Balkan War?
That almost never happens. Surely a thing of that past, put to bed by Dayton. And yet, Stratfor suggests tensions are rising dangerously in history’s boiling-over pot:
Tensions in the Balkans are rising on two major fronts: Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina. Serbia is still without a government after months of political wrangling — and with a deadline to form a government quickly approaching (May 14). This deadline comes as Serbia’s secessionist region of Kosovo says it will gain (or unilaterally declare) its controversial independence by the end of May. The entire international community has been watching Kosovo and Serbia in an attempt to prevent any destabilization — especially of the ethnic cleansing kind — of the Balkans in the process.
The problem is that while the world has focused on Serbia and Kosovo, it has ignored a quickly rising problem in Serbia’s neighbor, Bosnia-Herzegovina. The United Nations and European Union have been pulling resources — everything from negotiators to security forces — from Bosnia-Herzegovina to Kosovo, leaving all the different Bosnian ethnicities to fight it out without much supervision. Meanwhile, Bosnian Serb leader and nationalist Milorad Dodik has been consolidating power in Bosnia — not only in the Serbian autonomous region of Republika Srpska, of which he is prime minister, but on the federal level as well — so much that he has been called an up-and-coming Milosevic replacement.
… Since the end of the Balkan wars, the Serbs and Croats have competed as they race for NATO membership, but the competition is more serious within Bosnia, where their ethnic identities are at stake. Croatia would respond to a destabilization in Kosovo, Serbia or Bosnia-Herzegovina in order to protect not only itself, but also ethnic Croats outside of its borders.
The death of Croatia’s western-leaning Ivica Racan removes a counterbalance to the ultra-nationalist ruling HDZ. Stratfor suggests Croatia’s reaction to events in Bosnia, Serbia and Kosovo poses the greater threat of regional war, and that Germany’s close ties with Croatia could be the key to keeping a lid on Europe’s pressure cooker.
Topics: Balkans
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:36 am on Tuesday, May 1, 2007
4 Responses to “Balkan War?”
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May 1st, 2007 at 1:42 pm
How long before the EU starts yelping for unilateral, cowboy America to fix this problem? And what will they do if we say, sorry, we’re busy elsewhere?
May 1st, 2007 at 2:14 pm
“…Germany’s close ties with Croatia could be the key to keeping a lid on Europe’s pressure cooker.”
Boy, those ties really kept the lid on in 1914, didn’t they?
May 1st, 2007 at 9:09 pm
I think those close ties were a bit more recent, Mr. Bingley. But you make a good point.
May 2nd, 2007 at 2:15 pm
Comrades,
What really pisses me off about all of this is the double standard our fearless Democrats adopt with regard to the Balkans.
American troops have been in this area for over TEN YEARS, and nothing, absolutely nothing, has been accomplished vis-a-vis forming governments, holding elections, drawing down forces, etc. We are in an actual quagmire in the Balkans, and yet…
Comes to Iraq and the Dems are SCREAMING that its “another Vietnam”. No end in sight, terrible mismanagement, blaah blaagh, etc.
What happened to Europe taking care of it’s own neighbors, eh? Where are the mighty Euro-amries now? Reid & Pelosi & Kennedy, et al, were all a twiddle and duckbumps to support Clinton’s little foray into “nation building”, yet decry a much more succesful situation in Iraq.
God help us all if Iraq can be seen as a failure and the Balkans held up as something worth keeping troops involved in.
Respects,