Breathing Room in the Balkans by Fareed Zakaria

April 2, 2001, U.S. Edition

Breathing Room in the Balkans
NATO's battle to keep the peace may be stifling the people it's trying to protect. Here's a way out.
By Fareed Zakaria

Here we go again. Like clockwork the latest crisis in the Balkans has produced the usual flurry of calls to action. NATO is urged to crack down on the separatists in Macedonia and reinforce its government. In other words, to get things back to normal. But the situation in the Balkans right now is far from normal.

Despite the recent lull in the fighting, Macedonia is unraveling. In many ways it's a wonder it hasn't happened sooner. Unlike Bosnia, where Muslims, Serbs and Croats lived and worked together and even intermarried, the Slavs and Albanians of Macedonia have always coexisted separately and uneasily. The Albanians, making up about a third of the country, are persecuted in myriad ways (their unemployment rate is a staggering 60 percent, twice that of the Slavs; the Army and police top brass are all Slavs; access to education is highly inequitable). Most Slavs speak of Albanians in deeply racist terms. Albanian involvement in crime and heroin trafficking doesn't help the country's image much. In other words, once lit, this tinderbox has plenty in it to keep the fire burning.

The arsonists in this case are Albanians from Kosovo, who are supplying their Macedonian brethren with arms and secessionist support. Things have not been going well for Kosovar militants. They have been driven into Macedonia because they cannot operate out of Kosovo, which is now an armed camp of NATO's. The greater tragedy for them was the fall of Slobodan Milosevic. As long as Slobo was in power in Belgrade, independence for Kosovo seemed likely and even imminent. But once he was replaced by a constitutional, pro-Western regime, everything changed. Now the West's principal goal in the region is to support the fragile democracy in Yugoslavia. Kosovo's independence might have to wait. Apparently some Kosovars won't.

Of course moderates on all sides might prevail. But the recent history of the Balkans has been that, when ethnic tensions and violence rise, extremists prosper and moderates lose support. In a crisis, Leninists tend to win. There is little doubt that NATO's forces could crush the rebellion in Macedonia. And in the short term they should do so, to prevent violence from emboldening the rebels and weakening the Macedenonian government.

But NATO has to ask itself, what are its longer-term political goals? Like the Ottomans and Habsburgs before it, it is now the dominant power in the Balkans. Also like those other empires, it preserves peace among dissenting nationalities. But in the process NATO has become the principal obstacle standing in the way of the national aspirations of virtually all its subject populations. In Bosnia, the Serbs and Croats wish to be freed from a unitary Bosnian state but cannot do so because of NATO. The Kosovars want independence but are prevented from doing so by NATO. (The Serbs of Kosovo also wanted self-determination, but that problem has mostly been dealt with by ethnic cleansing; 200,000 of them have fled into Yugoslavia since NATO's occupation.) And now the Albanians of Macedonia might well see NATO as standing between them and their desire for greater freedom.

Of course, NATO sees itself not as an imperial power but as a trustee, helping its wards along until they become democratic, capitalist and peace-loving. These forces might well come to the Balkans, but it might take a while. In the meantime, is NATO helping matters by preserving the fiction of multiethnic states? The recent history of the Balkans--indeed, of much of Europe--is sad but clear: multiethnic states have broken down into civil war. Ethnically homogeneous states have more often lived in peace with one another.

Why not create arrangements that, while giving up on the ideals of religious and ethnic coexistence, might actually keep the peace? Besides, by clinging to old borders that few inside them support, NATO is thwarting people's political aspirations. This is an awkward stance for an alliance that has made the promotion of democracy one of its goals. And even if it were desirable, is it feasible? In an age of nationalism no imperial mandate--however benign--can last long. People soon decide that they prefer their own government, however bad, to foreign rule, however good.

NATO should begin to think seriously about giving power to any community that wants it--in Bosnia, in Kosovo--and perhaps privately urge the Macedonian government to do the same. The Albanian enclave in Macedonia could easily be detached into its own entity. Then if the Albanians of Kosovo and Macedonia want to stay separate or join hands, it's their choice. If the Serbs of Bosnia want to join hands with Belgrade, good luck. If the Croats want to get in on the new Croatia, mazel tov. As long as it is done through negotiations and in peace, what difference does it make how many new statelets arise? All we need is a few new chairs at the United Nations.

Of course, NATO forces will have to stick around to keep things peaceful. This crisis should not produce a fresh round of questions about America's interests in the region or about its "exit strategy." Over the past three years our commitments have created interests (even though in foreign policy it should usually be the other way around). NATO is now primarily a Balkan policing and reconstruction organization. The point is not that it needs an exit. The point is that it needs a strategy.