in achieving a negotiated peace settlement with the secessionists. The State Department realized that the Ethiopian central state was involved in peace negotiations to buy time in order to re-establish its military authority in Ethiopia and defeat the insurgent movement. To achieve this objective, the Ethiopian government made two tactical decisions. First, it sup-

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ported the u.s. coalition against Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait (Ethiopia had a seat at the un Security Council at the time of the Gulf War). Mengistu believed that cooperating with the United States on the Iraqi issue could be the first step toward a u.s.Ethiopian alliance against Arab influences in the Horn of Africa. Through this alliance, Mengistu was hoping to defeat secessionist insurgents in Eritrea (even if secessionists were from both Muslim and Christian backgrounds) and to consolidate his regime. Mengistu’s second tactical decision was his “visas for arms” policy. To rebuild his military, the Ethiopian leader used the Falashas in an attempt to obtain weapons from Israel. Mengistu literally blackmailed the Israeli government by making it clear that there would be no Falasha emigration without arms in exchange. Thus, in early 1991 the Bush administration came to the conclusion that the regime of Mengistu was an obstacle to the resolution of the civil war and that his policy of an open hand toward Eritrea was a bluff. In April of 1991, after several unsuccessful attempts at peaceful negotiations, the eplf and tplf launched their final offensive against the Mengistu regime. In Washington, the issue of the Falashas became central. Both the White House and members of Congress worried that Ethiopian Jews could be the victims of the intensification of the civil war. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Shamir even appealed to President Bush for intervention in favour of the Falashas. In response to this appeal and to pressure from Congress, President Bush named Rudy Boschwitz, a former Republican senator who had the fate of the Falashas at heart, as his special envoy to Ethiopia. Boschwitz’s first assignment was to deliver a message asking the Ethiopian government to facilitate the departure of the Jews.17 The u.s. government also intensified its involvement in the conflict by sending high-level officials to Ethiopia. In addition to Rudy Boschwitz, nsc director for Africa Robert Frasure and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Irving Hicks also travelled to Ethiopia to push for the departure of the Falashas and to find a peace agreement between the gpdre, the eplf, and the tplf. American officials first met with Mengistu in Addis Ababa. During the meeting, he consented to a rapid departure of the Falashas if the United States agreed to cover the costs of the airlift operation. The Ethiopian leader also asked the Bush administration to organize a new round of peace negotiations with the insurgent

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movement. The State Department agreed to do so but indicated that the negotiations would begin only once the emigration of the Falashas was under way.18 The peace conference finally began in London on 27 May following the rapid and successful departure of most of the Falashas. The Disintegration of Ethiopia’s Central Government In the days preceding the London conference, the political context in Ethiopia changed substantially. The eplf launched its final attack on Asmara, forcing two hundred thousand Ethiopian troops to surrender. The Eritrean secessionists then established a Provisional Government in Eritrea (pge), which was in control of the entire Eritrean territory. Meanwhile, the tplf army was literally waiting at the doors of Addis Ababa, ready to enter the city. Facing his imminent defeat, Mengistu abandoned his government on 21 May, fleeing to Zimbabwe.19 Before leaving, he designated his vice president, Tesfaye Gebre-Kidan, as the new president of Ethiopia. Soon after the u.s. delegation began negotiating with representatives of the different parties in London, the u.s. chargé d’affaires in Addis Ababa, Robert Houdek, informed Assistant Secretary Cohen that the Ethiopian government was no longer able to defend the capital against rebel factions. Since the central government of the Derg was in an advanced stage of disintegration, the u.s. government made an important decision. Assistant Secretary Cohen, who chaired the peace talks in London, agreed to let the tplf enter Addis Ababa to maintain order. This was part of Herman Cohen’s strategy of a “soft landing,” that is, to settle the conflict by minimizing turmoil and violence. The United States was very concerned that the collapse of the Mengistu regime could produce chaos that would aggravate the war. The State Department was still shaken by the collapse of law and order that resulted from the overthrow of the Liberian government in 1990 and of the government of Somalia in early 1991, and Cohen was determined to prevent a similar state of anarchy from emerging in Ethiopia. The u.s. decision to support the tplf entry into Addis Ababa, however, became highly controversial because it was made without the approval of Ethiopia’s prime minister, Tesfaye Dinka, who attended the London conference.20 This decision drastically changed the dynamics of the talks in London. Representatives of

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the gpdre, led by Tesfaye Dinka, refused to acknowledge the disintegration of their regime and chose to leave the conference to protest against what they called “Cohen’s Coup.” Several Ethiopians were also opposed to the tplf ’s takeover in Addis Ababa and saw it as the replacement of one dictatorial regime by another. Many in Ethiopia argued that the United States had literally authorized a military coup.

u.s. support for eritrea’s right to secede The second major u.s. decision in London was even more surprising than the first. At a press conference, Secretary Cohen declared that he was in favour of a referendum on Eritrea’s independence, while stating that he hoped that Eritreans would choose to remain in Ethiopia. This declaration had the effect of a bomb having been dropped. Riots emerged in the streets of the capital, and Ethiopians protested against the u.s. support for a referendum on Eritrea’s independence. For the first time since the Second World War, the United States expressly supported the right of a secessionist state to conduct a referendum on independence. It goes without saying that this statement departed from the traditional u.s. policy of supporting Ethiopia’s territorial integrity. It was the first time in almost fifty years that the United States recognized Eritrea’s right to become a sovereign state. Cohen justified this decision by emphasizing that Eritrea’s situation, from a legal point of view, was different from the other African secessionist movements. The assistant secretary stressed that Eritrea had never been allowed to exercise its right of selfdetermination. Eritreans were indeed compelled to join the EthioEritrean federation in 1952, following a un Security Council decision, and Eritrea was illegally annexed by Ethiopia in 1962. Hence, supporting a referendum on Eritrea’s independence was a way to repair a historical mistake. The unique character of Eritrea, however, was a constant, rather than a variable. Eritrea’s right of self-determination had been denied since 1952, and successive u.s. administrations from President Truman to President Reagan had never attempted to rectify this injustice. Therefore, this argument cannot explain why the United States suddenly reversed its policy. Assistant Secretary Cohen even recognized years later, during an interview with the

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author, that this legal argument was an excuse to justify u.s. support for self-determination. “We felt it helped us feel comfortable because we were always worried with the Organization of African Unity (oau). But the oau reached the same conclusion as we did, which was that secession was inevitable and that we couldn’t stop it.”21 The emphasis on this international legal argument also aimed to prevent criticism of u.s. foreign policy for inconsistency in matters of international recognition. It was a way to avoid creating a political precedent. Explaining the U.S. Policy Shift The u.s. decision to support Eritrea’s referendum on independence was surprising, since the u.s. delegation went to the London conference with a policy of not supporting secession.22 So why did this shift happen? The explanation must be found in the political rather than in the legal realm. The central government of Ethiopia was no longer viable when the parties met in London in May of 1991, and the disintegration of the regime had become a great source of instability. Moreover, the Mengistu government had failed to contain the secessionist crisis within its borders and had used peace negotiations to buy time against Eritrea’s secessionists. The central government of Ethiopia was, therefore, a major obstacle to stability. The facts indicate that the United States consented to a referendum on Eritrea’s independence because this was the only option to end the war and to reestablish stability in the Horn. In other words, the independence of Eritrea, or at least the right to conduct a free referendum on the issue, was seen as a tool to foster regional stability in both Eritrea and Ethiopia, the only way to stop civil war and the devastating famine. A denial of Eritrea’s right to secede may have caused war to resume in Ethiopia. In addition, the fact that the eplf had a more powerful military than the tplf, which was then in control of Addis Ababa, contributed to the u.s. policy shift. Eritrea was a de facto independent state in May of 1991, and any attempt by the new Ethiopian transitional authority to reclaim Eritrea by force would have resulted in failure. Thus, the changing nature of the domestic context in Ethiopia forced the United States to formulate a new pragmatic approach. Since Eritrea’s independence was unstoppable

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and since the Ethiopian host state was powerless toward it, the United States decided to use its power to grant recognition in order to facilitate the resolution of the conflict (as in the case of Croatia and Kosovo) and to impose, as will be shown later, conditions of recognition. This was the only way that the United States could keep certain control over the process leading to the inevitable independence of Eritrea. Dealing with the OAU The u.s. delegation in London declared itself in favour of the referendum on Eritrea’s secession before consulting with the Organization of African Unity on the subject, which was unprecedented. Before pushing further in that direction, however, the United States checked with the oau to see whether it supported its new stand. The United States had always backed the oau’s principle of the maintenance of post-colonial international borders to contain potential secessionist aspirations.23 This time, however, the United States went ahead of the oau by supporting Eritrea’s right to selfdetermination, which left the organization with very little option but to back this policy. In this context, the oau recognized that Eritrea had never had the chance to decide its own political future and that a referendum on secession was, therefore, a legitimate action. American officials also sought the approval of surrounding states (i.e., Djibouti, Egypt, Kenya, and Sudan), which all gave their consent to Eritrea’s secession. This was a way for the United States to secure regional stability following Eritrea’s independence.24

the absence of a consensus within the u.s. government The consensus that existed between u.s. foreign policy agencies on the issue of Ethiopia was based on the need to collaborate with Gorbachev, to change the Ethiopian regime, and to end the war. Before Herman Cohen’s unilateral decision to support a referendum on Eritrea’s independence, there were serious doubts among u.s. national-security bureaucrats about the positive aspect of Eritrea’s independence. The Department of Defence (dod) and the National Security Agency (nsa) worried that an independent Eritrea could

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become a hotbed for Islamic extremism. Following the policy shift, the State Department argued that the new Eritrean government was in control of its borders and, therefore, that it was not susceptible to manipulation by radicals or by regional powers hostile to u.s. interests.25 The decision of Assistant Secretary Cohen to support Eritrea’s right to secede was made without prior approval by the State Department or the National Security Council. To the question, “Why did the u.s. change its policy toward Eritrea’s right to secede?” Walter Kansteiner, who worked for the Policy Planning staff at the State Department before replacing Robert Frasure as nsc Director for Africa, declared that “the u.s. didn’t [change its policy], Cohen just said it. That’s the wonderful thing about being the Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, no one else cares.”26 In this case, however, the Bush administration did care, and the latitude of the assistant secretary created tensions and disagreement within the State Department. A few hours after his controversial statement, Cohen received a call from Secretary Baker. The secretary expressed strong concern about the new and unexpected policy toward Eritrea. As Cohen himself recalls: Baker expressed concern about my endorsement of self-determination in Eritrea … The German government, he explained, was exerting pressure on the United States to recognize the independence of Slovenia and Croatia. The United States was resisting because we feared that unilateral declarations of independence in Yugoslavia could lead to violence. My support for a referendum in Eritrea could open the door to press accusations of policy inconsistency. If self-determination is good enough for Eritrea, why isn’t it good enough for Croatia and Slovenia? I protested that consistency is not necessarily the best way to deal with specific country problems, an argument he found naïve.27 In an interview, Cohen added that “Baker didn’t really disagree [with my decision]. I think that if I had asked his opinion before I did what I did, he would have said: well you should stay out of it. Let them make their own announcement.”28 Baker was apprehensive and anticipated tough questions from the press, such as why the United States opposed Croatia’s and Slovenia’s independence, which

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both had held a winning referendum on independence, while it supported a referendum on Eritrea’s secession. Fortunately for Baker (and for Cohen), the press did not emphasize the inconsistency. This intra-agency debate could have been avoided if Cohen had obtained the approval of Secretary Baker before making such a substantial policy modification. This disagreement could also have been avoided if the representative of the nsc at the London peace conference, Robert Frasure, had made sure that this decision regarding Eritrea did not conflict with other u.s. positions. If the American participation in the relief of the Jewish Ethiopians was an express decision from the White House, u.s. involvement in the resolution of the Eritrean secessionist conflict and in the partition of Ethiopia were initiated by one man, Assistant Secretary Herman J. Cohen. At no point did the White House instruct the u.s. diplomat to work on the Eritrean secessionist question and even less to preside over the splitting up of Ethiopia.29

the u.s. opposition to unilateral secession To achieve their “soft landing” strategy, American officials in London discouraged eplf leaders from issuing a unilateral declaration of independence (udi) in 1991, because they believed that it would further destabilize Ethiopia. Assistant Secretary Cohen also warned Isaias Afwerki, the leader of the eplf, that the United States and the Western European states would not recognize Eritrea if it seceded from Ethiopia. Cohen went even further by indicating that the United States would withhold the recognition of both the new Ethiopian government and of the Eritrean secessionist state if Addis Ababa and Asmara concluded an immediate separation. Cohen also stressed that it was important for Eritrean secessionists to withhold their declaration of independence for a period of two years and that they should wait for a un sponsored referendum before officially seceding from Ethiopia. This two-year period was meant to allow for the new Ethiopian and Eritrean governments to consolidate their power, to facilitate economic negotiations, and to establish favourable conditions for a stable transition toward Eritrea’s independence. In this context, secessionist leaders calculated that the costs of issuing a udi would clearly exceed the benefits. For one thing,

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Eritrea was already a de facto independent state. A unilateral secession would not have granted much additional power to Eritrea and, on the contrary, would have deprived Eritreans of Western recognition and of un endorsement. Such a disruptive decision could also have strained cooperation with Addis Ababa and with Western capitals at a time when Eritrea needed economic emergency relief to recover from its civil war. Thus, a udi would not have been a rational decision. Commenting on the eplf decision, Robert Houdek, who was the u.s. chargé d’affaires in Addis Ababa from 1988 to 1991 and who became the first u.s. ambassador to Eritrea from 1993 to 1996, declared: “It was a very smart maneuver. If the eplf had declared independence the day they walked into Asmara, a lot of African members [and the United States] would have been uncomfortable with that.”30

the 1991–93 transitional period At the end of the London peace conference, the parties agreed to meet in Addis Ababa in July to decide on the transitional phase. By then, the Mengistu regime had disintegrated. From May to July, there was no official government in Ethiopia, and the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front assumed the function of the transitional government. It is ironic that the tplf, which was helped and trained by the Eritrean secessionist front in the 1970s and 1980s, came to power in 1991 as the new government of the central state from which Eritreans attempted to secede. In July, three important decisions were made at the Addis Ababa conference. First, the tplf officially recognized the right of Eritreans to decide on their political future in a referendum supervised by the United Nations. Even if some members of the transitional government of Ethiopia were opposed to the independence of Eritrea, there was nothing that the transitional government could have done to prevent it.31 The eplf had the strongest military, and it was in Ethiopia’s interest to maintain friendly and cooperative relations with Eritrea. Meles Zenawi, the tplf leader, called the anticipated secession of Eritrea an “unfortunate” event but argued that the maintenance of good economic relations with Asmara would minimize the disruptive effect of the breakup. Zenawi also made clear to u.s. officials that Ethiopian nationalists would not go to war in the future to reclaim Eritrea. Ethiopia’s consent on the secession of

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Eritrea facilitated the international community’s acceptance of the breakup. It avoided creating a political precedent in which a secessionist state would have unilaterally seceded without the approval of its central state. The second decision made at Addis Ababa was that the eplf, which attended the conference as an observer, announced that Eritrea would stay out of the new Ethiopian transitional government, as they had already set up their own government in Eritrea. The eplf also agreed to defer for two years the referendum on Eritrea’s independence. And third, the Ethiopian government negotiated free access to the Eritrean port of Assab on the Red Sea.32 It became a free transit port for goods entering Ethiopia. From May of 1991 until the referendum on independence in 1993, Eritrea was an independent state in all but name. Neighbouring states like Sudan, Egypt, and Yemen even established an official diplomatic presence in the Eritrean capital. Eritrea, however, remained officially part of the Ethiopian state until it formally proclaimed its independence in April 1993. Strengthening Eritrea’s Internal and External Stability American representatives also established conditions for eventual recognition of Eritrea’s independence. In addition to compelling Eritrea to renounce unilaterally declaring secession and to agree to hold a democratic referendum, the United States expected Eritrean secessionists to create basic democratic institutions, to enact freemarket reforms, and to maintain peaceful relations with neighbouring states. These facts tend to validate the stability-seeking argument. The United States persuaded Eritrean leaders that they first needed to establish their legitimacy and show that they could maintain internal and external stability before being recognized. During these two years, relations between Ethiopians and Eritreans were constructive. The Transitional Government of Ethiopia (tge) reaffirmed its decision to support Eritrea’s right to secede and indicated that it would recognize the result of the referendum.33 Addis Ababa and Asmara worked together to implement democratic reforms and affirmed that regional stability and peace were prerequisites for economic development in the Horn. The two states signed trade and communication agreements and established a mutual defence pact.34 The Provisional Government of Eritrea also

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proceeded to initiate major political reforms. It introduced, among other things, the rule of law and conducted a civic education program. Meanwhile, Ethiopia’s transitional government drafted a new constitution that proclaimed a new peaceful and democratic order. Then, in late 1992, the oau announced that it would send observers during the referendum process, and the un General Assembly passed resolution 47/114 establishing the United Nations Observer Mission to Verify the Referendum in Eritrea (unover). In 1993, when the referendum was held, Eritrea had shown evidence of internal and external stability. The referendum was finally held on 23–25 April 1993. Observers from the United States, the un, the oau, the Arab League, the United Kingdom, Ethiopia, Egypt, Russia, Yemen, Sudan, and Tunisia were present, for a total of 536 foreign observers.35 Following the vote, oau representatives validated the result, and Eritrea declared its independence on 27 April. The United States immediately recognized the new state, and the international community followed suit.36 Ethiopia formally granted recognition to Eritrea on 3 May, and the official celebration of independence was held on 24 May, the day of the second anniversary of the liberation of Asmara by eplf troops. Eritrea became a member of the United Nations in June of 1993, and its diplomatic recognition allowed it to join the International Monetary Fund (imf) and the World Bank.

eritrea and the stability-seeking argument Does the Eritrean case validate the stability-seeking argument? The answer is yes. As long as the Mengistu regime was in power and showed willingness to resolve the Eritrean secessionist conflict, the United States remained committed to Ethiopia’s unity, even though external stability was no longer preserved (i.e., massive cross-national refugee flows occurred). From the day of the u.s. involvement in 1989 to the collapse of the Ethiopian government in 1991, Assistant Secretary Cohen and the State Department remained patient and attempted on multiple occasions to bring the parties together. Thus, the case of Eritrea does validate the first step of the stability theory. At no time before the collapse of the Mengistu regime, did the United States support Eritrea’s secessionist aspirations.

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The argument also explains the u.s. policy shift in favour of Eritrea’s independence. Not only did the secessionist war cause external instability but the central government was not seriously interested in negotiating; it was ultimately paralyzed and collapsed. Taken together, these indicators caused the u.s. policy shift. One could wonder, however, whether the factors of internal and external stability really justify the shift in u.s. policy. The fact that the Eritrean secessionist army was the predominant military force in Ethiopia in 1991 made Eritrea’s secession unstoppable, and this could be enough to explain why the United States supported Eritrea’s secessionist self-determination. To this we can answer that from 1989 to 1991, secessionist rebels were more powerful than the central government and won most of the fights against it. Yet the United States maintained its support for Ethiopia’s integrity. The fact that Mengistu became an obstacle to internal negotiations, combined with the cross-national refugee problem, is what initiated the u.s. policy shift. As for the distribution of power, which was increasingly favourable for the Eritrean secessionists, it accelerated the shift. The second step of the stability argument also explains the u.s. management of the last phase of the conflict. Between 1991 and 1993, the u.s. negotiating team was focusing on the internal and external stability of Eritrea. First, Cohen received the assurance that the Eritreans would pursue a cooperative foreign policy with Ethiopia, as well as with neighbouring states, which all accepted Eritrea’s secession. External stability was thus quickly secured at the Addis Ababa conference in July 1991. As for internal stability, the eplf already had effective control of Eritrea’s territory when it took over Asmara in May of 1991, and secessionist leaders rapidly established a well-functioning government. During the two-year transition period, the Eritrean government implemented democratic and liberal reforms, followed by a democratic referendum on independence. As Evelyn Farkas indicates, “the [u.s.] decision to allow partition was made to advance the prospects for stability and security on the Horn. The means by which it was implemented demonstrates most clearly the u.s. concern about stability.”37 In April of 1993, Eritrea fulfilled the u.s. criteria of stability and was ready to be recognized. Overall, the stability argument performs well in this case.

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competing arguments To what extent do ethnic politics and private business interests explain the fluctuation in the u.s. position toward Eritrea? As far as ethnic lobbies are concerned, there was a consensus among Ethiopian and Eritrean Americans on the need to overthrow the Mengistu regime. This consensus reflected the cooperation between the tplf, the eplf, and the other rebel factions that were fighting against the Derg regime. Until 1991, Ethiopian and Eritrean American lobbies spoke with the same voice in favour of a regime change in Addis Ababa. Both diasporic communities, however, which together consisted of around one hundred thousand u.s. citizens, could only agree on the overthrow of Mengistu. There was no consensus on who should rule in Addis Ababa following the downfall of the Derg, and most Ethiopian Americans were opposed to Eritrea’s independence. When the u.s. government decided to support a referendum on Eritrea’s secession, cooperation between Ethiopian and Eritrean Americans abruptly ended. The Ethiopian American community mobilized and demonstrated against the u.s. policy shift. One leader of the Ethiopian community declared that “if [the u.s. government] lets Eritrea secede, there is no way the government can deny it to any other group, which is the dismemberment of Ethiopia.”38 Eritreans in the United States were less numerous than the Ethiopian Americans, but they were unified behind the eplf. A large majority of them were in favour of Eritrea’s independence when the Mengistu regime fell apart, and they all pushed in the same direction, even if they were not organized into one main ethnic association. Moreover, Eritrean Americans were successful in lobbying members of Congress and convinced some of them of the importance of Eritrea’s secession. They gained support especially among the Subcommittee on African Affairs of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.39 Even though Eritrean Americans were vocal on Capitol Hill and pressured members of Congress, the facts indicate that they failed to affect the Bush administration. As one policy-maker points out, “the demonstrations in the streets of Washington really didn’t matter. What mattered were the conversations we had with Meles Zenawi [the tplf leader] in London.”40 Moreover, as mentioned

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previously, the u.s. decision to support Eritrea’s right to secede was made by Assistant Secretary Cohen, and the decision was taken in London, far from Washington’s political scene. No evidence indicates that the Eritrean American community influenced Herman Cohen’s perception of the issue in the weeks before the London conference. Generally speaking, ethnic lobbies are influential to the extent that they can affect the election or re-election of politicians. This is why elected representatives usually pay attention to the opinion of ethnic communities, especially when they are concentrated in important states or ridings. In the case of Eritrea, the u.s. decision to support self-determination was made not by the president or by his political entourage but by a non-elected high-level public servant, who had not consulted the White House before making the decision. The phone conversation between Assistant Secretary Cohen and Secretary Baker, hours after the controversial declaration, shows that the State Department and the White House had not planned this policy shift. It is therefore very unlikely that the Eritrean American diaspora played a role in the redefinition of the policy. In fact, Baker and Cohen were both focusing on international factors. Secretary Baker was trying to preserve Yugoslavia’s unity and was worried about policy inconsistency, while Assistant Secretary Cohen’s main objective was the end of the Ethiopian war and the stabilization of the Horn of Africa. Thus, the ethnic politics argument falls short in explaining the policy variation. Facts also indicate that the business interest argument does not explain the situations under investigation. In the aftermath of the Second World War, American corporations did have economic interests in Ethiopia. Pan-American airlines obtained landing rights from the Ethiopian government for its long-distance trip to Asia. The New York–based Sinclair Oil Company explored petroleum on Ethiopian territory. And Shell operated an oil reserve in Massawa (Eritrea) for the use of the u.s. navy.41 In the mid-1970s, however, colonel Mengistu nationalized u.s. properties without providing any compensation in return, and as a result, American business interests in Ethiopia became non-existent. By the time the Bush administration came to power, u.s. corporations had received compensation from Mengistu, but Ethiopia was no longer seen as a safe place to invest.42 Ethiopia was still officially a communist state, and the thirty-year civil war had destroyed infrastructures and produced

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a high level of instability. During the rule of the Derg, the only substantial u.s. investment in Ethiopia was made by the Kalamazoo Spice Company from Michigan. The u.s. chargé d’affaires in Addis Ababa, Robert Houdek, does not recall that u.s. corporations ever pressured the Bush administration for or against Eritrea’s secession. He points out that “the only kind of business interests that I was pushing for was with Ethiopian airlines. I wanted to make sure that they continue to buy Boeings. And they bought Boeings with Pratt and Wittney’s engines on.”43 Boeing had helped the Ethiopian government to create Ethiopian Airlines following the Second World War, and this u.s. corporation wanted to maintain this long-standing tradition following the downfall of Mengistu. Assistant Secretary Cohen concurs with Houdek. He has never been aware of any private u.s. firms that could have pressured the Bush administration in one way or the other on the issue of Eritrea.44 The u.s. decision to support Eritrea’s independence, therefore, can hardly be explained by u.s. business interests in the region. The central question that should be asked is, how can the political outcome of the Eritrean issue (i.e., independence from or unity with Ethiopia) affect the interests of u.s. corporations if there was effectively no u.s. investment in Ethiopia or in Eritrea? In this context, it is hard to see how an independent Eritrea could have bolstered or damaged u.s. business interests. It could be argued, however, that the liberalization of Eritrea’s economy and the overthrow of the communist regime in both Eritrea and Ethiopia during the transition period did fall under medium- and long-term u.s. economic interests, as these two events created private investment opportunities.

conclusion The instability of Ethiopia’s international borders was not sufficient in itself to compel the United States to move to the second step of the stability theory. The United States shifted its policy in favour of Eritrea’s independence only once it became clear that the central government of Addis Ababa was no longer able and willing to resolve its internal secessionist crisis. It was only at this point that the idea of secession emerged as a tool to restore order.

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The events of the transitional period of 1991–93 also tend to validate the model. The United States persuaded Eritrean leaders that a unilateral declaration of independence would isolate Eritrea. Secessionist leaders were encouraged, rather, to establish a functioning and democratic government. Then they strengthened their ties with the new Ethiopian government and proceeded with a referendum on independence supervised by the United Nations to validate the legitimacy of the breakup. It was only once Eritrea fulfilled these criteria that the United States extended recognition.

7 Somaliland: A Non-recognized Independent State

introduction The purpose of this chapter is to understand why Somaliland, the northwest region of Somalia that seceded in 1991, is still unrecognized as an independent state, despite its relatively high level of stability in comparison to the rest of Somalia. More specifically, this chapter attempts to explain why the United States, whose role was central in the independence of Eritrea (the neighbouring state), has been opposed to Somaliland’s secession for almost twenty years. I argue that until 1997, the United States did not seriously raise the issue of Somaliland’s recognition because, like the rest of Somalia, it was unstable. Since 1997, however, Somaliland has experienced a period of uninterrupted stability and democratization. Its government has developed a dynamic economy and created functional democratic institutions, and it now has most of the attributes of statehood. It has its own passport, national currency, flag, and license plates. Meanwhile, the rest of Somalia has undergone war and chaos and has been without effective government since 1991. Yet despite Somaliland’s achievements, which have been made without any foreign assistance, it is worth noting, the United States remains opposed to its secession. If we follow the assumptions of the stability-seeking argument, the United States should now recognize Somaliland in order to promote regional stability in this turmoiled region of Africa, but it does not do so. Why? Somaliland represents an exceptional case. The failure of the u.s. assault mission in Mogadishu in October 1993, during which eighteen u.s. Army Rangers were killed, partly explains why Washington has still not granted recognition to Somaliland, despite its fulfillment of most of the stability indicators of the stability-seeking

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model. Since the failed military operation of 1993, a “Somalia aversion” has affected the conduct of the u.s. policy toward Somalia and Somaliland. The American government has refrained from being involved in the Somalian quagmire, and the State Department does not see how it could be beneficial to be involved one way or another. Thus, the u.s. casualties in Mogadishu are causally relevant in the explanation of the u.s. attitude toward Somaliland and partially undermine the predictive nature of the stability argument. Before I go any further, the time frame of this chapter must be delimited, since the Somaliland secessionist issue is still under way. The scope of the analysis here is limited to the 1991–2005 period and does not include recent developments such as the overthrow of the Transitional Government of Somalia by Islamic extremists in 2006.

historical background After more than sixty years as a British colony (1897–1960), British Somaliland (currently Somaliland) declared its independence from England on 26 June 1960 and was recognized by thirty-five states, including the United States.1 British Somaliland joined with Italian Somaliland (currently Somalia) five days later to form the Republic of Somalia, in order to pursue the dream of uniting all the Somali people within one state.2 Although the two Somalilands had different colonial pasts, their union was looked upon as a great prospect for political stability, since the new Republic of Somalia was the only state in Africa that was ethnically, linguistically, and religiously homogeneous. Despite their common attributes, the two former colonies failed to develop a sense of nationhood. They had very different economies, unique colonial experiences, and different institutions. Moreover, political parties were based on clan loyalties, which emphasized regional interests and divided the North and the South. These discrepancies led British and Italian Somaliland to disagree on the terms of the Act of Union, and the new President of Somalia, Aden Abdilla Osman, decided to unilaterally authorize unification through a political decree that established a unitary state. The Act of Union thus never obtained the consent of politicians from former British Somaliland, and no official international treaty on the union was ever signed between the two states.3

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Furthermore, Somalilanders opposed the adoption of Somalia’s constitution, because the document was seen as reflective of Southern thinking and Italian values. Nevertheless, the constitution was adopted because the large majority of the population in former Italian Somalia (which represented two-thirds of the total population of Somalia) voted in favour of it. The Somalia experiment, therefore, started off on the wrong foot and suffered from a deficit of legitimacy.4 A military coup, orchestrated in 1969 by Somalia’s chief of the armed forces Siad Barre, drastically transformed Somalia’s political landscape. The constitution and the assembly of the Republic were suspended, private industries were nationalized, and the new military regime established a socialist state with the support of the Soviet Union.5 In the second half of the 1970s, Siad Barre pursued an aggressive foreign policy that aimed to unite all the Somali people living in Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Kenya into a Greater Somalia. The first action undertaken by Barre was to invade Ethiopia’s Ogaden region in 1977, which caused his regime to lose the support of the Soviet Union in favour of Ethiopia. This event eventually compelled Barre to withdraw his troops from Ethiopia and to carry out a major political realignment. In 1978, following the war with Ethiopia, Somalia requested u.s. economic and military assistance, and soon the Americans became the most important provider of foreign aid to Somalia.6 In exchange, the United States obtained the right to use naval and military facilities in the port of Berbera, located in Somaliland, which had previously been used by the Soviets. The u.s. support of Somalia was purely pragmatic and must be viewed through the lens of Cold War politics. As former assistant secretary of state for Africa Herman J. Cohen indicates, “Because of Somalia’s strategic position, u.s. diplomacy felt obliged to cultivate close and cordial relations with one of the world’s most vicious despots, Mohammed Siad Barre.”7 The Emergence of the SNM In the early 1980s, a group of exiled Somalilanders in London created the Somali National Movement (snm). This movement brought together businessmen, religious leaders, intellectuals, and former army officers from the Isaak clan – the largest family clan in

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Somaliland – and its main objective was to overthrow Barre’s regime.8 Military operations conducted by the snm were based in Ethiopia, with Addis Ababa’s support. It is worth noting that the snm, which eventually declared the independence of Somaliland, was initially not a secessionist movement. In the 1980s most of its members saw Somalia’s unity as being inviolable and fought for the establishment of a federal state. The snm’s war against the central government reached its peak in 1988, when the snm made significant progress by defeating the troops of Siad Barre in Hargeisa (the capital of Somaliland) and in Burao. The response of the central government was brutal. Barre ordered aerial bombardments on Somaliland’s cities. The effects of this countermeasure were atrocious. By 1990, at least fifty thousand Somalilanders had died in the fighting between the snm and the national army, and these events strengthened popular support for secession. The snm was not the only rebellious movement in Somalia. During the 1980s, two other organizations from the South also fought for the overthrow of Barre’s authoritarian regime: the United Somali Congress (usc) and the Somali Patriotic Front (spf). In concert with the snm, these movements coordinated their military efforts and accelerated the fall of Barre. In May of 1990, warlords from different clans and rebellious movements controlled large parts of Somalia, and the government of Mogadishu could no longer carry out its normal administrative functions. In January 1991 the state of Somalia disintegrated when the troops of the United Somali Congress, under the authority of General Aidid, entered Mogadishu and forced Siad Barre to flee.9 The Rise of Pro-Secessionist Sentiment In the months following the exile of Siad Barre, snm leaders who were by then in control of Somaliland, were highly dissatisfied with the way the post-Barre transition was going. There was a lack of consultation between the three rebellious movements, and the national conference on transition that had been planned before the collapse of the Barre regime never convened. Furthermore, a faction of the usc decided unilaterally to form a government in Mogadishu and named its leader, Ali Mahdi, as interim president without any prior consultation with the snm. This decision not only alienated

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Somalilanders but initiated a war between the two dominant figures of the United Somali Congress: Ali Mahli and General Aidid. This war was the main cause of starvation and suffering in Somalia during the 1990s. In the face of these developments, snm leaders declared the independence of the Republic of Somaliland in Burco on 18 May 1991 and repealed the Act of Union of 1960. The Burco proclamation stated that Somaliland would keep the borders of the former colony of British Somaliland, and the leader of the snm, Abd-er-Rahman, also known as Tur, was named president of the new republic. Secessionist leaders also argued that since Somaliland had been a distinct geopolitical entity before 1960 and had declared independence and obtained international recognition in June 1960, the Burco declaration was not an act of secession but a dissolution between sovereign states. However, since there was no longer a central government in Mogadishu to consent (or not) to the dissolution, the declaration was one of secession stricto sensu.

the american reaction The stability-seeking argument is measured here in the post–May 1991 era, that is to say, after Somaliland declared independence. Before then, there was no secessionist crisis in Somalia, and the Bureau of African Affairs of the State Department was focusing only on the resolution of the civil war.10 In the days following Somaliland’s unilateral declaration of independence, the State Department made its position clear: the u.s. government would not recognize any new entity in Somalia. In a cable sent to American embassies in Africa, Secretary of State James Baker wrote: The Somali National Movement (snm) recently announced northern Somalia’s secession under the name “Somaliland Republic,” with boundaries apparently the same as the old British Somaliland protectorate. The import of this move is not entirely clear. It may not be fully accepted even within the snm and may also be designed as a bargaining chip for snm use with the self-proclaimed provisional government in Mogadishu. The u.s. of course does not recognize any new entity in Somalia. As we have made clear elsewhere, we do not think declaratory acts hold the key to solving Somalia’s or the horn’s problems. Only

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negotiations can do that. snm’s unilateral declaration of independence could also serve to complicate a possible initiative by African states or the oau on the political front by introducing new juridical problems. In our actions and statements with respect to Somalia, we wish to call as little attention as possible to the snm’s udi.11 The u.s. position of non-recognition was shaped by various factors that, when taken together, led the Bush administration to conclude that the partition of Somalia would lead to the emergence of another unstable state in the Horn of Africa. First, there was a chaotic situation in Mogadishu, and the Bush administration wanted to avoid any hasty decision that could have worsened the situation in Somalia. Second, in the absence of a central government in Mogadishu, the United States did not trust any rebellious groups or clans that pretended to speak in the name of the Somali people. As Assistant Secretary Cohen points out, “We did not recognize the new entity Somaliland, because we had no confidence in any declarations in Somalia.”12 Third, the u.s. government could not gather reliable information on the political course of events in Somalia, mainly because the United States no longer had an embassy in Mogadishu – violence in the capital had forced the u.s. government to evacuate and close its embassy in January 1991. In addition, as unclassified cables show, u.s. embassies in Djibouti and Kenya were unable to communicate valuable information on what was happening on the ground: “We have received no reliable information on what is actually happening in the north.”13 In this context, the United States was not in a position to make a sound and enlightened decision on the issue of Somaliland. Fourth, unlike Eritrea, which ultimately seceded with the consent of Ethiopia, Somaliland never received the approval of Somalia to leave, since there was no constitutive government in Somalia in the aftermath of Siad Barre’s departure. The United States was clearly aware of this fact and raised it as an objection against secession, because it feared that recognition in such a context would create a precedent.14 Finally, the Organization of African Unity (oau) was opposed to Somaliland’s secession and the United States was not interested in violating the sacred principle of state integrity cherished by the oau.15 The oau’s approach to Somaliland was far different from

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its approach toward Eritrea for the reason mentioned in point four. Thus, in this context there was no benefit for the United States in supporting Somaliland’s independence, and the costs of making such a decision would have been considerable, since they might have worsened the political environment in the Horn.

awaiting the formation of a somalian government Following the departure of Siad Barre, the United States focused its attention on the global settlement of the Somalian crisis and, in the words of Secretary Baker, called “as little attention as possible to the snm’s udi.”16 The Bush administration, however, was not as directly involved in the resolution of the Somalian conflict as it was in Ethiopia, for instance, during the same period. At that time, the Bureau of African Affairs was already involved in the resolution of several other African conflicts, in Angola, Ethiopia, Liberia, Mozambique, and Sudan, and thus suffered from “bureaucratic fatigue.” As Herman Cohen points out, “with u.s. forces well accommodated directly in the Gulf, and with our embassy closed, we more or less dropped Somalia from our radar screens.”17 In the weeks following the collapse of Somalia, the Bush administration expressed support for the restoration of a central Somalian government and encouraged Djibouti in its initiative to host reconciliation talks in June and July of 1991. The United States saw the restoration of peace and order in Somalia as essential to setting the stage for an international relief effort, and it remained confident that Somalia could establish a functioning government.18 The peace negotiations held in Djibouti in the summer of 1991 failed, however, because some warlords did not attend the talks and because snm representatives refused to participate, claiming that their party was not one political faction among others but the representative of the Republic of Somaliland. Ironically, these talks, which aimed to reunite Somalia, accelerated its collapse. While Somalian political parties attempted to secure a peace agreement, Somalilanders were on a different trajectory. In the fall of 1991, snm leaders travelled to Western countries to seek international recognition and humanitarian assistance.19 In Washington, snm representatives delivered the following message to State

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Department officials: (1) The Isaaks and the other clans in Somaliland support secession; (2) Law and order prevail on the ground; (3) Somaliland is committed to liberal democracy; (4) A referendum on Somaliland’s constitution will be held within two years (the referendum was actually held in 2001); and (5) Somalilanders favour a market-oriented economy.20 Despite this charm offensive carried out by the secessionists, the State Department adopted a wait-andsee approach and expressed its preference for a global peace solution to end the Somalian crisis.

degeneration into chaos, 1992–96 The peaceful state of affairs in Somaliland that was depicted by snm representatives in Washington did not last. Clan conflicts erupted in March of 1992, when Somaliland’s government attempted to take control of the Red Sea port of Berbera against the will of the local clans and warlords. This conflict was the result of the government’s failure to establish demobilization programs for veteran fighters. Sub-clan conflicts also caused Somaliland’s emerging economy to crumble after a few months of sustained economic activities. The absence of international recognition also worked against the economy of Somaliland, since it could not acquire loans from international institutions. In less than a year after its udi, Somaliland was internally unstable, and all the political and military factions in Somalia were opposed to its secession, which indicates that Somaliland was evolving in a semi-hostile international environment. These events confirmed the assessment of the State Department that the whole region was unstable and that a global solution had to be found, starting with the establishment of a central government in Mogadishu. The Elders at the Center of Somaliland’s Conflict Resolution Process In late 1992, elders from the different sub-clans in Somaliland gathered in a shir (assembly) to find a solution to the crisis, in what became the first national reconciliation conference. A political settlement that, among other things, allocated a greater share of parliamentary seats to minority clans was reached in the spring of

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1993. This unique way of solving political problems was part of the traditional Somaliland conflict resolution structure. This mechanism would prove its effectiveness throughout the 1990s, and it explains, in large part, why Somaliland would eventually become a stable political entity in comparison to the rest of Somalia. Following the reconciliation conference, Mohamed Haji Ibrahim Egal (who had been prime minister of Somalia in the late 1960s) was selected as the president of Somaliland and Tur (who had been the first president of Somaliland in 1991) was chosen as vice-president. Egal made significant progress towards political stability. He demobilized the militias that were created in the 1980s to fight against Siad Barre, and he re-established a secure environment for economic activity. The new president was unable, however, to extend administrative control over all of Somaliland’s territory, and he met with resistance from some Isaak sub-clans over the issue of power sharing. Moreover, rebellious groups loyal to the unity of Somalia (called the federalists) and allied with Somalian General Aidid opposed Egal’s government. The fight between the secessionists and the federalists caused Somaliland to fall into a second civil war in late 1994, during which Hargeisa and Burco were seriously damaged, and 180,000 people were displaced throughout Somaliland.21 This second war validated, once again, the American assessment of the situation in Somaliland and kept the issue of recognition off the u.s. foreign policy agenda.

from internal strife to growing stability (1997–2005) Somaliland’s internal war ended with the convening of a second national reconciliation conference, held in Hargeisa from October 1996 to February 1997. In retrospect, this conference marked the beginning of Somaliland’s institutionalization and democratization process. Isaak sub-clans, which had been fighting each other sporadically over the control of resources, decided to put an end to their division and to work together for the improvement of viable political institutions.22 This state of mind had a snowball effect. It improved the minority clans’ trust of the Isaaks and favoured their involvement in the institutionalization process. Representatives at the conference also established a parliament with a two-chamber assembly inspired by the Westminster model of

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government. The Lower House serves as an elected assembly, and the Upper House serves as the Senate of the Clans, also called the House of Elders. Although Somaliland president Egal failed to achieve international recognition for Somaliland, he succeeded in establishing a democratic and stable government, and he was able to resume economic activities. In 1997, for instance, the port of Berbera became a central import-export location on the Red Sea and overshadowed the port of Djibouti in terms of goods traded. In the late 1990s, exchanges through the port doubled from what they had been before the 1988 war against Siad Barre. A vibrant private sector also emerged. Airline companies, as well as electricity and telephone companies, were created in order to help rebuild Somaliland’s infrastructure. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the economy of Somaliland was getting stronger and was in a much better position than Somalia’s, even though it was assisted by international organizations. On the political front, President Egal carried out a political transition toward a multi-party democracy, which added value to Somaliland’s democratic process. His government also signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and drafted a constitution that guaranteed universal suffrage. Moreover, in May 2001 a new constitution was validated by 97 percent of Somaliland’s voters in a referendum supervised by international observers. The result of the referendum showed that a clear majority supported Somaliland’s independence, as the first paragraph of the constitution stipulated that Somaliland was an independent state.23 The death of President Egal in 2002 was the first serious democratic test for Somaliland, since his death necessitated political transition. The test was successfully passed when power was transferred to new president Dahir Riyale Kahin according to the constitution. This showed the viability and stability of the political system.24 Finally, in September 2005 the first multi-party parliamentary elections were held in what was seen as a major step in the democratization process and as proof that Somaliland was now becoming a stable multiparty democracy.25 Today, Somaliland has functioning democratic institutions, including a judicial system and a free press, and it no longer generates refugees, which greatly contributes to its external stability. Somalilanders also have a legitimate constitution, an army, and

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police forces. As indicated in the introduction to this chapter, it also has the main attributes of statehood, including a flag and its own currency, passports, and license plates. Somalilanders also obtained quasi-recognition from several states: Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Djibouti exchanged quasi-ambassadorial envoys with Hargeisa. After numerous threats to its existence in the first half of the 1990s, Somaliland managed to survive as a de facto independent state on the path to prosperity. Since 1997, Somaliland has experienced a period of uninterrupted stability. Somaliland’s External Stability Even though Somaliland no longer produces refugees, its external stability is not as strong as its internal stability. In the late 1990s, Somaliland’s territorial integrity was disputed by Puntland, a nonsecessionist autonomous state established in 1998 on the northeastern side of Somalia, which claimed Somaliland’s regions of Sanaag and Sool. The dispute emerged when members of minority clans in Somaliland (the Dulbahante and the Warsangeli) who lived near the Puntland border felt divided in their affiliation and wanted to associate with Puntland. Somaliland argued that the two regions were part of former British Somaliland, while Puntland authorities maintained that the representatives of Sanaag and Sool expressed their desire to join Puntland and should have the right to do so.26 Tensions arose in 1999 when the government of Puntland attempted to establish control over parts of Sanaag and Sool, an action that led to a political crisis. Until recently, Somaliland’s integrity remained threatened by Puntland. It seems, however, that the Somaliland/Puntland border dispute has not been a major factor influencing the u.s. non-recognition policy. None of the u.s. government officials interviewed for this chapter raised the Puntland issue as an obstacle to Somaliland’s recognition, and the literature on Somaliland written from a u.s. perspective does not raise this subject either.

the constancy of u.s. policy In the second half of the 1990s and in the early twenty-first century, the United States continued to focus on the establishment of a central government in Mogadishu. The objective was straightfor-

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ward: to prevent Somalia from becoming a hotbed for Islamic fundamentalism.27 During these years, the United States has remained categorically opposed to Somaliland’s independence. In 1999, Somaliland president Mohamed Haji Ibrahim Egal visited the United States and raised the issue of recognition with State Department officials. The u.s. policy remained unchanged, however, and the State Department indicated, as it had in 1991, that a global solution must be found in order to resolve the Somalian crisis. This time, the u.s. government agreed to supply more aid to Hargeisa. The u.s. government even sent a delegation of the u.s. Agency for International Development (usaid) to the secessionist state in 2000. Headed by the u.s. ambassador in Djibouti, it met with President Egal; such a visit to an African secessionist state was unprecedented. As former assistant secretary of state for Africa Herman J. Cohen pointed out, “while awaiting for some eventual Somalian government, we are doing what we could have done if we [had] recognized Somaliland. We are giving aid. So the situation on the ground is not so different.”28 In 2001 the United States supported the Arta peace process that established the Transitional National Government of Somalia (tng).29 This was the twelfth attempt at peace negotiation since the collapse of Somalia in 1991. Since its creation, the transitional government has not been able, however, to establish its authority over Somalia, and the whole region remains an administrative “black hole.”

reasons for the u.s. refusal to recognize somaliland If the Somaliland/Puntland border dispute does not bother u.s. decision makers, why is it then that the United States still refuses to recognize this secessionist state, which meets most of the traditional u.s. requirements for recognition? Why is it that the American government persists in supporting the formation of a Somalian government after almost two decades of failures in negotiations between the different family clans at the same time that Somaliland is stable, peaceful, and democratic and has sought recognition? The stability theory predicts that the United States should quickly move ahead with recognition in order to bolster stability in the region.

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The key to understanding this puzzle lies in what can be referred to as the “Somalia aversion,” which is unique to this case. To understand the impact of this intervening factor in the u.s. regionalstability calculation, we must go back to 1993. The Somalia Aversion Following the collapse of Somalia in 1991, Mogadishu became the scene of inter-clan fighting for the control of food and other resources. In early 1992, the humanitarian crisis in Somalia hit the news in the United States, and cnn provided extensive coverage of the issue. Somalia soon became a burning issue in u.s. politics. As Herman Cohen recalls, cnn, which “showed starving Somali mothers and babies on American television daily had a strong impact. Congress was inundated with mail calling for Washington to do something to stop the suffering.”30 With a u.s. presidential election coming in November, President Bush estimated that it was worthwhile to tackle the Somalia issue. After being abandoned by the Americans in January 1991, Somalia became a top u.s. foreign policy issue less than a year later. In August, the White House announced that the Department of Defence (dod) would launch an emergency food airlift to Somalia called “Operation Provide Relief.”31 The u.s. operation, however, encountered the resistance of warlords in Mogadishu, who blocked the distribution of food. In the weeks following his presidential defeat against Bill Clinton, President Bush remained steadfast about resolving the problem of hunger in Somalia. In December 1992, twenty-eight thousand u.s. troops were dispatched as part of the United Nations Unified Task Force – unitaf. The objective of the mission was to take control of the ports of Mogadishu in order to assure the distribution of relief supplies. Throughout 1993, un peacekeepers were being repeatedly attacked by guerrilla groups led by General Mohammed Aidid. They wanted the un to withdraw from Somalia in order to maintain their power. In reaction, President Clinton, who had inherited the case from his predecessor, authorized u.s. troops to use force against General Aidid, with the consent of the un. The operation, however, turned into a chaotic battle in the streets of Mogadishu. Two u.s. Black Hawk helicopters were shot down by Aidid’s rebels, and eighteen American soldiers were killed during the operation.

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This marked the end of the u.s. operation in Somalia and brought into question the very reason for this involvement. Many have considered the Battle of Mogadishu unjustifiable, since u.s. national interests were not at stake in Somalia, and it created an aversion among the u.s. foreign policy community that has kept the American government away from Somalia and Somaliland. Somalia remained off Washington’s radar screen in the second half of the 1990s,32 and received attention again only following the terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11 2001. When asked why the u.s. government was not directly involved in the resolution of the Somalian conflict and why it does not recognize the independence of Somaliland, a high-ranking former u.s. official who was posted in the Horn of Africa in the 1990s answered, “Frankly there is a Somalia fatigue. What’s really in it for us? Why get involved and open an embassy if it’s going to get bombed the next week? Once upon a time we had 28,000 troops there and we walked out with our tail between our legs.”33 Even though Somaliland now lives in a different political reality from that of Somalia, in that it has been stable for more than ten years, the American government refrains from making any bold decision on the issue, because it feels that it has nothing to gain from it. The Somalia aversion argument, of course, is not part of the official justification for non-recognition. The two factors that are most often brought up are, first, that Somaliland never got the approval of Somalia to secede, and, second, that the oau rejects the secession of Somaliland. Yet previous chapters have shown that the United States did recognize secessionist states that went through “non-consensual divorce.” Kosovo, for instance, was recognized by the United States even though it seceded unilaterally from Serbia. As for Croatia, Macedonia, and Slovenia, it is true that Yugoslavia had ceased to exist when the Americans granted recognition to these Yugoslav republics, but Somalia also ceased to exist as a coherent political entity almost twenty years ago. If the fear of creating a political precedent is what precludes u.s. recognition of Somaliland, it would seem that this precedent has already been created, especially with the case of Kosovo. Furthermore, the case of Eritrea (chapter 6) shows that the oau did not stop the u.s. delegation in London from supporting Eritrea’s right of self-determination in 1991. So, is the unilateral character of Somaliland’s secession and

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the oau opposition enough to explain the u.s. policy of non-recognition? The answer is, no. In fact, if the United States was convinced that the recognition of Somaliland would bring more stability to the region, it would certainly push for it. It would also have some solid arguments to justify its preference for recognition. First, Somaliland was a sovereign state recognized by the United States before it joined Somalia in 1960, a status that Eritrea did not have before being integrated into Ethiopia in 1952. Second, Somalilanders never fully consented to the terms of the Act of Union signed in 1960, which gives greater legitimacy to secession. Together, these arguments are a solid justification for secessionist self-determination and constitute a fence against the spread of secessionist movements in Africa since Somaliland is a unique case. As for the moral aspect of the issue, the United States could emphasize the fact that Somalilanders experienced political and economic discrimination, as well as military repression, throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Despite these strong arguments for recognition, the American government is far from being convinced that recognition would bring more stability. Washington still views the whole region as unpredictable, and this assessment is “path dependent” on the military defeat in Mogadishu, which was a defining stage in the temporal sequence of events that shaped the u.s. policy toward Somaliland. The current dominant view in the National Security Council and in the State Department is that as long as there is no central government in Mogadishu, nothing can be done to restore order. Some commentators in the foreign policy establishment even argue that Somaliland did well and is relatively stable precisely because it was not recognized.34 This would suggest that the hope of obtaining recognition forced Somalilanders to behave and to adopt a democratic system. This argument maintains that since Somaliland is already stable, international recognition would not bring more stability to it. Therefore, there is no rush to issue diplomatic recognition, and the American government should continue to focus on a global peace initiative that will bring order to Somalia as a whole. Another approach, which obtains increasing support from the academic community, argues that u.s. recognition of Somaliland would in fact improve regional stability by sending a message to the rest of Somalia that if Somalians would come together and imple-

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ment democratization, as did Somalilanders, the United States would be more supportive and helpful.35 For now, however, this view has not been endorsed by u.s. foreign policy officials.

within the u.s. executive “black box” The Somaliland issue has never produced any significant disagreement between u.s. foreign policy agencies. In the early 1990s, the question of Somaliland’s recognition was not even on the agenda. The secession of Somaliland was treated as an epiphenomenon of Somalia state collapse and as one source of trouble among many. In early 2000, however, the issue of Somaliland’s recognition was seriously studied by the African bureau of the State Department.36 Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Walter Kansteiner came to the conclusion, however, that recognition would produce very few benefits, with significant costs. Former assistant secretary of state Cohen reached a similar conclusion: “The oau cooperates with us in anti-terrorism and in all sorts of economic issues. If you weigh all that against getting them upset about Somaliland, on balance it’s not worth it.”37

the ethnic-politics argument There has been no major variation in the u.s. policy toward Somaliland since 1991, which makes it difficult to analyze the impact that Somalian and Somalilander Americans had on the u.s. position. The evidence indicates, however, that Somalian Americans, who form a community of over one hundred thousand people in the United States, have not been politically organized in Washington, dc, unlike Ethiopian Americans, for instance. The Somalian diaspora is divided by clans, it has been ineffective at raising its voice, and it has failed to come up with a coherent position regarding the future of Somalia.38 No evidence indicates that the u.s. position on the matter could have been influenced by this ethnic group. As for Somalilander Americans, they did organize demonstrations in Washington in favour of Somaliland’s independence, but they were not well organized either, partly because they constitute a very small community in the United States: most of Somaliland’s diaspora is located in England.39 As the u.s. position toward Soma-

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liland has remained unchanged since 1991, we must conclude that Somalilander Americans have had very little or no influence at all on the u.s. position. As a result, this case study tends to render invalid the ethnic-group hypotheses according to which the United States position is shaped by the ethnic group that exercised the most pressure on the u.s. government and/or by the ethnic group that represented the largest number of u.s. voters.

business interests Oil corporations such as Exxon Mobil, Total, Amoco, and Chevron held exploration concessions in the north of Somalia in the late 1980s. When Somalia collapsed in 1991, these companies declared force majeure, which exempted them from their legal obligations toward the government of Somalia, because of conditions beyond their control.40 Parts of the concessions that were held by these oil corporations in the late 1980s are now located within the Republic of Somaliland. However, since the United States does not recognize the secessionist state, these companies have been left with a complex legal situation and hope that one day their oil concessions will be honoured if a central government is re-established in Somalia. In 1991, Conoco and Phillips (now merged into ConocoPhillips), one of the largest energy companies in the United States, discovered oil fields in the North-East of Somalia close to the Somaliland border, and some of that oil lay under Somaliland’s soil. The sites were expected to produce up to three hundred thousand barrels of oil per day.41 Following Somaliland’s secession, Conoco and Phillips worried about the juridical situation in Somaliland and consulted with u.s. government officials to evaluate whether it was safe to start oil exploration in the north.42 The problem was that international law did not apply to the self-declared republic and, therefore, that Conoco and Phillips and the other corporations that chose to do business in Somaliland had no juridical appeal. That being said, no evidence indicates that one or several of these oil firms have influenced, in one way or the other, the U.S policy toward Somalia and Somaliland. And no information specifies that there might be a connection between u.s. executive officials and the interests of oil corporations that were operating in Somalia and Somaliland. The literature on the Somalian crisis does not address

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this issue, and unclassified documents from the State Department do not mention or imply that politicians from the White House elaborated a policy toward Somaliland that was in the interest of American corporations or of corporations with which u.s. executive officials shared ties. Interviews conducted with current and former nsc and State Department officials did not shed any light on this issue. Furthermore, the United States has been constantly opposed to Somaliland’s independence since 1991, which suggests that if indeed private corporations did try to pressure the White House, they failed in their attempt. This chapter is not arguing that the business interest argument falls short in explaining the u.s. foreign policy toward Somaliland, although previous chapters have demonstrated that this model is unconvincing. It is simply indicating that very little information is available on this issue and, therefore, that no conclusion can be reached at this stage on the ability of this argument to explain the current case study.

conclusion The performance of the stability-seeking argument here is not as strong as it is in the other cases. In fact, the argument performs better in the period of 1991–97 when Somaliland was facing internal wars. Somaliland was perceived as one zone of conflict among many in Somalia, and the diplomatic recognition of this secessionist state was, therefore, not even on the u.s. agenda. The 1997–2005 period is a different story, however. Somaliland went through a sustained process of democratization and institutionalization. Yet, while the indicators of the stability theory, taken together, predict the u.s. recognition of Somaliland, the American government holds fast to its policy of non-recognition. Somaliland is an exception to the extent that an ad hoc factor explains the current u.s. policy. The failed combat operation conducted in Mogadishu in 1993 has kept the American government away from Somalia and Somaliland. There are not many instances of u.s. military defeats in recent history. The Viet Nam war and the Battle of Mogadishu are probably the only two instances, and their effects on the conduct of u.s. foreign policy should not be understated. The defeat in Mogadishu has tainted the u.s. government’s

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assessment of the evolution of Somaliland. Regardless of the considerable progress that Somalilanders have made over the years to build a stable and liberal democracy, Washington is apparently unable to extricate Somaliland from the whole Somalian picture. For this reason, this case does not fit the argument perfectly, owing to its very unique character.

8 Theoretical and Empirical Findings

introduction The research in this book brings external factors back to the forefront of the theoretical debate on u.s. policy-making toward foreign intrastate conflicts. While the United States was consistent in its approach toward secessionism during the Cold War by systematically supporting states experiencing secessionist crises, its response to secessionist conflicts in the post–Cold War period was more confusing, because it varied from case to case. Until now, no theoretical argument has addressed this variation in the u.s. response to secessionist states and explained the apparent inconsistency of its policy. This book remedies this research problem by showing that the United States is a stability-seeking power, which explains the research puzzle under investigation. The stability argument consistently offers better explanations and predictions than the ethnicpolitics and business interest arguments and challenges liberal claims that domestic politics define American foreign policy. By comparing intra-cases (i.e., the variations within each case), by looking at different secessionist crises taken from the same regional environment, and by contrasting the u.s. reaction to secessionism in the Balkans and in the Horn of Africa, this research maximizes the points of measurement of the theory and increases its external validity. Tables 8.1 and 8.2 highlight the “score” of the stability-seeking argument. The first step of the argument is correct in explaining the u.s. reaction in three of the four central states studied – Yugoslavia, the fry, and Ethiopia. The United States supported these states as long as they were open to negotiation and able or willing to negotiate. It

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Table 8.1 Typology of the Stability-Seeking Model: First Step of the Argument External Stability

Internal Negotiations

U.S.

Reaction

Central Government Negotiates with Secessionists

Military Repression Against Secessionists

Central State Paralyzed or Collapses

U.S.

Expected Response

Actual Response

Yugoslavia

Yes

No

Yes/then No

Yes

Yes

End support for Yugoslavia’s integrity

End support for Yugoslavia’s integritya

The fry (SerbiaMontenegro)

Yes

Yes

Yes/then No

Yes

No

End support for fry’s integrity

End support for fry’s integritya

Ethiopia

Yes

No

Yes/then No

Yes

Yes

End support for Ethiopia’s integrity

End support for Ethiopia’s integritya

Somalia

Yes

No

No

Yes

Yes

End support for Somalia’s integrity

Support for Somalia’s integrityb

a

Successful prediction. Incorrect prediction that necessitates an ad hoc explanation.

b

A Stability-Seeking Power

Violation of Contiguous States’ Sovereignty

U.S.

Central State

CrossNational Refugees

Table 8.2 Typology of the Stability-Seeking Model: Second Step of the Argument External Stability

Internal Stability

Respect of Internal Borders

Democratic Referendum/ Respect for Minorities

Secessionist State

Defined Territory

Slovenia (1991–92)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Croatia (1991–92)

Yes

Yes

No

No

Macedonia (1991–2004)

Yes

Yes

Yes But tension with Greece

Yes

Kosovo (1991–2008)

Yes

Yes

Eritrea (1989–93)

Yes

Somaliland (1991–2005)

Yes

U.S.

Expected Response

Actual Response

Yes / Yes

Recognition of Secession

Recognition of Secessiona

No

Yes / No

Non-recognition of Secession

Recognition of Secessionb

Yes

Yes / Yes

Recognition of Secession

Recognition of Secessiona (delayed)

Yes But tension with Serbia

Yes Yes With eu and nato help

Yes / Yes

Recognition of Secession (delayed)

Recognition of Secessiona

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes / Yes Sponsored by u.n.

Recognition of Secession

Recognition of Secessiona

Yes

Yes Yes But tension with Puntland

Yes

Yes / Yes

Recognition of Secession

Non-recognition of Secessionb

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U.S.

Successful predictions. Incorrect predictions that necessitate an ad hoc explanation.

b

Reaction

Theoretical and Empirical Findings

Effective Control of Territory

Respect of At Peace International with Borders Neighbours

a

U.S.

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was only once these central authorities failed to offer prospects for stabilization that the u.s. government considered the recognition of secessionist states as an alternative. As for the case of Somalia, an ad hoc explanation is necessary to understand why the United States keeps supporting a unified Somalian state, while the stability indicators anticipate the opposite decision. This case is an exception to the extent that it is linked (even if indirectly) to the u.s. military defeat in Mogadishu in 1993 and to the “Somalia aversion” that resulted from it. The second step of the theory also performs well. Out of the six cases of secession examined, the argument is successful in explaining five of them. Eritrea, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Slovenia were recognized by the United States because they fulfilled criteria of internal and external stability and their recognition had the purpose of bolstering their security. Croatia, however, represents a minor deviant case, since it did not entirely conform to expectations. Broader stability considerations were at play in this case. The recognition of Croatia was part of a u.s. strategy to contain Serbia’s aggressive behaviour. This consideration explains why Croats obtained recognition even though they did not entirely meet the stability conditions fixed by the u.s. government. The American strategy was more focused at that time on the transformation of Croatia’s republican boundaries into international borders than on internal stability. The u.s. policy toward Croatia was driven by regional stability, but the means to achieve it were partly different from those defined in the argument. The theoretical assumption of the argument still holds, therefore, in this case, and the American position toward Croatia suggests that the power to grant, to withhold, and to oppose diplomatic recognition is a powerful tool to manage secessionist crises. Somaliland is a more important challenge to the argument. In contrast to Croatia, the theory expected this secessionist state to be recognized by the United States, since Somalilanders have established a stable state since the second half of the 1990s. Yet, the American government still refuses to grant recognition to Hargeisa. Again, this case is an exception for reasons mentioned in the previous chapter. In sum, in most of the cases the facts concur with the hypotheses of the stability-seeking argument. First, as a stability-seeking power, the United States supports the integrity of sovereign states as long

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as they can contain the effects of secessionist struggles inside their borders and/or as long as they are willing to negotiate with secessionists to end the conflict. Second, the United States recognizes the independence of a secessionist state only if it can simultaneously maintain its internal stability and its external stability. In cases where stability would not be guaranteed by secessionist leaders, the United States maintains the status quo and/or delays recognition as in the examples of Kosovo and Macedonia.

domestic arguments This book shows that the ethnic-politics and business interest arguments do not perform well: the evidence generally does not fit their respective hypotheses. These theoretical propositions fail to explain the u.s. reaction to almost all the cases studied. The information collected indicates that these domestic sources of foreign policy were secondary factors and often marginal ones at that. In only one brief instance was an ethnic group able to affect the conduct of u.s. policy toward a secessionist crisis. The Clinton administration reversed its decision to exchange diplomatic relations with the fyrom in 1994 because of the pressure exercised by the Greek American lobby. The impact of this ethnic group remained limited, however, as it did not lead the United States to reverse its recognition of the republic. In all the other cases and intra-cases studied, from the Balkans to the Horn of Africa, domestic ethnic politics in the United States was always a secondary thought that could not seriously compete with issues of war and peace in Ethiopia, the fry, Somalia, and Yugoslavia. The case studies also show that ethnic lobbies can oppose u.s. recognition of secessionist states, as well as seek it. For each of the cases, different ethnic lobbies were opposing each other in Washington in order to influence decision makers in one way or another. Overall, the research demonstrates that domestic ethnic groups did not matter much in either direction, in causing or stopping u.s. recognition. The u.s. position toward the cases studied almost never reflected the interests of the domestic groups that exercised the most pressure on the United States government or that represented the largest number of American voters. As for the business interest argument, the cases of Croatia and Slovenia, which were arguably the most important in terms of u.s.

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business interests because of their geographic location and the size of their economies, show quite clearly that business interests were not an important factor in the foreign policy decision making. However, in contrast to the assessment of the ethnic-politics argument, a categorical answer cannot be formulated toward the business interest argument, since the information available to measure it was sometimes scarce. For instance, I had to renounce analyzing this proposition in the chapter on Kosovo, because I was unable to collect sufficient facts. Moreover, it was not possible to identify whether strategic interests such as oil had a bigger impact on the behaviour of the United States than non-strategic ones, since the collected evidence indicates that the United States did not have serious economic interests in any of the secessionist crises studied for which I had data.

theoretical contributions It is always interesting, from an academic point of view, to challenge a conventional wisdom and to prove it wrong. Such an endeavour makes our work original and potentially significant as far as future paths of research are concerned. The stability-seeking argument, however, does not challenge common wisdoms but decodes, operationalizes, and validates a common intuition about u.s. foreign policy. The model articulates the broad and abstract notion of stability, which is often used intuitively to explain the American reaction to secessionist quarrels, and it shows how it plays in the formulation of foreign policy. Thus, the contribution and the originality of the theoretical argument is not so much that it argues that stability matters but rather that it depicts the mechanisms that connect the u.s. interest in stability and the observable outcomes. It is at this level that the research makes a contribution to the literature and debates on u.s. foreign policy toward secessionist strives. Some critics might argue that to make some claim to universality, the argument should explain u.s. foreign policy across a broader time range and that it should not be limited to the unique post–Cold War era. This depends on one’s definition of universality. The stability argument can explain the American response to secessionist struggles since the end of the bipolar world order and for the foreseeable future. This is a significant theoretical contribu-

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tion to the literature on u.s. foreign policy and foreign intervention in ethnic conflicts. If the time range of the research was extended, the dynamics of the Cold War, which included the notions of nuclear deterrence, Soviet containment, and spheres of influence, would necessarily have to be considered, even if it is no longer relevant for understanding current and future u.s. responses to secessionist conflicts. Realism and U.S. Foreign Policy This book shows that realist notions provide a good theoretical understanding of u.s. foreign policy toward secessionist conflicts. It conforms to the defensive-realist paradigm as clarified by Joseph Grieco’s defensive positionalism. With the end of the bipolar international structure, some analysts, like John Stack, have maintained that realism, which had been the main theoretical frame for explaining balance-of-power politics and nuclear deterrence during the Cold War, was ill equipped to explain the emergence of ethnic conflicts as a central force of international politics.1 J. Lewis Rasmussen has even argued that realism has failed “as a prescriptive device for foreign policy practitioners who are confounded by the vicissitudes of numerous post–Cold War conflicts.”2 Despite what these critics have argued, this research shows that realism, as a prescriptive device of u.s. foreign policy, is quite useful for understanding the international dimension of ethnic and secessionist conflicts in the post–Cold War era.3 One important theoretical conclusion of my defensive-realist argument is that status quo and stability do not have the same meaning: they imply different things. If, on the one hand, the United States is the predominant power and greatly values the international status quo, on the other hand, the American government has never supported as many secessionist states as it has since the end of the Cold War, which seems to go against the previous assertion. This is because the status quo (i.e., the established order) does not always play in favour of the stability of the regional sub-systems and, therefore, in the interests of the United States. Thus, in certain situations, the United States chose to break with the status quo because it generated instability and offered no real solution for ending secessionist conflicts. The recognition of secessionist states, which represents a violation of the status quo and an alteration of

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established regional orders, can thus become a credible tool to reestablish stability in regions affected by secessionism. In light of the collected evidence, we can conclude that, everything being equal, the United States favours the maintenance of the status quo and has an anti-secessionist bias, but only as long as an established regional order serves its stability interests. When it no longer does so, the American government will not hesitate to alter the status quo. Hence, stability, rather than status quo, defines u.s. security. This leads me to assert that the United States is not always a status quo power but that it is consistently a stability-seeking power. This distinction, which has an ontological dimension, refines the defensive positional approach of u.s. foreign policy.4 Stability Rather than International Law The u.s. position toward secessionist crises is ultimately about stability, not international law. In the post–Cold War world international law has been transgressed on multiple occasions by the United States in the management of secessionist crises. In certain instances, Washington has used international law as a tool to foster its stability interests, but only as long as it served that purpose. Kosovo stands out as a case in point. The White House denied it recognition in 1991 because Kosovo was a province of Serbia, unlike the six Yugoslav republics, and therefore did not have the constitutional and international right to secede. This legal argument was used by Washington to prevent the endless division of the Yugoslav republics. It was a convenient way to contain disintegration. Yet in 2008 the Bush administration chose to recognize the unilateral secession of Kosovo, achieved against Serbia’s consent, which violated international law. This decision was recommended by the State Department and the National Security Council as the best option to strengthen stability in Kosovo. This recognition created a precedent, which was then used by Russia to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia a few months later. Eritrea is another interesting case. For stability considerations, the Bush administration allowed Eritreans to secede from Ethiopia in the early 1990s, despite legal arguments used by previous u.s. administrations to oppose it. In both of these cases Washington justified its policy by the fact that these secessionist states were unique cases. As a result, the

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United States presided over the alteration of state borders in Serbia and Ethiopia and was the leading architect of Kosovo’s and Eritrea’s secession. What the United States really means by “unique cases,” however, is that at some point in the evolution of these secessionist crises, the application of international law conflicted with u.s. stability interests. The fact that the White House has both supported and defied international legal instruments in support or denial of secessionist struggles in the post–Cold War is interesting. Ironically, Washington went against the anti-secession regime that it helped to develop following the Second World War. As explained in chapter 2, the measures contained in the un Charter regarding secessionist selfdetermination were largely a reflection of u.s. interests. More broadly, the international regime against secession was built on a series of resolutions, strongly supported by the United States, that were adopted not only by the United Nations but also by the Arab League, the Organization of American States, and the Organization of African Unity. These resolutions emphasized the principle of territorial integrity and denied non-colonial secessionist movements the right to secede.5 The American response to secessionist crises in the last twenty years shows that international norms against secession, which were important for the United States during the Cold War, no longer inhibit Washington’s attempt to maximize its regional-stability interests in the current unipolar international system. The Limited Impact of Regional and Great Powers The research in this book demonstrates that the impact of regional and great powers on the position of the United States toward secessionist conflicts is a secondary consideration. Germany did, to a certain extent, have an impact on the conduct of u.s. policy toward Croatia and Slovenia, and Greece had a similar impact on the American government in the case of Macedonia. To a lesser extent, the European Union also influenced the u.s. perception of the issue of Kosovo’s independence. But the Balkan cases clearly indicate that these regional powers never diverted the u.s. government from pursuing its main interest: strengthening regional stability. The Bush administration categorically opposed Helmut Kohl’s decision to recognize Zagreb and Ljubljana in December 1991 and waited for

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a ceasefire to occur between Croatia and Serbia, as well as for the deployment of a large un contingent of peacekeepers in Croatia and Bosnia, before granting recognition to these new states. In the case of Macedonia, the strong Greek reaction against fyrom’s determination to use the name Macedonia created significant tensions between Athens and Skopje, which inhibited the u.s. government from moving forward with its initial decision to recognize the republic. This factor, even if it delayed recognition, did not prevent the Clinton administration from finding alternative ways to promote regional stability by deploying, for instance, u.s. troops at the Serbian-Macedonian border to contain potential Serbian aggression. And ultimately, the American government recognized Macedonia despite Greece’s objection, which tends to show that the impact of regional powers is limited. In Kosovo, the European Union may have influenced the American perception of the issue in the 1990s but the Kosovo state’s lack of internal and external stability is really what explains the Clinton administration’s decision to oppose recognition in 1998–99. Ten years later, when the Bush administration decided to recognize the unilateral secession of Kosovo, Washington remained steadfast, despite China’s and Russia’s strong opposition to that decision and President Putin’s threat to use this precedent to recognize Georgia’s breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. This is a clear indication that the opinion of great powers ultimately does not prevail in u.s. rational calculations. Moreover, in the case of Eritrea and Somaliland, the opinion of regional and great powers had a very marginal impact, if no impact at all, on the formulation of the u.s. response. The United States initially became involved in Ethiopia because the Soviet Union could no longer play a role in the region and because the administration of George H. W. Bush wanted to cooperate with Moscow on international issues. When the Ethiopian crisis intensified in 1991, the u.s. government was really the only power involved in the resolution of the conflict. As a former colonial power, Italy had attempted a few years before to help resolve the war but had been unsuccessful and did not influence Washington in favour of or against the independence of Eritrea. As for Somaliland, Djibouti and Kenya particularly have been involved in the numerous attempts to resolve the Somalian civil war, but their opposition to Somaliland independence does not

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explain the position of the United States. In sum, regional and great powers had a secondary impact on the conduct of American foreign policy toward secessionism. The Spheres of Interest The u.s. government did not react with the same intensity and diligence to secessionist movements in the Balkans and in the Horn of Africa, which is interesting. Washington reacted more promptly to secessionism in Yugoslavia than it did toward secessionism in Ethiopia and Somalia. The American government was more concerned, for instance, about the refugees coming out of the Yugoslav secessionist wars than it was about similar problems in Ethiopia and Somalia. The reason is simple. The United States has more economic and political interests in Europe, and the secessionist crises in the Balkans threatened to destabilize its European economic partners and nato allies. In the case of the Horn of Africa, secessionism did not significantly disrupt u.s. economic interests or the stability of American allies. The differing u.s. reactions toward the Balkans and the Horn underline the idea that stability drives American foreign policy, as Washington focuses on stability where it matters most. This is another implication of the stability-seeking argument. A Contribution to Conflict Mediation and Resolution The theoretical and empirical findings reported here contribute to the literature on conflict mediation and resolution by providing a better understanding of the means used by the American superpower to mediate and resolve secessionist conflicts. Jacob Bercovitch asserted in the late 1990s that large states “often create the opportunity to mediate and use the mediation as a vehicle to protect or promote their own interests.”6 My research confirms this assertion. The United States used its diplomatic power to recognize or deny secession as a political tool to increase its leverage in the management of secessionist struggles. First, it denied recognition in order to strengthen the unity of central states, like Somalia and Yugoslavia, experiencing internal secessionist struggles. Second, Washington delayed recognition of secessionist states to press for the implementation of stability measures within newborn states.

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This strategy, which is known in the literature on ethnic conflict resolution as ‘conditionality,’ links diplomatic recognition to the cooperative behaviour of secessionist elites and was applied, for instance, in the case of Eritrea and Kosovo.7 Third, recognition was granted by the United States as a reward to secessionist states that complied with stability incentives and was sometimes granted as a preventive measure to avoid greater tensions and bloodshed. The recognition by the Bush administration of the constitutional name of Macedonia in 2004 stands out as a case in point. William Zartman has argued that “since conflict resolution is a crucial component of global leadership, it should be a leading plank in the foreign policy of the state with the widest global interests, the United States.”8 My book shows that this is the case for secessionist conflicts. The United States has been quite active at resolving them in the last twenty years in order to promote its global-stability interests. This research also demonstrates that when a secessionist conflict emerges abroad, the United States consistently supports governmental decentralization and better representation of minorities, as opposed to measures that would centralize political power in the hands of the central state to fight secessionist aspirations. This inclination for power sharing has guided Washington’s mediation and conflict resolution attempts for each of the cases studied in this book. The Absence of a Coherent Policy toward Secessionism This research shows that the United States does not have a written policy toward secessionist crises. The American government has never developed a grand strategy toward secessionist aspirations that would explicitly promote, for instance, the status quo or, conversely, the aspirations of secessionist movements. The only document that comes close to stating such a policy contains the guidelines for recognition that were elaborated by the State Department in 1991 (see chapter 3) when the Bush administration was facing the emergence of secessionist states in the Balkans. With the multiplication of ethnic and secessionist conflicts since the end of the Cold War, political analysts like David Callahan and Patricia Carley have attempted to craft a coherent u.s. foreign policy to deal with these issues by tackling the fundamental dilemma

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of “weighing the risks to international stability of a policy that tends to favour the status quo as against a policy that indulges nationalist aspirations.”9 In the light of this research, I argue that this is a false debate. As shown in this book, the main issue is not whether or not the United States should in principle support the status quo or secessionist changes but, rather, how it should maximize regional stability when secessionist crises occur. As a defensive positional state, the United States focuses on this fundamental interest, and the empirical evidence indicates that the search for stability was consistent throughout all of the cases studied in this book. Stability is what guided the u.s. response; not principles, not international law, not domestic considerations, and certainly not a standardized policy on the matter. It is illusive to look for a one-size-fits-all foreign policy that could address the myriad of secessionist crises. What really matters is to identify the preferences that guide the u.s. response, and this is precisely what the stability-seeking theory does. From the Balkans to the Horn of Africa, the American government chose the option that provided the most stable outcome, depending on the profile and on the evolution of each secessionist crisis. This is why the United States did recognize some secessionist states, while it remained opposed to the independence of other ones. This apparent inconsistency is, therefore, an illusion or an inconsistency “de façade,” to the extent that it is the result of a coherent set of interests that produced different results for different crises. If we focus only on the results, the u.s. approach seems inconsistent, but if we pay attention to the process, or to the causal mechanisms leading to these outcomes, the United States has been consistent through time.

policy implications What are the implications for Canada, Georgia, India, the Philippines, or Spain, which are all dealing with secessionist movements? What are the implications for secessionist groups in Kashmir or in Turkish Kurdistan that are hoping to achieve secession and obtain u.s. diplomatic recognition? This research shows that central-state leaders clearly have an advantage over secessionist elites. As long as a central state is able to keep control over its international borders, Washington will consistently support its territorial integrity. Moreover, the means

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employed by central governments to maintain control over international borders do not affect the u.s. position. Yugoslavia and Ethiopia used violence against secessionists and were nonetheless supported by Washington in the first phase of their secessionist conflicts. However, military repression tends to cause greater instability and ultimately a loss of control over international borders. In such a case, this research suggests that the United States will keep supporting unity if the leaders of the central state consent to thirdparty mediation and/or agree to negotiate with secessionist elites. Bluntly speaking, this means that if central states are efficient at crushing their secessionist movements without causing external disruption or if they act in good faith and are open to conflict resolution after external instability has occurred, Washington will remain on their side and secessionist elites will not control the agenda as far as diplomatic recognition is concerned. It is only when there is a combination of external instability and bad faith on the part of a central state that the United States will shift its position to consider the recognition of its secessionist state. These implications are relevant not only to secessionist movements in the developing world but also to radical elements in wellestablished democracies who are advocating unilateral secession from their central state in places like Quebec, Scotland, and the Spanish Basque Country. This research suggests that, following unilateral secession, independentist leaders have very few windows of opportunity for achieving u.s. recognition and that these windows generally open when secessionist conflicts become highly violent and chaotic, which is far from being desirable.

8 Notes

chapter one 1 See Lake and Rothchild, The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict. See also Carment and James, Wars in the Midst of Peace. 2 See Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict, 230. 3 According to Ernest Gellner, “Nationalism is primarily a political principle, which holds that the political and the national unit should be congruent.” From Gellner’s assertion it is obvious that in the post–Cold War era nationalist movements have increasingly perceived secession as a solution for achieving their political claims in societies where ethnicity and borders did not match. Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, 1. 4 See Haendel, The Process of Priority Formulation. 5 Callahan, Unwinnable Wars, 27. 6 Nye, The Paradox of American Power, 152. 7 Clinton, “Address,” 30. 8 Blanchard, Behind the Embassy Door, 67. 9 Callahan, The Enduring Challenge. 10 The data shows that since 1945 the United States has intervened in intrastate conflicts more often than any other major power. Patrick Regan points out that among the seventy-six cases of intervention carried out by major powers between 1945 and 1994, the United States accounted for 46 percent of them. For the same period, the Soviet Union (Russia after 1991) accounted for only 21 percent of these interventions, France for 13 percent, Britain for 12 percent, and China for 8 percent. Regan’s analysis is a clear indication that the United States is the most important intervener in internal conflicts and that it has arguably the most impact. See Regan, “Conditions of Successful Third-Party Intervention,” 345.

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11 Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict, 230. 12 Alexis Heraclides proposes two different scales of international support for secessionist movements, one material and the other politicaldiplomatic. He points out that material support for secessionist movements includes, among other things, humanitarian aid, non-military involvement, and full-scale military intervention in favour of the secessionists. As for the political-diplomatic scale, Heraclides maintains that it refers to words and ideas such as a call for negotiated settlements, support for the right of self-determination, or the recognition of a secessionist state, which is the ultimate level of politicaldiplomatic support. See Heraclides, The Self-Determination of Minorities, 48–49. 13 Carment, “The Ethnic Dimension,” 563. 14 Heraclides, The Self-Determination of Minorities, 49. 15 Heraclides, “Secession, Self-determination and Nonintervention: In Quest of a Normative Symbiosis,” 400. 16 Gurr, Minorities at Risk. For a list of ethnic groups discriminated against see the Minorities at Risk Project. www.cidcm.umd.edu/inscr/mar (accessed June 2009).

chapter two 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

12

Callahan, Unwinnable Wars. Halperin, Scheffer, and Small, Self-Determination. Bienen, “Ethnic Nationalisms.” Farkas, Fractured States. David, Catastrophic Consequences. Ibid., 12. Walt, “The Realist Tradition”; Zakaria, “Realism and Domestic Politics.” For more on offensive realism, see Mearsheimer, Great Power Politics, 3. See also Labs, “Beyond Victory.” See Walt, The Origins of Alliances, 263; Mastanduno, “Do Relative Gains Matter?” Van Evera, Causes of War. Saideman, The Ties That Divide, 9. Ibid., 61. Among Saideman’s forty-three cases of third state intervention to which the balance of threat argument was applied, nineteen were classified as indeterminate observations. Ibid., 62, 95, and 145. Heraclides focuses his analysis on the following secessionist movements: Katanga, Biafra, the Southern Sudan, Bangladesh, Iraqi Kur-

Notes to pages 17–23

13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23

24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

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distan, Eritrea, and the Moro region of the Philippines. See his “Secessionist Minorities and External Involvement.” Mearsheimer, Great Power Politics, 2. Saideman, “Discrimination in International Relations.” The csce Helsinki Final Act in 1975 and the Charter of Paris in 1990 reiterated these norms. Zacher, “The Territorial Integrity Norm,” 221–2. See Heraclides, Self-Determination of Minorities. See also Little, Intervention, 15–32. Again, the American recognition of Bangladesh in 1972 was the only exception. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?” 35. Herbst, “National boundaries in Africa”; Jackson and Rosberg, “Africa’s Weak States.” Cervenka, The Organization of African Unity, 232–3. Saideman analyzes thirty cases of highly vulnerable third states that intervened in three secessionist crises: the Congo, Nigeria, and the Yugoslav conflict. His work demonstrates that among the thirty highly vulnerable states, at least sixteen supported secessionist movements. Saideman, Ties That Divide, 65, 98, and 147. Heraclides, Secesionist Minorities and External Involvement. See Mearsheimer and Walt, The Israel Lobby. See also Hockenos, Homeland Calling; Nau, At Home Abroad; Ambrosio, “Ethnic Identity Groups”; Shain and Wittes, “Peace as a Three-Level Game”; Deconde, Ethnicity, Race, and American Foreign Policy. Shain and Barth, “Diasporas and International Relations Theory”; Haney and Vanderbush, “The Rope of Ethnic Interest Groups.” Ambrosio, Ethnic Identity Groups. Nau, At Home Abroad, 82–4. Shain, “Multicultural Foreign Policy.” Glazer and Moynihan, Ethnicity, 23–4. Mearsheimer and Walt, “The Israel Lobby.” Brzezinski, “A Dangerous Exemption,” 63–4. Shain, Marketing the American Creed Abroad, 51–66. Ibid. Saideman, “Secessionist Conflicts,” 725–6. Saideman studies three cases: the Congo, Nigeria, and Yugoslavia. His work shows that where leaders’ constituents share ethnic ties with secessionists, they support secession in twenty-one cases out of twenty-two. However, when leaders’ constituents have ethnic ties

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39 40 41 42 43 44 45

46 47

48

Notes to pages 24–31

with the host state, third-state leaders support the central government in fifteen out of seventeen cases. See Saideman, Ties That Divide. Stack, “The Ethnic Challenge,” 20. Gibbs, Third World Intervention, 33. Heraclides, “Secessionist Minorities.” For instance, for the years 1990 to 1992, phase iii of the Minorities at Risk Project (mar) indicates that thirty-five foreign states have expressly supported eighteen separatist movements, in ways ranging from simple ideological encouragement to full-scale military intervention. See Bélanger, Duchesne, and Paquin, “Foreign Interventions,” 443–4. Grieco, “Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation,” 498. See also Grieco, Cooperation among Nations. Grieco, “Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation,” 498; Grieco, Cooperation among Nations. Mastanduno, “Do Relative Gains Matter?” 265. Mastanduno, Economic Containment. Halperin, Scheffer, and Small, Self-Determination. Bienen, “Ethic Nationalisms,” 160. Here I define the notion of “stability gap” as the increasing disjunction between the way a given regional order was configured and the current state of affairs generated by a secessionist conflict. Heraclides, “Secessionist Conflagration,” 283. The unhcr also indicates that about 410,000 ethnic Albanians were internally displaced following Serb military operations. See iciss, The Responsibility to Protect, 113. The traditional u.s. policy toward the Quebec secessionist issue can be summarized as follows: first, the u.s. preference is for a united Canada, and, second, the United States does not want to interfere in Canadian internal affairs. When President Clinton visited Ottawa in February 1995, five months after the election of the secessionist Parti Québécois in Quebec, he clearly stated the u.s. position regarding the issue: “In a world darkened by ethnic conflicts that literally tear nations apart, Canada has stood for all of us as a model of how people of different cultures can live and work together in peace, prosperity, and respect.” He added, “The United States, as many of my predecessors have said, has enjoyed its excellent relationship with a strong and united Canada, but we recognize ... that your political future is, of course, entirely for you to decide.” See Blanchard, Behind the Embassy Door, 211.

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49 See Snyder, From Voting to Violence, 359. See also Jha, “Indonesia and the ‘Free Aceh Movement.’” 50 Russia armed and trained Trans-Dniester’s paramilitary forces in early 1992, and some Russian leaders described the new Trans-Dnister republic as “Russian soil.” Later that year, the Russian Fourteenth Army became directly involved in the secessionist crisis by engaging in a full-scale battle against Moldovan arm forces. See Socor, “Moldova’s ‘Dnister’ Ulcer,” 13–14. 51 Aklaev, “Moldova–Trans-Dniester.” 52 Salehyan and Gleditsch, “Refugees and the Spread of Civil War.” 53 Heraclides, “Secessionist Minorities.” Siverson and Starr argue that most of the states can use their military capability only for short distances. Therefore, neighboring conflicts represent a real opportunity for states to intervene. See Siverson and Starr, The Diffusion of War. 54 The large number of East Pakistanis who flew to India as a result of the West Pakistani repression against the Bengali secessionist movement in the early 1970s accelerated India’s involvement in the secessionist crisis and led to an Indo-Pakistani war in 1971. 55 Heraclides, “Secession, Self-determination and Nonintervention,” 414. 56 The gain in stability, however, would be an expectation rather than a certainty, since the United States, like any other state, operates in a state of uncertainty and usually possesses incomplete information for making foreign policy decisions. 57 Krasner, Sovereignty, 9. 58 Callahan, Unwinnable Wars, 33. 59 The Helsinki Act established principles guiding relations between states, such as territorial integrity, the inviolability of frontiers, respect for minority rights, and the peaceful settlement of disputes. See Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, Final Act. 60 Zacher, “Territorial Integrity,” 234–5. 61 Young, “How Do Peaceful Secessions Happen?” 782. 62 Following the recognition of the Soviet Union by President Roosevelt in 1933, the Supreme Court of the United States stated that the recognition and the establishment of diplomatic relations with the u.s.s.r. were clearly decisions of the president. See Henkin, Foreign Affairs. See also Adler, “The President’s Recognition Power.” 63 I borrow James Morrow’s definition of rationality: “choosing the best means to gain a predetermined set of ends. It is an evaluation of the consistency of choices and not of the thought process, of implementa-

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67 68 69 70

71

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Notes to pages 46–56

tion of fixed goals and not of the morality of those goals.” See Morrow, Game Theory, 17. George and Keohane, “The Concept of National Interests,” 217. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 8. The case of Bosnia-Herzegovina was left out because it is not an instance of secession but rather the result of Yugoslavia’s disintegration. When the Bosnian population opted for independence in late February 1992, Yugoslavia had already ceased to exist. Gvosdev, “American Response to Lithuanian Independence.” See George and Bennett, Case Studies, especially chapter 10. Ibid., 208. George, Presidential Decision Making, 11. George also mentions the organizational context as part of the foreign policy machinery. This context involves the whole bureaucracy that is concerned with foreign policy issues. I have chosen not to integrate this third context into the analysis. Although relevant for certain types of foreign policy studies, the organizational context would move the analysis away from the straightforward objective of finding whether agents and advisors who emphasize stability considerations have the most influence in the decision-making process. For a complete explanation of this comparative method of research, see George, “Case Studies.” Some interesting research has used structured, focused comparison. See, for instance, Kupchan, Vulnerability of Empire; George and Smoke, Deterrence. George, “Case Studies,” 56. The “structured, focused comparison” is a good answer to Kenneth Waltz’s observation that “without some guidance we can know neither what information to gather nor how to put it together so that it becomes comprehensible.” Waltz, International Politics, p. 11.

chapter three 1 Bangladesh was the only other successful case. 2 Together, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Vojvodina had the majority of representatives in the Yugoslav federal council. See Andrejevich, “State Presidency Deadlocked, 21. 3 Holbrooke, To End a War, 26. 4 Ibid., 27. 5 Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, 636. 6 President Bush declared a few months earlier that the United States

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8 9 10 11

12 13

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“would not reward” republics that would choose to secede unilaterally. See The Economist, “The Road to War,” 45. Baker, “u.s. Concerns,” 468. The fear inspired by the breakup of Yugoslavia led the u.s. government to support a variety of constitutional reforms, such as a confederal arrangement. The Bush administration even indicated that it would accept a peaceful disintegration of Yugoslavia. Secretary Baker writes in his memoir: “while we supported the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia and existing republic borders and would not accept unilateral changes, the international community, of course, recognized that if the republics wanted to change borders by peaceful, consensual means, that was an altogether different matter.” Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, 480. Zimmermann, Origins of a Catastrophe, 135. Zimmermann, “Yugoslavia,” 183. Cohen, “The Disintegration of Yugoslavia,” 373. Holbrooke, To End a War, 29–30. Because of the intensification of the conflict in Croatia, the three-month moratorium on independence reached in early July 1991 did not help to resolve the crisis. At the expiration of the three-month period in October, Croatia and Slovenia declared formal and immediate secession. See Facts On File, “New Yugoslavia Truce,” 762. The changing nature of the Yugoslav conflict led the Europeans to call for u.n. peacekeeping intervention in Yugoslavia. The European Community also created a Peace Conference on Yugoslavia chaired by Britain’s former foreign secretary Lord Carrington, as well as an Arbitration Commission. The role of the commission, headed by the French constitutional judge Robert Badinter, was to establish criteria for international recognition and to evaluate the merits of the republics’ secessionist claims in the light of these criteria. The Bush administration strongly supported these initiatives but was still reluctant to be involved in the crisis. The u.s. presidential election was just a year away, and President Bush’s advisors thought that nothing could really be done to stop the conflict. Baker, “Violent Crisis in Yugoslavia.” Interview with Robert Pearson, Washington, dc, 14 February 2005. Ambassador Pearson was the executive secretary of the Department of State from 1991 to 1993. Central Intelligence Agency, “Yugoslavia.” The estimated number of Yugoslav refugees in Europe in the summer of 1992 was 415,795. See Dominis and Bicanic, “Refugees and Displaced Persons,” 2. According to Sabrina Petra Ramet, by the summer of 1992, the number of

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refugees in Germany was up to 200,000, and several other countries had taken refugees: Sweden, 40,000; Switzerland, 13,000; Netherlands, 4,000. See Ramet, “War in the Balkans,” 79. According to Judith Pataki, 12,000 Yugoslav refugees, mainly from Croatia, had already fled to Hungary in September 1991. See Pataki, “Refugee Wave from Croatia,” 12. u.n. Security Council, Resolution 713; Facts on File, “ec Imposes Sanctions,” 858–9. See also Binder, “u.s. Suspends Trade Benefits.” Cohen, Broken Bonds, 232. Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, 638. Ibid. These criteria were unveiled before the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (csce) in the fall of 1991. Henkin, Pugh, Schachter, and Smit, International Law, 250. The Charter of Paris, signed by csce members in 1990, had the objective of reinforcing the protection of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law in countries in Europe that were part of the Helsinki Final Act. For more information on the Charter of Paris, see Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, Charter of Paris for a New Europe. These criteria were codified in the Helsinki Final Act and in the Charter of Paris. In December 1991, the European Community issued its own guidelines for recognition. The guidelines were very similar to those of the United States. The ec Doctrine of Recognition included the five following criteria: (1) Respect for the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations, the Final Act of Helsinki, and the Charter of Paris with regard to the rule of law, democracy, and human rights; (2) Guarantees for the rights of minorities and for the rights of ethnic and national groups; (3) Respect for the inviolability of all frontiers, which can only be changed by peaceful means and by common agreement; (4) Acceptance of disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation; (5) Commitment to settle by agreement all questions concerning state succession and regional disputes. See European Community, Declaration on the Guidelines, 1487. This extensive list of criteria departed from the traditional standard of state recognition, which was developed in the 1930s at the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of the State. This convention had ruled that to be recognized as a sovereign entity, a state had to possess four qualifications: a permanent population, a defined territory, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states. See Weller, “The International Response,” 588.

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22 For a good analysis of the German defection, see Crawford, “Explaining Defection.” 23 The unconditional ceasefire between Croatia and Serbia set the ground for the deployment of the United Nations Protection Forces (unprofor) in Croatia in April 1992. 24 Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, 639. 25 Interview with Brent Scowcroft, Washington, dc, 8 February 2005. 26 This chapter does not focus on the case of Macedonia, which is the topic of the next chapter. Macedonia declared independence in September 1991, following a winning referendum on independence. In January 1992, the Badinter Commission, which was in charge of evaluating whether seceding republics met the ec criteria for recognition, ruled that Macedonia met them all. 27 Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, 640. 28 Phone interview with Peter W. Galbraith, 23 January 2005. 29 This agreement included a common policy of recognition toward secessionist states. u.s. officials declared that they were ready to work in tandem with the ec now that the Bosnian referendum had been held and that a un peacekeeping force was to be sent to the former Yugoslavia. Crossette, “Baker Hints at u.s. Shift.” According to David Binder, the Bush administration’s “rationale was that it would serve no purpose to extend recognition until the United Nations had completed plans for positioning a peacekeeping force of 14,400 in the war zones of Croatia.” See Binder, “u.s. Set to Accept Yugoslav Breakup.” 30 Facts on File, “Bosnia-Herzegovina,” 252. u.s. recognition came three months after the European Community’s decision to recognize Croatia and Slovenia and more than nine months following Ljubljana’s and Zagreb’s unilateral declarations of independence. The European Community recognized the independence of Bosnia the day before the United States did. 31 The ceasefire did not last very long, since a few months later the Croatian army fought to regain control over its Serbian-populated regions. Ceasefires reached in 1993 and 1994 between Serbs and Croats were also broken by Croatia, which led military offensives to get control of the Serbian region of Krajina. The facts reveal that the un intervention in Croatia and the u.s. recognition of the republic did not solidify Croatia’s internal stability. Croatia finally agreed to a permanent ceasefire in December 1995 by signing the Dayton agreement. See Department of State, “Background Note: Croatia.”

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32 Interview with David C. Gompert, Washington, dc, 25 January 2005. 33 Tutwiler, Daily Press Briefing. 34 Thomas Niles declares: “There was uniform support within the national security agency for effort to preserve the unity of a Yugoslav state. Nobody thought, as far as I can recall, that the disintegration of Yugoslavia was a desirable thing to happen.” Phone interview with Thomas M.T. Niles, 29 January 2005. 35 Moore, “Diplomatic Recognition of Croatia and Slovenia,” 9. 36 Moore, “The International Relations of the Yugoslav Area,” 33. 37 Hockenos, Homeland Calling, 130. 38 Correspondence with Pero Novak, 26 January 2005. 39 Phone interview with Thomas M.T. Niles, 29 January 2005. This view is shared by David Gompert. Interview with David C. Gompert, Washington, dc, 25 January 2005. 40 Interview with David C. Gompert, Washington, dc, 25 January 2005. 41 Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, 639. 42 Gompert, “The United States,” 129. 43 Gutman, A Witness to Genocide, xxiv–xxv. See also Binder, “Eagleburger Anguishes.” 44 Binder, “Eagleburger Anguishes.” 45 Brent Scowcroft was assistant air attaché to Belgrade in the early 1960s while Eagleburger worked for the economic section of the u.s. Embassy in Belgrade.

chapter four 1 Within-case analysis is critical in small-n analysis. As Alexander George and Andrew Bennett explain, it is “an alternative that compensates for the limits of both statistical and comparative case analyses. For more on within-case analysis, see George and Bennett, Case Studies, 178–9. See also Lebow, “What’s So Different about a Counterfactual?” 562. 2 See Saideman, The Ties That Divide; Hockenos, Homeland Calling; Shea, Macedonia and Greece; Rosin, “Why We Flipped on Macedonia.” 3 Perry, “Macedonia,” 113. 4 See Reuter, “Policy and Economy in Macedonia,” 33. 5 Among those who cast a ballot, 74.4 percent opted for independence.

Notes to pages 78–84

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However, Macedonia’s Albanian minority boycotted the election. See Phillips, Macedonia, 50. A few days after Macedonia declared its independence, Yugoslav President Mesic proclaimed the end of Yugoslavia. See chapter 3. Serbia’s president Slobodan Milosevic, who was in control of the ypa, was reluctant to open another front by launching a war in Macedonia. Moreover, Serbia had little incentive to fight in Macedonia, since very few Serbs were living in this republic. It was in this context that the Macedonian government managed to sign an agreement with Milosevic on the withdrawal of former Yugoslav troops from Macedonia. See Perry, “Macedonia,” 37. As explained in chapter 3, the Badinter Commission was the European Community’s commission headed by the French constitutional judge Robert Badinter. The role of the commission was to evaluate which Yugoslav republic met the ec criteria for state recognition Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, 640. See Moore, “The International Relations of the Yugoslav Area,” 33. The issue of rights under the new Macedonian constitution, however, remained contentious between Macedonian politicians and members of ethnic Albanian minority throughout the 1990s until the outbreak of the 2001 conflict. Under the new Macedonian constitution, minorities did not have the right of proportional representation within governmental institutions. Moreover, the right that ethnic Albanians had under the former Yugoslavia to fly the Albanian flag on certain occasions was removed from the constitution. See Pettifer, “The Albanians in Western Macedonia,” 138 and 143. These elements, however, were not apparent and were not taken into account in 1991 when the United States assessed the stability of the republic. Perry, “Macedonia,” 40. Interview with General Brent Scowcroft, Washington, dc, 8 February 2005. Department of State, 22 October 1992. Unclassified Document, case 200502041. Unclassified on 15 June 2005. Perry, “Macedonia,” 40. Ibid. Interview with David C. Gompert, Washington, dc, 25 January 2005. Phone interview with Thomas M.T. Niles, 29 January 2005. Kofos, “Greek Policy Considerations”; Zahariadis, Essence of Political Manipulation.

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19 Holbrooke, To End a War, 122. 20 New York Times, “300 u.s. Troops in Macedonia.” The unprofor in Macedonia had been authorized by the un Security Council in late 1992. Its mandate was to protect Macedonia’s border with Albania and Serbia. The creation of unprofor-Macedonia was recommended by the un secretary-general following a request made by the Macedonian government. See Woodward, Balkan Tragedy, 295. 21 According to Marshall Freeman Harris, who served in Macedonia in the early 1990s as a State Department official, the un recognition of the fyrom was seen in Washington as a first step in the inevitable process of Macedonia’s recognition. Interview with Marshall Freeman Harris, Washington, dc, 17 February 2005. 22 Lewis, “Europe to Defy Greece.” 23 White House, “u.s. Recognition.” 24 Phone interview with Matthew Nimetz, 18 February 2005. 25 Greek prime minister Papandreou declared that he was forced to impose the embargo to protect Greece’s national security. He pointed out: “this is a real threat to our national security, because Skopje’s aim is to gain an exit to the Aegean Sea … We had to remind the world there is a problem concerning stability and security in the region.” See Shea, Macedonia and Greece, 285. 26 Ibid., 183. 27 In the early 2000s, the Macedonian Americans became better organized and represented in Washington by creating organizations such as the Macedonian American Friendship Association (mafa) in 2001 and the United Macedonian Diaspora in 2004. 28 The 2000 u.s. census listed 38,051 Macedonian Americans. Michigan contained the largest cluster of Macedonian Americans, with 7,801. 29 Rosin, “Why We Flipped,” 11. 30 Shea, Macedonia and Greece, 186. 31 Ibid., 365. 32 Steven Greenhouses, “State Department Criticizes White House.” 33 Ibid. 34 Interview with Anthony Lake, Washington, dc, 4 April 2005. 35 Holbrooke, To End a War, 121–7. 36 In response to the u.s. recognition, Macedonian prime minister Branko Crvenkovski declared: “The establishment of full diplomatic relations with the u.s.a. at ambassadorial level, is an event of exceptional, I’d say historic, significance for the republic of Macedonia. It’s something we have been anticipating for a long time, aware that this

Notes to pages 91–7

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would contribute, to a great extent, to the strengthening of Macedonia’s position not only on a bilateral basis in relations with the u.s., but overall in the international community, as well.”. See Shea, Macedonia and Greece, 306. Phone interview with Matthew Nimetz, 18 February 2005. Liotta, “Spillover Effect,” 97. This agreement addressed the core Albanian demands: greater civil rights were guaranteed for Albanians (i.e., political, cultural, and religious rights); better representation was provided for Albanians in the civil service and in the police force; the Albanian language was recognized as an official language in districts where Albanians formed the majority; and a double-majority parliamentary system was created that gave Albanians a veto power over Macedonia’s political life. See Carpenter, “Kosovo and Macedonia,” 30. Following the signing of the agreement, nato sent ground troops – as requested by Macedonian prime minister Hari Kostov – to lead “Operation Essential Harvest,” which consisted of demilitarizing the nla and restoring order in the republic. Interview with a State Department official who asked to remain anonymous, Washington, dc, 25 February 2005. Interview with a State Department official who asked to remain anonymous, Washington, dc, 10 March 2005. Interview with a State Department official who asked to remain anonymous, Washington, dc, 25 February 2005. Richard Boucher, Daily Press Briefing. Quinn, “Greece Complains.” Greece offered, among other things, material support to Skopje to prevent the breakup of the state. See Zahariadis, “External Interventions,” 277. See Pettifer, Macedonia, 4. World Council of Hellenes Abroad, “Powell and Rice.” Interview with a State Department official who asked to remain anonymous, Washington, dc, 25 February 2005. Matthew Nimetz argues that u.s. administrations made a clear connection between the internal and the external dimensions of Macedonia’s stability during the whole saga of recognition. The first concern for the United States was the “stability of international borders,” declares Nimetz, “then internal stability was connected to it. Is this country going to be stable internally or will Macedonia enter into internal black-holes without a leadership and with internal strife? …

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Elements of internal strife could have affected Macedonia’s international stability because of its ethnic issues.” Phone interview with Matthew Nimetz, 18 February 2005. Harris, “Macedonia,” 44. Phillips, Macedonia, 62. Ibid., 63. Interview with a State Department official who asked to remain anonymous, Washington, dc, 10 March 2005. Ibid. Interview with a State Department official who asked to remain anonymous, Washington, dc, 25 February 2005. Interview with a State Department official who asked to remain anonymous, Washington, dc, 10 March 2005.

chapter five 1 Interview with James O’Brien, Washington, dc, 12 April 2005. Phone interview with Daniel Hamilton, 11 April 2005. 2 Ibid. 3 In the post–World War II era, Yugoslav leaders decided that the ethnic Albanians of Yugoslavia were not entitled to the status of a constitutive nation of the federation because Albania was the nation of all ethnic Albanians. Caplan, “International Diplomacy,” 748. 4 Kosovo is comprised of Albanians (88 percent), Serbs (7 percent) and other minorities (i.e., Bosniak, Gorani, Roma, Turk, Ashkali, Egyptian), together amounting to 5 percent of the population. See cia World Factbook. 5 On the day of the vote, the Kosovo Assembly was surrounded by Serbian tanks and police officers. See Judah, Kosovo, 56. 6 Andrejevich, “Kosovo,” 26. What is unusual here is that Kosovo Albanians attempted to secede from a federated state (Serbia) rather than from the federation. Secession was not used as a means to achieve independent statehood but rather to reach equality with the other republics. An outright declaration of secession from Yugoslavia would have provided Serbia with the legitimacy and the excuse to crush Kosovars’ aspirations, while seceding from Serbia did not imperil the existence of Yugoslavia. 7 Salla, “Kosovo,” 428. The province of Vojvodina also lost its autonomy. Around 25 percent of the population of Vojvodina consisted of ethnic Hungarians, and the large majority of its population was Ser-

Notes to pages 103–7

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bian. This is far different from Kosovo: nearly 90 percent of its population consisted of ethnic Albanians in the early 1990s. In the 1990s, Ibrahim Rugova was elected and re-elected president of Kosovo. Belgrade, however, has never recognized the legality of these elections. In a cable sent to the State Department, the u.s. Embassy in Belgrade mentioned that “this precarious balance between Kosovo and Serbia is based on fear, however, and could crumble quickly if extremists on either side push too hard.” u.s. Department of State, August 1992; unclassified document e53, case 200502018; unclassified on 13 December 2005. Malcolm, Kosovo, 347. This double standard, based on the international law principle of uti possidetis juris, served Brussels and Washington’s diplomatic objectives of containing the war in Yugoslavia and stopping the endless division of the Yugoslav republics. According to uti possidetis juris, the former boundaries of the constitutive units of a state become international borders protected by international law when the central state ceases to exist. This principle aims to protect the territorial integrity of states by avoiding the endless division of their territory. Thus, the six Yugoslav republics had a right to secede and to transform their national borders into international ones. Kosovo, however, which had the status of an autonomous province, had no right to break apart from Serbia. See Weller, “The International Response,” 86. Interview with a former u.s. official who asked to remain anonymous. Virginia, 28 April 2005. Albright, Madam Secretary, 483. u.s. Department of State, December 1992; unclassified document e15, case 200502018; unclassified on 29 November 2005. u.s. Department of State, December 1992; unclassified document e45, case 200502018; unclassified on 30 November 2005. The cable warning was sent to the u.s. chargé d’affaires in Belgrade. The cable was accompanied by an instruction that the message be read to Milosevic “verbatim, without elaboration, and face to face.” See Judah, Kosovo, 73–4. Gompert, “The United States,” 136–7. Caplan, “International Diplomacy,” 92. u.s. Department of State, July 1993; unclassified document e28, case 200502018; unclassified on 29 November 2005.

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20 This opinion was enhanced by the fact that the Bosnian Serbs, who had used force against Bosnian Croats and Muslims in their fight for independence, had gained significant concessions at Dayton. The Dayton Peace Accord created two political entities within BosniaHerzegovina: the Bosnian-Croatian Federation and the Serbian Republic of Bosnia (Republika Srpska). Bosnian Serbs obtained control of a large part of Bosnia-Herzegovina (49 percent of the territory) and got control of their own political system. 21 See Leurdijk and Zandee, Kosovo, 29. This position was reiterated several times by the State Department. See New York Times, “u.s. Reinstates Sanctions.” 22 See Shenon, “u.s. Says It Might Consider Attacking Serbs.” 23 Albright, Madam Secretary, 485. 24 International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (iciss), The Responsibility to Protect, 113. 25 Albania’s independence was recognized by Western powers in 1913. However, the state included only half the Albanian population of the Balkans. Large Albanian minorities remained in the western part of Macedonia and in Kosovo. This is a patent example of political and ethnic borders not matching. 26 Albright, Madam Secretary, 485. 27 As a result of Serbia’s compliance with the u.s. requirements, u.s. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright suspended the u.s. threat to use force against Belgrade without lifting, however, the order authorizing nato air strikes. 28 Because Kosovo Albanians repeatedly asked for a referendum on independence, the United States consented during the Rambouillet negotiations to write a letter to the Albanian delegation promising a referendum after three years. This promise, however, was not respected. 29 Phone interview with Daniel Hamilton, 11 April 2005. 30 This point was raised by James O’Brien, who negotiated the Rambouillet agreement in 1998–99. See interview with James O’Brien, Washington, dc, 12 April 2005. 31 The frontier was finally demarcated in 2001 following an agreement between Serbia-Montenegro (formerly fry) and Macedonia. 32 Interview with James O’Brien, Washington, dc, 12 April 2005. 33 The remaining 57 percent desired independence. See Daalder and O’Hanlon, Winning Ugly, 8. 34 Phone interview with Daniel Hamilton, April 11, 2005.

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35 Interview with a former u.s. official who asked to remain anonymous. Virginia, 28 April 2005. 36 Ibid. 37 Albright, “The Importance of Kosovo,” 4. 38 Albright, Madam Secretary, 490. 39 Interview with Morton Abramovitz, Washington, dc, 2 May 2005. 40 Wood, “Still Deeply Divided.” 41 See interview with James O’Brien, Washington, dc, 12 April 2005. Phone interview with Daniel Hamilton, 11 April 2005. Moreover, in a 1999 interview, u.s. officials declared that Kosovo would eventually become independent. See Smith, “Kosovo Independence.” 42 Interview with a former u.s. official who asked to remain anonymous. Virginia, 28 April 2005. 43 Kupchan, “Independence for Kosovo,” 14–15. 44 Testifying before Congress in May of 2005, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns recognized that the status quo in Kosovo was “no longer sustainable or desirable.” Woehrel and Kim, Kosovo and U.S. Policy, 20. 45 Wisner, “The United States and the Balkans,” 191. See also International Crisis Group, “Kosovo,” 1–2. 46 United Nations, Kosovo Standards Implementation Plan. 47 International Crisis Group, “Kosovo Status,” 4. 48 For a good analysis of the Ahtisaari Plan see International Crisis Group, “Kosovo: No Good Alternatives.” 49 International Crisis Group, “Kosovo’s First Month,” 3n11. 50 The u.s. government has traditionally opposed partition and has instead advocated multinational societies where power sharing and minority rights are guaranteed. More generally, the idea of partition is not welcomed in academic circles in the United States. Scholars like Chaim Kaufmann, who argue that territorial partition is necessary following high-scale ethnic conflicts have been strongly criticized. See Bloom and Licklider, “What’s All the Shouting About? 51 Finn, “Kosovo Declares Its Independence.” 52 International Crisis Group, “Kosovo’s First Month,” 4. See also Kole and Qena, “Kosovo Declares Independence from Serbia.” 53 Finn, “Kosovo Declares Its Independence.” 54 New York Times, “u.s. Will Work to Prevent Kosovo Backlash.” 55 Secretary Condoleeza Rice, U.S. Recognizes Kosovo as Independent State. 56 Secretary Rice declared, “The unusual combination of factors found

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Notes to pages 120–6

in the Kosovo situation – including the context of Yugoslavia’s breakup, the history of ethnic cleansing, and crimes against civilians in Kosovo, and the extended period of un administration – are not found elsewhere and therefore make Kosovo a special case.” See ibid. On the same day, President George W. Bush sent a letter to the president of Kosovo in which he agreed to his proposal to establish formal diplomatic relations. See Kim and Woehrel, “Kosovo and u.s. Policy.” Videmsek and Bilefsky, “Protesters Attack u.s. Embassy.” Mastnak, “Kosovo: A New Versailles?” Bradsher, “Fears of Secession.” Washington Post, “Bush Recognizes Kosovo’s Independence.” Finn, “Independence Is Proclaimed by Kosovo.” Baker, “u.s. Extends Formal Recognition of Kosovo.” Kulish and Chivers, “Kosovo Is Recognized.” Alphonse D’Amato (r-New York), Bob Dole (r-Kansas), Larry Pressler (r-South Dakota), and Claiborne Pell (d-Rhode Island) were the main supporters of Kosovo’s independence in the Senate. William Broomfield (r-Michigan), Ben Gilman (r-New York), Tom Lantos (dCalifornia), and Dick Swett (d-New Hampshire) were the strongest proponents of its independence in the House of Representatives. See Prifti, Confrontation in Kosova, 206–7. Hockenos, Homeland Calling, 243. Sremac, War of Words, 217. See Sullivan, “From Brooklyn to Kosovo,” 52. National Albanian American Council, “naac Meets with Ambassador Holbrooke”; National Albanian American Council, “White House Meeting.” Albanian American Civic League, “League Applauds Declaration of Independence.” Hockenos, Homeland Calling, 131. Ibid., 128. Interview with James O’Brien, Washington, dc, 12 April 2005. Paul, “Serbian-American Mobilization,” 104–5. Sremac, War of Words, 5. American Council for Kosovo, “About American Council for Kosovo.” Ambrosio, “Ethnic Identity Groups,” 1–19. Phone interview with Daniel Hamilton, 11 April 2005. This was also the opinion of Morton Abramovitz, James O’Brien, and Morton Halperin. Morton Halperin was the director of the policy planning

Notes to pages 129–33

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staff in the State Department. He was also advising Secretary Albright on Kosovo. See interview with Morton Halperin, Washington, dc, 21 April 2005.

chapter six 1 The position of the European Community toward the Eritrean issue was similar to that of the United States, which was to support a federal or confederal arrangement between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Following the u.s. policy shift in May of 1991, the ec aligned its position with the United States and supported Eritrea’s right to secede. 2 Harbeson, “The Horn of Africa,” 221. 3 The Ethiopian army surrounded the Eritrean administrative building in Asmara and compelled members of the Eritrean Assembly to vote in favour of the annexation of Eritrea to Ethiopia. This is reminiscent of how the Serbian government of Slobodan Milosevic ended the autonomous status of Kosovo in 1989. See Iyob, The Eritrean Struggle for Independence, 94. 4 The military coup of the Derg was also motivated by the fact that Emperor Selassie was an autocratic leader who favored Ethiopia’s Christian community at the expense of the Muslims. 5 The elm and the elf (the future eplf) fought against each other in the 1960s and 1970s for control of Eritrea. By the late 1970s, the eplf led by Isaias Afwerki, had become the most prominent front in Eritrea and led the final war of liberation against the government of Addis Ababa in the early 1990s. 6 Yohannes, Eritrea, 91. 7 In exchange, the United States designed most of Ethiopia’s infrastructure following World War II and sent the largest share of its African economic aid to Ethiopia. See Connell, “Eritrea,” 1. 8 Yohannes, Eritrea, 258. Cited in Taras and Ganguly, Understanding Ethnic Conflicts, 216. 9 Mengistu announced that u.s. military facilities in Ethiopia (especially in the Eritrean province) would be closed down. Ibid., 144. Soon after the Derg declared Ethiopia a socialist state, the Soviet Union sent more than $11 billion in arms to Addis Ababa. With this support, Mengistu was able to temporarily reoccupy most of Eritrea’s major cities. However, by the end of the 1980s, the eplf had regained most of the territory it had lost. See Connell, Eritrea, 1. 10 Within a few years, u.s.-Somali relations replaced those that Wash-

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ington had maintained with Ethiopia over the previous twenty years. The Somali partnership allowed the United States to maintain its influence in the region, as well as to retain a certain control over the Red Sea, as will be seen in more detail in the next chapter. See Cohen, “Somalia.” Cohen, Intervening in Africa, 20. Pool, “Eritrean Independence,” 394. Phone interview with Robert Houdek, 25 May 2005. Mengistu accepted the proposal of a un observer mission only in 1991, when his regime was on the verge of collapsing. Other talks hosted by the Italian government in Rome at the end of 1989 between the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front and the Ethiopian government ended in deadlock for similar reasons. See Young, Peasant Revolution in Ethiopia, 167. Ibid. Goshko, “U.S. Plea.” nsc Director for Africa Robert Frasure travelled to Sudan to meet with Issaias Afwerti, the leader of the eplf, and with Meles Zenawi, the head of the tplf, and they both agreed to meet in London in May to begin peace negotiations with the Mengistu regime. On 24–25 May 1991 the Falashas were airlifted to Israel. The United States and Israel payed $35 million to the Ethiopian government in “exit fees” for the operation. The u.s. chargé d’affaires Robert Houdek convinced Mengistu of “the hopelessness of his situation” and of the inevitable defeat of his army. Houdek’s pressure apparently convinced Mengistu to leave Ethiopia. See Henze, “Ethiopia and Eritrea,” 63. Acting Ethiopian president Tesfaye Gebre-Kidan had apparently informed Robert Houdek that he had consented to let the tplf enter the capital because it was the only way to enforce order in Addis Ababa. This lack of communication between the new Ethiopian president and the prime minister, who was in London attending the peace talks, shows that the Derg regime was in an advanced phase of disintegration. Farkas, Fractured States, 20. Interview with J. Cohen, Washington, dc, 16 May 2005. Correspondence with Herman J. Cohen, 23 May 2005. See Jackson and Rosberg, “Why Africa’s Weak States Persist,” 18. Walter Kansteiner indicates, “If you want to mess with borders, you better get the five surrounding countries and the country that is splitting to all agree.” Interview with Walter Kansteiner, Washington, dc, 18 May 2005.

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Schraeder, “u.s. Intervention in the Horn of Africa,” 10. Interview with Walter Kansteiner, Washington, dc, 18 May 2005. Cohen, “Somalia,” 54. Interview with Herman J. Cohen, Washington, dc, 16 May 2005. Henze, Ethiopia and Eritrea, 62. Phone interview with Robert Houdek, 25 May 2005. In the early 1990s, Ethiopia was facing five different rebellious movements (e.g. of the Afars, Eritreans, Oromo, Somali, and Tigray), among which the Eritreans and the Tigray where the most powerful. It is important to mention here that the Addis Ababa conference approved the right of the Ethiopian nationalities to self-determination, which included the right to secede. However, only Eritrea used that right and had the actual capacity and will to function independently. Young, Peasant Revolution, 206. See Pateman, Eritrea, 238. See Washington Post, “Ethiopia.” Iyob, The Eritrea Struggle, 139. One quarter of the 1.2 million registered voters were living outside Eritrea in Sudanese refugee camps, in Ethiopia, or in Western countries. Although some states had already given their support and had granted de facto recognition to Eritrea (e.g., Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Yemen), the United States was the first state to recognize de jure the independence of Eritrea following its declaration of independence. See Abraham, Ethiopia, 58. Farkas, Fractured States, 58. Cited ibid., 65. Ibid., 67. Interview with Walter Kansteiner, Washington, dc, 18 May 2005. Robert Houdek agrees with this point of view. Phone interview with Robert Houdek, 25 May 2005. Yohannes, Eritrea, 67–8, 210. Interview with Herman J. Cohen, Washington, dc, 16 May 2005. Phone interview with Robert Houdek, 25 May 2005. Interview with Herman J. Cohen, Washington, dc, 16 May 2005.

chapter seven 1 Srebrnik, “Can Clans Form Nations?” 225. 2 See Omaar, “Somaliland,” 232. 3 Woodward, The Horn of Africa, 65.

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Notes to pages 154–7

4 The main government positions and the majority of the seats in the Mogadishu Parliament were held by Southern Somalians. Throughout the 1960s, Somaliland felt politically and economically marginalized. See Ahmed and Green, “The Heritage of War,” 116. 5 A treaty of friendship and cooperation was signed with the ussr in 1974. Omaar, “Somalia,” 230. 6 Between 1980 and 1990, 75 percent of all Somalia’s military equipment was coming from the United States. Bryden, “Somalia,” 146. 7 Cohen, Intervening in Africa, 197. 8 The Isaak clan dominates the northwest of Somalia. Around 70 percent of Somalilanders are Isaaks. See Hulianas, “The Viability of Somaliland,” 157. 9 Siad Barre fled to the Kenyan border. One year after his overthrow, Barre had still not been offered sanctuary by any foreign countries. See u.s. Department of State, January 1992; unclassified document e30, case 200502026. Unclassified on 27 January 2006. Barre eventually died in exile in Nigeria. 10 Throughout the 1980s, the United States supported Siad Barre for strategic reasons. As Cohen recalls, “Despite Somalia’s severe internal instability, centcom continued to view the naval/air facility at Berbera as important to the defense of the Gulf. In Tampa, Florida, in late 1989, centcom commander in chief General Norman Schwarzkopf pressed me on the need to maintain access to Berbera.” Cohen, Intervening in Africa, 202. Therefore, even if the government of Siad Barre failed to keep external stability in the 1980s and used brutal repression against the population of Somaliland, the United States chose to turn a blind eye to these atrocities. 11 u.s. Department of State, May 1991; unclassified document e6, case 200502026. Unclassified on 20 January 2006. Moreover, the Organization of African Unity (oau) reaffirmed the founding principles of the organization (i.e., sovereignty, territorial integrity, intangible territorial integrity) and categorically opposed the secession of Somaliland. See u.s. Department of State, June 1991; unclassified document e9, case 200502026. Unclassified on 20 January 2006. 12 Cohen, Intervening in Africa, 204–5. 13 u.s. Department of State, May 1991; unclassified document e4, case 200502026. Unclassified on 20 January 2006. 14 u.s. Department of State, November 1991; unclassified document e28, case 200502026. Unclassified on 27 January 2006. 15 Phone interview with Robert Houdek, Washington, dc, 25 May 2005.

Notes to pages 158–67

207

16 u.s. Department of State, May 1991; unclassified document e6, case 200502026. Unclassified on 20 January 2006. 17 Cohen, Intervening in Africa, 203. 18 u.s. Department of State, July 1991; unclassified document e22, case 200502026. Unclassified on 26 January 2006. 19 Somaliland’s secessionists visited European capitals, the un headquarters, Canada, and the United States. 20 u.s. Department of State, November 1991; unclassified document e28, case 200502026. Unclassified on 27 January 2006. 21 Bradbury, Abokor, and Yusuf, “Somaliland,” 461. 22 Prunier, “Somaliland Goes It Alone,” 228. 23 Kibble, “Somaliland,” 16. The international community was impressed by the referendum process but did not attach any legal value to it because there was no census in Somaliland, and therefore, it was impossible to know the proportion of Somalilanders who favoured independence. 24 The following year, president Kahin was confirmed in his functions in a presidential election. 25 Simanowitz, “Democracy Comes of Age.” 26 Bradbury, Abokor, and Yusuf, “Somaliland,” 457. 27 Huliaras, “The Viability of Somaliland,” 171. 28 Interview with Herman J. Cohen, Washington, dc, 16 May 2005. 29 Arta is a city in Djibouti where negotiations occurred. 30 Cohen, “Somalia.” 31 The operation was baptized “Operation Restore Hope” by the Department of Defense. A few weeks later, the un Security Council adopted resolution 794 establishing a safe environment for humanitarian aid in Somalia. Woodward, The Horn of Africa, 76. 32 See Kansteiner, Somalia. 33 Phone interview with a former State Department official who asked to remain anonymous, 25 May 2005. 34 Interview with a State Department official who asked to remain anonymous, Washington, dc, 4 May 2005. 35 Ibid. 36 Interview with Walter Kansteiner, Washington, dc, 18 May 2005. 37 He added, “But logically, philosophically, and morally it’s probably right to recognize them.” Interview with Herman J. Cohen, Washington, dc, 16 May 2005. 38 Interview with Herman Cohen, Washington, dc, 16 May 2005. See also interview with Walter Kansteiner, Washington, dc, 18 May 2005.

208

Notes to pages 167–83

39 Interview with a State Department official who asked to remain anonymous, Washington, dc, 4, May 2005. 40 Alexander’s Gas & Oil Connections, “Somalia Welcomes Oil Interest.” 41 u.s. Department of State, June 1991; unclassified document e15, case 200502026. Unclassified on 26 January 2006. 42 u.s. Department of State, June 1991; unclassified document e28, case 200502026. Unclassified on 27 January 2006.

chapter eight 1 Stack, “The Ethnic Challenge,” 19. 2 Rasmussen, “Peacemaking in the Twenty-First Century,” 24. 3 John Stack argues, for instance, “From a neorealist perspective, ethnicity did not count in assessments of superpower and great power national security elites. The importance of ethnicity, one of the most significant forces in the formation of the post–Cold War international system and now a central dimension in the articulation of major power foreign policies, was simply marginalized.” See Stack, “The Ethnic Challenge,” 22–3. 4 The literature on power transition and hegemonic stability focuses on the distinction between status quo and revisionist states. The conclusions of this book contribute to this theoretical distinction by suggesting that the United States is sometimes a status quo power and sometimes a revisionist state that attempts to strengthen stability in regions affected by secessionist conflicts. For more on this distinction see Organski, World Politics; Gilpin, War and Change. 5 See Heraclides, Self-Determination, 21. 6 Bercovitch, “Mediation in International Conflict,” 142. 7 For more on the literature on conditionality, see Kelley, “International Actors”; Linden, “Putting On Their Sunday Best.” 8 Zartman, “Introduction,” 14. 9 Callahan, Unwinnable Wars, 26–7. See also Carley, U.S. Responses; Carley, Self-Determination.

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– “Discrimination in International Relations: Analyzing External Support for Ethnic Groups.” Journal of Peace Research 39, no. 1 (2002): 27–50. Salehyan, Idean, and Kristian Skrede Gleditsch. “Refugees and the Spread of Civil War.” International Organization 60 (2006): 335–66. Salla, Michael. “Kosovo, Non-Violence and the Break-up of Yugoslavia.” Security Dialogue 26, no. 4 (1995): 427–38. Schraeder, Peter J. “U.S. Intervention in the Horn of Africa Amidst the End of the Cold War.” Africa Today 40, no. 2 (1993): 7–27. Shain, Yossi. “Multicultural Foreign Policy.” Foreign Policy 100 (1995): 69–87. – Marketing the American Creed Abroad. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1999. Shain, Yossi, and Aharon Barth. “Diasporas and International Relations Theory.” International Organization 57 (2003): 449–79. Shain, Yossi, and Tamara Cofman Wittes. “Peace as a Three-Level Game: The Role of Diasporas in Conflit Resolution.” In Thomas Ambrosio, ed., Ethnic Identity Groups and u.s. Foreign Policy, 169–197. Westport, ct: Praeger 2002. Shea, John. Macedonia and Greece: The Struggle to Define a New Balkan Nation. North Carolina: McFarland 1997. Shenon, Philip. “u.s. Says It Might Consider Attacking Serbs.” New York Times, 13 March 1998. Simanowitz, Stefan. “Democracy Comes of Age in Somaliland.” Contemporary Review 287, no. 1679 (December 2005): 335–9. Siverson, Randolph M., and Harvey Starr. The Diffusion of War. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press 1991. Smith, R. Jeffrey. “u.s. Officials Expect Kosovo Independence.” Washington Post, 24 September 1999. Snyder, Jack. From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict. New York: W.W. Norton & Company 2000. Socor, Vladimir. “Moldova’s ‘Dnister’ Ulcer.” rfe/rl Research Report 2, no. 1 (1 January 1993): 12–16. Srebrnik, Henry. “Can Clans Form Nations? Somaliland in the Making.” In Tozun Bahcheli, Barry Bartmann, and Henry Srebrnik, eds., De Facto States: The quest for sovereignty, 210–31. London: Routledge 2004. Sremac, Danielle. War of Words: Washington Tackles the Yugoslav Conflict. Westport: Praeger Editions 1999.

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Stack Jr, John F. “The Ethnic Challenge to International Relations Theory.” In David Carment and Patrick James, eds., Wars in the Midst of Peace, 11–25 Pittsburgh: Pittsburgh University Press. Sullivan, Stacy. “From Brooklyn to Kosovo, with Love and AK-47s.” New York Times Magazine, 22 November 1998. Taras, Raymond C., and Rajat Ganguly. Understanding Ethnic Conflicts: The International Dimension. New York: Longman Publishers 2002. Tutwiler, Margaret. Daily Press Briefing. u.s. Department of State, 7 April 1992. United Nations. Kosovo Standards Implementation Plan. 31 March 2004. http://operationkosovo.kentlaw.edu/symposium/resources/KSIP %20final%20dr aft%2031%20March%202004b.htm (accessed June 2009). United Nations Security Council. Resolution 713: Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. 3009th meeting, 25 September 1991. Van Evera, Stephen. Causes of War: Structures of Power and the Roots of International Conflict. Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1999. Videmsek, Bostjan, and Dan Bilefsky. “Protesters Attack u.s. Embassy in Belgrade.” New York Times, 22 February 2008. Walt, Stephen M. The Origins of Alliances. Ithaca: Cornell University Press 1987. – “The Enduring Relevance of the Realist Tradition.” Political Science: The State of the Discipline, 197–230. New York: Norton 2002. Waltz, Kenneth N. Theory of International Politics. New York: McGraw-Hill 1979. Washington Post. “Ethiopia Proposes Eritrea Vote in Exchange for Port Access,” 4 July 1991. – “Bush Recognizes Kosovo’s Independence,” 18 February 2008. Weller, Marc. “The International Response to the Dissolution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia.” The American Journal of International Law 86, no. 3 (1992): 569–607. White House. “u.s. Recognition of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.” Statement by the Press Secretary, 9 February 1994. Wisner, Frank G. “The United States and the Balkans: Achieving Kosovo’s Independence.” American Foreign Policy Interests 30, no. 4 (2008): 189–95. Woehrel Steven J., and Julie Kim. Kosovo and U.S. Policy, crs Report for Congress, Congressional Research Service, Library of Congress. Updated 9 June 2005.

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unclassified documents Macedonia Department of State, 22 October 1992. Unclassified document, case 200502041. Unclassified on 15 June 2005.

Kosovo u.s. Department of State, August 1992. Unclassified document e16, case 200502018. Unclassified on 14 December 2005. – August 1992. Unclassified document e53, case 200502018. Unclassified on 13 December 2005. – Department of State, September 1992. Unclassified document e49, case 200502018. Unclassified on 13 December 2005. – Department of State, December 1992. Unclassified document e15, case 200502018. Unclassified on 29 November 2005. – Department of State, December 1992. Unclassified document e45, case 200502018. Unclassified on 30 November 2005. – Department of State, July 1993. Unclassified document e28, case 200502018. Unclassified on 29 November 2005. u.s. Department of State. Office of Information Programs and Services. Case control no. 200502018. Unclassified documents, November and December 2005.

Somaliland u.s. Department of State, May 1991. Unclassified document e4, case 200502026. Unclassified on 20 January 2006. – May 1991. Unclassified document e6, case 200502026. Unclassified on 20 January 2006. – June 1991. Unclassified document e9, case 200502026. Unclassified on 20 January 2006. – June 1991. Unclassified document e15, case 200502026. Unclassified on 26 January 2006. – June 1991. Unclassified document e28, case 200502026. Unclassified on 27 January 2006. – July 1991. Unclassified document e22, case 200502026. Unclassified on 26 January 2006.

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– November 1991. Unclassified document e28, case 200502026. Unclassified on 27 January 2006. – November 1991. Unclassified document e28, case 200502026. Unclassified on 27 January 2006. – January 1992. Unclassified document e30, case 200502026. Unclassified on 27 January 2006.

interviews and correspondence Face-to-Face Interviews Abramovitz, Morton, Washington, dc, 2 May 2005. Cohen, Herman J., Washington, dc, 16 May 2005. Gompert, David C., Washington, dc, 25 January 2005. Halperin, Morton, Washington, dc, 21 April 2005. Harris, Marshall Freeman, Washington, dc, 17 February 2005. Kansteiner, Walter, Washington, dc, 18 May 2005. Lake, Anthony, Washington, dc, 4 April 2005. O’Brien, James, Washington, dc, 12 April 2005. Pearson, Robert, Washington, dc, 14 February 2005. Scowcroft, Brent, Washington, dc, 8 February 2005.

Telephone Interviews Galbraith, Peter W., 23 January 2005. Hamilton, Daniel, 11 April 2005. Houdek, Robert, 25 May 2005. Howe, Jonathan T., 3 March 2005 Niles, Thomas M. T., 29 January 2005. Nimetz, Matthew, 18 February 2005.

Anonymous Interviews State Department Official, Washington, dc, 25 February 2005. State Department Official, Washington, dc, 10 March 2005. Former u.s. official, Virginia, 28 April 2005.

Correspondence Correspondence with Herman J. Cohen, 23 May 2005. Correspondence with Pero Novak, 26 January 2005.

8 Index

Abkhazia, 5, 7, 18, 122, 178, 180 Abramovitz, Morton, 113 Aceh, 31 Afwerki, Isaias, 143 Ahtisaari, Martti, 116–18, 120 Aidid, Mohammed, 155–6, 160, 164, Albanian American Civic League, 123–4 Albanian American lobby, 122–3 Albanian-Macedonian-Bulgarian Oil Corporation (ambo), 99 Albright, Madeleine, 103; and Kosovo, 104, 109, 112–13 Ambrosio, Thomas, 22, 126 American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association, 88 Annan, Kofi, 115 Badinter Commission, 79 Baker, James, 55–6, 59–60, 89; and Macedonia, 79; and recognition of Croatia, 70; and referendum in Eritrea, 142–3, 149; and Security Council, 58; and Somaliland, 156–8 Bangladesh, 4

Barre, Siad, 154–5 Bennett, Andrew, 49 Bentley, Helen Delich, 70, 124 Bercovitch, Jacob, 181 Berry, Steven, 82 Biafra, 4; and recognition, 7, 128; and secession, 7, 18 Bienen, Henry, 14, 29 Blanchard, James, 5 Boschwitz, Rudy, 137 Bosnia-Herzegovina, 3; and referendum, 62; and u.s. recognition, 64, 82 Boucher, Richard, 94 Brzezinski, Zbigniew, 23 Bush administration, 55; and Macedonia, 81 Bush, George H.W., 133 Bush, George W., 120; and Ethiopia, 133; and Macedonia, 83; and secession of Croatia and Slovenia, 55; and secession of Kosovo, 103, 124 Callahan, David, 7, 9, 13, 37, 182–3 Canada, 31–2; and National Unity, 31, 44, 183

226

Index

Carley, Patricia, 182–3 Carment, David, 3, 9 Carter, Jimmy, 135 Chechnya, 16, 41–2 Christopher, Warren, 4, 89 Clark, Wesley, 107 Clinton, Bill, 4–5, 84, 123, Clinton administration, 48, 175; and Canadian unity, 31; and recognition of fyrom, 86; and Kosovo, 106; and Macedonia, 75, 84–5 cnn, 164 Cohen, Herman J., 135–6, 138, 147, 149; Cohen’s coup, 139, 141–2; referendum in Eritrea, 139–40 Somalia, 154; Somaliland, 157–8, 163, 167 Cohen, Leonard, 59 Common Foreign and Security Policy (cfsp), 80 conflict mediation, 181–2 Congo crisis, 24–5 ConocoPhillips, 168 Contact Group, 108, 116 Croatia, 4–5, 10–11, 33, 48, 53; and conditionality of recognition, 59–62; declaration of independence, 54, 56; and German recognition, 67; and secessionist crisis, 53–4; and stability, 64–6; and u.s. recognition, 19, 23, 53, 62–6 Croatian American Association (caa), 69 Croatian American lobby, 68 Croatian Americans, 23, 68–71 Dayton Peace Agreements, 107 David, Steven, 14

defensive positionalism, 6, 28, 30, 44, 177 defensive realism, 15, 16, 28 Democratic League of Kosovo (ldk), 103 Derg Regime, 134–5, 148 Dinka, Tesfaye, 138 Dole, Bob, 68–9 Eagleburger, Lawrence, 63; and business interests, 71–3; and Christmas warning, 105; and Kosovo, 105; and Macedonia’s recognition, 79; and u.s. recognition, 70; and Yugoslavia, 72 Egal, Mohamed Haji Ibrahim, 160–1; and the United States, 163 Eritrea, 4, 5, 11, 37, 48, 128–9; history of, 129–31; referendum, 131, 139–40, 142, 149 Eritrean Americans, 148 Eritrean Liberation Front (elf), 130 Eritrean Liberation Movement (elm), 130 Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (eplf), 128, 134, 136, 140 Ethio-Eritrean Federation, 130 ethnic lobby, 22–4, 68, 76, 83, 97, 126 Exxon Mobil, 168 Falashas, 134, 137–8 Farkas, Evelyn, 14, 147 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, 30, 101; and stability, 104; and war in Kosovo, 109–10 Ferguson, Edward, 99 Frasure, Robert, 137, 142–3

Index

Gebre-Kidan, Tesfaye, 138 George, Alexander, 46, 49–50 Georgia, 4, 7, 122, 180, 183 Germany, 67; and recognition of Croatia and Slovenia, 67, 69 Gibbs, David, 24–6, 71, 73, 98, 101 Glazer, Nathan, 22 Gleditsch, Skerde, 34 Gligorov, Kiro, 77 Gompert, David, 65–6; and Croatian American lobby, 69–70; and Greek American lobby, 83; and Kosovo, 105 Gore, Al, 89 Greece, 80; and conflict with Turkey, 81; and Oil embargo, 84 Greek American lobby, 76, 88, 95–6 Grieco, Joseph, 28, 99–100, 177 Halperin, Morton, 13–14 Hamilton, Daniel, 126 Harris, Marshall Freeman, 98 Hellenic-American National Council, 83 Heraclides, Alexis, 9, 16, 25, 30, 35–6 Hicks, Irving, 137 Hill, Christopher, 109–10 Hockenos, Paul, 77 Holbrooke, Richard, 55, 57; and fyrom, 90; and Kosovo, 107; and Macedonia, 84 Horowitz, Donald, 3, 8 Houdek, Robert, 135, 138, 144, 150 Howe, Jonathan T., 66 Huntington, Samuel, 19

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Indonesia, 31–2 international law, 178 Iraq, 7 James, Patrick, 3 Judah, Tim, 106 Kansteiner, Walter, 142, 167 Katanga, 24 Keohane, Robert O., ix, 46 Kohl, Helmut, 179 Kosovo, 3, 11, 48, 54, 101, 104–5, 107; and autonomy, 102–3; and repression, 30, 104; and secession, 18, 124; and selfdetermination, 101; and supervised independence, 119; as a un protectorate, 114–15; and u.s. non-recognition, 37, 103–4, 111–13; u.s. policy on, 107; and u.s. recognition, 118–22 Kosovo Force (kfor), 114, 121 Kosovo Liberation Army (kla), 20, 108–10, 123 Kostunica, Vojislav, 120 Kupchan, Charles, 116 Lake, Anthony, 89–90 Lake, David, 3 Lavrov, Sergey, 121–2 Lebamov, Ivan A., 87 liberal institutionalism, 17–18 Macedonia, 11, 48; and referendum on decentralization, 95 Macedonian Patriotic Organization (mpo), 87 Markovic, Ante, 54, 56–7, 73 Marshall, John, 131 Mastanduno, Michael, 99–100

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Index

Mearsheimer, John, 17, 22 Mengistu, Colonel, 130, 132, 137; Mengistu Regime, 148 Mesic, Stjepan, 54; and Yugoslav disintegration, 59 Milosevic, Slobodan, 54, 57, 63, 102, 107, 110 Mitsotakis, Constantine, 80 Moldova, 32; and Trans-Dniester’s secession, 32 Montenegro, 54 Moynihan, Patrick, 22 National Albanian American Council (naac), 123 National Liberation Army (nla), 92 National Security Council: and Eritrea, 142 ; and the Greek American lobby, 83; and Kosovo, 104–5, 178; and Macedonia’s recognition, 79; and Serb and Croat ceasefire, 65–6 ; and Somalia, 166; and state recognition, 59, 62; nato intervention, 101 Nau, Henry, 22 neoliberalism, 20 neorealism, 15, 177 Niles, Thomas, 62; and Greek Americans, 83 Nimetz, Matthew, 87, 91 Novak, Pero, 69 Nye, Jospeh, 4 O’Brien, James, 110 Ogaden region, 154 Ohrid Agreement, 92–3, 95, 97 offensive realism, 15, 17 Operation Allied Force, 110–11

Operation Provide Relief, 164 Organization of African Unity (oau), 132, 141, 157, 165 Oromo Liberation Front, 134 Papandreou, Andreas, 87 Pearson, Robert, 58 Pérez de Cuéllar, Javier, 59 Phillips, John, 98 Powell, Colin, 93–4, 96 process tracing, 10, 49–50 Puntland, 162 Putin, Vladimir, 121, 180 Quebec, 31; and secession, 31, 184 Rahman, Abd-er, 156 Rambouillet Agreements, 110–14 Rasmussen, J. Lewis, 177 Rice, Condoleezza, 96, 120 Rosin, Hanna, 77 Ross, Dennis, 66 Rothchild, Donald, 3 Rugova, Ibrahim, 103, 108 Russia, 7 Saideman, Stephen, 16, 23, 77 Salehyan, Idean, 34 Scheffer, David, 13–14 Scowcroft, Brent, 55, 62; and business interests, 71–3 Selassie, Haile, 130–1 Serbia, 20, 54 Serbian American lobby, 71, 124 Serbian Unity Congress (suc), 125 Shain, Yossi, 22–3 Shamir, Yitzak, 137 Shea, John, 77

Index

Slovenia, 4, 11, 33, 48, 53; and conditionality of recognition, 59–62; declaration of independence, 54, 56; and German recognition, 18, 67; and secessionist crisis, 53–4; and u.s. recognition, 62–6; Slovenian Americans, 68 Small, Patricia, 13–14 Somalia, 3, 48, 15; history of, 153–6; Somalia aversion, 153, 164–7, 174; and u.s. investments, 133 Somalian Americans, 167 Somaliland, 11, 48; history of, 153–156 Somalilander Americans, 167–8 Somali National Movement (snm), 154–6; and the United States, 158–9 Somali Patriotic Front, 155 South Ossetia, 7, 18, 122, 178, 180 Soviet Union, 48–9 Sremac, Danielle, 125 Stack, John, 24, 177 State Department: and conditionality of recognition, 59; and Croatia and Slovenia, 55, 61, 65–6, 69; and Eritrea, 142, 146; and Eritrean secession, 149; and Ethiopia, 135–6; and Falashas, 138 ; and Greek American lobby, 83, 89, 93, 96; and interagency disagreement, 89; and Kosovo, 104, 111, 119–20; and Macedonia, 79–2, 93–4, 99; and Macedonia’s recognition, 89; and Milosevic, 124; and recognition criteria, 60; and

229

Serbian American lobby, 125; and Somaliland, 153, 163; and Somaliland’s Declaration of Independence, 156, 159; and Somaliland’s recognition, 167; and u.s. policy on, 107; and Yugoslav disintegration, 58 Stephanopoulos, George, 88 structured, focused comparison, 10, 50–1 Thaci, Hashim, 119 Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (tplf), 130, 134, 136, 140 Tudjman, Franjo, 65 Tutwiler, Margaret, 66 United Nations Mission in Kosovo (unmik), 114–17, 119 United Nations Observer Mission to Verify the Referendum in Eritrea (unover), 146 United Nations Protection Forces (unprofor), 63 United Nations Unified Task Force (unitaf), 164 United Somali Congress (usc), 155 United States: Civil War, 5; foreign policy dilemma, 3; recognition criteria, 60–1; response to Croatia’s and Slovenia’s secession, 55–6, 62–4; response to Eritrea’s secession, 139–44; response to Kosovo’s secession, 103–4, 118–21; response to Macedonia’s secession, 78–9, 85–7; response to Somaliland’s secession, 156–8, 162–7; secessionism, 5, 12, 182–3; self-

230

determination, 4; stability interest, 6, 9, 171–5 Vance, Cyrus, 59, 62 Vojvodina, 54 Walt, Stephen, 16, 22 Waltz, Kenneth, 47 Wisner, Frank, 117 Yohannes, Okbazghi, 131 Young, Robert, 40

Index

Yugoslav People’s Army (ypa), 54, 57, 78 Yugoslavia, 4, 33, 53; and disintegration, 53–5, 62–4, 77–9, 103–4; and instability, 58–9; and u.s. support, 56–8. See also Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Zacher, Mark, 17–18, 38 Zartman, William, 182 Zenawi, Meles, 144 Zimmermann, Warren, 66

a stability-seeking power

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preface

A Stability-Seeking Power U.S. Foreign Policy and Secessionist Conflicts J O N AT H A N PA Q U I N

McGill-Queen’s University Press Montreal & Kingston • London • Ithaca

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© McGill-Queen’s University Press 2010 isbn 978-0-7735-3736-1 (cloth) isbn 978-0-7735-3737-8 (paper) Legal deposit second quarter 2010 Bibliothèque nationale du Québec Printed in Canada on acid-free paper that is 100% ancient forest free (100% post-consumer recycled), processed chlorine free. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Programme, using funds provided by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada. McGill-Queen’s University Press acknowledges the support of the Canada Council for the Arts for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Book Publishing Industry Development Program (bpidp) for our publishing activities.

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication Paquin, Jonathan, 1975– A stability-seeking power : U.S. foreign policy and secessionist conflicts / Jonathan Paquin. Includes bibliographical references and index. isbn 978-0-7735-3736-1 (bnd) isbn 978-0-7735-3737-8 (pbk) 1. United States – Foreign relations – 1989–. 2. Autonomy and independence movements. I. Title. e183.7.p19 2010

327.73

c2010-900470-1

This book was typeset by True to Type in 10.5/13 Sabon

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To the memory of Marie-Berthe and Jules Paquin, and Marie-Eva and Xavier Gauthier

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Contents

Acknowledgments ix 1 Explaining U.S. Foreign Policy Variations toward Secessionist Conflicts 3 2 The Stability-Seeking Argument 13 3 The U.S. Recognition of Croatia and Slovenia 53 4 Macedonia: A U.S. Delay of Recognition in Five Episodes 75 5 Kosovo: The Long March toward U.S. Recognition 101 6 Eritrea’s Independence and U.S. Regional Interests 128 7 Somaliland: A Non-recognized Independent State 152 8 Theoretical and Empirical Findings 171 Notes 185 Bibliography Index 225

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Acknowledgments

All through the research process leading to the completion of this book I had in mind Robert O. Keohane’s observations in International Institutions and State Power (29) about academic research: “The essence of discovery is being deeply puzzled about questions on which one is supposedly an expert.” When I undertook this research project, I felt I knew about u.s. foreign policy and about secessionist conflicts extensively, but I was deeply puzzled and even confused about how these topics interrelated. Writing this book was, therefore, quite an endeavour, and Robert Keohane was right. The research puzzle I had in mind, which can be contained within a single sentence, occupied most of my academic life for several years. This project led me, among other things, to spend a semester as a visiting researcher in the Department of Government at Georgetown University in order to conduct research and interviews in Washington, dc. Fortunately, during the process of writing this book I received the advice of several people. My greatest debt is to Stephen Saideman, who read several drafts of each chapter and provided important criticisms and suggestions during the writing process. I would also like to thank Louis Bélanger, Mark Brawley, David Edelstein, Julian Durazo Hermann, Patrick James, Jean Laponce, Nelson Michaud, and Sid Noel for their sound and relevant comments on various chapters of the book. Anonymous reviewers at Foreign Policy Analysis also provided important criticisms that helped to refine my article published there (October 2008), which is partly based on this book. Thanks also to the Department of Government at George-

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Acknowledgments

town University for its support and hospitality. More specifically, I would like to thank Charles Kupchan and Andrew Bennett. Finally, special thanks to Catherine Thomassin, who helped a great deal with the index. This book has been published with the help of a grant from the Canadian Federation of the Humanities and Social Sciences, through the Aid to Scholarly Publications Program. The book also benefited from the support of the Fonds québécois de la recherche sur la société et la culture (fqrsc), the J.W. McConnell McGill Major Fellowship, the Research Group in International Security (regis) at McGill University, King’s University College at the University of Western Ontario, and the Faculty of Social Sciences at Université Laval. Without their financial help it would have been difficult, maybe even impossible, to finish this book. The completion of this research would also have been much harder without the support of my friends and family members. I would like to express my appreciation to all of my friends who made my life more enjoyable during these intense years of research. Last but not least, I would like to express my gratitude to my parents Jocelyne and Claude Paquin for their unfailing support, understanding and love.

Parts of chapter 4 have been published in a revised form. See Jonathan Paquin, “Managing Controversy: u.s. Stability-Seeking and the Birth of the Macedonian State,” Foreign Policy Analysis, Vol. 4, no. 4 (October 2008), pp. 441–62. I would like to thank the publishers of Foreign Policy Analysis for their permission to reproduce portions of this article.

Explaining u.s. Policy Variations

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1 Explaining U.S. Foreign Policy Variations toward Secessionist Conflicts

introduction As the most powerful state in the current international system, the United States has been quite concerned with the rise of intrastate wars since the end of the Cold War and has been relentlessly called on to mediate and resolve these conflicts in places like Somalia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, and Rwanda. The resurgence of ethno-nationalism and ethnic tensions following the collapse of the Soviet Union has also brought the United States face-to-face with a new foreign policy dilemma: Should it play the role of a policeman of the world by intervening without discrimination in foreign ethnic wars, or should it limit its involvement to issues that are directly linked to its core national interests? During the last two decades, scholars have extensively studied the international dimension of ethnic conflicts. Among them, David Carment and Patrick James have focused their attention on theorizing this facet of international politics.1 Others, like David Lake and Donald Rothchild, have questioned whether ethnic conflicts spread internationally through escalation and diffusion. What has been less emphasized, however, is that intrastate conflicts have created an important international challenge for the u.s. superpower: how to deal with secessionist conflicts. Scholars have neglected the study of secessionist struggles by often treating them as a sub-category of intrastate wars and ethnic conflicts. Yet secessionism has its own set of implications. Being located, in the words of Donald Horowitz, “squarely at the junction of internal and international politics,”2 secession is the process by which several states are born and others cease to exist. In the last twenty years only, secessionism

4

A Stability-Seeking Power

has caused significant international disruption. Secessionist forces in Croatia and Slovenia led to the disintegration of Yugoslavia, Slovak nationalism initiated the breakup of Czechoslovakia, and secessionism in Eritrea caused the separation of Ethiopia. nato air strikes against Serbia in 1999, the war between Russia and Georgia in the summer 2008, and more recently the humanitarian crisis in Yemen were also related to secessionist struggles.3 Despite the crucial importance of secessionism for understanding recent geopolitical transformations, little is known about the behaviour of the American superpower towards this political force. Declarations made by top American officials indicate that for the sake of a stable international order the United States is careful not to encourage secessionist movements abroad. During the Cold War, the White House was systematically opposed to secessionist selfdetermination movements (e.g., in Biafra, Eritrea, Kurdistan, Quebec, the Southern Sudan). The containment of the Soviet empire made the preservation of the territorial status quo a cardinal principle that guided the approach of the United States toward secessionist conflicts. The recognition of Bangladesh’s secession by the Nixon administration in 1972 is the exception that proves the rule. It was the only case of u.s. recognition of a non-colonial secessionist state from 1945 to 1990. Bangladesh was recognized by the White House because India and the Soviet Union had made its secession a fait accompli and, more importantly, to fight growing Soviet influence in the new-born state.4 In the post–Cold War era, Washington maintained this anti-secessionist bias. Secretary of State Warren Christopher pointed out during his Senate confirmation hearing in 1993 that since the world is made up of thousands of ethnic minorities and less than two hundred sovereign states, allowing the right of external self-determination to those ethnic minorities would lead to permanent turmoil in the international system.5 Joseph Nye, a former assistant secretary of defence, made a similar argument when he asserted that the political precedent that the United States “would create by endorsing a general right of self-determination could have disastrous consequences.”6 He argued that the United States should be extremely cautious about demands for secession because they could create enormous violence. This position was reiterated by President Clinton in a speech on federalism in 1999, when he declared that if every ethnic group became independent, “we might have 800 coun-

Explaining U.S. Policy Variations

5

tries in the world and have a very difficult time having a functioning economy or a functioning global polity.”7 The historical background of the United States, in particular, the painful experience of the Civil War, coupled with its current leading status in the world, probably reinforces its apprehensive attitude toward secessionism and its search for a stable international system. This historical background may not be significant enough to shape American responses to secessionist crises in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, but it certainly influences Washington’s perception of secessionist conflicts abroad. According to former u.s. ambassador James Blanchard, “the vast majority of Americans, inside and outside the government, have absolutely no sympathy or patience for the notion of secession. That’s rooted, reasonably or not, in our own Civil War.”8 Declarations and speeches, however, do not tell us much about how the United States does respond to secessionist crises. And if the events of the last two decades have shown that secessionism is an important security concern and is likely to remain so in the twentyfirst century, it is still largely unexplored from a u.s. foreign policy point of view, and important foreign policy questions remain unanswered. For instance, what are the motives and interests guiding Washington’s foreign policy toward secessionist conflicts in the post–Cold War? Does the United States tend to get involved in the resolution of these crises? Will Washington always support the central states struggling with secessionist groups as a matter of principle? Or are there any moral considerations that may lead it to support secessionist ambitions? These questions are important since, despite its anti-secessionist bias, the United States has recognized the independence of several secessionist states in the last twenty years, which is a significant departure from its Cold War policy. The purpose of this book is therefore to understand what determines the American reaction toward secessionist conflicts in the post–Cold War era. More specifically, the research focuses on the puzzling variation in the u.s. response to secessionist attempts. Washington has seemingly reacted in a contradictory manner to secessionist conflicts by backing central governments in some cases, while recognizing the independence of secessionist states in others. Why has it done so? Why, for instance, did it recognize the secession of Croatia, Eritrea, and Kosovo but remain categorically opposed to the independence of Abkhazia and Somaliland? How

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can we explain this policy variation? What accounts for the u.s. departure from its a priori support for stable international borders? Can this apparent inconsistency be explained by the legitimacy of each case of secession, by the regional environment in which secessionist movements emerged, by the lobbying of u.s. ethnic groups in Washington, mobilized for the independence of their ethnic kin abroad or against the breakup of their homeland? This research puzzle raises an important challenge in u.s. foreign policy, but the existing literature does not tackle this critical issue properly.

the argument Existing theories of foreign policy and international relations as they relate to ethnic and secessionist conflicts do not alone account for the research questions under investigation. Current systemic and domestic arguments are based on assumptions that fail to capture the logic and preferences behind American behaviour toward secessionist struggles. The research presented in this book remedies this problem by developing an argument built on the defensive version of the realist paradigm of foreign policy. It argues that the United States is a “defensive positionalist” state that stresses the importance of regional stability in the management of secessionist struggles. It maintains that the search for stability is the United States’ paramount interest, one that explains the variation in the American response to these conflicts. This stability-seeking argument, which is delineated in the next chapter, asserts that the United States supports central states facing secessionist crises as long as they can guarantee the stability of their international borders. When these states are unable or unwilling to maintain the stability of their borders and refuse to negotiate with secessionist leaders, the United States will shift its policy and consent to recognize the respective secessionist states if, and only if, the secessionists can demonstrate their ability to maintain stability. This idea explains when and why Washington has departed on multiple occasions from its anti-secessionist policy.

why this topic? One might ask why understanding how the United States approaches secessionist conflicts matters. I argue that grasping the causes of

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the fluctuations of u.s. policy towards secessionist struggles is pressing for several reasons. First, secessionist movements constitute, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, an enduring security challenge to the lone American superpower, as well as to the international community. The American war in Iraq, for instance, had the undesired effect of exacerbating the issue of Kurdish secessionist ambitions, which poses a problem for stability in the Middle East. The recent military confrontation between Georgia and two of its secessionist regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia, destabilized the Caucasus and spoiled the already tense relationship between Russia, which supported the secessionist states, and the United States, an ally of Georgia. In a study published by the Carnegie Corporation in 2002, David Callahan argued that “ethnic conflicts and quests for self-determination around the world are likely to be among the most important factors driving international politics in the next decades.”9 I agree with this assertion and I would add that secessionism is especially important as it targets the territorial integrity of existing sovereign states, which are the central actors in international relations. Thus, by understanding why the u.s. response to secessionist struggles varies greatly, we will be in a better position to explain and predict the American response to this enduring security challenge in the twenty-first century. Furthermore, because the United States stands unrivalled in the international system, its actions can directly affect the success or failure of secessionist states. Indeed, there is a direct connection between a state’s relative power and the effectiveness of its diplomatic recognition: recognition by the American superpower has a greater impact on the process of secession than recognition by any other state. The reason is simple: because of the size of its power, defined in military, economic, and diplomatic terms, the United States has the greatest political leverage to make secession a fait accompli. u.s. recognition of a secessionist state can significantly increase the credibility of the secession, regardless of the qualitative value and merits of the case.10 This explains, for instance, why Biafra failed to secede from Nigeria in the late 1960s, but why Kosovo recently succeeded. Biafra managed to be recognized by some foreign states, but failed to obtain recognition from the United States or from other great powers and was unable to sustain its independence. Kosovo, however, was recognized by the United

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States and its allies (the United Kingdom and France, among others) which made Kosovo’s secession a fait accompli, even though Serbia, Russia, and China were opposed to it. As Horowitz points out, “whether a secessionist movement will achieve its aims … is determined largely by international politics, by the balance of interests and forces that extend beyond the state.”11 Without great power recognition, and especially u.s. recognition, secessionist states cannot normally function in the interstate system, and their independence has almost no value on the international scene. These states are likely to fail to be admitted as members of the United Nations, since one or several permanent members of the Security Council can veto their application. Moreover, unrecognized secessionist states can hardly request economic support from the International Monetary Fund (imf) and the World Bank. The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (fyrom) faced this problem from 1991 to 1994, and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus and Somaliland are still struggling with it. For these reasons, it is crucial for scholars and policy-makers to understand the motives behind the American response to secessionist crises. In this book I hope to make a significant contribution to the literature on American foreign policy and on third state intervention in secessionist conflicts.

terminology This research focuses on the American decision to grant or not grant diplomatic recognition to secessionist states, as opposed to simply supporting or not supporting secessionist movements. There is a major difference between granting diplomatic recognition and demonstrating solidarity through material and political means. Secessionist ambitions can be supported in various ways, such as by providing sanctuary, humanitarian aid, and funding, as well as by supporting the right of self-determination and military intervention.12 Granting diplomatic recognition, however, is the ultimate level of political-diplomatic support, and it has serious implications. It leads to the acceptance or refusal of new sovereign entities into the community of sovereign nations and, consequently, to the maintenance or disintegration of existing independent states. It is common to argue that material support is crucial for a secessionist state, as opposed to political support, which is often por-

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trayed as cheap and inconsequential. David Carment argues, for instance, that “demonstrating solidarity with an ethnic group has low cost implications. That is, decision makers can practice diplomacy ‘on the cheap.’” He adds, “states may become involved by applying political or diplomatic pressures, especially when they are unwilling or incapable of providing resources.”13 I agree with Carment that expressing solidarity can be cheap. In the end, however, it is political support that makes or breaks internationally recognized states, not material support. Alexis Heraclides is right when he maintains that “ultimately, it is numerous recognitions that will transform a secessionist entity (unilaterally declared state contravening the strict self-determination principle) into a state.”14 Thus, I focus not on the u.s. response toward all groups expressing secessionist ambitions but rather on conflicts in which secessionist states are formally attempting to split from their central state. More specifically, my research highlights how the United States uses its power to grant or deny diplomatic recognition in order to increase its political leverage in secessionist conflicts and to maximize its national interests. Over the years, there has been great confusion over the meaning of the words used to describe the process leading states to achieve independence. Some authors have used the words separation and secession interchangeably, while others have given a particular meaning to each of these concepts. Heraclides makes a clear distinction between these terms, which is important in the context of the present research. He explains that separatism is a movement seeking political autonomy within a state, such as federal status. Secessionism is a more radical enterprise to the extent that it is a movement seeking independence from a state.15 I believe that such a distinction is important to make in order to avoid confusion. In this book, I deal specifically with the issue of secession, which I define as the withdrawal of a political unit from an existing sovereign state to create a new independent and sovereign entity. The concept of stability-seeking, which is at the center of this book, should also be clarified. Stability is defined as a state of peace existing between sovereign states in a region. It implies the maintenance of and respect for international borders (including no refugees flowing across international borders) and non-intervention in states’ internal affairs. Taken together, these elements constitute the main interest of the United States toward secessionist conflicts.

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research methods This book focuses on six cases of u.s. response to secessionist crises: Croatia, Eritrea, Kosovo, Macedonia, Slovenia, and Somaliland. This choice allows me to study the variation in the u.s. response by focusing on u.s. recognition, delay of recognition, and non-recognition, thereby limiting the problem of selection bias and strengthening the external validity (or the generalizability) of the research. Moreover, I deal with cases from two different regional environments, the Balkans and the Horn of Africa so that I can not only measure variations between cases from the same regional setting but also appraise cross-regional variations. To evaluate the robustness of the stability argument presented in the next chapter, this research combines the methods of “structured, focused comparison” and “process-tracing”. This methodological combination allows me to focus systematically on facts that are relevant for the measurement of the argument as well as to make the appropriate connections between the stability argument and observable outcomes. I also look at two competing domestic arguments – related to ethnic politics and business interests – and compare them to the stability argument. This allows me to assess whether the proposed argument offers better explanations and predictions than the two main domestic propositions. This comparison should contribute to the debate concerning the main sources of u.s. foreign policy. Data Collection I have gathered information from various sources. Through the Freedom of Information Act (foia), I requested and obtained the declassification of cables and analyses produced by the State Department and by u.s. embassies on the selected cases. These documents were highly relevant for process-tracing, as they allowed the recreation of parts of the debates and discussions within the u.s. government leading to the recognition or non-recognition of the cases studied. Moreover, several interviews were conducted in Washington, dc, with former officials from the National Security Council and the State Department who worked on secessionist conflicts under the administrations of George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush. I also relied on memoirs written by former

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u.s. officials who were involved in the formulation of the u.s. response to the selected cases.

the structure of this book Chapter 2 introduces the different theories of international relations and foreign policy that deal with foreign intervention in ethnic and secessionist conflicts. It shows that none of the existing arguments, whether domestic or international, provide satisfactory explanations for the research puzzle under investigation. As a result, the chapter proposes a new model of u.s. foreign policy. It delineates the stability argument by presenting its assumptions and logic, as well as by establishing a clear connection between u.s. interests and the concept of stability. Chapters 3 through 7 are empirical. They examine how the United States reacted to secessionist crises in the post–Cold War era and measure the stability theory, as well as competing domestic arguments. Chapter 3 focuses on the secessionist crises in Croatia and Slovenia that occurred in 1991–92. It explains why the United States initially refused to recognize the independence of these Yugoslav republics and why it shifted in favour of their recognition nine months later. Chapter 4 deals with the complex case of Macedonia, which unfolded from 1991 to 2004. It reviews how the crisis started and why it took thirteen years for the United States to complete the process of Macedonia’s diplomatic recognition. Chapter 5 completes the study of the Balkan region with the case of Kosovo, focusing on the unfolding of the crisis and analyzing the factors that led the White House to deny Kosovo’s recognition from 1991 to 2007 but to reverse its decision in early 2008. Macedonia and Kosovo provide interesting instances of u.s. recognition delay. Chapter 6 and 7 concentrate on the variation in the u.s. position towards two cases of secession in Africa: Eritrea and Somaliland. Chapter 6 highlights the reasons that led the United States to grant Eritrea’s recognition in 1993, after having supported Ethiopia, the central state, for more than forty years. The last empirical case, presented in Chapter 7, is that of Somaliland. I show why the u.s. government refused to support and to recognize this de facto independent state even though Somalilanders fulfilled most of the u.s. stability prerequisites. Finally, chapter 8 presents theoretical and empirical findings by reviewing the performance of the stability argument, as well as the

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competing domestic propositions. The broader theoretical contributions of the book are also presented, and the implications of the argument for states that are currently experiencing secessionist struggles are finally addressed.

the united states and secessionism in the twenty-first century The main objective of this book is to set the ground for future research on the United States and secessionism. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the United States still sits at the top of the international system and remains involved, at various levels, in the different regions of the world, seeking to fulfil its global interests. It is, therefore, very likely that the American superpower will be confronted with many other secessionist crises that will jeopardize its interests in the future. In a globalized world in which people tend to use identity and cultural differences as a basis for political demands, minority nationalism and secessionist claims will remain security concerns for Washington. Scholars have recently found that there are approximately five thousand ethno-linguistic groups in the world and that about three hundred of them are politically mobilized to defend their interests.16 This indicates that secessionism is and will continue to be a great source of international disruption for the United States, even if only a small portion of these groups seek secession. I do not pretend that secessionism is the most important security concern for the United States. Issues related to terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear weapons, for instance, certainly rank higher on the u.s. national security scale. However, secessionist conflicts have the potential to alter regional order by creating fluctuations in the distribution of states’ power, and they can disrupt international stability by undermining the territorial integrity of u.s. allies. In this respect, secessionism is an important security concern for the United States in this century, and a book dedicated to this subject is therefore required.

2 The Stability-Seeking Argument

introduction Despite the great number of intrastate conflicts in which the United States has been involved since the end of the Cold War, the literature on its foreign policy toward ethnic conflicts, and more specifically toward secessionist movements, is scarce. Several books and articles have been published on how the United States and the international community have responded to specific intrastate crises, but little work has focused on the u.s. response to secessionist conflicts. Those who have dedicated books to this issue have often been more interested in the normative aspect of the debate than in the theoretical one. Among the questions that are often addressed in the literature on u.s. interventions in ethnic conflicts, one appears to be central: under what conditions should the United States intervene in these conflicts? Although stimulating for intellectual discussions, this question does not contribute to the scientific understanding of when and why it does intervene in these conflicts. For instance, based on an analysis of successful and failed cases of u.s. prevention of and intervention in ethnic conflicts, David Callahan formulates normative proposals for avoiding future ethnic conflicts and suggests circumstances under which the United States should intervene when they do occur.1 His rich empirical analysis of several ethnic crises contributes to the debate regarding u.s. policy toward secessionist self-determination; however, he does not attempt to explain the variation in the u.s. decisions to intervene. Neither does he develop a theoretical argument that could be systematically applied to empirical cases to explain this puzzle. The same criticism can be addressed to Morton Halperin, David Scheffer, and Patricia

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Small, who dedicated a book to how the United States and the international community should respond to separatist self-determination in what they call the New World Order.2 Driven by normative considerations, their analysis, conducted in the early 1990s, is empirically strong but does not include any theoretical framework that could explain patterns of foreign policy behaviour. They are more interested in what should be than in what is. Henry Bienen has also focused on u.s. foreign policy toward ethnic conflicts.3 Even though he raises several interesting questions regarding why and when the United States should intervene, his analysis is purely normative and motivated by the desire to formulate responses to ethnic nationalism that best suit American capacity and interests, rather than by the aim of understanding a defined research puzzle. Evelyn Farkas, adopts a different approach. She compares three instances of intra-state conflicts in the 1990s (i.e., Iraq in 1991, Ethiopia, and Bosnia) in an attempt to explain u.s. policy regarding state partition.4 Although interesting and comprehensive, her work is not theoretically driven and does not allow the development of a consistent theoretical model that explains and predicts the behaviour of the United States toward secessionist crises. Farkas does identify some factors that influence policy-makers, but she does not insert them into a coherent theory of foreign policy. In a recent book, Steven David argues that civil wars have replaced international conflicts as the pre-eminent threat to vital American interests. According to him, certain states that are strategically important to the United States, such as Pakistan and China, are likely to fall into civil war, which would significantly damage American vital interests.5 David argues that civil wars are the greatest threat to the United States in the twenty-first century because they are impossible to deter and, even if they are not directed toward the United States, their consequences can be catastrophic for it (e.g., if they result in the use of weapons of mass destruction or the collapse of the world capitalist system). His speculative work is well documented and focuses on an area of research that is increasingly important for u.s. national security. David builds his research on an interesting theoretical assertion: he maintains that “in the post–Cold War world America’s security and economic well-being depend upon order being maintained in certain key states.”6 This argument, however, is not grounded in the literature

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and does not flesh out the theoretical mechanism that connects order to u.s. foreign policy. Moreover, his research deals with the prospect of instability in four states identified as vital to u.s. interests and does not explain or predict u.s. foreign policy response toward these potential intra-state conflicts. Thus, recent studies that have focused on American foreign policy toward intrastate, ethnic, or secessionist conflicts have failed to produce theoretical models that make sense of the American policy response (including its variation over time) toward these conflicts. What’s more, these studies have neglected the issue of secessionism per se, and none of them have addressed our research puzzle. Aside from the u.s. foreign policy literature on ethnic conflicts, the literature in international relations has attempted to identify the factors that explain third state intervention in ethnic and secessionist conflicts. Experts in international relations often divide these factors into two categories: systemic and domestic. The former category assumes that the international environment is the central determinant of third state intervention. As for the latter, it asserts that a third state’s internal politics best explain intervention and that domestic groups within the state have the greatest impact on foreign policy decision making. The question is whether this international relations literature can explain the foreign policy puzzle under investigation.

security and power Neo-realists argue that security and power are the central determinant of interstate interaction and that states follow the same rationale when deciding whether to intervene in internal conflicts. In recent years, debates among realists have brought out two competing versions of realism, known as offensive and defensive realism.7 According to offensive realists, security can be only partially assured, because states cannot be certain of the intentions of others. As a result, they will try to increase their power in order to achieve more security by aggressively competing with one another.8 Defensive realists, on the contrary, argue that international anarchy makes states anxious about their security, which inevitably leads them to balance power and threat in order to weaken hegemonic states and prevent stability gaps and vulnerability.9

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Stephen Saideman is one of the few scholars who has extended the defensive realist rationale to secession. By applying Stephen Walt’s balance of threat argument to secessionist conflicts, he evaluates whether security considerations drive states to support secessionist movements abroad to diminish threatening states. His objective is to measure whether or not secessionist groups within strong states receive more support than those in weaker states. As he points out, “since balancing is ‘the most central pattern’ in international relations for realists, we ought to expect that states will tend to support the weaker states and assist separatist movements in the stronger, more threatening states.”10 By analyzing three secessionist crises (in the Congo, Nigeria, and Yugoslavia) from which he compiled a total of forty-three cases of third-state intervention, Saideman demonstrates that this argument is weakly supported by empirical evidence. His study shows that the balance of threat argument was right in predicting only fifteen of the forty-three cases of interventions, indicating that the balance of threat logic is not the driving force behind state intervention in secessionist conflicts. Moreover, this argument often leads to unpredictable observations: it is unable to predict the behaviour of states that are neither entirely threatened by central states nor entirely threatened by secessionist movements.11 Alexis Heraclides also shows that security concerns fail to explain third party intervention. His analysis suggests that during the Cold War, superpowers did not balance their power by supporting opposing sides in secessionist conflicts in order to increase their security.12 On the contrary, the United States and the Soviet Union tried to avoid antagonistic policies on these issues. Furthermore, I maintain that in addition to being empirically weak, the balance of threat cannot be used in a credible argument to explain the behaviour of the United States towards secessionist movements. Did the United States recognize Chechnya, Tibet, and Taiwan in order to sap the strength of Russia or China? The answer is no. Although the United States raised the issue of human rights abuses in Chechnya throughout the 1990s, it maintained that the Chechen secessionist issue was a Russian internal matter. Moreover, it refused to adopt a double foreign policy toward China in order to deal separately with Taiwan, and it did not question China’s sovereignty over Tibet. We can assume that u.s. support for major powers’ secessionist movements would be likely to produce retaliation

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against it, instead of producing greater security. For all of the above reasons, the security assumption is a weak one that is not supported by empirical evidence. Offensive realism leads to a different argument. By focusing on power maximization, rather than on security, it assumes that strong states like the United States are tempted to support secessionist groups in weaker states to increase their relative power in geostrategic areas. This argument maintains that weak states cannot effectively retaliate against strong interveners and therefore that the cost of supporting secessionists is inconsequential to dominant powers. This argument is consistent with Mearsheimer’s assertion that “great powers are rarely content with the current distribution of power” and that “they face a constant incentive to change it in their favor […] if they think it can be done at a reasonable price.”13 Research demonstrates, however, that secessionist groups evolving in weak states are not more likely to obtain greater foreign support from strong states than from other states.14 In other words, third states’ relative power does not affect the level of support granted to their secessionist movements. As for the specific case of the United States, one could argue that u.s. support for secessionist groups in weaker states cannot be provided at a “reasonable price,” because such a decision would be likely to produce instability resulting from ethnic tensions, civil war, and secessionist diffusion. The United States has been opposed to secessionist efforts in both strong and weaker states mainly for stability considerations. The maximization of power argument, therefore, is not convincing enough to be retained as a credible hypothesis to explain u.s. behaviour toward secessionism. In sum, the logic of a balance of threat and power maximization would lead to effects that were counter-productive to the United States’ interest.

regimes and norms Liberal institutionalists argue that because the stability of the international system is the basis for cooperation among states and for economic prosperity, states obey an anti-secessionist regime that emanated from un declarations and treaties on self-determination; they do so in order to preserve the territorial status quo. Mark Zacher indicates that this regime is founded on a principle of terri-

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torial integrity that was strongly supported by the United Nations, the Arab League, and the Organization of American States in the aftermath of the Second World War, and later by the Organization of African Unity.15 The objective of the normative regime against secession is to limit the circumstances under which nations have the right to independence. It was created around three types of norms that are not mutually exclusive but that must be understood as forming an international code of conduct. First, only peoples under colonial rule have the right to declare their independence by claiming selfdetermination. Second, states must conform to the norm of diplomatic recognition: only self-determined entities (i.e., entities evolving under colonial rule) can be recognized as sovereign states. Finally, the non-intervention norm forbids states from intervening in others’ internal affairs.16 A third state recognizing a secessionist movement that did not qualify as a self-determined unit would be intruding in the internal affairs of another state. Liberal institutionalists argue that states conform to these norms of behaviour because they strengthen the structure of the international system by promoting stability, which guarantees mutual and absolute gains among sovereign states. Liberal institutionalists maintain that this international regime constitutes a strong barrier against secession. They have overstated, however, the impact of this regime on states’ foreign policy. Indeed, states have departed on multiple occasions from this regime by supporting secessionist movements. Belgian support for Katanga and French support for Biafra in the 1960s or Russian military and economic support for Trans-Dniester in the early 1990s are good examples. Some states have even extended unilateral recognition to secessionist states, which constitutes a violation of the secessionist regime. The recognition of Biafra’s secession in the 1960s by Gabon, the Ivory Coast, Tanzania, and Zambia, the Indian recognition of Bangladesh in 1971, the Turkish recognition of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus in the early 1980s, the unilateral German recognition of Croatia and Slovenia, and, more recently, the u.s. recognition of Kosovo’s secession and Russia’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia are interesting cases of defection from regime cooperation. It is true that during the Cold War the United States’ attitude towards secessionist efforts conformed to the normative regime

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against secession. In fact, the measures contained in the un Charter regarding secessionist self-determination were largely a reflection of u.s. interests. The United States repeatedly condemned secessionism as highly disruptive and was strongly committed to states’ territorial integrity in order to maintain the stability of the bipolar system.17 Facts indicate, however, that the end of the bipolar era strongly reduced the impact of anti-secessionist norms on u.s. behaviour towards secession, since Washington departed on several occasions from that regime. The examples of u.s. recognition of Croatia, East Timor, Eritrea, and Kosovo show the failure of the liberal institutionalist argument. The proposition of an anti-secessionist regime cannot therefore explain the inconsistency in the u.s. response to secessionist efforts since the early 1990s.

civilizational ties In an article published in Foreign Affairs, Samuel Huntington argues that cultural ties between political entities – which he calls civilizations – will replace ideological confrontations and considerations of power politics as the main source of domestic and international conflicts in the post–Cold War era. Huntington asserts that from now on, wars will mainly occur across cultural fault lines dividing world civilizations. According to him, “groups or states belonging to one civilization that become involved in war with people from a different civilization naturally try to rally support from other members of their own civilization.”18 In other words, political entities sharing the same religious roots and a similar politicoeconomic evolution support and defend one another. To demonstrate the accuracy of his argument, Huntington gives several examples where cultural differences are a great incentive to interstate and intrastate conflicts. He maintains, for instance, that thirdstates’ responses to secessionist quarrels are shaped by cultural ties. A foreign state would, therefore, support the side in a secessionist conflict with which it shares civilizational kin. Huntington argues that Germany, the European Community, and the United States supported and recognized the independence of Croatia and Slovenia from Yugoslavia in 1992 because these two Yugoslav Roman Catholic republics were part of Western civilization, while the other republics were either part of the Slavic-Orthodox or the Islamic cultural alliance.

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Although interesting and imaginative, the cultural-ties argument is flawed, at least when applied to American behaviour toward secessionism. The United States recognized Bosnia-Herzegovina’s independence in the early stage of the Yugoslav conflict, even though Bosnia amalgamated Muslim, Slavic-Orthodox, and Western cultures. The United States also led a nato intervention against Slavic-Orthodox Serbia to defend and support the political autonomy of Muslim Kosovo and eventually recognized its unilateral secession from Serbia. How would the proponents of the culturaltie argument explain these decisions? Christian Serbia had closer ties to Western civilization than did Muslim Albanians from Kosovo. The United States should therefore have supported Serbia’s struggle against secessionists of the Kosovo Liberation Army. Moreover, how can Huntington explain why the United States was the first state to recognize the independence of Eritrea, which is predominantly Muslim, from Christian Ethiopia? Again, if the civilizational argument were right, the United States would have stood by its “coreligionists” and supported Ethiopia’s territorial integrity. The motivations behind the u.s. decision to support one party in a secessionist conflict have therefore to be found elsewhere. Other scholars have focused their attention on domestic politics to explain third-states’ foreign policy toward ethnic and secessionist conflicts. They assume that decision makers are rational actors who try to stay in power by maintaining domestic support and by taking into account the strengths and weaknesses of their state when making foreign policy decisions toward secessionist movements. Based on these premises, scholars have developed three main arguments that examine the topic through the lens of internal vulnerability, ethnic politics, and business interests.

internal vulnerability Neoliberals argue that a state’s own vulnerability to internal ethnic turmoil inhibits it from supporting foreign secessionist movements. This proposition, known as the vulnerability argument, was first applied to the African regional context.19 According to this claim, vulnerability explains why states embrace international norms of cooperation such as the principle of non-intervention in the internal affairs of other states. Neoliberals assert that the common vulnerability of African states is a strong incentive for cooperation

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because defection in this case would be likely to result in a dangerous domino effect leading to the infinite redrawing of African borders.20 Neoliberals therefore argue that African states persist over time despite the strength of secessionist movements because leaders have no choice but to accept rules and norms of cooperation. Some observers have demonstrated that vulnerable third states (including African states) are not deterred from supporting secessionist groups elsewhere and that international norms of cooperation among vulnerable states do not account for foreign policy decision-making.21 Although straightforward and parsimonious, this argument has recently been proven false. Some commentators have also shown that multiethnic states (especially those vulnerable to separatism) are not less likely to support secessionists than homogenous states.22 This argument is different from the regime/norms proposition described previously, since it presumes that domestic vulnerability to secessionism, rather than an international regime, provides the central motive that inhibits states from intervening in intrastate conflicts. However, the expectation of both propositions is basically the same, since they both assert that states follow international norms of non-intervention. It is also interesting to note that by refuting the vulnerability argument, analysts have also demonstrated that norms of cooperation do not really inhibit states from supporting secessionist efforts. Furthermore, the vulnerability argument is not appropriate for understanding the foreign policy behaviour of the United States. If it was vulnerable to secessionism, how could we explain the observation that it has supported and recognized secessionist states? Vulnerability cannot account for the fluctuation of the American response to secessionist crises since the early 1990s. Moreover, the multicultural composition of u.s. society and its emphasis on civic and constitutional nationalism makes it resistant to secessionist claims. The indivisibility of the u.s. republic, which resulted from the Civil War, is a constitutional principle that has been an integral part of the American political culture for almost 150 years. Obviously, that does not mean that the United States is totally invulnerable to secessionist aspirations. Texas and Hawaii, for example, have a long history of separatist claims. Latin Americans are also increasingly powerful in the southwest states and may eventually develop separatist ambitions. But overall, we can argue that the

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United States has a low level of vulnerability to secessionism compared to other Western states such as Canada, the United Kingdom, or France, which are facing strong secessionist movements, respectively, in Quebec, Scotland, and Corsica. Thus, in addition to being empirically refuted by scholars, the vulnerability argument seems very unlikely to explain the u.s. attitude toward secessionist movements.

domestic ethnic lobbies In the post–Cold War era, several analysts have moved away from external sources of foreign policy to concentrate on domestic factors. The context of the 1990s engendered a broad range of research that scrutinized, among other things, the impact of domestic ethnic lobbies on the decision-making process.23 Ethnic lobbies are important agents of foreign policy because they can influence decisions with money and votes. Several ethnic lobbies contribute financially to the campaign of presidential candidates and often influence the vote of u.s. ethnic diasporas during elections.24 As Ambrosio points out, “politicians often appeal to the interests of key ethnic identity groups in order to tap into the ‘ethnic money’ and to garner more votes.”25 For these reasons, the ethnic-lobby argument, which was seen as idiosyncratic a few years ago, has been increasingly theorized in the last two decades, and several analysts now argue that u.s. foreign policy is increasingly the product of these lobbies. Henry Nau maintains, for instance, that u.s. ethnic groups are now a major determinant of American foreign policy. According to him, u.s. foreign policy has been transformed “into a patchwork of ethnic … particularisms.”26 Yossi Shain even questions whether u.s. foreign policy still promotes the national interest or whether it has been undermined by diaspora interests.27 This is not a new issue. Glazer and Moynihan, for example, argued in the 1970s that ethnic influence was “the single most important determinant of American foreign policy.”28 John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have recently jumped into the debate on the role of ethnic lobbies, which has given additional weight to this argument. Mearsheimer and Walt make the case that the Jewish American lobby has “managed to skew” u.s. foreign policy in the Middle East by convincing the American people that u.s. and Israeli interests are identical.29 Former u.s. national

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security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski has also questioned the effect of these lobbies. According to him, ethnic groups are increasingly powerful and have a major impact on the definition of the American national interest.30 Brzezinski believes that the academic and foreign policy communities must have a “serious debate” on this important issue. This ethnic domestic angle of foreign policy analysis matters greatly in the context of this book because it has been used to explain the American response to ethnic conflicts and secessionist movements since the 1990s. Yossi Shain, for example, asserts that some ethnic groups in the United States have been able to pressure u.s. leaders to adopt supportive policies towards national self-determination movements in Central and Eastern Europe.31 His argument implies that u.s. ethnic lobbies often influence which side the United States supports in a secessionist conflict abroad, and he gives the example of the Croat-Americans who led an active campaign for the American recognition of Croatia in 1991–92.32 Ethnic politics has been increasingly regarded as a central motive for third-state intervention in ethnic conflicts. Saideman argues, for instance, that states support the side of an ethnic conflict that shares ethnic ties with leaders’ constituents: “ethnic politics serves as a critical dynamic compelling some politicians to support secession elsewhere while constraining others.”33 His work clearly demonstrates that there is a strong relationship between ethnic ties and third-state foreign policy toward secessionist crises.34 However, despite the persuasiveness of his argument, it falls short in predicting u.s. foreign policy. As Saideman himself notes, the United States deviates from the ethnic-ties explanation and, therefore, does not conform to the argument. He explains the anomaly of this situation by arguing that low levels of competition between ethnic groups for government’s attention could account for the wrong prediction. We could also argue that the u.s. multicultural composition transforms ethnic groups into antagonist forces that cancel out each others’ efforts to influence American decision makers or that the executive branch of the u.s. government does not pay much attention to ethnic considerations when they concern a small portion of the u.s. electorate. Nevertheless, the ethnic-lobby argument continues to be a serious alternative explanation to the research puzzle under investigation, and it is now used as a core argument to explain u.s. policy toward

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secessionist movements. It has been studied in several policy-oriented works. However, it has not been systematically evaluated by social-scientific inquiries. In some cases, analysts seem to raise examples that support their ethnic-lobby assumptions well, but they never perform scientific work to test their argument. Moreover, few ethnic groups are well organized in the United States, with the exception of groups of Greek, Jewish, and Irish descent, as well as Cuban Americans. As John Stack points out, “In the United States, ethnic involvement in foreign policy has been only as effective as the national security elite allowed it to be.”35 Most of the groups are small associations that are not powerful enough to affect u.s. foreign policy. Most of them have little money, little political influence, and little or simply no access to the government. I am not arguing here that ethnic lobbies are not important political actors in the United States. I maintain, however, that their impact on the formulation of American policy toward secessionist movements must be weighed against the impact of other factors. Since no scientific work has been conducted in the United States to verify this assertion, the research presented here will attempt to systematically measure the accuracy of the ethnic-lobby argument.

business interests According to some observers, American private business interests strongly affect u.s. policy towards secessionist conflicts and account for the variation in Washington’s responses. David Gibbs argues that politicians make policies that are in the interest of corporations with which they share strong ties. As he mentions, “politicians and business people act rationally to further their respective self-interests, and such rational behaviour influences the conduct of foreign policy.”36 Gibbs assumes that u.s. economic groups are divided according to different interests and compete to maximize those interests. As a result, the u.s. government is frequently torn between conflicting foreign economic interests when making policies. Gibbs argues, however, that at the end of the day, the private economic connections of u.s. decision makers are strongly reflected in American foreign policy towards secessionist movements. He tests his argument using the Congo crisis of 1960 and shows that some u.s. economic groups favoured the secession of Katanga from the Congo because they were expecting to replace

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Belgian industries in the seceding province, while other business groups opposed secession because they were tied to Belgium and, therefore, their interests lay in a united Congo. Gibbs’s analysis also demonstrates that u.s. foreign policy towards the Congo fluctuated from the Eisenhower to the Kennedy administration because each government was tied to different business interests. The business-interest argument is interesting; however, Gibbs’s analysis focuses only on the Congo case, which greatly limits the validity and robustness of his model. Despite this empirical weakness, he maintains that the argument can also apply to other situations with even more relevance, because u.s. businesses had less interest in the Congo than in other regions. We can disagree with this claim and counter-argue that secessionist attempts often arise in developing countries (e.g., Eritrea, East Timor, Somaliland) where the United States has little economic interest, contrary to the case of the Congo, which had enormous reserves of diamonds, gold, and silver. Therefore, it is doubtful that the business-interest argument effectively accounts for u.s. foreign policy variation in other cases. Considering that secessionist efforts are often disruptive, it is far from obvious that u.s. business groups could benefit from secession. Think about Bosnia-Herzegovina, East Timor, and Eritrea, for example, where ethnic tensions led to political and economic chaos. One could argue, rather, that u.s. business groups always favour stability and secure investments to any secessionist changes, whatever their interests in the host state. Furthermore, Alexis Heraclides refutes the neo-colonialist argument, according to which industrialized states benefit from secessionist conflicts by treating secessionist leaders as political puppets to maximize their material interests. His research, based on seven postwar secessionist movements, demonstrates, on the contrary, that Western developed states are in fact less likely than developing countries to support secessionist efforts.37 In 1960 the Congo was a freshly born state with a high level of economic dependency on Belgium and strong polarization between foreign economic interests. Consequently, the case of the Congo appears to be the exception rather than the rule. Moreover, there is a surprising weakness in Gibbs’s approach, which does not pay much attention to the relative importance of business interests. He does not make a distinction, for instance, between strategic and non-strategic materials as a determinant of

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policies: diamonds versus oil, for example. Yet, strategic and nonstrategic goods probably have a different impact on u.s. policy toward secessionist crises. Despite these weaknesses, Gibbs’s business-interest argument needs more investigation. After all, it is common to assume that the United States’ economic interest is the driving force behind its foreign policy and that the American response to secessionist crises varies on the basis of its economic preferences. This common belief must be challenged by testing it on other empirical cases. Additional testing might also reveal whether strategic and non-strategic interests cause a fluctuation in the u.s. response to secessionist crises. Table 2.1 gives an overview of the different arguments on third states’ intervention in secessionist conflicts that have been presented above.

discussion This overview of the different foreign policy and international relations arguments relevant to the puzzle under investigation shows that this study of the American response to secessionist conflicts fits into broader questions of interest to international relations specialists. There is, indeed, a rich body of literature examining third states’ motives for intervention. Several arguments have also been developed to explain why states might decide to support secessionist movements and under what circumstances they may be inhibited from doing so. However, it appears that scholars are mainly interested in generating large-scale theories of third-party intervention, rather than foreign policy arguments adapted to particular states. Analyses of u.s. foreign policy toward ethnic conflicts continue to be too general in scope, and they fail to perform systematic measurements of the assertions and arguments that they put forward. They remain in the policy realm and seem better at raising issues than at risking potential answers. In addition, most of the work done on this subject deals with third-state support for ethnic and secessionist groups, rather than with third-state recognition or non-recognition of secessionist states. This matters greatly. As mentioned in the introduction, there is a difference between a third party’s ideological encouragement to a secessionist movement and the extension of politico-diplomatic

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Table 2.1 Competing Arguments about Interventions in Secessionist Conflicts Type

Argument

Systemic factors

Security States support secessionist states abroad to weaken threatening powers. Thus, secessionist groups within threatening states receive more support than those in weaker states. Power Strong states support secessionist groups in weaker states to increase their relative power. Norms States obey anti-secessionist norms because these norms strengthen the structure of the international system by promoting stability. This favours mutual gains among sovereign states. Civilizational tie States support the side in a secessionist conflict with which they share a civilizational bond.

Domestic factors

Vulnerability States’ own vulnerability to internal ethnic turmoil inhibits them from supporting foreign secessionist states abroad. Ethnic Lobbies* U.S.-based diasporas affect the conduct of American foreign policy toward secessionist conflicts in their homelands. Business Interests* The private economic connections of u.s. decision makers are strongly reflected in American foreign policy towards secessionist crises.

* Arguments need further testing and will be systematically measured.

recognition to a secessionist state. A third state that supports a secessionist group does not necessarily want to grant it formal recognition and may simply use the issue as a political tool to achieve other goals. International support for secessionist groups has been relatively frequent and expressed in different ways.38 Diplomatic recognition of statehood has been, however, quite rare

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since 1945. Because of this substantive difference between simple support and formal recognition of secession, it would be wrong to conclude that factors explaining third-state intervention in ethnic conflicts are logically the same as those explaining diplomatic recognition of secessionist states. The literature on third party intervention in ethnic conflicts, therefore, has limitations in explaining international recognition. In the light of the theoretical evidence, a new theoretical model focusing on American foreign policy toward secessionism is needed for the following reasons: •

•

•

•

•

•

The rare analyses of u.s. foreign policy toward ethnic conflicts are too broad and suffer from a lack of methodological rigour. Domestic arguments concerning u.s. foreign policy toward secession appear to be overstated – namely, arguments concerning business interests and ethnic politics. Current systemic models (neorealist and neoliberal) of third states’ intervention are empirically refuted and deductively fail to account for the u.s. response to secessionist efforts. Scholars have focused their attention on third states’ support for secessionist groups rather than on third states’ recognition of secessionist states, which is substantively different. Scholars have neglected the study of the u.s. superpower’s foreign policy towards secessionism, which is a crucial aspect of the international dimension of secession. Because secessionist movements remain an enduring challenge to international stability at the dawn of the twenty-first century, a coherent model of American policy toward secessionism is needed.

a n e w t heoreti cal explanati on: stability-seeking This book builds on the defensive version of realism. It asserts that the United States is a “defensive positionalist” state, a term that was initially coined by Joseph Grieco and that refines defensive realism.39 According to defensive positionalism, states are unitaryrational agents that seek to maintain their relative position and are “sensitive to any erosion of their relative capabilities” since the preservation of their power guarantees their security in a self-help international system.40 States therefore prefer to work in favour of

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the status quo rather than against it; they are not “gap maximizers” but “gap avoiders.”41 They consider stability gaps as security threats rather than as power opportunities. Thus, they try to avoid instability and insecurity because such conditions increase their vulnerability and could help other states to improve their relative power. In sum, states focus on the preservation of their position in the system rather than on power maximization. The United States as a Stability-Seeking Power I argue that defensive positionalism applies in great depth to the United States, because the American superpower sits at the top of the international power structure. Its position in the international system and its security are maintained by the prevention of power losses that could originate from instability in the system. This is why regional stability matters greatly for Washington. I assert that minimizing stability gaps, that is reducing or eliminating relative gains (whether economic, military, or political ones) that could favour rival states or enemies, defines u.s. interests. In recent history, the United States has attempted on several occasions to minimize stability gaps. During the Cold War, for instance, it relied on export controls to weaken Soviet economic and military resources, in order to eliminate potential gains for the ussr made at u.s. expense.42 Implications for U.S. Policy toward Secessionist States Washington addresses secessionist issues not from an objective and neutral point of view but from a pessimistic one. The need to prevent power losses and to minimize stability gaps explains why the United States has been cautious in not encouraging secessionist states abroad.43 The fear that such an action might encourage other secessionist movements to seek independence, which would endanger the management of world peace, has led the United States to maintain an anti-secessionist bias. As Henry Bienen correctly points out, u.s. decision makers have been more concerned “with stability of the state system … more concerned about not opening the Pandora’s box of ethnically based demands for new nation-states, than they have been concerned to support self-determination everywhere as a principle.”44 It is, therefore, not surprising that the United

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States prefers the maintenance of large multinational countries that can accommodate nationalities and minorities rather than small destabilizing secessionist states. Historically, secessionist movements have stood out as one of the factors most disturbing to stability in the world.45 They have created geopolitical turbulence and threatened to alter international borders. They have provoked, among other things, civil wars in places like Ethiopia, Indonesia, and Moldova. They have also led to the escalation of conflict by generating foreign states’ incentives to intervene. India’s intervention in favour of the Tamils in Sri Lanka, Armenia’s support for Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan, and Albania’s support for Kosovo are three examples showing the propensity of secessionist crises to become internationalized. This pattern has led Alexis Heraclides to argue that secession is “the most unmanageable of the great security challenges of the post–Cold War era.”46 As a stability-seeking state, the United States, therefore, favours the containment of secessionist claims within existing sovereign states as a way to preserve the stability of regional systems. But then the central puzzle remains: if the United States is a stability-seeking power, or a defensive positionalist state, how can we explain its recognition of the secession of several states in the post–Cold War era? How can we explain the fact that it agreed to such territorial modifications? I argue that the United States is sometimes compelled to break with its state integrity policy because supporting territorial sovereignty is not always a guarantee of stability and can actually become, under certain conditions, a serious cause of regional disruption. For example, a state that persecutes its secessionist minority in the name of territorial integrity may end up creating regional instability, as well as international tensions with other states. The Serbian military repression of secessionist Albanians in Kosovo in 1998–99 produced such an outcome and led nato forces to intervene against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (fry). Before the nato intervention, the un high commissioner for refugees (unhcr) estimated that more than ninety thousand Kosovar Albanians had fled to Albania and Macedonia in reaction to Serbian violence, which produced regional disturbance.47 Thus, providing support to central states that are disruptive is not always in the best strategic interest of the United States, because

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such a policy can end up encouraging regional disorder. I maintain that under certain specific circumstances and in order to avoid or reduce stability gaps, the United States can choose to end support for a central state and to assist instead one or several of its secessionist entities. The argument proceeds in two steps. Here is how it works. First Step: The United States Supports State Integrity scenario 1. The United States will support state unity as long as the central government of a state maintains external stability by containing – either peacefully or by force – a secessionist crisis within its borders. Canada is a prime example of a state that peacefully managed a secessionist movement and preserved external stability. The referendum on secession held by the Quebec government in 1995 was a democratic exercise that had the approval of the Canadian state. The debate over Quebec’s independence was peaceful and democratic, and it was limited to Quebec and Canada. No international dispute resulted from this event. During the referendum campaign, the Clinton administration supported Canadian national unity but stated, at the same time, that the issue was an internal Canadian affair.48 scenario 2. The United States will adopt a similar policy in favour of state integrity in cases where a central government maintains external stability but relies on military repression to prevent territorial breakup. The Indonesian war against secessionists in Aceh – the far west province of Indonesia – is a good example of this scenario. Following the Indonesian military crackdown in the secessionist province, the United States reaffirmed its support for Indonesia’s territorial integrity and encouraged Jakarta to improve its political relationship with the Aceheses so that unity could be maintained. u.s. support was reiterated, despite Jakarta’s military operations in Aceh, which caused more than fifteen thousand deaths and six thousand displaced persons from 1977 to 1999 and about two thousand deaths in recent years.49 Moreover, u.s. support was reaffirmed even though the Indonesian government constantly rejected Aceh’s proposal to hold a democratic referendum on the political future of the province. As the two cases just mentioned show, secessionists can be treated very differently by their central governments. Quebecers were

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allowed to express themselves in a referendum on secession, while Aceheses were brutally repressed. But what is important here is that both Canada and Indonesia managed to contain secessionism within their borders in their regional environment (North America and Southeast Asia, respectively). This explains, according to the stability-seeking argument, why the United States responsed in a similar way to both cases. scenario 3. When a central state is unable to guarantee external stability but is open to negotiation with secessionists and/or to third-party mediation, the United States will remain committed to state integrity. It will estimate that supporting the central government remains the best way to restore order (i.e., to eliminate stability gaps). The expected stability benefits that would eventually procure the unity of the central state will exceed the cost of the external disorder currently produced by the secessionist conflict. Therefore, as long as the central state demonstrates its openness and/or capacity to settle its internal secessionist crisis, the United States will categorically oppose secessionist efforts and support state unity. This explains why, for instance, the American government remained committed to Moldova’s unity during its war against Trans-Dniester’s secessionists. Following Trans-Dniester’s declaration of independence in 1991, the Moldovan government was unable to contain the conflict within its borders, and the crisis created important regional disorder. Russian forces intervened in Trans-Dniester to protect Russian populations, and Romanian citizens crossed the border to express their solidarity with Moldovan authorities.50 Within a few months, several thousands of Russianspeaking Transdnistrians fled to Ukraine because of the war, and by the summer of 1992 there were more than one hundred thousand refugees.51 At the same time, however, the government of Moldova demonstrated its desire to settle the issue by initiating negotiations with secessionists and by accepting foreign mediation. It agreed to provide economic and cultural autonomy to Trans-Dniester, and a political agreement sponsored by Russia, Ukraine, and the osce was reached by the two parties in 1997. Throughout the conflict, the United States supported Moldova’s government. Although Washington was not directly involved in peace negotiations, it was represented within the osce. The attitude shown by the Moldovan

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state during the secessionist conflict had a decisive impact on the evolution of the u.s. policy. Moldova’s will to resolve the crisis led the Americans, as well as regional powers, to uphold their support in favour of its integrity and to oppose the self-proclaimed Transdniestran Moldovan Republic. Had Moldova acted in bad faith by opposing political negotiations and mediation, the stability-seeking argument predicts that the United States would have reconsidered its diplomatic options and might have supported Trans-Dniester’s independence. So far, the logic of the stability-seeking argument leads us to predict that the United States will support central states either because they contain their secessionist factions within their borders or because the maintenance of their integrity provides opportunities for the restoration of stability. The regional-stability argument maintains, however, that this consistency in the u.s. response to secessionist crises will not hold in cases where the central state is neither open to negotiations and/or foreign mediation nor able to contain its secessionist crisis within its borders. scenario 4. If the central state fails both at the domestic and at the external level, the theory predicts that the u.s. calculation of costs and benefits will radically change and that the presidency will be pressed to modify its position. The United States will conclude that the central state no longer has the capacity to resolve the crisis and that it is a central obstacle to the restoration of regional stability. American decision makers will regard the support and recognition of secessionist states as a political tool to bring back stability and peace in the disputed region. At some point, Yugoslavia fell into that category of states (see chapter 3). The Yugoslav federal government was paralyzed in the early 1990s as a result of Serbian and Croatian opposition to state reforms, which led Slovenia and Croatia to secede from the federation in 1991, with several major consequences: it resulted in a war between Croatia and Serbia that quickly spread to Bosnia, it precipitated Yugoslavia’s disintegration, and it produced large numbers of refugees who fled to neighbouring states. As a result of the disturbance, Yugoslavia could no longer either initiate domestic negotiations between its republics or contain the conflict within its borders. When it became clear that the federation would no longer hold and that the recognition of secessionist republics was the only

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way to slowly restore stability in the Balkans, the United States shifted its policy and acknowledged independence in 1992, even though it had been one of the strongest supporters of Yugoslavia’s territorial integrity. Yugoslavia serves, therefore, as an unfortunate example of what happens when external stability and internal negotiations fail. This raises another important theoretical question: what constitutes “stability-seeking” and how can it be systematically measured? The next section delineates a series of indicators that define the notion of regional stability and provides theoretical mechanisms that establish a clear connection between u.s. foreign policy and stability-seeking. Measuring the First Step of the Stability-Seeking Argument The factors of external stability and internal negotiation are at the center of u.s. decisions to support or not to support central states and constitute the first step of the stability-seeking argument. It is important to mention that the central state must simultaneously fail internally and externally for u.s. policy to change. The external-stability factor is intimately linked to the Westphalian conception of sovereignty, which is based on states’ territoriality and on the principle of the non-violation of states’ sovereignty. A derogation of this principle will produce interstate instability. But how do we know whether a central government fails to maintain external stability? What accounts for its variation? Two indicators allow the fluctuation in stability to be measured. The presence or absence of cross-national refugees is the first. Intrastate conflicts resulting from secessionist attempts can produce international refugees, which constitutes a violation of sovereign states’ borders. Cross-national refugees are likely to disrupt the internal order of neighbouring states, to unbalance their ethnic composition, to inflict higher economic costs on them, and even to foment ethnic conflicts. Central states that fail to contain their populations within their borders while struggling against secessionists will, therefore, cause regional instability. In a recent study, Salehyan and Gleditsch show that cross-national refugees are a major cause of the diffusion of intrastate conflicts and of regional instability.52 The second indicator has to do with whether or not protagonists violate the territorial integrity of contiguous states during the seces-

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Table 2.2 First Step of the Argument External Stability Indicators of a Central State’s External Instability: The secessionist conflict produces a cross-national refugee flow. Protagonists in a secessionist conflict violate the sovereignty of neighbouring states. Internal Negotiations Indicators of a Central State’s Failure to Negotiate: The central government refuses to negotiate with secessionists. The central government rejects third party mediation. Central authorities exercise military repression against secessionists. The central state is paralyzed or collapses.

sionist dispute. The intrusion, for instance, of secessionist fighters or of the central government’s military into neighbouring states as part of a political or military tactic may create great regional disturbances and increase the chances of interstate disputes. Heraclides demonstrates that contiguous states are naturally inclined to intervene in secessionist conflicts at their doorstep.53 It is, therefore, reasonable to assume that the territorial violation of a contiguous state by either the central state or the secessionists risks accelerating the intervention of the contiguous state in the conflict.54 Indicators of the failure of internal negotiations are very straightforward. They are essentially the factors preventing a political resolution of a given secessionist crisis. The central state will fail at the internal level if it is categorically opposed to political negotiations with secessionists, if it rejects the mediation of third states or international organizations (e.g., the United Nations, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, the African Union, the European Union, etc.), if it uses military repression against secessionists, or finally, if the central government is paralyzed or collapses, thereby making any resolution of the conflict impossible (see table 2.2 for a summary). The stability-seeking argument assumes that the central state does not necessarily have to exhibit all these types of instability to

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be considered a disturbing agent by the United States. Rather, the United States may undertake a significant political shift in favour of the secessionists if at least one external and one internal indicator simultaneously show a breakdown in stability. Thus, a central state can fail lamentably at the external level by causing strong regional disorder and still be backed by the United States if it demonstrates internal efforts to settle the issue. Conversely, the u.s. presidency will support a central state that contains secessionism even if it does so through political and military repression. Second Step: U.S. Support for Secessionism as a Last Resort In the event that the central state fails at both levels, the stability-seeking argument predicts that the United States will raise the possibility of supporting secessionists. As Heraclides indicates, “For a secessionist movement to claim legitimacy, it should be obvious that the central government is not prepared to negotiate or otherwise afford a degree of meaningful self-rule to the separatist group.”55 Before proceeding further in that direction, however, the United States will want the assurance that secessionist leaders can sustain the stability of their emerging state. Based on defensive positional assumptions, we can deduce that the United States will assess the domestic structures of the secessionist state, as well as the regional environment in which it evolves, before making a decision. Secessionist groups will need to show proof of internal and external stability in order to be recognized by Washington. It is unlikely that the United States would be interested in recognizing a new state that was likely to replicate the stability gap of the predecessor state. If the secessionist state was unable to achieve stability, the stability-seeking argument maintains that u.s. recognition will be postponed or simply denied.56 Moreover, a secessionist movement that would act in bad faith in the first phase of the negotiation process with the central government, in order to force a political deadlock or purely to provoke the collapse of the host state, would be unlikely to qualify for recognition, since the United States would perceive that movement as a disruptive force on regional stability. scenario 5. If the secessionist group succeeds in showing internal and external stability, the United States will grant recognition,

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which would be expected to produce a net gain in regional stability. For instance, as I argue in chapter 6, the United States committed itself to recognize Eritrea’s independence because the Ethiopian government had become unable to assure regional stability, while the Eritrean authorities fulfilled domestic and external criteria of stability. scenario 6. If the secessionist state is unable to achieve stability, however, the u.s. recognition will be denied and the status quo maintained. I assume that this is what happened to Kosovo, which failed to obtain international recognition before 2008 because of a lack of internal and external stability. But what constitutes “stability-seeking” in such a case, and how can it be measured? Measuring the Second Step of the Stability-Seeking Argument As with the first part of the argument, the second step is composed of two factors: internal stability and external stability. The internal dimension of stability refers, among other things, to the domestic definition of sovereignty, which is “the organization of public authority within a state and the level of effective control exercised by those holding authority.”57 Secessionist leaders who fail to achieve effective control of the territory might face recurrent instability. Another important aspect of internal stability is whether or not secessionists hold a referendum on independence. This popular consultation on independence has to be held by secessionist authorities – assisted by international actors, if necessary – to measure the extent to which the population living in the secessionist territory agrees to secede and to renounce being part of the predecessor state. The referendum result will be a measure of the likelihood of future intrastate conflicts. Respect for and the protection of minorities and human rights will also be taken into account by the United States as an important aspect of internal stability. A military junta that unilaterally proclaimed independence without taking into account the will of the people and human rights would definitely fail the test of internal legitimacy and could create a stability gap. David Callahan points out that “democratically inclined secessionists present a better case for independence than do nationalists who seek statehood for chauvinistic reasons and offer no guarantee of democracy.

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There is little appeal in backing the creation of new states that are likely to be authoritarian.”58 These considerations are purely instrumental, however, since the protection of human and minority rights will be seen by decision makers in Washington as a means to strengthen stability. This approach is, therefore, consistent with the stability-seeking argument and does not represent an incursion into the liberal paradigm of foreign policy. Moreover, secessionist authorities must provide guarantees that their state’s internal boundaries will be maintained following independence. Any change of intrastate boundaries undertaken by secessionist leaders will necessitate public consent. This principle of the unchangeability of borders is contained in the Helsinki Accords that were signed by the members of the Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe (csce) which included the United States.59 As for the external requirements of stability, a secessionist group must first have a defined territory within the host state (i.e., a region, canton, province, republic, or state) to qualify for recognition. Secessionists who cannot tie their claim to secession to a defined territory will fail to be recognized, since international recognition implies that the recognized unit exercises sovereignty over a defined piece of land. A secessionist group that lacked legally defined internal boundaries within a state would likely be the victim or the instigator of territorial revisionism and might experience political crises over territory with foreign contiguous states and/or with its predecessor state. Not only must a secessionist group have a defined territory but it must also accept its former internal boundaries as its new international borders. Territorial revisionism through irredentism, for instance, would not be tolerated. Mark Zacher shows that since 1945 all the new states that were created through state breakups have kept their former internal borders as legal international ones (whether or not they wanted to). He points out that “states generally desire predictability regarding the international territorial order. They do not like secessions, but if secessions are going to occur, they do not want the successor states fighting over what their boundaries should be.”60 I argue that, as a defensive positional state, the United States is especially hostile to the alteration of international borders, since such a change may create stability gaps and therefore security threats. Secessionist states must also avoid intervention in the internal affairs of other sovereign states. Secessionist governments pur-

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Table 2.3 Second Step of the Argument Internal Stability Indicators of Internal Stability of the Secessionist State: Secessionist authorities achieve effective control of the territory. Leaders respect internal boundaries, or modify them with public consent. Secessionists agree to hold a democratic referendum on secession. The new state respects human and minority rights. External Stability Indicators of External Stability of the Secessionist State: The secessionist state has a defined territory within the central state (region, canton, province, republic, state, etc.). The secessionist state accepts its former internal boundaries as its new international borders. Secessionists respect international borders (including no cross-national refugees). Secessionists demonstrate that no interstate war is likely to occur following independence (absence of irredentism, revenge, and aggression).

suing political revenge or an aggressive foreign policy toward neighbouring states will clearly fail the test of external stability. As explained in chapter 4, Greece argued that the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia had irredentist ambitions because it referred to itself as Macedonia, which was already the name of a Greek province. This partly explains why the United States suspended its decision to recognize Macedonia’s independence. Secessionist leaders who produce cross-national refugees by their policies and actions will also fall short. Indeed, refugees are a source of instability, since they could, for instance, alter the demographic equilibrium of neighbouring states. Moreover, secessionist states must be at peace with their neighbours when asking for recognition. As a stability-seeking power, the United States will be reluctant to recognize a secessionist entity that might engage in an interstate war following its independence. Table 2.3 summarizes the second step of the stability-seeking argument. All the above criteria will logically be considered by the United States when the issue of state recognition surfaces. Unlike the first

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part of the argument, in which the central state could fail at one level and still be supported by the United States, the stability-seeking criteria for recognition represent a much harder test for those who want to break up an existing state. Not only must secessionists succeed at maintaining external and internal order but they must also obtain domestic legitimacy in order to be recognized by the United States. This difficult test is justified by the fact that secession has more international implications than the maintenance of the territorial status quo. Indeed, secessionist states break with the international principle of states’ integrity and may occasion unexpected consequences such as the spill-over effect. The international recognition of secession is, therefore, a risky exercise. As Robert Young points out, “even peaceful secessions are times of much disruption and uncertainty. They mark profound changes in the relations between peoples and between states.”61 The stability-seeking argument holds that before providing support and recognition to secessionists, the United States will make sure that the seceding state meets stability criteria defined in terms of state authority, territorial control, and popular consent. Figure 2.1 provides a diagrammatic summary of the steps in a secessionist crisis guiding u.s. decision making. Additional Predictions The stability-seeking argument predicts that the United States will delay or withhold recognition if a secessionist group partially meets the criteria of external and internal stability. Diplomatic recognition will then be withheld until secessionists demonstrate sufficient capability to maintain order. Moreover, it is important to note that not all empirical cases will follow the two steps of the argument chronologically. Some secessionists can clearly demonstrate, right from the beginning of the crisis, that they are able to maintain stability, but they will not be recognized by the United States because their central state will be able to properly manage the conflict. Furthermore, if a central state that has initially failed to maintain external stability and to negotiate with secessionists improves its ability to handle the secessionist crisis, the United States could move back to the first step of the process and focus its diplomatic efforts on supporting the integrity of the state. This is an important theoretical prediction that makes the stability argument more of an

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Secessionist Crisis

Central state able to maintain stability of international borders: the U.S. supports the central state

Central state unable to maintain stability of international borders

Central state open to negotiation with secessionists and/or open to third-party mediation: the U.S. supports the central state

Central state not open to negotiation with secessionists and not open to third-party mediation: recognition of the secessionist state becomes an alternative to restore regional stability

Secessionists unable to maintain external and internal stability: the U.S. does not recognize the secessionist state (status quo)

Secessionists able to maintain external and internal stability: the U.S. recognizes the secessionist state

Figure 2.1 Steps in the stability-seeking argument

axis of foreign policy options than a one-way linear process. The United States will not hesitate to move back and forth from one step of the process to another in order to maximize what it perceives as an improvement in regional order. The theory also argues that the United States will not recognize the independence of great powers’ secessionist movements (e.g., Chechnya, Corsica, Northern Ireland, Tibet), because to do so would be extremely harmful to its stability and security interests. Even if the United States is the dominant power, its support for secessionist states evolving within other great powers could lead the

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American government to face economic reprisals, military escalation, and perhaps even nuclear threats from these states. It is therefore very unlikely that the Americans would support the independence of Taiwan or Chechnya, for instance, if China and Russia became at some point highly disruptive states and failed to contain their secessionist movements. Moreover, the great powers (China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom) are all permanent members of the un Security Council. Supporting their secessionist groups could significantly harm the conduct of international diplomacy and the management of the international political system. It would be, therefore, irrational to argue that the United States would support great powers’ secessionist movements to maximize its stability benefits, since it is evident that such an action would jeopardize its security. The expected reaction of the United States toward secessionist conflicts occurring within great powers is, therefore, consistent with the regional stability argument. Unless a great power disintegrates, as in the case of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States will not move to the second step of the stability-seeking process to recognize secessionist states, regardless of how great powers deal with their secessionist movements.

the role of regional and great powers The international dimension of secessionist conflicts is of course more complex than simple, dyadic interstate relations between the United States and the actors in a secessionist crisis. The u.s. decision-making process is affected not only by its relationship with the central state and with the secessionist movement but also by the position of regional and great powers on the issue. As one unit of the international system (albeit the most powerful unit), the United States must interact with the other states of the system, and some of them may play an important role in the secessionist conflict. For this reason, Washington’s response to secessionist movements is multi-dimensional, and the actions of other powers can affect the application of u.s. policy toward secessionist crises. As a result, the recognition/non-recognition of secessionist states by regional or great powers will be treated as an intervening factor. This will allow for the measurement of the real impact of regional stability on the United States’ reaction to secessionist attempts by showing the

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extent to which other powers can compel it to recognize secessionist states or inhibit it from doing so. This intervening factor is defined in terms of recognition versus non-recognition of secessionist states by regional or great powers, rather than in terms of support versus non-support for these states. Indeed, supporting a secessionist movement is likely to increase tension between a third state and a central state struggling against secessionism, but it will not produce structural changes. The diplomatic recognition of a secessionist state, however, has a direct impact on the regional system, that is to say on the regional environment of the secessionist state, since it can make independence a fait accompli. Thus, whether or not other powers choose to recognize secessionist states can affect u.s. decision making. The stability-seeking theory asserts, however, that although the American government takes into account other states’ foreign policy when making its own decisions, the cost-benefit analysis of the u.s. presidency will be first and foremost dictated by its regional stability interests, no matter what the policy of other great powers may be on the issue. As far as theoretical assumptions are concerned, the stabilityseeking argument asserts that rational choices determine u.s. foreign policy on secessionism. The theory first assumes that American foreign policy is the result of rational decisions made by the presidency, that is, an institution composed of several agents and advisors (e.g. the secretary of state, the national security advisor, the cia director, the secretary of defence) who do not necessarily have the same interests and who may disagree over policies and actions. It is important to specify that the stability-seeking argument focuses on the executive branch of government, since the power to recognize foreign governments and states is an exclusive prerogative of the president, and the Congress cannot legally oppose such a presidential decision. The presidency has, therefore, a high level of autonomy in these matters.62 The second assumption is that the presidency seeks to further its subjectively defined goals, which are here identified in terms of regional stability. This argument assumes that the presidency selects, on the basis of cost-benefit analysis, the course of action that will bring the greatest expected stability out of each secessionist crisis. United States foreign policy is, therefore, motivated by instrumental rationality leading to informed decisions.63 This

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assumption does not pretend that the presidency is omniscient or that it has all the relevant information to make enlightened choices. It assumes only that it is purposive, rational, and pragmatic. Third, on the basis of the two previous assumptions, the stabilityseeking argument assumes that the u.s. presidency possesses a fixed set of preferences towards secessionist crises (listed below and ranked in order of priority) and that these preferences determine u.s. policy choices, depending on the evolution of each secessionist crisis. The U.S. Stability Preferences Stability-seeking defines the United States’ preferences towards secessionist conflicts. The preferences are ranked as follows: 1 The central state is able to maintain external stability and negotiates with secessionists and/or is open to third-party mediation. Outcome: regional stability. Examples: Canada (Quebec), France (Corsica), Spain (Basque Country). 2 The central state is able to maintain external stability but rejects negotiations with secessionists and third-party mediation. Outcome: stability, but a risk of regional disorder. Example: Indonesia (Aceh). 3 The central state is unable to maintain external stability but is open to negotiation and/or to third-party mediation. Outcome: instability, but the restoration of regional order remains possible. Examples: Moldova (Trans-Dniester). 4 The secessionist state demonstrates an ability to maintain external and internal stability, while the central state does not. Outcome: the United States extends diplomatic recognition to the secessionist state. Examples: Eritrea (Ethiopia), Slovenia (Yugoslavia). 5 The secessionist state is unable to guarantee external/internal stability and the central state represents a clear obstacle to regional stability. Outcome: the status quo. The United States does not recognize secession. Example: Kosovo from 1991 to 2008. Built on defensive positional assumptions and previous deductions regarding the behaviour of u.s. foreign policy towards secessionist crises, the stability-seeking argument generates the following test-

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able hypotheses: Stability-Seeking Hypotheses h1 The United States opposes secession if the central state maintains the stability of its international borders. h2 It opposes secession if the central state is open to negotiation with secessionists and/or to third party mediation. h3 It recognizes the secessionist state if it demonstrates the ability to maintain internal and external stability, while the central state does not. h4 It opposes secession if the secessionist state does not demonstrate a clear ability to maintain internal and external stability, even if the central state likewise lacks the ability to maintain order. These hypotheses will be systematically compared to the contending domestic arguments concerning ethnic lobbies and business interests. Hypotheses about Domestic Ethnic Groups Based on the logic of the contending claims, we generate the following testable hypotheses: h5 The United States’ position toward a secessionist conflict reflects the interests of the ethnic group that exercises the most pressure on the u.s. government. h6 The United States’ position toward a secessionist conflict reflects the interests of the ethnic group that represents the largest number of u.s. voters. Hypotheses about Business Interests h7 The United States’ position toward a secessionist conflict reflects the interests of American corporations. h8 The United States’ position toward a secessionist conflict reflects the interests of American corporations with which u.s. executive agents share strong ties.

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This set of hypotheses, derived from the three theoretical arguments, will provide a more structured analysis of the selected cases.

theoretical contributions Defining regional stability as a u.s. interest allows us to rigorously analyze foreign policy. To put it simply, the stability-seeking interest provides a rationale for u.s. actions toward secessionist crises. Most of the time, the concept of stability is imprecisely used in the literature on u.s. foreign policy, and very little explanation is offered as to how this concept affects the behaviour of the United States. As for the notion of national interest, for example, the concept of stability is often used without proper definition and often draws from intuitive thinking, rather than from sound theoretical justifications and explanations. Alexander George and Robert Keohane point out that national interest is “so elastic and ambiguous a concept that its role as a guide to foreign policy is problematical and controversial.”64 The same observation applies to the concept of stability. It performs poorly as a scientific concept when not properly defined and operationalized. This research, therefore, clarifies the ambiguous notion of stability that is often used to explain u.s. policy toward secession. The stability-seeking argument provides theoretical mechanisms that establish a clear connection between u.s. foreign policy and regional stability. On the basis of these mechanisms, the theory generates a rationalist explanation that accounts for the fluctuation of u.s. foreign policy toward secessionist states. The proposed argument is testable and refutable. It could be refuted if one could demonstrate, for instance, that the United States recognized a secessionist state while the central state was still able to maintain external stability or was open to negotiations. It could also be refuted if Washington extended recognition to a secessionist group that could not maintain stability or, conversely, if a state was not recognized by Washington after having fulfilled the above stability criteria. The argument would also be disproved if empirical evidence showed that considerations other than regional stability, such as u.s. domestic factors or moral considerations, explained the u.s. calculation toward secessionist strife. What are the implications of the argument for other states facing a similar dilemma? As indicated previously, the defensive position-

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al assumptions on which the stability-seeking argument is built fit the behaviours of the United States because it is the superpower. In other words, the proposed argument applies to predominant powers at any given time but not to other states, because they do not sit at the top of the international hierarchy. Thus, this theory could apply to China or India at some point during the twenty-first century if they became superpowers. Finally, it should be kept in mind that the function of a theory is to simplify the complexity of a phenomenon without losing the essence of what we perceive as reality. As Kenneth Waltz indicates in his seminal Theory of International Politics, a theory “is not an edifice of truth and not a reproduction of reality … A theory is a depiction of the organization of a domain and of the connections among its parts.”65 The stability-seeking argument seeks to isolate the main factors that affect American foreign policy and to explain how they interact to produce the observable outcomes.

methodology In order to test whether the stability argument accurately explains u.s. foreign policy variations toward secessionist conflicts, the theory will be compared to the propositions concerning business interests and ethnic politics presented earlier. These hypotheses concerning domestic considerations are arguably the most serious rivals to the stability model, since they have been relatively influential in recent years. The objective here is to demonstrate that the fluctuation of American policy toward secessionist quarrels does not depend primarily on its domestic political process but rather on the systemic effects of international relations. To achieve this objective, empirical cases of secessionist attempts that are likely to validate the arguments from ethnic politics and business interests have been selected. For each of these cases, the stability argument is tested and compared to competing theories. If the domestic explanations are as good as their proponents suggest, they should pass these empirical tests. Case Selection Since instances of secession are limited, the selection of cases cannot be randomly generated. For this reason, I have selected cases

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that are significant for the measurement of my research hypotheses. Here I proceed to a systematic analysis of cases picked from two different regional contexts: the Balkans and the Horn of Africa. For each region, recognized and unrecognized cases of secession have been assembled. The cases are those of Croatia, Kosovo, Macedonia and Slovenia (the Balkans), and Eritrea and Somaliland (the Horn of Africa).66 Croatia and Slovenia are treated together, since the United States issued a common policy toward them and recognized their independence at the same time. I compare Croatia and Slovenia to Kosovo and Macedonia because these cases evolved in a similar regional context, although they had very different political fates. Croatia and Slovenia are former Yugoslav republics that were recognized by the United States in 1992. Macedonia and Kosovo had a different fate. Macedonia’s independence was declared in 1991, but it was recognized by the United States only in 1994, and the Clinton administration waited until 1996 to send an ambassador to Skopje, the Macedonian capital. Kosovo failed to achieve recognition for almost twenty years before Washington finally recognized its secession in 2008. As for Eritrea, it is the only successful case of secession in Africa in the post–Cold War era. Eritrea formally seceded from Ethiopia in 1993, after more than thirty years of war. As for Somaliland, Eritrea’s secessionist neighbour, it attempted to secede from Somalia in 1991 by declaring itself the independent Republic of Somaliland. However, unlike Eritrea it has never been recognized by the international community or by the United States. Thus, although these two cases are very similar, given that they come from the same subregional context and given that they both emerged from collapsing states in the early 1990s, they experienced very different outcomes. Selection bias is always a concern, which is why I selected cases based on the dependent variable (i.e., recognition vs non-recognition) and from two different regional environments. These cases provide different dynamics, as well as a good representation of u.s. foreign policy variation toward secession. Thus, this selection (summarized in table 2.4) represents the whole range of possibilities on the empirical axis of cases and allows for a proper estimation of the strength of the stability-seeking argument, as well as of the competing explanations.

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Table 2.4 Case Studies of Secessionist Conflicts U.S.

Response

Region

Recognition

Non-recognition or Delay of Recognition

Balkans

Croatia Slovenia Eritrea

Macedonia Kosovo Somaliland

Horn of Africa

Cases of secession from the Soviet Union were not selected, since the ussr was a superpower. Therefore, as long as the Soviet federation remained, the United States did not step forward to recognize the Baltic States, for instance, which were the first to secede.67 The United States recognized these former Soviet Republics only once Russia, Belarus, and Ukraine had agreed to dismantle the Soviet state in December 1991. Acting otherwise could have jeopardized u.s. security and stability interests. Framing U.S. Foreign Policy Decisions To be accurate, the stability-seeking argument must take into account the internal process of u.s. foreign policy decision making so that it can explain the causal mechanism that generates observable outcomes (i.e., recognition or non-recognition of secessionist states). This is not an easy task. The u.s. foreign policy apparatus includes a large number of actors, and information concerning inter-agency debates on foreign policy issues is sometimes scarce. Shedding light on the causal process or sequence of events that intervenes between the u.s. search for regional stability and observable outcomes is therefore a challenge. To achieve this objective, I use the method of process-tracing.68 By tracing the decision-making process through detailed case studies, this method helps to circumscribe the number of potential causes that might explain variations in the u.s. response. The method allows me to demonstrate the extent to which stability really influences u.s. decision makers. Understanding the causal explanation is crucial. As Alexander

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George and Andrew Bennett argue, “even when rational choice theory or other formal models predict outcomes with a fairly high degree of accuracy, they do not constitute acceptable causal explanations unless they demonstrate (to the extent the evidence allows) that their posited or implied causal mechanisms were in fact operative in the predicted cases.”69 Thus, each case study will attempt to reconstitute the decision-making process. To do so, the analysis will focus on what George calls the individual and the small-group contexts of u.s. policy making. The individual context concentrates on the discussions that the president has with one of his Cabinet members or close advisors (e.g., his secretary of state). The smallgroup context focuses on the president’s meetings with a few advisors coming from different governmental spheres (e.g., National Security Council meetings, Oval Office meetings with foreign policy experts).70 One of the core assumptions of the model is that the presidency makes rational decisions but that it is not a monolithic body. Several executive agents and advisors have their own views on foreign policy issues, which often lead them to compete to influence the president’s decisions. By focusing on the individual and the smallgroup contexts, my research attempts to identify, among those who have foreign affairs responsibilities, executive actors who emphasize the importance of stability at the expense of other interests, and to analyze whether these actors are the most influential in the decision making concerning secessionist conflicts. For the stability argument to be valid, the analysis should demonstrate that executive agents who promote regional stability have more influence than those who emphasize other policy concerns such as ethnic politics or private business interests. The study should also show that the preponderant influence of stability-seeking agents is consistent throughout the different cases. Measuring Stability and Domestic Factors To achieve the task I have outlined, I combine the method of “structured, focused comparison” with the method of “process-tracing.”71 I formulate a limited number of theoretical questions that are systematically asked for all cases in order to measure the veracity of competing arguments. The aim of asking such standardized questions is to structure empirical inquiry. This systematic mea-

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surement will produce comparable data and will facilitate the identification of similarities and differences among chosen cases. More generally, as George mentions, “these questions are designed to illuminate the orientations of a leader to the fundamental issues of history and politics that presumably influence his calculation and choice of foreign policy.”72 Moreover, the “structured, focused comparison” is also characterized by the fact that it selectively analyzes aspects of historical cases that are relevant to the analysis. Therefore, the historical accounts of secessionist conflicts that occurred in Central Europe and in the Horn of Africa in the post–Cold War era are limited to what is relevant to answer the standardized questions. The set of questions that will be systematically asked are as follows. stability-seeking. Does the u.s. presidency always support the central state when it maintains the stability of its international borders? If so, does the United States sustain this policy in cases in which the central state is unable to guarantee external stability but attempts to negotiate with secessionists and is willing to let a third party intervene? If this is the case, what happens when a central state fails to maintain external stability and refuses to negotiate with secessionists; does the United States revise its policy and consider recognizing secession? If so, is u.s. recognition of secessionist states granted only to those that achieve internal and external stability? If yes is the answer to these four questions, it will be possible to conclude that the stability-seeking argument explains u.s. behaviour and that it can be generalized to other empirical cases. Moreover, a few questions derived from process-tracing of u.s. foreign policy decision making are included in the analysis. Do executive agents promoting the interest of stability have the most influence on the president’s decisions? Is this influence consistent through time? rival domestic arguments. A set of questions concerning rival theories will also be applied to selected cases, and they are as follows. Are u.s. ethnic groups that share ties with protagonists in the secessionist conflict abroad well-organized at the national level? Do these groups represent a considerable number of u.s. voters? If so, do these ethnic groups exercise pressure on the u.s. government and, more specifically, on the executive branch? Is the foreign poli-

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cy decision regarding the secessionist crisis in accordance with the interests of the strongest ethnic group involved in the issue? As for the business interest argument, do American multinational corporations (mncs) have significant economic interests in the central state or in the secessionist entity? If they do, do American firms influence the decision-making process? Does the u.s. executive response to the secessionist effort conform to the interests of powerful mncs or, more specifically, to u.s. firms with which u.s. executive agents keep strong ties? These straightforward questions provide clear research guidance and will allow us to compare empirical findings.73

3 The U.S. Recognition of Croatia and Slovenia

introduction The secessions of the Yugoslav republics of Croatia and Slovenia from the Socialist Federation of Yugoslavia in 1991 were among the first instances of effective secessions in a non-colonial context since the foundation of the United Nations.1 By precipitating the disintegration of Yugoslavia, the Croatian and the Slovenian governments compelled the United States to formulate a response to their claims and to express its preferences toward secessionist issues in the emerging post–Cold War order. Before measuring how the stability-seeking argument applies to the u.s. response to Croatia and Slovenia’s secessions, I will set the political context in which the United States got involved in the conflict by describing the events leading to the Yugoslav secessionist crisis.

a brief review of the secessionist crisis The secession of Croatia and Slovenia arose from the failure of Yugoslav political elites to create a new state designed to accommodate growing divergent interests among the republics. At the beginning of the 1990s, the central source of contention in Yugoslavia concerned the issue of power sharing between the federal government and the republics. Croatia and Slovenia, which were more economically developed than the southern republics, favoured a strong decentralization of power from the central government and the creation of a Yugoslav confederation. Two main factors explain these demands: Croats and Slovenes wanted to safe-

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guard their economies from Yugoslavia’s rapid economic decline, as well as to limit Serbia’s growing influence in the central government. Serbia and Montenegro, on the contrary, supported the maintenance of a centralized federal government, as well as strong federal control of the economy. The polarization between these republics was intensified by the rise of Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia in the late 1980s and by the election of nationalist parties in Croatia and Slovenia in the first multi-party elections in 1990. Following the elections, the Croatian and the Slovenian parliaments declared the sovereignty of their respective republics (i.e., the right to make all kinds of decisions including the right to secede) and adopted constitutional amendments to suspend federal laws on their territory. The turning point of the Yugoslav crisis came in May 1991, when Serbia, Montenegro, and the no longer autonomous republics of Kosovo and Vojvodina opposed the election of Croatia’s Stjepan Mesic as the new Yugoslav president, in order to protest against Croatia’s constitutional demands.2 This incident transformed political tensions into a major constitutional crisis that led to the collapse of the entire federal system. Constitutionally, the failure to elect Mesic at the rotational presidency left Yugoslavia without a state president and without a commander in chief of the Yugoslav People’s Army (ypa). Yugoslav Prime Minister Ante Markovic was therefore solely in charge of the political crisis. Following this political rebuff on the part of Serbia and Montenegro, Croatia and Slovenia held referendums on independence to press demands for the creation of a Yugoslav Confederation. Their strategy was simple: either negotiate a confederal union that would provide greater autonomy to republics, or else secede from Yugoslavia if no confederal agreement can be reached. Facing Serbia’s refusal of decentralizing federal powers, Croatia and Slovenia unilaterally declared their independence on 25 June 1991 and seized control of their borders. The Yugoslav federal government declared these unilateral actions illegal and ordered units of the ypa stationed in Croatia and Slovenia to take control of Yugoslavia’s international frontiers. This intervention marked the beginning of a ten-day war with Slovenia’s national troops, which eventually transformed into a major ethnic conflict over internal borders in Croatia, and later in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

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the united states’ response The resolution of the Yugoslav constitutional crisis was not a top priority for the administration of George H.W. Bush. In the summer of 1991, the United States was dealing with major international transformations, among which the Soviet political disintegration was certainly the most demanding. This issue was directly related to the security of the United States, since it raised concerns about the Soviet nuclear arsenal and the stability of the Eurasian continent. The political aftermath of the Gulf War was also at the center of President Bush’s foreign policy. The State Department was deeply involved in the Middle East peace negotiations that followed the liberation of Kuwait and suffered, in the words of Richard Holbrooke, from a “post-Iraq fatigue.”3 The relative weight of the Yugoslav crisis was therefore minor for the Bush administration, and u.s. policy-makers treated it as a regional dispute. As Brent Scowcroft, President Bush’s national security advisor, would later observe about the Yugoslav conflict: “[Secretary] Baker would say ‘we don’t have a dog in this fight.’ The President would say to me once a week ‘tell me again what this is all about.’”4 With the end of the Cold War, Yugoslavia was no longer the neutral buffer zone protecting Western Europe from a potential Soviet continental invasion, and as a result it lost its geopolitical importance in Washington. For this reason, the United States was not inclined to take a leading role in the Yugoslav conflict and was pleased to follow the leadership of the European Community (ec) on this matter. As u.s. secretary of state James Baker indicates, “the Bush administration felt comfortable with the ec’s taking responsibility for handling the crisis in the Balkans. The conflict seemed to be one the ec could manage. More critically, Yugoslavia was in the heart of Europe, and European interests were directly threatened.”5 The European Community had indeed much more at stake in the Yugoslav conflict than the United States. Two of its members, Greece and Italy, respectively shared borders with the Yugoslav Republics of Macedonia and Slovenia, and the prospect of Yugoslavia’s disintegration raised the issue of ethnic conflicts and instability in the whole region.

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The U.S. Support for Yugoslavia’s Unity Even if the Bush administration did not see the Yugoslav crisis as a central issue, it did formulate clear preferences regarding it. The primary u.s. interest was to avoid war in the Balkans. From the early days of the Yugoslav secessionist crisis to the formal disintegration of Yugoslavia, which happened in the fall of 1991, the United States supported the unity of the federation and was categorically opposed to the unilateral secession of its constituent republics. Before Croatia and Slovenia’s unilateral declaration of independence, President Bush had clearly underlined that the United States “would not reward” republics that would choose to secede unilaterally.6 During his visit to Yugoslavia, a week before Croatia and Slovenia declared independence, Secretary Baker mentioned that “instability and break-up of Yugoslavia, we think, could have some very tragic consequences, not only here, but more broadly, in Europe, as well.”7

the yugoslav state’s maintenance of stability The unilateral declarations of independence issued by Croatia and Slovenia in June 1991 had a disastrous effect on the Yugoslav state. The central government was increasingly paralyzed as Croatian and Slovenian federal officials gradually returned to their republics. Yugoslav prime minister Ante Markovic, however, was still in a position to exercise control over the ypa and his decision to send troops into Slovenia asserted – at least in the short term – Yugoslavia’s sovereignty. The Yugoslav state, therefore, managed to contain secessionists inside its borders, no cross-national refugees resulted from secessionist attempts, and Belgrade remained at peace with its foreign neighbours. At the internal level, Prime Minister Markovic demonstrated his willingness to negotiate with secessionists in the summer of 1991 by welcoming ec mediation. Markovic was even ready to accept the secession of the republics as long as it would be democratically negotiated with the federal government.8 In addition to being able to maintain the stability of Yugoslavia’s international borders and being open to negotiations, Prime Minister Markovic had been strongly supported by the United States since his accession to power in 1989. With the collapse of commu-

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nism in Eastern Europe in the late 1980s, Markovic came to symbolize democracy and market reforms in Yugoslavia. Within the Bush administration, Markovic was seen as a democratic figure who should receive support.9 Markovic’s openness had also allowed the European Community to negotiate a ceasefire between the Yugoslav army and Slovenian troops in July 1991. This demonstrated the goodwill of the central government and illustrated Belgrade’s determination to settle the crisis. The ceasefire supervised by Brussels established a three-month moratorium on Croatia and Slovenia’s secession, which sought to facilitate a political compromise on Yugoslavia’s future.10 Moreover, Serbia had consented in early July to the election of the Croatian candidate, who had initially been boycotted by Milosevic, to the post of president of the collective state presidency. This was seen in the United States and among ec members as a positive step forward toward the resolution of the conflict. In this context and despite the fact that the Yugoslav central government was increasingly paralyzed, the United States did not consider the recognition of secessionist states, since the Yugoslav central state was not only able to maintain its external stability but was also open to negotiating with the secessionists. During this period, the question of recognition was not even debated among u.s. foreign policy agencies. This political situation, however, did not last very long, and European efforts to settle the dispute collapsed in the fall of 1991, when the ypa agreed to retreat from Slovenia but moved simultaneously to Croatia to bring assistance to the Serbian minorities living in the Krajina and Slavonia regions. The intervention of the ypa in Croatia complicated the nature of the Yugoslav conflict by emphasizing its ethnic dimension. This event had a major impact on the u.s. perception of the conflict. The intervention of the ypa in Croatia was seen in Washington as a Serbian war of aggression against the Croats, and the Bush administration, as well as the European leaders, began to seriously question the legitimacy of the ypa and its real motivation in the conflict. The secession of Croatia and Slovenia had led to a rapid “serbianization” of the Yugoslav army, and the ypa quickly became a military instrument at the service of Serbian interests. As Richard Holbrooke would later argue, “In the brief war in Slovenia the Yugoslav Army seemed to be defending the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia; when that same army went to war only a few weeks later against

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Croatia, it had become a Serb army fighting for the Serbs inside Croatia.”11

the emergence of external instability At the first meeting of the United Nations Security Council on Yugoslavia in September 1991, the United States for the first time adopted a proactive attitude toward the conflict. James Baker expressed his great concern about Yugoslavia’s external stability as several thousand Croats began to flee to other countries to escape Serbian aggression. The Secretary of State declared that the Bush administration was highly concerned about “the dangerous impact on Yugoslavia’s neighbours who face refugee flows, energy shortfalls, and the threat of a spillover in the fighting.”12 Robert Pearson, who was the executive secretary of the State Department, also noted that Hungary was in the process of democratization and that Yugoslav refugees were threatening its stability, as well as the stability of central Europe.13 Refugees were mainly fleeing to Austria, Germany, and Hungary. Six months after Baker’s address to the un Security Council, the cia reported that Germany had taken more than 135,000 refugees and Hungary 48,000.14 Secretary Baker also pointed out that Serbia and the ypa bore a special responsibility for the Yugoslav conflict and warned Serbia that the use of force to modify Yugoslavia’s internal or external borders would not be tolerated. The issue of safeguarding Yugoslavia’s internal borders was extremely important to the United States. Like the Europeans, the United States believed that changes in republics’ intrastate borders would create more violence and would open a Pandora’s box to the revision of internal boundaries throughout Yugoslavia. This is why the United States refused, for instance, to address the issue of Croatia’s self-proclaimed Serbian republic of Krajina. Baker’s speech to the Security Council marked a turning point in the evolution of the u.s. policy toward Yugoslavia. For the first time, Washington designated Serbia and the former Yugoslav army as the main aggressors in the conflict and as a threat to regional stability. In an attempt to restore peace and to establish a ceasefire in the Croatian republic, the United States voted in favour of un resolution 713 establishing a “general and complete embargo on all deliveries of weapons and military equipment to Yugoslavia.”15

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Then in November, un secretary-general Javier Pérez de Cuéllar named former u.s. secretary of state Cyrus Vance as his personal envoy to mediate the war in Croatia. Vance’s objective was twofold: to reach a cease-fire in Croatia and to eventually establish a un peacekeeping operation in the country. The ypa’s aggressive behaviour significantly intensified in Croatia in the fall of 1991, leading Yugoslav President Mesic to officially declare on 16 September that Yugoslavia had ceased to exist. This declaration came following the refusal by the Yugoslav minister of defence to comply with President Mesic’s request that the ypa stop fighting in Croatia. By then, the United States was much more realistic in its approach. The Bush administration concluded that Yugoslavia could not be saved and that the secessionist republics would eventually have to be recognized as sovereign states. As Lenard Cohen points out, “By this point in time, it had become apparent to most observers that there was very little chance of restoring Yugoslavia’s unity … and that the most urgent matters at hand were to end the fighting in Croatia and to prevent a further expansion of violence.”16 The question was no longer how the United States could help to maintain Yugoslavia together but when and under which conditions it should recognize secessionist states.

the conditionality of u.s. recognition In the fall of 1991, the State Department knew that u.s. recognition of secessionist states could be used to contain and reinforce regional stability in the Balkans. The main question was how to play the “recognition card.” Even if the Yugoslav state had collapsed, the secessionist states were still not in a position to keep the stability of their borders, since war was raging in Croatia and could spread to Bosnia-Herzegovina. The State Department and the National Security Council (nsc) believed, therefore, that premature or uncoordinated recognition of secessionist republics would risk intensifying violence by irritating Serbia and members of the former ypa.17 James Baker reported to President Bush that the United States should coordinate a policy of non-recognition with the European Community to invalidate, or at least to reduce, the destabilizing effect of secession. Such a common policy was seen as an important political lever to moderate the behaviour of Yugoslavia’s protagonists and to find a peaceful agreement between them. As Baker

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indicates in his memoir, “each of the republics craved legitimacy in the West, and withholding recognition (or conferring it) was the most powerful diplomatic tool available. Earned recognition was one of our key points of leverage over the combatants.”18 In this context, the United States decided, in conjunction with the European Community, that the recognition of Croatia and Slovenia would be withheld as long as the Yugoslav conflict was not resolved peacefully. Moreover, on the basis of a policy recommendation issued by the State Department, which suggested that the United States should develop a practical framework to evaluate the merits of the Yugoslav secessionist states, the State Department unveiled in the fall of 1991 a list of criteria for state recognition. These guidelines listed five criteria that would guide the executive in its decision to grant or deny recognition to Yugoslav secessionist republics: •

• •

•

•

Determining the future of the country [i.e., the seceding republic] peacefully and democratically. Providing respect for internal and external borders. Providing support for democracy and the rule of law by promoting the democratic process. Safeguarding human rights, including equal treatment of minorities. Providing respect for international law and obligations, especially the Helsinki Final Act and the Charter of Paris.19

The u.s. guidelines for state recognition reflected u.s. democratic values and its strong interest in regional stability.20 They reveal the importance that the u.s. executive placed on the internal and external stability of the secessionist states, which indicates that the u.s. administration framed the issue along the lines of the stability-seeking argument. Although these criteria are not mutually exclusive, points 1, 3, and 4 refer to internal stability and to the governing ability of the secessionist states. Principles 2 and 5 refer to both internal and external elements of stability. Point 2 implies, for instance, that a secessionist state that either pursued irredentism or unilaterally redrew its internal territorial divisions would fail the test. As for point 5, it requests that secessionist leaders obey international norms of state conduct, such as respecting the territorial integrity of other states.

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By designing these guidelines, the State Department wanted to ensure that recognized republics would not perpetuate instability by replicating Yugoslavia’s ethnic tensions on a smaller scale, that newborn states would conform to certain standards of internal order and governance so that regional stability would endure. More generally, the conditionality of recognition provided a way to socialize seceding states so that they would conform to the rules and principles of the international system and would not develop into aggressive (or revisionist) states.21 These principles of state recognition also reflected the evolution of the u.s. policy toward secessionist movements. For the first time in its history, the United States elaborated clear principles on which its decisions to recognize or not to recognize secessionist states would be made. The guidelines not only sought to address the Yugoslav crisis but were actually seen as a standard for evaluating future independentist claims around the world. It is not a coincidence that the guidelines were set down in late 1991. With the forthcoming disintegration of the Soviet Union, the United States suddenly had the opportunity to emphasize liberal principles throughout Central and Eastern Europe without fearing political tensions with the ussr. To a certain extent, criteria contained in the u.s. guidelines for state recognition were a prelude to the set of conditions that Central and Eastern European States would have to meet to join nato and the European Union later in the 1990s. The evolution of the Western policy toward the Yugoslav conflict, however, was not a linear process. Indeed, in December of 1991 Germany decided to break from the common Western policy by recognizing the independence of Croatia and Slovenia, despite widely expressed objections by the United States and ec members.22 In order to avoid diplomatic confrontation and disunity within the community, ec foreign ministers reluctantly agreed to follow Germany and granted recognition to the two republics in January 1992. This decision resulted in several international consequences: it ended the Western diplomatic front toward the issue of recognition, it marginalized the u.s. policy of non-recognition; and it made the secession of Croatia and Slovenia a fait accompli. The Bush administration, however, remained steadfast in its policy and hoped that its position would counterbalance the effect of the ec recognition of the two republics. The United States was worried that recognition would break the Serbian-Croatian ceasefire

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that had been reached in early January by un envoy Cyrus Vance.23 The main objective of the United States was to preserve the ceasefire so that the United Nations could begin the deployment of its peacekeeping force in the region. These two elements were seen in Washington as the main conditions for the restoration of stability in the Balkans. Indeed, as long as war was raging in the former Yugoslavia, secessionist states could hardly secure their national borders.

the u.s. recognition of secessionist states In early 1992, the prospect of a war in multiethnic Bosnia-Herzegovina had a major impact on the u.s.’s perception of the Yugoslav conflict. Ethnic tensions between Croats, Serbs, and Muslims were intensifying as the Bosnian government announced its intention to hold a referendum on independence in late February. The United States predicted that ethnic conflict in Croatia would soon spread to Bosnia, as the Bosnian Serbs were expected to oppose independence and react violently to the results of the referendum. This led the United States to undertake a major transformation in its strategy. While until then recognition had been seen as a disruptive action that could intensify violence by irritating Serbian authorities, the United States came to the conclusion that non-recognition would not stop Serbia’s violent irredentist ambitions and could even promote greater instability. A few days before the Bosnian referendum, Thomas Niles, the assistant secretary of state for European affairs, wrote to James Baker that since it was almost certain that the Bosnian Muslims and Croats would vote for Bosnia’s independence, the United States should recognize this republic to “reinforce stability” and to deter Serbia’s eventual attempt to annex Bosnia’s territory populated by Serbs.24 This position was also supported by the National Security Council. Brent Scowcroft formulated the same recommendation: “We were hoping that the conflict would not spread into Bosnia and that we might be able to keep the Yugoslav army from invading Bosnia if we recognize the independence of Bosnia.”25 Niles also recommended that in order to maximize the effect of this strategy, the United States should coordinate common Western recognition of Bosnia. This strategy would render Bosnia’s independence effec-

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tive and would deter violence between Serbs and Croats. Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger added another dimension to this strategy. He recommended that the United States recognize the Yugoslav republics that sought international recognition all at once (i.e., Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, and Slovenia).26 According to him, non-recognition of some republics would leave them vulnerable to potential aggressive actions on the part of the new sovereign republics. Eagleburger wrote, “My concern all along has been that a halfway policy on recognition would invite Serbian and Croatian adventurism in Bosnia-Herzegovina and in Macedonia.”27 This argument convinced Baker to adopt a global policy on recognition to avoid violence that would result from a differential treatment of the republics. Thus, in the winter of 1992 the Bush administration came to see diplomatic recognition as a stability-making action, rather than as a desruptive one. Since recognition was to transform Yugoslavia’s internal boundaries into international borders, Washington saw it as a political dam against Serbia’s ongoing aggression against neighbouring territories and expected that it could slow down the diffusion of war. Recognition of Croatia’s international boundaries, for instance, meant that Milosevic could not hope to obtain a recognized conquest of Croatia’s territory. Moreover, the diplomatic recognition of secessionist republics meant that the United Nations would take actions in cases where the sovereignty of these states was violated. This was seen as a deterrent to Serbia’s aggressive ambitions.28 When Bosnia declared its independence, the Yugoslav federation no longer existed and the deployment of the United Nations Protection Forces (unprofor) in Croatia, comprised of fourteen thusand un peacekeepers, provided stability guarantees for recognition. With a major contingent of un peacekeeping troops in place (the second-largest un force deployed since 1945), the United States believed that the recognition of the northern republics of Bosnia, Croatia, and Slovenia was a more realistic and efficient way to restore stability than waiting for a general agreement among republics, which became unlikely as time went on. Although changing its policies, the Bush administration remained constant in its objectives of containing war and restoring regional stability in the Balkans. The u.s. support for Bosnia’s independence was also a strategic move to regain political leverage on the Yugoslav issue and

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to be diplomatically consistent with Western Europe. By extending recognition to Bosnia, Washington moved away from its diplomatic isolation and was able to work in tandem with the Europeans. The United States and the European Community finally reached an agreement in Brussels in March 1992.29 The United States then convinced the ec to recognize Bosnia and proposed in return to recognize Croatia and Slovenia. The Washington-Brussels agreement was to guarantee the territorial integrity of Bosnia and to preserve stability in the Balkan area. The common u.s.-ec declaration emphasized the need for internal stability in the secessionist republics by pointing out that the internal borders of Yugoslav republics should be maintained and that they should not be changed by force or without mutual consent. The United States extended recognition to Croatia and Slovenia, as well as to Bosnia-Herzegovina, on 6 April 1992, one day before the arrival of unprofor in Croatia and accepted the republics’ precrisis borders as their legitimate international frontiers.30 Macedonia, however, was left out and failed to obtain u.s. recognition, even though it pursued independence democratically and without any violence. The next chapter deals extensively with this issue.

the question of the stability of croatia and slovenia Slovenia was a good candidate for recognition as it quickly achieved internal and external stability. Fighting in Slovenia was brief, and the Yugoslav army quickly withdrew from the territory, which stabilized the Slovenian state. This event made Slovenia a de facto independent state. The ethnic homogeneity of the republic also facilitated peaceful relations with both Croatia and Serbia, and it contributed to fostering Slovenia’s external stability. The Slovenian government also demonstrated that it fully respected international borders. Moreover, the Slovenian referendum on independence showed clear public consent for secession and gave strong internal legitimacy to secessionist leaders. Following the referendum, constitutional reforms were also adopted that guaranteed minority rights. In fact, the only reason why Washington did not recognize Slovenia before April 1992 was the instability in Croatia. The Bush administration thought that simultaneous recognition of both republics

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would avoid disruption. Thus, although the political situation in Slovenia was better than the one in Croatia, the American government did not make a distinction in terms of policy, and Slovenia remained in the u.s. “diplomatic waiting room” until Croatia was able to offer some guarantees of stability. In contrast to Slovenia, Croatia only partially met the u.s. requirements for stability, which shows that this case does not perfectly fit the stability-seeking argument. In terms of external stability, the Croatian government of Franjo Tudjman respected international borders (although his government would eventually pursue irredentism in Bosnia), and it had consented to a ceasefire with the Serbs under the supervision of the United Nations. The un agreement, however, was precarious and did not constitute a solid guarantee that no interstate war would occur following recognition (the ceasefire indeed lasted only a few months). At the internal level, the Croatian government had held a democratic referendum on independence in which an overwhelming majority of Croats had supported secession. However, despite the referendum result and the mandate to achieve independence, the Tudjman government did not have complete control of Croatia’s territory. Zagreb had lost onethird of its territory to Serbian troops in the fall of 1991 (i.e. the Krajina and Slavonia regions). Furthermore, Tudjman had failed to provide sufficient constitutional guarantees to its sixty-thousand ethnic Serbs. How can we explain, then, the United States’ consent to recognize the independence of Croatia even though Zagreb did not obtain a very high stability score? The complexity and the magnitude of the Yugoslav conflict led the State Department and the National Security Council to conclude that the ceasefire between Serbs and Croats and the un peacekeeping operation in Croatia provided sufficient conditions for stability for Croatia to be recognized.31 The fact that Washington perceived recognition as a strong deterrent to Serbian aggression in Croatia and Bosnia also accelerated the decision to recognize the republic. Even if the Croatian state was not as stable as Slovenia, its recognition by the United States sought to prevent a much greater level of instability in the region. At that time, the behaviour of the Serbian army was inappropriate, and the u.s. administration felt that there was no other choice but to recognize Croatia. David Gompert, nsc senior director for Europe and Eurasia, emphasizes the difficulty of the issue

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for u.s. foreign policy makers: We were trying “to maintain some principles, trying to keep our eye on everything else that was going on in the world, but … we were also trying to make decisions in a way that would not foster violence in the former Yugoslavia.”32 The American attitude toward Croatia’s secession, therefore, fell into the larger framework of stability, even if each of the internal and external indicators of stability were not met by the Croatian government. On the day the United States recognized Croatia, Margaret Tutwiler, the assistant secretary of state for public affairs, made clear, however, that despite its decision to recognize the independence of Croatia, the u.s. government expected Zagreb to conform to the u.s. principles of internal stability, especially those regarding minority rights.33

inside the executive black box The literature on the Yugoslav disintegration, declassified documents from the State Department, and interviews conducted in Washington, dc, show that executive agents who worked on the resolution of the Yugoslav issue in 1991–92 stressed the importance of regional stability over other considerations such as domestic factors. In the State Department, Dennis Ross, the director of the policy planning office; Robert Pearson, the executive secretary of the department; Thomas Niles, the assistant secretary of state for European affairs; Warren Zimmermann, the u.s. ambassador to Yugoslavia; Lawrence Eagleburger, the deputy secretary; and James Baker, the secretary of state, emphasized stability issues. In the National Security Council, main actors like David Gompert, the special assistant to President Bush and senior director for Europe and Eurasia; Jonathan T. Howe, the nsc deputy assistant to President Bush; and nsc advisor Brent Scowcroft also emphasized regional stability in their assessment of the crisis. These policymakers all supported the continuation of Yugoslavia until the federation fell apart.34 There was also a consensus among these agents that recognition of independence should be conditional on the domestic stability of seceding republics, as well as on their respect for international borders. In sum, there was no interagency disagreement on the course of action to follow. There was, rather, a consensus that both internal and external dimensions of stability should guide the u.s. response toward the issue, even if the case of Croatia shows

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that broader stability considerations also guided the u.s. decision to grant recognition.

the influence of the regional and the great powers Another important question to ask is what kind of impact regional and great powers (the intervening variable) had on u.s. behaviour toward the Yugoslav secessionist crisis? To measure the importance of this variable, we have to look for critical events or turning points in the evolution of the international dimension of the secessionist crisis that were caused by regional or great powers and to see whether the u.s. behaviour changed accordingly. The German decision to unilaterally recognize Croatia and Slovenia in December 1991 was the only significant critical junction produced by a regional power to disturb the linearity of the Western response to the crisis. This event led the European Community as a whole to recognize the two republics in January of 1992, and several other countries (Argentina, Australia, Austria, Bulgaria, Canada, Czechoslovakia, Finland, Hungary, Malta, Norway, Poland, Romania, Sweden, and Switzerland) followed suit.35 However, as shown above, this event did not change u.s. policy. The strong consensus existing within the presidency on the fact that the basic conditions for stability would have to be in place before recognition could be granted led the Bush administration to withhold Slovenia and Croatia’s recognition for another three months. The Bush administration patiently waited for a un mission to be deployed in Croatia before making its move. The u.s.-ec agreement on the recognition of secessionist republics reached in Brussels in March 1992 stipulated that the United States’ support for Croatia’s and Slovenia’s independence had to go together with the deployment of the un peacekeeping force.36 This shows the determination with which the Bush administration treated the issue, as well as the emphasis that it placed on regional stability. The empirical record indicates, therefore, that the German defection from the Western consensus on non-recognition did not directly affect Washington’s response to the issue. The disintegration of Yugoslavia in the fall of 1991 had made the independence of Croatia and Slovenia inevitable, and the United States was fully aware of this. The German action simply stressed this inevitability.

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the impact of ethnic politics Here I focus on the impact of the Croatian American lobby on the u.s. executive decision to recognize the independence of Croatia. I have chosen to set aside the study of the impact of the Slovenian American community, since this diaspora is much smaller and less organized than its Croatian counterpart. The Croatian Americans represent a relatively powerful ethnic group. This community, comprised of around 2.5 million people, is well organized at the national level, and large clusters are located in swing states such as Ohio. Thus, by concentrating on the activities of the Croatian Americans, I choose the case that is more likely to validate the proposition, sustained by many scholars, that ethnic groups affect the formulation of u.s. foreign policy toward secessionist conflicts. Indeed, to return to the competing domestic hypotheses introduced in chapter 2, proponents of the ethnic lobby argument would assert that the u.s. position toward a secessionist conflict reflects the interests of the ethnic group that exercises the most pressure on the u.s. government and/or that Washington’s position toward such a conflict would reflect the interests of the ethnic group that represents the largest number of u.s. voters. To measure the accuracy of these hypotheses, I looked at variations in the u.s. policy toward Croatia that could have been caused by Croatian American lobbies. The evidence indicates that the Croatian American community was highly mobilized throughout the Yugoslav conflict and very active in promoting the cause of Croatia’s self-determination following the secession of the republic in June 1991. The Croatian diaspora contributed to the establishment of an office of the Republic of Croatia in Washington, and Croatian organizations launched lobbying campaigns in the White House and Congress. The Croatian organizations also hired professional lobbying firms, such as the public relations firm Ruder Finn Global Public Affairs, to promote Croatia’s claim for independence and to shape the debate in Washington in a way that would provide a positive image of the Croatian government. Croatian American associations also helped to organize u.s. Congressional hearings on the situation in Croatia and were successful in enlisting well-known congressmen, such as Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (r-Kansas), to support Croatia’s declaration of independence.37 Moreover, in the summer of 1991 more than thirty-five thousand

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Croatian Americans rallied in Washington, urging the Bush administration to recognize the secession of Croatia. According to Pero Novak, who lobbied the u.s. government in favour of Croatia’s recognition and who is now president of the Ohio chapter of the Croatian American Association (caa), the American Croats clearly had an impact of the final u.s. decision to recognize Croatia.38 Thus, there is evidence that the Croatian American lobby put strong political pressure on both Congress and on the White House (political rallies, letters to Congress members, etc.) in the summer and fall of 1991. However, if Croatian-Americans were so proactive in the weeks and months following Croatia’s secession and obtained the support of influential members of Congress like Robert Dole, why did u.s. recognition of Croatia come only in April 1992, almost ten months following the independence of the republic? One would expect that if Croat Americans had been truly influential, the United States would have proceeded earlier with recognition, perhaps even before Germany unilaterally recognized the republic in December 1991. Yet in the summer and the fall of 1991 the State Department and the nsc were working toward the formulation of a coherent Western policy of non-recognition for the Yugoslav secessionist states. Despite the strong political determination of Croatian American organizations, the Bush administration was strongly opposed to Croatia’s secession and maintained this position even after Germany and the other ec members recognized the republic. Until the fall of 1991, the United States was convinced that a unified Yugoslavia offered the best opportunity to maintain stability in the region. The question of whether or not the United States should recognize Croatia was not even an issue. There is no evidence indicating that the Bush administration was influenced by the Croatian lobby during that time. It seems that the Croatian Americans were simply ignored by the Bush administration. According to Thomas Niles, who was assistant secretary of state for European affairs and later worked closely on Croatia and Slovenia’s recognition, u.s. decision makers paid no attention to these ethnic lobbies when they formulated the u.s. position toward the issue.39 David Gompert who was involved in the recognition of the Yugoslav republics and who often met with Croat American organizations also categorically dismissed the Croatian American lobby as an important factor in President Bush’s decision to recognize

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Croatia. “I learned from them,” he did remark, “but at no point, as far as I know, did somebody in the White House make a calculation that, if we recognize Croatia, we will pick up some votes in Cleveland. It really wasn’t the way that the White House functioned.”40 In his memoir, James Baker explains that the u.s. government resisted pressure from the Croatian Americans to recognize Croatia because it believed that a premature recognition could compromise the United Nations’ effort to achieve a ceasefire in the former Yugoslavia. Baker indicates: After the ec decision, I had Larry Eagleburger talk to Cy Vance. He told us to wait at least two weeks, and preferably a month, before moving ahead with recognition. That would allow time to begin the deployment of a u.n. peacekeeping force. Vance felt that our decision to withhold recognition had had an important restraining effect on the Serbs and had discouraged Milosevic and Tudjman from carving up Bosnia. This put us in a difficult position domestically with the Croatian-American lobby, but I told the President at lunch on January 24, “We can and should take the public and congressional heat. We should do all we can to support Vance’s efforts, because our best hope for resolving the crisis is maintenance of the cease-fire and introduction of u.n. peacekeepers.” The President agreed, and so we waited.41 President Bush’s decision to focus u.s. attention on regional stability considerations alienated him from the Croatian community at home. As Gompert notes, all along during the Yugoslav crisis, “George Bush declined to recognize Croatia despite intense pressure from the influential Croatian American community, which as a result deserted him in the election of 1992.”42 One could wonder, however, whether the Serbian American lobby was partly responsible for President Bush’s refusal to recognize Croatia. This would imply that a “horse race” between the two diasporic communities was the reason why u.s. recognition came so late. It is true that Serbian Americans were mobilized in the early 1990s (mainly through the Serbian Unity Congress, or suc) and that the Serbian diaspora tried to influence the debate in Washington. However, Congressional representative Helen Delich Bentley (one of the most prominent Serbian American voices in the United States) indicates that the Bush administration quickly identified the

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Serbs as the aggressors in the conflict and opposed Slobodan Milosevic’s policies. With such a clear bias against the Serbs, it was difficult for the Serbian community to influence the Bush administration. Despite one million Serbian Americans, the Serbian lobby was unable to orchestrate a public relations campaign in favour of Serbia, while the Croatian lobby was quite successful at rallying support. There was, therefore, no horse race between Serbian and Croatian Americans, and the two communities did not cancel out each other’s effort to influence u.s. decision makers, which could have explained the delay in the u.s. decision to recognize Croatia. Thus, the position of the Bush administration did not reflect the interests of the Croatian Americans, even though this ethnic group put more pressure on the White House and represented more American voters than the Serbian Americans. I do not pretend that the Croatian community failed to affect the u.s. perception of Croatia’s bid for independence or that it did not help to shape the debate in Washington. I do assert, however, in light of the previous analysis, that Croat American pressure did not affect the process by which the Bush administration came to recognize the Republic of Croatia, nor did it influence the speed with which u.s. recognition was granted.

the impact of monetary interests David Gibbs maintains that connections between decision makers and private business interests affect the conduct of u.s. foreign policy toward secessionist crises. Based on his theoretical argument, we can hypothesize that, first, the United States’decision to support the central state or to recognize the independence of the secessionist state conforms to the interests of powerful American corporations and, second, that the u.s. position on the matter reflects the interests of multinational corporations with which u.s. executive agents have strong ties. Did American decision makers share ties with u.s. corporations involved in Yugoslavia in the early 1990s? If so, were the private economic interests of u.s. executive agents strongly reflected in the American response to the Yugoslav secessionist crisis? Following the demise of Yugoslavia in 1992, policy analysts and some State Department officials argued that Lawrence Eagleburger and Brent Scowcroft – who were, respectively, deputy secretary of

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state and national security advisor under President Bush – had supported for too long the unity of Yugoslavia and failed to respond adequately to inter-ethnic violence in the Balkans because they had cultivated strong ties over the years with the Yugoslav regime. Some even suggested that because they had business interests in Yugoslavia in the 1980s, both officials had a strong bias against Croatia’s and Slovenia’s secessionist attempts. According to Roy Gutman, the pro-Yugoslav bias of Eagleburger and Scowcroft led them to support the State Department view according to which Yugoslavia should be supported as long as possible and Croatia and Slovenia should not be recognized.43 As u.s. Ambassador to Yugoslavia from 1977 to 1981, Lawrence Eagleburger established close connections with the Yugoslav political elites and became friends with Slobodan Milosevic, who was then the head of the largest bank of Serbia. Once retired from the u.s. government, Eagleburger and Scowcroft worked from 1984 to 1988, respectively as president and vice-president of Henry Kissinger Associates Inc., a New York consulting firm that offered strategic consulting services to international companies. During this time, both men maintained close ties with Yugoslav leaders and dealt with several Yugoslav and Serbian state-owned companies. As president of Kissinger Associates, Eagleburger joined the board of Yugo America, the American division of a Serbian car company that was owned by Global Motors Inc., and served on the board of the Ljubljana Bank. The money Eagleburger earned from business dealings with Yugoslav state companies, however, represented only a small fraction of his salary at Kissinger Associates. According to David Binder, Eagleburger earned $5,000 a year from business ties to Yugoslavia (e.g., to Yugo America and the Ljubljana Bank), while his total income at Kissinger Associates was $900,000 a year.44 Moreover, Yugo America went bankrupt and closed its doors in 1989, which greatly reduced Eagleburger’s economic involvement with Yugoslavia. Upon returning to the State Department and the nsc in 1989, Eagleburger and Scowcroft attempted to stay away from the Yugoslav crisis to avoid being subject to particular scrutiny, even if they no longer had official business ties to Yugoslavia. There is little doubt that Eagleburger and Scowcroft were biased in favour of Yugoslavia’s state unity. For decades they had built strong relationships with Yugoslav leaders throughout the federa-

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tion.45 However, that their past private business interests in Yugoslavia, which had been relatively minor, guided their actions toward the crisis is doubtful. President Bush and Secretary Baker were also strongly in favour of the maintenance of Yugoslavia, and yet they had not maintained business ties with Yugoslav companies in the past. It seems that the aversion of the Bush administration to changes in international politics, as well as Eagleburger’s and Scowcroft’s personal attachment to Yugoslavia, explain why the u.s. overlooked the obvious collapse of the federation and why they were slow to react. Eagleburger and Scowcroft simply could not conceive – despite the information they received from the cia and the Embassy in Belgrade – that Yugoslavia would break apart. In fact, the u.s. belief that state unity was the only possible way to avoid war, led it to adopt an approach based on wishful thinking that confused its desire for unity with the reality of the conflict. Moreover, even if business interests could explain why the United States waited so long before granting recognition to Croatia and Slovenia, they would still not have elucidated why the Bush administration decided to reverse its policy in April 1992. Thus, David Gibbs’ argument also fails to explain the change of policy in favour of recognition. In sum, no evidence has been found to support the hypotheses according to which the United States position conformed to the interests of multinationals with which u.s. executive agents shared strong ties, or simply, that the American response reflected the interests of u.s. corporations.

conclusion The evidence points in the direction of the stability-seeking argument. In the initial phase of the Yugoslav conflict, the United States conformed to the first step of the theory. It supported the central state, which attempted to maintain external stability by securing its international borders. The Yugoslav federal government, led by Prime Minister Markovic, was also willing to negotiate with Croatia and Slovenia’s secessionist leaders and welcomed the European Community’s efforts at mediation. The United States revised its policy once it became clear, in the fall of 1991, that Yugoslavia was disintegrating and could no longer handle constitutional reforms or maintain its international borders. The Bush administration, however, did not immediately

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proceed to the recognition of Croatia and Slovenia, since war in the Croatian republic produced a high level of instability. The ceasefire and the deployment of un peacekeepers were essential conditions for recognition to be granted by the United States. The analysis suggests that the case of Croatia does not perfectly fit the second step of the stability-seeking argument. This does not mean, however, that the case goes against the logic of the proposed theory. Indeed, the search for regional stability was clearly the main motive behind the u.s. recognition of Croatia. The purpose of recognition was to improve the security of the Croatian state and to discourage Serbia’s aggressive behaviour toward neighbouring states. The American decision was, therefore, shaped by stability considerations.

4 Macedonia: A U.S. Delay of Recognition in Five Episodes introduction The American recognition of Macedonia’s independence is an interesting case of foreign policy making, as the u.s. did not follow the normal process by which it usually grants recognition to emerging states. It took more than twelve years and three successive presidencies for the White House to complete the process of Macedonia’s diplomatic recognition. The saga began in the spring of 1992, when the Bush administration decided to delay recognition. Then the Clinton administration recognized the independence of Macedonia in 1994 under the temporary designation Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (fyrom). Yet the first u.s. ambassador to Skopje, Macedonia’s capital, was named only in 1996, after the White House had delayed extending full diplomatic relations to fyrom at the ambassadorial level. Finally, in November 2004 the administration of George W. Bush, in an unexpected and unilateral decision, recognized the republic under its constitutional name, the Republic of Macedonia, in a decision that was opposed by the European Union and vehemently opposed by Greece. The question that this chapter addresses is, why was u.s. recognition of Macedonia’s independence such a long and difficult process? The research shows that the United States is a stabilityseeking power. Throughout the Macedonian saga, u.s. administrations consistently pursued the interest of strengthening regional stability in the South Balkans, which was at risk because of a profound geo-political disagreement between Greece and Macedonia. This chapter suggests that stability considerations defined American policy toward the controversial birth of the Macedonian state

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and justified the slowness with which the United States granted recognition. As a result of its complexity and richness, the case of u.s. recognition of Macedonia is well-suited for intra-case comparisons and systematic analysis. For the purpose of the current study, the different “episodes” of the Macedonian saga are broken down into five different units of interactions that are treated as separate cases. The benefit of the intra-case comparison is that it looks at variation within one defined political context, which allows us to identify the fluctuations in the u.s. position and the factors that account for them. This comparative method increases the number of points of measurement for a more accurate and systematical evaluation of the proposed arguments.1 Five intra-cases are investigated here: (1) The u.s. strategy of withholding Macedonia’s recognition in 1992, (2) American diplomatic recognition of fyrom in 1994, (3) backtracking by the Clinton administration on its initial decision to extend full diplomatic relations to fyrom, (4) the extension of full diplomatic relations to the republic in 1995–96, and (5) President Bush’s recognition of Macedonia’s constitutional name in 2004. Using these five subunits of analysis, this chapter will evaluate whether Macedonia’s internal and external stability were the main factors explaining the American behaviour toward the republic across time and, more specifically, whether these factors account for the u.s. delay in diplomatic recognition. Competing propositions will also be measured. The facts show that the independence of Macedonia awakened the powerful Greek American lobby, which opposed, for historical reasons, the recognition of the Yugoslav republic under the name Macedonia. The strength of the Greek American community and its mobilization against recognition will allow a serious test of the validity of the ethnic-group hypotheses. The analysis will look at the evolution of the American stance toward Macedonia, to detect whether the pressure exercised by the Greek Americans may have caused the u.s. policy toward the issue to fluctuate over time. The ethnic-lobby argument is a serious alternative explanation for the u.s. response to Macedonia’s independence, since this case has been one of the standard bearers for the ethnic-lobby argument. Indeed, Macedonia has been one of the most frequently cited examples to support the ethnic lobby argument. Authors including

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Stephen Saideman, Paul Hockenos, John Shea, and Hanna Rosin have argued that the Greek-American lobby strongly influenced u.s. policy toward Macedonia.2 More specifically, they assert that the United States delayed the recognition of Macedonia’s independence because of the successful mobilization of the Greek Americans, who strongly opposed recognition. I propose, therefore, to evaluate this argument by bringing the theoretical debate to the forefront. As for the business interest argument, the fact that Macedonia’s secession originates from the same political context as that of Croatia and Slovenia limits the addition of new and relevant information to validate or refute this proposition. This chapter, therefore, provides only a brief treatment of this argument.

a q u ic k l ook at the secessi oni st cri si s Before the outbreak of the Yugoslav crisis in 1991, the Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia was in favour of the maintenance of a strong federal government. As Yugoslavia’s poorest republic and as one of the smallest in terms of population (around two million inhabitants), Macedonia greatly benefited from federal economic resources, as well as from Belgrade’s military protection. When Croatia and Slovenia raised their voices in favour of a Yugoslav confederal arrangement, however, the Macedonian government chose to support decentralization. Kiro Gligorov, the president of Macedonia, believed that by fulfilling Croatia’s and Slovenia’s political demands, Yugoslavia would remain united, which was in the best interest of his republic. Political events did not turn out as Gligorov expected, however. Consecutive meetings held by the presidents of the six Yugoslav republics in the spring of 1991 resulted in a major political failure to compromise on the country’s future. As seen in chapter 3, Serbia and Montenegro firmly rejected the idea of massive decentralization of federal powers and vetoed the election of the Croatian candidate to the rotating Yugoslav presidency. Moreover, Serbian officials declared that in the event that Yugoslavia did collapse, Serbia would annex the “artificial nation” of Macedonia to recreate the Greater Serbia of the pre-1945 era.3 The increasing domination of Serbia on the federal political scene and its overt territorial aspirations over Macedonia compelled Skopje to rethink its political

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options. In May of 1991, Gligorov declared that in the event of Croatian and Slovenian secession, Macedonia would follow suit to preserve itself from Serbia’s domination. When Croats and Slovenes seceded from Yugoslavia in June of 1991, the Macedonian parliament immediately adopted a declaration asserting Macedonia’s right to secede, and the government announced that a referendum on independence would be held.4 Macedonia participated nonetheless in political negotiations sponsored by the European Community in the summer of 1991 in the hope of finding a solution to the Yugoslav crisis. However, when the Serbian-dominated Yugoslav People’s Army (ypa) invaded Croatia, hope for a peaceful compromise vanished, and Macedonia chose the path to independence. The option of remaining within a reconfigured Yugoslav state controlled by Serbia was clearly not viable. As a result, a referendum on Macedonia’s independence was held in September of 1991 and secession was officially declared by the Macedonian parliament in November.5 The case of Macedonia is very similar to that of Croatia and Slovenia, to the extent that it emerged from the same constitutional crisis. What is different, however, is that Skopje did not achieve the same political outcome as the two northern republics. While Croatia and Slovenia were recognized as sovereign states by the European Community and by the United States, respectively in January and in April of 1992, Macedonia was left in the diplomatic waiting room, and Washington denied it recognition for more than two years. How can we explain this u.s. diplomatic deferral? Why is it that the Bush administration, which refused to deal separately with Croatia and Slovenia, withheld Macedonia’s recognition at the expense of increasing the insecurity and the vulnerability of the republic? This chapter provides an explanation.

episode 1: the bush administration’s delay of macedonia’s recognition The Yugoslav federation was in an advanced stage of disintegration when Macedonia declared its independence.6 In contrast to Croatia, and to a lesser extent Slovenia, Macedonia managed to break from Yugoslavia without any violence. By March 1992, the Macedonian government had removed all its representatives from feder-

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al institutions, and the Yugoslav People’s Army (ypa) had completed its withdrawal from the republic.7 The fact that the former ypa was already involved in a brutal war in Croatia (and later in Bosnia) partly explains Macedonia’s ability to secede peacefully. The peaceful and democratic nature of Macedonia’s secession placed the republic in a good position to be recognized by the United States. In early 1992, the Badinter Commission had ruled that Macedonia and Slovenia were the only two republics to meet the European criteria for state recognition.8 Macedonia was also in line with the principles included in the u.s. guidelines for state recognition (see chapter 3). Consequently, the Bush administration assessed that Macedonia was a first-rate candidate for diplomatic recognition, which would bolster its stability in an uncertain environment. The National Security Council (nsc) and the State Department thought that recognition should be granted, since it would bring greater stability to Macedonia by transforming its republican frontiers into international borders. Recognition was seen as a major deterrent against hypothetical Serbian or Greek aggression against Macedonia, which could have inflamed the South Balkans. In a note sent to Secretary of State James Baker in the winter of 1992, Deputy Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger warned that the non-recognition of Macedonia “could create real instability, which less than mature players in Serbia and Greece might decide to exploit.”9 Eagleburger also stated his appreciation of Macedonia’s process toward independence and praised what can be identified as the internal and the external stability of the republic. In terms of internal stability, Macedonia had held a successful referendum on independence with a majority of three-quarters in favour of it. The fact that Macedonia’s Albanian minority had boycotted the referendum was not raised by u.s. officials in the assessment of the stability of the republic. The Macedonian government had also achieved effective control of the republic’s territory, it respected internal borders, it guaranteed minority rights, and it was committed to liberal democracy. A new Macedonian constitution had also been adopted that guaranteed civil rights to all Macedonian citizens and described Macedonia as a civil state, as opposed to the “state of the Macedonian nation,” as it was previously defined, in order to reassure its own minorities.10 As for the external dimension of its stability, Macedonia had a well defined territory (i.e., it recognized republican borders) and

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respected international borders. The Macedonian government had also amended its constitution to prove that it had no irredentist ambitions toward Greece’s neighbouring province of the same name. The amendment denied any territorial ambitions, “prohibiting interference in the internal affairs of other states, and reaffirming the inviolability of existing frontiers.”11 The Entry of Greece: Instability Arises The Greek government of Prime Minister Constantine Mitsotakis quickly cast a shadow on Macedonia’s hope to achieve international recognition. Greece argued that because Macedonia was the name of its northern province, famously known for being the native soil of Alexander the Great and Aristotle, the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia had no right to refer to itself as “Macedonia.” Athens requested that the government of Skopje remove the word Macedonia from its constitutional name as a condition for recognition, even if the republic had adopted constitutional amendments to eliminate any irredentist suspicions that the Greek authorities may have had. As a member of the European Community, Greece led a vigorous campaign against recognition and managed to veto the ec decision to recognize the republic in the spring of 1992. Since Prime Minister Mitsotakis was an advocate of the Maastricht Treaty, ec members agreed to delay recognition of Macedonia in order to save the Mitsotakis government from falling. The name had become a burning political issue in Greece, and the option of supporting Macedonia’s recognition was politically untenable. Brussels also consented to delay recognition to preserve a single and united European front at the crucial time when the Common Foreign and Security Policy (cfsp) was coming into existense. In return, Mitsotakis consented to sign the Maastricht Treaty, which gave birth to the European Union, and supported ec economic sanctions against Serbia. Although the State Department and the nsc had initially concluded that Macedonia had fulfilled its stability criteria for recognition and that its diplomatic recognition would be the best option to reinforce stability in the South Balkans, the Bush administration reversed its initial decision and delayed recognition in April of 1992 because of growing political tension between Greece and Macedonia. Washington assessed that the government of Skopje was not in

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a position to demonstrate that no interstate war would occur with Greece. The Greek opposition had a major impact on the u.s. policy, not so much because the Bush administration was supportive of or empathetic with Athens’s position, but because the nsc feared that the recognition of Macedonia would intensify the already exacerbated Greek nationalist feeling toward the issue, and might provide the justification for a Greek-Macedonian conflict.12 Following Macedonia’s declaration of independence in 1991, hundreds of thousands of Greeks had demonstrated for months against Macedonia’s recognition, and the Greek army had been very active on the Macedonian border, conducting maneuvers to intimidate Skopje. The u.s. executive branch was also worried that a conflict between Greece and Macedonia could spark a regional conflict in which Greece and Turkey, two nato members, could clash against each other. The presence of a large Muslim minority in Macedonia provided for speculations in the State Department about a possible Turkish intervention on the side of Macedonia in the case of a conflict with Greece. As peace in the South Balkans was connected to the stability of Macedonia, the Bush administration withheld recognition. Two other factors contributed to the u.s. decision. First, Greece was a nato ally, and the United States had historically maintained close ties with Greek governments, which the Bush administration did not want to spoil by recognizing Macedonia. Second, the United States desired to act in conjunction with the Europeans on the issue. The United States and the ec (from now on the European Union – eu) had just ended their disagreement over the recognition of Bosnia, Croatia, and Slovenia in the spring of 1992, and President Bush was, therefore, reluctant to move unilaterally on Macedonia. One question remains, however: if the Bush administration believed that Macedonia deserved recognition in the fall of 1991, why did it not recognize the republic then? Why did the executive choose to wait until April 1992 to delay recognition? The u.s. administration made the decision in the fall of 1991 to wait for a general resolution of the Yugoslav war – which was raging in Croatia and was slowly moving to Bosnia – before extending recognition to Yugoslav republics like Macedonia. This conditionality of recognition was used to compel Yugoslav republics to peacefully resolve their conflict, which was expected to reduce the level of instability

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in the region. This strategy was dropped a few months later when the peaceful settlement of the Yugoslav conflict became unlikely as time went on. At this time, however, tensions between Greece and Macedonia had become a major concern for the Bush administration and prevented the United States from granting recognition to the republic. The first episode of this saga demonstrates that policies and politics obey very different rationales. On paper, Macedonia was a good candidate for recognition. In practice, however, the Macedonian issue threatened to destabilize the southern Balkans and, ironically enough, the peaceful Macedonian state turned out to be the only former Yugoslav republic that directly threatened the interest of a nato and an eu member state. In April 1992, the United States extended recognition to Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and Slovenia, but Macedonia was left in the diplomatic waiting room. The United States indicated that the purpose of the delay was to allow Greece and Macedonia to settle their dispute. In a letter sent to a member of Congress who requested that the State Department clarify its stance on Macedonia, acting assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs, Steven Berry, summarized the u.s. position: While the United States takes very seriously Greek concerns regarding its security and is sensitive to the Greek government’s concerns about the potential for instability on its northern border as violence in Yugoslavia continues, President Bush fully endorses Macedonian President Gligorov’s efforts to maintain calm and stability and to lead his people to full independence through negotiations with the ec. The United States in no way condones the spread of violence to Macedonia. Above all, we seek solutions which are acceptable to the ec, Greece, and Macedonia noting that a close and friendly relationship between Greece and Macedonia is an important element in Balkan stability and regional prosperity.13 This statement reveals the extent to which tensions between Athens and Skopje inhibited the United States from recognizing the republic. The Role of Greek Americans If the ethnic politics argument is right, withholding Macedonia’s recognition must have been influenced by the Greek American lobby

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which was categorically opposed to recognition. Evidence suggests, however, that the Greek diaspora was not an important factor in the u.s. cost-benefit analysis. The Greek American campaign against Macedonia’s recognition began only in the summer of 1992, a few weeks after the United States had decided to delay recognition. It was only then that the Greek Americans launched an aggressive campaign to transform President Bush’s policy into permanent rejection of Macedonia’s independence. The Hellenic-American National Council then sent letters to members of Congress and sponsored a rally in Washington, dc, against recognition, which brought together more than twenty-thousand Greek Americans.14 A Hellenic organization called the “Americans for the Just Resolution of the Macedonian Issue” even paid for two full-page advertisements in the New York Times to make its case against the recognition of Skopje under the name Macedonia, a manoeuvre directed toward President Bush. The organization argued that the “recognition of Skopje as the Republic of Macedonia would only legitimize its extremist and false claims upon sovereign Greek territory.”15 The mobilization of the Greek American lobby is undeniable, but it came only after the fact. The lobbying of the Hellenic community was not the cause of the delay. Moreover, no evidence indicates that this ethnic group had any impact on the u.s. decision to extend its delay. State Department archives on the issue, which were recently unclassified, do not suggest that the Greek American lobby played a role. Former nsc and State Department officials who were interviewed for this book indicate that this ethnic lobby was insignificant in the formulation of the u.s. response in 1992. According to David Gompert, who acted as the Senior Director for Europe and Eurasia in the National Security Council, the administration of George H.W. Bush was relatively insensitive to the Greek American lobby.16 Thomas Niles, the former under secretary of state for European affairs, concurs. In his view, the pressure exercised by the Greek Americans was not a major issue for the Bush administration.17 Of course, one could question the validity of their assessment, as Gompert and Niles were not neutral actors but government officials directly involved in the issue. However, the fact that these former officials acknowledged that the Greek Americans had a strong impact on the position of the White House in 1994, as episode 3 will demonstrate, enhances their credibility. This adds more weight to their claim that the ethnic group was not in the balance when President Bush delayed recognition in 1992. Thus, it

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appears that the ethnic domestic issue at stake was minor for the White House in comparison to international issues related to Macedonia’s stability. Enter President Clinton The Greek-Macedonian struggle reached new height in the summer of 1992, when Greece decided to close its border to the republic and impose an oil embargo. This decision came in response to Macedonia’s adoption of a new national flag that pictured the Star of Vergina, which appeared on the tomb of Philip of Macedon, father of Alexander the Great. This move was seen by the Greek authorities as a falsification of Greece’s history and a direct provocation. This event bolstered Greek nationalist passions and dashed hopes for a quick resolution of the conflict.18 It is at this time that Democratic president Bill Clinton was elected. The shift of political party in the White House did not result, however, in a transformation of the u.s. policy on Macedonia. Like the previous government, the Clinton administration emphasized the importance of regional stability to justify non-recognition of the republic. As time went on, however, and as the conflict resulting from Yugoslavia’s disintegration threatened to consume the whole southern Balkans, the u.s. interest in the region slowly moved from a peripheral to a core concern. As the u.s. recognition of Macedonia depended on the resolution of the Greek-Macedonian dispute, the Clinton administration made two important decisions that strengthened the stability of the republic without aggravating the tense political situation with Greece. First, the White House consented to send u.s. troops to the Macedonian republic as a substitute for diplomatic recognition in order to reinforce Macedonia’s security. As Richard Holbrooke points out: “The situation was so explosive that the United States made its only exception to the policy of not sending troops to the region … in order to prevent the war in Bosnia from spreading to the south and igniting a general Balkan conflict.”19 This decision came after the Central Intelligence Agency (cia) had warned the White House that a Serbian attack on Macedonia was imminent and that this conflict could consume the region. In May of 1993, three hundred u.s. soldiers joined the United Nations Protection Force (unprofor) for Macedonia, which already numbered seven hundred un

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troops.20 The deployment of these troops along the Macedonian border with Serbia gives a clear indication of the importance that the United States placed on the stability of the republic, especially given that the government of Skopje had not formulated demands for any u.s. protection force. This decision was part of the u.s. containment strategy, which attempted to build a cordon sanitaire around Serbia to prevent Milosevic’s regime from committing further aggression. The decision was also driven by President Clinton’s need to be pro-active in the region at a time when members of Congress were upset about the brutal ethnic strife in the Balkans and the lack of u.s. executive action in this regard. This measure, however, placed the Clinton administration in a very odd position, as American troops were sent to protect the territorial integrity of a state that the United States did not recognize. Second, the Clinton administration agreed to sponsor the admission of Macedonia to the United Nations in April of 1993. The objective here was to encourage Greece and Macedonia to settle the name issue through the auspices of the United Nations. Greece had reluctantly agreed to the un admission of the Yugoslav Republic under the provisional name Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (fyrom), in order to show its good faith and its will to resolve the issue. Macedonia was thus admitted under the name fyrom as the 181st member of the un through a Security Council resolution. Macedonia’s admission allowed the United States (and eu members) to advance its stability agenda in the Balkans without increasing tensions between Athens and Skopje. Welcoming fyrom as a member of the un also bolstered the stability of the republic by underlying the inevitability of its independence. This was achieved without compelling the Clinton administration to reverse its official position on the issue.21

episode 2: president clinton’s recognition of macedonia as fyrom Toward the end of 1993, six members of the eu (Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain, Italy, and the Netherlands) disregarded Greece’s sensibilities toward Macedonia and recognized its independence under the name fyrom.22 This decision was prompted by Greece’s suspension of its negotiations with Macedonia under the

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supervision of the un, which upset eu members and the United States. Moreover, the eu was dissatisfied overall with Greece’s counter productive campaign on the name issue, which impeded progress on the matter for almost two years. The non-recognition of Macedonia also had a negative effect on the u.s./eu attempt to strengthen un sanctions against Serbia in 1992-93. Indeed, since Macedonia was not recognized and could not, therefore, obtain economic support from the United States or from international economic organizations, Skopje was compelled to violate un sanctions by trading with Serbia in order to sustain its economy. The decision of eu members to disregard Greece’s objection created a window of opportunity for Washington. The Clinton administration had the option to move, along with the Europeans, to advance its stability agenda in the Balkans without being condemned by Greece as the instigator of the measure. The timing for recognition was also better than in 1992, since tensions between Greece and Macedonia had significantly diminished now that the two parties had undertaken negotiations under un auspices. In early 1994, Washington decided to follow eu members, despite Greece’s strong resistance. The Clinton administration justified its decision to recognize fyrom by stating that there was “a potential for instability to grow” in the South Balkans and that the recognition of the republic as a sovereign state would increase its stability. The White House emphasized the internal and the external stability of the republic in the justification of its decision: Today, the United States extended formal recognition to the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and declared its intent to establish full diplomatic relations … This action will help promote stability in the region. We join nearly every other country of Europe in taking this step. In extending formal recognition, we have taken into account the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’s commitment to peaceful cooperative relations and its respect for the territorial integrity of all of its neighbors, and the inviolability of existing boundaries … We recognize that Greece and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia have outstanding differences which we expect will be resolved through good faith negotiations … We also take note of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’s commitment to democratic principles, to human rights, to the creation of an

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open, free market economy and to its desire to seek peaceful solutions to problems in the regions.23 Matthew Nimetz, who was President Clinton’s special envoy to Macedonia in charge of the Greek-Macedonia crisis in 1993–94, confirms that recognition had first and foremost the objective of fostering Macedonia’s stability. The purpose was “to reinforce the recognition of sovereignty and to give them the Macedonians equality with countries that might be hostile.”24 Greece’s reaction to the u.s. decision was immediate. President Clinton was depicted as a traitor, and the u.s. consulate in Thessaloniki was attacked by angry Greek protesters, who threw eggs at the consulate’s windows. More importantly, and as a direct reaction to the u.s. recognition of fyrom, Greek prime minister Andreas Papandreou – who had defeated Mitsotakis in the 1993 election – announced the imposition of a major trade embargo against Macedonia to retaliate against Washington’s recognition of the republic.25 Greek Americans vs. Macedonian Americans The decision to recognize fyrom’s independence was made despite the strong opposition expressed by the Greek American community. This indicates that the Greek diaspora failed to transform the u.s. delay into permanent non-recognition of Macedonia. But could the mobilization of the Macedonian American community have triggered this policy shift? According to Ivan A. Lebamov, president of the Macedonian Patriotic Organization (mpo), even if they were not a unified group, the Macedonian Americans played a significant role in the u.s. recognition of fyrom. The Macedonian Patriotic Organization, a pro-Macedonian association based in Indiana, whose central aim was to promote Macedonia’s independence, lobbied several members of Congress, and “there were many trips to Washington, thousands of letters, hundreds of faxes and tons of paper used by the Macedonian Tribune,” the mpo’s newspaper, to promote the independence of the republic.26 It is clear for Lebamov that the Macedonian Americans played a key role in the u.s. decision to recognize the republic. The mpo, however, was the only significant political organization in 1994 that promoted Macedonian American interests in Wash-

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ington.27 Moreover, during their battle for recognition the Macedonian Americans, who numbered less than forty thousand, were competing against the Greek American lobby, one of the most effective ethnic groups in Washington, which represents around three million Americans (the largest Greek community outside of Greece).28 If the Greek Americans, who had strong connections in both Houses of Congress and ties to an influential member of the White House staff (President Clinton’s senior advisor George Stephanopoulos), failed to dissuade President Clinton from recognizing fyrom, it is very unlikely that the Macedonian Americans were able to influence the White House. Indeed, we can seriously doubt that the White House made the calculation that it would be profitable to please the Macedonian Americans at the expense of alienating the large Greek American community in a mid-term election year. The second episode of the saga suggests once again that the United States is a stability-seeking state that focused on Macedonia’s internal and external stability. These considerations shaped the u.s. response to the controversial Macedonian question, and the efforts of the Greek American lobby to influence the course of that policy remained a peripheral concern.

episode 3: the backtracking of the clinton administration The recognition of fyrom had a major impact on the mobilization of the Greek Americans. Within a few days, the American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association collected thirty thousand signatures against President Clinton’s decision.29 Several leaders of the community, including Representative Michael Bilirakis of Florida and Senator Paul Sarbanes of Maryland, asked President Clinton to reverse his decision and managed to convince George Stephanopoulos to consult President Clinton about it. Members of a national Hellenic group also pressured the u.s. Congress “to urge that President Clinton rescind American recognition of the Republic of Macedonia,” which led Congress to pass a resolution asking the president to reconsider the decision.30 Under the auspices of George Stephanopoulos, leaders of the Greek American community (Greek Orthodox Archbishop

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Iakovos, Senator Sarbanes, and a dozen prominent Greek Americans) managed to meet with President Clinton in a private meeting at the White House to discuss the Macedonian problem. The meeting was attended by Vice-President Al Gore and National Security advisor Anthony Lake. Neither Secretary of State Warren Christopher nor any State Department officials were present. Following the meeting, President Clinton backtracked from his initial decision to extend full diplomatic relations to fyrom (e.g., to send an ambassador and open an embassy in Skopje). The president indicated that no ambassador would be sent to Skopje as long as the name and the flag issue remained unresolved between Greece and Macedonia. Interagency Disagreement By delaying the establishment of diplomatic relations with fyrom, President Clinton was hoping to avoid further antagonizing the Greek American community. This decision, however, led to an important interagency disagreement between the White House and the State Department. Following the u.s. recognition of fyrom in February of 1994, Secretary of State Christopher had urged President Clinton to name an ambassador to Skopje to give added weight to recognition. Officials from the State Department were therefore upset about the drastic turn of events and openly denounced the White House decision, contending that President Clinton was “bowing” to pressure from the Greek Americans. Former secretary of state James Baker also characterized the Clinton administration as “confused” and “inconsistent” on the issue and accused the president of “failure to stand up to pressure from the Greek American community.”31 In an article in the Washington Post, State Department officials were quoted as declaring that to delay establishing full diplomatic relations with Macedonia would empower and legitimate Greece’s recent decision to impose a trade embargo against Macedonia.32 Facing this interagency discord, the White House defended its decision by pointing out that it had succeeded in reaching a middle ground. Its recognition of the republic satisfied the need for greater stability in the South Balkans, and the delay in sending an ambassador satisfied the Greek American community. White House officials also argued that the maintenance of the decision to recognize

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fyrom was a clear demonstration that the administration had not “caved in to political pressure.”33 The Impact of Greek Americans on the Process The intervention of the Greek American community did cause the reversal of President Clinton’s decision to establish diplomatic relations with fyrom. However, the United States did not reverse its recognition of the republic. As President Clinton’s nsc advisor, Anthony Lake, points out, this decision did not signify a “reversal of course.”34 Even if Greek American pressure slowed the process by which full diplomatic relations were established following fyrom’s recognition, it failed to stop it. In fact, the Greek Americans were condemned to lose the battle over the recognition of Macedonia. They managed to win a fight by making the Clinton administration retreat from its earlier decision to send an ambassador, but they could hardly manage to win the war of recognition.

episode 4: the u.s. extension of f u l l d i pl omati c relati ons to fyrom In the months following the admission of fyrom to the United Nations, talks hosted by the un on the name issue failed to produce any significant progress. Things started to move forward in the fall of 1995, however, when u.s. assistant secretary of state Richard Holbrooke (who was working on a peace plan to end the Bosnian war) undertook discussions with Greek and Macedonian leaders. After a few back-and-forth visits to Skopje and Athens, Holbrooke squared the circle by persuading Greece and Macedonia to sign an interim agreement of mutual recognition in which they consented to normalize their relations. Under this agreement, the two states agreed to recognize their mutual frontiers, the inviolability of their borders, and their respective independence. Macedonia also agreed to adopt a new flag, and, in return, Athens lifted its economic embargo.35 The two states also exchanged liaison officers and agreed to begin commercial negotiations. More importantly, both parties began serious negotiations on the name issue. It was in the context of mutual agreement between Greece and Macedonia that the United States established diplomatic relations

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with fyrom at the ambassadorial level by upgrading its liaison office to an embassy in February of 1996. The u.s. decision was made after both parties had shown a clear commitment to respect each other’s sovereignty and had made efforts to find a solution to the name dispute. This interim accord was the piece of the puzzle that could guarantee interstate stability in the South Balkans. As a result of the accord, political tensions dropped significantly and virtually eliminated the probability of an interstate conflict between the two states.36 For Matthew Nimetz, who became un special envoy to Macedonia in 1994, the establishment of a u.s. embassy in Skopje greatly strengthened the security of the Macedonian state. He indicates that “in smaller countries, you have to understand how important it is to have an Ambassador of the large superpower and until that happens there is always a question of whether there will be support for the very survival of the country. And this is a country in the Balkans that never had a history of being an independent country. So, I think that it was a high priority in Skopje to have not only formal u.s. recognition, and a membership in the un, but a tangible u.s. demonstration of support.”37 After signing the accord with Athens, Macedonia was also able to internationalize and to institutionalize its status as a sovereign state by joining a series of international organizations such as the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (osce), and nato’s Partnership for Peace (pfp).

episode 5: the u.s. recognition of fyrom as t h e r e p u b l i c o f m ac e d o n i a The fifth and last episode of the Macedonian saga took place under the presidency of George W. Bush. It concerns u.s. recognition of the fyrom as the Republic of Macedonia, which, at the time of this writing, is still opposed by Greece. Conventionally, the diplomatic recognition of a new state comes with the recognition of its constitutional name. Macedonia once again failed to experience the conventional process of recognition, as the United States recognized its constitutional name ten years after it recognized its independence. The question to ask here is why the United States suddenly felt the need to recognize the name Macedonia while Athens and Skopje

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had still not entirely resolved their dispute regarding this issue? This is even more puzzling considering that the eu members were waiting for a final agreement on the name before completing Macedonia’s recognition process. What kind of incentives led the United States to make such a bold decision? Once again, defensive positionalism offers an explanation. Macedonia’s Growing Instability Following its independence, Macedonia faced growing internal divisions between some elements of the Christian Orthodox majority and the Muslim Albanian minority. Ethnic Albanians were poorly represented within Macedonia’s institutions, and only a few government ministers were Albanian Muslims. In the second half of the 1990s, some ethnic Albanians rose up against the discrimination and began to express their grievances more vocally. They requested more political autonomy and better constitutional recognition. Macedonia soon went from the status of a secessionist state struggling for independence to a host state facing an Albanian autonomist movement. The growing political tension in Macedonia eventually led to ethnic violence in early 2001. Ethnic Albanian insurgents formed a paramilitary force, the National Liberation Army (nla), and launched several attacks in the northwest of the republic. The conflict produced more than 120,000 displaced persons before a ceasefire between the nla and the Macedonian authorities could be reached in July.38 With the assistance of special representatives from the United States and the eu, a political accord known as the Ohrid Agreement was signed in August.39 The implementation of the accord, however, was more difficult than expected. Although the agreement had officially put an end to the crisis, ethnic tensions persisted, and a significant portion of the Christian Orthodox majority opposed certain dispositions of the agreement. One of the central political contentions dividing many Orthodox and Muslim members of the population concerned the modification of the municipal boundaries, which was to give more power to the ethnic Albanians in important Macedonian cities. In the summer of 2004, Orthodox nationalists mobilized and called for a referendum on a proposal to override a decentralization law that was to redraw certain municipal boundaries. Ten days before the referendum, opin-

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ion polls showed that no less than 43.5 percent of Macedonians would oppose the decentralization law. The referendum threatened to put an end to the three-year peace agreement that had been sponsored in 2001 by the United States and the eu. In early November 2004, officials from the Macedonian government called on the Bush administration for help and support.40 As a key instigator of the Ohrid peace plan, the u.s. administration saw the accord as the best way to preserve stability in the South Balkans. The agreement was seen in Washington as Macedonia’s first step toward a successful multi-ethnic state and as the only solution that would ensure Macedonia’s eventual integration into the eu and nato. The State Department was worried that if the referendum was won, it might destabilize Macedonia and that ethnic conflicts might resurface. In this context, the Macedonian issue literally became a short-term crisis management issue for the u.s. administration.41 On 3 November, the day after the re-election of President George W. Bush, members of the State Department and the nsc met to discuss measures to secure the survival of the Ohrid agreement. During the meeting, the option of recognizing Macedonia’s constitutional name was retained as a measure to appease Orthodox nationalists who had been struggling for the right to use the name Macedonia since the independence of the republic in 1991. Recognition was expected to bring more confidence to the Christian majority, as well as more evidence of United States support for Macedonia’s territorial integrity. This explains why the recognition of the constitutional name was warranted in 2004, as opposed to 2001, when domestic political tensions exploded. Recognition in 2001 would have been an inappropriate measure for bolstering internal stability. The Albanian minority was discontented with its political status within Macedonia, and the recognition of the constitutional name could have been interpreted as a proOrthodox measure. Certain members of the State Department who attended the meeting pointed out, however, that the Greek American community would clearly be angry at the United States if the Bush administration was to move on with recognition.42 Despite this domestic consideration, Secretary of State Colin Powell advised President Bush to extend recognition. The decision was made in a short time and resulted from a relatively large consensus between the State Department and the nsc. It is not a coincidence that the Bush

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administration went ahead with the recognition twenty-four hours after the u.s. presidential election. The administration knew that the decision would alienate the Greek American community and was aware that it would have been politically costly to make such a unilateral decision before the election. At the State Department daily press briefing that followed the u.s. decision, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher declared: The fact that the [Macedonian] referendum is coming up is part of the equation. We are certainly looking for ways to support the full implementation of the Ohrid Agreements, including the decentralization that’s so important to that, and we felt therefore this was the appropriate time to take the step … The point is to show support for a multiethnic society in Macedonia as they proceed in a direction that we feel contributes to their own stability and the stability of the region, and by taking this step in terms of recognizing Macedonia under its chosen name we feel that we bolster that progress.43 For the first time since the break-up of Yugoslavia, the United States had made a decision on recognition without consulting its European counterparts beforehand. The United States did not attempt to bring eu countries on board because it had no wish to offend and isolate Greece, which still opposed the fyrom’s use of the name Macedonia. The Bush administration, however, was so determined to save the Ohrid agreement that it informed the Greek government of its decision to recognize Macedonia only once the decision was made, a lack of delicacy that infuriated Athens. As much as Secretary of State Colin Powell repeated that the u.s. decision “was not aimed at upsetting Greece,” this did not prevent Athens from taking offence at the u.s. decision.44 The Greek government declared that regardless of the u.s. stance on the issue, it would not recognize the fyrom as the Republic of Macedonia and that it would oppose its integration into the eu and nato as long as a compromise was not reached on the name of the republic. This last episode of the saga shows that the u.s. cost-benefit analysis produced a different outcome from the one reached ten years earlier. It was more important in 2004 to foster Macedonia’s internal order and cohesion than to manage Greece’s feelings toward the issue. This can be explained by the fact that the Greek-

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Macedonian tension of the early 1990s, which inhibited President H.W. Bush from recognizing the republic, was much less significant in 2004. Indeed, as a result of the 1995 interim accord, Athens and Skopje had normalized their relations, and Greece had become the largest economic investor in Macedonia. In the late 1990s, the two states also agreed to build an oil pipeline that crossed both states and signed a bilateral security accord. Moreover, Greece had supported the Macedonian government during the 2001 conflict against nla insurgents.45 This growing economic and military interdependence made any interstate conflict very unlikely, and this explains why this factor was no longer part of the u.s. cost-benefit analysis. The Macedonian referendum proposal to overturn decentralization was ultimately defeated on 7 November 2004 because of a low turnout. It is difficult to measure whether the u.s. decision to recognize Macedonia really had affected the referendum result. We can assume, however, that it did influence the outcome in a positive way as supporters of the proposal to override the decentralization law were fewer than polls had shown the week before. According to James Pettifer, “The great short term achievement of the American recognition decision is that it cut the ground from under the feet of the rejectionists in the Slavophone community, and reinforced the minority who are prepared to accept, if not like, the Ochrid Accords.”46 Those who saw the u.s. move as a reward for Macedonia’s help during the Kosovo war and for its support in the invasion of Iraq in 2003 have misread the meaning of Bush’s decision. As a defensive positional state, the u.s. extended recognition to help maintain Macedonia’s internal stability and reinforce order within the region. This episode shows that recognition was a tool to foster the American stability interests in the Balkans and that this focus remained consistent over the years. The Second Crusade of the Greek Americans Twenty-four hours after the Bush administration recognized the Republic of Macedonia, the head of the Greek-American Church, Archbishop Demetrios, sent a letter to President Bush asking him to revoke his decision. Ten days later, Archbishop Demetrios, accompanied by members of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese and Greek

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American leaders from Boston, New York, and Washington, dc, met with top u.s. officials hoping to persuade them to change their mind. At the State Department, the Greek American lobby met in private with Secretary Colin Powell, Undersecretary for Political Affairs Marc Grossman, and Assistant Secretary for European Affairs Elizabeth Jones.47 During the meeting, Powell explained that the decision to recognize the name was irrevocable. According to a State Department official, Secretary Powell declared, “We knew that the decision would create great pain to you but we had no choice. The objective was to reinforce stability in Macedonia.”48 The Greek American delegation then headed to the nsc to meet with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. Deputy National Security Advisor Fran Townsend and President Bush’s senior political advisor Karl Rove attended the meeting. Once more, the archbishop asked that the u.s. revoke its decision but received the same answer from the nsc. The delegation finally went on to Capitol Hill to meet with Greek Americans from the House of Representatives and to conduct strategic meetings with Greek American senator Paul Sarbanes from Maryland. In the weeks following its visit to Washington, the Greek American delegation sent numerous letters to members of Congress in an ultimate attempt to influence the White House decision. Despite the time and energy spent, the Greek American lobby failed to modify the u.s. decision to recognize the Republic of Macedonia.

regional stability or ethnic politics? The within-case analysis performed suggests that the quest for regional stability is the main factor explaining the u.s. delay of Macedonia’s recognition. The search for the stabilization of the South Balkans was consistent during most of the Macedonian saga. Recognition was initially delayed in large part because it would have encouraged the possibility of a military conflict between Greece and Macedonia. Then recognition was conferred on the fyrom in 1994 in order to reduce its vulnerability to Serbian aggression once the prospect of a war with Greece became less of a concern and once Macedonia could guarantee that no interstate war would occur. Diplomatic relations were extended in 1996 once a u.s.-sponsored agreement reinforced stability in the region by opening a constructive dialogue between Greece and Macedonia.

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Finally, the constitutional name of the republic was recognized by Washington in 2004 in an attempt to secure the implementation of the Ohrid agreement, which aimed to strengthen the internal stability of the republic and, by extension, prevent disorder from spreading in the South Balkans. The facts conform to the initial hypotheses of this book: as a stability-seeking power, the United States only recognizes the independence of a secessionist state that can simultaneously maintain its internal and its external stability. In the case where stability would not be guaranteed by the secessionists, the u.s. maintains the status quo and/or delays recognition. This chapter also demonstrates that the three successive presidencies that tackled the controversial Macedonian question (i.e., those of George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and George W. Bush) made a connection between the internal and the external dimensions of Macedonia’s stability and that this connection guided the American response toward this emerging state.49 This chapter also shows that the fluctuation of the u.s. position over time was caused not by a disparity in u.s. foreign policy interests but rather by a consistent set of preferences that produced different outcomes depending on the nature of each intra-case analyzed. The research also cast serious doubt on the validity of the ethnicpolitics argument for explaining u.s. behaviour toward secessionist movements. The case of Macedonia is, therefore, important for theory development. Indeed, the stability-seeking argument challenges the reliability of the ethnic-lobby proposition used to explain the u.s. behaviour toward Macedonia, a case that is often brought up by the advocates of this liberal argument. The Greek American lobby was not a major variable in the Bush administration’s decision to delay recognition in 1992. This lobby failed to prevent President Clinton from recognizing the independence of the republic in 1994 and failed again ten years later when it attempted to reverse George W. Bush’s decision to recognize Macedonia’s constitutional name. The Greek Americans had an impact only in one specific instance, that is on the u.s. decision to delay the extension of full diplomatic relations to the fyrom in March 1994. Thus, even though the Greek Americans exerted more pressure on the u.s. government and represented more American voters than the Macedonian Americans, the position of the u.s. government did not reflect their interests. Although one would expect the ethnic argument to

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perform well in the Macedonian case owing to the strength of the Greek American community in Washington, this chapter shows that this proposition performs poorly overall.

the business interest argument Chapter 3 has shown that the Bush administration had a clear preference for Yugoslavia’s unity but that the business interest model developed by David Gibbs did not account for this inclination nor for the reversal of policy that led the United States to recognize Croatia and Slovenia in 1992. This argument faces the same problem in the present case study. How could private business interests explain the u.s. delay of Macedonia’s recognition for almost two years while Yugoslavia had already ceased to exist? The United States had no economic investment in Macedonia in the years following its independence. Marshall Freeman Harris, who accompanied u.s. Ambassador Robert Frowick to Skopje in 1992 to establish an observation mission of the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe (csce), recalls that “we were virtually the only Westerners in town” and that “there was only an American library in the city,” illustrating the absence of u.s. private investors in the republic.50 In fact, if top u.s. officials had been involved in multinational corporations that were interested in doing business with Macedonia, we can assume that the u.s. government would logically have been opposed to the Greek economic embargo against the republic in 1992 and in 1994. The American government would have also certainly been eager to recognize the independence of Macedonia in order to provide development aid to sustain its economy. This, however, did not happen. Thus, the empirical evidence tends to invalidate the business interests hypotheses. The business interest argument, however, was seriously raised in 2004 to explain the u.s. decision to recognize the constitutional name of the republic. John Phillips argues, for instance, that the Bush administration was really concerned about the stability of Macedonia because its interest lay in the construction of a 1.13 billion dollar pipeline that would run from the Black Sea to the Adriatic to supply the u.s. demands for oil. Phillips writes, “American commercial interests in Macedonia center on a project to build a trans-Balkan pipeline designed to secure a passage for oil from the

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Caspian Sea.”51 It was expected that the pipeline would run through Albania, Bulgaria, and Macedonia and that it would transport oil extracted in Central Asia. In February 2005, three months after the u.s. recognition of Macedonia’s constitutional name, the president and ceo of the Albanian-Macedonian-Bulgarian Oil Corporation (ambo), Edward Ferguson, indicated that he was negotiating with Exxon Mobil and Chevron Texaco to build the line.52 One can, therefore, wonder whether the decision to recognize Macedonia’s name had as its main objective the preservation of internal stability in the republic in order to maintain the confidence of private investors. This argument was, however, strongly refuted by State Department officials.53 It is a fact that the u.s. government ordered studies to evaluate the feasibility of the project (the u.s. Trade and Development Agency had published papers on the issue in May 2000), but the trans-Balkan pipeline project was apparently not part of the decision to recognize Macedonia’s constitutional name.54 The project was apparently not even raised as a concern when u.s. officials debated the issue of recognition in November of 2004. And when I asked whether u.s. officials had personal economic interests in corporations that were doing business with Macedonia in 2004, without surprise a State Department official replied, “You are totally off the track.”55 The constraints of space and time do not allow me to provide a definitive answer to whether private economic interests affected the u.s. position on the constitutional name issue in 2004. This question deserves further investigation. This chapter demonstrates, however, that profound security issues were related to the survival of the Macedonian state and that these issues were at the center of the u.s. decision-making process. In this context, it appears very unlikely that any economic interests that governmental officials could have had in the first years of this century were important enough to influence the course of u.s. decision making toward Macedonia.

conclusion This chapter shows that the defensive realist paradigm is useful in explaining the United States response to the Macedonian saga. Indeed, the United States acted along the lines of defensive positionalism, as Joseph Grieco and Michael Mastanduno would pre-

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dict. At first glance, the evolution of the American policy toward Macedonia seems rather inconsistent. The u.s. response went from a withholding policy in the early 1990s to a unilateral recognition of Macedonia’s constitutional name in 2004. The analysis demonstrates, however, that the search for the stabilization of the South Balkans was consistent during most of the Macedonian saga. As for competing domestic propositions, this case study invalidates the ethnic group hypotheses and partly suggests that business interests did not affect u.s. foreign policy.

5 Kosovo: The Long March toward U.S. Recognition

introduction The United States recognized the secession of Kosovo from Serbia in 2008, after having been opposed to it since the collapse of Yugoslavia in 1991. The purpose of this chapter is straightforward. Its aim is to answer two simple and interrelated questions: What have the core u.s. interests been toward the issue of Kosovo’s secession? And how can we explain the u.s. policy shift toward it? Although the issue of Kosovo’s self-determination is well documented and a lot has been published on the 1999 nato intervention against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (fry), no research has provided a sound, comprehensible, and exhaustive answer to these research questions. This chapter demonstrates the consistent approach of successive u.s. administrations to strengthening stability in Kosovo and explains how the United States came to perceive the recognition of Kosovo’s unilateral secession as the only viable option to promote stability. In the last section, the chapter evaluates the importance of u.s. ethnic lobbies in the formulation of the American policy toward Kosovo. In contrast to the two previous chapters, however, the business interest argument is not addressed here. The Kosovo crisis does not allow validation or refutation of David Gibbs’s argument according to which American policy toward secessionist movements reflects the interest of corporations with which u.s. foreign policy makers share strong ties. Indeed, there were virtually no u.s. business interests in Serbia or in Kosovo during the 1990s. The disintegration of Yugoslavia, the war in Bosnia, and the Kosovo crisis repelled u.s. private investors.1 Moreover, throughout most of the 1990s, the United States maintained economic sanctions against

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Belgrade, which inhibited multinational corporations from investing in the fry.2 Thus, Kosovo is not a fertile ground on which the business argument can be seriously evaluated.

the difficult case of kosovo The adoption of a new Yugoslav constitution in 1974 gave considerable political autonomy to Kosovo. The status of a republic was never conferred on the province, however, and it remained part of Serbia, mainly because ethnic Albanians, who formed the majority of the Kosovo population, were recognized as a national minority rather than as a Yugoslav nation.3 Nevertheless, Serbia perceived Kosovo’s constitutional gains as a political loss over its own republican affairs. Tensions rose in the 1980s between the ethnic Albanian majority – who controlled Kosovo’s political institutions – and Kosovo Serbs.4 Ethnic Albanians wanted Kosovo to be recognized as a full Yugoslav republic, while Kosovo Serbs argued that they were discriminated against and repressed by the Albanian-dominated authorities. These political tensions were further intensified by the political ascension of Slobodan Milosevic, who became president of Serbia in 1987. Milosevic made himself the defender of the Serbian minority of Kosovo and engaged his regime in a re-conquest of Serbia’s control over the autonomous province. In 1989, the Kosovo Assembly was forced to vote for a constitutional amendment that revoked the autonomy of the province.5 Milosevic argued that the intervention of Serbia within Kosovo’s internal affairs was necessary to counter Albanian secessionism and to end the Albanian repression of the Serbian minority. The decision to repeal Kosovo’s autonomy initiated a sequence of events that further antagonized Serbs and Albanians. In July of 1990, the provincial Assembly of Kosovo unilaterally declared the province an independent Yugoslav republic.6 Belgrade reacted to the secessionist attempt by dissolving the provincial government of Kosovo and by taking executive and administrative control of the province. A new Serbian constitution was adopted, which defined Kosovo as a region within the Serbian Republic.7 This led Kosovo Albanian deputies in exile to create the Assembly of the Republic of Kosovo, which had its headquarters in Zagreb (Croatia). Kosovo Albanians launched a campaign of civil disobedience and refused to

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be involved in the official state structures controlled by Belgrade. The Democratic League of Kosovo (ldk), headed by Ibrahim Rugova, put in place a set of parallel institutions (including schools, hospitals, and local governments) that coexisted with the official state structure.8 Although Belgrade declared these institutions illegal, Milosevic never used force to bring them down, mainly because Rugova’s opposition movement was peaceful and Belgrade was able to keep control of the province without military intervention.9 The disintegration of Yugoslavia, however, which began with the secession of Croatia and Slovenia in the summer of 1991, radically modified the political calculation of Kosovo Albanians. With the departure of the northern republics, there was no longer a counterweight to Serbia’s political power within the federation. In this context, members of the Kosovo Assembly in exile in Croatia adopted a declaration of independence from the rump Yugoslav federation, and in late September of 1991 the assembly organized a non-authorized referendum across Kosovo to validate the declaration. Among the 87 percent of Kosovars who cast their ballot, 99.87 percent voted for independence.10 Belgrade immediately declared the referendum unconstitutional and the declaration of independence “null and void.” Despite Serbia’s opposition, the Assembly of Kosovo officially declared the independence of the province in October of 1991. A few days later, Albania became the first and only state to recognize Kosovo’s independence.

the u.s. response: no to secession but no to aggression The administration of George H.W. Bush initially followed the European Community’s leadership on the Yugoslav crisis and rejected Kosovo’s request for international recognition. The argument put forward by Brussels was that Kosovo was an integral part of Serbia, rather than a constituent republic of the Yugoslav federation and, therefore, that it did not have the right to secede.11 This legal argument, however, was used as a tool to avoid endless division of the Yugoslav territory. The argument was mainly rhetorical and was more a reflection of Washington’s will to follow the ec leadership than the expression of a well defined policy. According to a top advisor to President Clinton and Secretary of State Albright for Kosovo, “it was easy to base a decision on the fact that Kosovo

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was different from the Yugoslav republics … It was a convenient way of making a distinction, which served a purpose. The analysis was that the recognition of Kosovo’s independence would create more conflict, more violence, and more confrontation in the region.”12 The United States adopted a more proactive approach toward the Yugoslav crisis when the conflict in Croatia spread to Bosnia and expanded the zone of instability. The American position, which until then had echoed the ec legal assessment of the right of each Yugoslav republic to secede, was replaced by a more geostrategic and pragmatic assessment of the conflict. In the spring of 1992, the main questions tackled by the u.s. National Security Council and the State Department were how to terminate the war in Yugoslavia and how to stabilize the Balkan region. It was with these puzzles in mind that the United States approached the Kosovo crisis. The Maintenance of External Stability by the FRY In the fall of 1992, the Bush administration evaluated the internal and external stability of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Although Belgrade was using political repression against Kosovo Albanians and depriving them of their basic constitutional rights, Serbia was able to contain the effects of the Kosovar secessionist crisis within its national borders. As Secretary of State Madeleine Albright writes in her memoir, “Kosovo was extremely tense but not at war.”13 Slobodan Milosevic was also able to preserve the external stability of the fry. There was no flow of Kosovo-Albanian refugees crossing international borders (unlike in Bosnia and Croatia) or any other type of interstate disruption. As a central state, the fry succeeded where the former Yugoslav federation had failed in 1991. As seen in chapter 3, the Yugoslav People’s Army had intervened to prevent the secession of Croatia and Slovenia. This response provoked internal disorder (especially in Croatia) and external instability, as a large number of refugees crossed the border to find safe haven in Hungary, Austria, and Germany. In the case of the fry, the declaration of independence of Kosovo did not produce war or significant disruption, and as a result, the United States maintained its support for the fry. Moreover, the idea of recognizing Kosovo’s secession was perceived as the worst option for stability in the Balkans. In a region

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where ethnicity and borders did not match, the cohesion and survival of the states surrounding Kosovo (i.e., Albania, Bosnia, and Macedonia) became a central geopolitical concern in Washington, and the recognition of Kosovo was perceived as a threat to the cohesion of neighbouring states. In a cable sent to the u.s. Embassy in Belgrade, Secretary of State Eagleburger wrote, “While there is terrible human suffering in Bosnia, Kosovo exceeds its potential for destabilizing the area beyond former-Yugoslavia’s borders. The u.s. supports restoration of Kosovo’s autonomy, but is not in favor of independence.” Then he added that “nothing should be done that would encourage the Kosovars to rebel. They would be crushed.”14 In addition to Secretary Eagleburger’s opposition to Kosovo’s independence, the u.s. embassy in Belgrade concluded in an analysis that “a shift in Western policy to support Kosovo independence … could embolden Albanian extremists and/or trigger an irrational response from Milosevic (or local Serb extremists) that would have the support of most Serbs and provoke the feared confrontation.”15 If the White House was against Kosovo’s secession, it also made it clear that it was opposed to Serbia’s military repression against Kosovo Albanians. In late December of 1992, the u.s. secretary of state Lawrence Eagleburger sent a warning to Serbian president Milosevic – known as the Christmas Warning – in which he informed Belgrade that the United States would not hesitate to use force against Serbia if it ever used military repression against Kosovo.16 This warning, which became an integral part of the u.s. policy toward Kosovo, was reaffirmed by Secretary of State Warren Christopher a few weeks after President Clinton took office. The destabilizing effect of a potential Serbian attack against Kosovo was seen in Washington as a direct threat to the stability of the Balkans and, by extension, to the stability of the European continent, which the United States viewed as a national interest. The Christmas Warning was, therefore, motivated by regional stability motives rather than by human rights principles. In the early 1990s, both the secession of Kosovo and Serbia’s military crackdown in the province to prevent secession would have destabilized Kosovo and probably inflamed the whole southern region of the Balkans. This fear was expressed well by David C. Gompert, who served as the special assistant to President Bush and as the senior director for Europe and Eurasia on the National Security Council:

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Washington feared that a Serbian assault against the Albanian Kosovars would consume the entire Southern Balkan region in a conflagration that would pit one nato ally against another. Hostilities in Kosovo would probably spill into Albania proper. This in turn could incite the large Albanian minority in Macedonia and lead to Serbian or Greek intervention there. Bulgaria and Turkey would then feel pressure to act in order to prevent Greek control of Macedonia. Where the Bosnian war could be contained, conflict in Kosovo most likely could not.17 The Christmas Warning may have affected Belgrade’s treatment of Kosovo, since no attack was launched against ethnic Albanians from 1992 to 1998. It is hard, however, to measure the real impact of it, since we do not know how Milosevic would have behaved otherwise. What we do know is that the failure of Serbia to intervene militarily in Kosovo cannot be attributed solely to the u.s. military threat in this respect. Indeed, Serbia was already militarily involved in Croatia and Bosnia, and the opening of a third military front in Kosovo would have been difficult to manage. The case of Kosovo is different from those of Croatia, Macedonia, and Slovenia, where the United States quickly moved to the second step of the stability-seeking argument by considering the recognition of their independence. In this case, Rugova’s peaceful resistance movement for independence, the absence of Serbia’s military crackdown in the province, and the ability of the fry to maintain stable international borders explain why the United States kept supporting the fry’s territorial integrity. Some members of the Bush administration also feared that the recognition of Kosovo would create a precedent that would further destabilize the region by bolstering other secessionist movements such as the Serbs in Krajina (Croatia) or in Bosnia-Herzegovina, who sought international recognition of their independence. This unique combination of factors also explains why Kosovo received relatively little attention from Washington for most of the 1990s in comparison to Croatia or Bosnia. As Tim Judah explains, “Kosovo was always just an after-thought. It was the place that the diplomats knew they should do something about, but were not sure what and anyway had more important things to do.”18 Throughout the 1990s, the Bush and Clinton administrations avoided taking concrete actions in Kosovo that could have generated regional dis-

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order. They estimated that it was better to do nothing than to risk causing violence in the province and the region by intervening in one way or another. In a document entitled “u.s. Policy on Kosovo,” sent by the State Department to u.s. embassies in the Balkans in the summer of 1993, the American position on the issue was clearly exposed: •

•

•

We have been concerned about the situation in Kosovo because of longstanding tensions there arising from Serb repression of ethnic Albanian Kosovars and because of the high risk of conflict there spreading into – or involving – neighboring countries which have Albanian populations. We seek to deter the Serbs from taking violent action in Kosovo. President Bush’s “Christmas” message to Milosevic was specific and clear: We are prepared to respond against Serbia in the event of a conflict in Kosovo caused by Serbian action. In our frequent contacts with Albanian Kosovar leaders such as Dr. Bukoshi and Dr. Rugova, we have made clear that they must continue to exercise caution in their approach to the Serbian and “fry” governments so as not to provide Serbian authorities an excuse to initiate a violent crackdown. We also have made clear repeatedly that we do not support their independence.19

This document shows that the United States was concerned by the fry’s potential external instability, which could have been caused by Serbia’s military crackdown in Kosovo. The Christmas Warning clearly underlined the American concern.

towar d i nstabi li ty i n the fry The Dayton peace agreements, which brought the Yugoslav wars to an end, had the ironic effect of radicalizing the Kosovo secessionist movement. Since the success of the agreements depended in large part on Slobodan Milosevic’s good faith and willingness to negotiate with his Croatian and Bosnian counterparts, chief American negotiators Richard Holbrooke and General Wesley Clark agreed to exclude the issue of Kosovo from the peace talks, as requested by Milosevic. This political concession on the part of the United States facilitated negotiations and helped peace to be reached in Bosnia.

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This decision, however, had a counterproductive effect in Kosovo. The fact that Kosovo representatives were muzzled at Dayton was perceived in Pristina as an act of betrayal and contributed to radicalizing the secessionist movement. The Dayton episode demonstrated that Ibrahim Rugova was unable to make tangible progress toward independence and international recognition. Rugova gradually lost credibility among his people, and a growing number of Kosovars became convinced that armed resistance was the only way to achieve independence.20 These events favoured the emergence of the Kosovo Liberation Army (kla). In 1996 the kla launched several attacks against Serbian police officers and ethnic Serb civilians, and this served as a pretext for Milosevic to launch military operations in the province. Soon, the relative state of peace that had existed in Kosovo since 1991 was transformed into a state of recurrent mutual aggression between ethnic Albanians and Serbian troops. The FRY as an Obstacle to Regional Stability As mutual attacks between Serbian troops and members of the kla became frequent in the fall of 1997, the International Contact Group – a transatlantic group of government officials composed of the United States, Russia, England, France, Germany, and Italy – urged Belgrade to negotiate with Kosovo secessionists, to allow the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (osce) to send an observation mission into Kosovo and Vojvodina and to grant special status to Kosovo. The Contact Group issued the following statement: “We do not support independence and we do not support maintenance of the status quo. We support an enhanced status for Kosovo within the fry.”21 Belgrade rejected the demands formulated by the Contact Group and argued that the issue of Kosovo was an internal affair and nobody else’s business. Milosevic refused to adopt a conciliating approach toward Kosovo, arguing that kla members were pursuing a full-fledged civil war to obtain independence. Belgrade maintained military pressure on Kosovo secessionists, and the province gradually fell into a state of war in early 1998. In Washington, the State Department and the Department of Defense (dod) debated whether to update President Bush’s 1992 Christmas Warning. A Clinton administration official stated that

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“the United States’ view remains the same as it was in December 1992 – that we’re not going to sit back and accept a major Serb military operation in Kosovo.”22 Secretary of State Madeleine Albright condemned Belgrade for the instability and violence in Kosovo and made clear that Slobodan Milosevic had to accept third-party mediation or face reprisals. Albright declared that “Kosovo had implications for the entire region. We could not allow the Serbs to define it as a purely internal matter.”23 In addition to the increasing internal disorder within Kosovo, the government of the fry gradually lost control over its external stability. In June 1998, after the kla had seized about 40 percent of Kosovo’s territory, Belgrade launched an attack against Albanians with tanks and helicopters to crush the secessionist movement. This action produced thousands of Albanian refugees, who fled to Albania and Macedonia to escape the war. By the fall, the un High Commissioner for Refugees estimated that there were around ninety thousand Kosovo refugees in neighbouring states.24 By the end of the year, Serbia’s military intervention had produced an international refugee crisis that disrupted the entire southern Balkan region. The effect of the crisis was felt particularly in Macedonia, where the presence of a large number of Kosovo Albanian refugees threatened to change the ethnic composition of the country. Macedonian authorities were worried that the presence of more Albanians would lead them to make more political demands and to a stronger claim for the creation of a Greater Albania, which would imperil the survival of the Macedonian state.25 The war in Kosovo really became a top u.s. priority in the fall of 1998, once it became clear that the government of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia had refused to negotiate with secessionists and had failed to maintain its external stability. The Clinton administration was highly concerned that the situation in Kosovo could end up being a repetition of the 1992–95 Bosnian war. Secretary Albright declared that “we are not going to stand by and watch the Serbian authorities do in Kosovo what they can no longer get away with in Bosnia.”26 Christopher Hill, the u.s. ambassador to Macedonia, who worked closely with Richard Holbrooke to end the war in Bosnia in 1995, was then appointed special envoy to Kosovo. His mission was to find a political settlement to the crisis. Hill came up with a proposal calling for a ceasefire, for the withdrawal of Serbian police

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and the fry military forces from Kosovo, and for the return of Kosovo Albanian refugees in the province. The plan was backed by the threat of nato military intervention in the event that Milosevic refused to comply with u.s. demands – this was referred to as “coercive diplomacy.” Acting under the threat of air strikes, Milosevic agreed to reduce the number of Serbian military forces in the province and to allow eighteen hundred international observers to enter the province under the supervision of the osce.27 This agreement eventually failed because Kosovo’s shadow government and kla representatives were not bound by the accord. Secessionists quickly took advantage of the fact that Milosevic was constrained by nato to intensify their military campaign against Serbian troops in Kosovo. These actions caused fighting to resume and led to the collapse of the agreement. Albanian secessionists were the main actors responsible for the failure of the accord, and in early 1999 the United States and Western Europe were back to square one as far as diplomatic initiatives were concerned.

the use of force as a last resort With the assistance of Madeleine Albright’s closest advisor, James O’Brien, u.s. ambassador Christopher Hill elaborated a new plan in early 1999 that attempted to reconcile the interests of Belgrade and Pristina. The Hill-O’Brien proposal, which was introduced and debated at Rambouillet (near Paris), specified that Kosovo would remain part of Serbia but that it would enjoy a large degree of selfdetermination. The plan included the deployment of an international implementation force with a large nato military component to enforce the agreement. The proposal also called for a three-year interim period before the issue of Kosovo’s independence would be addressed. The option of independence remained on the table to please Kosovo Albanians and to insure their cooperation.28 Kosovo representatives approved the proposal, but this time Serbian authorities rejected it because they refused the deployment of foreign forces on their territory. The failure of this “last chance” accord sealed the fate of the fry. The Milosevic regime was identified as the main obstacle to the reestablishment of stability in Kosovo, and in March of 1999 nato began its air strikes (Operation Allied Force) against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. The purpose of the war was to compel

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Milosevic to accept the Rambouillet terms. In a sense, the nato campaign was the multilateral application of the Christmas Warning issued six years earlier by President Bush.

kosovo’s failure of the test of stability The question of whether Kosovo’s secession should be recognized was raised within the u.s. foreign policy apparatus in the late 1990s but was never seriously debated. A consensus existed on the fact that Kosovo did not possess the necessary attributes to be recognized as a sovereign state, and the State Department and the nsc agreed that recognition would create more problems than it would resolve, for three main reasons. First, Kosovo Albanians were not in a position to maintain the internal stability of their province. The province had no viable state structure and offered no guarantee that the Serbian minority would be represented in, and protected by, Kosovo’s institutions.29 Moreover, Kosovo did not possess coercive capacities. It did not have a national army to defend itself against Serbia, and the United States was not interested in sending troops to Kosovo against active Serbian opposition in order to secure its independence.30 The international borders of Kosovo constituted another problem. Serbia and Macedonia had not demarcated their common border when Yugoslavia broke out in 1991. As a result, the southern frontier of Kosovo, which bordered Macedonia, was still not officially demarcated.31 James O’Brien, who negotiated the Rambouillet agreements in 1998–99, points out that Kosovo “had none of the attributes of a state. It didn’t have recognized international boundaries. It didn’t have control over its territory. It didn’t have the ability to secure its borders. And it didn’t have a government of its own. It had elected a shadow government and established quite remarkable shadow institutions, but it did not have any of the attributes. This is part of why no government considered seriously recognizing a Kosovo independent state.”32 Second, Kosovo failed to guarantee its external stability. There was a real concern in the Clinton administration that the recognition of Kosovo would be the first step toward the creation of a Greater Albania. According to a 1995 survey, 43 percent of Kosovo Albanians expressed their desire to join Albania rather than to obtain inde-

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pendence.33 kla representatives had declared in early 1998 that its armed struggle against Serbia had the main objective of unifying Kosovo and Albania. This was a clear indication that Kosovo Albanians would not have restricted their political ambitions to the national borders of Kosovo. Daniel Hamilton, who acted as the u.s. special coordinator for Southeast European stabilization in the late 1990s, emphasized this problem: “If you listen to some of the more extreme elements in Kosovo, recognition was simply the first step toward a greater Albania, which would have gone far beyond the borders of a Kosovar state.”34 This point of view was also shared by a former high-ranking u.s. official: “The ideologues who have talked about a greater Albania were a great concern. And the fear of borders being redrawn by force or by coercion was a real fear.”35 While international recognition had been used by the United States as a political tool to reinforce regional stability in Croatia, Macedonia, and Slovenia, it was viewed in Kosovo as a stimulus for greater disorder and bloodshed. As a former advisor of President Clinton on Kosovo argues, “The reason why we didn’t recognize Kosovo was largely a result of our analysis of the likely consequences of such a step for stability in the Balkans … The analysis was that the recognition of Kosovo’s independence would create more conflict, more violence, and more confrontation in the region.36 Secretary Albright also emphasized this stability concern before the u.s. Institute of Peace a month before nato launched its military campaign. She declared that “the kla, as it is known, offers a deceptively simple answer to the tragedy of Kosovo – independence from the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. But there is no guarantee that independence would lead to peace in Kosovo and ample reason to fear that it could undermine stability elsewhere in the region.”37 Third, the opposition of the European Union to the independence of Kosovo was another element in the u.s. calculation. Brussels refused to accept the emergence of a new Muslim state on the doorstep of Western Europe. Furthermore, South Balkan states with Albanian minorities, such as Macedonia and Greece, saw the recognition of Kosovo as a threat to their national unity because it might bolster the idea of a Greater Albania. In her memoir, Madeleine Albright writes: Our reluctance to endorse independence was shaped less by principle than by a pragmatic assessment of attitudes in the

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region. Macedonia and Greece strongly opposed independence for Kosovo because they feared it might inflame separatist ambitions within their own ethnic Albanian populations … More generally, some Europeans feared that an independent Kosovo would become a hotbed of Islamic extremism and organized crime. We couldn’t achieve our goals in Kosovo without support from Europe, and we wouldn’t have Europe’s support if we backed independence for Kosovo.38 The fact that European allies were opposed to Kosovo’s independence probably dissuaded the Clinton administration from looking further in that direction. The United States did not want to isolate itself on the issue and was not ready to accept the consequences of recognition on its own. This point, however, appears less convincing than the two previous arguments presented above. It seems that the United States did not promote the independence of Kosovo, not mainly because the European Union opposed it, but because the province was a hopeless case for independence, for which it was not worth fighting. It would have been pointless to persuade Brussels of the need to recognize Kosovo if the secessionists were a priori unable to guarantee the internal and the external stability of their state. We can assume, however, that if Kosovo had been stable (i.e., if it had had functioning institutions, armed forces, a defined territory, minority rights) and if the unification with Albania had not been one of the arguments for independence, the United States would probably have considered recognition and tried to convince its European counterparts to accept it. Madeleine Albright’s determination to use force against Serbia despite Brussels’s initial reluctance is a good example showing that the United States can convince its European partners when necessary. In sum, in the late 1990s the fry represented a major obstacle to regional stability, but Kosovo was not recognized as an independent state, because it was not in a position to ensure its own stability. As Morton Abramovitz bluntly points out, the United States did not recognize Kosovo “because it wanted to end the war and it didn’t feel that it could end it if it had recognized independence.”39 In this context, a u.s.-led nato intervention appeared to be the only viable option for moving forward toward peace and stability in the Balkans. The nato air campaign lasted seventy-eight days until Milosevic consented to the terms of the Rambouillet proposal.

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kosovo as a un protectorate Resolution 1244 adopted by the un Security Council in June 1999, following the nato air campaign, stipulated that Kosovo was officially part of Serbia but that it would be administrated by the United Nations. The resolution established the un Mission in Kosovo (unmik) as the ultimate authority in the province, but did not address Kosovo’s final status. unmik’s main task was to build up a civil administration in the province and to gradually transfer political authority to the government of Kosovo in Pristina. The resolution also authorized nato to be in charge of a Kosovo peacekeeping force (the Kosovo Force – kfor), which included fifty thousand nato troops, as well as Russian forces. kfor’s mission was to secure the environment and to supervise the disarmament of kla members. Moreover, the resolution called for the withdrawal of all Serbian forces from Kosovo and for the return of Albanian refugees to their home. In a word, resolution 1244 transformed Kosovo into a de facto un protectorate but reaffirmed at the same time the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the fry. One of unmik’s central objectives was to provide Kosovo with democratic state structures in order to better evaluate its long-term viability before making a final decision on its status. In this respect, the un mission elaborated a Constitutional Framework for Provisional Government in 2001. The first elected government was formed in Kosovo in 2002 and democratic elections were held in the fall of 2004. Another objective of the un mission was to play for time. By putting the final political status of Kosovo on hold, the United States and Europe wanted to let the political context evolve so that new solutions could emerge. Washington was hoping that a new generation of leaders in Serbia would eventually replace the Milosevic regime and be more open toward Kosovo. The un presence in Kosovo also allowed for changes to the nature of the debate. unmik emphasized the importance of democratic standards. The issue of whether Kosovo and the fry would eventually integrate into the eu became one of the focal points of discussion with the adoption of the Standards before Status policy. With this policy, the United States and the European Union proposed a bargain to the Balkan region. They agreed to integrate the Balkans into the Euro-Atlantic community but asked that Balkan states (including Kosovo) conform to European political standards.

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This conditionality policy, however, was badly received by Kosovo Albanians, and many believed that this approach was intended to weaken their aspirations for independence.

instability on the horizon After more than half a decade of un administration in Kosovo, the population remained polarized along ethnic lines, and the Serbian and Albanian positions appeared difficult to reconcile. Belgrade remained firmly opposed to the independence of the province, while ethnic Albanians in Kosovo still called for a referendum on independence. The three-year interim period that was supposed to culminate with a referendum on Kosovo’s final political status in 2002 was extended several times by unmik for two main reasons. First, the un mission was focusing on the implementation of the liberal standards of governance in Kosovo, which took time. Second, the Security Council of the un, which was responsible for resolution 1244 and for the creation of unmik, was divided on the issue of the political status of Kosovo and, therefore, favoured the extension of the interim period. Hence, five years after unmik was established, the status of Kosovo remained the main puzzle that confronted the United States and Europe. The view that the un presence in the province was a measure to defer Kosovo’s independence indefinitely was shared by an increasing portion of the Albanian majority. Political leaders in Pristina also argued that the failure to resolve the status of Kosovo was economically costly because the province could not find foreign investors or obtain loans.40 Furthermore, because Kosovo was not a sovereign state, it could not join international organizations. In March 2004, inter-ethnic relations were tense in Kosovo and culminated in a riot led by ethnic Albanians against the Serbian minority, a riot that left nineteen dead and nine hundred injured in Pristina. Orthodox churches and monasteries were vandalized, and several Serbs fled Kosovo. The Bush administration then realized that further delaying the final status of Kosovo might be a time bomb that could create chaos and bloodshed. Following these events, un secretary-general Kofi Annan appointed Norwegian diplomat, Kai Ede, as the representative in charge of assessing Kosovo’s future. Ede concluded that additional progress in the province was impossible without the resolution of its political status.

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In Washington, a consensus among experts slowly emerged in 2005 on the fact that Washington needed to recognize the independence of Kosovo.41 Returning to the stability-seeking argument, one of its main assumptions is that the u.s. presidency chooses, on the basis of cost-benefit analysis, the option that brings the greatest expected regional stability. As time went on, it appears that the option of independence for Kosovo was likely to bring more stability than alternative policies. A former advisor to President Clinton on Kosovo, who asked to remain anonymous, pointed out in April 2005, “I think the United States will recognize Kosovo’s independence in the next two or three years for the same reasons it didn’t before. Because we think that recognition will not create further fragmentation in the region and a failure to recognize would actually create a higher danger of instability.”42 This argument was captured by Charles Kupchan in an article in Foreign Affairs a few months later: “harsh realities on the ground make independence for Kosovo the only viable option … Pretending otherwise and denying or delaying independence risks a return to disorder and bloodshed – and is therefore the greater of two evils.”43 While the international recognition of Kosovo had been viewed by the Clinton administration as a measure that would encourage disorder and bloodshed in the Balkans, the Bush administration reached the opposite conclusion in the mid-2000s as ethnic tensions rose in the province.44 In the fall of 2005, the un secretary-general named the former president of Finland, Martti Ahtisaari, as un special envoy to Kosovo to undertake the final negotiations over its status. The Contact Group, which brought together France, Germany, Italy, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, agreed to set up the guidelines for Ahtisaari’s negotiations. The group stated that there should be no alteration of Kosovo’s boundaries, that the solution should conform to Kosovars’ political will, but that the creation of a greater Albania would not be accepted. These principles focused on the promotion of regional stability and multi-ethnic political accommodation.45 To be consistent with the stability-seeking model, Kosovo needed to guarantee both its internal and its external stability to obtain u.s. recognition. Facts indicate that throughout the first decade of the twenty-first century, the United States, as well as the European Union, pushed for unmik to adopt policies that focused on this

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double dimension of stability. A document called “Standards for Kosovo,” set out by the un mission in 2003, emphasized the importance of the rule of law and of minority rights in the province. The document also pointed out that Kosovo would have to be “in stable and peaceful relationships with its regional neighbours” before any decision on its status could be made.46 Of course Kosovo’s relations with Serbia remained tense, but the province had focused on building democratic institutions, which strengthened its internal stability. Moreover, the settlement of the Macedonian crisis through the Ohrid Agreement (see chapter 4), which gave greater representation to the ethnic Albanian minority, increased stability in the region and reassured u.s. policy-makers that the recognition of Kosovo would not destabilize Macedonia, the neighbouring state. In early 2006, u.s. special envoy to Kosovo, Frank Wisner, made a private promise to leaders in Pristina that the United States would recognize the secession of Kosovo once Pristina had committed itself to multi-ethnic arrangements within the province to ease ethnic tensions with the Serbian minority.47 By then, elites in Pristina felt confident that political concessions would be rewarded by u.s. and European recognition. Indeed, this is how the White House had handled the Macedonian crisis over the Ohrid agreement in 2004. Then, the Bush administration had recognized Macedonia’s constitutional name to reward the Macedonians for agreeing to support the agreement, which increased decentralization and minority rights for the Albanian minority. Thus, leaders in Kosovo committed themselves to implementing policies that would decentralize central authority to municipalities and proposed the creation of new Serbian-majority municipalities in the north of Kosovo. In April 2007, Martti Ahtisaari submitted his final report on Kosovo’s future status to the un Secretary General. Ahtisaari recommended that Kosovo be recognized as an independent state supervised by the international community.48 The plan was welcomed and supported by the United States and by the main European powers (i.e., the United Kingdom, France, and Germany). The Ahtisaari plan included provisions for the protection of the rights of the Serbian minority, as well as for the protection of its cultural and religious institutions. Serbs in Kosovo would enjoy greater powers in municipalities where they constituted the majority through decentralization measures. The package also guaranteed them fair representation in the central government in Pristina. The

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plan addressed the issue of the land dispute between Kosovo and Macedonia. In 2001 Serbia had agreed to transfer more than two thousand hectares of land from Kosovo to Macedonia (see chapter 4). Pristina, however, was unhappy with the settlement and wanted a revision of the agreement. This point of contention raised concern over the external stability of Kosovo, but the Ahtisaari plan settled the dispute. Ahtisaari convinced Kosovo authorities to acknowledge and respect the 2001 agreement with Macedonia.49 The plan, however, was firmly rejected by Serbia, which refused to lose the territory of Kosovo, and by the Serbian minority in Kosovo, which despite guarantees of greater political power and constitutional rights under the Ahtisaari plan, refused to be separated from Serbia. Moreover, the Serbian minority questioned the good faith of the Albanian majority and wondered whether the promises made by Pristina and the principle of a multi-ethnic society would unravel once secession had been achieved. The categorical rejection of the proposals by ethnic Serbs had a major impact on the negotiations over the political future of Kosovo in the Security Council of the un, which was ultimately in charge of deciding on the political status of Kosovo. In the summer of 2007, the Security Council wrestled with the conclusions of the Ahtisaari plan, and Russia systematically blocked its adoption. Moscow indicated that it would not consent to a resolution that did not receive the approval of Serbia, its historical ally. After a final round of negotiations in the fall of 2007 between the United States, the European Union, and Russia, which attempted to end the political deadlock between leading Western states and Russia on the issue of Kosovo’s status, Washington reached the conclusion that no common ground could be found within the Security Council. Since Russia threatened to use its veto power, the United States, along with France and the United Kingdom, chose to break with the status quo by acting outside the Security Council to implement the Ahtisaari plan.

the u.s. recognition of kosovo’s unilateral secession There was no perfect solution for the resolution of Kosovo’s political status. The status quo was no longer an option, as the 2004 ethnic riot had demonstrated. As for the idea of giving Kosovo back to

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Serbia, considering that the Serbian government had perpetrated ethnic cleansing against Kosovo Albanians in the late 1990s, this option was perceived in Washington and in Europe as a counterproductive and dangerous measure for the stability of the Balkans. The alternative of partitioning Kosovo, which was encouraged by some commentators in Serbia and in Russia, was also rejected by the Bush administration. The United States was intolerant of changes to international borders, and such a decision could have increased ethnic tensions in the province, as Serbian and Albanian Kosovars were not clearly divided into two homogenous groups.50 As a result, secession, or more specifically “supervised independence,” was seen in Washington as the least worse alternative of all, despite the expected short-term result of spoiling its relations Kosovo Serbs, with Belgrade, and with Moscow. Washington was also fully aware that an international presence would be needed to sustain, in the short and medium term, the functionality of the state of Kosovo, as well as its economic development. But despite this, supervised independence was identified by the State Department and by the nsc as the only viable solution for Kosovo to stay on the path of progress, stability, and economic development. In early 2008, the Bush administration concluded that Kosovo Albanians had negotiated in good faith during the Ahtisaari negotiation phase. Moreover, the internal and external stability of Kosovo was in much better shape in 2008 than it had been in 1999, when unmik took charge of the province. First, unmik created state structures, and Kosovo Albanians offered constitutional guarantees to their minorities during the Ahtisaari negotiations. In addition, Pristina possessed coercive means to maintain civil order and could count on eu police forces and on nato troops to remain on the territory for, at least, the implementation of the Ahtisaari plan. As for the border issue with Macedonia, it was no longer a point of contention, since Kosovo had pledged to respect this agreement. Finally, the government of Kosovo rejected the idea of creating a greater Albania by integrating Kosovo with Albania following its independence. This had been an important argument in Washington against Kosovo’s independence in the 1990s. In sum, Kosovo had several of the attributes of a state. On 17 February 2008, Kosovo prime minister Hashim Thaci, in an address to parliament in Pristina, declared the independence of Kosovo. Thaci addressed the parliament in Albanian and in Serbian

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to underline the fact that independence was an inclusive measure.51 The great majority of deputies in the parliament supported the declaration, but Serbian deputies boycotted the vote. According to some observers, the declaration of independence had been written mainly by the u.s. State Department, and its orchestration was planned by the United States and the main European powers.52 Russia and Serbia argued that this declaration violated international law, since it contravened the un Security Council resolution 1244 adopted in 1999, which stated that Kosovo formally remained under Serbia’s sovereignty. According to them, the secession of Kosovo was not constitutional, since Serbia was vehemently opposed to secession and saw it as an attack on its territorial sovereignty. Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica declared in a televised address that “for as long as the Serbian nation exists, Kosovo will remain Serbia … We do not recognize the forced creation of a state within our territory.”53 Despite these intense protests from Belgrade and Moscow, President Bush declared that “On Kosovo, our position is that its status must be resolved in order for the Balkans to be stable. Secondly, we have strongly supported the Ahtisaari plan. Thirdly, we are heartened by the fact that the Kosovo government has clearly proclaimed its willingness and its desire to support Serbian rights in Kosovo.”54 The next day, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice announced that the United States had recognized the secession of Kosovo as a sovereign and independent state. She pointed out that “Last year, un Special Envoy Martti Ahtisaari developed a plan to build a democratic and multi-ethnic Kosovo and recommended Kosovo be independent, subject to a period of international supervision. In light of the conflicts of the 1990s, independence is the only viable option to promote stability in the region.”55 In her statement, Secretary Rice also focused on the fact that Kosovo was a unique case and, therefore, that it should not be seen as a precedent to justify the secession of other states.56 The u.s. recognition caused a quick backlash in the streets of Belgrade. More than one thousand Serbian protesters attacked the u.s. Embassy and at least one hundred broke into the building, which had not been protected by Serbian police.57 The recognition of Kosovo’s secession marked the beginning of the transition of the un authority in Kosovo to the European Union, which had agreed to be in charge of implementing the Ahti-

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saari plan. With eu supervision, Russia no longer had the procedural power to block the implementation of the plan. Pristina has been under the control of the European Union since 2008. Brussels sent hundreds of lawyers, civil administrators, and police officers to replace unmik. Moreover, the nato-led force (kfor), which had been constituted following the 1999 war, has remained in Kosovo to insure its security and its stability. Pristina can still count on more than sixteen thousand nato troops stationed on Kosovo’s territory, which includes sixteen hundred American troops.58 Finally, Western states, such as the United States, have increased their economic aid to Kosovo to make its sovereignty irreversible and its economy more viable. In 2007, the bilateral aid of the u.s. government to Kosovo totalled $77 million. In 2008, the assistance package was up to $335 million.

collision course with russia Kosovo’s declaration of independence amplified the division among the permanent members of the Security Council on the final status of Kosovo. The United States, the United Kingdom, and France quickly recognized Kosovo’s secession, while Russia and to a lesser extent China were opposed to it. Such a division was also present among European states. Germany, Turkey, and the three permanent members of the Security Council mentioned above recognized the sovereignty of Kosovo, while Spain, Greece, Cyprus, Romania, Bulgaria, and Slovakia refused to recognize the newborn state. A similar division existed in Asia, as Taiwan and Australia welcomed Kosovo’s independence but China, Indonesia, and Sri Lanka were against it.59 These states, which were vulnerable to secessionist movements, were afraid of creating a precedent that would bolster secessionist ambitions in their respective states. It was with Russia that tensions were the most acute, since Moscow had been involved in the Ahtisaari negotiations and was Serbia’s main ally. The Russian governement immediately declared Kosovo’s independence “null and void” and called for an emergency session of the un Security Council to condemn the declaration. Russian president Vladimir Putin indicated that such a declaration without Serbia’s and the United Nations’ approval would set a dangerous precedent and would bolster secessionist movements in the former Soviet Union.60 Foreign minister Sergey Lavrov declared,

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“We expect the un Mission in Kosovo and the nato-led Kosovo Force to take immediate action to fulfill their mandates … including voiding the decisions of the Pristina local government.”61 The Security Council session produced no resolution, since there was a deep division on the issue. This led Moscow to move from a legal to a more political strategy. The Russian government indicated that if Kosovo was to be recognized, other secessionist movements in the caucasus should be independent as well.62 The Russian parliament released a statement indicating its intention to recognize Georgia’s secessionist provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, in order to express its discontent.63 Despite these serious tensions with Russia, the Bush administration did not budge. It did not suspend or reverse its decision in order to provide additional time for negotiation with Moscow. The White House recognition of Kosovo’s secession represents one more bit of evidence that supports the stability-seeking argument. As the theory predicts, the impact of great powers on the American policy toward secessionist states is secondary. Even though Russia, and to a lesser extent China, were strongly opposed to the independence of Kosovo and reacted strongly to the u.s. recognition and even if there was no consensus among European states on this issue, the Bush administration did not change its policy and fulfilled its regional stability agenda. Hence, these events reinforce the validity of the regional-stability argument.

ethnic politics in washington Interestingly enough, despite its rather small size, the Albanian American lobby was more active and influential than the Serbian Americans with respect to the Kosovo issue. The Albanian community, which includes between 350,000 and 400,000 people clustered mainly in Boston, Chicago, Detroit, and New York, managed to be heard in Congress and was successful at framing the debate in Washington. In the early 1990s, Albanian Americans appealed to State Department officials, to members of Congress, and to the media to heighten government awareness of the problem of human rights in Kosovo and to promote the idea of independence. The impact of this diaspora was tangible. From January to March of 1992, four resolutions were introduced by senators and representatives in favour of the recognition of Kosovo.64 Meanwhile, Joe DioGuardi, the former

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Congressman and founder of the Albanian American Civic League, urged the Bush administration to grant recognition to Kosovo. For the period 1988–96, conservative estimates suggest that the Albanian American diaspora spent more than eleven million dollars on public relations, political contributions, and lobbying in Washington.65 Despite these efforts, Albanian Americans were unable to convince the Bush and the Clinton administrations that Kosovo’s secession was in the interest of the United States. When the Kosovo crisis re-emerged in 1998, the Albanian community already had several allies in Congress, such as Tom Lantos, Bob Dole, Joe Biden, and John McCain. Senator Bob Dole, being the better known, promptly argued for nato intervention against the fry. During that year, the National Albanian American Council (naac) and the Albanian American Civic League were very active and influential. They collected over $120,000 for members of Congress who were sympathetic to the Kosovo cause.66 During 1998, most Albanian Americans changed their strategy by shifting their political and financial support from Rugova’s Democratic League of Kosovo to the kla, sending, among other things, weapons to the organization.67 Regardless of the number of supporters for Kosovo’s independence in the u.s. Congress, however, the decision to recognize new states is the prerogative of the executive branch of government. This is why Albanian Americans requested meetings with White House officials. The naac had regular access to members of President Clinton’s foreign policy team in the 1990s. naac leaders, for instance, met with Richard Holbrooke, u.s. envoy to the Balkans; Jim Steinberg, deputy national security advisor; James O’Brien, senior advisor to Secretary Albright; Walter Slocombe, under secretary of defence; Marc Grossman, assistant secretary of state for Europe; and Stephen Flanagan, senior advisor to President Clinton.68 Each time, naac members pressed for a referendum on Kosovo’s independence. Despite its active involvement in the Kosovo crisis in 1998–99, the Albanian American lobby made no progress on the issue that mattered most to Kosovo Albanians, namely, the independence and diplomatic recognition of the province. No matter how many meetings Albanian Americans had with White House officials, the administration of Bill Clinton remained systematically opposed to Kosovo’s secession.

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Despite these setbacks, the Albanian American community remained active in the first years of the twentieth century. On the day of the u.s. recognition of Kosovo, leaders of the Albanian American Civic League declared that their organization had “finally convinced the State Department that Kosova’s independence provided the only way to bring peace and stability to the Balkans.”69 It is doubtful that after almost twenty years of lobbying and setbacks, the Albanian Americans suddenly succeeded in reversing the u.s. position. But if this assertion is true, leaders of the Albanian American Civic League confirm my theoretical assumption that the u.s. government shifts its position only to maximize its stability interests in secessionist regions. Indeed, the administration of George W. Bush favoured Kosovo’s secession once it became clear that the status quo was likely to create greater instability in Kosovo. In sum, it was not domestic ethnic factors that prompted a policy shift but the search for stability in Kosovo. The Serbian Americans Was the Serbian American community, which includes around one million Americans, powerful enough to prevent u.s. recognition of Kosovo from 1991 to 2008? The facts indicate that the Serbian American community was politically weak and badly organized throughout the 1990s. The anti-Milosevic bias, the fragmented nature of the Serbian American community, and its lack of involvement in the public relations battle in Washington account for the failure of the Serbian Americans to affect the formulation of u.s. foreign policy towards Kosovo. In a discussion with Acting Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger in 1992, Congressmember Helen Delich Bentley, a leading Serbian American figure, was told, “If you want to help your people, dump Milosevic.”70 This shows how negative the State Department’s views were toward the Serbian regime already in the early 1990s. Representative Bentley was really the only point of access that the Serbian American lobby had in Congress. Years later she recalled, “We wanted to lobby for the Serbian cause to let people know that Serbians aren’t all bad guys. People were only getting one side of the story [in the United States].”71 And when Bentley left Congress in 1994, the Serbian community lost most of its political strength on Capitol Hill.

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Moreover, despite its large size the Serbian American community had no strong tradition of political organization and was divided over whether or not to support the Milosevic regime. This lack of cohesion, which remained throughout the 1990s, significantly weakened the Serbian lobby in Washington. The Bosnian tragedy also seriously damaged the credibility of the Serbian Americans in their attempt to influence the White House. Serbian American organizations that had supported Serbia before and during the Bosnian war were embarrassed and remained relatively quiet on the Kosovo issue in the second half of the 1990s.72 When the Kosovo crisis became internationalized in 1998, the Serbian Unity Congress (suc), one of the most influential and bestorganized Serbian interest groups in the United States, strongly opposed the nato use of force against Serbia. The organization sent letters to the press, to members of Congress and to the Clinton administration. The suc also sponsored a demonstration against the use of force before the State Department in October of 1998.73 These actions, however, did not prevent the Clinton administration from bombing Serbia. Finally, while Albanian Americans relied on public relations firms in Washington to promote the independence of Kosovo, Serbian Americans were not significantly involved in the public relations battle. As Danielle Sremac points out, “The Serbs did not hire professional help and missed out on establishing contacts with u.s. policymakers and opinion makers in Washington.”74 Overall, the impact of the Serbian Americans was overshadowed by the actions of other Yugoslav ethnic groups, including the Albanian Americans. As a result, the u.s. view on the whole Yugoslav crisis quickly went in a direction that was against perceived Serbian American interests. In the middle of the first decade of the twenty-first century, when a consensus emerged in Washington on the need to recognize Kosovo’s secession, Serbian American lobbies in Washington, such as the Serbian Unity Congress and representatives of the Orthodox Church in the United States launched a final effort to prevent Kosovo’s secession and attempted to secure the partition of Kosovo. The American Council for Kosovo, another Serbian American lobby, attempted to scare u.s. officials by warning them that Kosovo was “Europe’s black hole of organized crime activities” and that Kosovo Albanian leaders had ties to jihad terrorists.75 These attempts did not change the u.s. course of action.

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Thus, ethnic groups in Washington failed to influence the u.s. government on the issue of Kosovo’s secession. To return to the domestic ethnic-group hypotheses, from 1991 to 2008, the u.s. position toward the Kosovo secessionist conflict did not reflect the interests of Albanian Americans, who exerted the most pressure on the u.s. government. Moreover, neither did the White House policy reflect the interests of the Serbian Americans, who represented the largest number of u.s. voters. The White House remained opposed to independence until the middle of the decade for reasons of stability, not to please Serbian Americans. As for Albanian Americans, they were effective and had strong advocates in Congress. However, the support expressed by some members of Congress in favour of independence throughout the 1990s was not acted on by the u.s. presidency until 2008. Despite Ambrosio’s claim that decision-makers often attempt to satisfy ethnic-lobby interests “in order to tap into the ‘ethnic money’ and to garner more votes,”76 what the previous section has shown is that successive u.s. governments consistently obeyed the rationale of regional stability, rather than domestic ethnic considerations. Moreover, every former State Department official and former u.s. negotiator involved in the Kosovo crisis who was interviewed for this research pointed out that ethnic lobbies were insignificant in the formulation of the u.s. response. As Daniel Hamilton indicated, “These ethnic groups were just too small and the stakes here were too big. They did not have any influence [on the issue of recognition].”77

conclusion The United States did not recognize the independence of Kosovo before 2008 for two main reasons: first, although the u.s. government developed a strong bias against the regime of Slobodan Milosevic throughout the 1990s, the Federal Republic of Yugoslav succeeded in containing the crisis from 1991 to 1998; second, Kosovo failed the test of internal and external stability at the end of the 1990s, when Belgrade became the main obstacle to the restoration of stability in the province. Under the un administration after 1999, Kosovo slowly strengthened its government structures, and ethnic Albanians offered guarantees of minority rights to ethnic Serbs. The progress toward sta-

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bility in Kosovo in the years beginning in 2000 and the risk of falling back into ethnic chaos if the political status of the province was not settled once and for all led the United States to favour the secession of Kosovo and to recognize its independence in 2008. Before extending recognition, Washington obtained guarantees from Pristina that it would respect the political criteria contained in the Ahtisaari proposals. The u.s. strategy of using diplomatic recognition to prevent greater instability in Kosovo resembles, both in its means and in its projected end, the 2004 decision of the Bush administration to recognize the constitutional name of Macedonia. In both cases, recognition was a reward to prevent ethnic violence and to encourage Pristina and Skopje to persist in behaving according to liberal norms in order to increase stability in the Balkans. Finally, despite Serbia’s strong opposition to the secession of Kosovo and Russia’s frustration at Washington’s decisions, the Bush administration chose to fulfill its stability agenda in the Balkans. This case tends to validate the stability argument. It highlights the crucial importance that regional stability played in the American response to the Kosovo crisis and justifies the variation in the White House foreign policy concerning the issue.

6 Eritrea’s Independence and U.S. Regional Interests

introduction The independence Eritrea achieved from Ethiopia in 1993 is the only case of successful secession to take place in post-colonial Africa. It was the first time that a secessionist state had achieved independence from a sovereign African state. While several African secessionist movements had failed to break from their central state (e.g., Biafra, Cabinda, Casamance, Katanga, Southern Sudan, Western Sahara), Eritrea was able to do so and obtained diplomatic recognition after thirty years of war against Ethiopia, in the longest secessionist struggle ever fought in Africa. Eritrea is a unique case to the extent that the Ethiopian government agreed to its secession in 1991 mainly because it no longer had the power and the authority to oppose it. In the beginning of the 1990s, the Eritrean secessionist army of the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (eplf) had become more powerful than the troops of the rump Ethiopian government, which collapsed in May of 1991, and had a greater military capacity than the transitional government that eventually took control of Ethiopia in July of 1991. This unusual situation, therefore, compelled Addis Ababa to negotiate the secession of Eritrea. The refusal to allow Eritrea’s independence would have led Eritrean secessionists to resume fighting and eventually to defeat the central government of Ethiopia. The case of Eritrea is highly relevant to this research because the fate of this secessionist state was partly linked to u.s. geostrategic interests. From 1952 to 1991, American governments consistently opposed the secession of Eritrea because it was perceived as going against their interest of maintaining stability in the Horn of Africa. Interestingly enough, the United States reversed position in 1991 in

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favour of Eritrea’s independence in order to pursue the same objective: regional stability in a changing political context. Moreover, the United States played a crucial role in the process leading to Eritrea’s secession. In contrast to the Yugoslav secessionist crises, in which other foreign powers were involved (i.e., members of the European Union), the United States was the only foreign power engaged in the resolution of the Eritrean issue. Hence, regional and great powers did not act as a determining variable in the u.s. decision process, as was partly the case, for instance, with Germany toward Croatia and Slovenia or Greece toward Macedonia.1 This chapter takes a detailed look at the critical period that began in 1989 with u.s. involvement in the Ethiopian civil war and ended in 1993 with the official recognition of the independence of Eritrea. This focus allows us to evaluate whether the stability-seeking argument explains the initial u.s. policy in favour of Ethiopia’s unity, as well as the shift in favour of Eritrea’s secession that occurred in 1991.

historical background In contrast to almost all African states, Ethiopia does not have a colonial past. It was a member of the League of Nations in the 1920s and 1930s and was occupied by a colonial power (i.e., Italy) only for a short time from 1936 to 1941, until the allies liberated the Horn of Africa from Mussolini’s imperialist ambitions. Eritrea, however, has a very different political history. It was an Italian colony from 1889 to 1941 and was administered by the British as a United Nations trust territory during the 1940s. This colonial legacy strengthened Eritrea’s separate identity and complicated its relations with Ethiopia after the Second World War.2 In 1950 the political future of Eritrea was debated between the great powers, but no consensus could be reached on its final status. The Soviet Union argued that Eritrea should become an independent state, while the United States and the United Kingdom supported a federal union of Ethiopia and Eritrea. The British, who were still administering the territory by then, relegated the issue to a un commission of investigation, which recommended the creation of a federation with Ethiopia. Even though a large segment of the Eritrean population wanted independence (mainly among the Eritrean Muslim populations), the un Security Council adopted a

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resolution creating an Ethio-Eritrean federation that went into effect in 1952. This resolution made Eritrea an autonomous unit under Ethiopia’s sovereignty. A separate Eritrean constitution was established, as well as an Eritrean parliament in Asmara, the capital of Eritrea. Ethiopian Emperor Haile Selassie, however, never fully accepted the idea of a federation and consented to it to maintain a close relationship with the United States. Haile Selassie’s ultimate objective was to annex Eritrea under a greater Ethiopian Empire. In this respect, the autonomy of Eritrea was systematically violated by the Ethiopian authorities during the 1950s. The Eritrean flag was abolished, and the Eritrean constitution was suspended. The Ethio-Eritrean federation officially ended in 1962, when Eritrea was annexed to Ethiopia and declared the fourteenth province of the Ethiopian empire.3 The erosion of Eritrea’s autonomy before 1962 led to the emergence of secessionist organizations. The Eritrean Liberation Movement (elm), which consisted mainly of Christians, and the Eritrean Liberation Front (elf), a Muslim dominated organization, rose up respectively in 1958 and 1960. The Ethiopian authorities responded with violence to these secessionist insurgencies but failed to resolve the Eritrean secessionist issue. This political stalemate was partly responsible for the creation of a military committee in Ethiopia known as the Derg (which means “council” in Amharic – an Ethiopian language). This Marxist military committee ultimately overthrew Emperor Haile Selassie in 1974, and Colonel Mengistu Haile Mariam became the head of the government of the People’s Democratic Republic of Ethiopia (gpdre).4 After a brief attempt to appease Eritrea’s secessionist demands, Mengistu chose to pursue Haile Selassie’s repressive policy against Eritrean secessionists. The brutal rule of Mengistu and his will to crush secessionism by any means galvanized Eritrean nationalism and mobilized the population (Muslims as well as Christians) in favour of independence. Within a few years, the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front – formerly the elf – , and the elm successfully fought Ethiopia’s troops and were able to take control of most of Eritrea’s territory, with the exception of Asmara and some major towns.5 Moreover, the creation of the Marxist republic of Ethiopia favoured the emergence in the province of Tigray of the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (tplf), a non-secessionist organization that fought to replace the repressive Marxist regime of Mengistu.

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The tplf, which originally was a small rebellion group, was trained and armed by the eplf. From 1975 to 1991, in coordination with the eplf, the tplf achieved several military victories over the gpdre. This circumstantial alliance between the Eritrean secessionists and the Tigrean rebels ultimately led them to defeat the central government of Mengistu in May of 1991. Following the fall of the gpdre, the Eritrean People’s Liberation Front entered Asmara and established control over Eritrea’s territory, which made the province a de facto independent state. Meanwhile, the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front took control of Addis Ababa with the help of eplf units and formed an Ethiopian transitional government. This new government recognized Eritrea’s right of self-determination and agreed to a referendum on Eritrea’s independence. In April of 1993, when asked the question, “Do you want independence from Ethiopia?” 99.8 percent of the 98.5 percent of Eritreans who cast ballots voted in favour of secession in a referendum monitored by the United Nations. Following this result, Eritrean leaders officially declared independence and the United States recognized the new state.

washington’s support for ethiopia’s unity: 1952–91 In 1948, Emperor Haile Selassie and u.s. secretary of state John Marshall agreed that the United States would maintain its military presence at the Asmara station in exchange for its support of the integration of Eritrea into Ethiopia.6 Following the recommendation of the un commission of investigation, the United States (backed by England) managed in 1950 to make the Security Council vote on a resolution that created the federation of Ethiopia and Eritrea, despite the reluctance of the Soviet Union. Following this resolution, the United States signed a mutual defence treaty with Ethiopia, and Radio Marina (renamed Kagnew Station) was converted into a $60 million military complex.7 Eritrea became an important link in the world-wide u.s. communication network. As Okbazghi Yohannes points out, “The Ethiopian-Eritrean federation was installed by the Western powers under the leadership of the United States purely for geopolitical considerations. This un-sanctioned federation in essence became a denial of Eritrea’s right to national self-determination.”8 When Ethiopia annexed Eritrea by

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force in 1962, the United States remained silent because this action served its interests. The annexation increased Addis Ababa’s control over Eritrea’s political life, facilitating u.s. operations in the province. A Decrease in U.S. Interests in Ethiopia but Continuing Support for Unity With the development of satellite technology in the 1960s and 1970s, the communication facilities of the Kagnew Station became obsolete and, as a result, the United States gradually lost interest in Eritrea as a geostrategic position. When the Ethiopian emperor was overthrown by a Marxist military coup in 1974, the United States had already reduced its military personal and investment in the region. Moreover, the rise of Mengistu to power in the mid-1970s ended friendly u.s.-Ethiopian relations. The new Marxist regime abrogated the mutual defence treaty with the United States, and by the late 1970s the influence of the u.s. government in Ethiopia barely existed, as Mengistu broke his relations with the West and moved into the Soviet orbit.9 Despite its ideological setback and regardless of its aversion to Mengistu’s Marxist regime, the United States maintained an antisecessionist policy toward Eritrea. Washington expressed its desire for internal negotiation between Addis Ababa and Asmara and wished that the conflict would be resolved within the Ethiopian political frame. Interestingly enough, the u.s. government did not redefine its policy in the Horn by supporting Eritrea’s independence in order to weaken the Ethiopian regime and Soviet influence in the region. Even if Ethiopia was using brutal military means to crush secessionism in Eritrea, including the bombing of major Eritrean cities and even if Ethiopia’s repressive rule resulted in over one hundred thousand casualties and caused a major famine, the United States categorically refused to support eplf leaders because they advocated Eritrea’s secession. Moreover, Washington’s mistrust of Eritrea’s long-time inclination to socialism and the precedent that u.s. support for secessionism would have established (bolstering secessionist movements across Africa) led the United States to adopt a different strategy. Instead of violating the norm of states’ territorial integrity cherished by the Organization of African Unity (oau),

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Washington applied the containment doctrine to prevent Marxist diffusion in the Horn. The strategy consisted of encircling Ethiopia by arming its neighbours (Somalia, Sudan, and Kenya) and by investing in Somalia, which became the new u.s. client state in the region. As u.s.-Ethiopian relations worsened after 1974, the United States increased its military and economic assistance to the Somali government and made its embassy in Mogadishu (the capital of Somalia) one of the most important diplomatic missions in Africa.10 Thus, despite the variation over time of u.s. strategic interests in Ethiopia and despite the rather drastic change in the nature of its relations with the Ethiopian regime, the United States remained committed to Ethiopia’s territorial integrity.

u.s. involvement The reasons leading the United States to become involved in the Ethiopian-Eritrean conflict in the late 1980s were far different from those behind Washington’s involvement in the Yugoslav conflict. The Horn of Africa was not part of the main u.s. strategic interests, and with the end of the Cold War, this region had lost much of its strategic value. If the Yugoslav war threatened the security and stability of the European continent, the brutal conflict in Ethiopia did not affect the well-being of the United States or that of any of its allies. Thus, the Ethiopian civil war was not a priority for the Bush administration, and before the 1990s, the United States had never seriously attempted to resolve this secessionist conflict (especially from 1952 to 1974, when it had a great influence in Ethiopia). So why did the United States intervene in the Ethiopian conflict if it no longer had influence or apparent interests in Ethiopia? The administration of George H.W. Bush got involved in the Ethiopian civil war for three main reasons. First, the Bush administration wanted to increase its cooperation with the Soviet Union on international issues. At that time, the Soviet Union wanted to disengage from Ethiopia, as it was going through an economic crisis and could no longer provide assistance to it. For this reason, Moscow was in favour of u.s. involvement in the conflict, and Washington saw the issue as a good opportunity to strengthen ties with the Soviet government of Mikhail Gorbatchev.11 Hence, after fifteen years of quasi-absence from Ethiopia (the u.s. no longer had an ambas-

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sador in Addis Ababa and was represented only by a chargé d’affaires), the United States took up the challenge. Second, in the late 1980s, around twenty thousand Jewish Ethiopians (the Falashas) wanted to emigrate to Israel to escape the intense civil war and the famine. This issue became a major concern in Washington, and President Bush expressed a personal interest in the fate of the Falashas. Members of the u.s. Congress who represented Jewish constituents also raised their concerns and pressed the Bush administration to take concrete actions to facilitate the departure of the Jewish Ethiopians. This was one more incentive for the United States to get involved in the resolution of the war. Third, hunger in Ethiopia was another concern in Washington. Throughout the 1980s, the u.s. government had been one of the main providers of humanitarian aid to Ethiopia to counter the famine in the region. By the late 1980s, the Bush administration reached the conclusion that by intervening, it could help to end the civil war and the humanitarian crisis. As a result, the Jewish Ethiopians could more easily depart from Ethiopia. All of these factors were part of the equation that motivated the initial u.s. decision to intervene. The issue of Eritrea’s secession, however, did not play in u.s. decision. In fact, it just happened that the Falashas and the hunger issues were intimately linked to the tough secessionist war in Eritrea. The u.s. intervention did, however, turn out to have a more far-reaching effect than expected. As the next section will show, American officials decided at some point to address the Eritrean secessionist question in order to strengthen regional stability in the Horn.

toward the collapse of the ethiopian government: 1989–91 The reign of the Derg regime was marked by a progressive loss of political control over Ethiopia’s territory. Throughout the 1980s, the regime of Mengistu fought on several fronts against the eplf, which captured most of Eritrea’s strategic locations. The Derg also fought against the tplf, which occupied most of Northern Ethiopia. Toward the end of the 1980s, other liberation movements such as the Oromo Liberation Front also emerged in the south of the country. In early 1990, Mengistu acknowledged for the first

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time that the Ethiopian state was on the verge of dismemberment and that the national army had to fight with more determination against the multiple insurgent fronts to keep Ethiopia united. External Instability and Internal Negotiations When the United States became involved in the conflict, the external stability of Ethiopia was no longer preserved. The Ethio-Eritrean war had created a major spillover effect, and between five hundred and six hundred thousand civilians had taken refuge mainly in Sudan, but also in Kenya and Djibouti. There were also a considerable number of emigres and exiles to Arab states (between eighty and one hundred thousand).12 According to Robert Houdek, who was the u.s. chief of mission to Ethiopia from 1988 to 1991, the refugee crisis was taken very seriously by the State Department, and it was one more reason why Washington got involved in the conflict.13 In terms of internal negotiations, Mengistu had refused to negotiate with Eritrean secessionists until the late 1980s and had used military means to bring Eritrea to heel. The rapid decline of Soviet aid and the severe famine, however, compelled the Ethiopian government to come up with a peace initiative that included negotiations with Eritrean secessionists. Following his first official meeting with u.s. Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs, Herman J. Cohen, Mengistu expressed the desire to end the war. He introduced market-oriented reforms and promised to facilitate the emigration of Jewish Ethiopians. At this point, there was external instability resulting from the conflict, but Mengistu was open to change and accepted third-party mediation. Thus, as the stabilityseeking argument predicts, this openness was good enough for the United States to maintain its support of Ethiopia’s unity. In 1989, former u.s. president Jimmy Carter was chosen by Ethiopian and Eritrean leaders to conduct peace negotiations. The semi-official talks, however, did not produce any significant progress. Negotiations held in Atlanta and in Nairobi in the fall of 1989 failed because the Derg regime refused to allow a un observer mission to assist negotiations, as requested by Eritrean secessionists. Addis Ababa argued that allowing a un presence in Ethiopia would further internationalize the conflict.14 Mengistu was also opposed to the implementation of a ceasefire during the

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peace negotiations, a proposition that had been put forward by the United States. Eritrean secessionist leaders were not more inclined to compromise, since their military victory had started to alter the balance of force in their favour.15 Following these negotiation attempts, the eplf launched an attack against the Ethiopian army on the Red Sea coast and captured Massawa – Eritrea’s main port. This victory marked the beginning of the end for Mengistu, as his troops located in Asmara were isolated and could no longer be supplied on the ground. The Tigrean People’s Liberation Front also made significant progress against Mengistu’s army and was able to move closer to Addis Ababa. In light of a rapidly declining military situation, Mengistu appeared willing to resume peace talks with secessionists under the auspices of the United States and showed signs of flexibility. To demonstrate its good faith, the gpdre allowed international food relief to reach the Eritrean population, which until then had been forbidden. State Department officials also hosted informal talks in Washington between the Ethiopian government and Eritrean secessionists in the fall of 1990. On this occasion, the representative of the Ethiopian government, Tesfaye Dinka, introduced the draft of a new Ethiopian constitution that guaranteed special autonomy for Eritrea. Assistant Secretary Cohen declared, “I believe the Ethiopian government has effectively shown great flexibility in recent weeks and I would ask the eplf to reciprocate.”16 eplf leaders, however, kept requesting a referendum on independence, which was the centerpiece of their strategy, and categorically refused the idea of political autonomy within Ethiopia. Mengistu’s Bad Faith Although the Ethiopian central government seemed open to negotiations and ready to devolve constitutional power to Eritrea, it soon appeared that Mengistu was not acting in good faith and that the gpdre was not really interested in achieving a negotiated peace settlement with the secessionists. The State Department realized that the Ethiopian central state was involved in peace negotiations to buy time in order to re-establish its military authority in Ethiopia and defeat the insurgent movement. To achieve this objective, the Ethiopian government made two tactical decisions. First, it sup-

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ported the u.s. coalition against Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait (Ethiopia had a seat at the un Security Council at the time of the Gulf War). Mengistu believed that cooperating with the United States on the Iraqi issue could be the first step toward a u.s.Ethiopian alliance against Arab influences in the Horn of Africa. Through this alliance, Mengistu was hoping to defeat secessionist insurgents in Eritrea (even if secessionists were from both Muslim and Christian backgrounds) and to consolidate his regime. Mengistu’s second tactical decision was his “visas for arms” policy. To rebuild his military, the Ethiopian leader used the Falashas in an attempt to obtain weapons from Israel. Mengistu literally blackmailed the Israeli government by making it clear that there would be no Falasha emigration without arms in exchange. Thus, in early 1991 the Bush administration came to the conclusion that the regime of Mengistu was an obstacle to the resolution of the civil war and that his policy of an open hand toward Eritrea was a bluff. In April of 1991, after several unsuccessful attempts at peaceful negotiations, the eplf and tplf launched their final offensive against the Mengistu regime. In Washington, the issue of the Falashas became central. Both the White House and members of Congress worried that Ethiopian Jews could be the victims of the intensification of the civil war. Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Shamir even appealed to President Bush for intervention in favour of the Falashas. In response to this appeal and to pressure from Congress, President Bush named Rudy Boschwitz, a former Republican senator who had the fate of the Falashas at heart, as his special envoy to Ethiopia. Boschwitz’s first assignment was to deliver a message asking the Ethiopian government to facilitate the departure of the Jews.17 The u.s. government also intensified its involvement in the conflict by sending high-level officials to Ethiopia. In addition to Rudy Boschwitz, nsc director for Africa Robert Frasure and Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Irving Hicks also travelled to Ethiopia to push for the departure of the Falashas and to find a peace agreement between the gpdre, the eplf, and the tplf. American officials first met with Mengistu in Addis Ababa. During the meeting, he consented to a rapid departure of the Falashas if the United States agreed to cover the costs of the airlift operation. The Ethiopian leader also asked the Bush administration to organize a new round of peace negotiations with the insurgent

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movement. The State Department agreed to do so but indicated that the negotiations would begin only once the emigration of the Falashas was under way.18 The peace conference finally began in London on 27 May following the rapid and successful departure of most of the Falashas. The Disintegration of Ethiopia’s Central Government In the days preceding the London conference, the political context in Ethiopia changed substantially. The eplf launched its final attack on Asmara, forcing two hundred thousand Ethiopian troops to surrender. The Eritrean secessionists then established a Provisional Government in Eritrea (pge), which was in control of the entire Eritrean territory. Meanwhile, the tplf army was literally waiting at the doors of Addis Ababa, ready to enter the city. Facing his imminent defeat, Mengistu abandoned his government on 21 May, fleeing to Zimbabwe.19 Before leaving, he designated his vice president, Tesfaye Gebre-Kidan, as the new president of Ethiopia. Soon after the u.s. delegation began negotiating with representatives of the different parties in London, the u.s. chargé d’affaires in Addis Ababa, Robert Houdek, informed Assistant Secretary Cohen that the Ethiopian government was no longer able to defend the capital against rebel factions. Since the central government of the Derg was in an advanced stage of disintegration, the u.s. government made an important decision. Assistant Secretary Cohen, who chaired the peace talks in London, agreed to let the tplf enter Addis Ababa to maintain order. This was part of Herman Cohen’s strategy of a “soft landing,” that is, to settle the conflict by minimizing turmoil and violence. The United States was very concerned that the collapse of the Mengistu regime could produce chaos that would aggravate the war. The State Department was still shaken by the collapse of law and order that resulted from the overthrow of the Liberian government in 1990 and of the government of Somalia in early 1991, and Cohen was determined to prevent a similar state of anarchy from emerging in Ethiopia. The u.s. decision to support the tplf entry into Addis Ababa, however, became highly controversial because it was made without the approval of Ethiopia’s prime minister, Tesfaye Dinka, who attended the London conference.20 This decision drastically changed the dynamics of the talks in London. Representatives of

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the gpdre, led by Tesfaye Dinka, refused to acknowledge the disintegration of their regime and chose to leave the conference to protest against what they called “Cohen’s Coup.” Several Ethiopians were also opposed to the tplf ’s takeover in Addis Ababa and saw it as the replacement of one dictatorial regime by another. Many in Ethiopia argued that the United States had literally authorized a military coup.

u.s. support for eritrea’s right to secede The second major u.s. decision in London was even more surprising than the first. At a press conference, Secretary Cohen declared that he was in favour of a referendum on Eritrea’s independence, while stating that he hoped that Eritreans would choose to remain in Ethiopia. This declaration had the effect of a bomb having been dropped. Riots emerged in the streets of the capital, and Ethiopians protested against the u.s. support for a referendum on Eritrea’s independence. For the first time since the Second World War, the United States expressly supported the right of a secessionist state to conduct a referendum on independence. It goes without saying that this statement departed from the traditional u.s. policy of supporting Ethiopia’s territorial integrity. It was the first time in almost fifty years that the United States recognized Eritrea’s right to become a sovereign state. Cohen justified this decision by emphasizing that Eritrea’s situation, from a legal point of view, was different from the other African secessionist movements. The assistant secretary stressed that Eritrea had never been allowed to exercise its right of selfdetermination. Eritreans were indeed compelled to join the EthioEritrean federation in 1952, following a un Security Council decision, and Eritrea was illegally annexed by Ethiopia in 1962. Hence, supporting a referendum on Eritrea’s independence was a way to repair a historical mistake. The unique character of Eritrea, however, was a constant, rather than a variable. Eritrea’s right of self-determination had been denied since 1952, and successive u.s. administrations from President Truman to President Reagan had never attempted to rectify this injustice. Therefore, this argument cannot explain why the United States suddenly reversed its policy. Assistant Secretary Cohen even recognized years later, during an interview with the

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author, that this legal argument was an excuse to justify u.s. support for self-determination. “We felt it helped us feel comfortable because we were always worried with the Organization of African Unity (oau). But the oau reached the same conclusion as we did, which was that secession was inevitable and that we couldn’t stop it.”21 The emphasis on this international legal argument also aimed to prevent criticism of u.s. foreign policy for inconsistency in matters of international recognition. It was a way to avoid creating a political precedent. Explaining the U.S. Policy Shift The u.s. decision to support Eritrea’s referendum on independence was surprising, since the u.s. delegation went to the London conference with a policy of not supporting secession.22 So why did this shift happen? The explanation must be found in the political rather than in the legal realm. The central government of Ethiopia was no longer viable when the parties met in London in May of 1991, and the disintegration of the regime had become a great source of instability. Moreover, the Mengistu government had failed to contain the secessionist crisis within its borders and had used peace negotiations to buy time against Eritrea’s secessionists. The central government of Ethiopia was, therefore, a major obstacle to stability. The facts indicate that the United States consented to a referendum on Eritrea’s independence because this was the only option to end the war and to reestablish stability in the Horn. In other words, the independence of Eritrea, or at least the right to conduct a free referendum on the issue, was seen as a tool to foster regional stability in both Eritrea and Ethiopia, the only way to stop civil war and the devastating famine. A denial of Eritrea’s right to secede may have caused war to resume in Ethiopia. In addition, the fact that the eplf had a more powerful military than the tplf, which was then in control of Addis Ababa, contributed to the u.s. policy shift. Eritrea was a de facto independent state in May of 1991, and any attempt by the new Ethiopian transitional authority to reclaim Eritrea by force would have resulted in failure. Thus, the changing nature of the domestic context in Ethiopia forced the United States to formulate a new pragmatic approach. Since Eritrea’s independence was unstoppable

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and since the Ethiopian host state was powerless toward it, the United States decided to use its power to grant recognition in order to facilitate the resolution of the conflict (as in the case of Croatia and Kosovo) and to impose, as will be shown later, conditions of recognition. This was the only way that the United States could keep certain control over the process leading to the inevitable independence of Eritrea. Dealing with the OAU The u.s. delegation in London declared itself in favour of the referendum on Eritrea’s secession before consulting with the Organization of African Unity on the subject, which was unprecedented. Before pushing further in that direction, however, the United States checked with the oau to see whether it supported its new stand. The United States had always backed the oau’s principle of the maintenance of post-colonial international borders to contain potential secessionist aspirations.23 This time, however, the United States went ahead of the oau by supporting Eritrea’s right to selfdetermination, which left the organization with very little option but to back this policy. In this context, the oau recognized that Eritrea had never had the chance to decide its own political future and that a referendum on secession was, therefore, a legitimate action. American officials also sought the approval of surrounding states (i.e., Djibouti, Egypt, Kenya, and Sudan), which all gave their consent to Eritrea’s secession. This was a way for the United States to secure regional stability following Eritrea’s independence.24

the absence of a consensus within the u.s. government The consensus that existed between u.s. foreign policy agencies on the issue of Ethiopia was based on the need to collaborate with Gorbachev, to change the Ethiopian regime, and to end the war. Before Herman Cohen’s unilateral decision to support a referendum on Eritrea’s independence, there were serious doubts among u.s. national-security bureaucrats about the positive aspect of Eritrea’s independence. The Department of Defence (dod) and the National Security Agency (nsa) worried that an independent Eritrea could

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become a hotbed for Islamic extremism. Following the policy shift, the State Department argued that the new Eritrean government was in control of its borders and, therefore, that it was not susceptible to manipulation by radicals or by regional powers hostile to u.s. interests.25 The decision of Assistant Secretary Cohen to support Eritrea’s right to secede was made without prior approval by the State Department or the National Security Council. To the question, “Why did the u.s. change its policy toward Eritrea’s right to secede?” Walter Kansteiner, who worked for the Policy Planning staff at the State Department before replacing Robert Frasure as nsc Director for Africa, declared that “the u.s. didn’t [change its policy], Cohen just said it. That’s the wonderful thing about being the Assistant Secretary of State for Africa, no one else cares.”26 In this case, however, the Bush administration did care, and the latitude of the assistant secretary created tensions and disagreement within the State Department. A few hours after his controversial statement, Cohen received a call from Secretary Baker. The secretary expressed strong concern about the new and unexpected policy toward Eritrea. As Cohen himself recalls: Baker expressed concern about my endorsement of self-determination in Eritrea … The German government, he explained, was exerting pressure on the United States to recognize the independence of Slovenia and Croatia. The United States was resisting because we feared that unilateral declarations of independence in Yugoslavia could lead to violence. My support for a referendum in Eritrea could open the door to press accusations of policy inconsistency. If self-determination is good enough for Eritrea, why isn’t it good enough for Croatia and Slovenia? I protested that consistency is not necessarily the best way to deal with specific country problems, an argument he found naïve.27 In an interview, Cohen added that “Baker didn’t really disagree [with my decision]. I think that if I had asked his opinion before I did what I did, he would have said: well you should stay out of it. Let them make their own announcement.”28 Baker was apprehensive and anticipated tough questions from the press, such as why the United States opposed Croatia’s and Slovenia’s independence, which

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both had held a winning referendum on independence, while it supported a referendum on Eritrea’s secession. Fortunately for Baker (and for Cohen), the press did not emphasize the inconsistency. This intra-agency debate could have been avoided if Cohen had obtained the approval of Secretary Baker before making such a substantial policy modification. This disagreement could also have been avoided if the representative of the nsc at the London peace conference, Robert Frasure, had made sure that this decision regarding Eritrea did not conflict with other u.s. positions. If the American participation in the relief of the Jewish Ethiopians was an express decision from the White House, u.s. involvement in the resolution of the Eritrean secessionist conflict and in the partition of Ethiopia were initiated by one man, Assistant Secretary Herman J. Cohen. At no point did the White House instruct the u.s. diplomat to work on the Eritrean secessionist question and even less to preside over the splitting up of Ethiopia.29

the u.s. opposition to unilateral secession To achieve their “soft landing” strategy, American officials in London discouraged eplf leaders from issuing a unilateral declaration of independence (udi) in 1991, because they believed that it would further destabilize Ethiopia. Assistant Secretary Cohen also warned Isaias Afwerki, the leader of the eplf, that the United States and the Western European states would not recognize Eritrea if it seceded from Ethiopia. Cohen went even further by indicating that the United States would withhold the recognition of both the new Ethiopian government and of the Eritrean secessionist state if Addis Ababa and Asmara concluded an immediate separation. Cohen also stressed that it was important for Eritrean secessionists to withhold their declaration of independence for a period of two years and that they should wait for a un sponsored referendum before officially seceding from Ethiopia. This two-year period was meant to allow for the new Ethiopian and Eritrean governments to consolidate their power, to facilitate economic negotiations, and to establish favourable conditions for a stable transition toward Eritrea’s independence. In this context, secessionist leaders calculated that the costs of issuing a udi would clearly exceed the benefits. For one thing,

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Eritrea was already a de facto independent state. A unilateral secession would not have granted much additional power to Eritrea and, on the contrary, would have deprived Eritreans of Western recognition and of un endorsement. Such a disruptive decision could also have strained cooperation with Addis Ababa and with Western capitals at a time when Eritrea needed economic emergency relief to recover from its civil war. Thus, a udi would not have been a rational decision. Commenting on the eplf decision, Robert Houdek, who was the u.s. chargé d’affaires in Addis Ababa from 1988 to 1991 and who became the first u.s. ambassador to Eritrea from 1993 to 1996, declared: “It was a very smart maneuver. If the eplf had declared independence the day they walked into Asmara, a lot of African members [and the United States] would have been uncomfortable with that.”30

the 1991–93 transitional period At the end of the London peace conference, the parties agreed to meet in Addis Ababa in July to decide on the transitional phase. By then, the Mengistu regime had disintegrated. From May to July, there was no official government in Ethiopia, and the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front assumed the function of the transitional government. It is ironic that the tplf, which was helped and trained by the Eritrean secessionist front in the 1970s and 1980s, came to power in 1991 as the new government of the central state from which Eritreans attempted to secede. In July, three important decisions were made at the Addis Ababa conference. First, the tplf officially recognized the right of Eritreans to decide on their political future in a referendum supervised by the United Nations. Even if some members of the transitional government of Ethiopia were opposed to the independence of Eritrea, there was nothing that the transitional government could have done to prevent it.31 The eplf had the strongest military, and it was in Ethiopia’s interest to maintain friendly and cooperative relations with Eritrea. Meles Zenawi, the tplf leader, called the anticipated secession of Eritrea an “unfortunate” event but argued that the maintenance of good economic relations with Asmara would minimize the disruptive effect of the breakup. Zenawi also made clear to u.s. officials that Ethiopian nationalists would not go to war in the future to reclaim Eritrea. Ethiopia’s consent on the secession of

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Eritrea facilitated the international community’s acceptance of the breakup. It avoided creating a political precedent in which a secessionist state would have unilaterally seceded without the approval of its central state. The second decision made at Addis Ababa was that the eplf, which attended the conference as an observer, announced that Eritrea would stay out of the new Ethiopian transitional government, as they had already set up their own government in Eritrea. The eplf also agreed to defer for two years the referendum on Eritrea’s independence. And third, the Ethiopian government negotiated free access to the Eritrean port of Assab on the Red Sea.32 It became a free transit port for goods entering Ethiopia. From May of 1991 until the referendum on independence in 1993, Eritrea was an independent state in all but name. Neighbouring states like Sudan, Egypt, and Yemen even established an official diplomatic presence in the Eritrean capital. Eritrea, however, remained officially part of the Ethiopian state until it formally proclaimed its independence in April 1993. Strengthening Eritrea’s Internal and External Stability American representatives also established conditions for eventual recognition of Eritrea’s independence. In addition to compelling Eritrea to renounce unilaterally declaring secession and to agree to hold a democratic referendum, the United States expected Eritrean secessionists to create basic democratic institutions, to enact freemarket reforms, and to maintain peaceful relations with neighbouring states. These facts tend to validate the stability-seeking argument. The United States persuaded Eritrean leaders that they first needed to establish their legitimacy and show that they could maintain internal and external stability before being recognized. During these two years, relations between Ethiopians and Eritreans were constructive. The Transitional Government of Ethiopia (tge) reaffirmed its decision to support Eritrea’s right to secede and indicated that it would recognize the result of the referendum.33 Addis Ababa and Asmara worked together to implement democratic reforms and affirmed that regional stability and peace were prerequisites for economic development in the Horn. The two states signed trade and communication agreements and established a mutual defence pact.34 The Provisional Government of Eritrea also

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proceeded to initiate major political reforms. It introduced, among other things, the rule of law and conducted a civic education program. Meanwhile, Ethiopia’s transitional government drafted a new constitution that proclaimed a new peaceful and democratic order. Then, in late 1992, the oau announced that it would send observers during the referendum process, and the un General Assembly passed resolution 47/114 establishing the United Nations Observer Mission to Verify the Referendum in Eritrea (unover). In 1993, when the referendum was held, Eritrea had shown evidence of internal and external stability. The referendum was finally held on 23–25 April 1993. Observers from the United States, the un, the oau, the Arab League, the United Kingdom, Ethiopia, Egypt, Russia, Yemen, Sudan, and Tunisia were present, for a total of 536 foreign observers.35 Following the vote, oau representatives validated the result, and Eritrea declared its independence on 27 April. The United States immediately recognized the new state, and the international community followed suit.36 Ethiopia formally granted recognition to Eritrea on 3 May, and the official celebration of independence was held on 24 May, the day of the second anniversary of the liberation of Asmara by eplf troops. Eritrea became a member of the United Nations in June of 1993, and its diplomatic recognition allowed it to join the International Monetary Fund (imf) and the World Bank.

eritrea and the stability-seeking argument Does the Eritrean case validate the stability-seeking argument? The answer is yes. As long as the Mengistu regime was in power and showed willingness to resolve the Eritrean secessionist conflict, the United States remained committed to Ethiopia’s unity, even though external stability was no longer preserved (i.e., massive cross-national refugee flows occurred). From the day of the u.s. involvement in 1989 to the collapse of the Ethiopian government in 1991, Assistant Secretary Cohen and the State Department remained patient and attempted on multiple occasions to bring the parties together. Thus, the case of Eritrea does validate the first step of the stability theory. At no time before the collapse of the Mengistu regime, did the United States support Eritrea’s secessionist aspirations.

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The argument also explains the u.s. policy shift in favour of Eritrea’s independence. Not only did the secessionist war cause external instability but the central government was not seriously interested in negotiating; it was ultimately paralyzed and collapsed. Taken together, these indicators caused the u.s. policy shift. One could wonder, however, whether the factors of internal and external stability really justify the shift in u.s. policy. The fact that the Eritrean secessionist army was the predominant military force in Ethiopia in 1991 made Eritrea’s secession unstoppable, and this could be enough to explain why the United States supported Eritrea’s secessionist self-determination. To this we can answer that from 1989 to 1991, secessionist rebels were more powerful than the central government and won most of the fights against it. Yet the United States maintained its support for Ethiopia’s integrity. The fact that Mengistu became an obstacle to internal negotiations, combined with the cross-national refugee problem, is what initiated the u.s. policy shift. As for the distribution of power, which was increasingly favourable for the Eritrean secessionists, it accelerated the shift. The second step of the stability argument also explains the u.s. management of the last phase of the conflict. Between 1991 and 1993, the u.s. negotiating team was focusing on the internal and external stability of Eritrea. First, Cohen received the assurance that the Eritreans would pursue a cooperative foreign policy with Ethiopia, as well as with neighbouring states, which all accepted Eritrea’s secession. External stability was thus quickly secured at the Addis Ababa conference in July 1991. As for internal stability, the eplf already had effective control of Eritrea’s territory when it took over Asmara in May of 1991, and secessionist leaders rapidly established a well-functioning government. During the two-year transition period, the Eritrean government implemented democratic and liberal reforms, followed by a democratic referendum on independence. As Evelyn Farkas indicates, “the [u.s.] decision to allow partition was made to advance the prospects for stability and security on the Horn. The means by which it was implemented demonstrates most clearly the u.s. concern about stability.”37 In April of 1993, Eritrea fulfilled the u.s. criteria of stability and was ready to be recognized. Overall, the stability argument performs well in this case.

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competing arguments To what extent do ethnic politics and private business interests explain the fluctuation in the u.s. position toward Eritrea? As far as ethnic lobbies are concerned, there was a consensus among Ethiopian and Eritrean Americans on the need to overthrow the Mengistu regime. This consensus reflected the cooperation between the tplf, the eplf, and the other rebel factions that were fighting against the Derg regime. Until 1991, Ethiopian and Eritrean American lobbies spoke with the same voice in favour of a regime change in Addis Ababa. Both diasporic communities, however, which together consisted of around one hundred thousand u.s. citizens, could only agree on the overthrow of Mengistu. There was no consensus on who should rule in Addis Ababa following the downfall of the Derg, and most Ethiopian Americans were opposed to Eritrea’s independence. When the u.s. government decided to support a referendum on Eritrea’s secession, cooperation between Ethiopian and Eritrean Americans abruptly ended. The Ethiopian American community mobilized and demonstrated against the u.s. policy shift. One leader of the Ethiopian community declared that “if [the u.s. government] lets Eritrea secede, there is no way the government can deny it to any other group, which is the dismemberment of Ethiopia.”38 Eritreans in the United States were less numerous than the Ethiopian Americans, but they were unified behind the eplf. A large majority of them were in favour of Eritrea’s independence when the Mengistu regime fell apart, and they all pushed in the same direction, even if they were not organized into one main ethnic association. Moreover, Eritrean Americans were successful in lobbying members of Congress and convinced some of them of the importance of Eritrea’s secession. They gained support especially among the Subcommittee on African Affairs of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.39 Even though Eritrean Americans were vocal on Capitol Hill and pressured members of Congress, the facts indicate that they failed to affect the Bush administration. As one policy-maker points out, “the demonstrations in the streets of Washington really didn’t matter. What mattered were the conversations we had with Meles Zenawi [the tplf leader] in London.”40 Moreover, as mentioned

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previously, the u.s. decision to support Eritrea’s right to secede was made by Assistant Secretary Cohen, and the decision was taken in London, far from Washington’s political scene. No evidence indicates that the Eritrean American community influenced Herman Cohen’s perception of the issue in the weeks before the London conference. Generally speaking, ethnic lobbies are influential to the extent that they can affect the election or re-election of politicians. This is why elected representatives usually pay attention to the opinion of ethnic communities, especially when they are concentrated in important states or ridings. In the case of Eritrea, the u.s. decision to support self-determination was made not by the president or by his political entourage but by a non-elected high-level public servant, who had not consulted the White House before making the decision. The phone conversation between Assistant Secretary Cohen and Secretary Baker, hours after the controversial declaration, shows that the State Department and the White House had not planned this policy shift. It is therefore very unlikely that the Eritrean American diaspora played a role in the redefinition of the policy. In fact, Baker and Cohen were both focusing on international factors. Secretary Baker was trying to preserve Yugoslavia’s unity and was worried about policy inconsistency, while Assistant Secretary Cohen’s main objective was the end of the Ethiopian war and the stabilization of the Horn of Africa. Thus, the ethnic politics argument falls short in explaining the policy variation. Facts also indicate that the business interest argument does not explain the situations under investigation. In the aftermath of the Second World War, American corporations did have economic interests in Ethiopia. Pan-American airlines obtained landing rights from the Ethiopian government for its long-distance trip to Asia. The New York–based Sinclair Oil Company explored petroleum on Ethiopian territory. And Shell operated an oil reserve in Massawa (Eritrea) for the use of the u.s. navy.41 In the mid-1970s, however, colonel Mengistu nationalized u.s. properties without providing any compensation in return, and as a result, American business interests in Ethiopia became non-existent. By the time the Bush administration came to power, u.s. corporations had received compensation from Mengistu, but Ethiopia was no longer seen as a safe place to invest.42 Ethiopia was still officially a communist state, and the thirty-year civil war had destroyed infrastructures and produced

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a high level of instability. During the rule of the Derg, the only substantial u.s. investment in Ethiopia was made by the Kalamazoo Spice Company from Michigan. The u.s. chargé d’affaires in Addis Ababa, Robert Houdek, does not recall that u.s. corporations ever pressured the Bush administration for or against Eritrea’s secession. He points out that “the only kind of business interests that I was pushing for was with Ethiopian airlines. I wanted to make sure that they continue to buy Boeings. And they bought Boeings with Pratt and Wittney’s engines on.”43 Boeing had helped the Ethiopian government to create Ethiopian Airlines following the Second World War, and this u.s. corporation wanted to maintain this long-standing tradition following the downfall of Mengistu. Assistant Secretary Cohen concurs with Houdek. He has never been aware of any private u.s. firms that could have pressured the Bush administration in one way or the other on the issue of Eritrea.44 The u.s. decision to support Eritrea’s independence, therefore, can hardly be explained by u.s. business interests in the region. The central question that should be asked is, how can the political outcome of the Eritrean issue (i.e., independence from or unity with Ethiopia) affect the interests of u.s. corporations if there was effectively no u.s. investment in Ethiopia or in Eritrea? In this context, it is hard to see how an independent Eritrea could have bolstered or damaged u.s. business interests. It could be argued, however, that the liberalization of Eritrea’s economy and the overthrow of the communist regime in both Eritrea and Ethiopia during the transition period did fall under medium- and long-term u.s. economic interests, as these two events created private investment opportunities.

conclusion The instability of Ethiopia’s international borders was not sufficient in itself to compel the United States to move to the second step of the stability theory. The United States shifted its policy in favour of Eritrea’s independence only once it became clear that the central government of Addis Ababa was no longer able and willing to resolve its internal secessionist crisis. It was only at this point that the idea of secession emerged as a tool to restore order.

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The events of the transitional period of 1991–93 also tend to validate the model. The United States persuaded Eritrean leaders that a unilateral declaration of independence would isolate Eritrea. Secessionist leaders were encouraged, rather, to establish a functioning and democratic government. Then they strengthened their ties with the new Ethiopian government and proceeded with a referendum on independence supervised by the United Nations to validate the legitimacy of the breakup. It was only once Eritrea fulfilled these criteria that the United States extended recognition.

7 Somaliland: A Non-recognized Independent State

introduction The purpose of this chapter is to understand why Somaliland, the northwest region of Somalia that seceded in 1991, is still unrecognized as an independent state, despite its relatively high level of stability in comparison to the rest of Somalia. More specifically, this chapter attempts to explain why the United States, whose role was central in the independence of Eritrea (the neighbouring state), has been opposed to Somaliland’s secession for almost twenty years. I argue that until 1997, the United States did not seriously raise the issue of Somaliland’s recognition because, like the rest of Somalia, it was unstable. Since 1997, however, Somaliland has experienced a period of uninterrupted stability and democratization. Its government has developed a dynamic economy and created functional democratic institutions, and it now has most of the attributes of statehood. It has its own passport, national currency, flag, and license plates. Meanwhile, the rest of Somalia has undergone war and chaos and has been without effective government since 1991. Yet despite Somaliland’s achievements, which have been made without any foreign assistance, it is worth noting, the United States remains opposed to its secession. If we follow the assumptions of the stability-seeking argument, the United States should now recognize Somaliland in order to promote regional stability in this turmoiled region of Africa, but it does not do so. Why? Somaliland represents an exceptional case. The failure of the u.s. assault mission in Mogadishu in October 1993, during which eighteen u.s. Army Rangers were killed, partly explains why Washington has still not granted recognition to Somaliland, despite its fulfillment of most of the stability indicators of the stability-seeking

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model. Since the failed military operation of 1993, a “Somalia aversion” has affected the conduct of the u.s. policy toward Somalia and Somaliland. The American government has refrained from being involved in the Somalian quagmire, and the State Department does not see how it could be beneficial to be involved one way or another. Thus, the u.s. casualties in Mogadishu are causally relevant in the explanation of the u.s. attitude toward Somaliland and partially undermine the predictive nature of the stability argument. Before I go any further, the time frame of this chapter must be delimited, since the Somaliland secessionist issue is still under way. The scope of the analysis here is limited to the 1991–2005 period and does not include recent developments such as the overthrow of the Transitional Government of Somalia by Islamic extremists in 2006.

historical background After more than sixty years as a British colony (1897–1960), British Somaliland (currently Somaliland) declared its independence from England on 26 June 1960 and was recognized by thirty-five states, including the United States.1 British Somaliland joined with Italian Somaliland (currently Somalia) five days later to form the Republic of Somalia, in order to pursue the dream of uniting all the Somali people within one state.2 Although the two Somalilands had different colonial pasts, their union was looked upon as a great prospect for political stability, since the new Republic of Somalia was the only state in Africa that was ethnically, linguistically, and religiously homogeneous. Despite their common attributes, the two former colonies failed to develop a sense of nationhood. They had very different economies, unique colonial experiences, and different institutions. Moreover, political parties were based on clan loyalties, which emphasized regional interests and divided the North and the South. These discrepancies led British and Italian Somaliland to disagree on the terms of the Act of Union, and the new President of Somalia, Aden Abdilla Osman, decided to unilaterally authorize unification through a political decree that established a unitary state. The Act of Union thus never obtained the consent of politicians from former British Somaliland, and no official international treaty on the union was ever signed between the two states.3

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Furthermore, Somalilanders opposed the adoption of Somalia’s constitution, because the document was seen as reflective of Southern thinking and Italian values. Nevertheless, the constitution was adopted because the large majority of the population in former Italian Somalia (which represented two-thirds of the total population of Somalia) voted in favour of it. The Somalia experiment, therefore, started off on the wrong foot and suffered from a deficit of legitimacy.4 A military coup, orchestrated in 1969 by Somalia’s chief of the armed forces Siad Barre, drastically transformed Somalia’s political landscape. The constitution and the assembly of the Republic were suspended, private industries were nationalized, and the new military regime established a socialist state with the support of the Soviet Union.5 In the second half of the 1970s, Siad Barre pursued an aggressive foreign policy that aimed to unite all the Somali people living in Ethiopia, Djibouti, and Kenya into a Greater Somalia. The first action undertaken by Barre was to invade Ethiopia’s Ogaden region in 1977, which caused his regime to lose the support of the Soviet Union in favour of Ethiopia. This event eventually compelled Barre to withdraw his troops from Ethiopia and to carry out a major political realignment. In 1978, following the war with Ethiopia, Somalia requested u.s. economic and military assistance, and soon the Americans became the most important provider of foreign aid to Somalia.6 In exchange, the United States obtained the right to use naval and military facilities in the port of Berbera, located in Somaliland, which had previously been used by the Soviets. The u.s. support of Somalia was purely pragmatic and must be viewed through the lens of Cold War politics. As former assistant secretary of state for Africa Herman J. Cohen indicates, “Because of Somalia’s strategic position, u.s. diplomacy felt obliged to cultivate close and cordial relations with one of the world’s most vicious despots, Mohammed Siad Barre.”7 The Emergence of the SNM In the early 1980s, a group of exiled Somalilanders in London created the Somali National Movement (snm). This movement brought together businessmen, religious leaders, intellectuals, and former army officers from the Isaak clan – the largest family clan in

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Somaliland – and its main objective was to overthrow Barre’s regime.8 Military operations conducted by the snm were based in Ethiopia, with Addis Ababa’s support. It is worth noting that the snm, which eventually declared the independence of Somaliland, was initially not a secessionist movement. In the 1980s most of its members saw Somalia’s unity as being inviolable and fought for the establishment of a federal state. The snm’s war against the central government reached its peak in 1988, when the snm made significant progress by defeating the troops of Siad Barre in Hargeisa (the capital of Somaliland) and in Burao. The response of the central government was brutal. Barre ordered aerial bombardments on Somaliland’s cities. The effects of this countermeasure were atrocious. By 1990, at least fifty thousand Somalilanders had died in the fighting between the snm and the national army, and these events strengthened popular support for secession. The snm was not the only rebellious movement in Somalia. During the 1980s, two other organizations from the South also fought for the overthrow of Barre’s authoritarian regime: the United Somali Congress (usc) and the Somali Patriotic Front (spf). In concert with the snm, these movements coordinated their military efforts and accelerated the fall of Barre. In May of 1990, warlords from different clans and rebellious movements controlled large parts of Somalia, and the government of Mogadishu could no longer carry out its normal administrative functions. In January 1991 the state of Somalia disintegrated when the troops of the United Somali Congress, under the authority of General Aidid, entered Mogadishu and forced Siad Barre to flee.9 The Rise of Pro-Secessionist Sentiment In the months following the exile of Siad Barre, snm leaders who were by then in control of Somaliland, were highly dissatisfied with the way the post-Barre transition was going. There was a lack of consultation between the three rebellious movements, and the national conference on transition that had been planned before the collapse of the Barre regime never convened. Furthermore, a faction of the usc decided unilaterally to form a government in Mogadishu and named its leader, Ali Mahdi, as interim president without any prior consultation with the snm. This decision not only alienated

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Somalilanders but initiated a war between the two dominant figures of the United Somali Congress: Ali Mahli and General Aidid. This war was the main cause of starvation and suffering in Somalia during the 1990s. In the face of these developments, snm leaders declared the independence of the Republic of Somaliland in Burco on 18 May 1991 and repealed the Act of Union of 1960. The Burco proclamation stated that Somaliland would keep the borders of the former colony of British Somaliland, and the leader of the snm, Abd-er-Rahman, also known as Tur, was named president of the new republic. Secessionist leaders also argued that since Somaliland had been a distinct geopolitical entity before 1960 and had declared independence and obtained international recognition in June 1960, the Burco declaration was not an act of secession but a dissolution between sovereign states. However, since there was no longer a central government in Mogadishu to consent (or not) to the dissolution, the declaration was one of secession stricto sensu.

the american reaction The stability-seeking argument is measured here in the post–May 1991 era, that is to say, after Somaliland declared independence. Before then, there was no secessionist crisis in Somalia, and the Bureau of African Affairs of the State Department was focusing only on the resolution of the civil war.10 In the days following Somaliland’s unilateral declaration of independence, the State Department made its position clear: the u.s. government would not recognize any new entity in Somalia. In a cable sent to American embassies in Africa, Secretary of State James Baker wrote: The Somali National Movement (snm) recently announced northern Somalia’s secession under the name “Somaliland Republic,” with boundaries apparently the same as the old British Somaliland protectorate. The import of this move is not entirely clear. It may not be fully accepted even within the snm and may also be designed as a bargaining chip for snm use with the self-proclaimed provisional government in Mogadishu. The u.s. of course does not recognize any new entity in Somalia. As we have made clear elsewhere, we do not think declaratory acts hold the key to solving Somalia’s or the horn’s problems. Only

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negotiations can do that. snm’s unilateral declaration of independence could also serve to complicate a possible initiative by African states or the oau on the political front by introducing new juridical problems. In our actions and statements with respect to Somalia, we wish to call as little attention as possible to the snm’s udi.11 The u.s. position of non-recognition was shaped by various factors that, when taken together, led the Bush administration to conclude that the partition of Somalia would lead to the emergence of another unstable state in the Horn of Africa. First, there was a chaotic situation in Mogadishu, and the Bush administration wanted to avoid any hasty decision that could have worsened the situation in Somalia. Second, in the absence of a central government in Mogadishu, the United States did not trust any rebellious groups or clans that pretended to speak in the name of the Somali people. As Assistant Secretary Cohen points out, “We did not recognize the new entity Somaliland, because we had no confidence in any declarations in Somalia.”12 Third, the u.s. government could not gather reliable information on the political course of events in Somalia, mainly because the United States no longer had an embassy in Mogadishu – violence in the capital had forced the u.s. government to evacuate and close its embassy in January 1991. In addition, as unclassified cables show, u.s. embassies in Djibouti and Kenya were unable to communicate valuable information on what was happening on the ground: “We have received no reliable information on what is actually happening in the north.”13 In this context, the United States was not in a position to make a sound and enlightened decision on the issue of Somaliland. Fourth, unlike Eritrea, which ultimately seceded with the consent of Ethiopia, Somaliland never received the approval of Somalia to leave, since there was no constitutive government in Somalia in the aftermath of Siad Barre’s departure. The United States was clearly aware of this fact and raised it as an objection against secession, because it feared that recognition in such a context would create a precedent.14 Finally, the Organization of African Unity (oau) was opposed to Somaliland’s secession and the United States was not interested in violating the sacred principle of state integrity cherished by the oau.15 The oau’s approach to Somaliland was far different from

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its approach toward Eritrea for the reason mentioned in point four. Thus, in this context there was no benefit for the United States in supporting Somaliland’s independence, and the costs of making such a decision would have been considerable, since they might have worsened the political environment in the Horn.

awaiting the formation of a somalian government Following the departure of Siad Barre, the United States focused its attention on the global settlement of the Somalian crisis and, in the words of Secretary Baker, called “as little attention as possible to the snm’s udi.”16 The Bush administration, however, was not as directly involved in the resolution of the Somalian conflict as it was in Ethiopia, for instance, during the same period. At that time, the Bureau of African Affairs was already involved in the resolution of several other African conflicts, in Angola, Ethiopia, Liberia, Mozambique, and Sudan, and thus suffered from “bureaucratic fatigue.” As Herman Cohen points out, “with u.s. forces well accommodated directly in the Gulf, and with our embassy closed, we more or less dropped Somalia from our radar screens.”17 In the weeks following the collapse of Somalia, the Bush administration expressed support for the restoration of a central Somalian government and encouraged Djibouti in its initiative to host reconciliation talks in June and July of 1991. The United States saw the restoration of peace and order in Somalia as essential to setting the stage for an international relief effort, and it remained confident that Somalia could establish a functioning government.18 The peace negotiations held in Djibouti in the summer of 1991 failed, however, because some warlords did not attend the talks and because snm representatives refused to participate, claiming that their party was not one political faction among others but the representative of the Republic of Somaliland. Ironically, these talks, which aimed to reunite Somalia, accelerated its collapse. While Somalian political parties attempted to secure a peace agreement, Somalilanders were on a different trajectory. In the fall of 1991, snm leaders travelled to Western countries to seek international recognition and humanitarian assistance.19 In Washington, snm representatives delivered the following message to State

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Department officials: (1) The Isaaks and the other clans in Somaliland support secession; (2) Law and order prevail on the ground; (3) Somaliland is committed to liberal democracy; (4) A referendum on Somaliland’s constitution will be held within two years (the referendum was actually held in 2001); and (5) Somalilanders favour a market-oriented economy.20 Despite this charm offensive carried out by the secessionists, the State Department adopted a wait-andsee approach and expressed its preference for a global peace solution to end the Somalian crisis.

degeneration into chaos, 1992–96 The peaceful state of affairs in Somaliland that was depicted by snm representatives in Washington did not last. Clan conflicts erupted in March of 1992, when Somaliland’s government attempted to take control of the Red Sea port of Berbera against the will of the local clans and warlords. This conflict was the result of the government’s failure to establish demobilization programs for veteran fighters. Sub-clan conflicts also caused Somaliland’s emerging economy to crumble after a few months of sustained economic activities. The absence of international recognition also worked against the economy of Somaliland, since it could not acquire loans from international institutions. In less than a year after its udi, Somaliland was internally unstable, and all the political and military factions in Somalia were opposed to its secession, which indicates that Somaliland was evolving in a semi-hostile international environment. These events confirmed the assessment of the State Department that the whole region was unstable and that a global solution had to be found, starting with the establishment of a central government in Mogadishu. The Elders at the Center of Somaliland’s Conflict Resolution Process In late 1992, elders from the different sub-clans in Somaliland gathered in a shir (assembly) to find a solution to the crisis, in what became the first national reconciliation conference. A political settlement that, among other things, allocated a greater share of parliamentary seats to minority clans was reached in the spring of

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1993. This unique way of solving political problems was part of the traditional Somaliland conflict resolution structure. This mechanism would prove its effectiveness throughout the 1990s, and it explains, in large part, why Somaliland would eventually become a stable political entity in comparison to the rest of Somalia. Following the reconciliation conference, Mohamed Haji Ibrahim Egal (who had been prime minister of Somalia in the late 1960s) was selected as the president of Somaliland and Tur (who had been the first president of Somaliland in 1991) was chosen as vice-president. Egal made significant progress towards political stability. He demobilized the militias that were created in the 1980s to fight against Siad Barre, and he re-established a secure environment for economic activity. The new president was unable, however, to extend administrative control over all of Somaliland’s territory, and he met with resistance from some Isaak sub-clans over the issue of power sharing. Moreover, rebellious groups loyal to the unity of Somalia (called the federalists) and allied with Somalian General Aidid opposed Egal’s government. The fight between the secessionists and the federalists caused Somaliland to fall into a second civil war in late 1994, during which Hargeisa and Burco were seriously damaged, and 180,000 people were displaced throughout Somaliland.21 This second war validated, once again, the American assessment of the situation in Somaliland and kept the issue of recognition off the u.s. foreign policy agenda.

from internal strife to growing stability (1997–2005) Somaliland’s internal war ended with the convening of a second national reconciliation conference, held in Hargeisa from October 1996 to February 1997. In retrospect, this conference marked the beginning of Somaliland’s institutionalization and democratization process. Isaak sub-clans, which had been fighting each other sporadically over the control of resources, decided to put an end to their division and to work together for the improvement of viable political institutions.22 This state of mind had a snowball effect. It improved the minority clans’ trust of the Isaaks and favoured their involvement in the institutionalization process. Representatives at the conference also established a parliament with a two-chamber assembly inspired by the Westminster model of

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government. The Lower House serves as an elected assembly, and the Upper House serves as the Senate of the Clans, also called the House of Elders. Although Somaliland president Egal failed to achieve international recognition for Somaliland, he succeeded in establishing a democratic and stable government, and he was able to resume economic activities. In 1997, for instance, the port of Berbera became a central import-export location on the Red Sea and overshadowed the port of Djibouti in terms of goods traded. In the late 1990s, exchanges through the port doubled from what they had been before the 1988 war against Siad Barre. A vibrant private sector also emerged. Airline companies, as well as electricity and telephone companies, were created in order to help rebuild Somaliland’s infrastructure. At the dawn of the twenty-first century, the economy of Somaliland was getting stronger and was in a much better position than Somalia’s, even though it was assisted by international organizations. On the political front, President Egal carried out a political transition toward a multi-party democracy, which added value to Somaliland’s democratic process. His government also signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and drafted a constitution that guaranteed universal suffrage. Moreover, in May 2001 a new constitution was validated by 97 percent of Somaliland’s voters in a referendum supervised by international observers. The result of the referendum showed that a clear majority supported Somaliland’s independence, as the first paragraph of the constitution stipulated that Somaliland was an independent state.23 The death of President Egal in 2002 was the first serious democratic test for Somaliland, since his death necessitated political transition. The test was successfully passed when power was transferred to new president Dahir Riyale Kahin according to the constitution. This showed the viability and stability of the political system.24 Finally, in September 2005 the first multi-party parliamentary elections were held in what was seen as a major step in the democratization process and as proof that Somaliland was now becoming a stable multiparty democracy.25 Today, Somaliland has functioning democratic institutions, including a judicial system and a free press, and it no longer generates refugees, which greatly contributes to its external stability. Somalilanders also have a legitimate constitution, an army, and

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police forces. As indicated in the introduction to this chapter, it also has the main attributes of statehood, including a flag and its own currency, passports, and license plates. Somalilanders also obtained quasi-recognition from several states: Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Djibouti exchanged quasi-ambassadorial envoys with Hargeisa. After numerous threats to its existence in the first half of the 1990s, Somaliland managed to survive as a de facto independent state on the path to prosperity. Since 1997, Somaliland has experienced a period of uninterrupted stability. Somaliland’s External Stability Even though Somaliland no longer produces refugees, its external stability is not as strong as its internal stability. In the late 1990s, Somaliland’s territorial integrity was disputed by Puntland, a nonsecessionist autonomous state established in 1998 on the northeastern side of Somalia, which claimed Somaliland’s regions of Sanaag and Sool. The dispute emerged when members of minority clans in Somaliland (the Dulbahante and the Warsangeli) who lived near the Puntland border felt divided in their affiliation and wanted to associate with Puntland. Somaliland argued that the two regions were part of former British Somaliland, while Puntland authorities maintained that the representatives of Sanaag and Sool expressed their desire to join Puntland and should have the right to do so.26 Tensions arose in 1999 when the government of Puntland attempted to establish control over parts of Sanaag and Sool, an action that led to a political crisis. Until recently, Somaliland’s integrity remained threatened by Puntland. It seems, however, that the Somaliland/Puntland border dispute has not been a major factor influencing the u.s. non-recognition policy. None of the u.s. government officials interviewed for this chapter raised the Puntland issue as an obstacle to Somaliland’s recognition, and the literature on Somaliland written from a u.s. perspective does not raise this subject either.

the constancy of u.s. policy In the second half of the 1990s and in the early twenty-first century, the United States continued to focus on the establishment of a central government in Mogadishu. The objective was straightfor-

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ward: to prevent Somalia from becoming a hotbed for Islamic fundamentalism.27 During these years, the United States has remained categorically opposed to Somaliland’s independence. In 1999, Somaliland president Mohamed Haji Ibrahim Egal visited the United States and raised the issue of recognition with State Department officials. The u.s. policy remained unchanged, however, and the State Department indicated, as it had in 1991, that a global solution must be found in order to resolve the Somalian crisis. This time, the u.s. government agreed to supply more aid to Hargeisa. The u.s. government even sent a delegation of the u.s. Agency for International Development (usaid) to the secessionist state in 2000. Headed by the u.s. ambassador in Djibouti, it met with President Egal; such a visit to an African secessionist state was unprecedented. As former assistant secretary of state for Africa Herman J. Cohen pointed out, “while awaiting for some eventual Somalian government, we are doing what we could have done if we [had] recognized Somaliland. We are giving aid. So the situation on the ground is not so different.”28 In 2001 the United States supported the Arta peace process that established the Transitional National Government of Somalia (tng).29 This was the twelfth attempt at peace negotiation since the collapse of Somalia in 1991. Since its creation, the transitional government has not been able, however, to establish its authority over Somalia, and the whole region remains an administrative “black hole.”

reasons for the u.s. refusal to recognize somaliland If the Somaliland/Puntland border dispute does not bother u.s. decision makers, why is it then that the United States still refuses to recognize this secessionist state, which meets most of the traditional u.s. requirements for recognition? Why is it that the American government persists in supporting the formation of a Somalian government after almost two decades of failures in negotiations between the different family clans at the same time that Somaliland is stable, peaceful, and democratic and has sought recognition? The stability theory predicts that the United States should quickly move ahead with recognition in order to bolster stability in the region.

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The key to understanding this puzzle lies in what can be referred to as the “Somalia aversion,” which is unique to this case. To understand the impact of this intervening factor in the u.s. regionalstability calculation, we must go back to 1993. The Somalia Aversion Following the collapse of Somalia in 1991, Mogadishu became the scene of inter-clan fighting for the control of food and other resources. In early 1992, the humanitarian crisis in Somalia hit the news in the United States, and cnn provided extensive coverage of the issue. Somalia soon became a burning issue in u.s. politics. As Herman Cohen recalls, cnn, which “showed starving Somali mothers and babies on American television daily had a strong impact. Congress was inundated with mail calling for Washington to do something to stop the suffering.”30 With a u.s. presidential election coming in November, President Bush estimated that it was worthwhile to tackle the Somalia issue. After being abandoned by the Americans in January 1991, Somalia became a top u.s. foreign policy issue less than a year later. In August, the White House announced that the Department of Defence (dod) would launch an emergency food airlift to Somalia called “Operation Provide Relief.”31 The u.s. operation, however, encountered the resistance of warlords in Mogadishu, who blocked the distribution of food. In the weeks following his presidential defeat against Bill Clinton, President Bush remained steadfast about resolving the problem of hunger in Somalia. In December 1992, twenty-eight thousand u.s. troops were dispatched as part of the United Nations Unified Task Force – unitaf. The objective of the mission was to take control of the ports of Mogadishu in order to assure the distribution of relief supplies. Throughout 1993, un peacekeepers were being repeatedly attacked by guerrilla groups led by General Mohammed Aidid. They wanted the un to withdraw from Somalia in order to maintain their power. In reaction, President Clinton, who had inherited the case from his predecessor, authorized u.s. troops to use force against General Aidid, with the consent of the un. The operation, however, turned into a chaotic battle in the streets of Mogadishu. Two u.s. Black Hawk helicopters were shot down by Aidid’s rebels, and eighteen American soldiers were killed during the operation.

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This marked the end of the u.s. operation in Somalia and brought into question the very reason for this involvement. Many have considered the Battle of Mogadishu unjustifiable, since u.s. national interests were not at stake in Somalia, and it created an aversion among the u.s. foreign policy community that has kept the American government away from Somalia and Somaliland. Somalia remained off Washington’s radar screen in the second half of the 1990s,32 and received attention again only following the terrorist attacks against the United States on September 11 2001. When asked why the u.s. government was not directly involved in the resolution of the Somalian conflict and why it does not recognize the independence of Somaliland, a high-ranking former u.s. official who was posted in the Horn of Africa in the 1990s answered, “Frankly there is a Somalia fatigue. What’s really in it for us? Why get involved and open an embassy if it’s going to get bombed the next week? Once upon a time we had 28,000 troops there and we walked out with our tail between our legs.”33 Even though Somaliland now lives in a different political reality from that of Somalia, in that it has been stable for more than ten years, the American government refrains from making any bold decision on the issue, because it feels that it has nothing to gain from it. The Somalia aversion argument, of course, is not part of the official justification for non-recognition. The two factors that are most often brought up are, first, that Somaliland never got the approval of Somalia to secede, and, second, that the oau rejects the secession of Somaliland. Yet previous chapters have shown that the United States did recognize secessionist states that went through “non-consensual divorce.” Kosovo, for instance, was recognized by the United States even though it seceded unilaterally from Serbia. As for Croatia, Macedonia, and Slovenia, it is true that Yugoslavia had ceased to exist when the Americans granted recognition to these Yugoslav republics, but Somalia also ceased to exist as a coherent political entity almost twenty years ago. If the fear of creating a political precedent is what precludes u.s. recognition of Somaliland, it would seem that this precedent has already been created, especially with the case of Kosovo. Furthermore, the case of Eritrea (chapter 6) shows that the oau did not stop the u.s. delegation in London from supporting Eritrea’s right of self-determination in 1991. So, is the unilateral character of Somaliland’s secession and

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the oau opposition enough to explain the u.s. policy of non-recognition? The answer is, no. In fact, if the United States was convinced that the recognition of Somaliland would bring more stability to the region, it would certainly push for it. It would also have some solid arguments to justify its preference for recognition. First, Somaliland was a sovereign state recognized by the United States before it joined Somalia in 1960, a status that Eritrea did not have before being integrated into Ethiopia in 1952. Second, Somalilanders never fully consented to the terms of the Act of Union signed in 1960, which gives greater legitimacy to secession. Together, these arguments are a solid justification for secessionist self-determination and constitute a fence against the spread of secessionist movements in Africa since Somaliland is a unique case. As for the moral aspect of the issue, the United States could emphasize the fact that Somalilanders experienced political and economic discrimination, as well as military repression, throughout the 1970s and 1980s. Despite these strong arguments for recognition, the American government is far from being convinced that recognition would bring more stability. Washington still views the whole region as unpredictable, and this assessment is “path dependent” on the military defeat in Mogadishu, which was a defining stage in the temporal sequence of events that shaped the u.s. policy toward Somaliland. The current dominant view in the National Security Council and in the State Department is that as long as there is no central government in Mogadishu, nothing can be done to restore order. Some commentators in the foreign policy establishment even argue that Somaliland did well and is relatively stable precisely because it was not recognized.34 This would suggest that the hope of obtaining recognition forced Somalilanders to behave and to adopt a democratic system. This argument maintains that since Somaliland is already stable, international recognition would not bring more stability to it. Therefore, there is no rush to issue diplomatic recognition, and the American government should continue to focus on a global peace initiative that will bring order to Somalia as a whole. Another approach, which obtains increasing support from the academic community, argues that u.s. recognition of Somaliland would in fact improve regional stability by sending a message to the rest of Somalia that if Somalians would come together and imple-

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ment democratization, as did Somalilanders, the United States would be more supportive and helpful.35 For now, however, this view has not been endorsed by u.s. foreign policy officials.

within the u.s. executive “black box” The Somaliland issue has never produced any significant disagreement between u.s. foreign policy agencies. In the early 1990s, the question of Somaliland’s recognition was not even on the agenda. The secession of Somaliland was treated as an epiphenomenon of Somalia state collapse and as one source of trouble among many. In early 2000, however, the issue of Somaliland’s recognition was seriously studied by the African bureau of the State Department.36 Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs Walter Kansteiner came to the conclusion, however, that recognition would produce very few benefits, with significant costs. Former assistant secretary of state Cohen reached a similar conclusion: “The oau cooperates with us in anti-terrorism and in all sorts of economic issues. If you weigh all that against getting them upset about Somaliland, on balance it’s not worth it.”37

the ethnic-politics argument There has been no major variation in the u.s. policy toward Somaliland since 1991, which makes it difficult to analyze the impact that Somalian and Somalilander Americans had on the u.s. position. The evidence indicates, however, that Somalian Americans, who form a community of over one hundred thousand people in the United States, have not been politically organized in Washington, dc, unlike Ethiopian Americans, for instance. The Somalian diaspora is divided by clans, it has been ineffective at raising its voice, and it has failed to come up with a coherent position regarding the future of Somalia.38 No evidence indicates that the u.s. position on the matter could have been influenced by this ethnic group. As for Somalilander Americans, they did organize demonstrations in Washington in favour of Somaliland’s independence, but they were not well organized either, partly because they constitute a very small community in the United States: most of Somaliland’s diaspora is located in England.39 As the u.s. position toward Soma-

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liland has remained unchanged since 1991, we must conclude that Somalilander Americans have had very little or no influence at all on the u.s. position. As a result, this case study tends to render invalid the ethnic-group hypotheses according to which the United States position is shaped by the ethnic group that exercised the most pressure on the u.s. government and/or by the ethnic group that represented the largest number of u.s. voters.

business interests Oil corporations such as Exxon Mobil, Total, Amoco, and Chevron held exploration concessions in the north of Somalia in the late 1980s. When Somalia collapsed in 1991, these companies declared force majeure, which exempted them from their legal obligations toward the government of Somalia, because of conditions beyond their control.40 Parts of the concessions that were held by these oil corporations in the late 1980s are now located within the Republic of Somaliland. However, since the United States does not recognize the secessionist state, these companies have been left with a complex legal situation and hope that one day their oil concessions will be honoured if a central government is re-established in Somalia. In 1991, Conoco and Phillips (now merged into ConocoPhillips), one of the largest energy companies in the United States, discovered oil fields in the North-East of Somalia close to the Somaliland border, and some of that oil lay under Somaliland’s soil. The sites were expected to produce up to three hundred thousand barrels of oil per day.41 Following Somaliland’s secession, Conoco and Phillips worried about the juridical situation in Somaliland and consulted with u.s. government officials to evaluate whether it was safe to start oil exploration in the north.42 The problem was that international law did not apply to the self-declared republic and, therefore, that Conoco and Phillips and the other corporations that chose to do business in Somaliland had no juridical appeal. That being said, no evidence indicates that one or several of these oil firms have influenced, in one way or the other, the U.S policy toward Somalia and Somaliland. And no information specifies that there might be a connection between u.s. executive officials and the interests of oil corporations that were operating in Somalia and Somaliland. The literature on the Somalian crisis does not address

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this issue, and unclassified documents from the State Department do not mention or imply that politicians from the White House elaborated a policy toward Somaliland that was in the interest of American corporations or of corporations with which u.s. executive officials shared ties. Interviews conducted with current and former nsc and State Department officials did not shed any light on this issue. Furthermore, the United States has been constantly opposed to Somaliland’s independence since 1991, which suggests that if indeed private corporations did try to pressure the White House, they failed in their attempt. This chapter is not arguing that the business interest argument falls short in explaining the u.s. foreign policy toward Somaliland, although previous chapters have demonstrated that this model is unconvincing. It is simply indicating that very little information is available on this issue and, therefore, that no conclusion can be reached at this stage on the ability of this argument to explain the current case study.

conclusion The performance of the stability-seeking argument here is not as strong as it is in the other cases. In fact, the argument performs better in the period of 1991–97 when Somaliland was facing internal wars. Somaliland was perceived as one zone of conflict among many in Somalia, and the diplomatic recognition of this secessionist state was, therefore, not even on the u.s. agenda. The 1997–2005 period is a different story, however. Somaliland went through a sustained process of democratization and institutionalization. Yet, while the indicators of the stability theory, taken together, predict the u.s. recognition of Somaliland, the American government holds fast to its policy of non-recognition. Somaliland is an exception to the extent that an ad hoc factor explains the current u.s. policy. The failed combat operation conducted in Mogadishu in 1993 has kept the American government away from Somalia and Somaliland. There are not many instances of u.s. military defeats in recent history. The Viet Nam war and the Battle of Mogadishu are probably the only two instances, and their effects on the conduct of u.s. foreign policy should not be understated. The defeat in Mogadishu has tainted the u.s. government’s

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assessment of the evolution of Somaliland. Regardless of the considerable progress that Somalilanders have made over the years to build a stable and liberal democracy, Washington is apparently unable to extricate Somaliland from the whole Somalian picture. For this reason, this case does not fit the argument perfectly, owing to its very unique character.

8 Theoretical and Empirical Findings

introduction The research in this book brings external factors back to the forefront of the theoretical debate on u.s. policy-making toward foreign intrastate conflicts. While the United States was consistent in its approach toward secessionism during the Cold War by systematically supporting states experiencing secessionist crises, its response to secessionist conflicts in the post–Cold War period was more confusing, because it varied from case to case. Until now, no theoretical argument has addressed this variation in the u.s. response to secessionist states and explained the apparent inconsistency of its policy. This book remedies this research problem by showing that the United States is a stability-seeking power, which explains the research puzzle under investigation. The stability argument consistently offers better explanations and predictions than the ethnicpolitics and business interest arguments and challenges liberal claims that domestic politics define American foreign policy. By comparing intra-cases (i.e., the variations within each case), by looking at different secessionist crises taken from the same regional environment, and by contrasting the u.s. reaction to secessionism in the Balkans and in the Horn of Africa, this research maximizes the points of measurement of the theory and increases its external validity. Tables 8.1 and 8.2 highlight the “score” of the stability-seeking argument. The first step of the argument is correct in explaining the u.s. reaction in three of the four central states studied – Yugoslavia, the fry, and Ethiopia. The United States supported these states as long as they were open to negotiation and able or willing to negotiate. It

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Table 8.1 Typology of the Stability-Seeking Model: First Step of the Argument External Stability

Internal Negotiations

U.S.

Reaction

Central Government Negotiates with Secessionists

Military Repression Against Secessionists

Central State Paralyzed or Collapses

U.S.

Expected Response

Actual Response

Yugoslavia

Yes

No

Yes/then No

Yes

Yes

End support for Yugoslavia’s integrity

End support for Yugoslavia’s integritya

The fry (SerbiaMontenegro)

Yes

Yes

Yes/then No

Yes

No

End support for fry’s integrity

End support for fry’s integritya

Ethiopia

Yes

No

Yes/then No

Yes

Yes

End support for Ethiopia’s integrity

End support for Ethiopia’s integritya

Somalia

Yes

No

No

Yes

Yes

End support for Somalia’s integrity

Support for Somalia’s integrityb

a

Successful prediction. Incorrect prediction that necessitates an ad hoc explanation.

b

A Stability-Seeking Power

Violation of Contiguous States’ Sovereignty

U.S.

Central State

CrossNational Refugees

Table 8.2 Typology of the Stability-Seeking Model: Second Step of the Argument External Stability

Internal Stability

Respect of Internal Borders

Democratic Referendum/ Respect for Minorities

Secessionist State

Defined Territory

Slovenia (1991–92)

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Croatia (1991–92)

Yes

Yes

No

No

Macedonia (1991–2004)

Yes

Yes

Yes But tension with Greece

Yes

Kosovo (1991–2008)

Yes

Yes

Eritrea (1989–93)

Yes

Somaliland (1991–2005)

Yes

U.S.

Expected Response

Actual Response

Yes / Yes

Recognition of Secession

Recognition of Secessiona

No

Yes / No

Non-recognition of Secession

Recognition of Secessionb

Yes

Yes / Yes

Recognition of Secession

Recognition of Secessiona (delayed)

Yes But tension with Serbia

Yes Yes With eu and nato help

Yes / Yes

Recognition of Secession (delayed)

Recognition of Secessiona

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes / Yes Sponsored by u.n.

Recognition of Secession

Recognition of Secessiona

Yes

Yes Yes But tension with Puntland

Yes

Yes / Yes

Recognition of Secession

Non-recognition of Secessionb

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U.S.

Successful predictions. Incorrect predictions that necessitate an ad hoc explanation.

b

Reaction

Theoretical and Empirical Findings

Effective Control of Territory

Respect of At Peace International with Borders Neighbours

a

U.S.

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was only once these central authorities failed to offer prospects for stabilization that the u.s. government considered the recognition of secessionist states as an alternative. As for the case of Somalia, an ad hoc explanation is necessary to understand why the United States keeps supporting a unified Somalian state, while the stability indicators anticipate the opposite decision. This case is an exception to the extent that it is linked (even if indirectly) to the u.s. military defeat in Mogadishu in 1993 and to the “Somalia aversion” that resulted from it. The second step of the theory also performs well. Out of the six cases of secession examined, the argument is successful in explaining five of them. Eritrea, Kosovo, Macedonia, and Slovenia were recognized by the United States because they fulfilled criteria of internal and external stability and their recognition had the purpose of bolstering their security. Croatia, however, represents a minor deviant case, since it did not entirely conform to expectations. Broader stability considerations were at play in this case. The recognition of Croatia was part of a u.s. strategy to contain Serbia’s aggressive behaviour. This consideration explains why Croats obtained recognition even though they did not entirely meet the stability conditions fixed by the u.s. government. The American strategy was more focused at that time on the transformation of Croatia’s republican boundaries into international borders than on internal stability. The u.s. policy toward Croatia was driven by regional stability, but the means to achieve it were partly different from those defined in the argument. The theoretical assumption of the argument still holds, therefore, in this case, and the American position toward Croatia suggests that the power to grant, to withhold, and to oppose diplomatic recognition is a powerful tool to manage secessionist crises. Somaliland is a more important challenge to the argument. In contrast to Croatia, the theory expected this secessionist state to be recognized by the United States, since Somalilanders have established a stable state since the second half of the 1990s. Yet, the American government still refuses to grant recognition to Hargeisa. Again, this case is an exception for reasons mentioned in the previous chapter. In sum, in most of the cases the facts concur with the hypotheses of the stability-seeking argument. First, as a stability-seeking power, the United States supports the integrity of sovereign states as long

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as they can contain the effects of secessionist struggles inside their borders and/or as long as they are willing to negotiate with secessionists to end the conflict. Second, the United States recognizes the independence of a secessionist state only if it can simultaneously maintain its internal stability and its external stability. In cases where stability would not be guaranteed by secessionist leaders, the United States maintains the status quo and/or delays recognition as in the examples of Kosovo and Macedonia.

domestic arguments This book shows that the ethnic-politics and business interest arguments do not perform well: the evidence generally does not fit their respective hypotheses. These theoretical propositions fail to explain the u.s. reaction to almost all the cases studied. The information collected indicates that these domestic sources of foreign policy were secondary factors and often marginal ones at that. In only one brief instance was an ethnic group able to affect the conduct of u.s. policy toward a secessionist crisis. The Clinton administration reversed its decision to exchange diplomatic relations with the fyrom in 1994 because of the pressure exercised by the Greek American lobby. The impact of this ethnic group remained limited, however, as it did not lead the United States to reverse its recognition of the republic. In all the other cases and intra-cases studied, from the Balkans to the Horn of Africa, domestic ethnic politics in the United States was always a secondary thought that could not seriously compete with issues of war and peace in Ethiopia, the fry, Somalia, and Yugoslavia. The case studies also show that ethnic lobbies can oppose u.s. recognition of secessionist states, as well as seek it. For each of the cases, different ethnic lobbies were opposing each other in Washington in order to influence decision makers in one way or another. Overall, the research demonstrates that domestic ethnic groups did not matter much in either direction, in causing or stopping u.s. recognition. The u.s. position toward the cases studied almost never reflected the interests of the domestic groups that exercised the most pressure on the United States government or that represented the largest number of American voters. As for the business interest argument, the cases of Croatia and Slovenia, which were arguably the most important in terms of u.s.

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business interests because of their geographic location and the size of their economies, show quite clearly that business interests were not an important factor in the foreign policy decision making. However, in contrast to the assessment of the ethnic-politics argument, a categorical answer cannot be formulated toward the business interest argument, since the information available to measure it was sometimes scarce. For instance, I had to renounce analyzing this proposition in the chapter on Kosovo, because I was unable to collect sufficient facts. Moreover, it was not possible to identify whether strategic interests such as oil had a bigger impact on the behaviour of the United States than non-strategic ones, since the collected evidence indicates that the United States did not have serious economic interests in any of the secessionist crises studied for which I had data.

theoretical contributions It is always interesting, from an academic point of view, to challenge a conventional wisdom and to prove it wrong. Such an endeavour makes our work original and potentially significant as far as future paths of research are concerned. The stability-seeking argument, however, does not challenge common wisdoms but decodes, operationalizes, and validates a common intuition about u.s. foreign policy. The model articulates the broad and abstract notion of stability, which is often used intuitively to explain the American reaction to secessionist quarrels, and it shows how it plays in the formulation of foreign policy. Thus, the contribution and the originality of the theoretical argument is not so much that it argues that stability matters but rather that it depicts the mechanisms that connect the u.s. interest in stability and the observable outcomes. It is at this level that the research makes a contribution to the literature and debates on u.s. foreign policy toward secessionist strives. Some critics might argue that to make some claim to universality, the argument should explain u.s. foreign policy across a broader time range and that it should not be limited to the unique post–Cold War era. This depends on one’s definition of universality. The stability argument can explain the American response to secessionist struggles since the end of the bipolar world order and for the foreseeable future. This is a significant theoretical contribu-

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tion to the literature on u.s. foreign policy and foreign intervention in ethnic conflicts. If the time range of the research was extended, the dynamics of the Cold War, which included the notions of nuclear deterrence, Soviet containment, and spheres of influence, would necessarily have to be considered, even if it is no longer relevant for understanding current and future u.s. responses to secessionist conflicts. Realism and U.S. Foreign Policy This book shows that realist notions provide a good theoretical understanding of u.s. foreign policy toward secessionist conflicts. It conforms to the defensive-realist paradigm as clarified by Joseph Grieco’s defensive positionalism. With the end of the bipolar international structure, some analysts, like John Stack, have maintained that realism, which had been the main theoretical frame for explaining balance-of-power politics and nuclear deterrence during the Cold War, was ill equipped to explain the emergence of ethnic conflicts as a central force of international politics.1 J. Lewis Rasmussen has even argued that realism has failed “as a prescriptive device for foreign policy practitioners who are confounded by the vicissitudes of numerous post–Cold War conflicts.”2 Despite what these critics have argued, this research shows that realism, as a prescriptive device of u.s. foreign policy, is quite useful for understanding the international dimension of ethnic and secessionist conflicts in the post–Cold War era.3 One important theoretical conclusion of my defensive-realist argument is that status quo and stability do not have the same meaning: they imply different things. If, on the one hand, the United States is the predominant power and greatly values the international status quo, on the other hand, the American government has never supported as many secessionist states as it has since the end of the Cold War, which seems to go against the previous assertion. This is because the status quo (i.e., the established order) does not always play in favour of the stability of the regional sub-systems and, therefore, in the interests of the United States. Thus, in certain situations, the United States chose to break with the status quo because it generated instability and offered no real solution for ending secessionist conflicts. The recognition of secessionist states, which represents a violation of the status quo and an alteration of

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established regional orders, can thus become a credible tool to reestablish stability in regions affected by secessionism. In light of the collected evidence, we can conclude that, everything being equal, the United States favours the maintenance of the status quo and has an anti-secessionist bias, but only as long as an established regional order serves its stability interests. When it no longer does so, the American government will not hesitate to alter the status quo. Hence, stability, rather than status quo, defines u.s. security. This leads me to assert that the United States is not always a status quo power but that it is consistently a stability-seeking power. This distinction, which has an ontological dimension, refines the defensive positional approach of u.s. foreign policy.4 Stability Rather than International Law The u.s. position toward secessionist crises is ultimately about stability, not international law. In the post–Cold War world international law has been transgressed on multiple occasions by the United States in the management of secessionist crises. In certain instances, Washington has used international law as a tool to foster its stability interests, but only as long as it served that purpose. Kosovo stands out as a case in point. The White House denied it recognition in 1991 because Kosovo was a province of Serbia, unlike the six Yugoslav republics, and therefore did not have the constitutional and international right to secede. This legal argument was used by Washington to prevent the endless division of the Yugoslav republics. It was a convenient way to contain disintegration. Yet in 2008 the Bush administration chose to recognize the unilateral secession of Kosovo, achieved against Serbia’s consent, which violated international law. This decision was recommended by the State Department and the National Security Council as the best option to strengthen stability in Kosovo. This recognition created a precedent, which was then used by Russia to recognize Abkhazia and South Ossetia a few months later. Eritrea is another interesting case. For stability considerations, the Bush administration allowed Eritreans to secede from Ethiopia in the early 1990s, despite legal arguments used by previous u.s. administrations to oppose it. In both of these cases Washington justified its policy by the fact that these secessionist states were unique cases. As a result, the

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United States presided over the alteration of state borders in Serbia and Ethiopia and was the leading architect of Kosovo’s and Eritrea’s secession. What the United States really means by “unique cases,” however, is that at some point in the evolution of these secessionist crises, the application of international law conflicted with u.s. stability interests. The fact that the White House has both supported and defied international legal instruments in support or denial of secessionist struggles in the post–Cold War is interesting. Ironically, Washington went against the anti-secession regime that it helped to develop following the Second World War. As explained in chapter 2, the measures contained in the un Charter regarding secessionist selfdetermination were largely a reflection of u.s. interests. More broadly, the international regime against secession was built on a series of resolutions, strongly supported by the United States, that were adopted not only by the United Nations but also by the Arab League, the Organization of American States, and the Organization of African Unity. These resolutions emphasized the principle of territorial integrity and denied non-colonial secessionist movements the right to secede.5 The American response to secessionist crises in the last twenty years shows that international norms against secession, which were important for the United States during the Cold War, no longer inhibit Washington’s attempt to maximize its regional-stability interests in the current unipolar international system. The Limited Impact of Regional and Great Powers The research in this book demonstrates that the impact of regional and great powers on the position of the United States toward secessionist conflicts is a secondary consideration. Germany did, to a certain extent, have an impact on the conduct of u.s. policy toward Croatia and Slovenia, and Greece had a similar impact on the American government in the case of Macedonia. To a lesser extent, the European Union also influenced the u.s. perception of the issue of Kosovo’s independence. But the Balkan cases clearly indicate that these regional powers never diverted the u.s. government from pursuing its main interest: strengthening regional stability. The Bush administration categorically opposed Helmut Kohl’s decision to recognize Zagreb and Ljubljana in December 1991 and waited for

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a ceasefire to occur between Croatia and Serbia, as well as for the deployment of a large un contingent of peacekeepers in Croatia and Bosnia, before granting recognition to these new states. In the case of Macedonia, the strong Greek reaction against fyrom’s determination to use the name Macedonia created significant tensions between Athens and Skopje, which inhibited the u.s. government from moving forward with its initial decision to recognize the republic. This factor, even if it delayed recognition, did not prevent the Clinton administration from finding alternative ways to promote regional stability by deploying, for instance, u.s. troops at the Serbian-Macedonian border to contain potential Serbian aggression. And ultimately, the American government recognized Macedonia despite Greece’s objection, which tends to show that the impact of regional powers is limited. In Kosovo, the European Union may have influenced the American perception of the issue in the 1990s but the Kosovo state’s lack of internal and external stability is really what explains the Clinton administration’s decision to oppose recognition in 1998–99. Ten years later, when the Bush administration decided to recognize the unilateral secession of Kosovo, Washington remained steadfast, despite China’s and Russia’s strong opposition to that decision and President Putin’s threat to use this precedent to recognize Georgia’s breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. This is a clear indication that the opinion of great powers ultimately does not prevail in u.s. rational calculations. Moreover, in the case of Eritrea and Somaliland, the opinion of regional and great powers had a very marginal impact, if no impact at all, on the formulation of the u.s. response. The United States initially became involved in Ethiopia because the Soviet Union could no longer play a role in the region and because the administration of George H. W. Bush wanted to cooperate with Moscow on international issues. When the Ethiopian crisis intensified in 1991, the u.s. government was really the only power involved in the resolution of the conflict. As a former colonial power, Italy had attempted a few years before to help resolve the war but had been unsuccessful and did not influence Washington in favour of or against the independence of Eritrea. As for Somaliland, Djibouti and Kenya particularly have been involved in the numerous attempts to resolve the Somalian civil war, but their opposition to Somaliland independence does not

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explain the position of the United States. In sum, regional and great powers had a secondary impact on the conduct of American foreign policy toward secessionism. The Spheres of Interest The u.s. government did not react with the same intensity and diligence to secessionist movements in the Balkans and in the Horn of Africa, which is interesting. Washington reacted more promptly to secessionism in Yugoslavia than it did toward secessionism in Ethiopia and Somalia. The American government was more concerned, for instance, about the refugees coming out of the Yugoslav secessionist wars than it was about similar problems in Ethiopia and Somalia. The reason is simple. The United States has more economic and political interests in Europe, and the secessionist crises in the Balkans threatened to destabilize its European economic partners and nato allies. In the case of the Horn of Africa, secessionism did not significantly disrupt u.s. economic interests or the stability of American allies. The differing u.s. reactions toward the Balkans and the Horn underline the idea that stability drives American foreign policy, as Washington focuses on stability where it matters most. This is another implication of the stability-seeking argument. A Contribution to Conflict Mediation and Resolution The theoretical and empirical findings reported here contribute to the literature on conflict mediation and resolution by providing a better understanding of the means used by the American superpower to mediate and resolve secessionist conflicts. Jacob Bercovitch asserted in the late 1990s that large states “often create the opportunity to mediate and use the mediation as a vehicle to protect or promote their own interests.”6 My research confirms this assertion. The United States used its diplomatic power to recognize or deny secession as a political tool to increase its leverage in the management of secessionist struggles. First, it denied recognition in order to strengthen the unity of central states, like Somalia and Yugoslavia, experiencing internal secessionist struggles. Second, Washington delayed recognition of secessionist states to press for the implementation of stability measures within newborn states.

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This strategy, which is known in the literature on ethnic conflict resolution as ‘conditionality,’ links diplomatic recognition to the cooperative behaviour of secessionist elites and was applied, for instance, in the case of Eritrea and Kosovo.7 Third, recognition was granted by the United States as a reward to secessionist states that complied with stability incentives and was sometimes granted as a preventive measure to avoid greater tensions and bloodshed. The recognition by the Bush administration of the constitutional name of Macedonia in 2004 stands out as a case in point. William Zartman has argued that “since conflict resolution is a crucial component of global leadership, it should be a leading plank in the foreign policy of the state with the widest global interests, the United States.”8 My book shows that this is the case for secessionist conflicts. The United States has been quite active at resolving them in the last twenty years in order to promote its global-stability interests. This research also demonstrates that when a secessionist conflict emerges abroad, the United States consistently supports governmental decentralization and better representation of minorities, as opposed to measures that would centralize political power in the hands of the central state to fight secessionist aspirations. This inclination for power sharing has guided Washington’s mediation and conflict resolution attempts for each of the cases studied in this book. The Absence of a Coherent Policy toward Secessionism This research shows that the United States does not have a written policy toward secessionist crises. The American government has never developed a grand strategy toward secessionist aspirations that would explicitly promote, for instance, the status quo or, conversely, the aspirations of secessionist movements. The only document that comes close to stating such a policy contains the guidelines for recognition that were elaborated by the State Department in 1991 (see chapter 3) when the Bush administration was facing the emergence of secessionist states in the Balkans. With the multiplication of ethnic and secessionist conflicts since the end of the Cold War, political analysts like David Callahan and Patricia Carley have attempted to craft a coherent u.s. foreign policy to deal with these issues by tackling the fundamental dilemma

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of “weighing the risks to international stability of a policy that tends to favour the status quo as against a policy that indulges nationalist aspirations.”9 In the light of this research, I argue that this is a false debate. As shown in this book, the main issue is not whether or not the United States should in principle support the status quo or secessionist changes but, rather, how it should maximize regional stability when secessionist crises occur. As a defensive positional state, the United States focuses on this fundamental interest, and the empirical evidence indicates that the search for stability was consistent throughout all of the cases studied in this book. Stability is what guided the u.s. response; not principles, not international law, not domestic considerations, and certainly not a standardized policy on the matter. It is illusive to look for a one-size-fits-all foreign policy that could address the myriad of secessionist crises. What really matters is to identify the preferences that guide the u.s. response, and this is precisely what the stability-seeking theory does. From the Balkans to the Horn of Africa, the American government chose the option that provided the most stable outcome, depending on the profile and on the evolution of each secessionist crisis. This is why the United States did recognize some secessionist states, while it remained opposed to the independence of other ones. This apparent inconsistency is, therefore, an illusion or an inconsistency “de façade,” to the extent that it is the result of a coherent set of interests that produced different results for different crises. If we focus only on the results, the u.s. approach seems inconsistent, but if we pay attention to the process, or to the causal mechanisms leading to these outcomes, the United States has been consistent through time.

policy implications What are the implications for Canada, Georgia, India, the Philippines, or Spain, which are all dealing with secessionist movements? What are the implications for secessionist groups in Kashmir or in Turkish Kurdistan that are hoping to achieve secession and obtain u.s. diplomatic recognition? This research shows that central-state leaders clearly have an advantage over secessionist elites. As long as a central state is able to keep control over its international borders, Washington will consistently support its territorial integrity. Moreover, the means

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employed by central governments to maintain control over international borders do not affect the u.s. position. Yugoslavia and Ethiopia used violence against secessionists and were nonetheless supported by Washington in the first phase of their secessionist conflicts. However, military repression tends to cause greater instability and ultimately a loss of control over international borders. In such a case, this research suggests that the United States will keep supporting unity if the leaders of the central state consent to thirdparty mediation and/or agree to negotiate with secessionist elites. Bluntly speaking, this means that if central states are efficient at crushing their secessionist movements without causing external disruption or if they act in good faith and are open to conflict resolution after external instability has occurred, Washington will remain on their side and secessionist elites will not control the agenda as far as diplomatic recognition is concerned. It is only when there is a combination of external instability and bad faith on the part of a central state that the United States will shift its position to consider the recognition of its secessionist state. These implications are relevant not only to secessionist movements in the developing world but also to radical elements in wellestablished democracies who are advocating unilateral secession from their central state in places like Quebec, Scotland, and the Spanish Basque Country. This research suggests that, following unilateral secession, independentist leaders have very few windows of opportunity for achieving u.s. recognition and that these windows generally open when secessionist conflicts become highly violent and chaotic, which is far from being desirable.

8 Notes

chapter one 1 See Lake and Rothchild, The International Spread of Ethnic Conflict. See also Carment and James, Wars in the Midst of Peace. 2 See Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict, 230. 3 According to Ernest Gellner, “Nationalism is primarily a political principle, which holds that the political and the national unit should be congruent.” From Gellner’s assertion it is obvious that in the post–Cold War era nationalist movements have increasingly perceived secession as a solution for achieving their political claims in societies where ethnicity and borders did not match. Gellner, Nations and Nationalism, 1. 4 See Haendel, The Process of Priority Formulation. 5 Callahan, Unwinnable Wars, 27. 6 Nye, The Paradox of American Power, 152. 7 Clinton, “Address,” 30. 8 Blanchard, Behind the Embassy Door, 67. 9 Callahan, The Enduring Challenge. 10 The data shows that since 1945 the United States has intervened in intrastate conflicts more often than any other major power. Patrick Regan points out that among the seventy-six cases of intervention carried out by major powers between 1945 and 1994, the United States accounted for 46 percent of them. For the same period, the Soviet Union (Russia after 1991) accounted for only 21 percent of these interventions, France for 13 percent, Britain for 12 percent, and China for 8 percent. Regan’s analysis is a clear indication that the United States is the most important intervener in internal conflicts and that it has arguably the most impact. See Regan, “Conditions of Successful Third-Party Intervention,” 345.

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11 Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict, 230. 12 Alexis Heraclides proposes two different scales of international support for secessionist movements, one material and the other politicaldiplomatic. He points out that material support for secessionist movements includes, among other things, humanitarian aid, non-military involvement, and full-scale military intervention in favour of the secessionists. As for the political-diplomatic scale, Heraclides maintains that it refers to words and ideas such as a call for negotiated settlements, support for the right of self-determination, or the recognition of a secessionist state, which is the ultimate level of politicaldiplomatic support. See Heraclides, The Self-Determination of Minorities, 48–49. 13 Carment, “The Ethnic Dimension,” 563. 14 Heraclides, The Self-Determination of Minorities, 49. 15 Heraclides, “Secession, Self-determination and Nonintervention: In Quest of a Normative Symbiosis,” 400. 16 Gurr, Minorities at Risk. For a list of ethnic groups discriminated against see the Minorities at Risk Project. www.cidcm.umd.edu/inscr/mar (accessed June 2009).

chapter two 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

12

Callahan, Unwinnable Wars. Halperin, Scheffer, and Small, Self-Determination. Bienen, “Ethnic Nationalisms.” Farkas, Fractured States. David, Catastrophic Consequences. Ibid., 12. Walt, “The Realist Tradition”; Zakaria, “Realism and Domestic Politics.” For more on offensive realism, see Mearsheimer, Great Power Politics, 3. See also Labs, “Beyond Victory.” See Walt, The Origins of Alliances, 263; Mastanduno, “Do Relative Gains Matter?” Van Evera, Causes of War. Saideman, The Ties That Divide, 9. Ibid., 61. Among Saideman’s forty-three cases of third state intervention to which the balance of threat argument was applied, nineteen were classified as indeterminate observations. Ibid., 62, 95, and 145. Heraclides focuses his analysis on the following secessionist movements: Katanga, Biafra, the Southern Sudan, Bangladesh, Iraqi Kur-

Notes to pages 17–23

13 14 15

16 17 18 19 20 21

22 23

24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34

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distan, Eritrea, and the Moro region of the Philippines. See his “Secessionist Minorities and External Involvement.” Mearsheimer, Great Power Politics, 2. Saideman, “Discrimination in International Relations.” The csce Helsinki Final Act in 1975 and the Charter of Paris in 1990 reiterated these norms. Zacher, “The Territorial Integrity Norm,” 221–2. See Heraclides, Self-Determination of Minorities. See also Little, Intervention, 15–32. Again, the American recognition of Bangladesh in 1972 was the only exception. Huntington, “The Clash of Civilizations?” 35. Herbst, “National boundaries in Africa”; Jackson and Rosberg, “Africa’s Weak States.” Cervenka, The Organization of African Unity, 232–3. Saideman analyzes thirty cases of highly vulnerable third states that intervened in three secessionist crises: the Congo, Nigeria, and the Yugoslav conflict. His work demonstrates that among the thirty highly vulnerable states, at least sixteen supported secessionist movements. Saideman, Ties That Divide, 65, 98, and 147. Heraclides, Secesionist Minorities and External Involvement. See Mearsheimer and Walt, The Israel Lobby. See also Hockenos, Homeland Calling; Nau, At Home Abroad; Ambrosio, “Ethnic Identity Groups”; Shain and Wittes, “Peace as a Three-Level Game”; Deconde, Ethnicity, Race, and American Foreign Policy. Shain and Barth, “Diasporas and International Relations Theory”; Haney and Vanderbush, “The Rope of Ethnic Interest Groups.” Ambrosio, Ethnic Identity Groups. Nau, At Home Abroad, 82–4. Shain, “Multicultural Foreign Policy.” Glazer and Moynihan, Ethnicity, 23–4. Mearsheimer and Walt, “The Israel Lobby.” Brzezinski, “A Dangerous Exemption,” 63–4. Shain, Marketing the American Creed Abroad, 51–66. Ibid. Saideman, “Secessionist Conflicts,” 725–6. Saideman studies three cases: the Congo, Nigeria, and Yugoslavia. His work shows that where leaders’ constituents share ethnic ties with secessionists, they support secession in twenty-one cases out of twenty-two. However, when leaders’ constituents have ethnic ties

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39 40 41 42 43 44 45

46 47

48

Notes to pages 24–31

with the host state, third-state leaders support the central government in fifteen out of seventeen cases. See Saideman, Ties That Divide. Stack, “The Ethnic Challenge,” 20. Gibbs, Third World Intervention, 33. Heraclides, “Secessionist Minorities.” For instance, for the years 1990 to 1992, phase iii of the Minorities at Risk Project (mar) indicates that thirty-five foreign states have expressly supported eighteen separatist movements, in ways ranging from simple ideological encouragement to full-scale military intervention. See Bélanger, Duchesne, and Paquin, “Foreign Interventions,” 443–4. Grieco, “Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation,” 498. See also Grieco, Cooperation among Nations. Grieco, “Anarchy and the Limits of Cooperation,” 498; Grieco, Cooperation among Nations. Mastanduno, “Do Relative Gains Matter?” 265. Mastanduno, Economic Containment. Halperin, Scheffer, and Small, Self-Determination. Bienen, “Ethic Nationalisms,” 160. Here I define the notion of “stability gap” as the increasing disjunction between the way a given regional order was configured and the current state of affairs generated by a secessionist conflict. Heraclides, “Secessionist Conflagration,” 283. The unhcr also indicates that about 410,000 ethnic Albanians were internally displaced following Serb military operations. See iciss, The Responsibility to Protect, 113. The traditional u.s. policy toward the Quebec secessionist issue can be summarized as follows: first, the u.s. preference is for a united Canada, and, second, the United States does not want to interfere in Canadian internal affairs. When President Clinton visited Ottawa in February 1995, five months after the election of the secessionist Parti Québécois in Quebec, he clearly stated the u.s. position regarding the issue: “In a world darkened by ethnic conflicts that literally tear nations apart, Canada has stood for all of us as a model of how people of different cultures can live and work together in peace, prosperity, and respect.” He added, “The United States, as many of my predecessors have said, has enjoyed its excellent relationship with a strong and united Canada, but we recognize ... that your political future is, of course, entirely for you to decide.” See Blanchard, Behind the Embassy Door, 211.

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49 See Snyder, From Voting to Violence, 359. See also Jha, “Indonesia and the ‘Free Aceh Movement.’” 50 Russia armed and trained Trans-Dniester’s paramilitary forces in early 1992, and some Russian leaders described the new Trans-Dnister republic as “Russian soil.” Later that year, the Russian Fourteenth Army became directly involved in the secessionist crisis by engaging in a full-scale battle against Moldovan arm forces. See Socor, “Moldova’s ‘Dnister’ Ulcer,” 13–14. 51 Aklaev, “Moldova–Trans-Dniester.” 52 Salehyan and Gleditsch, “Refugees and the Spread of Civil War.” 53 Heraclides, “Secessionist Minorities.” Siverson and Starr argue that most of the states can use their military capability only for short distances. Therefore, neighboring conflicts represent a real opportunity for states to intervene. See Siverson and Starr, The Diffusion of War. 54 The large number of East Pakistanis who flew to India as a result of the West Pakistani repression against the Bengali secessionist movement in the early 1970s accelerated India’s involvement in the secessionist crisis and led to an Indo-Pakistani war in 1971. 55 Heraclides, “Secession, Self-determination and Nonintervention,” 414. 56 The gain in stability, however, would be an expectation rather than a certainty, since the United States, like any other state, operates in a state of uncertainty and usually possesses incomplete information for making foreign policy decisions. 57 Krasner, Sovereignty, 9. 58 Callahan, Unwinnable Wars, 33. 59 The Helsinki Act established principles guiding relations between states, such as territorial integrity, the inviolability of frontiers, respect for minority rights, and the peaceful settlement of disputes. See Conference on Security and Co-operation in Europe, Final Act. 60 Zacher, “Territorial Integrity,” 234–5. 61 Young, “How Do Peaceful Secessions Happen?” 782. 62 Following the recognition of the Soviet Union by President Roosevelt in 1933, the Supreme Court of the United States stated that the recognition and the establishment of diplomatic relations with the u.s.s.r. were clearly decisions of the president. See Henkin, Foreign Affairs. See also Adler, “The President’s Recognition Power.” 63 I borrow James Morrow’s definition of rationality: “choosing the best means to gain a predetermined set of ends. It is an evaluation of the consistency of choices and not of the thought process, of implementa-

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67 68 69 70

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Notes to pages 46–56

tion of fixed goals and not of the morality of those goals.” See Morrow, Game Theory, 17. George and Keohane, “The Concept of National Interests,” 217. Waltz, Theory of International Politics, 8. The case of Bosnia-Herzegovina was left out because it is not an instance of secession but rather the result of Yugoslavia’s disintegration. When the Bosnian population opted for independence in late February 1992, Yugoslavia had already ceased to exist. Gvosdev, “American Response to Lithuanian Independence.” See George and Bennett, Case Studies, especially chapter 10. Ibid., 208. George, Presidential Decision Making, 11. George also mentions the organizational context as part of the foreign policy machinery. This context involves the whole bureaucracy that is concerned with foreign policy issues. I have chosen not to integrate this third context into the analysis. Although relevant for certain types of foreign policy studies, the organizational context would move the analysis away from the straightforward objective of finding whether agents and advisors who emphasize stability considerations have the most influence in the decision-making process. For a complete explanation of this comparative method of research, see George, “Case Studies.” Some interesting research has used structured, focused comparison. See, for instance, Kupchan, Vulnerability of Empire; George and Smoke, Deterrence. George, “Case Studies,” 56. The “structured, focused comparison” is a good answer to Kenneth Waltz’s observation that “without some guidance we can know neither what information to gather nor how to put it together so that it becomes comprehensible.” Waltz, International Politics, p. 11.

chapter three 1 Bangladesh was the only other successful case. 2 Together, Serbia, Montenegro, Kosovo, and Vojvodina had the majority of representatives in the Yugoslav federal council. See Andrejevich, “State Presidency Deadlocked, 21. 3 Holbrooke, To End a War, 26. 4 Ibid., 27. 5 Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, 636. 6 President Bush declared a few months earlier that the United States

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12 13

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“would not reward” republics that would choose to secede unilaterally. See The Economist, “The Road to War,” 45. Baker, “u.s. Concerns,” 468. The fear inspired by the breakup of Yugoslavia led the u.s. government to support a variety of constitutional reforms, such as a confederal arrangement. The Bush administration even indicated that it would accept a peaceful disintegration of Yugoslavia. Secretary Baker writes in his memoir: “while we supported the territorial integrity of Yugoslavia and existing republic borders and would not accept unilateral changes, the international community, of course, recognized that if the republics wanted to change borders by peaceful, consensual means, that was an altogether different matter.” Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, 480. Zimmermann, Origins of a Catastrophe, 135. Zimmermann, “Yugoslavia,” 183. Cohen, “The Disintegration of Yugoslavia,” 373. Holbrooke, To End a War, 29–30. Because of the intensification of the conflict in Croatia, the three-month moratorium on independence reached in early July 1991 did not help to resolve the crisis. At the expiration of the three-month period in October, Croatia and Slovenia declared formal and immediate secession. See Facts On File, “New Yugoslavia Truce,” 762. The changing nature of the Yugoslav conflict led the Europeans to call for u.n. peacekeeping intervention in Yugoslavia. The European Community also created a Peace Conference on Yugoslavia chaired by Britain’s former foreign secretary Lord Carrington, as well as an Arbitration Commission. The role of the commission, headed by the French constitutional judge Robert Badinter, was to establish criteria for international recognition and to evaluate the merits of the republics’ secessionist claims in the light of these criteria. The Bush administration strongly supported these initiatives but was still reluctant to be involved in the crisis. The u.s. presidential election was just a year away, and President Bush’s advisors thought that nothing could really be done to stop the conflict. Baker, “Violent Crisis in Yugoslavia.” Interview with Robert Pearson, Washington, dc, 14 February 2005. Ambassador Pearson was the executive secretary of the Department of State from 1991 to 1993. Central Intelligence Agency, “Yugoslavia.” The estimated number of Yugoslav refugees in Europe in the summer of 1992 was 415,795. See Dominis and Bicanic, “Refugees and Displaced Persons,” 2. According to Sabrina Petra Ramet, by the summer of 1992, the number of

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Notes to pages 58–61

refugees in Germany was up to 200,000, and several other countries had taken refugees: Sweden, 40,000; Switzerland, 13,000; Netherlands, 4,000. See Ramet, “War in the Balkans,” 79. According to Judith Pataki, 12,000 Yugoslav refugees, mainly from Croatia, had already fled to Hungary in September 1991. See Pataki, “Refugee Wave from Croatia,” 12. u.n. Security Council, Resolution 713; Facts on File, “ec Imposes Sanctions,” 858–9. See also Binder, “u.s. Suspends Trade Benefits.” Cohen, Broken Bonds, 232. Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, 638. Ibid. These criteria were unveiled before the Conference for Security and Cooperation in Europe (csce) in the fall of 1991. Henkin, Pugh, Schachter, and Smit, International Law, 250. The Charter of Paris, signed by csce members in 1990, had the objective of reinforcing the protection of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law in countries in Europe that were part of the Helsinki Final Act. For more information on the Charter of Paris, see Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, Charter of Paris for a New Europe. These criteria were codified in the Helsinki Final Act and in the Charter of Paris. In December 1991, the European Community issued its own guidelines for recognition. The guidelines were very similar to those of the United States. The ec Doctrine of Recognition included the five following criteria: (1) Respect for the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations, the Final Act of Helsinki, and the Charter of Paris with regard to the rule of law, democracy, and human rights; (2) Guarantees for the rights of minorities and for the rights of ethnic and national groups; (3) Respect for the inviolability of all frontiers, which can only be changed by peaceful means and by common agreement; (4) Acceptance of disarmament and nuclear non-proliferation; (5) Commitment to settle by agreement all questions concerning state succession and regional disputes. See European Community, Declaration on the Guidelines, 1487. This extensive list of criteria departed from the traditional standard of state recognition, which was developed in the 1930s at the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of the State. This convention had ruled that to be recognized as a sovereign entity, a state had to possess four qualifications: a permanent population, a defined territory, a government, and the capacity to enter into relations with other states. See Weller, “The International Response,” 588.

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22 For a good analysis of the German defection, see Crawford, “Explaining Defection.” 23 The unconditional ceasefire between Croatia and Serbia set the ground for the deployment of the United Nations Protection Forces (unprofor) in Croatia in April 1992. 24 Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, 639. 25 Interview with Brent Scowcroft, Washington, dc, 8 February 2005. 26 This chapter does not focus on the case of Macedonia, which is the topic of the next chapter. Macedonia declared independence in September 1991, following a winning referendum on independence. In January 1992, the Badinter Commission, which was in charge of evaluating whether seceding republics met the ec criteria for recognition, ruled that Macedonia met them all. 27 Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, 640. 28 Phone interview with Peter W. Galbraith, 23 January 2005. 29 This agreement included a common policy of recognition toward secessionist states. u.s. officials declared that they were ready to work in tandem with the ec now that the Bosnian referendum had been held and that a un peacekeeping force was to be sent to the former Yugoslavia. Crossette, “Baker Hints at u.s. Shift.” According to David Binder, the Bush administration’s “rationale was that it would serve no purpose to extend recognition until the United Nations had completed plans for positioning a peacekeeping force of 14,400 in the war zones of Croatia.” See Binder, “u.s. Set to Accept Yugoslav Breakup.” 30 Facts on File, “Bosnia-Herzegovina,” 252. u.s. recognition came three months after the European Community’s decision to recognize Croatia and Slovenia and more than nine months following Ljubljana’s and Zagreb’s unilateral declarations of independence. The European Community recognized the independence of Bosnia the day before the United States did. 31 The ceasefire did not last very long, since a few months later the Croatian army fought to regain control over its Serbian-populated regions. Ceasefires reached in 1993 and 1994 between Serbs and Croats were also broken by Croatia, which led military offensives to get control of the Serbian region of Krajina. The facts reveal that the un intervention in Croatia and the u.s. recognition of the republic did not solidify Croatia’s internal stability. Croatia finally agreed to a permanent ceasefire in December 1995 by signing the Dayton agreement. See Department of State, “Background Note: Croatia.”

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Notes to pages 66–78

32 Interview with David C. Gompert, Washington, dc, 25 January 2005. 33 Tutwiler, Daily Press Briefing. 34 Thomas Niles declares: “There was uniform support within the national security agency for effort to preserve the unity of a Yugoslav state. Nobody thought, as far as I can recall, that the disintegration of Yugoslavia was a desirable thing to happen.” Phone interview with Thomas M.T. Niles, 29 January 2005. 35 Moore, “Diplomatic Recognition of Croatia and Slovenia,” 9. 36 Moore, “The International Relations of the Yugoslav Area,” 33. 37 Hockenos, Homeland Calling, 130. 38 Correspondence with Pero Novak, 26 January 2005. 39 Phone interview with Thomas M.T. Niles, 29 January 2005. This view is shared by David Gompert. Interview with David C. Gompert, Washington, dc, 25 January 2005. 40 Interview with David C. Gompert, Washington, dc, 25 January 2005. 41 Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, 639. 42 Gompert, “The United States,” 129. 43 Gutman, A Witness to Genocide, xxiv–xxv. See also Binder, “Eagleburger Anguishes.” 44 Binder, “Eagleburger Anguishes.” 45 Brent Scowcroft was assistant air attaché to Belgrade in the early 1960s while Eagleburger worked for the economic section of the u.s. Embassy in Belgrade.

chapter four 1 Within-case analysis is critical in small-n analysis. As Alexander George and Andrew Bennett explain, it is “an alternative that compensates for the limits of both statistical and comparative case analyses. For more on within-case analysis, see George and Bennett, Case Studies, 178–9. See also Lebow, “What’s So Different about a Counterfactual?” 562. 2 See Saideman, The Ties That Divide; Hockenos, Homeland Calling; Shea, Macedonia and Greece; Rosin, “Why We Flipped on Macedonia.” 3 Perry, “Macedonia,” 113. 4 See Reuter, “Policy and Economy in Macedonia,” 33. 5 Among those who cast a ballot, 74.4 percent opted for independence.

Notes to pages 78–84

6 7

8

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However, Macedonia’s Albanian minority boycotted the election. See Phillips, Macedonia, 50. A few days after Macedonia declared its independence, Yugoslav President Mesic proclaimed the end of Yugoslavia. See chapter 3. Serbia’s president Slobodan Milosevic, who was in control of the ypa, was reluctant to open another front by launching a war in Macedonia. Moreover, Serbia had little incentive to fight in Macedonia, since very few Serbs were living in this republic. It was in this context that the Macedonian government managed to sign an agreement with Milosevic on the withdrawal of former Yugoslav troops from Macedonia. See Perry, “Macedonia,” 37. As explained in chapter 3, the Badinter Commission was the European Community’s commission headed by the French constitutional judge Robert Badinter. The role of the commission was to evaluate which Yugoslav republic met the ec criteria for state recognition Baker, Politics of Diplomacy, 640. See Moore, “The International Relations of the Yugoslav Area,” 33. The issue of rights under the new Macedonian constitution, however, remained contentious between Macedonian politicians and members of ethnic Albanian minority throughout the 1990s until the outbreak of the 2001 conflict. Under the new Macedonian constitution, minorities did not have the right of proportional representation within governmental institutions. Moreover, the right that ethnic Albanians had under the former Yugoslavia to fly the Albanian flag on certain occasions was removed from the constitution. See Pettifer, “The Albanians in Western Macedonia,” 138 and 143. These elements, however, were not apparent and were not taken into account in 1991 when the United States assessed the stability of the republic. Perry, “Macedonia,” 40. Interview with General Brent Scowcroft, Washington, dc, 8 February 2005. Department of State, 22 October 1992. Unclassified Document, case 200502041. Unclassified on 15 June 2005. Perry, “Macedonia,” 40. Ibid. Interview with David C. Gompert, Washington, dc, 25 January 2005. Phone interview with Thomas M.T. Niles, 29 January 2005. Kofos, “Greek Policy Considerations”; Zahariadis, Essence of Political Manipulation.

196

Notes to pages 84–91

19 Holbrooke, To End a War, 122. 20 New York Times, “300 u.s. Troops in Macedonia.” The unprofor in Macedonia had been authorized by the un Security Council in late 1992. Its mandate was to protect Macedonia’s border with Albania and Serbia. The creation of unprofor-Macedonia was recommended by the un secretary-general following a request made by the Macedonian government. See Woodward, Balkan Tragedy, 295. 21 According to Marshall Freeman Harris, who served in Macedonia in the early 1990s as a State Department official, the un recognition of the fyrom was seen in Washington as a first step in the inevitable process of Macedonia’s recognition. Interview with Marshall Freeman Harris, Washington, dc, 17 February 2005. 22 Lewis, “Europe to Defy Greece.” 23 White House, “u.s. Recognition.” 24 Phone interview with Matthew Nimetz, 18 February 2005. 25 Greek prime minister Papandreou declared that he was forced to impose the embargo to protect Greece’s national security. He pointed out: “this is a real threat to our national security, because Skopje’s aim is to gain an exit to the Aegean Sea … We had to remind the world there is a problem concerning stability and security in the region.” See Shea, Macedonia and Greece, 285. 26 Ibid., 183. 27 In the early 2000s, the Macedonian Americans became better organized and represented in Washington by creating organizations such as the Macedonian American Friendship Association (mafa) in 2001 and the United Macedonian Diaspora in 2004. 28 The 2000 u.s. census listed 38,051 Macedonian Americans. Michigan contained the largest cluster of Macedonian Americans, with 7,801. 29 Rosin, “Why We Flipped,” 11. 30 Shea, Macedonia and Greece, 186. 31 Ibid., 365. 32 Steven Greenhouses, “State Department Criticizes White House.” 33 Ibid. 34 Interview with Anthony Lake, Washington, dc, 4 April 2005. 35 Holbrooke, To End a War, 121–7. 36 In response to the u.s. recognition, Macedonian prime minister Branko Crvenkovski declared: “The establishment of full diplomatic relations with the u.s.a. at ambassadorial level, is an event of exceptional, I’d say historic, significance for the republic of Macedonia. It’s something we have been anticipating for a long time, aware that this

Notes to pages 91–7

37 38 39

40 41 42 43 44 45

46 47 48 49

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would contribute, to a great extent, to the strengthening of Macedonia’s position not only on a bilateral basis in relations with the u.s., but overall in the international community, as well.”. See Shea, Macedonia and Greece, 306. Phone interview with Matthew Nimetz, 18 February 2005. Liotta, “Spillover Effect,” 97. This agreement addressed the core Albanian demands: greater civil rights were guaranteed for Albanians (i.e., political, cultural, and religious rights); better representation was provided for Albanians in the civil service and in the police force; the Albanian language was recognized as an official language in districts where Albanians formed the majority; and a double-majority parliamentary system was created that gave Albanians a veto power over Macedonia’s political life. See Carpenter, “Kosovo and Macedonia,” 30. Following the signing of the agreement, nato sent ground troops – as requested by Macedonian prime minister Hari Kostov – to lead “Operation Essential Harvest,” which consisted of demilitarizing the nla and restoring order in the republic. Interview with a State Department official who asked to remain anonymous, Washington, dc, 25 February 2005. Interview with a State Department official who asked to remain anonymous, Washington, dc, 10 March 2005. Interview with a State Department official who asked to remain anonymous, Washington, dc, 25 February 2005. Richard Boucher, Daily Press Briefing. Quinn, “Greece Complains.” Greece offered, among other things, material support to Skopje to prevent the breakup of the state. See Zahariadis, “External Interventions,” 277. See Pettifer, Macedonia, 4. World Council of Hellenes Abroad, “Powell and Rice.” Interview with a State Department official who asked to remain anonymous, Washington, dc, 25 February 2005. Matthew Nimetz argues that u.s. administrations made a clear connection between the internal and the external dimensions of Macedonia’s stability during the whole saga of recognition. The first concern for the United States was the “stability of international borders,” declares Nimetz, “then internal stability was connected to it. Is this country going to be stable internally or will Macedonia enter into internal black-holes without a leadership and with internal strife? …

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Notes to pages 98–102

Elements of internal strife could have affected Macedonia’s international stability because of its ethnic issues.” Phone interview with Matthew Nimetz, 18 February 2005. Harris, “Macedonia,” 44. Phillips, Macedonia, 62. Ibid., 63. Interview with a State Department official who asked to remain anonymous, Washington, dc, 10 March 2005. Ibid. Interview with a State Department official who asked to remain anonymous, Washington, dc, 25 February 2005. Interview with a State Department official who asked to remain anonymous, Washington, dc, 10 March 2005.

chapter five 1 Interview with James O’Brien, Washington, dc, 12 April 2005. Phone interview with Daniel Hamilton, 11 April 2005. 2 Ibid. 3 In the post–World War II era, Yugoslav leaders decided that the ethnic Albanians of Yugoslavia were not entitled to the status of a constitutive nation of the federation because Albania was the nation of all ethnic Albanians. Caplan, “International Diplomacy,” 748. 4 Kosovo is comprised of Albanians (88 percent), Serbs (7 percent) and other minorities (i.e., Bosniak, Gorani, Roma, Turk, Ashkali, Egyptian), together amounting to 5 percent of the population. See cia World Factbook. 5 On the day of the vote, the Kosovo Assembly was surrounded by Serbian tanks and police officers. See Judah, Kosovo, 56. 6 Andrejevich, “Kosovo,” 26. What is unusual here is that Kosovo Albanians attempted to secede from a federated state (Serbia) rather than from the federation. Secession was not used as a means to achieve independent statehood but rather to reach equality with the other republics. An outright declaration of secession from Yugoslavia would have provided Serbia with the legitimacy and the excuse to crush Kosovars’ aspirations, while seceding from Serbia did not imperil the existence of Yugoslavia. 7 Salla, “Kosovo,” 428. The province of Vojvodina also lost its autonomy. Around 25 percent of the population of Vojvodina consisted of ethnic Hungarians, and the large majority of its population was Ser-

Notes to pages 103–7

8

9

10 11

12 13 14 15 16

17 18 19

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bian. This is far different from Kosovo: nearly 90 percent of its population consisted of ethnic Albanians in the early 1990s. In the 1990s, Ibrahim Rugova was elected and re-elected president of Kosovo. Belgrade, however, has never recognized the legality of these elections. In a cable sent to the State Department, the u.s. Embassy in Belgrade mentioned that “this precarious balance between Kosovo and Serbia is based on fear, however, and could crumble quickly if extremists on either side push too hard.” u.s. Department of State, August 1992; unclassified document e53, case 200502018; unclassified on 13 December 2005. Malcolm, Kosovo, 347. This double standard, based on the international law principle of uti possidetis juris, served Brussels and Washington’s diplomatic objectives of containing the war in Yugoslavia and stopping the endless division of the Yugoslav republics. According to uti possidetis juris, the former boundaries of the constitutive units of a state become international borders protected by international law when the central state ceases to exist. This principle aims to protect the territorial integrity of states by avoiding the endless division of their territory. Thus, the six Yugoslav republics had a right to secede and to transform their national borders into international ones. Kosovo, however, which had the status of an autonomous province, had no right to break apart from Serbia. See Weller, “The International Response,” 86. Interview with a former u.s. official who asked to remain anonymous. Virginia, 28 April 2005. Albright, Madam Secretary, 483. u.s. Department of State, December 1992; unclassified document e15, case 200502018; unclassified on 29 November 2005. u.s. Department of State, December 1992; unclassified document e45, case 200502018; unclassified on 30 November 2005. The cable warning was sent to the u.s. chargé d’affaires in Belgrade. The cable was accompanied by an instruction that the message be read to Milosevic “verbatim, without elaboration, and face to face.” See Judah, Kosovo, 73–4. Gompert, “The United States,” 136–7. Caplan, “International Diplomacy,” 92. u.s. Department of State, July 1993; unclassified document e28, case 200502018; unclassified on 29 November 2005.

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Notes to pages 108–12

20 This opinion was enhanced by the fact that the Bosnian Serbs, who had used force against Bosnian Croats and Muslims in their fight for independence, had gained significant concessions at Dayton. The Dayton Peace Accord created two political entities within BosniaHerzegovina: the Bosnian-Croatian Federation and the Serbian Republic of Bosnia (Republika Srpska). Bosnian Serbs obtained control of a large part of Bosnia-Herzegovina (49 percent of the territory) and got control of their own political system. 21 See Leurdijk and Zandee, Kosovo, 29. This position was reiterated several times by the State Department. See New York Times, “u.s. Reinstates Sanctions.” 22 See Shenon, “u.s. Says It Might Consider Attacking Serbs.” 23 Albright, Madam Secretary, 485. 24 International Commission on Intervention and State Sovereignty (iciss), The Responsibility to Protect, 113. 25 Albania’s independence was recognized by Western powers in 1913. However, the state included only half the Albanian population of the Balkans. Large Albanian minorities remained in the western part of Macedonia and in Kosovo. This is a patent example of political and ethnic borders not matching. 26 Albright, Madam Secretary, 485. 27 As a result of Serbia’s compliance with the u.s. requirements, u.s. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright suspended the u.s. threat to use force against Belgrade without lifting, however, the order authorizing nato air strikes. 28 Because Kosovo Albanians repeatedly asked for a referendum on independence, the United States consented during the Rambouillet negotiations to write a letter to the Albanian delegation promising a referendum after three years. This promise, however, was not respected. 29 Phone interview with Daniel Hamilton, 11 April 2005. 30 This point was raised by James O’Brien, who negotiated the Rambouillet agreement in 1998–99. See interview with James O’Brien, Washington, dc, 12 April 2005. 31 The frontier was finally demarcated in 2001 following an agreement between Serbia-Montenegro (formerly fry) and Macedonia. 32 Interview with James O’Brien, Washington, dc, 12 April 2005. 33 The remaining 57 percent desired independence. See Daalder and O’Hanlon, Winning Ugly, 8. 34 Phone interview with Daniel Hamilton, April 11, 2005.

Notes to pages 112–20

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35 Interview with a former u.s. official who asked to remain anonymous. Virginia, 28 April 2005. 36 Ibid. 37 Albright, “The Importance of Kosovo,” 4. 38 Albright, Madam Secretary, 490. 39 Interview with Morton Abramovitz, Washington, dc, 2 May 2005. 40 Wood, “Still Deeply Divided.” 41 See interview with James O’Brien, Washington, dc, 12 April 2005. Phone interview with Daniel Hamilton, 11 April 2005. Moreover, in a 1999 interview, u.s. officials declared that Kosovo would eventually become independent. See Smith, “Kosovo Independence.” 42 Interview with a former u.s. official who asked to remain anonymous. Virginia, 28 April 2005. 43 Kupchan, “Independence for Kosovo,” 14–15. 44 Testifying before Congress in May of 2005, Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns recognized that the status quo in Kosovo was “no longer sustainable or desirable.” Woehrel and Kim, Kosovo and U.S. Policy, 20. 45 Wisner, “The United States and the Balkans,” 191. See also International Crisis Group, “Kosovo,” 1–2. 46 United Nations, Kosovo Standards Implementation Plan. 47 International Crisis Group, “Kosovo Status,” 4. 48 For a good analysis of the Ahtisaari Plan see International Crisis Group, “Kosovo: No Good Alternatives.” 49 International Crisis Group, “Kosovo’s First Month,” 3n11. 50 The u.s. government has traditionally opposed partition and has instead advocated multinational societies where power sharing and minority rights are guaranteed. More generally, the idea of partition is not welcomed in academic circles in the United States. Scholars like Chaim Kaufmann, who argue that territorial partition is necessary following high-scale ethnic conflicts have been strongly criticized. See Bloom and Licklider, “What’s All the Shouting About? 51 Finn, “Kosovo Declares Its Independence.” 52 International Crisis Group, “Kosovo’s First Month,” 4. See also Kole and Qena, “Kosovo Declares Independence from Serbia.” 53 Finn, “Kosovo Declares Its Independence.” 54 New York Times, “u.s. Will Work to Prevent Kosovo Backlash.” 55 Secretary Condoleeza Rice, U.S. Recognizes Kosovo as Independent State. 56 Secretary Rice declared, “The unusual combination of factors found

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65 66 67 68

69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77

Notes to pages 120–6

in the Kosovo situation – including the context of Yugoslavia’s breakup, the history of ethnic cleansing, and crimes against civilians in Kosovo, and the extended period of un administration – are not found elsewhere and therefore make Kosovo a special case.” See ibid. On the same day, President George W. Bush sent a letter to the president of Kosovo in which he agreed to his proposal to establish formal diplomatic relations. See Kim and Woehrel, “Kosovo and u.s. Policy.” Videmsek and Bilefsky, “Protesters Attack u.s. Embassy.” Mastnak, “Kosovo: A New Versailles?” Bradsher, “Fears of Secession.” Washington Post, “Bush Recognizes Kosovo’s Independence.” Finn, “Independence Is Proclaimed by Kosovo.” Baker, “u.s. Extends Formal Recognition of Kosovo.” Kulish and Chivers, “Kosovo Is Recognized.” Alphonse D’Amato (r-New York), Bob Dole (r-Kansas), Larry Pressler (r-South Dakota), and Claiborne Pell (d-Rhode Island) were the main supporters of Kosovo’s independence in the Senate. William Broomfield (r-Michigan), Ben Gilman (r-New York), Tom Lantos (dCalifornia), and Dick Swett (d-New Hampshire) were the strongest proponents of its independence in the House of Representatives. See Prifti, Confrontation in Kosova, 206–7. Hockenos, Homeland Calling, 243. Sremac, War of Words, 217. See Sullivan, “From Brooklyn to Kosovo,” 52. National Albanian American Council, “naac Meets with Ambassador Holbrooke”; National Albanian American Council, “White House Meeting.” Albanian American Civic League, “League Applauds Declaration of Independence.” Hockenos, Homeland Calling, 131. Ibid., 128. Interview with James O’Brien, Washington, dc, 12 April 2005. Paul, “Serbian-American Mobilization,” 104–5. Sremac, War of Words, 5. American Council for Kosovo, “About American Council for Kosovo.” Ambrosio, “Ethnic Identity Groups,” 1–19. Phone interview with Daniel Hamilton, 11 April 2005. This was also the opinion of Morton Abramovitz, James O’Brien, and Morton Halperin. Morton Halperin was the director of the policy planning

Notes to pages 129–33

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staff in the State Department. He was also advising Secretary Albright on Kosovo. See interview with Morton Halperin, Washington, dc, 21 April 2005.

chapter six 1 The position of the European Community toward the Eritrean issue was similar to that of the United States, which was to support a federal or confederal arrangement between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Following the u.s. policy shift in May of 1991, the ec aligned its position with the United States and supported Eritrea’s right to secede. 2 Harbeson, “The Horn of Africa,” 221. 3 The Ethiopian army surrounded the Eritrean administrative building in Asmara and compelled members of the Eritrean Assembly to vote in favour of the annexation of Eritrea to Ethiopia. This is reminiscent of how the Serbian government of Slobodan Milosevic ended the autonomous status of Kosovo in 1989. See Iyob, The Eritrean Struggle for Independence, 94. 4 The military coup of the Derg was also motivated by the fact that Emperor Selassie was an autocratic leader who favored Ethiopia’s Christian community at the expense of the Muslims. 5 The elm and the elf (the future eplf) fought against each other in the 1960s and 1970s for control of Eritrea. By the late 1970s, the eplf led by Isaias Afwerki, had become the most prominent front in Eritrea and led the final war of liberation against the government of Addis Ababa in the early 1990s. 6 Yohannes, Eritrea, 91. 7 In exchange, the United States designed most of Ethiopia’s infrastructure following World War II and sent the largest share of its African economic aid to Ethiopia. See Connell, “Eritrea,” 1. 8 Yohannes, Eritrea, 258. Cited in Taras and Ganguly, Understanding Ethnic Conflicts, 216. 9 Mengistu announced that u.s. military facilities in Ethiopia (especially in the Eritrean province) would be closed down. Ibid., 144. Soon after the Derg declared Ethiopia a socialist state, the Soviet Union sent more than $11 billion in arms to Addis Ababa. With this support, Mengistu was able to temporarily reoccupy most of Eritrea’s major cities. However, by the end of the 1980s, the eplf had regained most of the territory it had lost. See Connell, Eritrea, 1. 10 Within a few years, u.s.-Somali relations replaced those that Wash-

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16 17 18

19

20

21 22 23 24

Notes to pages 133–41

ington had maintained with Ethiopia over the previous twenty years. The Somali partnership allowed the United States to maintain its influence in the region, as well as to retain a certain control over the Red Sea, as will be seen in more detail in the next chapter. See Cohen, “Somalia.” Cohen, Intervening in Africa, 20. Pool, “Eritrean Independence,” 394. Phone interview with Robert Houdek, 25 May 2005. Mengistu accepted the proposal of a un observer mission only in 1991, when his regime was on the verge of collapsing. Other talks hosted by the Italian government in Rome at the end of 1989 between the Tigrean People’s Liberation Front and the Ethiopian government ended in deadlock for similar reasons. See Young, Peasant Revolution in Ethiopia, 167. Ibid. Goshko, “U.S. Plea.” nsc Director for Africa Robert Frasure travelled to Sudan to meet with Issaias Afwerti, the leader of the eplf, and with Meles Zenawi, the head of the tplf, and they both agreed to meet in London in May to begin peace negotiations with the Mengistu regime. On 24–25 May 1991 the Falashas were airlifted to Israel. The United States and Israel payed $35 million to the Ethiopian government in “exit fees” for the operation. The u.s. chargé d’affaires Robert Houdek convinced Mengistu of “the hopelessness of his situation” and of the inevitable defeat of his army. Houdek’s pressure apparently convinced Mengistu to leave Ethiopia. See Henze, “Ethiopia and Eritrea,” 63. Acting Ethiopian president Tesfaye Gebre-Kidan had apparently informed Robert Houdek that he had consented to let the tplf enter the capital because it was the only way to enforce order in Addis Ababa. This lack of communication between the new Ethiopian president and the prime minister, who was in London attending the peace talks, shows that the Derg regime was in an advanced phase of disintegration. Farkas, Fractured States, 20. Interview with J. Cohen, Washington, dc, 16 May 2005. Correspondence with Herman J. Cohen, 23 May 2005. See Jackson and Rosberg, “Why Africa’s Weak States Persist,” 18. Walter Kansteiner indicates, “If you want to mess with borders, you better get the five surrounding countries and the country that is splitting to all agree.” Interview with Walter Kansteiner, Washington, dc, 18 May 2005.

Notes to pages 142–53

25 26 27 28 29 30 31

32 33 34 35

36

37 38 39 40

41 42 43 44

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Schraeder, “u.s. Intervention in the Horn of Africa,” 10. Interview with Walter Kansteiner, Washington, dc, 18 May 2005. Cohen, “Somalia,” 54. Interview with Herman J. Cohen, Washington, dc, 16 May 2005. Henze, Ethiopia and Eritrea, 62. Phone interview with Robert Houdek, 25 May 2005. In the early 1990s, Ethiopia was facing five different rebellious movements (e.g. of the Afars, Eritreans, Oromo, Somali, and Tigray), among which the Eritreans and the Tigray where the most powerful. It is important to mention here that the Addis Ababa conference approved the right of the Ethiopian nationalities to self-determination, which included the right to secede. However, only Eritrea used that right and had the actual capacity and will to function independently. Young, Peasant Revolution, 206. See Pateman, Eritrea, 238. See Washington Post, “Ethiopia.” Iyob, The Eritrea Struggle, 139. One quarter of the 1.2 million registered voters were living outside Eritrea in Sudanese refugee camps, in Ethiopia, or in Western countries. Although some states had already given their support and had granted de facto recognition to Eritrea (e.g., Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Tunisia, Yemen), the United States was the first state to recognize de jure the independence of Eritrea following its declaration of independence. See Abraham, Ethiopia, 58. Farkas, Fractured States, 58. Cited ibid., 65. Ibid., 67. Interview with Walter Kansteiner, Washington, dc, 18 May 2005. Robert Houdek agrees with this point of view. Phone interview with Robert Houdek, 25 May 2005. Yohannes, Eritrea, 67–8, 210. Interview with Herman J. Cohen, Washington, dc, 16 May 2005. Phone interview with Robert Houdek, 25 May 2005. Interview with Herman J. Cohen, Washington, dc, 16 May 2005.

chapter seven 1 Srebrnik, “Can Clans Form Nations?” 225. 2 See Omaar, “Somaliland,” 232. 3 Woodward, The Horn of Africa, 65.

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Notes to pages 154–7

4 The main government positions and the majority of the seats in the Mogadishu Parliament were held by Southern Somalians. Throughout the 1960s, Somaliland felt politically and economically marginalized. See Ahmed and Green, “The Heritage of War,” 116. 5 A treaty of friendship and cooperation was signed with the ussr in 1974. Omaar, “Somalia,” 230. 6 Between 1980 and 1990, 75 percent of all Somalia’s military equipment was coming from the United States. Bryden, “Somalia,” 146. 7 Cohen, Intervening in Africa, 197. 8 The Isaak clan dominates the northwest of Somalia. Around 70 percent of Somalilanders are Isaaks. See Hulianas, “The Viability of Somaliland,” 157. 9 Siad Barre fled to the Kenyan border. One year after his overthrow, Barre had still not been offered sanctuary by any foreign countries. See u.s. Department of State, January 1992; unclassified document e30, case 200502026. Unclassified on 27 January 2006. Barre eventually died in exile in Nigeria. 10 Throughout the 1980s, the United States supported Siad Barre for strategic reasons. As Cohen recalls, “Despite Somalia’s severe internal instability, centcom continued to view the naval/air facility at Berbera as important to the defense of the Gulf. In Tampa, Florida, in late 1989, centcom commander in chief General Norman Schwarzkopf pressed me on the need to maintain access to Berbera.” Cohen, Intervening in Africa, 202. Therefore, even if the government of Siad Barre failed to keep external stability in the 1980s and used brutal repression against the population of Somaliland, the United States chose to turn a blind eye to these atrocities. 11 u.s. Department of State, May 1991; unclassified document e6, case 200502026. Unclassified on 20 January 2006. Moreover, the Organization of African Unity (oau) reaffirmed the founding principles of the organization (i.e., sovereignty, territorial integrity, intangible territorial integrity) and categorically opposed the secession of Somaliland. See u.s. Department of State, June 1991; unclassified document e9, case 200502026. Unclassified on 20 January 2006. 12 Cohen, Intervening in Africa, 204–5. 13 u.s. Department of State, May 1991; unclassified document e4, case 200502026. Unclassified on 20 January 2006. 14 u.s. Department of State, November 1991; unclassified document e28, case 200502026. Unclassified on 27 January 2006. 15 Phone interview with Robert Houdek, Washington, dc, 25 May 2005.

Notes to pages 158–67

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16 u.s. Department of State, May 1991; unclassified document e6, case 200502026. Unclassified on 20 January 2006. 17 Cohen, Intervening in Africa, 203. 18 u.s. Department of State, July 1991; unclassified document e22, case 200502026. Unclassified on 26 January 2006. 19 Somaliland’s secessionists visited European capitals, the un headquarters, Canada, and the United States. 20 u.s. Department of State, November 1991; unclassified document e28, case 200502026. Unclassified on 27 January 2006. 21 Bradbury, Abokor, and Yusuf, “Somaliland,” 461. 22 Prunier, “Somaliland Goes It Alone,” 228. 23 Kibble, “Somaliland,” 16. The international community was impressed by the referendum process but did not attach any legal value to it because there was no census in Somaliland, and therefore, it was impossible to know the proportion of Somalilanders who favoured independence. 24 The following year, president Kahin was confirmed in his functions in a presidential election. 25 Simanowitz, “Democracy Comes of Age.” 26 Bradbury, Abokor, and Yusuf, “Somaliland,” 457. 27 Huliaras, “The Viability of Somaliland,” 171. 28 Interview with Herman J. Cohen, Washington, dc, 16 May 2005. 29 Arta is a city in Djibouti where negotiations occurred. 30 Cohen, “Somalia.” 31 The operation was baptized “Operation Restore Hope” by the Department of Defense. A few weeks later, the un Security Council adopted resolution 794 establishing a safe environment for humanitarian aid in Somalia. Woodward, The Horn of Africa, 76. 32 See Kansteiner, Somalia. 33 Phone interview with a former State Department official who asked to remain anonymous, 25 May 2005. 34 Interview with a State Department official who asked to remain anonymous, Washington, dc, 4 May 2005. 35 Ibid. 36 Interview with Walter Kansteiner, Washington, dc, 18 May 2005. 37 He added, “But logically, philosophically, and morally it’s probably right to recognize them.” Interview with Herman J. Cohen, Washington, dc, 16 May 2005. 38 Interview with Herman Cohen, Washington, dc, 16 May 2005. See also interview with Walter Kansteiner, Washington, dc, 18 May 2005.

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Notes to pages 167–83

39 Interview with a State Department official who asked to remain anonymous, Washington, dc, 4, May 2005. 40 Alexander’s Gas & Oil Connections, “Somalia Welcomes Oil Interest.” 41 u.s. Department of State, June 1991; unclassified document e15, case 200502026. Unclassified on 26 January 2006. 42 u.s. Department of State, June 1991; unclassified document e28, case 200502026. Unclassified on 27 January 2006.

chapter eight 1 Stack, “The Ethnic Challenge,” 19. 2 Rasmussen, “Peacemaking in the Twenty-First Century,” 24. 3 John Stack argues, for instance, “From a neorealist perspective, ethnicity did not count in assessments of superpower and great power national security elites. The importance of ethnicity, one of the most significant forces in the formation of the post–Cold War international system and now a central dimension in the articulation of major power foreign policies, was simply marginalized.” See Stack, “The Ethnic Challenge,” 22–3. 4 The literature on power transition and hegemonic stability focuses on the distinction between status quo and revisionist states. The conclusions of this book contribute to this theoretical distinction by suggesting that the United States is sometimes a status quo power and sometimes a revisionist state that attempts to strengthen stability in regions affected by secessionist conflicts. For more on this distinction see Organski, World Politics; Gilpin, War and Change. 5 See Heraclides, Self-Determination, 21. 6 Bercovitch, “Mediation in International Conflict,” 142. 7 For more on the literature on conditionality, see Kelley, “International Actors”; Linden, “Putting On Their Sunday Best.” 8 Zartman, “Introduction,” 14. 9 Callahan, Unwinnable Wars, 26–7. See also Carley, U.S. Responses; Carley, Self-Determination.

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interviews and correspondence Face-to-Face Interviews Abramovitz, Morton, Washington, dc, 2 May 2005. Cohen, Herman J., Washington, dc, 16 May 2005. Gompert, David C., Washington, dc, 25 January 2005. Halperin, Morton, Washington, dc, 21 April 2005. Harris, Marshall Freeman, Washington, dc, 17 February 2005. Kansteiner, Walter, Washington, dc, 18 May 2005. Lake, Anthony, Washington, dc, 4 April 2005. O’Brien, James, Washington, dc, 12 April 2005. Pearson, Robert, Washington, dc, 14 February 2005. Scowcroft, Brent, Washington, dc, 8 February 2005.

Telephone Interviews Galbraith, Peter W., 23 January 2005. Hamilton, Daniel, 11 April 2005. Houdek, Robert, 25 May 2005. Howe, Jonathan T., 3 March 2005 Niles, Thomas M. T., 29 January 2005. Nimetz, Matthew, 18 February 2005.

Anonymous Interviews State Department Official, Washington, dc, 25 February 2005. State Department Official, Washington, dc, 10 March 2005. Former u.s. official, Virginia, 28 April 2005.

Correspondence Correspondence with Herman J. Cohen, 23 May 2005. Correspondence with Pero Novak, 26 January 2005.

8 Index

Abkhazia, 5, 7, 18, 122, 178, 180 Abramovitz, Morton, 113 Aceh, 31 Afwerki, Isaias, 143 Ahtisaari, Martti, 116–18, 120 Aidid, Mohammed, 155–6, 160, 164, Albanian American Civic League, 123–4 Albanian American lobby, 122–3 Albanian-Macedonian-Bulgarian Oil Corporation (ambo), 99 Albright, Madeleine, 103; and Kosovo, 104, 109, 112–13 Ambrosio, Thomas, 22, 126 American Hellenic Educational Progressive Association, 88 Annan, Kofi, 115 Badinter Commission, 79 Baker, James, 55–6, 59–60, 89; and Macedonia, 79; and recognition of Croatia, 70; and referendum in Eritrea, 142–3, 149; and Security Council, 58; and Somaliland, 156–8 Bangladesh, 4

Barre, Siad, 154–5 Bennett, Andrew, 49 Bentley, Helen Delich, 70, 124 Bercovitch, Jacob, 181 Berry, Steven, 82 Biafra, 4; and recognition, 7, 128; and secession, 7, 18 Bienen, Henry, 14, 29 Blanchard, James, 5 Boschwitz, Rudy, 137 Bosnia-Herzegovina, 3; and referendum, 62; and u.s. recognition, 64, 82 Boucher, Richard, 94 Brzezinski, Zbigniew, 23 Bush administration, 55; and Macedonia, 81 Bush, George H.W., 133 Bush, George W., 120; and Ethiopia, 133; and Macedonia, 83; and secession of Croatia and Slovenia, 55; and secession of Kosovo, 103, 124 Callahan, David, 7, 9, 13, 37, 182–3 Canada, 31–2; and National Unity, 31, 44, 183

226

Index

Carley, Patricia, 182–3 Carment, David, 3, 9 Carter, Jimmy, 135 Chechnya, 16, 41–2 Christopher, Warren, 4, 89 Clark, Wesley, 107 Clinton, Bill, 4–5, 84, 123, Clinton administration, 48, 175; and Canadian unity, 31; and recognition of fyrom, 86; and Kosovo, 106; and Macedonia, 75, 84–5 cnn, 164 Cohen, Herman J., 135–6, 138, 147, 149; Cohen’s coup, 139, 141–2; referendum in Eritrea, 139–40 Somalia, 154; Somaliland, 157–8, 163, 167 Cohen, Leonard, 59 Common Foreign and Security Policy (cfsp), 80 conflict mediation, 181–2 Congo crisis, 24–5 ConocoPhillips, 168 Contact Group, 108, 116 Croatia, 4–5, 10–11, 33, 48, 53; and conditionality of recognition, 59–62; declaration of independence, 54, 56; and German recognition, 67; and secessionist crisis, 53–4; and stability, 64–6; and u.s. recognition, 19, 23, 53, 62–6 Croatian American Association (caa), 69 Croatian American lobby, 68 Croatian Americans, 23, 68–71 Dayton Peace Agreements, 107 David, Steven, 14

defensive positionalism, 6, 28, 30, 44, 177 defensive realism, 15, 16, 28 Democratic League of Kosovo (ldk), 103 Derg Regime, 134–5, 148 Dinka, Tesfaye, 138 Dole, Bob, 68–9 Eagleburger, Lawrence, 63; and business interests, 71–3; and Christmas warning, 105; and Kosovo, 105; and Macedonia’s recognition, 79; and u.s. recognition, 70; and Yugoslavia, 72 Egal, Mohamed Haji Ibrahim, 160–1; and the United States, 163 Eritrea, 4, 5, 11, 37, 48, 128–9; history of, 129–31; referendum, 131, 139–40, 142, 149 Eritrean Americans, 148 Eritrean Liberation Front (elf), 130 Eritrean Liberation Movement (elm), 130 Eritrean People’s Liberation Front (eplf), 128, 134, 136, 140 Ethio-Eritrean Federation, 130 ethnic lobby, 22–4, 68, 76, 83, 97, 126 Exxon Mobil, 168 Falashas, 134, 137–8 Farkas, Evelyn, 14, 147 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, 30, 101; and stability, 104; and war in Kosovo, 109–10 Ferguson, Edward, 99 Frasure, Robert, 137, 142–3

Index

Gebre-Kidan, Tesfaye, 138 George, Alexander, 46, 49–50 Georgia, 4, 7, 122, 180, 183 Germany, 67; and recognition of Croatia and Slovenia, 67, 69 Gibbs, David, 24–6, 71, 73, 98, 101 Glazer, Nathan, 22 Gleditsch, Skerde, 34 Gligorov, Kiro, 77 Gompert, David, 65–6; and Croatian American lobby, 69–70; and Greek American lobby, 83; and Kosovo, 105 Gore, Al, 89 Greece, 80; and conflict with Turkey, 81; and Oil embargo, 84 Greek American lobby, 76, 88, 95–6 Grieco, Joseph, 28, 99–100, 177 Halperin, Morton, 13–14 Hamilton, Daniel, 126 Harris, Marshall Freeman, 98 Hellenic-American National Council, 83 Heraclides, Alexis, 9, 16, 25, 30, 35–6 Hicks, Irving, 137 Hill, Christopher, 109–10 Hockenos, Paul, 77 Holbrooke, Richard, 55, 57; and fyrom, 90; and Kosovo, 107; and Macedonia, 84 Horowitz, Donald, 3, 8 Houdek, Robert, 135, 138, 144, 150 Howe, Jonathan T., 66 Huntington, Samuel, 19

227

Indonesia, 31–2 international law, 178 Iraq, 7 James, Patrick, 3 Judah, Tim, 106 Kansteiner, Walter, 142, 167 Katanga, 24 Keohane, Robert O., ix, 46 Kohl, Helmut, 179 Kosovo, 3, 11, 48, 54, 101, 104–5, 107; and autonomy, 102–3; and repression, 30, 104; and secession, 18, 124; and selfdetermination, 101; and supervised independence, 119; as a un protectorate, 114–15; and u.s. non-recognition, 37, 103–4, 111–13; u.s. policy on, 107; and u.s. recognition, 118–22 Kosovo Force (kfor), 114, 121 Kosovo Liberation Army (kla), 20, 108–10, 123 Kostunica, Vojislav, 120 Kupchan, Charles, 116 Lake, Anthony, 89–90 Lake, David, 3 Lavrov, Sergey, 121–2 Lebamov, Ivan A., 87 liberal institutionalism, 17–18 Macedonia, 11, 48; and referendum on decentralization, 95 Macedonian Patriotic Organization (mpo), 87 Markovic, Ante, 54, 56–7, 73 Marshall, John, 131 Mastanduno, Michael, 99–100

228

Index

Mearsheimer, John, 17, 22 Mengistu, Colonel, 130, 132, 137; Mengistu Regime, 148 Mesic, Stjepan, 54; and Yugoslav disintegration, 59 Milosevic, Slobodan, 54, 57, 63, 102, 107, 110 Mitsotakis, Constantine, 80 Moldova, 32; and Trans-Dniester’s secession, 32 Montenegro, 54 Moynihan, Patrick, 22 National Albanian American Council (naac), 123 National Liberation Army (nla), 92 National Security Council: and Eritrea, 142 ; and the Greek American lobby, 83; and Kosovo, 104–5, 178; and Macedonia’s recognition, 79; and Serb and Croat ceasefire, 65–6 ; and Somalia, 166; and state recognition, 59, 62; nato intervention, 101 Nau, Henry, 22 neoliberalism, 20 neorealism, 15, 177 Niles, Thomas, 62; and Greek Americans, 83 Nimetz, Matthew, 87, 91 Novak, Pero, 69 Nye, Jospeh, 4 O’Brien, James, 110 Ogaden region, 154 Ohrid Agreement, 92–3, 95, 97 offensive realism, 15, 17 Operation Allied Force, 110–11

Operation Provide Relief, 164 Organization of African Unity (oau), 132, 141, 157, 165 Oromo Liberation Front, 134 Papandreou, Andreas, 87 Pearson, Robert, 58 Pérez de Cuéllar, Javier, 59 Phillips, John, 98 Powell, Colin, 93–4, 96 process tracing, 10, 49–50 Puntland, 162 Putin, Vladimir, 121, 180 Quebec, 31; and secession, 31, 184 Rahman, Abd-er, 156 Rambouillet Agreements, 110–14 Rasmussen, J. Lewis, 177 Rice, Condoleezza, 96, 120 Rosin, Hanna, 77 Ross, Dennis, 66 Rothchild, Donald, 3 Rugova, Ibrahim, 103, 108 Russia, 7 Saideman, Stephen, 16, 23, 77 Salehyan, Idean, 34 Scheffer, David, 13–14 Scowcroft, Brent, 55, 62; and business interests, 71–3 Selassie, Haile, 130–1 Serbia, 20, 54 Serbian American lobby, 71, 124 Serbian Unity Congress (suc), 125 Shain, Yossi, 22–3 Shamir, Yitzak, 137 Shea, John, 77

Index

Slovenia, 4, 11, 33, 48, 53; and conditionality of recognition, 59–62; declaration of independence, 54, 56; and German recognition, 18, 67; and secessionist crisis, 53–4; and u.s. recognition, 62–6; Slovenian Americans, 68 Small, Patricia, 13–14 Somalia, 3, 48, 15; history of, 153–6; Somalia aversion, 153, 164–7, 174; and u.s. investments, 133 Somalian Americans, 167 Somaliland, 11, 48; history of, 153–156 Somalilander Americans, 167–8 Somali National Movement (snm), 154–6; and the United States, 158–9 Somali Patriotic Front, 155 South Ossetia, 7, 18, 122, 178, 180 Soviet Union, 48–9 Sremac, Danielle, 125 Stack, John, 24, 177 State Department: and conditionality of recognition, 59; and Croatia and Slovenia, 55, 61, 65–6, 69; and Eritrea, 142, 146; and Eritrean secession, 149; and Ethiopia, 135–6; and Falashas, 138 ; and Greek American lobby, 83, 89, 93, 96; and interagency disagreement, 89; and Kosovo, 104, 111, 119–20; and Macedonia, 79–2, 93–4, 99; and Macedonia’s recognition, 89; and Milosevic, 124; and recognition criteria, 60; and

229

Serbian American lobby, 125; and Somaliland, 153, 163; and Somaliland’s Declaration of Independence, 156, 159; and Somaliland’s recognition, 167; and u.s. policy on, 107; and Yugoslav disintegration, 58 Stephanopoulos, George, 88 structured, focused comparison, 10, 50–1 Thaci, Hashim, 119 Tigrean People’s Liberation Front (tplf), 130, 134, 136, 140 Tudjman, Franjo, 65 Tutwiler, Margaret, 66 United Nations Mission in Kosovo (unmik), 114–17, 119 United Nations Observer Mission to Verify the Referendum in Eritrea (unover), 146 United Nations Protection Forces (unprofor), 63 United Nations Unified Task Force (unitaf), 164 United Somali Congress (usc), 155 United States: Civil War, 5; foreign policy dilemma, 3; recognition criteria, 60–1; response to Croatia’s and Slovenia’s secession, 55–6, 62–4; response to Eritrea’s secession, 139–44; response to Kosovo’s secession, 103–4, 118–21; response to Macedonia’s secession, 78–9, 85–7; response to Somaliland’s secession, 156–8, 162–7; secessionism, 5, 12, 182–3; self-

230

determination, 4; stability interest, 6, 9, 171–5 Vance, Cyrus, 59, 62 Vojvodina, 54 Walt, Stephen, 16, 22 Waltz, Kenneth, 47 Wisner, Frank, 117 Yohannes, Okbazghi, 131 Young, Robert, 40

Index

Yugoslav People’s Army (ypa), 54, 57, 78 Yugoslavia, 4, 33, 53; and disintegration, 53–5, 62–4, 77–9, 103–4; and instability, 58–9; and u.s. support, 56–8. See also Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Zacher, Mark, 17–18, 38 Zartman, William, 182 Zenawi, Meles, 144 Zimmermann, Warren, 66