08.02.2009.
State Secretary Spasojevic for Politika
State Secretary Dusan Spasojevic’s interview to Politika
The Kosovo issue is the most important security issue for Serbia.
Not only our army, but Serbia as a state will or will not enter NATO. The National Assembly declared neutrality and the Ministry of Defense follows this policy.
Serbia should finally get a National
- Security Strategy, which has been discussed for the past two months. The Ministry of Defense was flooded with criticism. Come of these criticism appeared in Politika daily which object to the authors’ “inexperience of modern security trends and the lack of knowledge in basic parameters for the drafting of a such an important document”Since the Politika readers are so eager to find out whether we are safe or not, we tried finding answers from the State Secretary Dusan Spasojevic.
This public discussion also sparked major criticism from NGOs?
Security is foremost Serbia’s national interest, and the National Security Strategy is the umbrella document in this area which has been in the process of drafting ever since 2006 involving all relevant sectors. Since we are a democratic society we intended to interest the Serbian public through creating this public discussion. This is because the army and the state cannot do everything on their own so it was our appeal to the public’s attention. It is a well known that what kind of situation the new management of MoD faced; these problems ranged from understaffed to problems in training. The President of the Republic Boris Tadic said that Serbia should have a strong army and that we were doing everything in our power to form such an army within our capabilities.
The representatives of MoD participated in the majority of conferences and meetings organized by the non-governmental sector. We expect this strategy to be adopted at the Government’s session in late February when it will be immediately submitted to the Parliament for adoption procedure.
What are the risks and threats for Serbia with respect to the National Security Strategy Draft?
The biggest risk is the unilateral and illegal declaration of Kosovo’s independence. Posing a unilateral solution can only destabilize this region even more than it already is. On the other hand we feel that Serbia opting for European path has a positive effect on Serbia’s security and in this context all possibilities for direct threats and forms of aggression have been reduced.
What are Serbia’s national interests?
These would be preserving sovereignty, Serbia’s independence and territorial integrity, preserving internal stability and the rule of law, the development of democracy, integration into EU, protection of lives and property of citizens, economic growth.
What are the main expert complaints about the drafting of the security strategy?
One of the main objections pertains to the role of ethnic minorities in the system of security while the second most significant remark relates to our relations with the NATO.
When it comes to ethnic minorities, will the ethnic Albanians in the south of central Serbia serve the army or not?
Yes, that is one of the issues. Our intention is to involve all citizens of Serbia, which means the ethnic minorities as well, into the system of security of Serbia which is pursuant to the Constitution and the laws of the Republic of Serbia.
What about the NATO membership?
Some people say that we have not been clear enough when it comes to that issue, as if the issue of an alliance is a question which only pertains the army. The whole state has to join such an alliance as the North Atlantic Treaty. So, it is more a political question. The National Assembly has declared the state’s neutrality with respect to this issue, and this is why the Ministry of Defense is following this state policy =, which at this moment says that the PfP membership is enough.
What are Serbia’s options when it comes to security and defense?
Theoretically, and even practically, there are five options: to rely on our army and the system of security under the UN auspices, to establish a status of armed or unarmed neutrality, to sign defense agreements with other states, to start integrating into NATO or EU formations, and finally, the last option is to combine several of the options above.
The defense strategy is to be adopted after the Strategy of National Security. What are the SAF’s main tasks?
The missions and tasks of the Serbian Armed Forces are defined by the National Assembly of Serbia, and it would go in this order: defending the Republic of Serbia from external threats, participation in developing and maintaining peace in the region and the world and providing peace to civil authorities in countering security risks and threats.
As for the remarks that the people who laid out this Strategy had no knowledge of the modern security trends?
We were clear in stating that security has spread from purely military sphere into other areas such as economy, politics, energy, social and ecological and the problems of terrorism, of ethnic and religious extremism, of organized crime, of WMD proliferation. The international community is facing the risks of preemptive attack and intervening into the internal affairs of a country. You know, the world is changing so fast that the problems of security are multiplying, which leads to the conclusion that no strategy or doctrine can cover all these topics. These documents need constant upgrading. It was napoleon who said that a strategy had to upgraded every five years.
