The big Georgia-Kosovo picture

Here's a link to my most recent column for Antiwar.com. With some bows to George Friedman at Stratfor.com, it notes that the roots of the Georgian-Russian conflict lie to a great extent in Kosovo -- not so much that western recognition of Kosovo as independent(though it really isn't) gave Putin a justification for recognizing South Ossetia and Abkhazia, but the original US-NATO decision to intervene over Kosovo with a brutal bombing campaign to stop a "genocide" that never was. That decision was taken over the objections of a Russia that was weak in the 1990s, but now that Russia is stronger it's determined to "get a bit of its own back." Intervention leaves a long trail, and we don't know the ultimate outcome for years, but in this era it usually involves blowback. Bomb Kosovo, get an anti-American-inclined new Russian empire. Invade Iraq, get a stronger Iran. And so it goes.

Kosovan independence

Here's a link to the Register's editorial on Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia. We expressed some skepticism, noting that Kosovo remains a dependent of NATO. Didn't get nto the KLA's long connection with organized crime; now it will dominate the government. It's not that independence as such is a bad idea, but it's likely to unsettle things in a chronically unsettled part of the world. Russia, traditionally a Serbian ally, is opposed, partially also as a way to poke the West, and especially the U.S., in the eye. The Kosovan provinces along the border have fairly heavy Serbian populations, and could opt to be governed by Serbia if Serbia wants to be provocative. After a few demonstrations things seem to have settled a bit, but serious violence is still possible.

However, the decision in 1999 to bomb Serbia to protect it from Serbian domination (the charges of genocide were a bit overblown, though Serbia under Milosevic was hardly gentle). Once de facto independence, enforced by NATO troops, became the reality on the ground, formal independence was reasonably inevitable. When you intervene and create a dependent, you get yourself drawn into situations that have nothing to do with core interests, and even damage them.