Kosovo as a res extra commercium and the alchemy of colonization

SUMMARY: How much pluralism can democracy withstand? – Global context 1: Quantity vs. quality – Global context 2: Militarization (might vs. right) – Global context 3: Commercialization and corporatization (skill vs. virtue) – Stabilocracy and the new imperialism: Crisis as a permanent situation – Varoufakis: Kosovization of Europe – Hofbauer: Experiment Kosovo – The Return of Colonialism – Is there hope? – Can smaller countries determine their (economic) fate at all? – Strategology: Origins and purpose – The nature of strategy – Three dimensions of strategy – The Kosovo and Metohia issue as a par excellence paradoxical strategic question – From anti-strategy to optimal strategy – Kosovo and Metohia 20 years after the NATO aggression: The situation and recommendations.

KEY WORDS: Kosovo and Metohia, Serbia, the Balkans, Kosovization of Europe, new imperialism, strategology, paradox

HOW MUCH PLURALISM CAN DEMOCRACY WITHSTAND?

One of the most important (existential) questions in contemporary pluralist democracies, most pregnantly asked by the prominent Austrian political philosopher Peter Graf Kielmansegg, is: “How much pluralism can democracy withstand?” According to him, it is “necessary… to differentiate between at least three types of pluralism: pluralism of interests, pluralism of values, and pluralism of identities.

- Pluralism of interests deals with the issue of how to (re)distribute divisible assets;

- Pluralism of values deals with the question of which values to accept as valid;

- Pluralism of identities deals with a question whom the word “we” includes; “Whom do I constitute a community with?” [Kielmansegg 1991: 30–40].

Kielmansegg is of the opinion that “democracy can withstand a substantial amount of pluralism of interests; that it has difficulties with pluralism of values, while it has the greatest problem with pluralism of identities.”[1]

For the Serbs, the Kosovo Issue has for centuries stood “at the very foundations of [their] identity” [Piper 2017: 281–283]. One’s answer to that prerequisite either lifts him up or brings him down[2]. These who try to make deals concerning it, or do actually make them, will not fare well[3].

GLOBAL CONTEX 1: QUANTITY VS. QUALITY

At the end of the past century most western and transition-era intellectuals believed that instead of a Hungtintonian clash of civilizations, the time of universalization, the era of global civilization, was coming. This is the period when global power-mongers also intensified their work on a specific kind of historical engineering meant to create an uncontested world order with “new rules of the ‘game’” which would guarantee the survival and expansion of the global civilization under the sign of Capital[4]. According to them, no authentic policy and culture should stand in the way of transnational capital’s economic expansion. Not even at the cost of this civilization’s self-destruction, as the global, turbo-capitalist civilization battles against everything that is, in its essence singular, authentic – against nation and national states, against law, science, upbringing and education, against family, religion, tradition in general, and even against work itself. Or, to put it simply, it seems to be innately against quality and in favor of quantity! It disdains value and upholds usefulness, it stands against creativity and favors imitation and simulation, it strives for uniformity and has little use for diversity, the bleakness and dullness of mediocrity disturb it none, as it reaches for maximization of quantity and speed…[5]

GLOBAL CONTEXT 2: MILITARIZATON

(MIGHT VS. RIGHT)

Carl Schmitt used to claim that war is a way out of the crisis: the way out of a small crisis being a small war, and a big war out of a big one! Creating crisis hotspots and launching no-win wars and wars by proxy became, after the Korean War of the mid-20^th century (the first such war), a routine approach by the international power-mongers. Apparently, it was also a necessity, because the structure of production and consumption, in the U.S. for example, changed drastically in favor of the military-industrial complex, so that intensifying economic activity to overcome a crisis implies an increase in the production of tools, weapons and ammunition. Moreover, demand too can go up only if a new war is launched. This is where the profits are biggest, and the returns quickest. In other words, in the economies structured in such a way, investments in wars are the most profitable ones[6].

Terms used in the contemporary economic debates are to a great extent defined by the semantic legacy of previous debates. In addition, economic terminology shows a noticeable influence of other, so-called exact sciences: above all physics (“balance”, “oscillatory trends”…), then biology (“circular flow” or “circulation”, “growth”, “development”, “seed capital”), medicine (“shock therapy”) and, increasingly, military science (“economic sanctions”, “economic security”, “economic war”, “hybrid war”, “cost-benefit” analysis of strategic migrations as a weapon of war, “strategic management”… etc.). This semantic militarization of economics is undoubtedly a consequence of the economy’s militarization. Many criticize the use of military terms in the economic sphere considering such militarization as an expression of neo-mercantilism and economic nationalism; according to them, this unavoidably leads to conflicts. Because the real and “surreal” – speculative, or better still, scheming economies based on military and political power instead on economic efficiency – permanently disturb the balance of capital and production necessary for sustainable economic and overall development.

GLOBAL CONTEXT 3: COMMERCIALIZATION AND CORPORATIZATION

(SKILL VS. VIRTUE)

At the same time, the tendencies of commercialization and corporatization are becoming ever stronger. Everything is for sale, including people, their organs, even their souls. Local and regional markets are becoming part of global flea market of lost souls. The mainstream neoliberal doctrine legitimizes this by citing freedom of choice in the only true, worldwide labor market: of people who, without remorse, “honestly” work for those who pay more. Moreover, this market is becoming overcrowded: supply is growing exponentially, that going hand in hand with the general trend of massive impoverishment. That is, most countries of the Second World have descended into the Third World owing to transitional plunder, whereas the gap between the traditionally developed countries and the underdeveloped ones is deepening – with the price of treason, true to theory, plummeting[7].

In this case as well, maximum quantity and maximum speed are the supreme (and only) values, replacing every skill and virtue. Die Schnellen fressen die Langsamen (“The swift gobble up the slow”) wrote Heike Leitschuh-Fechte in a 1997 article entitled “One day we’ll all be The First,” defining the essence of (turbo)capitalist ideology. In other words, more and ever more, faster and faster! That is the only criterion of success. And in order to be successful, we have to be incorporated [8].

STABILOCRACY AND THE NEW IMPERIALISM:

CRISIS AS A PERMANENT SITUATION

What are our chances to see the end of the world economic crisis in our lifetime? Not very great, since it has become a permanent situation that one has to get used to. (For example, this is what TV reality shows are supposed to train us for.) The post-modern ideology relativizes everything, equalizing all values and, by deconstructing the present as well as the past, prepares us all for a post-human – or posthumous – future.

Meanwhile we are being incessantly told that peace and stability should be our ultimate goals. In this context, “stability” – a Newspeak euphemism for “control” (even surveillance!) – actually means that “everything is under control”, i.e. under our[9] control, which is the essence of both old and new imperialism. Under the old imperialism control was executed directly – through application of firm power such as, for instance, a ground invasion – while in the case of the new, so-called economic imperialism, it assumes a subtler form of “soft” and smart power, as defined by Joseph Nye. We use the term “economic imperialism” when one country controls another by using its resources for the purpose. The controller ideologically justifies that by claiming cost-benefits for the victim-country which, therefore, “accepts” such control. Moreover, according to such argumentation, the victim-country can always say “no”, there being no long-term solution, i.e. no permanent economic imperialism, since the domination can last only as long as the resources needed for it are available. The solution, from the point of view of the imperial power’s interests, is to make the victim-country dependent on the “controller’s” resources by, for example, pushing it into indebtedness[10] – a classical occupation being much riskier and costlier.

VAROUFAKIS: THE KOSOVIZATION OF EUROPE

Before our very eyes the “old order” is crumbling or already lies in ruins under the forces of arrogance which see themselves as “the creators of history” as they cynically engage in the “deconstruction” experiment. With burgeoning loss of sovereignty, that is, with the historical loss of national subjectivity, the less numerous and economically less powerful nations are becoming an object (“guinea pigs”) of the “New Order”[11]: “The policies of Europe as it now stands lead to fragmentation. The worst-case scenario of the crisis would be the Kosovization of Greece, Spain, Ireland, Portugal, and Italy, i.e. their turning into protectorates which use the Euro, are ruled by European commissioners and local kleptocrats, and whose youth is their only relevant export asset.”[12]

HOFBAUER: EXPERIMENT KOSOVO – THE RETURN OF COLONIALISM

Hannes Hofbauer’s book Experiment Kosovo: The Return of Colonialism (Experiment Kosovo: Die Rückkehr des Kolonialismus) [Hofbauer 2008, henceforth referred to as EK] is an intellectually honest attempt to understand the current Kosovo situation within a wider historical and international context. The author is not siding with any party to the conflict, nor is he favoring the current “international” rule, neither whose Weltanschauung does he share. He rightfully perceives it not as a genuine ideological belief, but as a cover for extremely pragmatic and aggressive goals. To understand what has led to the creation of the current state of affairs in Kosovo and Metohia – a Mafia state thriving under the thin layer of a colonial, military, police, and political administration – it is necessary to understand its background, i.e. the historical and political context of the Kosovo region and of its immediate surroundings, while not neglecting the wider, geopolitical context [Pavić 2009].

Commendably, Hofbauer allows the facts to speak for themselves, which is reason enough to quote him without major interventions.

As an economic and social historian, he is critical of the European Project and examines the Balkans specifically, as a region wherein an imperial policy was pursued by Austro-Hungary in the past and by the EU and the U.S. today. The consequences of such approach are tragic: a major war in former Yugoslavia, hundreds of thousands of lives lost, millions of displaced persons, enormous material destruction, the final blow being the attack on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and the forcible separation of Kosovo and Metohia from the sovereign state of Serbia in 2008. Then, “through a unilateral declaration of Kosovo’s independence, the international law was violated and substituted by the rights of man (human rights). The international law is quite clear, while the rights of man can be interpreted in many ways. They are a reflection of economic and military power. What had been resolved in 1945, was again geopolitically reshuffled”[13] i.e. “the bombing of Yugoslavia without a U.N. mandate, initiated the violation of international law, while the recognition of the unilaterally declared independence of Kosovo marked an end of the epoch that began in 1945.” [An interview with Hofbauer at www.blic.rs/politika.php?id=79495]

In other words, the main thesis of Experiment Kosovo is the U.S.’s and EU’s new imperial policy, primarily reflected in NATO’s activities. According to Hofbauer, however, Kosovo is not the first but the second stage in such new installation of imperial rule on the territory of former Yugoslavia, the first occurring in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In both cases a similar scenario was employed: military engagement came first, followed by the introduction of a unique type of rule over the occupied territories: they were subjected to a specific political, social and economic experiment under merged “executive and administrative branches of government” which only as separated powers constitute “the essence of democracy in the West.” [An interview with Hofbauer at https://bit.ly/3oEzxZ9]. Double standards were obviously employed – ones for “civilized” Western democracies, and very different ones for the “semiliterate belligerent savages” in the Balkans, who have to be ruled by an iron fist[14].

The great powers will take advantage of the latest Balkan ethnic turmoil to further their own interests. They have been pulling the strings of all major events in the region since the end of the 19^th and the beginning of the 20^th century – including the 1912–1913 Balkan Wars, the 1912 creation of Albania, the 1918 creation of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and the Slovenes (from 1929, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia) and the 1943 revolutionary formation of the Federal People’s Republic of Yugoslavia… For, according to Michael Weithmann cited by Hofbauer [EK: 45], “all Balkan states have always been the objects and not the subjects of big policies,” i.e. “not one of the ethnic problems has ever been solved. The borders drawn there appear to be a part of a system bound to create ever new hostilities so that the great powers, depending on the situation, could keep the Balkan people cornered and use their discord for their own goals.” [Weithmann 1997: 327]

After describing the past of Kosovo and its inter-ethnic relations from the 14^th century until the forming of the first and the second Yugoslavia, Hofbauer proceeds to consider the reasons for the destruction of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, stating that “the Yugoslav catastrophe was generated from within and from the outside.” [EK: 76] He, however, immediately recalls that without understanding world economic relations and dependences, the dissolution of this multi-ethnic state cannot be fully comprehended. For, after the collapse of communism, a redistribution of assets and resources was to be made, and the territory of the Balkans divided into the exclusive zones of interest of certain countries and big capital. In the light of this, “the division into nations and ethnic communities was not only of assistance to, but a precondition for achieving these goals. For, social stratification unavoidably leads to class struggle during the division of the existing pie, while national struggle, on the contrary, leads only to the division of the market.” [EK: 77] In short, disintegration was necessary for new economic integration, to enable “an unhindered circulation of goods, people, ideas and capital.”[15] But, even a mere glance at the winners in the long-lasting clash reveals everything: multinational capital and local elites emerged as the only profiteers.

That is, during the (world) economic crisis of the late 1970s and the early 1980s, the Yugoslav economy began rapidly to sink under the heavy burden of foreign debts and high inflation. Jeffrey Sachs, an IMF expert for curing such economic woes, proposed a plan to establish “the dinar’s convertibility in the country through a social shock therapy by depriving state money of economic life, thus putting to death ‘the Yugoslav socialist self-management’.” [EK: 79].

Hofbauer summarizes the fatal formula guiding the West in resolving the problem that resulted in the tragedy of the Yugoslav peoples in a single slogan: “Solidarity with the national right to self-determination.” Thus, radical demands by the suddenly “nationally and democratically aware” Slovenes, Croats, Muslims and, eventually, Albanians, directed against the Yugoslav federation, found strong supporters and allies in Germany, Austria, France, and U.S. The reason why the West’s politicians, media, leading thinkers and theoreticians interpreted national self-determination as social emancipation can be explained as “a purely colonial aspiration, a colonial call.” In fact, Hofbauer believes that “the war was premeditated and deliberately provoked.”[16] The only element missing was a suitable “philosophical” justification, which was found in a demand that human rights be respected, and followed by military interventions to protect them. These rights thus served to ideologically justify all military actions dubbed “humanitarian interventions.” It is clear today that something entirely opposite lay behind this missionary logic of universally applicable “human rights”. The actual goal was to impose a form of material and social reproduction with “freedom” as its center, but such “liberty” boiled down to license of trade. Capital, i.e. the logic of capitalist expansion, was both the causa eficiens and the causa finalis of the events that took place. This logic of capitalist relations was camouflaged by the West’s advocacy of “universal values” and “human rights”, as a universal world religion of the market and the free flow of people, ideas and goods inseparable from it.

Hofbauer takes a clear stand concerning the war the West launched against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia under the pretext of protecting human rights and preventing a humanitarian catastrophe: “This undeclared NATO war against Yugoslavia was an aggression lacking all legal basis and acceptable reason. It violated all norms of international law, all provisions of the U.N. Charter, the NATO statute, and the constitutions of all member states, especially the German Constitution.” [EK: 118].

In the night of June 9, 1999 an agreement was signed between the FRY and NATO in Kumanovo, Macedonia, on the cessation of hostilities, after which, based on the Agreement’s provisions and U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244, Kosovo was placed under the administration of the U.N. , i.e. KFOR (“Kosovo Force”), whose largest contingent consisted of NATO troops. The Serb province of Kosovo was then divided into occupation zones under the jurisdiction of the U.S., German, Italian, British and French forces, and a U.N. civilian mission, UNMIK, was installed. According to the UNHCR [EK: 123], its population “protected” by Western armies, in the months that followed an Albanian pogrom of non-Albanians took place: innumerable acts of pillage, arson, murder, rape, and abduction were committed, reaching a climax in the expulsion (“ethnic cleansing”) of some 250,000 Serbs, Muslim Slavs, Roma, Egyptians, Ashkalis (the last three categories being self-designations of the minorities previously called “Gypsies”). To illustrate how the operation was conducted, Hofbauer quotes a former Albanian teacher bragging to a reporter of a French news agency: “We went from home to home, giving the Serbs 15 to 30 minutes to disappear.”[17] A U.N. civilian administration was introduced in Serbia’s province which was gradually transformed into a protectorate with “supervised independence”. The UNMIK, established immediately after the war, rested on four pillars: as Hofbauer put it, it is “a state in totality” [EK: 140], because it carries out the executive, judicial, police, and administrative tasks necessary to “build democracy and its institutions.” Over this structure presides the SRSG –a Special Representative of the U.N. Secretary General with unlimited powers.

After “Kosovo” (its full title being “Kosovo and Metohia” /metoh = Church Property/) illegally declared its independence, the Eulex mission replaced UNMIK. According to Hofbauer, in addition there are some 4,500 non-governmental organizations holding various training courses and allegedly building institutions and democracy, while “protecting human rights”… The planetary bible of the free market was put to work as soon as the war ended. Namely, the High Representative Bernard Kouchner seized all movable and immovable property of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in Kosovo. Privatization followed, under the command of the Kosovo Trust Agency and ending in the Heist of the Century[18] from which only mafia structures and the foreign factor[19] profited [EK: 212]. It should also be kept in mind that while poverty and over 60 percent unemployment reign supreme in Kosovo, the international elites enjoy enormous income in exchange for their efforts to establish “peace and democracy.” The economy practically does not exist[20], except for the black market[21] ruled by local mafia clans[22].

To such Kosovo, with its economy devastated and its society in shambles, its foreign tutors granted independence in February 2008. Violating international law, they forcibly took away a part of the sovereign state of Serbia under the excuse that it was a case sui generis with unforeseeable consequences and, by applying the ancient divide and rule adage, continue to determine the fate of small nations…[23]

“Cooperation of UNMIK and EUPT exists in all areas and at all levels. The EUPT, together with the chief of ICO PT, holds bimonthly meetings with SRSG and P/DSRGS.”[24] Hofbauer quotes this statement from a June 2008 communication between international administrators in Kosovo and Metohia to depict “money leakage” channels in occupied Serbian territory, i.e. to show where the numerous billions spent on “The Kosovo Experiment” end up. That is perhaps the best and the most adequate illustration of the cold neocolonial rule over that part of ancestral Serbian lands [Pavić 2009]. And its essence lies in the following: “‘Monitored or supervised independence’ was envisaged in advance as joint action of the ruling factors which control the instruments of world-wide rule. A combination of various instruments of direct and indirect foreign governance serves as a pledge for state independence. In that respect, Kosovo/Kosova (Albanian version of the original Serb toponym “The Field of Blackbirds” [Kosovo polje]) offers ideal conditions for experimenting.”[25] [EK: 234] This, of course, is to be achieved with the supporting role played by the former KLA (“Kosovo Liberation Army”) commanders, who in 1999 “acted as NATO ground troops, and now, after changing their guerilla uniforms for civilian suits, are allowed to pose as authorities.” [EK: 6]

Hofbauer’s analysis dispels all the idealists’ illusions – if such still exist – that an “enlightened” international administration can benefit any area under its “care”. “A colonial administration loves abbreviations,” writes Hofbauer [EK: 276], “but behind these anaesthetizing acronyms hides a veritable hell on earth of cynical, colonial pillage[26], of open looting of Serb property by the ‘International Community’ and in favor of Western big capital[27] – and of the omnipresent Albanian mafia which pervades all nooks and crannies of the Kosovo Albanian society.”[28]

Hofbauer particularly points out that given the text of U.N. Resolution 1244, which “guarantees territorial inviolability of the FRY… there was, in fact, nothing to negotiate about” [EK: 236], and wonders “why has Serbia agreed to participate in this obviously premeditated game” [EK: 239] of which the results were: “From the viewpoint of international law, the principles most clearly sacrificed by the establishment of a new order in the Balkans are, in addition to the U.N. Charter and various U.N. resolutions, the final acts of the Helsinki Conference on European Security and Cooperation.” He stresses, once again, that “negotiations on the status of Kosovo were held contrary to all the principles and in violation of all the cited points of the Helsinki Conference” [EK: 242–243]. Still, Russia’s and China’s firm rejection of the unilaterally declared Kosovo independence created “major difficulties for the Western ‘international community of states’,” because “as long as Resolution 1244 exists, there will be two realities in the world community” [EK: 256].

In agreeing with this appraisal Hofbauer believes that his book “strikes at the very center… of the colonial administration in Kosovo,” and that it offers a solution for the future, wherein the focus should be on “potential joint activities in economic development” [EK: 298][29].

IS THERE HOPE?

Does the bleak landscape of the world as it is offer any hope for difference and diversity, for universal principles and rules, for common values, to the small, the weak and the poor, to “the gifted but out of luck”?

Pessimists do not discern it (as Wilde’s weaver, describing the human condition, puts it, “In war, the strong make slaves of the weak, and in peace the rich make slaves of the poor”), while scientists and techno-bureaucrats, shining with optimism, continue to preach uncontestable faith in a bright, inevitable.

And what about the realists? They roll up their sleeves!

CAN SMALLER COUNTRIES INFLUENCE THEIR (ECONOMIC) FATE AT ALL?

In the economic science (understood in positivistic terms as exact) it is generally accepted that the size of a country is measured by the number of its inhabitants, its territorial extension, and its aggregate economic power. But, in addition to such quantitative indicators of a country’s (nation’s) size, the qualitative ones – though difficult or impossible to measure – should also be considered for a more complete and deeper insight. They can be determined by a quality analysis through“ spiritual” scientific disciplines (Diltay), which emphasize the understanding of the purpose and the significance of processes and manifestations, and pays less attention to their explanation – which is the primary task of science as traditionally understood in the West. Thus, cultural, social, economic, political, and geographic particularities of various countries and peoples are interpreted from a historic perspective. Contextualization in space and time, in this sense, analyzes the character and quality of relations between countries, their value systems, their aspirations and ambitions[30], their strategic outlook and actions or a lack of them (i.e. allowing for a free course of events, spontaneity, going along with the forces of nature, or with the “logic of history,” submitting to dictates[31] etc…)

All this forms a field of research for a new scientific discipline – strategology[32].

STRATEGOLOGY: ORIGINS AND PURPOSE

“Strategology… attempts to understand the strategies of all participants in the game of their mutual cooperation and/or competition. It considers conflicts equally possible as is eventual cooperation between various subjects. It does not accept a morally suitable strategy, but exclusively the one that was chosen – either well or wrongly –without any guarantee, and with arguments and chances of failing and losing as much as succeeding.

Strategology offers the most promising chance to those actors who grasp, with the least bias, the rules of the game of which the outcome cannot be fully comprehended. Those blinded by their own ideology have significantly smaller chances to win.” [Konrad 1999: 61].

THE NATURE OF STRATEGY

Since there are so many differing opinions on strategy, instead of reviewing all its definitions or searching for a unified designation, it seems more appropriate to try to identify various strategic issues and the perspectives of their resolution.

For, sundry strategic perspectives, that is, points of view, lay different emphasis on the significance of contrasting strategic tensions. It is customary, therefore, to first hear all pro and con arguments, and then proceed to resolve the tensions. Thus, there are four general approaches to determining and interpreting a strategic tension. It may be perceived in several ways:

1. As a riddle. A riddle comes up in an attempt to solve a problem with a single, optimal solution. Strategic tension can arise in this form, its cause usually stemming from being baffled by the riddle, and not from the riddle’s inherent, contradictory premises;

2. As a dilemma. A dilemma appears when facing a problem with two possible solutions. The most well-known is the “prisoner’s dilemma.”[33] All those who face an either-or problem face a dilemma, each solution having its advantages and disadvantages – none, however, being clearly superior to the other. Strategic tensions may also take the form of a dilemma. In such cases, the strategist has to choose one of the options, for example, either to cooperate (“cooperative strategy”) or to compete (“competing” or “conflict strategy”);

3. As a compensatory relation. A compensatory relation (or “trade-off”) is a situation with many possible solutions, each representing a different ratio of conflicting pressures, wherein more of the one signifies less of another, in a “zero-sum game” i.e. a set-up where what one player gains, the other loses. The outcome may also be described as redistribution with no superior solution, and strategic tensions as compensatory relations resulting from one of the many balancing solutions to a conflict.

4. As a paradox. A paradox is perceived when two ostensibly contradictory or even mutually exclusive factors (A and B) simultaneously appear both truthful and valid. Paradox has no real solution because there is no way to logically integrate the two opposites into a consistent understanding of the problem. As opposed to the either-or of a dilemma, it can be defined as an “and-and” problem – one factor being as true as the opposing one. Thus, both the A and the contradicting B may be desirable: both competition and cooperation; both the market and the plan; more of the market and more of the plan; a better market and a better plan! Strategic tensions can be seen as a paradox too, having no real (“traditional”) solution not only because decisions are made in conditions of risk and uncertainty of a present, but because every strategy is inevitably opened toward a future, which is most frequently unpredictable and unfathomable. Although a successful strategy always contains a futuristic aspect, it is always its weakest part, as it is impossible to make a strategy of innovations. Caught between permanence and changeability, a way out may be found by combining various solutions in a functional compromise to temporarily overcome a paradox. In this case the term “temporarily” implies constant wrangling with a problem (Njegoš’s “unending struggle”) without ever reaching a final solution. Thus, there are no final solutions (which was Dr Strangelove’s[34] dream, known to the Nazis as Endlösungen, and ever so enticing to other ruthless power-mongers the world over), and no strategy that can do away with similar approaches to getting rid of a problem “once and for all”.

But, when a tension does emerge as a paradox,[35] the strategist has to try to accommodate both the A and the B simultaneously. He must search for new (heterodox) ways to reconcile the opposites in the best possible manner, using the advantages of both options (“the best of both worlds;” “have the cake and eat it”), while trying to minimize their damaging effects. In its nature, the new approach of combining the opposites provides incentive to innovation and, in general, to creativity. It is the most difficult and challenging way to solve a strategic problem, but also the most successful, because at the end everyone gains, this being a situation described as a “non-zero-sum game”.

Thus, by its very nature, the Kosovo-Metohia tension is a par excellence example of a strategic question of the paradox type.

THREE DIMENSIONS OF STRATEGY

There are, therefore, three essential dimensions of strategy:

1. Strategic process, which answers the questions of how, who, and when: How is, and how should a strategy be imagined, formulated, analyzed, constructed, controlled, and if need be changed? Who are the participants? When the necessary activities should occur? The product of the strategic process is:

2. Strategic content, which answers the question of what strategy is and what it should be for an individual, a household, a job, a company, an economic sector, a local community, a region, a national economy, a global company, or for a macro-regional integration,

whereas:

3. Strategic context shows where, i.e. in what environment, a strategic process is taking place – that is, what it fits into.

Moreover, process, content and context are not parts but dimensions of strategy. For, strategy is a three-dimensional phenomenon and all its three dimensions should be considered simultaneously.

Further, a strategic process consists of strategic thinking, strategy building, and strategic change. They are marked by the following elements of strategic tension, and the corresponding opposites of strategic perspective:

The strategic content defines the level of strategic thinking and action. It can appear on the level of a function or a job, on a corporate level, a regional or network level, or on a national and international level… In a market economy subjects begin performing strategically on the micro level, the higher levels gradually following suit, whereas in a central plan economy or society strategic policy is dictated from above, to be followed by lower levels divested of all autonomy.

In other words, there exists, and always did exist, some kind of strategy[36] at some level – either competitive or cooperative…

Strategic context, upon which both the theoreticians and the practitioners agree that each is unique, unrepeatable, specific, one of a kind, becomes the subject of contention among them only when the type of contextual influence on strategy is concerned. Thus, determinists believe that the strategists[37] have scant freedom of choice, since both the process and the content are usually the outcome of circumstances which they cannot control. Voluntarists, however, are of the opinion that strategies are not influenced so much by context as by their will to determine and follow a certain course of action. They claim that a strategy should, and can, create “its own” circumstances, instead of accepting the “marching orders” of the conditions it faces. That is, in their view context can be defined by the strategist, instead of being perceived as a given. At the organizational plane the issue is described as “control vs. chaos”, while at the sector level the situation becomes more complex and is seen as “compliance vs. choice.” At the national level, the dilemma intensifies into a “compliance vs. choice” type of a conundrum, which is to say that in that case there is a confrontation of two perspectives, of “(de)evolution vs. creation”[38].

FROM ANTISTRATEGY TO OPTIMAL STRATEGY

The following three proverbs – Pray to God that our goat gets the wolf (Georgian); If the earth shakes under your feet, grab for the skies (Bulgarian), and When the devil knocks on your door, don’t stop doing what you’re at (Serbian) – well illustrate some possible approaches in devising and implementing a development strategy.

These three proverbs, however, can be interpreted in various ways:

One way to react when facing an unavoidable challenge is to take the nihilist or delaying and appeasing approach. If someone utters the first proverb as a wishful “let-it-be,” instead of something like Njegoš’s “May it be as it cannot be!” call to battle, that person does not believe in the positive outcome of his plea and by doing nothing annuls the very idea of strategic thinking and action.

The second proverb’s escapist or potentially mobilizing meaning is also unintelligible outside the context of the times of troubles and defeat, when it may express a need for comfort, a cry for heavenly justice, or a belief that Good will prevail over Evil in this world or the Other one, and may even invigorate the spirit to act and overcome the troubles and misfortune.

The third saying is activist, but does not imply that action should exclude thoughtfulness (in Russian, that word being a synonym for industry, as it is for contemplation, analysis, judgment, reasoning, etc.).

In short, “Pray to God, but sail towards the shore!” is a Russian proverb that pragmatically, and paradoxically, synthesizes the “Action and a sense of purpose” answer to the issue of devising, and the feasibility of realizing a development strategy in a spatial and a historical context.

But, how to think strategically in Serbia, and act accordingly? How are we to transform our 20^th century historical experience into a lesson for a successful future? Where is our “Ship of Future” sailing to? This publication[39] is one of the answers to those questions, wherein competent authors have amalgamated their thoughts on the subject by analyzing the established facts and proposing solutions through defining our strategic options of thought and action.

For, “In their actions, the Serbs… have to be not only in full agreement, but persistent and persevering, and not trustful of mere promises even if they are written down and signed, as experience shows that, unfortunately, not even the most hallowed principles have been honored.” This is what a young PhD candidate, Milovan Milovanović, understood over a century ago, sending a message to the Balkan peoples to always keep their powder dry, and their swords honed – the two things no guarantees can replace. For, only those nations which know how to fight will find champions for their cause [Milovanovitch 1888: 4]. We should never forget these metaphorical words of the future advocate of Balkan cooperation and the founder of the Balkan Alliance which, after five hundred years, achieved the most profound transformation of the Balkans. Even in the radically changed circumstances something remains the same – by mobilizing all our physical and intellectual potentials this should be taken advantage of in the moments that may prove crucial. The principles and rules of international law may prove to be the strongest argument in the hands of those who know how to use them “to their own, and general benefit.” [Milojević 2006: 247]

For, rare were the moments in the turbulent Serbian history that were not crucial. This is especially true today, in conditions of burgeoning global interdependence, and the condensation and acceleration of history, when the Balkans is once more turning into a “seismograph” of world-wide relevance. Therefore, the question-answer “When, if not now?” is of utmost importance since for bureaucrats and quasi-politicians The Moment never comes. As an old adage says: “For soldiers it is always too soon, and for officers ever too late.” Or, as Søren Kierkegaard put it: “To dare may mean to lose ground under your feet for a moment, but not to dare means to lose life itself.”

ČASLAV OCIĆ

Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Belgrade, Serbia

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INTERNET SOURCES

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