Here’s a bold idea.

That the peoples of the ‘Western Balkans’ (ie mainly the former Yugoslavia area) push out the febrile internationals and sit down for some hard talking:

With the Powers pushed out the locals – assuming they actually want to settle their disputes – could then grapple with the choreography of dispute reduction.

The first step would be to commit internally – but openly – to construct permanent solutions absolutely certain to anger many of their own constituents. T

his would not involve substantive discussion of “final status” (none exists south of the Sava). Rather, all parties and paladins would agree to deputize a group empowered to do whatever it takes to swap territory, settle debts, guarantee holy and cultural sites, and negotiate whatever else it would take to forge a mutually acceptable new arrangement.

More:

They should avoid both diplomatic niceties and public grandstanding; the only chance for a lasting deal is for them to deal with each other as the intimate enemies they are.

It would be important for no one to hide behind the Helsinki Final Act, UN Security Council Resolution 1244, or other such relics – the “Balkans” of this context are no more durable than those crafted at the Congress of Berlin, Versailles Peace Conference, or the 1995 meetings in Dayton, Ohio. Everything should be up for grabs

But … but … what about the international community?!

The EU and US would make a lot of noise and Moscow would look to do whatever it takes to look smarter and stronger than Washington. In the final analysis, (unless they are very stupid indeed) the big powers would accept anything the locals work out if the deal promises to keep a chronically dangerous region quiet.

If the foreigners want to help, after the deal is struck they could provide an international military presence – but only for a short, indelibly defined time – to mitigate the danger of fatal violence that would emerge from whatever partition or boundary changes the parties agree on…

The core problem with this is that while the hard talking continues, attempts will be made to create ‘new facts on the ground’: what you get from any negotiation depends on what negotiating chips you start with.That process, indeed, will be the real ‘negotiation’ as the various parties test the practical will and strength of the others.

Plus as the article points out, each side will have its own spoilers, ready to pop up and denounce any deal reached if not actively working to stop any deal being reached.

Yet the key point here is something elemental. If we want to see ‘peace’ and ‘stability’ somewhere (Bosnia, Libya, Arab/Israel etc etc), does that peace and stability have to be based on norms agreed by the international community which by definition are generalised/abstracted and unable to take much account of local realities sensibilities?

Or is it better for the local leaders concerned to work out in a spirit of determined, ruthless cynicism what peace and stability really might look like (including eg territory swaps) and then sell that outcome to their own people?

Neither approach guarantees success – at the very heart of the whole problem lies the issue of what the problem in fact is, and the legitimacy of those purporting to have the right to cut deals on behalf of the people who must live with the outcome.

This is why the Bosnia problem is so intractable. The different communities in the region (above all Serbs, Croats and Bosniacs) have incompatible opinions and instincts on what sort of arrangements would work best in the interests of all. That’s because, basically, no-one can agree who the ‘all’ actually are!

Still, my own sense is that the sort of locals-driven hard bargaining process described above – under some sort of international supervision to maintain minimal order and respect for process – is the way to go in the long run.

No other outcome is likely to have lasting local credibility, and therefore the moral basis for people in the region itself making a sustained good-faith effort to implement it.  

But if you say something like this, you disqualify yourself from working in senior EU and/or UK positions dealing with the region. Because what you’re saying isn’t ‘policy’ and could be, tsk, very controversial.

What would you rather have, oh world?

A superb Balkan deal on paper which limps from one crisis to another?

Or a grubby deal in real life which mirabile dictu actually works?