Robert D.Kaplan

The Balkans could shape the end of the century, just as they did the beginning

then went on to suggest the ethnic fissuring of Yugoslav

it is a subjective, broad-brush travel book about the whole Balkan peninsula, not a policy wor

have publicly advocated military action in support of the Bosnian Moslems, even raising the possibility of U.S. ground troops, on CNN and C-SPAN, in the Washington Post Outlook section, and in other forums. Many times in the past several years, at Fort Leavenworth and at Carlisle Barracks, I have made the case for intervention to the U.S. Army

Balkans are a confused, often violent ethnic cauldron? Welcome to much of the world. This does not mean you crawl into an isolationist cocoon

Right now, there are two choices in the Balkans—imperialism or anarchy. To stop the violence, we essentially have to act in the way the great powers in the region have always acted: as pacifying conquerors. The kind of moral solution that many yearn for is one that the Romans and the Austrian Hapsburgs knew well how to provide, one motivated by territorial aggrandizement for their own economic enrichment, strategic position, and glory. Instead, in the Western

You see, Kosovo is smack in the middle of a very unstable and important region where Europe joins the Middle East. In fact, Europe is redividing along historic and cultural line

new alliances are forming, like before World War I. Preventing their growth means pacifying Kosovo

If fighting continues there, it will probably destabilize neighboring Macedonia, which is ground zero for the age-old battle between Greek Orthodoxy and Turkish Islam. But Kosovo is crucial for a bigger reason. Healing the emerging divide in Europe—one that is potentially worse than the division of the Cold War because it is based on religion and culture—means taking at least one more Orthodox country (such as Romania or Bulgaria) into NAT

NATO. But that is impossible as long as Kosovo remains violen