Another Failed State?

Kosovo declared independence Sunday, but it's unlikely any time soon to become the world's 193rd country. What it will almost certainly be is a failed state, unrecognized by the United Nations, unable to govern itself, dependent on Europe for its police and NATO for its armed forces.

After eight years as an international protectorate and billions of dollars in aid and reconstruction funds, its economic prospects are grim. Unemployment is 57 percent, and among youths it's more like 70 percent; half the population is under 25. Small wonder then that its chief export is organized crime. It remains ethnically cleansed of its Serb minority, who only survive in the province under armed guard by NATO. And it has the potential of provoking a wider conflict as other powers try to work out just what to do about yet another intractable Balkan mess.

In theory, Kosovo has been self-governing since NATO bombed the Serbian province for 78 days in 1999, and the United Nations under Security Council Resolution 1244 declared it an autonomous province under U.N. protection but also confirmed that it was part of Serbia. Kosovo was never a federal part of Yugoslavia, as were the other parts that broke away from Serbia's domination; despite its majority Albanian population, its long historical association with Serbia, which regarded it as something akin to the nation's Jerusalem, put it in a different class.

But massacres by Serbian troops in the province led to NATO intervention, and a U.N. mandate. Since then, the U.N. Mission in Kosovo (UNMIK), along with the European Union and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), has administered all of Kosovo's civil institutions, and NATO's Kosovo Protection Force (KFOR), has provided its military protection. Efforts by the United Nations to broker a deal with Serbia on transition to independence failed last year; with Russia's support, Serbia has been intransigent on giving Kosovo anything more than mere self-rule—well short of full independence.

Finally, Kosovo's elected Parliament met Sunday and Kosovo's Prime Minister Hashim Thaci read a statement declaring Kosovo "independent, sovereign and democratic." The move was expected, and Albanians filled the streets of their capital, Pristina, waving American and Albanian flags as well as the new Kosovo one (a blue banner with a yellow map of Kosovo under several stars).

But in any real sense, it remains a protectorate. There was no move to turn over U.N.-administered ministries to Kosovars, at least not so far. Because the status of the U.N. mandate is unclear, however, and the Russians will likely veto any extension of it, last week the European Union announced that it would send a 2,000-strong "police and justice" force to the territory, and NATO has said it will continue to provide security with KFOR.