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Geopolitics

Mladic Capture: A Victory For European Soft Power

The arrest of war criminal Ratko Mladic demonstrates how the EU can be a force for stability, especially when it holds out the possibility of membership.

Mladic was wanted for 15 years on war crimes charges. (Steffan42)
Mladic was wanted for 15 years on war crimes charges. (Steffan42)
Clemens Wergin

BERLIN - The arrest of Serbian general Ratko Mladic ends the darkest chapter in the history of post-reunification Europe. The Yugoslav Wars, which reached their peak with the Srebrenica massacres and the four-year siege of Sarajevo, proved just how destructive national ideologies in Europe can be. But the wars also bear witness to the failure of European foreign policy—the feuding continent of the 1990s was incapable of resolving the conflict. It required the leadership of a world power—the United States—and the Dayton Agreement in 1995 to bring an end to more than three years of war and killing.

One wishes that the architect of the agreement, recently deceased U.S. diplomat Richard Holbrooke, could have lived to see the moment when the last of the three major criminal Serbian warmongers was finally captured and turned over to the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

Along with Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic and Radovan Karadzic, the president of the Republic of Srpska, Mladic was part of a bloodthirsty trio whose Greater Serbian ideology turned the Balkans into the nightmare of Europe, a showcase for genocide, torture, expulsion and mass rape.

That Mladic, the last of the three to be captured, is finally in custody speaks well for the perseverance of the international community. But it's also a success story for Europe, which after its mistakes during the Balkan wars was later all the more persistent about making EU membership for Serbia and other post-Yugoslav states contingent on the capture and turning over of war criminals. Of the 25 indicted, only one is still at large.

Serbia's readiness to turn over Mladic, once widely regarded in the country as a ‘"war hero," is further indication that post-Yugoslav societies are eager to start a new chapter. Of course, many issues have yet to be resolved. Neither Bosnia-Herzegovina nor Kosovo appear able to function without international peacekeeping forces. Nevertheless, it is clear that the focus is on looking ahead to a joint future within Europe rather than on remaining stuck in the sectarian conflicts of the past.

What these factors show is that the EU is particularly successful as a stabilizing factor when it holds out the prospect of membership, and by extension a rosier future. The "arm" that Soft Power Europe wields is the promise of a better life. And that's an all-around more attractive message than anything a mass murderer like Mladic had to offer.

Read the original article in German

photo - Steffan42

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Society

Influencer Union? The Next Labor Rights Battle May Be For Social Media Creators

With the end of the Hollywood writers and actors strikes, the creator economy is the next frontier for organized labor.

​photograph of a smartphone on a selfie stick

Smartphone on a selfie stick

Steve Gale/Unsplash
David Craig and Stuart Cunningham

Hollywood writers and actors recently proved that they could go toe-to-toe with powerful media conglomerates. After going on strike in the summer of 2023, they secured better pay, more transparency from streaming services and safeguards from having their work exploited or replaced by artificial intelligence.

But the future of entertainment extends well beyond Hollywood. Social media creators – otherwise known as influencers, YouTubers, TikTokers, vloggers and live streamers – entertain and inform a vast portion of the planet.

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For the past decade, we’ve mapped the contours and dimensions of the global social media entertainment industry. Unlike their Hollywood counterparts, these creators struggle to be seen as entertainers worthy of basic labor protections.

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