Word: balkanize
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First he was a Pivotal Balkan politician, then an eccentric New Age guru. The earnest Janez Drnovsek led Slovenia to independence from Yugoslavia in 1991 and, as its popular Prime Minister and President, built coalitions, revamped the economy and brought the country into NATO and the E.U.--the only former Yugoslav republic to join either. After learning in 2001 that he had a recurrence of cancer, the President claimed a "higher consciousness." He ditched his palace for a mountain cabin, renounced "all things evil," became a vegan and resolutely pushed for peace, often unsuccessfully, on diplomatic missions around the world...
...Serbian government itself, diplomats say, may have indirectly sanctioned the brazen attack by hooded protesters on the U.S. embassy and other Western embassies. Belgrade is also taking steps to undermine the fledgling state itself by encouraging the partition of Serb-dominated areas in northern Kosovo. Though a new Balkan war seems unlikely, Kosovo's birth is proving messier than its backers expected. And Serbia, which had been edging toward membership of the European Union and NATO, instead faces a degree of international isolation not seen since strongman Slobodan Milosevic was in power. Taken aback by all this anger and acrimony...
...Just because the candidates haven't been debating a larger strategy for handling weak states doesn't mean they're not thinking about it. Clinton has several experts on failed states advising her, including Richard Holbrooke, who negotiated the end of the Balkan wars, and Madeleine Albright, who made expanding democracy the theoretical aim of her tenure as Bill Clinton's Secretary of State. McCain's director of foreign and national security policy is Randy Scheunemann, from the conservative Project for a New American Century, who as a Senate adviser handled issues of military intervention in the Balkans and Somalia...
...this straight: Serbia and Montenegro were all that remained of Yugoslovia after Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia and Bosnia-Herzegovina seceded during the Balkan Wars of the '90s. Then Montenegro declared independence in 2006. Kosovo seceded from Serbia last Sunday, and now the northern region of Kosovo wants to secede and rejoin Serbia. I don't have a dog in this latest fight - or even understand it much - but if someone wants to quit the firm, it seems to me you ought to let him go. The tension arises, of course, because the ones eyeing the door usually want to take...
...that they're up to this challenge. Declaring Kosovo's independence was easy, but making it a decent place to live will be a long haul. The price of failure will be paid in the lost lives and torched homes that have become a tragic pedal note to recent Balkan history. And this time, it would not be quite as easy to blame the Serbs...