THE ROAD TO PEACE IN THE BALKANS IS PAVED WITH BAD INTENTIONS

Abstract

It has been long and widely forecast that the security situation in the Balkans — indeed, in South-Eastern Europe generally — would become delicate, and would fracture, during the final stages of the Albanian quest for independence for the Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohija. The Kosovo region is now a lawless area. It has been ethnically-cleansed of Serbs, and re-populated by Albanians who have progressively and illegally, over the past decades, migrated into the area. Years of so-called peacekeeping by the international community count for nothing. Kosovo’s presence as a nominally independent state, without any of the essential foundations to meet the true criteria for sovereignty, can in no way further the stability of the region, or of Europe. Neither can it serve US strategic interests, unless US interests can be defined as a breakdown of viability of Eastern and southern Europe.