Kosovo Rising

February 18th, 2008 by zen

Coming Anarchy  ,  Duck of Minerva,   TDAXP,  Aqoul,  Outside the Beltway,   Centerfield,   John Robb,  Matthew Yglesias   Catholicgauze – New!,     Weekly Standard -New!

UPDATE:

The United States government has formally recognized the independence of Kosovo via the State Department but, significantly, with an accompanying statement by President Bush.

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Posted in 21st century, diplomacy, europe, foreign policy, freedom, Geography, geopolitics, history, international law, legitimacy, primary loyalties, russia, secession, state building, state failure, strategy | 4 comments

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  1. deichmans:

    February 18th, 2008 at 2:10 pm

    Zen,  Didn’t Bismarck utter those words around the turn of the 20th cent. (about 15 years before Gavil Princip lit the fuse of The Great War by assassinating the Archduke Ferdinand in Sarajevo)?  Talk about someone with "strategic vision"! 🙂

    My favorite Bismarck quote (because the Iron Chancellor is, IMHO, timeless) is "We live in a time when the strong grows weak because of his scruples, and the weak grows strong because of his audacity."

  2. Dave Schuler:

    February 18th, 2008 at 4:22 pm

    I’m worried about more than diplomatic costs, Mark.  What concerns me are real costs in blood and treasure.
    .
    As I’ve been commenting over on Outside the Beltway it’s hard to know where to begin commenting on this matter.  Kosovo has been a focus of Serbian nationalism for the last 900 years.  I doubt that will end because of this declaration.
    .
    Although Russia’s angy denunciation of the declaration was couched in Westphalian terms, that hasn’t always been the case.  Although Russia’s most defensible reason for opposing Kosovar independence might be the signal it will send to ethnic minorities within their own multi-ethnic state, the arguments they’ve been making for a long time (and in their domestic press) have been Pan-Slavic ones and defense of the Russian sphere of influence.
    .
    I think the Westphalian argument is a pretty serious one.  What’s the unit of measure of national sovereignty?  While it does have an Albanian majority, the tiny speck that’s Kosovo has no history of national identity.  It’s a couple of counties that have been batted back and forth among empires for millenia.   If you slice the roast thin enough, you can come up with a majority, if only by going down to the city block level or farther.  That sets the stage for war without boundaries or limits that Europe foreclosed three hundred years ago.  That’s still the problem in the swath from Anatolia to the Hindu Kush where tribal, ethnic, and sectarian forces are more influential than nations.  And where much of the problem of international terrorism is festering.

  3. Dan tdaxp:

    February 18th, 2008 at 4:49 pm

    The best post on Kosovo so far is from Catholicgauze.

  4. zen:

    February 18th, 2008 at 7:46 pm

    Hi Shane,

    The great Prince Otto von Bismarck said that – I think  – prior to the Congress of Berlin. But I’m not positive. Trying to cool tensions between Austria-Hungary and Russia over the Balkans was a perennial headache for Bismarckian foreign policy.
    .
    Hi Dave,

    I agree, Kosovo is likely to be a source of unending frustration for Serbia but if they had not so badly eroded global sympathy for themselves during the 1990’s through their own cruelty,the Kosovar Albanians would be finding a far cooler reception from Washington and the EU today.
    .
    Russian Pan-slavism is a more serious matter. There’s a long emotional-intellectual-historical tradition there. Tinder that can catch fire in a very nasty way and we have not done much to nurture appealing alternatives.
    .
    Your Westphalian commentary requires a post on my part to answer. :o)