Kosovo, Serbia, and the West: Appeasement on Trial in London
At The SR’s inaugural debate in London, panelists examined Kosovo’s Banjska attack, highlighting appeasement’s failures, sovereignty’s fragility, and warnings of a Crimea-style Balkan crisis.
On a damp Wednesday evening in central London, above the hum of a pub, a small stage carried a heavy proposition. The Situation Room opened its inaugural debate under the chairmanship of Michael Sheppard, editor of The Gunpowder Chronicles. His task was simple: keep time, steer tempers, and press for clarity on a motion that admitted no evasions:
“This House believes that the Banjska attack in the Republic of Kosovo on 24 September 2023 is direct proof that Europe’s support for Serbia undermines democracy and security in the region.”
What followed was not a polite seminar but a collision of perspectives. Three panelists Dr Aidan Hehir, an international relations scholar, Ian Cameron Cliff, former British Ambassador in Pristina, and Vudi Xhymshiti, journalist and Editor-In-Chief of the Gunpowder Chronicles, brought not only different readings of Kosovo’s fragility but different instincts about Europe itself.
The scholar: appeasement as pathology
Hehir spoke with the crisp insistence of someone long exasperated by policy that mistakes patience for strategy.
“Serbia,” he said, “has spent more than a decade systematically undermining Kosovo’s sovereignty, both internally and externally.” He cited Belgrade’s campaigns to block Kosovo’s membership in UNESCO and Interpol, the chokehold of the Serbian List party in northern municipalities, and the steady “chipping away” at sovereignty that most Western capitals seemed to accept as background noise.
“The Banjska attack is not an outlier,” he insisted, “it is the natural outcome of indulgence. Appeasement has become a psychosis: you convince yourself that escalation is actually progress. There’s a point where policymakers become constitutionally incapable of recognising that their approach is making the situation worse.”
When Hehir described seeing Milan Radoicic, the organiser of the Banjska attacks, “walking around Belgrade as if nothing had happened,” the audience stirred. “What signal does that send? If you can attempt to kill Kosovo police officers, organise an armed incursion, and still roam free, what message does Europe give to the next man planning violence?”
The diplomat: sovereignty and its optics
Ambassador Cliff, lean and deliberate, opened not with denial but with a constraint: “The European Union acts in Kosovo with one arm tied behind its back. Five member states do not recognise Kosovo. That is not a minor problem; it shapes everything.”
He acknowledged that Banjska was “the most serious incident since 1999” and admitted it was “very hard to believe President Vucic knew nothing of what was planned.” But he pressed the case for political tact in Kosovo’s north.
“Yes, the elections were legal,” he said of the May 2023 local votes boycotted by Serbs. “But when ninety-eight percent of one community stay home, legitimacy is in question. Sending newly elected mayors into barricaded municipal buildings may have been lawful, but politically, it was inept. It was a red rag to a bull.”
Cliff did not dispute Kosovo’s right to enforce sovereignty. His warning was subtler: sovereignty exercised without choreography could alienate allies and give ammunition to adversaries. “In divided societies,” he said, “it is not just what you do, but how you do it that matters.”
The journalist: Banjska as Crimea’s echo
Where Hehir indicted appeasement and Cliff urged calibration, Vudi Xhymshiti issued a stark warning: Banjska was not a Balkan anomaly, it was a Kremlin echo1.
“Quite who was behind it is clear enough,” he said. “Vucic runs a government that knew what was planned. To pretend otherwise is to indulge a dangerous fiction.”2
Then came the pivot:
“What Vucic attempted in Banjska is what Putin did in Crimea in 2014—stage an incident, claim a minority is endangered, and prepare the ground for annexation. The West must put an end to this now, before we see the escalation we all witnessed in 2022 in Ukraine.”
The comparison unsettled some in the audience. One voice asked, “Do you really believe Serbia would launch a full-scale invasion?” Xhymshiti did not flinch. “If left unchecked, yes. Georgia in 2008, Crimea in 2014—each time the West said ‘not now, not yet’. That indulgence produced 2022. If Europe repeats the pattern in Kosovo, the outcome will be the same.”
For him, the debate was not abstract. It was a warning that Western missteps in the Balkans could seed the next continental crisis.
The Hague and the memory war
The discussion turned to the Special Chambers in The Hague, the Kosovo war-crimes tribunal. Hehir asked bluntly why a sixth judicial forum was needed when the ICTY, UNMIK, EULEX, and Kosovo’s own courts already existed. “It looks,” he argued, “like justice pursued until the desired verdict appears.”
Cliff countered that Kosovo had little choice: “Without such a court, pressure would have mounted to return the issue to the United Nations Security Council—where Russia and China would hold the pen. The Special Chambers was the least-worst option.”
Here Xhymshiti pressed the point. “The Special Court’s mandate is not to criminalise Kosovo’s independence or the KLA as a whole, but to bring accountability for specific individuals accused of grave crimes, political killings, enforced disappearances, abuses that cannot be ignored. It is important to be clear: this is about justice for victims, not about delegitimising the state of Kosovo or its struggle for freedom.”
Washington, Brussels, and lithium
The panel converged on one conclusion: Europe’s reaction to Banjska was insufficient. “Sanctions should have been automatic,” Hehir said. “Instead, we got ambiguity.” Cliff agreed: “The EU should have treated this with far more seriousness.”
Xhymshiti advanced a harder claim: “Serbia is indulged not only for its supposed regional role, but because of what it has underground. Lithium. The United States and Europe are willing to look the other way if Belgrade promises to be a supplier.”
The line sparked audible dissent in the audience. A young man asked Hehir whether appeasement could at least be seen as rational hedging. Hehir shot back: “Appeasement is never rational. It’s a delusion that mistakes emboldening for stability.”
The mood in the room
Michael Sheppard, guiding the discussion with calm insistence, repeatedly pressed the panel to define their terms. What, exactly, is appeasement? What is sovereignty? What counts as proof of state complicity? His interventions kept the debate taut, ensuring each claim met counterclaim.
By the close, consensus had shifted. Even Cliff, the career diplomat, had conceded that Vucic “almost certainly knew” about Banjska and that Europe’s response was “a missed test of seriousness.” Hehir had etched appeasement as pathology. And Xhymshiti had planted the Crimea parallel so firmly that it lingered in post-debate conversations at the bar.
What shifted
This was no formal chamber with votes tallied, but persuasion could be felt in the air.
Appeasement lost its defenders: Even those urging caution conceded Europe had indulged Serbia too long.
Sovereignty gained clarity: What began as abstractions—license plates, municipal councils, police uniforms—became understood as the sinews of statehood.
The Russian parallel stuck: Banjska would now be remembered less as a Balkan firefight than as a test case in Moscow’s playbook.
Lessons for policymakers
Raise the cost of deniability: Serbia’s EU path should hinge on credible cooperation with Banjska investigations.
Fix the EU veto problem: Five non-recognisers distort every policy and embolden Belgrade.
Counter narrative asymmetry. Disinformation about Kosovo’s legitimacy is as dangerous as weapons stockpiles.
Recognise appeasement’s cost: Banjska, like Crimea, shows how indulgence turns into invasion.
The line that lingers
“The greatest single threat to peace and security in the Balkans, apart from Russia, is Serbian nationalism,” Hehir declared. Cliff did not endorse the sentence, but he did not contest it either.
Xhymshiti’s closing words tied the strands together:
“If the West continues to appease Belgrade, Banjska will not be remembered as an isolated act of terror. It will be remembered as the rehearsal for a war—just as Crimea was for Ukraine.”
The Situation Room had promised a chamber where evidence would be stress-tested. On its first night, the evidence stressed one conclusion: Banjska should have been the hinge moment. That it wasn’t is precisely the problem to fix.
Kosovo, Not Serbia, Is Britain’s Front Line Against Moscow
Ukraine is Russia’s battlefield of conquest; Kosovo its laboratory of infiltration. Europe must stop indulging Belgrade’s double game before the Balkans becomes Moscow’s next Ukraine. — The GPC Europe Watch.
Serbia After Banjska: Guns, Gas, and Russian Leverage
Two years after Banjska, Serbia is more militarised, energy-bound to Russia, and reliant on Moscow’s security, while Western responses remain declaratory, fragmented, and strategically hesitant. — The GPC Politics.
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