Word: kosovo
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Situation Report: Slobodan Milosevic may be nothing more than an irrelevant opposition leader now, but the Balkans' woes are from over. Kosovo's Albanians still want independence, but most of NATO is inclined to keep the territory nominally under Serb sovereignty although autonomous for all practical purposes. European NATO powers fear full-blown independence will link Kosovo with Albania, and prompt new conflicts throughout the region. But recent attacks on NATO forces by Albanian nationalists seeking to colonize a tiny strip of ethnic-Albanian inhabited Serb territory just across the border from Kosovo are a sign that some Albanians...
...Horizon: Increased tension over Kosovo?s future, and a major showdown between Washington and its European allies over proposals to withdraw U.S. forces from Balkans peacekeeping. The Europeans have warned that the U.S. will cede its right to command NATO forces in Europe if it refuses to have its troops on the frontline...
...child who has not experienced personal trauma but has witnessed social strife is Magda Anastasijevic, 8, who lives in Serbia. Thanks to the international sanctions put in place after Serbia's war in Kosovo, the Harry Potter books have only just begun to appear in translation. But Magda's father knows English and has read all four Harry Potters aloud to her, simultaneously translating the original into Serbian. "I like Harry Potter because he never gives up," she says, "even though sometimes his best friends are against him." She knows that Lord Voldemort, the archvillain in the Potter books...
...issue of U.S. troops is much more important than simply what happens in Kosovo or Presevo. If the U.S. pulls out, there would be two consequences: First, Kosovo, but possibly also Bosnia and Macedonia, would plunge into, if not outright war, then at least a permanent state of low-intensity conflict. But even more important for Washington, I don't think the U.S. can pull troops from harm's way in the Balkans and then still demand command and control over NATO troops in Europe. The U.S. would lose its moral claim to maintain the tradition that the commander...
...unilateral withdrawal by the Americans would immediately make the situation much worse. It's not just about troop strength. The Europeans already provide the bulk of the peacekeeping force in Kosovo, but even if they made up the shortage in troop strength if the U.S. pulled out, the problem is the message it sends. Everyone in the Balkans knows it was U.S. leadership that got NATO involved in the Balkans. The interventions in both Bosnia and Kosovo wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for the Americans, and if the U.S. pulls out its troops, that sends a powerful...