Another Failed State?

In Serbia, the running joke was that the country was like Nokia: every year there was a new and tinier model of the state Slobodan Milosevic two decades ago sought to makeover into Greater Serbia. There was plenty of anger, as well. The declaration of independence provoked rioting on the streets of Belgrade, with hooligans and ultranationalists stoning police and throwing Molotov cocktails, trying to reach Western targets like the American Embassy and McDonald's outlets. Kosovo looms over the country's messy and unstable political scene; Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, an implacable foe of the EU and America, leads a shaky coalition including pro-Western elements; he called Kosovo's move "the illegitimate declaration of a puppet state on the territory of Serbia." In the recent Serbian presidential election, Boris Tadic, a pro-Western leader, only narrowly defeated the Radical Party candidate, Tomislav Nikolic, who was widely seen as a stand-in for the party's leader, an accused war criminal, Vojislav Seselj, now on trial at the Hague. Nikolic ran on a bellicose position about Kosovo.

No one expects even a more extreme Serbian government to try to invade Kosovo, at least as things stand now. But Serbs are furious about treatment of their minority in Kosovo, about 200,000 of whom have fled since the United Nations and NATO took over, and Albanian gangs began retaliating against Serbs wherever they could. Another massacre might well spark stronger reaction in Serbia, and perhaps even intervention. And unlike 1999, Serbia now has a strong ally in Russia, where President Vladimir Putin has been talking tough on the Kosovo issue; the Russians called for an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council to meet Monday. And KFOR is a much weaker force than it originally was, with U.S. troops drawn down for Iraq and other NATO partners worried about staffing Afghanistan. Richard Holbrooke, the former U.S. secretary of State who was America's point man during the Balkan wars, has previously called for reinforcing KFOR, especially if Kosovo declares independence—which it has just done.

In the coming days, it's widely expected that the United States and many European countries will recognize Kosovo's independence. But Russia will certainly veto its admission to the United Nations. And even the EU will face difficulties internally, with six of its 22 member states unlikely to endorse the move; these include Spain, Romania, Greece, Cyprus, Bulgaria and Slovakia. For countries like Spain, with its restive Basque region, and Cyprus, where the Turkish north of the country has declared a rump state, Kosovo is a dangerous precedent. It's the first time since World War II that the internal borders of a European country are being redrawn, with the exception of course of Germany. But then, Kosovo is no Germany.

© 2008