The unraveling of Afghanistan is a lesson for the Western Balkans

The haphazard U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan undoubtedly leaves the country’s fate and U.S. credibility in question. As we watched the Taliban forces take over Afghan cities at alarming speed, it sadly became clear that America’s longest war ended how it began: with the Taliban in power. 

The conflict has cost U.S. citizens trillions of borrowed dollars, and more sorrowfully, thousands of American lives. For the Afghans, the number of casualties bodes much higher, and according to the United Nations, more women and children were killed or wounded in the first six months of 2021 than in any other year since the U.N. started keeping count. 

As the U.S. airplanes left Kabul, the desperate scenes from the Hamid Karzai International Airport showcased Afghan civilians clinging to planes in a desperate attempt to escape the Taliban takeover. The unnerving images beg the question: What can our allies around the world — and more specifically, in the Western Balkans — expect from American foreign policy?

The rapid unraveling of Afghanistan should serve as a stark warning that the willingness of the U.S. to indefinitely support corrupt, ineffective governments is limited, and if a country is unable to stand on its own legs, it cannot rely forever on the security blanket of the United States. To that end, U.S. allies in the Western Balkans should especially take heed and reexamine their defense strategy, given the rise of Serbian nationalism and Russian encroachment in the region. 

The latter is most pronounced in Serbia and Bosnia and Herzegovina’s smaller entity known as Republika Srpska, where authoritarian leaders such as Aleksandar Vucic and Milorad Dodik have consolidated power and regularly court Moscow and Beijing. Serbia under former president Slobodan Milosevic’s protégé Aleksandar Vucic continues to harbor war criminals and spends significant capital denying and distorting facts about the genocide at Srebrenica. Apart from dangerous meddling in the internal affairs of BiH and Montenegro, Serbia regularly partakes in joint military exercises with Russia, and Serbia’s Minister of the Interior Aleksandar Vulin has called Russia a “great security partner” and announced that the task of the new generation is to create a “Serb world” where all Serbs would be united.   

The alarming rise of anti-U.S. sentiment within Serbia, Republika Srpska and among Montenegro’s Serb minority has left our longstanding allies in Southeast Europe worried and looking to the U.S. for leadership. This disquieting trend has raised a few eyebrows in Washington, but no significant action has been taken to counter this threat to Western values. 

With the fall of Afghanistan, it is more important than ever for the U.S. to protect its legacy in the Western Balkans. After all, it was the U.S.-led NATO intervention in the 1990s that stopped the genocide and ethnic cleansing of non-Serbs in place such as Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, and to this day, it stands as one of the few successful U.S. interventions post-World War II. Since then, the U.S. has spent billions of dollars in the region promoting democratization and the rule of law. To maintain credibility, the U.S. must make it clear that leaders of Southeast Europe must choose between accepting Western values or siding with U.S. adversaries Russia and China.

The scenes from Afghanistan will bolster authoritarian actors within the Western Balkans and should also serve as a wake-up call for pro-democratic leaders in the region. What happened has made it clear that no country can survive without its own credible military deterrent. Only a strong, effective military is a real guarantee for long-term peace and stability, as can be seen in places such as South Korea and Israel. Further, countries such as Switzerland, Sweden and Singapore, although small, have a longstanding track record of peace, while also maintaining significant militaries that keep hostile forces at bay. 

The U.S. will not save the Western Balkans from authoritarianism and corruption. If the scenes from Afghanistan have taught us anything, it is that the responsibility lies on the people and the leaders they help elect to power. 

Ajla Delkic is president of the Advisory Council for Bosnia and Herzegovina, a Washington-based nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that advocates for a democratic Bosnia and Herzegovina. Follow her on Twitter @ajladc.