Episode 79. Boots and Suits: US Dip-Mil Collaboration in Kosovo  

Episode Transcript:

Amb. McCarthy: [00:00:13] Welcome to a conversation in the American Academy of Diplomacy Podcast series, The General and the Ambassador. Our podcast brings together senior diplomats and senior US defense officials in conversations on their work together overseas to advance U.S national security interests. I'm Ambassador Deborah McCarthy, the producer and host. Today, our guests are Admiral James Foggo and Ambassador Philip Kosnett. We will talk about the exciting new book. They collaborated on "Boots and Suits" and their earlier partnership in the Balkans, specifically in Kosovo. The General and the Ambassador is a production of the American Academy of Diplomacy. Let me start with a biographic introduction of our guests: Admiral James Foggo served as the commander of US Naval Forces, Europe and Africa and concurrently as commander of Allied Forces Joint Force Command Naples from 2017 to 2020. During his 39 year career, he served in a number of positions, including as commander of the USS Oklahoma, NATO task Force, Commander in Joint Task Force, Unified Protector in Libya. Executive Officer to the Supreme Allied Commander, Europe and Director, Navy Staff. He is Dean at the Center for Maritime Strategy and serves on multiple boards and advisory groups. Ambassador Philip Kosnett served as the US Ambassador to Kosovo from 2018 to 2021. Previously, he was the chargé in Turkey and in Iceland and deputy chief of Mission in Uzbekistan. He served four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as in the US embassies in Japan and in the Netherlands. Currently, he is a nonresident senior fellow for the Transatlantic Defense and Security Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis. He is also involved in many other activities, including being a conflict simulation game designer. Admiral Foggo, Ambassador Kosnett, welcome to the show. You collaborated on a new book called "Boots and Suits," focusing on civil military cooperation between our uniformed joint forces and our diplomats. In this podcast series, we've attempted to capture the very same thing how our senior military leaders and diplomats work together overseas to carry out US national security policy. What led you to pull together "Boots and Suits," and who is your target audience?

Gen. Foggo: [00:02:44] I'm happy to kind of set the table here because I'd like to explain how this thing came about and how Ambassador Kosnett got involved with Marine Corps University Press prior to I volunteered a long time ago to be a pro bono member of Marine Corps University's editorial board. We periodically get together for a board meeting to decide on what the topics will be for the following year. In the quarterly Journal called the Journal of Advanced Military Studies or JAMS. There's another acronym for you. It's a great journal and it's free online www.usmc.edu if your listeners are interested. During that annual discussion around 2022, I suggested we take a look at civil-military relations and the board agreed to explore the idea. And about that time Phil called me to check in during his transition. So he was privy to some of the work we did at Marine Corps University, because a while back I'd asked him to take a look at a manuscript on Wargaming, and I remembered him telling me from our time in Europe he was a designer of WarGames, and that stemmed back from his time in high school and at Harvard University.

Gen. Foggo: [00:03:54] And so the particular book and case study that I was interested in was one that had a premise that WarGames have an influence on the outcome of history and sometimes can result in revisionist history. One of the case studies involved the famous Battle of Waterloo between Napoleon's forces and Lord Wellington. Now, Napoleon was the more charismatic and quirky and interesting figure with a lot of peculiarities, and Lord Wellington was more of a professional soldier. So you can see how some playing the game might bias the outcome of the game to a victory by Napoleon. We know that didn't happen anyway. Phil agreed that he would write something up and the Marine Corps University was extremely pleased and I think they moved forward with the publication of that book. Phil also said, I want to write now that I've retired and I'm easing myself out of a long number of decades of service to government. So I made the connection with Marine Corps University Press. And here we are a year later launching Phil's edited volume on the relationship between the Joint force. In other words, military people in uniform and our career diplomats.

Amb. Kosnett: [00:05:02] One of my goals in editing the book was to complement the historical cases that some very fine scholars were doing. So. We have chapters that were written by a dream team of scholars and military officers and diplomats on such topics as cooperation on the ground between the military and muddy boots diplomats in places like Iraq, Afghanistan, Haiti, studies of how civilians and military cooperate on policy issues such as the very contentious defense industrial cooperation relationship between the US and Turkey, the evolving policy in Europe and the United States on support to Ukraine against Russia, US and Chinese jockeying for position in the Pacific, trying to win the hearts and minds of small island nations and the role of military force there. So there's something for everyone. Deborah asked about the target audience. I think one target audience, frankly, is potential practitioners of military diplomacy, either in uniform or in suits, hence the title in the future. Because while I would love to believe that the human race is going to embrace peace and we won't find ourselves attempting to deter and if necessary, conduct military operations in the future, I'm not that optimistic.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:06:35] Phil, you served in Iraq and in Afghanistan. And note in the book that in those countries it was tough to get the US military and civilian leadership to sync and that there were often struggles between them. Ambassador Neumann's chapter in the book notes that the personal relationship between senior leaders makes a huge difference, but also that institutional and cultural issues play a role. And for our listeners, Ambassador Neumann is the president of the Academy of Diplomacy and a three time former US ambassador. In your view and experience, is the civil relationship in war zones where the US has a large military footprint different than it is in non combat zones?

Amb. Kosnett: [00:07:18] Certainly. And that's something that people in uniform and out of uniform sometimes have some trouble adjusting to. In Iraq and Afghanistan, the embassy, the civilian component, comprised what the military might call the supporting command. We were there to support the war fighters. That was something new for senior diplomats who were used to having, say, a military attaché or an office of Defense cooperation under their authority in an embassy. What I observed in my four tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, working with a number of ambassadors, a number of military commanders, is unsurprisingly, the tone at the top is what matters. Where the general and the ambassador showed unity of effort, where it was clear that there was mutual trust and that they were trying to move the enterprise in the same direction. That spirit tended to flow down through the command. There were cases where the general and the ambassador pretty clearly had a different vision of what we were supposed to be doing. At times there was even a lack of personal trust on evidence and people picked up on that and there was a huge problem. And while leadership and personal relationships always matter, I think it was unfortunate that so much of our ability to build successful civil partnership depended on kind of the luck of the draw on whether the ambassador and the general got along well. 

Amb. McCarthy: [00:08:48] Jamie, you note in the preface to the book that you went to the Harvard Kennedy School and you became an Olmstead scholar in France, and you state that these experiences, plus your subsequent assignment on the Joint Staff as director for Western Europe and the Balkans, were transformational in terms of your understanding of civil military relations. Can you comment a little bit more on that?

Gen. Foggo: [00:09:10] I served for almost 40 years as a submarine officer in the United States Navy, and that was under the tutelage and rule of Admiral Hyman G. Rickover. Pretty tough guy. He ran a pretty tight ship and the first phase of my career was purposefully myopic. So my field of view was about 32 degrees wide. That's the field of view out of a periscope on an attack submarine. So after graduation from the Naval Academy, I went to sea on submarines at the height of the Cold War. And as a junior officer, I affiliated only with Navy boots on the deck plate of a submarine. So following that tour, I took full advantage of the opportunity to go to graduate school. I was at the Kennedy School first, followed by a lucky strike, I was picked to go overseas and study in France at the university, Robert Schuman as an Olmsted scholar. And it was really my first opportunity to exercise a civil military relationship with my classmates. And Harvard does a great job of bringing in a broad diaspora of people. Was for me, a very fulfilling and kind of a liberating experience that would impact my decision making processes. Understanding that there's more than just one solution to a problem, and sometimes it's not the military solution. So when I returned to the submarine force, ultimately I was lucky. I got command of the USS Oklahoma City, and after three years and three deployments, I went ashore. I ended up on the Joint Staff as a division chief of Western Europe and the Balkans in J5, and that was from 2003 to 2005. Pretty cool job. I traveled a lot, so I had an opportunity to go to Europe.

Gen. Foggo: [00:10:48] I was in and out of the Balkans and all over Western Europe, and at that time I met Admiral Grog Johnson. He was the commander of Naval Forces Europe, and never in my wildest dreams did I think that 14 years later I would be in that job. So I watched Admiral Johnson with great admiration, and he's the guy that taught me that ambassadors and their country teams were essential as an ingredient in advancing our interests and our national security and those of our partners and allies. So he used to have these regional ambassadors conferences, which I emulated and actually reproduced. When I was over there in command, Admiral Johnson would have the regional ambassadors come in, spend a day and a half with him, and he would ask them what he could do for them, and they would tell him what they could do for him. It was a great symbiotic relationship and textbook civil military relations. Phil brings up a lot of other examples of this in the book Boots and Suits. And if we had the time, I would take you through my journey on the Joint Staff with Admiral Mullen, says he and our travels with the bulldozer in a quagmire. Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, who was the special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan. Man, can that guy get stuff done? He didn't have an airplane. Admiral Mullen had an airplane. So we used to take him around to Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iraq. And he was just unbelievable to watch. I was a huge fan and huge admirer. You know, if it were not for him, we wouldn't have had the Dayton Accords, which, you know, settled things in the Balkans, at least after the war.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:12:19] Well, I wanted to turn now to the Balkans and specifically to Kosovo, where you work together. It's really a very good example of how our national security leaders partner in the field. And for our listeners, I'm going to do a short history to put this into context, Kosovo was the core of the Serbian empire until 1455, when the Ottomans conquered the region. Until 1912, After World War one, Kosovo became part of the kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. After World War Two, it became an autonomous province within the Republic of Serbia as part of Yugoslavia. Over time, the bulk of the population of Kosovo consisted of ethnic Albanians always exist in tensions between the Albanian and Serbian communities erupted when Yugoslavia revoked Kosovo's autonomous status. This descended into a full blown war in 1998 and 1999, which eventually led NATO to bomb Yugoslavia to stop the Milosevic regime's ethnic cleansing of Albanians. The Yugoslav army withdrew and the UN came in with a NATO led peacekeeping force, Kfor, which is still there to this day. In 2008, Kosovo declared its independence from Serbia. This has been recognized by over 100 countries, but has never been recognized by Serbia itself. So let me start with you. With time outside of the region, memories of these Balkan wars have faded. Can you give us a sense of the magnitude of the Kosovo war. 

Amb. Kosnett: [00:13:54] As you said, Deborah, it was a terribly devastating war. It started with a confrontation between Kosovar Albanian separatists and the Serbian regime in the early 90s. And by the end of the decade, there were thousands of dead and missing. Hundreds of thousands of refugees had left Kosovo for neighboring countries. And those memories remain very much alive and front and center in relations between Kosovo and Serbia today. Now, as you'd expect, Serbs and Kosovars have very different memories and interpretations of the 1990s Serbian resentment toward the US and NATO, a sense that Serbs were both victimized and demonized drives much of their policy, as does Serbia's historical and cultural ties to Russia. Kosovars are still enormously grateful to NATO and in particular to the US. I served briefly in Kosovo in 2003, and when I returned 15 years later as ambassador, I was pleased to see that that gratitude remained strong. This has meant a great deal to our ability as American diplomats to maintain influence in Kosovo. Our voice matters enormously. I've. Never served in a country where people were more interested in hearing what the American ambassador had to say. Probably the greatest insult that a Kosovo politician can level against an opponent is to say that they are anti-American. I'm smiling as I say this because I never met any politician in Kosovo, from any ethnic group, from any party who I would call anti-American.

Amb. Kosnett: [00:15:38] The Kosovo and the US maintain a close daily partnership. We have embedded advisors and the police and the prosecutorial service. We have very large multi agency mission with a number of agencies represented that are providing assistance and advice to Kosovo. Usaid, the Millennium Challenge Corporation, the State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Cooperation, and the Kosovo government defaults to say yes to America on lots of issues. I worked with three different prime ministers from three different parties, and if the issue were counterterrorism or support for Afghan refugees, they all wanted very much to support US policy. That said, all three of those prime ministers had red lines where their core interests vis-a-vis Serbia came into play. Citizens of Kosovo would sometimes oscillate between complacency regarding the future of their ties with the United States and a fear that the US was going to sell them out by arranging a land swap between Kosovo and Serbia. I was never a US policy, but it was very hard to persuade people of that. So we may return later to this theme of complacency, because I would suggest that complacency is not only Kosovo's worst enemy, but it's Serbia's worst enemy and the biggest obstacle to a comprehensive agreement between the two countries.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:17:10] Phil, let me jump in here and ask, as you mentioned, how many programs that the US had there when you arrived in 2018. What were your top mission priorities?

Amb. Kosnett: [00:17:20] We came up with a snappy kind of marketing slogan to describe that. And these were policies that really don't change that much from ambassador to ambassador, even from administration to administration. So I talked a lot about pursuing peace, justice and prosperity. By peace, I meant regional security, regional stability, better relations with Serbia, but also better relations among ethnic communities in Kosovo, particularly the majority Albanian population and the Serbs. Justice When I talk about justice, people assumed I meant rule of law, strengthening the judiciary, and that was a big part of it. But we were also trying to encourage more respect for women's rights, for the rights of ethnic minorities, for the LGBT community, because we wanted to encourage Kosovo to be a country where everybody had a stake in its future and prosperity. When I arrived, I arrived with a lot of talking points about how to encourage foreign investment in Kosovo, which I think remains important to Kosovo's economic future. But as I got to know the country, I came to develop enormous respect for the ability of Kosovo's own people, in particular their cadre of young tech geniuses who have the potential to make Kosovo another Singapore, another Israel, a country where its human capital is the most important element of its economic development. And we would talk about how these concepts of peace, justice and prosperity were interrelated.

Amb. Kosnett: [00:18:56] If you have more stability, that encourages investment, economic investment and economic development, encourage social justice. So those were all interrelated. If I could take one more moment, though, to talk about one idea that I dropped as a policy priority before I went to Kosovo, I had this idea in my head that I was going to parachute in and start a big initiative on truth and reconciliation between the Serb and Kosovar communities. And as part of the preparation for that, I went with my wife, Alison, who is my closest adviser and my conscience, to Montgomery, Alabama, to visit the National Monument for Peace and Justice, which is also sometimes referred to as the Lynching museum, to talk to the experts there about truth and reconciliation. We met with a group of very impressive experts from the US and also from Rwanda, and they very gently took the air out of my sails and let me know that that sort of change. Truth reconciliation. Inter-ethnic amity really has to come from within, not from some foreigner showing up and urging people that it's time for them to reconcile. So I really took that to heart. And the longer I was in Kosovo, the more I realized there were things the US and our other international allies could do to help create conditions for reconciliation. But we couldn't be the leaders.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:20:31] Jamie, I mentioned the NATO bombing campaign during the Kosovo war from 2017 to 2020. You were the commander of the NATO Joint Force Command in Naples, which among other things, covers the Balkans, including Kfor in Kosovo. The NATO military liaison in Serbia and NATO headquarters, Bosnia-Herzegovina. What were your mission priorities in terms of the Balkans?

Gen. Foggo: [00:20:56] Briefly, let me just go back to the conflict in 1999, which was brought to an end by NATO. The UN issued UN Security Council Resolution 1244, which states the Security Council was determined to resolve the grave humanitarian situation in Kosovo. It wanted to provide for the safe and free return of all refugees and displaced persons to their homes. It condemns all acts of violence. Reaffirms the call for autonomy and self-administration of Kosovo and ensures the safety and security of the international personnel assigned and also the indigenous populations who are there. So in short, this could be broken down into a simple mission statement. And that was U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244 is our mandate to maintain a safe and secure environment. In the early days after 1999, there was a great deal of tension between not just Serbia and Kosovo, but Kosovo Serbs and Kosovo Albanians, the Serbs and Albanians that live in Kosovo. Now it sometimes led to violence, particularly up north. And you'll hear me mention a place called Mitrovica. It's home to a Serbian enclave on the northern side of the Ibar River and an Albanian enclave on the southern side. Earlier, I mentioned Admiral Grog. Johnson Well, during my time in the Pentagon, I watched as he was forced at one point to deploy the NATO reserve force later to become the NATO response force of about a thousand additional troops to northern Mitrovica to prevent what looked like could be a potential civil war after an alleged Serbian attack on some Kosovar Albanians. 

Gen. Foggo: [00:22:38] Additionally, the KFOR forces from 1999 to present have stood guard at a number of religious monuments and religious sites in Kosovo, typically Serbian Orthodox sites or memorials. We still guard one site, and that is the monastery in Decani. It's about 700 years old, and I have visited it more than once and met Father Sava, who is the Serbian Orthodox priest that lords over that facility in the middle of a Kosovo Albanian neighborhood. Before I left to go over for the job, I called Ambassador Marci Reese and she advised me on Father Sava. He was one of her favorite people. He became a friend. I know. To me and to Ambassador Kosnett. You haven't lived till you've gone to the Decani monastery and had this liqueur, which I know you both are familiar with, called Rakia at 9:00 in the morning with your espresso that will wake you up. That's like white lightning. The bottom line is that Unscrew 1244 ensured a safe and secure environment and we were able to use that to our advantage to keep the peace and to work with EUFOR, formerly UNPROFOR, the police forces throughout Kosovo, to really deter those nefarious elements from coming out and stirring up trouble.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:23:51] This brings me to the issue of Kosovo wanting to build its own army. I understand right now it only has a limited security force. Obviously, Serbia sees this as a threat. Can you both talk about how you handle this issue?

Gen. Foggo: [00:24:05] Any nation has every right to build its own sovereign defensive force. That's really what the government of Kosovo did over time during the war. It was the Kosovo Liberation Army. The Kosovo Liberation Army transitioned to the Kosovo Protection Force or Protection Corps, KPC. It's really important because idle hands have to be kept busy after there's been a war in a zone. And so those individuals in the KPC who chose to shift from the KLA and kind of demobilize and give up their weapons were put in charge of search and rescue operations, de-mining humanitarian assistance and fire fighting. Eventually, though, they moved forward to establish the Kosovo security force. It was very controversial because the Ksf, as the acronym goes, were allowed to carry light weapons. And the Serbs, of course, didn't like that. The Serbs think that the only armed force in Kosovo should be Kfor. But sooner or. Or later, Kosovo is going to have to defend itself in 2018. The Assembly of Kosovo passed legislation to transition the Kosovo security force to the Kosovo armed forces. It was very controversial. Ambassador Kosnett was fully behind that, and I was fully behind Ambassador Kosnett. And during that time we were having relationships with the Kosovo security forces and later the Kosovo armed forces to see the chief of defense all the time. And to my great delight and surprise, Kosovo had two officer candidates at West Point. I think that helps to professionalize that force, make that force more ethical, more resistant to corruption, and capable of defending inside the borders of Kosovo.

Amb. Kosnett: [00:25:48] Let me add just a little bit of color commentary to that. So when I arrived at the very end of 2018 as ambassador, there was a lot of interest in the media to get this new guy in front of a camera and see what he had to say. So within days of my arrival, I did my first live TV interview, which was maybe a little premature before I'd really fully gotten the lay of the land. And at that time, as Admiral Foggo said, the government in Kosovo, the parliament was considering a new law that would formally declare the KSF an army. This is one of those rare cases where an ambassador finds it necessary to color outside the lines of instructions from Washington. Washington's position was that because several NATO member countries did not recognize Kosovo and were not thrilled about Kosovo establishing a military force, that it would be better just to soft pedal this? My feeling was they were going to call it an army. The US recognized Kosovo as a sovereign nation. Sovereign nations have armies and the military they were building was going to be very small, mean under a brigade, just a few thousand people. The US, as the Admiral was saying, we were advising it, we were sending its members to US military academies and other schools. We were facilitating its equipment.

Amb. Kosnett: [00:27:16] So, you know, in this interview when I was asked what I thought about this, I just said, look, Kosovo is a sovereign country. Sovereign countries have militaries. And next question. But I also made the point that if people up north, meaning among the Kosovo Serb population as well as in Serbia, were afraid that this small military was going to become a tool of oppression, then that just underscored how much more people in Kosovo and in Serbia needed to talk to each other, that we really needed to push forward on the diplomatic front. And if you fast forward a couple of years, towards the end of my time as ambassador, the KSF embarked on its first overseas deployment alongside US forces. A handful of Kosovo security force logisticians deployed to Kuwait alongside the US Army. And that was a big moment for the people of Kosovo because Kosovo had been a consumer of military assistance for so long through NATO, through KFOR, that they were very proud that even in a small way they got to contribute. And with regard to KFOR, it seems to me that one of the few things that people in Kosovo and people in Serbia routinely agree on is that Kfor plays an important role in ensuring peace, stability, tranquility in that corner of the Balkans.

Gen. Foggo: [00:28:45] Probably one of the best things that President Vucic did while Phil and I were there was to name General Mojsilovic as the Serbian chief of defense. This is a guy who was well known in NATO circles. He had a clean record unaffiliated with any war crimes, and he served as an observer on the military committee of NATO in Brussels for a couple of years. He was fluent in English. And although he was kind of cautious about building relationships with Westerners, he agreed to come to my headquarters in Naples. And I think it was the first visit of a Serbian chief of defense to Naples since the war. Likewise, I was invited to visit and spend time with him in Belgrade. The one thing that General Mojsilovic and I agreed to do, and again, this is a product of my education and being around folks in the State Department, it was to overcommunicate. He handed me his business card at the end of our time together and Joint Force Command Naples, and he wrote his personal cell phone number on that card. And I did the same thing, and I gave it to him. So in the event of an emergency, call him on a cell phone and we'll work this thing out. And that gave me great comfort.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:29:56] The US plays a huge role in the region and in Kosovo, but so does. The European Union in 2011. The EU with US support brokered what is called the Brussels Agreement, which established a dialogue between Kosovo and Serbia. The dialogue broke off in 2018 when Kosovo slapped massive tariffs on Serbian imports. Phil, can you talk a little bit about how you engaged with the EU and worked with them to resume the dialogue?

Amb. Kosnett: [00:30:28] Multilateral diplomacy was central to our efforts vis a vis Kosovo and Serbia, and particularly the representatives of what were known as the Quint countries. The US, the UK, Italy, Germany and France collaborated closely. We saw each other all the time. We were constantly emailing to talk about new policy approaches. The best way to achieve our goals and so were our staffs. You know, diplomacy is much more a we than an I game. And so at my embassy, I had hundreds of people who were working on these issues as well. And both the US and the EU maintained special envoys for Kosovo-serbia relations who would also collaborate with varying degrees of closeness depending on who is in authority in Washington or in Brussels or in the member States.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:31:21] You mentioned that the US had a special envoy and the US worked on a number of agreements between Serbia and Kosovo. In September 2020, both governments signed what is called the Washington Agreement to Normalize Economic Relations. President Trump presided over the ceremony, but reading through the document, it appears it covered a lot more than just economic issues. It included such things as a moratorium on Serbia's efforts to de-recognise Kosovo, as well as a commitment by Kosovo to recognize Israel. Can you talk a little bit, Phil, about the approach taken under the Trump administration to the region and how it complemented and worked with EU efforts to broker dialogue and understanding between both countries?

Amb. Kosnett: [00:32:10] The Trump administration decided in 2019 that it was time for a fresh approach on kosovo-serbia that instead of emphasizing the political and security aspects of their broken relationship, that it was worth a shot to emphasize the economic benefits, not just to the governments, to the state, but also to ordinary citizens of reconciliation that would create opportunities for prosperity between the two countries and in the region. I think that was a positive idea, and it started with great energy under the special presidential envoy, Ric Grenell. It would take more time than we have now to describe all the ins and outs of it. Sometimes I agreed with specific tactics that the administration was pursuing. Sometimes I didn't. And I got a fair hearing when I raised my ideas with Washington, so did the US Ambassador in Serbia, Anthony Godfrey. The agreement itself was not a legally binding treaty or anything like that. Essentially, it was two complementary political declarations. The texts were not exactly the same and did not 100% align on what the two countries were supposed to do. Many of the specific items in it, I thought showed real promise, including a US commitment to strengthen American investment in the country. So it fizzled out for a variety of reasons, including the fact that it got caught up in Kosovo domestic politics.

Amb. Kosnett: [00:33:42] When there was a change of administration in Washington, the Biden administration embraced aspects of it, not all of it. Now, when the Biden administration came in, many of their overall goals for Kosovo and Serbia did not really change. I mean, there's still a desire to bring down the tension on the security front to increase regional economic ties. But the Biden administration decided to work much more closely with the European Union. The Trump administration, as we know, on many issues far beyond the Balkans, tended to be more independent in its stance, did not necessarily seek EU or NATO collaboration on every issue. So the Biden administration came in and said, okay, we need to approach Kosovo, Serbia in closer concert with the European Union. In recent months, the EU International Affairs Mechanism and the EU Special Envoy have partnered with the State Department Special envoy Gabriel Escobar to produce yet another potential agreement between Kosovo and Serbia. And if it is successful, nobody will applaud it louder than I will. It is going to be an uphill battle because both Serbia and Kosovo are kind of defaulting to their usual position of saying, well, we're not the problem, the other people are the problem. On the implementation phase.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:35:08] Well, looming over the region also is Russia. Russia has long ties cultivating Slavic and Orthodox Christian allies in Serbia and other areas of the Balkans. It vigorously opposed the 1999 NATO bombing campaign and has sought unsuccessfully to stop. Mean, NATO membership expansion in the region. Also, as a Security Council member, it has blocked UN recognition of Kosovo's independence. So I'll start with you, Jamie. Can you talk a little bit about Russia's role in influence in the region?

Gen. Foggo: [00:35:42] One of the biggest problems in the Balkans is Russian malign influence, which transcends any kind of military pressure on borders. It also involves Russian encouragement of corruption in these governments and black markets and underground economies, as well as nefarious activity in cyberspace and in social media. On the Serbian side, I think President Vucic walks a fine line between his stated desire to move Serbia towards Euro-Atlantic integration and yet placate Moscow, a dangerous neighbor. So we'd all like Serbia to sever ties with Moscow. But it's not that easy with the coalition that he has in government and the way some of the people in Serbia think. It wasn't our mandate to talk about Bosnia-Herzegovina today, but during my time with Phil, his counterpart in Bosnia was Ambassador Eric Nelson. Ambassador Nelson tries he made to have a meeting with all three presidents who represent Bosniaks, Serbians and Croats. We never got Milorad Dodik into the room. I think he's influenced by Moscow. All Dodik is doing is preventing the Euro-Atlantic integration, the future of young Bosnians as they look forward to becoming members of NATO, members of the European Union. They've filled out the thousands of pages of applications, and it's stymied right now because of the politics and I think heavily pressured by the Russians. You know, one of the things that I love to do with the help of Ambassador Jess Bailey, Ambassador Eric Nelson was to go talk to youth groups to record something set up by USAID, the Regional Youth Cooperation Organization, you know, 16 year olds to 22 year olds. And what they want is the same thing that our kids want. They want an education. They want a job and job security, a roof over their head. And they're being held back. And I think that the root cause of that gets right down to what the Russians are doing throughout the Balkans. And so we constantly have to try to overcome that influence and provide a pathway to democracy for all of our partners and allies in the region.

Amb. Kosnett: [00:37:48] The situation was a little different in Kosovo. There was very little Russian among the majority Albanian population in Kosovo. I mean, people literally wave the American flag. My colleagues and I would not have to spend a lot of energy on that. The situation of the Kosovo Serb population is trickier. I mean, frankly, I have a lot of sympathy for the Kosovo Serbs because they tend to be used as tools by politicians in Serbia and also by the Kosovar Albanian community. These are people who chose after the war to remain in Kosovo, which was not an easy decision and try to build a future there. Many of them feel that they don't get support from either side. And I would encourage Kosovo Albanian politicians to make more of an effort to make Kosovar Serbs feel at home in the country. I mean, for example, the Kosovo's constitution makes Serbian a national language. You are supposed to be able, if you are a Serbian speaking citizen, to walk into a government office and receive services in Serbian language, that sort of thing doesn't happen. Kosovar Albanians would complain that the Serbs would drive to Serbia for medical services instead of seeking services in Kosovo. And I'd say, Well, you know, this is a two way street. Maybe if you make people feel like the government of Pristina cares more about them, then that would help. And I would encourage politicians to just spend time in Kosovar Serbian communities just being seen, just talking to people and that sort of thing very rarely happened because it was politically unpopular. Now I think that Russia is clearly enormously influential in Serbia, as we've all been discussing.

Amb. Kosnett: [00:39:41] There are historical and cultural reasons for that, as well as reasons related to more recent history. I think the governments in Serbia are very good at playing east off against the West. There are many people in Europe and some in Washington who feel that because Serbia is an important regional power, which I agree with, that we need to be patient and indulgent as we try to encourage Serbia to draw closer to its European neighbors. I think people in Serbia don't feel an overwhelming need to reach a comprehensive settlement with Kosovo because they have both the European Union and Moscow, sort of. Begging for influence there. Similarly, in Kosovo, people have become very used to this close relationship with the United States, this close security partnership, which I support. They are very comfortable with the level of economic assistance and also the economic assistance from the Kosovar diaspora in the United States and in Western Europe. We have not yet been able to convince the people of Kosovo that it's really vital that they find a way to compromise their way to a comprehensive agreement with Serbia. And I would talk all the time about how the level of economic assistance and the level of remittances, they're not going to last forever, you know, and you're going to have to become more economically self-sufficient. Frequently people would hear me talk like this and say, oh, gee, he's threatening to cut off our aid. That's not what I'm saying at all. But I'm saying that there needs to be a long term strategy for Kosovo, which includes finding a way to reconcile with Serbia.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:41:35] Well, to close, I wanted to go back to "Boots and Suits" and have a question for each of you. In the book, Phil, you describe military diplomacy as a subset of traditional diplomacy. Can you elaborate a little bit on this?

Amb. Kosnett: [00:41:48] The book talks about several different aspects of military diplomacy on the strategic, operational and tactical level. And to be honest, we're kind of making this up as we go along, because one of the first questions I had when Jamie roped me into this project is, okay, what is military diplomacy? Is there a definition? We kind of pulled one out of our ear. So on the strategic level, we say that military diplomacy involves the pursuit of diplomatic aims by civilian as well as military personnel. And the book talks about the military aspects of diplomatic initiatives and places like Ukraine and Turkey. Operationally, I think people who listen to this podcast are familiar with the tradition of military ship visits to countries to demonstrate that the US or China or whomever is interested in closer relations, joint military exercises are very important. I know that Jamie was very involved in military exercises between NATO forces and Serbia, which was meant to strengthen those bonds. Some of the most interesting chapters in the book, in my view, involve kind of tactical diplomacy in the context of counterinsurgency and governance, military officers and their diplomatic counterparts, you know, sitting down on a carpet, drinking tea with local leaders in Afghanistan through the provincial Reconstruction team program, for example. I think that all of these levels of cooperation are important to the whole of government approach to put American soft power as well as hard power to use in the pursuit of peace. The book also does talk a lot about the cultural differences between military and civilians, which can make this challenging, although also sometimes fun.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:43:54] Jamie, General McKenzie, in the foreword to the book, the former commander of CENTCOM, who's been on the General and the Ambassador, stated that, quote, The military instrument of national power is capable of bolstering diplomacy and diminishing the prospects for conflict by enhancing stability and security. And yet the military contribution must be subordinate and ultimately yield control and direction to diplomacy and policy. This is not and cannot become a co-equal relationship. So I wanted you ask your thoughts on General Mackenzie's views.

Gen. Foggo: [00:44:36] Since my time at the Naval Academy, I've been taught that one of the pillars of our democracy in the United States of America is the subordination of military power to civilian control. It's fundamental to our Constitution, which we as military leaders all take an oath to support and defend. So one of the most compelling examples, I think, regarding this that we study at the military academies is the case of General Douglas MacArthur. My son went to West Point, and when I went up to see him, I would wander around the campus with him. It's beautiful up there on the Hudson as long as it's not wintertime. And there's a large statue dedicated to the memory of Douglas MacArthur. And while we all marvel at his military prowess, both in the first and Second World Wars and part of the Korean War, unfortunately, General MacArthur let his ego get in the way and was summarily fired by President Harry S Truman after their meeting at Wake Island in the midst of the Korean War in 1950. While I don't disagree with that decision, I think there's an important caveat here. I think it's also very important to point out that we in military uniforms are trained to recognize the difference between right and wrong and obey only lawful orders. Now, this stems from the days of Lieutenant William Calley in Vietnam, and it's ingrained in the officer corps today. We are taught to think and do what's right. So I'm perfectly sanguine. With subordination of military power to civilian command and control. That's the way it has to be. And I'm happy about that. And thank you for the opportunity to comment and be here with you two of my favorite ambassadors. And I have to say, for Ambassador Kosnett, what a great mentor for me in a very tough situation. I rejoiced when he came in in 2018 because it's not easy in Pristina, in Kosovo, with all of these conflicting interests tugging and pulling at you. And he was the quintessential diplomat.

Amb. Kosnett: [00:46:37] A couple of final points about what a pleasure it was to work with a professional like Jaime, but to tie together a theme from my experiences in Kosovo and what I learned from editing Boots and Suits. I want to leave you with the thought that diplomacy moves at the speed of trust, and sometimes that takes time. Sometimes it takes more time than we are patient with. But bullying our friends does not work in the long run. Neither does saying, You know, you owe me a favor. Just trust me on this one. Just do as we tell you. You need to be able to persuade people that what we are asking them to do is good for them and good for the future of their country. And the way to do that is by building personal relationships. In the end, if you do it right and if you're lucky and if you have enough time, yesterday's adversary can become today's partner. And I think that's really the essence of diplomacy.

Amb. McCarthy: [00:47:41] And I will add that trust is what makes success as you run missions, both on our military side and our diplomatic side, to advance our national security interests. And you obviously had a great trusting relationship. So thank you for that and congrats on the book. This has been a new episode in the series, The General and the Ambassador, A Conversation. Thank you for listening. The series is a production of the American Academy of Diplomacy. You can find our podcast on all major podcast sites as well as on our website: Generalambassadorpodcast.org. Thank you for listening.