Kosovo's challenge for Europe

The declaration of independence by Kosovo cannot have taken anyone by surprise really. The Serbian province has been working its way toward this precipitous step for most of the last decade.

Kosovo and Serbia are, of course, part of the former Yugoslavia, which in turn was part of the Hapsburg Austro-Hungarian Empire. This region has been a powderkeg of ethnic conflict and tension for hundreds of years, owing to its location at the crossroads of the Muslim and Christian worlds in Europe.

Kosovo's majority population is Albanian, which makes it quite unlike the rest of Serbia, and has been the primary impulse for independence, the question being one of self-determination.

The United States, Britain and France all have recognized the new nation, while China and Russia have sided with Serbia in declaring the independence movement to be illegal. This unfortunately means that the powderkeg now has a fuse. Whether or not that fuse will be lit should be everyone's concern.

It is really quite easy to understand both sides of the argument. Self-determination - the freedom to govern oneself free from outside influence - is in most modern societies considered a fundamental right.

Yet this right has, and must have, limits. Otherwise, the Balkanization of countries made up of various ethnic and civil minorities would continue out of control as smaller and smaller groups staked their claim to self-rule. Moreover, the right of secession clearly did not prevail in the U.S. Civil War, and we must be cautious when we decide to recognize new nations born of secession lest we strike a too-hypocritical pose.

For Russia and China the problem is much simpler. They have republics and regions of their own which could revolt at any time. China, for instance, will never accept Taiwanese independence, even though the island has had a separate government for nearly 60 years. If the Kosovo model is adopted by the world as the framework for dealing with breakaway republics, then it will embolden the minority populations in nations big and small to try the same.

Is there any solution? Probably not. The power brokers of World War I fashioned the original Kingdom of Yugoslavia in an attempt to forge a new federal identity that would surpass the ethnic and religious loyalties of the disparate population. The iron hand of communism did succeed for a while in keeping the later "republic" together, but eventually the simmering tensions boiled over in bloodshed and collapse.

Yet even if the smaller nations are allowed to exist, they will not willingly get along with each other short of some kind of international force being used as a whip to keep them in line.

That responsibility ultimately has to fall to the Europeans themselves, including Russia. It is absurd to think that the United States will be able to solve this centuries-old problem from afar, and moreover it is certainly long past time for Europe to take the lead in its own defense and security.

Most of our European allies have made it clear in the recent past that they cannot be counted on for much more than lip service when the United States needs help abroad. That's fine, but if they really don't want to see the United States playing the world's policeman, let them clean up their own mess now.