From Crisis to Convergence - A Strategy to Tackle Instability in the Balkans at its Source

Ninth, convergence opens the way for a Kosovo settlement that impedes 'Greater Albania' and 'Greater Serbia.' The more unitary the Republic of Kosovo, with the country’s north and south intact, the less feasible is any “union of Kosovo and Albania.” Kosovo would move from the catalyst for the violent dissolution of Yugoslavia to the keystone for democratic stability in the region. [...] Without the ability to revise the settlements of the 1990’s, the incentive to revise the facts of the wars of the 1990’s would dissipate, along with the veneration of war criminals from that era. [...] Surprisingly, the US and EU have a good record in mediating recent and centuries-old conflicts in the Balkans – as long as the parties accept and embrace the supremacy of the US- and EU-led Western order for the region. [...] Without the ability to revise the settlements of the 1990’s, the incentive to revise the facts of the wars of the 1990’s would dissipate, along with the veneration of war criminals from that era. [...] In fact, the morass of crises threatening the region flow from the same, unanswered challenge presented by the dissolution of Yugoslavia: defining the place of Serbs – and Serbia – in the Western order for the region.