KPC ceremonial guard

One may wonder what kind of future Kosovo status chief negotiator Marti Ahtisaari saw in Kosovo and in the Balkans when declaring that Kosovo should be taken away from an enraged Serbia, while at the same time restricting Kosovo from raising a proper army. According to the status proposal made by chief negotiator Marti Ahtisaari, which is the blueprint of the independent Kosovar state, the following is stated about the defense of Kosovo:

- A new professional and multi-ethnic Kosovo Security Force (KFS) will be established.

- The KSF will have a maximum of 2,500 active members and 800 reserve members, without heavy weapons. Members of the KSF will be recruited from across Kosovo through a formal selection process developed jointly by Kosovo and the International Military Presence (IMP)

- The KSF will initially be primarily responsible for crisis response, explosive ordinance disposal, and civil protection.

- The KSF will be designed and prepared to fulfill other security functions, not appropriate for the police or other law enforcement organizations. The IMP, in coordination with the International Community Representative (ICR), will decide when to authorize the KSF to engage in these new security functions.

- The current Kosovo Protection Corps (KPC), having accomplished its goals, including the facilitation of Kosovo’s post-conflict recovery, will be dissolved within one year after the end of the transition period. The International Community will develop a Demobilization and Reintegration process for the KPC retirees.

However, things haven’t developed just like President Ahtisaari and other diplomats had hoped. Serbia and Russia have criticized the Ahtisaari package and Moscow as a vetoing member of the UN Security Council has not signed up to his conclusions. This brought the whole decision making process outside the UN and to even more uncertainty. The problems however don’t end there.

The Serbian parliament is still dominated by the nationalist-ultranationalist force which has been actively involved in the rioting in northern Kosovo despite the presence of NATO forces there. By most accounts Serbia is gearing up for a drawn out battle with Kosovo and the international community over what it fervently considers its own territory. Under this situation, it’s hard to imagine that NATO will be able to provide the long-term defense that Kosovo needs. The yearly cost of KFOR troops is high, and extremely high for some countries with tradionally low military budgets or overstretched by Iraq and Afghanistan. One of the biggest contributors of soldiers is Sweden. During spring 2007 the Swedish media anticipated a withdrawal of a big number of forces due to the extensive cost. However tensions related to the extended status negotiations forced the Swedish government to maintain its force at the price of severe internal criticism.

It is for this reason that the short-term solution that Ahtisaari and the international community have chosen for the defense of Kosovo is not sustainable. A much more sustainable and long-term solution to the problem would have been to make Kosovo independent defensively as well. This is where a real Kosovar army comes in. Such an army would secure Kosovo from all internal and external threats as well as serve as a regional stabilization force.

Limiting the force to 2,500 soldiers, without heavy defense weapons, is practically leaving Kosovo with a handicapped defense force. Comparable to the defense force of the island state of Malta which has 2,140 active soldiers, this number would make the Kosovar defense force the third smallest on the continent. What is even more questionable is the fact that Kosovo will not be allowed to maintain heavy defense armaments, but concentrate on light weapons such as automatic rifles for the active force.

While Ahtisaari plan prescribes for the International Community to develop a Demobilization and Reintegration process for the KPC retirees, the force will be completely disbanded, and in the best case scenario that all of them are invited back in, some 1,700 of the current 5,000 plus KPC members will be left out. In a situation like this, one wishes that NATO really does a do a good job of reintegration of the people fiercely proud of the role that they have played in Kosovo’s recent military history and in possession of the military training to ruffle a few feathers.

A Kosovar army would not only serve as a strictly defense force of Kosovo, it would also be a symbol of a unification of Kosovo. As the report from the International Crisis Group (ICG), An Army for Kosovo, states: “If managed well, an army can help develop a stable, multi-ethnic or at least ethnically neutral, identity for the new state. Fashioning a united, representative and professional army for a state deeply divided between the Albanian majority and the rejectionist Serb minority requires a careful choice of building blocks.”

The report adds: “Some will argue that with KFOR there, a poor and divided place like Kosovo does not need its own military, but full demilitarization is impracticable. There is insufficient trust to sustain it. It would become a façade, behind which unofficial paramilitary groups would coalesce, making the new state – and its neighbors – less rather than more secure, and less amenable to the rule of law. [However,] a small official army, developed under NATO oversight, is the most appropriate tool, both to prompt the gradual demilitarization of society and to enable Kosovo’s entry into regional collective security arrangements, which are the key to sustainable demilitarization and security.”

The report goes on to recommend that as soon as Kosovo joins NATO’s Partnership for Peace (PfP) program, its defense limitations should cease to exist allowing the state to defend itself with a larger number of soldiers and heavy defense arms such as tanks and artillery.

Given the unpredictable political situation in Serbia, which unfortunately may go the radical way in the near future, as well as the extreme need to secure Kosovo on a long-term basis, it becomes clear that securing an effective army for Kosovo is the ground pillar to internal and external stability of Kosovo and the Balkans.

It is also of great interest to note that Kosovo Protection Corps has been the only institution in Kosovo which managed to fulfill all of its standards set by the international community as conditions for final status consideration. KPC, while carrying some blame for failing to control the involvement of its individual members with their Albanian ethnic kin in the conflicts in western Macedonia and the Presheva Valley in southern Serbia in 2000 and 2001, has played a largely pacifying role since then working with all communities in reconstruction and peace building projects. KPC is also the most trusted institution in Kosovo. With some 8% of the force consisting of minorities, the numbers roughly represent the actual population distribution except for Serbs who are underrepresented.

Critics claim that Kosovo isn’t ready financially to maintain a larger defense force than the one recommended by the Ahtisaari package, which is exactly where the financial problems of the KFOR nations are linked with those of Kosovo. By securing funds for the development of the internal defense force of Kosovo, the KFOR nations themselves will build a long term replacement and may therefore after a certain period of time withdraw their forces while handing over control to Kosovo’s forces. Kosovo army could be able to participate in the support of peacekeeping operations in other areas of the world, as KPC commanders have already suggested, at a fraction of the cost that their NATO counterparts now incur and further justifying the expenses made for the upkeep of this force during peacetime.  

Others claim that a Kosovar army might be seen as a threat to its neighbors, which is a ridiculous claim considering the size of Kosovo. Kosovo can never, and must never be seen as a threat to any of its neighbors. Macedonia will in a very short period of time be a full member of NATO; Albania likewise. Kosovo is also in no position to threaten Serbia considering the huge disparity in military power between the two states. Kosovo can never be seen as a threat to anyone, with the exception of the threat to its own internal domestic security which a weak defense force entails.

The only way to a long-term stable solution to the security sector in Kosovo is without a doubt a multi-ethnic defense army, trained and equipped by NATO. After a period of supervision, the defense force would be able to transform into a primary security force totally responsible for the defense of the new country. In the near future, joining PfP and later NATO itself would sustain its professionalism and development into a modern force for the defense of Kosovo and the stability of the Balkans - without a doubt a common interest to all concerned.