Looming Crisis in Kosovo

Kosovo, a province of Serbia and legally still under Serbian sovereignty, is now administered by the UN with NATO forces, including the U.S. military, providing on-the-ground muscle. This regime was put in place following the 1999 U.S.-led NATO war against Serbia, which included the appalling spectacle of NATO (mostly the U.S.) bombing a major European capital. Frank Carlucci, former U.S. Secretary of Defense, has a column in the New York Times today warning that the crisis in Kosovo still looms and could result in a new war in the Balkans. He's right about the danger, although his recitation of the original causes takes the same flawed party line that led the U.S. into this foreign policy disaster in the first place. Americans should pay attention to events in Kosovo. The UN is likely to fail yet again, and the U.S. is going to have to deal with the results of its Balkan policy mistakes.