Edward P. Joseph is a leading American voice on the Balkans. Presently a Lecturer at Johns Hopkins SAIS, Edward is a renowned conflict management expert, foreign policy analyst, and lecturer, with over 15 years of experience in some of the world’s most volatile regions. He has worked extensively in Bosnia, Kosovo, North Macedonia, Haiti, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, leading high-stakes negotiations, election monitoring, and crisis response missions.
During the Bosnian War, he coordinated the evacuation of Žepa amid the Srebrenica massacres, negotiating directly with Serb commander Ratko Mladić—a pivotal experience that later contributed to a landmark war crimes conviction at The Hague. As Deputy Head of the OSCE Mission in Kosovo, he played a decisive role in defusing a potentially violent confrontation between Belgrade and Pristina, earning recognition from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. His expertise has also been crucial in U.S. and international policy efforts in Libya, the Middle East, and North Africa.
Beyond his fieldwork, Edward is a respected foreign policy commentator, with over 50 published articles in major outlets, including Foreign Affairs, where his piece “The Balkans, Interrupted” was named one of the Best of 2015. A former Executive Director of the Institute of Current World Affairs, he currently leads the National Council on U.S.-Libya Relations. Edward has authored dozens of articles and reports on the region, including ‘How US History Can Save North Macedonia’ in SAIS Review. Edward was the lead author on the January 2021 SAIS-Wilson Center report explaining how the European non-recognizers (of Kosovo) stymie the entire region, and setting out a corrective strategy.
A U.S. Army veteran and trained helicopter pilot, Edward holds degrees from Johns Hopkins University, SAIS, and a J.D. from the University of Virginia. He speaks Serbo-Croatian, French, Italian, and Spanish.
Prof. Joseph participated to the #DefendingDemocracy conference in December, held in Skopje, North Macedonia. His valuable contribution to the conference was documented and featured on CIVIL’s media platform (Edward Joseph: You can’t have democratic advancement of the region with the largest country that has interests in subverting neighbors)
We’ve had the privilege of conducting this exclusive interview with him on many critical issues, including the latest project “Seeing is Believing,” involving youth leaders of the Western Balkans recommendations on key issues related to NATO strategies. This exclusive interview explores Edward P. Joseph’s compelling insights on disinformation, democracy, conflict resolution, and other pressing global challenges.
XHABIR DERALLA / CIVIL MEDIA: Professor Joseph, thank you for taking the time to talk to us. I will go right to the most important question for today, and it is the report and recommendations, involving the young leaders of the Western Balkans. Could you tell us more about the report, accentuating the main recommendations that derived from this initiative?
EDWARD P. JOSEPH: Of course, and, Xhabir, first let me say it’s my honor to sit for this interview with you, with all of your experience and your work with Civil Media and other outlets. And it’s my pleasure to discuss this report, which I believe is quite significant, and the timing is quite significant. And what would be, I think, most interesting for your viewers is that we just presented this at NATO headquarters, myself with my co-director, Sasho Ordanoski.
We co-lead this project. It’s under a U.S. mission to NATO grant. And we just presented this to Radmila Shekerinska, the new Deputy Secretary General of NATO. We had a briefing with Deputy Secretary General Shekerinska, who was already familiar with this, because in September here in Skopje we had a public event. It was clear she had thoroughly read these recommendations. So, that’s the first point, that this is raised at very high levels. We also presented this; I personally gave this to, at NATO headquarters, to Secretary General Mark Rutte. So, this has been presented, this report, to the highest levels of NATO. Obviously, with support of the U.S. mission, clearly, the largest member of the NATO alliance.
Third point here, and I would tell you, Xhabir, the third interesting point was the timing, the timing of this. We presented this at NATO headquarters on the very day that Miroslav Lajčák, the EU Special Representative, was at NATO headquarters himself. In fact, I saw him there. I shook hands with Miro there. I had met him the day before in his office at the EU. Then I saw him the next day.
So what does this mean? It means that the NATO alliance, on the day we were there presenting this, was focused on the Balkans, focused on the very question, and of course, the question that concerns them the most, is the situation in Kosovo and Serbia. The still tense, unresolved situation between Kosovo and Serbia and where KFOR troops, NATO troops, are deployed and where there have been very serious incidents, including recently. So, that’s the point.
And the other point is that these recommendations are meaningful, and we can talk about that Xhabir, and I can explain why.
CIVIL MEDIA: Yes. Thank you. And I’m familiar with the whole process because part of our team, my colleague Dragan Mishev was part of this initiative in the first phase of it. “Seeing is Believing” is also a very significant title, headline, and it’s good for the headlines in media as well. And, of course, timing is critical.
You, Professor, as an experienced professional, are known for making meaningful and timely steps, and of course with the support of our dear colleague Ordanoski.
Please give us the essence of the recommendations. What have NATO and EU ministers at this NATO summit heard from you at that presentation, and maybe what are the perspectives of these recommendations? Do you think they will actually make it happen?
JOSEPH: These are great questions, Xhabir. Let me take the last one first. Will they make it happen? Of course, there’s no guarantee, but this is where my point is about the timing. We were there on a day when the focus of NATO is on the Balkans. And the question immediately comes, what can NATO do? Okay, they’re deployed in KFOR, but what is it that they can do beyond the KFOR mission? And that’s what these recommendations are all about?
There’s two significant aspects about the recommendations. One is the process. Let’s remember that these are from WB6 youth leaders. So, we went around and recruited. I personally visited each of the WB6, Skopje, Belgrade, Prishtina, Tirana, Podgorica, and Sarajevo. I personally went, met with these teams more than once, bringing them together and giving them some guidance. So, this is number one. It’s across the WB6.
Number two is – across the WB6, and this includes Serbia, and in Bosnia-Herzegovina it includes Serbs and Croats and Bosniaks… So, it’s diverse… And here in North Macedonia, it includes Macedonians and Albanians.
CIVIL MEDIA: And from what I know, you had numerous online meetings…
JOSEPH: We did. Including seminars.
CIVIL MEDIA: Intensive correspondence, and seminars, different types of workshops… It was extremely dynamic.
JOSEPH: That’s right. To explain to them, for example, we had experts on hybrid warfare. We had a seminar with the Helsinki-based Center of Excellence on Hybrid Warfare.
And this was presented to these youth leaders to give them even greater awareness. So what do you have? You have the fact that these youth leaders all see a constructive role for NATO, beyond what it is already doing. So, that’s what this is about.
What these recommendations are about – in each case, these youth leaders, and there was a group of them in each of these six countries – they came up with recommendations about what NATO can help on cyber security, on protecting our infrastructure, which is a serious problem. There have been very serious attacks in both Montenegro and in Albania. Here in North Macedonia, it’s a concern.
So, this is something where NATO can help. There are suggestions for what KFOR can do. Alterations in Kosovo, there’s a NATO office there. There’s a NATO office in Sarajevo. So, there are recommendations about how NATO can improve its interaction. As they are youth leaders, there are recommendations that pertain to engaging with youth.
And this one is a consensus recommendation.
CIVILMEDIA: Also, the Albanian youth, as far as I remember, proposed that this should become a permanent location for also the NATO member countries, Albania, North Macedonia, and Montenegro. What do you think of that? I think it’s a very interesting proposal.
JOSEPH: Absolutely, and that is the consensus recommendation. So each of these six pertain to each of the six countries of the WB6. jointly, they recommend together that they all endorse this, that there should be a NATO-sponsored center. They use the term Center of Excellence. Center of excellence for youth engagement, for youth leadership in the WB6, focused on the WB6, and that that be a permanent location with a rotating leadership by year. So each year, one country would have the leadership of that, but that there would be a physical, permanent location in the region. They all agree with that, and we support that.
But these recommendations go even beyond youth. They go to military training, for example. This is another facet of recommendations. So this is currently on the John Hopkins SAIS website. My university is a partner, John Hopkins SAIS, together with Forum. We’re sponsored by the U.S. mission that is the State Department. That’s very important, because at NATO, obviously, the U.S. has great credibility.
CIVIL MEDIA: Tell me, do you think that NATO can help these societies, these countries, the WB6, to deter the hybrid warfare attacks on the Balkan soil? Not only cyber-attacks, I’m referring to the complex and the robust operations of influence that are coming through the open avenue of Russian influence, which is based in Belgrade, also via the church and other religious communities, through economy, oligarchs… The Balkan oligarchs are working very well, both with hybrid regimes in Europe and beyond, but also with Russia, finding all sorts of ways to violate the sanctions. How much these recommendations, you, your initiative, and NATO, and others, could help in deterring the threats, in defending the Western Balkans from the warfare tactics that are obviously ongoing for a number of years?
JOSEPH: Well, there are several recommendations in here that pertain to disinformation. And when our team, Sasho and I and our youth leaders were in NATO headquarters, we had briefings from their experts, so it was a two-way street. The youth leaders were presenting their recommendations and NATO officials were presenting what they were doing, so this was a true exchange of information. I was determined to have this, that this would not just be youth leaders visiting and getting a tour and getting some briefings. No, no, this was not that. This was an exchange. They were listening, and I can tell you, Xhabir, they were very interested.
We have the proof. The NATO officials were very impressed by the capacity of all six of these youth leaders and the fact, again, that they are sharing a common vision that NATO can help them in their country, and I emphasize here that includes Serbia.
So, I really want to emphasize that, and that in Serbia there’s a group and a perception within Serbia.
And to go to your question, yes, several of the key recommendations pertain to disinformation, and this is something that NATO is active on. This is what NATO officials were briefing them on, is what they are doing in the realm of disinformation. They have a quite intelligent approach that they’re doing, but they can be doing more, and they can be doing more here in the Balkans. That’s what this is about, to explore what else NATO can do. So it’s very clear.
CIVIL MEDIA: As an excellent connoisseur of the situation in the Balkans, practically, you are the voice of the Balkans and not only Western Balkans for a very long number of years – I would like to go to a couple of questions about the security and political situation. With an emphasis on security in the Western Balkans.
I think we can recognize that in most of the W6 countries, we see severe operations to destabilize these countries, both from outside, from Russia predominantly, and of course we must not forget the Chinese influence in all of this complex issue, but also from internal actors – far-right, ultra-nationalist actors, such as Dodik in Republika Srpska. We know, we also have a very serious and challenging security situation between Serbia and Kosovo, in Banska, and recently in November, the terrorist attack on Ibar-Lepenec canal.
Also in North Macedonia, we see turbulences at the level of inter-ethnic relations, Montenegro not to forget, and so on. So, could you tell us what are the perspectives, the security perspectives of all these separate – they are all very different – but altogether they form a picture of not-so-stable or – destabilizing situation?
JOSEPH: Xhabir, thank you, and you also bring a great deal of experience to this. I will quickly say, my great privilege has been to work in the region, on the ground for so many years, for a dozen years, and that I worked in every one of these conflict countries, including here, in what was then Republic of Macedonia in 2001. So, I was in Bosnia-Herzegovina and Croatia throughout those wars, in Kosovo and here in 1999, and here again in 2001. We can never go back to those days, or even anything approaching that kind of polarization and division and destruction.
Now, we are in a very strange situation here, because of the situation I call the Balkans paradox.
The Balkans paradox, why is it a paradox?
Because, since the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the West is stronger and more unified. Russia is weaker and more isolated. Yet, the Balkans are worse. It’s more deterioration. So, the West is stronger, Russia is weaker, but the Balkans are in a more deteriorated shape. This doesn’t make sense. This is a paradox. And it demands – and it has – an explanation.
You’re correct, in each of these countries, there is this turbulence and uncertainty. Even in some cases, as you mentioned, in Kosovo – you have this instability with 20 kilograms of explosives placed on a bridge. You realize – only an expert can do this. This is not throwing a Molotov cocktail, like in Zvecan in May, 2023, you know, anybody can maybe do a Molotov cocktail. You do not put 20 kilograms there and blow, deliberately not destroying, but damaging, to send some signal. This is not amateurs. This is a signal of the seriousness of the situation. We have to understand that we cannot have any more in the region this ambivalence that – oh, well, we’re, you know, like in Serbia. Oh, well, we’re EU candidate and we want to open up these chapters, but we’re still with Russia and China, we choose our friends. No, no, you don’t choose your friends. No, if you’re part of a process and you’re wanting to join – you know – no one is making Serbia join the European Union.
No one makes Serbia join NATO. NATO doesn’t tell them – oh, you have to join NATO. They say, OK, you don’t want to join NATO. But Serbia says, we want to join the EU. OK, you want to join the EU, you have to follow the rules. You have to align with the rest.
So tolerating this international ambivalence on Serbia is how you get to this regional ambivalence. No. Everyone has to accept. We are going forward, and guess what – we’re accepting. The borders are finished. The borders do not change. There’s no more of this. And that goes including here in North Macedonia. There’s Ohrid Framework Agreement. That is the agreement. We can discuss, people can discuss, but they discuss on the basis that there is a state here of North Macedonia, that state exists, and the rules exist, and we can discuss within that, that’s exactly the framework. But we are not going outside the framework. And we are not threatening, we are not exaggerating, then saying – you know, changing this and changing that, we’re going to do this our way. No. And this message from the United States, this blacklist, Artan Grubi and things like this, this is a signal, a good signal from the U.S. that there are limits.
And anyone who would say, well, that’s meddling, no, it’s not meddling, because this is with respect to our country, with the United States. So, no, you will not have people who act in ways that are clearly destabilizing, or there’s open suspicion on corruption, then they do not have the privilege of visiting the United States and interacting with the United States. That’s the point. We have to understand that it’s a free choice. You want to be with Russia? You want to be with China? Okay. That’s your sovereign right. But if you want to be European Union, and also those who are in NATO or have aspirations with NATO, you have to accept. You have to accept. And that’s it. And what it means to accept is what I call in the written, the Western order. That means the border questions are finished.
CIVIL MEDIA: The Bosnian question, very briefly, Professor, please. Do you think that Dodik is a threat to the unity of this country? Do you think he’s a threat to the security situation, to this country and beyond, particularly knowing that there are allegations and even credible reports of quite a few armed groups and stashes of weapons in Republika Srpska’s mountains and forests?
JOSEPH: Well, there’s no question that he’s a threat to the order. And we should remember, he got a very significant message back in August with the visit of the CIA Director, William Burns. That was not Burns who has many other jobs to do, and is CIA Director, but one who comes with a very strong State Department background, a senior diplomat as well. I think that Milorad Dodik got a very clear message.
Now, the thing coming up is this court case, this decision. So, let’s see what the court decision is, and then let’s see the reaction. What is imperative is that, whatever is the decision of the court, it has to be respected.
So, that is the main point. I think and I hope that Dodik and other factors understand that there’s a commitment from the U.S., and you have a high representative there who has shown that he’s willing to act as well. Again, though, we have a disturbing posture from Serbia.
We have this Serb world, we have this all-Serb assembly, and we have these interactions and interventions in Montenegro. In Bosnia-Herzegovina, we see Dodik and Vucic showing up together at many places. So, Belgrade is increasingly going to have to accept its responsibility for if there are problems and instability in Bosnia-Herzegovina.
CIVIL MEDIA: The Ukraine war has changed the world since it started. The brutal aggression of the Russian Federation against Ukraine is not only an aggression against Ukraine, but it’s also an aggression against the free world, against the West and against the free world, which is lasting for more than three years, of course, but it has intensified with the full-scale invasion against Ukraine. So, what are the prospects, Professor, of this war, especially regarding the shift in power in the United States, also the political insecurities and instabilities in the European Union, especially with the latest German political crisis and the early elections, and other elements in the whole picture, including the rise of the far-right?
JOSEPH: Okay, for your viewers, to make it clear, let’s break it up into three, okay? There’s United States, European Union and NATO, we can say, and Russia, okay? So, we have a situation of those three. If we look at just raw power dynamics, United States – Russia, U.S. power is up – Russian power is down. Okay. Let’s take U.S. for a second. Donald Trump. What we cannot know and no one can know, and probably even Donald Trump doesn’t even know himself, because he’s very impulsive, is exactly what Donald Trump will do. We don’t know.
We don’t know his posture. What we do know is that he and his team around him, they want to focus on China. So, they do have an expressed interest to try to end the war in Ukraine, and, of course, it’s not a bad thing to end a war.
You know from your work, you’ve been honored by President Zelensky, Xhabir, and I’ll salute you for that, for your great work there, but you know that many Ukrainians are dying and there’s tremendous destruction, so it would be good to end the war, but the question is on what terms.
So, now we come to Putin. Putin is in a very weak position. U.S. power is up, Russian power is down, and all those here in North Macedonia who somehow think Russia is good and many in Serbia – this is a ridiculous position. This is just invention like Alice in Wonderland.
And we see the proof of this in Syria with this fall of Bashar al-Assad. So, I ask anyone there in the audience, you think Russia is so powerful, why couldn’t they even prop up this guy, Bashar al-Assad, with hundreds of thousands of soldiers against these militias that were not even really fighting very much. There was only even limited fighting. I’ve read even quotes from Iranian officials who said the soldiers just ran away. They ran away. Even the officers, they just ran away. This is the Russian client. And this is what Russia does. So, Russia allows its friends to collapse like this.
Now you have this brutal dictator they give [support], after he slaughters so many people using civilians, attacking hospitals. Allow me a minute here. Everyone is shouting Gaza, you know, Israelis in Gaza. At least the Israelis gave warning. At least. It’s very big suffering and we know that for Gazans. At least they gave warning and everyone was complaining, oh, you know, the people are moving. It’s true. But, at least they were telling them to move. Many civilians have been killed, but of course, Hamas is embedding. It’s a terrible tragedy in Gaza.
What was Bashar al-Assad doing? No warnings. There were no warnings to civilians. When they were attacking hospitals, it wasn’t because militia was embedded. It was because they wanted to destroy the hospitals deliberately. Aleppo, this complete destruction with the purpose of destruction. For Israelis, again, they have to be, of course, held accountable. Israel has to be held accountable. But the purpose was not to destroy civilians. It was not the purpose. The purpose was to destroy Hamas. In Assad’s case in Syria, the purpose was absolutely to destroy civilians and destroy civilian infrastructure, because he wanted to prove that this civilian leadership could not protect. That was his strategy.
And everyone in Gaza, about 42, 43, maybe as many as 45,000, maybe a third of those, we don’t know exactly, are fighters, but some number, a significant number of fighters. In Syria, the death toll, minimum, according to UN – these are confirmed deaths by name – minimum 300,000, many people say 500,000, some people say even 600,000. So, this is around ten times as many as Gaza. Using chemical weapons, one of the most horrific ways to die.
CIVIL MEDIA: Genocide against their own people.
JOSEPH: Their own people, their own citizens. And again, and there was no October 7th, there was no, you know, where they went into Damascus and were slaughtering Syrians and things like this.
They were fighting for change, under Arab Spring, and obviously some of the militias are very problematic and some of them are extremists, there’s the jihadists, and it’s true. But you have this focus there on Gaza, this Bashar Assad, [where] let’s just say, probably about a half a million were killed. Easily ten times as many as in Gaza, and on top of this, according to UNHCR, 14 million refugees, one four, one four million, this is over half the country.
Imagine in North Macedonia, one million refugees in this country, imagine that. What this would be like, of half the country, creating instability. Even in Europe, the same one.
CIVIL MEDIA: Only one prison nearby Damascus, 80,000 victims, at least.
JOSEPH: In a prison, brutality. So why am I saying all of this? Because those here in North Macedonia who somehow think Russia is good, Russia is good – this is what Russia backed! This is the dictator that Russia and Iran were backing, and now this great Russia, takozvani [so-called] great Russia, cannot even back a guy who has advantages, and Russian weapons, and Iranian weapons, and Iranian support, and everyone is running now like rats from the ship. Russia is running, Iran is running, even the latest reports is that Russia is flying its aircraft out because it’s afraid.
So this is the Russia that people in the Balkans, in Serbia, and maybe in some places in Montenegro, in Republika Srpska, in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and here in North Macedonia, I don’t understand why anyone would respect or say – oh, this is some kind of future, and we like Russia because they’re fighting the West. Really?
This is a disgrace, and what this means is that Vladimir Putin is in a very weak position now. Trump is in a much stronger position. Iran is also in a much weaker position now, so both Russia and Iran are in a weaker position, and we have to see. If Trump is smart, and if his team, he has a good pick for Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, if they are smart, they can use this to [their] advantage, and they can maybe negotiate an end. But the problem is Vladimir Putin is now in a very weakened position, especially with this Assad. Even in Russia, they’re writing, even his supporters in Russia are admitting that this is a catastrophe for Putin. There’s no [way] spinning this, that this is somehow some victory, no.
So he’s in a vulnerable position, and so we don’t know, in one way he’s weak, that means he could negotiate easier, in another way he could be vulnerable and even scared, scared that he will end up like Assad. You see? And so, in that case, he may think he needs more victory in Ukraine. So that’s where we stand, but it’s clear, the United States has the upper role here.
CIVIL MEDIA: Professor, I hope that this interview, especially the last part, will be heard and understood by the actors who need to make decisions in the coming months, especially in regards to Ukraine, which is, in my view, the key to the world’s stability and peace.
JOSEPH: Thank you very much, Xhabir.
CIVIL MEDIA: Thank you, Professor, indeed.
Interview, Introduction, and Editing: Xhabir Deralla
Camera, Photography, and Video Editing: Arian Mehmeti
Transcript: Natasha Cvetkovska
