The future ambassador of Serbia to the USA was one of the representatives of democratic Serbia, a family man, an eloquent hydropower engineer who knows that quiet water flows down the hill and takes different paths until it is turned into energy. No less important - Dragan Šutanovac is tall, his suit fits him well, and his tracksuit will look good too if the marketing team decides that a picture should be taken in the park when the president comes to America.
He does not think that Kosovo is the heart of Serbia, he considers NATO a partner, he advocates a professional army and the introduction of sanctions against Russia. With these attitudes, the burden of "yellow scum" on his back and the arrogant attitude that he has no "need to be a guest on obscure televisions", Dragan Sutanovac - one of the most recognizable symbols of the former government Democratic parties – he managed to impose himself and be proposed for the new ambassador of Serbia in the United States of America.
This news annoyed almost everyone - from those who killed themselves explaining that Šutanovac made a mistake and "went to the Chetniks four-fifths", to others who wisely remain silent until they are told what crisis management is like in the event that the decision-maker does the same thing again as best he can - humiliate his faithful subjects.
Of course, it was not Aleksandar Vučić who formally proposed Šutanovac, but the Government of Serbia, and of course "Blic" and "Kurir" always "find out" about it. There is no written confirmation of this news - they say, it is not done until it is official. It will probably be in the "Official Gazette", but until then it won't be news anymore.
Is anyone surprised? Not excessively. This appointment is just another proof that everything is exactly as it should be, and that everyone will interpret the development path of Dragan Sutanovac in the way that it is easier for him to swallow the fact that what kind of character is actually desirable for success in Serbia today. And not only today. That's why this text will try to shed light on at least some angles - like the one that this is de facto October 6 because there are more "yellow" people in power than anyone else, to the point that not a single ambassador is asked anything, so it doesn't even matter who he is .
THROUGH ROSE-COLORED GLASSES
Was Šutanovac chosen because he is capable and needed by today's Serbia? He is a child from Belgrade (like the president), one of the representatives of democratic Serbia, a family man, an eloquent hydropower engineer who knows that quiet water flows down the mountain and takes different paths until it turns into energy. No less important - Dragan Šutanovac is tall, his suit fits him well, and his tracksuit will look good too if the marketing team decides that he should take a picture in the park when the president comes to America, so he needs a briefing before important meetings.
Now, the new ambassador will be faced with an impossible task - to look like a runner in a too-short tracksuit so that Vučić in a light blue or black kit would seem somehow elegant and above the situation. The president must not be overshadowed, that is the hardest lesson. Because it is easy to replace Marko Đurić - it is not! It took a long time to choose, many seen progressives were drawn for that place themselves and if it could be better - they would certainly have chosen a better one.
There is more good. Šutanovac has the experience of Minister of Defense. He held that position immediately before Aleksandar Vučić - from May 2007 to July 2012 - in the governments of Vojislav Koštunica and Mirko Cvetković. (Neither Vučić nor Šutanovec is currently on the website of the Ministry of Defense, because the archive only dates back to 2016, so it starts and ends with Bata Gašić).
During the mandate of Dragan Sutanovac, mandatory military service in Serbia was abolished and for that thousands and thousands of mothers will be eternally grateful to him, and at least as many third-party callers (including Raš here) will forever resent him. He advocated for the reform of the army and the adaptation of the defense system to the standards of NATO and the European Union. When he defended that proposal as a minister in the Serbian Parliament, he recalled that the national security strategy, which was drawn up by the ministry before his arrival, while Vojislav Koštunica was at the head of the government, already had very clear Euro-Atlantic initiatives.
"That government brought Serbia into the Partnership for Peace," Šutanovac said in 2010. "That government decided to send our peacekeepers, 24 officers, non-commissioned officers, doctors and several officers to Afghanistan, together with the Norwegian contingent. That government decided that for the first time since 1999, American bomber planes would land at Batajnica airport. That government had an extremely large contribution about cooperation with the Ohio Guard, etc. So, speaking openly about it, the history of Serbia's relations with NATO does not begin from the moment I became a minister, but the biggest steps in Serbia's accession to integration were made in 2006, precisely when the Prime Minister of the Government was Mr. Vojislav Koštunica." (Source: Parliament memos).
Sutanovac pointed out that the fact that Switzerland is not a member of the EU does not mean that it does not respect NATO standards. "Our desire is to standardize our army according to the best recognized world standard to which absolutely all armies of the world aspire. That must not be disputed", is part of a speech that can be found in dozens of parliamentary notes and from which Šutanovac never gave up. The fact that he is now being sent to the USA by a government that is planning to restore regular military service and regularly fuels anti-NATO hysteria, can again be seen as a success - either his or someone who wants him as ambassador.
And while we're still talking about the army, he did advocate for it to be professional, but he was the first to flirt with various types of uniforms during his time as a minister, long before Aleksandar Vulin made such a circus out of it, that I guess no one will ever think of that works.
AS SOON AS IT GETS IN THE WAY OF VULINA, IT MUST BE GOOD
This brings us to a new approach - who cares about the return of Sutanovac? To begin with, the Deputy Prime Minister Aleksandar Vulin got annoyed, and if Vulin is against it, it must be good...
No, of course that's not logic, because if Vulin had the right to be bothered by something, he could leave the government with his Movement of Socialists, run independently in the elections, and check how important his position is. We can read Vulin's reaction more as prevention, to protect the leader in time and to prevent anyone from thinking that we are really going to join NATO. As many times before, Vulin writes what Vucic would like pro-Russian voters to think he thinks. It sounds convoluted, but it really isn't. As in that joke: "I don't know exactly how it happened, but ours turned out to be the smartest". Vulin killed two birds with one stone - insulted Šutanovac and the Democrats, and elevated himself to the level of power, like in that joke when an elephant and a mouse cross the bridge, and the mouse says: "Let's rumble!". He accused Vulin Sutanovac that he will prove in Washington that the bombing of Serbia was justified and that he will slander all those who are against NATO. That "like any flyover" he will serve the next government. (When "our" government passes, says Vulin).
"Dragan Šutanovac is not the first convert, but he has certainly always been the most useful to us. The man who managed to expel the DS from the parliament deserves to be forgiven for his ugly past", said Vulin. He just didn't say why, on earth, all those anti-NATO Vučić followers don't oppose, rebel, threaten to leave the government that pushes such a "traitor" to such an important position, and Moscow still eludes Vulina.
Vulin and Šutanovac had conflicts before, when Vulin was the Minister of Defense and from that position he criticized the text that Šutanovac had written, but which had not yet been published.
"The controversy over the unpublished text irrefutably confirms that Vulin illegally came into possession of the text that was exchanged between me and the editor of 'Nedeljnik'." Whether Serbia is becoming a 'Big Brother' country, in which state resources are used to intercept the communications of the former defense minister and media editor, is no longer in question," said Dragan Šutanovac at the time. But that was a long time ago, five years ago. Probably Šutanovac knows that it is no longer done now.
The proposal for a new ambassador also confirmed the theory that the Democratic Party complex does not give peace to the current regime and that the spirit of the DS would haunt them even if the party was extinguished. Until now, they had many trophies like Gordana Čomić, Kena, and even Vesić, who they are less proud of now, but they did not have a president, no matter how short he held that job.
WHAT FORMER COLLEAGUES SAY?
You can learn a lot about someone's biography from the relationship that former colleagues have towards them. We will start with the Democratic Party of which he was a member of parliament, president, and elected minister. Today, they say that for high-flyers like Šutanovac, Vesić, Kena and Jelena Trivan, there is a "common inclination towards corruption and personal enrichment". They consider the SNS to be the generator of evil in this society, and it was created, they estimate, as a gathering place for defectors from the SRS, G17, DS and DSS.
"That's why people who are sold for a handful of dollars deserve public contempt, but also a systemic response to that social anomaly. Lustration and confiscation of property acquired through crime are necessary steps for the introduction of basic order in the country", said the statement of the DS.
Former party colleague Dragan Đilas was ironic. "Since the loyalists have sworn in blood that they will not deal with the 'yellow scum', serious conflicts are expected within the SNS", Djilas wrote on the X social network regarding the news about the new ambassador. The president of the Srbija Center party, Zdravko Ponoš, who was Chief of the General Staff from 2006 to 2008 during the time of Minister Sutanovac, reacted in a similar tone. He said that Šutanovac is "an ideal patch for a rag called Vučić", and that "watches, ties and shoes" were more important to him than the army when he was a minister, and now they are more important to him than everything that happens in the country.
The head of the Public Relations Department of the Serbian Army from the time of Sutanovac, Petar Bošković, said that he expects an apology from Sutanovac because Bošković was the first to announce the news about the future engagement of the former minister, and Sutanovac did not want to confirm it: "He was not an ordinary democrat, but the president of the Democratic of the party who violated all moral norms by siding with the progressives. "Only a man without an iota of morality can sell faith for dinner," says Bošković. Again, no one is making predictions about how the new ambassador to the US will fare. They don't expect anything.
But why him, and not Ana Brnabić or Šormaz or Zorana Mihajlović or one of the analysts from Happy and Pink who acts as a NATO lobbyist when needed? Because it's not bad to underline once again that some things require infantry, and when something stronger is needed - then it steals away from the competition. Because although many media have now pointed to the criticisms and insults that Šutanovac exchanged with the current regime, there are still not too many of them. And the tone of criticism has long been much calmer than when the regime is dealing with some other democrats. For a long time, he was accused of "melting tanks" while he was the head of the Ministry of Defense, but later they switched to Boris Tadić and Zdravko Ponoš.
Šutanovac wrote in an article for "Vreme" from 2019 that since 2015, public tenders of the Ministry of Defense have apparently sold "resurrected melted down T-55 tanks, no more and no less than 282 pieces" and that the accusations have always been unfounded . In the assembly, he was often referred to as the "pasture on Vračar" where he allegedly invested in residential space, while part of the plot on which the building was built was considered "first-class pasture". Back in 2017, he was acquitted of all charges.
HOW HE SPOKE
Ten years ago, Šutanovac said that he was glad that it was Vučić who succeeded him as Minister of Defense, believing that Vučić, with his political power, would enable the defense system to progress, the Serbian Army to progress, salaries and wages to increase, and people they can repay the loans they took out. He is one of the few who consistently claimed that no minister is to blame when an accident happens in the army, although he should try to prevent it from happening.
And later, when he was no longer an official of the DS, but the president of the Council for Strategic Policies, a non-governmental organization, Šutanovac had the opinion in the media that "criticism of Vučić will not bring improvement to Serbia." He was convinced, for example, that Vučić did not know about the events in Banjska, when a Kosovo policeman and three Serbs were killed. If he had known, says Šutanovac, Vučić would have had an elaborate plan. He praised the part of Vučić's speech at the UN, which the progressives declared historic, and criticized him only for the part where he talks about friendships between countries: "I don't think it should stay status quo around Ukraine and I think we should impose sanctions on the Russian Federation and it is not a matter of friendship or enmity".
Šutanovac did not hide the fact that Vučić called him to discuss the professionalization of the army (at that time it was not yet known that he would not listen to him or maybe he really wanted to, since in practice the introduction of military service is not in too much of a hurry). In the end, Šutanovac said that he does not think that "Kosovo is the heart of Serbia", but that it is the young people who live here.
Šutanovac stopped publishing posts on the X network even when it was Twitter, which is really a shame, because we don't know what attitude he has towards the young people who are now the heart of Serbia. From what is left, we note that he often ridiculed Vulin for serving in the military for 15 days, called him a deserter and said that the Ministry of Defense should apologize to the citizens for being led by a complete idiot who blames them. And Nebojši told Krstić very undiplomatically that he was a complete fool and a jerk. In the war conflict, he openly opted for Ukraine, told the anti-vaxxers who at the same time advocate for military service, that the army, as a rule, should be vaccinated. The rest were mostly everyday topics.
We tried to find what he is currently doing on the website of the Council for Strategic Policies, of which Šutanovac is the founder, but the latest news is from the end of 2024, where the military budget is being analyzed. The last news about the actor Šutanovac was from May of last year under the title "Europe is in a pre-war state!"
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Vučić and Šešelj: Where I stopped, you continue
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