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  • 6/9/2025
During a House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing last week, Rep. Keith Self (R-TX) questioned Dr. Nile Gardiner, Director of the Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom and Bernard and Barbara Lomas Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, about NATO Membership of Kosovo.
Transcript
00:00And I look forward to your questions.
00:02Thank you very much for three strong testimonies.
00:05I now recognize myself for five minutes.
00:08I want to start with, yes, I want to start with what I think is one of the most unstable areas of NATO,
00:19and that is in the Western Balkans.
00:21As you know, or may not know, General Cavoli told me in my recent visit with him that Bosnia and Herzegovina could collapse overnight.
00:34And you may remember back in 1999, NATO, in actually their first operation, went to war for Kosovo by bombing Serbia.
00:43We now have, and if you look at the map, you have Slovenia, you have Croatia, there's Bosnia, there's Montenegro,
00:50there's Albania, there's Bulgaria, there's Romania, surrounding three entities that are not part of NATO.
00:59Every one I just named are part of NATO.
01:02You've got Bosnia-Herzegovina that's split between the Croat Muslims and the Republika Srpska.
01:09You've got Serbia and you've got Kosovo.
01:11Kosovo wants to be, the president tells me that NATO membership of Kosovo is the most important issue for Kosovo.
01:17And yet we have four NATO members, some of whom actually were in NATO back in 1999,
01:25that participated in protecting Kosovo from Serbia.
01:31Now we've got, I would like to start with you, Dr. Gardner.
01:35What can we do to bring more stability to the Western Balkans, which is a flashpoint,
01:43has been historically and traditionally a flashpoint, to bring stability to the Western Balkans
01:50through admitting Kosovo to NATO?
01:53Is that a viable solution?
01:54Thank you very much for your question, Mr. Chairman.
02:00And I think the situation in the Balkans today is one of upheaval, ongoing crisis,
02:12especially with regard to Bosnia-Herzegovina,
02:14where we have a fundamental, I think, lack of national sovereignty and self-determination.
02:21You have, in effect, a sort of European elite that rules over Bosnia-Herzegovina.
02:29And we need to see, I think, the restoration for sovereignty and self-determination.
02:36And I think that as long as you have this EU-driven elite that actually, in effect, controls the nation,
02:47you're not going to be able to move forward and end, I think, the tremendous tensions that exist within that region.
02:54With regard to Kosovo, I think great steps have been taken in terms of advances within the nation.
03:03They clearly seek to be part of the NATO alliance.
03:08I think that with regard to Kosovo, there has been a lot of positive developments.
03:15I think we'll have to assess how things move in the coming months and the next two years or so.
03:20But I have to say that there is growing optimism with regard to the broader outlook for Kosovo
03:29and for future participation in NATO.
03:32I do remain optimistic on that side.
03:34Thank you, Admiral.
03:35Montgomery?
03:36I'll take a slightly more aggressive approach and say that I think Serbia and the Republic of Serbski
03:41are both bad actors who place Balkan stability at risk.
03:45I think their leaders, Vucic and Dudic, are thugs who are intentionally – I think Dudic is trying to make
03:51the Bosnia largely a tender box and Vucic has aims on eliminating Kosovar sovereignty.
04:01Our response needs to be strong.
04:02We need to support KFOR, the NATO force that's in Kosovo as a stabilizing force, make sure it's properly equipped and enabled with European and American support.
04:14But most importantly, we do need to move Kosovo along the path to further European integration through both the European Union and NATO.
04:22And the United States needs to use its significant power to push countries like Spain who oppose this and to doing the right thing and allow Kosovo to enter the broader European environment.
04:35Ambassador, I'm – I need to make one more point.
04:38I appreciated your point about more money does not mean our industrial base is sufficient.
04:43And you pointed out the European industrial base, but our own industrial base needs reform and re-energized as well.
04:52Would you like to comment on that in my last 20 seconds?
04:56Yes.
04:57Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
04:58Thank you for raising the Western Balkans.
05:00Just quickly, this is a region that demands attention from three different countries.
05:04In all corners of the world, NATO has to remain engaged.
05:06The European Union must stay engaged to continue to pursue diplomatic efforts to work towards peace.
05:13And the U.S. needs to show up and be present and engaged.
05:17If not, Russia and China are waiting in the wings and play a very active role in that neighborhood,
05:23trying to divide the folks in the region and divide Europe from the United States.
05:29My time is up.
05:30So to honor the time, I will have that question submitted to you in writing.
05:33I now recognize Mr. Keating, the ranking member.

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