During the decade of Slobodan Milosevic's ascendancy in Kosovo, the majority of Albanians boycotted virtually everything that was Serb, including Federal elections where their compact voting bloc could have helped oust Milosevic. Fundamental separation had already occurred before NATO began to preside over the final phase of the ethnic cleansing of the remaining Serbs that got under way last June.
Consequently, we should not be surprised that most Albanians seek to expel every Serb, even erase every sign of Serb culture -- witness the destruction of eighty Orthodox churches and monasteries, many of them matchless medieval monuments. At the end of the bombing campaign President Clinton triumphantly declared that NATO would "protect all the people of that troubled land, Serbs and Albanians alike. Believing as I do in the ad hoc essence of American exercise of power in the world, I wonder how long the Congress and the electorate will be willing to put up with a seemingly eternal commitment of thousands of soldiers and billions of tax dollars to a protectorate in Bosnia and a protectorate in Kosovo.
Add to that the costs of proto-protectorates in Albania, Macedonia and -- who knows? Already we hear signs of disillusionment: Defense Secretary Cohen complains about "mission creep," Chief of Staff General Shelton states that his troops are only "marking time" in Kosovo.
To try a little Kremlinology: in his State of the Union speech in , President Clinton devoted thirty-five words to Kosovo, saying that: "With our NATO allies we are pressing the Serbian government to stop its brutal repression in Kosovo, to bring those responsible to justice and to give the people of Kosovo the self government they deserve. I can imagine some playwright of the future reflecting on the history of our absurd times and finding it rich in dramatic material:.
Later the despot is indicted and the president is at least nominally considered for indictment by a war crimes tribunal. Not long ago, Ambassador Richard Holbrooke, a guest of the Wilson Center, took a little time at the outset of his speech to damn rather than praise Woodrow Wilson as "at least a partial failure if measured by the consequences of his actions.
Creating a single country out of what was once Yugoslavia never made any sense," he added. As on other occasions when dealing with the Balkans, Holbrooke didn't do his homework.
The idea of Yugoslavia was born, before any of the 14 points were conceived, out of the fear of Slovenes, Croats and others of the designs of imperial powers on their lands. The collapse of Yugoslavia was due similarly to its brutal subjugation by Nazi Germany and then by Communism and not as a result of Wilsonian idealism about multiethnic states. Oddly, the American approach to the Central Balkans in the last decade has been Wilsonian self-determination gone wild, with some help from Ambassador Holbrooke.
Aided and abetted by some European countries, the United States has had a decisive hand in creating not arguably fragile multiethnic states such as the Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia of Wilson's day but mono-ethnic ministates -- Croatia, Slovenia and, even more grotesque, a Bosnia-Herzegovina that is ethnically divided three ways.
Like it or not the Clinton Administration is now presiding over the evolution of yet another mono-ethnic state -- an Albanian Kosovo. To put it another way, the US and NATO, though it was the opposite of their declared intentions, have far outstripped everyone else in ethnic cleansings in the Balkans.
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The program investigates European approaches to policy issues of importance to the United States, including globalization, digital transformation, climate, migration, global governance, and relations with Russia and Eurasia, China and the Indo-Pacific, the Middle East and Africa. Read more. Close Search Search. Show Streaming. Explore More. Blog post. By Alex Long on November 7, March 1, By David Binder At the beginning of this new century, we may ask what problems we inherited, unresolved, from the last century.
Related Program. Previous Next. Book Publication: 30 Ideas for Europe. The Power of a Social Justice Perspective. By Steven Philip Kramer on October 14, By Diana Villiers Negroponte on September 17, These Balkan wars originated in the aspirations of the nationalist states of southeastern Europe; having previously achieved independence from the Ottoman Empire during the 19 th century, these states wished to incorporate members of their nationalities remaining under Ottoman rule and thus achieve their maximum nationalist claims.
In this way, the states of Bulgaria , Greece , Montenegro and Serbia sought to emulate the 19 th century nationalist successes of Germany and Italy. Competing claims to Ottoman held territories, especially Macedonia , prevented the Balkan states from cooperating against the Ottomans. When the Young Turks threatened to reinvigorate the Ottoman Empire after their coup, however, the leaders of the Balkan states sought ways to overcome their rivalries.
Russian diplomacy facilitated their efforts. The Russians wanted to compensate for their setback in the Bosnian Crisis of by establishing a pro-Russian Balkan alliance intended to impede any further Austro-Hungarian advances in the region. In March , the Bulgarians and Serbs concluded an alliance under Russian aegis.
This agreement contained a plan for the settlement of the Macedonian problem, including a provision for Russian mediation. The Bulgarians and Serbs then both made individual agreements with the Greeks and Montenegrins, who also reached an agreement together.
By September this loose confederation, the Balkan League, was ready to achieve its goals. Montenegro began the First Balkan War on 8 October Before the other allies could join in, the Ottomans declared war on the Balkan League on 17 October. The main theater of the ensuing conflict was Thrace. The Ottomans rallied at the Chataldzha, the last lines of defense before Constantinople. An attack by the exhausted and epidemic ridden Bulgarians on 17 November against the Ottoman positions there failed.
Both sides then settled into trench warfare at Chataldzha. Elsewhere the Serbian army broke the western Ottoman army at Kumanovo on 23 October.
The Serbs then proceeded against diminishing resistance into Macedonia, Kosovo and on through Albania , reaching the Adriatic coast in December. The Greek navy prevented the Ottomans from shipping reinforcements from Anatolia to the Balkans, and occupied the Ottoman Aegean Islands. The Greek army advanced in two directions, entering Salonika on 8 November, and further west, bringing the town of Janina under siege.
Greek military operations continued. By this time, Ottoman Europe was limited to the three besieged towns of Adrianople, Janina, and Scutari, the Gallipoli peninsula and eastern Thrace behind the Chataldzha lines. As a result of the Ottoman collapse, groups of Albanian notables, supported by Austria and Italy, declared Albanian independence on 28 November While delegations from the Balkan allies attempted to negotiate a final peace with the Ottomans in London, a conference of Great Power ambassadors met in London to ensure that their interests would prevail in any Balkan settlement.
A coup on 23 January returned a Young Turk government to power in Constantinople. This government was determined to continue the war, mainly in order to retain Adrianople. It denounced the armistice on 30 January. Hostilities recommenced, to the detriment of the Ottomans. The siege of Scutari, however, incurred international complications. The Austrians demanded that this largely Albanian inhabited town become a part of the new Albanian state.
Under Austro-Hungarian pressure, Serbian forces aiding the Montenegrin siege withdrew. The Montenegrins persisted in the siege, however, and succeeded in taking the town on 22 April. For centuries it had acted as a passageway between the East and West as cultural and mercantile exchange took place there.
The Balkans nonetheless had its own problems owing to the different ethnicities there and increased nationalism. In the late 19th century, the Balkans underwent significant change and disorder. Things took a turn for the worse by the late s when the Ottoman Empire began crumbling. Greece, Serbia, Montenegro and Bulgaria all gained independence from Ottoman rule during this period. Britain, France, Germany and Russia, the great West European powers, had developed a strong interest in the region and this was based on what would happen to them once the Ottoman Empire fell.
Acting swiftly, these great powers developed their own foreign policies and objectives. Russians, through their navy, wanted to expand their territory by moving into the Balkans and other areas that were formerly under the Ottoman Empire.
They wanted to capture and control the Bosphorus, which provided shipping access to the Mediterranean. This was met with British opposition. The British wanted the crumbling Ottoman Empire to remain intact for as long as possible to provide some sort of buffer against the Russians, who Britain feared would attack.
Germany, on the other hand, had thoughts of acquiring the Ottoman regions that were rendered bankrupt and they would attempt to make them colonies. A series of military alliances that formed a league known as the Balkan League were signed in involving several Balkan nations. These nations were incited by Russia. The main purpose of these alliances was to formally declare war on the Ottoman Empire and drive them out of Eastern Europe once and for all.
The war began in October These signed alliances were somewhat shaky as each nation had their doubts.
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