Postscript, June 2003: Re-making the Balkans

Abstract

The demolition of Yugoslavia has been accomplished with such thoroughness that the name itself has disappeared from the map, and now other crises fill the headlines. Four years after NATO’s humanitarian bombing of Serbia and Kosovo, the action has shifted to the Eurasian heartland, with the invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The destruction of Tito’s Yugoslavia opened up the way to the reconstruction of the Balkans along lines that would secure the rearguard of this eastward geopolitical advance. The Eastern Question has been solved: the front lines of contending great powers no longer bisect the Balkans, and the region is to be incorporated into the European Union, under the umbrella of American global military power. Now the problem is how to fill the vacuum with states created according to liberal-democratic specifications. What follows is an interim report on work in progress.