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The arrest of Radovan Karadzic has reinvigorated the concept of international justice and earned the Serbs kudos from governments in Europe and North America. The families of the victims of the last Balkan outrage in the 1990s may now find closure but, for Brussels and Washington, the capture of Mr. Karadzic is a skillful strategic manoeuvre against Russian petroleum hegemony in Europe. As long as the Serbs continued to refuse to hand over this high-profile war criminal, the Western allies could not welcome Serbia into the EU.
Even if NATO troops had earnestly tried to capture Mr. Karadzic, the lack of Serb co-operation held the prospect of mass demonstrations and further destabilization. Bankrupt Serbia was off the West's radar. Kosovo, however, offered to host a U.S. military presence in the Balkans and, along with Bosnia and Macedonia, enabled the Americans to maintain a strong presence in the region. Yet, this geopolitical dynamic changed because the Russians challenged U.S. hegemony in the Balkans and, suddenly, Serbia assumed a new strategic importance.
For the Americans, expansion in the Balkans provided access to the petroleum reserves in the Caspian Sea and projected U.S. military power in the Near East. The U.S. constructed new military bases, such as Camp Bondsteel in Eastern Kosovo. The bases were essentially built to protect a planned new highway connecting the Western and Eastern Balkans. This new construction would also facilitate new pipelines carrying oil and gas from the Caspian across the Black Sea to Bulgaria and eventually to European and American markets.
The U.S. presence in the Balkans came under pressure with the election of Vladimir Putin as president of the Russian Republic in 2004. Over the next four years, Mr. Putin reconstituted Russia's wealth and internal security, elevating the country from a economic basket case to great-power status. Mr. Putin skillfully exploited Russia's petroleum assets, Eastern Orthodoxy and Balkan susceptibilities to check U.S. expansion in Southeastern Europe and in Central Asia. On June 15, 2006, Mr. Putin took a major step in diminishing U.S. influence in Central Asia with the establishment of the Shanghai Co-operation Organization, which includes Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan - effectively an Asian NATO.
A decade after NATO's war against Serbia, the EU has become dependent on Russian petroleum and gas. In 2007, 40 per cent of the EU's gas and oil relied on Russia or territories controlled by the Russians. In this context, Moscow has assumed a disproportionate role in the EU's economy and is beginning to rival American influence in Europe.
The Putin government has finalized the details for the Burgas-Alexandroupolis pipeline with Greece. This is the first stage of the so-called "South Stream" project, a web of pipelines that will carry oil and gas under the Black Sea from the Caspian Sea to Bulgaria and then across Greece to Italy. To complete the project, the Russians created a monopoly over Bulgaria's energy market and planned to take over Serbia's state-owned petroleum industry. Although the Russians offered less than market value, the isolated Serbs had little choice but to consider a deal.
(Mr. Putin sweetened the deal by declaring support for the Serb position rejecting independence for Kosovo.)
However, recent events in Serbia have created new opportunities for the U.S. and the EU to check Moscow's energy chokehold over Europe. Earlier this month, the Serbs formed a new government that is less concerned about protecting indicted war criminals and more committed to bringing Serbia in the EU. President Boris Tadic understood that to end Serbia's isolation, it was essential to arrest Mr. Karadzic. Concurrently, Mr. Tadic could avoid selling Serbia's petroleum industry at bargain-basement prices to the Russians.
Mr. Tadic is gambling that quick admission to the EU will breathe new life into Serbia's economy and alter the extreme nationalist paradigm that led the country to chaos in the 1990s. Mr. Tadic's gesture has been hailed from Brussels to Washington as a positive move, and this good will towards Serbia will increase once the new regime hands over General Ratko Mladic, the second most wanted man in the country.
The arrest of Mr. Karadzic is the result of geopolitical considerations - the Serbs want to join the West and the West now needs Serbia. In an ironic twist of events, oil and pipelines have lubricated the wheels of justice.
Andre Gerolymatos is chair of Hellenic studies, Simon Fraser University.
Credit: Author of The Balkan Wars: Conquest, Revolution and Retribution from the Ottoman Era to the Twentieth Century