Word: macedonians
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...exposing its troops to danger in any confrontation with Albanian nationalists. Although it made limited attempts to seal the Kosovo border, across which all of the NLA's weapons, supplies and personnel initially passed, once the guerrillas had proved their ability to survive the clumsy counterinsurgency efforts of the Macedonian security forces, NATO changed its tack, turning the "terrorists" of three months ago into the key partner of today's peace deal...
...course, Macedonia and Kosovo are hardly unconnected. The Macedonian insurgency originated inside Kosovo, where NATO is supposed to be in charge of security. But the alliance has shown little inclination to effectively police the activities of Albanian nationalist guerrillas there, and it appears to have woken up rather late to the fact that those guerrillas were exporting an insurgency into Macedonia under NATO's very noses. Although it then moved very quickly to press the authorities to address the political grievances on which the insurgency was feeding, it did little to create disincentives for ethnic-Albanian nationalists to choose...
...have much appeal to the fighters - particularly since NATO will presumably act more forcefully to cut rebel supply lines from Kosovo. Instead, NATO will find itself vainly trying to adjudicate a dispute over the extent of the NLA's armaments - the rebels say they have 2,500 guns; the Macedonian authorities believe the figure is a lot higher...
...face value. For one thing, NATO troops have actually been in Macedonia all along - Skopje houses the major logistics base for the entire Kosovo peacekeeping operation, and they're not about to withdraw. The reason for the early deployment of the British troops may be to reassure the Macedonian authorities of Western support for the peace effort. Macedonia's parliament still has 45 days to adopt the agreement, and Western leaders will want to ensure that the government doesn't get cold feet...
...that NATO won't tolerate a continuation of the insurgency, now that the political grievances that ostensibly fueled it have been addressed. Even if the "Essential Harvest" mission is withdrawn, there are plenty of NATO troops in the region, and they've capable of giving the Macedonian government a lot more robust support than they have been up to now. What remains to be seen, then, is whether the NLA, or any faction among them, will choose to test NATO's will - and how the alliance will respond if its adopted role of Balkan enforcer is challenged...