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Comment by alephnerd | Hacker News Reader

It will deescalate.

KFOR, the NATO peacekeeping force in Kosovo, has gotten a larger troop deployment in the last week [0].

Serbian soldiers crossing into Kosovo is a clear violation of the Kumanova Agreement AND unlike Russia-Ukraine they will be de facto declaring war against the US and NATO due to the American and EU boots on the ground, and bye bye 25 years of work to try and join the EU.

It's just election posturing by Serbia, as Vucic promised calling a snap election in the coming weeks in the aftermath of a mass shooting in May 2023 [1] destroying his popularity and sparking mass protests reminiscent of Euromaidan and Gezi Park.

[0] - https://www.politico.eu/article/nato-builds-up-forces-kosovo...

[1] - https://www.politico.eu/article/serbia-snap-election-2023-al...

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A Serbian emigrant here. There hasn't been 25 years of work to join EU. The actual work has been done between 2001 and 2004 and between 2008 and 2012. Since then, since the current governing parties are in power, there hasn't been anything done. They don't care.

For the first time I am actually concerned and I don't believe the de-escalation is a given. If you read the government tabloids, it's a frightening picture.

My current estimate is that it's about 50-50 chance that there will be a very short war, that will end up in Serbian defeat of course, and a probable exodus of the Serbian population of northern Kosova. It will also leave Serbia under Western/EU economic sanctions, renewal of the visa regime to Schengen, and an even tighter grip of President Vučić on the country.

I just hope NATO does us a favor and actually go all the way and occupies the country. That's the only way to neuter Serbia for a generation of two, and the only hope that I have for a return to normalcy.

I can't read Serbian so I don't have as deep an understanding of internal structures, but I would assume that enough powerful people within Serbia would be hurt economically by warmongering, and Vucic has nowhere near the level of control that Putin or even Erdogan has. I'd assume a coup would happen, similar to what happened in Egypt, Portugal in the 70s, or Greece in the 70s

While wishing you are right, I honestly doubt it. I think the situation is more like in Russia, where the loyalty to Putin is absolute and the powerful people try to make do in whatever situation he throws on them.

Don't forget, this isn't Vučić's first rodeo. He was already a part of the government that plunged the country in war against NATO back in 1999. He already proved he's willing to do it.

Very true. Though he must have personally known Slobodan Milošević, who died after 6 years of UN detention.

Not even necessarily a coup and no need to look to far away. In 1999, Serbian troupes eventually accepted to leave Kosovo because the economic elites was being hurt by NATO bombardment of critical infrastructures [1].

[1]: https://nitter.net/mewalters101/status/1579936624703868928#m

Economic damage is not necessarily bad if it’ll hurt your political opponents. Suddenly, the guy who doesn’t have a good grip like Putin has a pretty decent one. In a very short amount of time.

It hurts everyone when 70-75% of all trade happens with NATO+ members - countries that Serbia would directly be in a state of war with if they enter Kosovo and break the Kumanova Agreement.

Even Russia never had that level of dependency on NATO+ trade partners before 2022 or before 2014.

Russian trade volume was 57% NATO members before the war, and close to 80 if you count Western allies.

I'm just counting NATO, EU, and Montenegro. 70-75% of all trade in Serbia was from NATO, EU, and Montenegro, which is still significant.

> A Serbian emigrant here... > I just hope NATO does us a favor and actually go all the way and occupies the country

Yeah, it is good that you are no longer in Serbia, but you should stop calling yourself Serbian because you very clearly are not.

> northern Kosova

Readers should note that the above post used the _Albanian_ form of this name, and compare with the Britannica's reference:

https://www.britannica.com/place/Kosovo

"The name Kosovo is derived from a Serbian place-name meaning “field of blackbirds.” After serving as the centre of a medieval Serbian empire, Kosovo was ruled by the Ottoman Empire from the mid-15th to the early 20th century, a period when Islam grew in importance and the population of Albanian speakers in the region increased."

Then research the political background behind the recent use of "Kosova" form.

Also:

BBC: "Kosovo: Why is violence flaring between ethnic Serbs and Albanians?"

https://www.bbc.com/news/62382069

> northern Kosova

Yes, because that's how autocorrect chose to end the word and I was too lazy to return and correct it.

The apparent declining quality of keyboards available on Android is a completely another story.

Anyway, if you read carefully what I wrote, you'll see the text is full of small grammar mistakes very typical for Slavic native speakers. I am who I say I am.

If it wasn't clear enough: your ethnicity, whether claimed or factual doesn't make your claims more or less valid.

The choice of names, however, reflects in this case a political side of a writer. Even if the cause is mere "autocorrect" I still claim the autocorrect sublimes your political views correctly, and I never claimed that you hide them. On the contrary, they can't be more obvious, inviting literal occupation: "I just hope NATO ... actually go all the way and occupies the country."

Inviting a war is a terrible position, good only for those who, ignoring all the bodies of the victims, profit from them. Long term, neither war inside own borders nor occupation resulted in the net benefit of the attacked and/or occupied nations. Any claims to the opposite stem from the specific political agenda, which I invite the readers to be aware of in discussions with political consequences.

You are misstating their position. They said “If Serbia starts a war, I hope NATO goes all the way and finishes it”. Big emphasis on IF. The only party inviting a war in that scenario is the Serbian government.

> You are misstating their position

I'd say you are doing it to both his an mine.

> Big emphasis on IF

I don't see any conditional in that post AT ALL. The paragraph starts with the explicit invitation and also states the (false and, let's be clear, if targeted at most other ethnicities/nations, immediately recognized as profoundly racist) "reason": "I just hope NATO ... actually go all the way and occupies the country. That's the only way to neuter Serbia for a generation of two ..."

Put as a thought example Native Americans in these sentences and consider how it was "better" for them to be eliminated, and how a text of anonymous self-claimed "Native American" saying that sentence targeted at their own people would appear today.

NATO would only intervene if Serbia invades. I think that was clear in the original post. I suggest you work on your reading comprehension skills.

I however think you can't cite any statement in that post directly containing that assumption, if it was "clear" to you it says more about your assumptions than about the actual content discussed.

The person who wrote the original post replied above saying that my interpretation of his post was correct. What other “proofs” do you need?

I'm simply not interested in person's later claims, the post does not contain any conditionals. That is exactly what I argue, let me repeat if it wasn't clear enough: if somebody "sees" them where they aren't it's due to their assumptions existing independently of what is actually written in the post.

Correct, thank you.

Kosova is also genitive form in Serbian/Croatian (sa s(j)evernog Kosova - from northern Kosovo). And Bojan is a Serbian name.

Perhaps you are right. However, from the article:

>The US warnings come at the end of a week of high tension, beginning with an ambush by well-armed Serb paramilitaries on a Kosovan police patrol, in which a policeman was killed. Three Serb gunmen were killed in the ensuing battle, near the village of Banjskë. >Serbia declared a day of mourning for the three dead Kosovo Serbs, and Vučić falsely claimed Kosovo forces were conducting a campaign of “brutal ethnic cleansing” against ethnic Serbs.

This is textbook prelude to invasion. Additionally, Serbia has a fairly recent history (30 years ago was not that long ago) of warring in Croatia and Bosnia, where the predominant sentiment just before was that there is no way that Serbia would unleash the former Yugoslavian army on countries it just "yesterday" called brothers and sisters. Then they unleashed the army and gave full support to paramilitary forces spreading terror and reintroducing concentration camps to Europe. Moreover, the current president is a past pupil of a nationalist leader from the 90s (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vojislav_%C5%A0e%C5%A1elj) who played a huge role in supporting wars and warcrimes that painted the west of the former Yugoslavia red with blood. Given the context of this, and given the history of the country and its president who is "just posturing", it would be extremely foolish if Kosovo does not fully prepare for an invasion.

And it deescalated - https://www.ft.com/content/92e0416b-046a-47dd-a785-07091e632...

"In a statement issued to the Financial Times on Saturday, Aleksandar Vučić said that he would draw down Serbia’s forces in the area because an escalation of the conflict would be counter-productive for Belgrade’s EU aspirations."

I think it'll deescalate too but never underestimate the stupidity of some people.

Apart from KFOR troops there is also the US Carrier strike group of USS Gerald R. Ford enjoying the sights of Adriatic Sea.

https://www.marinevesseltraffic.com/navy-ships/US%20Aircraft...

This exact sentiment around Russian forces on Ukraine borders is why people like Snowden are being accused of spreading Russian propaganda.

Sometimes it deescalates.

Many times it doesn't:

long list of regions NATO meddling escalated.

Did NATO bombing achieve anything:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO_bombing_of_Yugoslavia

Are you selectively reading from that Wikipedia article or something? It doesn’t back up your assertion at all.

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