Heading Off War in the Southern Balkans

Misha Glenny

From Foreign Affairs, May/June 1995

Article preview: first 500 of 3,403 words total.

Summary:  The Clinton administration erred grievously in threatening intervention in the northern Balkans (Bosnia, Serbia, Croatia) and then quailing when it was needed. But in the southern Balkans (Macedonia, Albania, Greece, Turkey), U.S. diplomacy has been successful, particularly compared with the clownish efforts of European nations. Capable U.S. envoys have worked hard to reverse the growing polarization of Greece and Turkey. Moreover, U.S. support has helped reinforce the fragile geographic firewall, Macedonia, thus preventing a wider regional war.

Misha Glenny is the author of The Fall of Yugoslavia: The Third Balkan War and The Rebirth of History: Eastern Europe in the Age of Democracy and a former correspondent for the BBC World Service.

BOSNIA AND MACEDONIA: TWINS

In the month prior to late June 1991, when war engulfed the former Yugoslavia, the presidents of two constituent republics, Alija Izetbegovi'c of Bosnia and Kiro Gligorov of Macedonia, spared no effort trying to close the widening chasm between Serbia and Croatia. Both men understood that in the event of armed conflict their republics could be the bloodiest theaters of war. Bosnia was especially threatened because it formed a wedge between Serbs and Croats as they attempted to establish the borders of their new nation?states by force.

Macedonia, so far, has escaped the horrors that its twin, Bosnia, has suffered. Yet if war continues in the northern Balkans, a gradual destabilization of Macedonia is almost certain to magnify the threat to its existence and to the wider security of the southern Balkan region. Even with relative peace in the northern Balkans, the tensions between ethnic Albanians and Macedonians make for a fragile state.

The political problems facing Macedonia are remarkably similar to those that destroyed Bosnia. Throughout the Cold War, both republics depended on the Yugoslav federation to ward off the territorial claims of their more powerful neighbors. The majority populations of Bosnia and Macedonia are relative newcomers to the Balkan drama. The Muslim and Slavic Macedonians have assumed the character of a modern nation only since 1945, partly due to a gradual historical maturation and partly due to Marshal Josip Tito, the former Yugoslav dictator, who encouraged Macedonian development to dilute the influence of Serbs and Croats in Yugoslavia. Macedonians are no longer satisfied to be cast as extras, the role allotted them during World War II. This time they have claimed center stage by asserting the right to form the core of two new nation?states in the Balkans. This makes the current conflict more complicated than its predecessor of 1941?45.

But the chief similarity lies in the two nations' strategic importance for the region. Dominance of Bosnia is the key to control of the Adriatic coast. Macedonia is the only territory where the Balkan mountains can be traversed from north to south, from Belgrade to Thessaloníki, and west to east, from Durres to Istanbul. Consequently, these two territories have repeatedly suffered as the main theaters of war when European turmoil has thrown the constitutional order of the Balkan region into question. Their geostrategic importance is paramount.

In modern times, Bosnia and Macedonia have always required the protection of an external power to survive, be it the Austro?Hungarians, the Ottomans, or a federal Yugoslavia. Without such guarantees both republics have had to rely on the goodwill of their minority populations for stability and security: the Serbs and Croats in Bosnia, the Albanians in Macedonia. If that goodwill is withdrawn -- as happened in Bosnia in 1992 -- the republic is finished.

Macedonia is now heading down the same path as Bosnia. Although ethnic Albanians do not have nearly the Serbs' and Croats' military power, Macedonia is even less well?equipped to defend ...

End of preview: first 500 of 3,403 words total.