Washington no longer sees Kosovo as a strategic obligation but as an asset of diminishing value, to be leveraged in the service of US interests.
Kosovo has finally broken its political deadlock, with parliament electing a new President after 20 months of wrangling that produced two early elections and brought the country to the brink of a third.
But the political turmoil is far from over. Demonstrations have erupted over the indictment of four former Kosovo Liberation Army, KLA, leaders and the country remains deeply divided over its political future.
For a young country still struggling to find its political footing, one thing has been conspicuously missing: the United States. Washington once played a parental role for Kosovo, stepping in to broker deals and settle disputes, as US Ambassador Christopher Dell famously did in 2011, when he helped propose a presidential candidate after Kosovo’s political leaders could not agree on one. Today, Washington appears reluctant to play that role.
Since the end of the Kosovo war, Washington has envisioned its role as having a defined endpoint: the US would win the war, and Europe would take responsibility for maintaining the peace. Kosovo, and more broadly the Balkans, would eventually become a European responsibility.
Source: balkaninsight.com
