The next Balkan war is about to begin. The West, unwittingly, has already planted the seeds.

The clashes this past week in the town of Mitrovica and the escalating attacks against United Nations and NATO trucks and vans transporting Serbs are indicative of the increasing frustration of the Kosovo Albanians as well as the Serbs in Kosovo and the rump Yugoslavia.

It is becoming evident that the Kosovo Liberation Army will not give up its fight for independence, particularly after the guerrilla group succeeded in bringing NATO to fight its battle in the first place.

Indeed, NATO and the United States had been working with the KLA even before the three-month bombing campaign that forced Serb leader Slobodan Milosevic to quit Kosovo. U.S. and NATO military commanders had to prepare for the possibility of a ground offensive. In that context, they viewed the KLA as a potential asset. KLA guerrillas knew the terrain and had established bases within Kosovo. If a ground offensive had taken place, they were in an ideal position, in conjunction with NATO commando forces, to cause considerable damage behind enemy lines.

A ground offensive did not materialize. But as NATO and other international forces occupied Kosovo, elements of the KLA followed in their wake, linking up with their guerrilla bands already operating in the region. The KLA quickly permeated the civil and governmental apparatus of the towns and cities in Kosovo, adding a political element to its military capability.

As was the case in Afghanistan, Bosnia and other trouble spots, the KLA had not only received training, but also sophisticated weapons and a variety of small arms and explosives. In effect, the KLA has acquired legitimacy and now represents the aspirations of the Albanian nationalists. After all, from the perspective of the Kosovo Albanians, why did NATO fight if not to support them and their quest for a single home for all Albanians?

Security in the Balkans is inextricably linked to ethnic homogeneity. Minorities in the Balkan are by virtue of their very existence considered vulnerable and a potential threat. Minorities occupying "national space" in host countries adjacent to their "national state" are particularly in danger and have often been treated as a fifth column. It has been said that the problem with the Balkans is too much history crowded into a small space. Almost every Balkan country has territorial claims based on overlapping historical truths. This was partly the cause of the Yugoslav wars and is certainly a factor with the Albanians.

Under these circumstances, the festering crisis in Kosovo is going to escalate, leaving Europe to face its first drawn-out war in the new millennium, with the likelihood of additional NATO commitment. (In Washington yesterday, France's visiting defence minister said his country will send as many as 700 extra troops to Kosovo. The announcement came after a senior NATO military official said in Brussels that commanders of the NATO-led peacekeeping force had called for reinforcements because they felt that 30,000 troops in the southern Serbian province are not enough.)

It seems unlikely that the Americans or the Europeans will be able to disengage from the Balkans in the near future. Indeed, the geopolitical dynamic in the region will be determined by the impact of refugees and minorities, the activities of the KLA and the policies of Mr. Milosevic in Montenegro and in Kosovo. The next hot spot, however, is likely to be the former Yugoslav republic of Macedonia, Kosovo's neighbour.

Although a large number of Albanians returned to Kosovo, some, including members of the KLA, have remained in the former Yugoslav republic. As a result, the small republic is hard-pressed to cope with demands brought forward by an increasingly militant Albanian minority. Increased trade with Greece and support from Athens mitigate the problems to some degree, but the pressure from a well-armed KLA in Kosovo may prove irresistible.

Before the war, the Albanians represented anywhere from 20 per cent to 40 per cent of the population, depending on who calculated the statistics. But the fact remains that there is a substantial Albanian minority that does not identify with the Slavic-speaking majority and is physically located next to Kosovo. The almost begrudging response by the authorities to the Albanian refugee problem during the NATO bombing left little doubt that more Albanians were not welcome. In addition, the expanding traffic of weapons and explosives from the KLA in Kosovo and periodic killings and bombings in Skopje is a reminder that the Balkan problem is simmering there.

The frequent hostilities in Macedonia between the government forces and militant Albanians are either instigated by the KLA or are inspired by the success of the Albanians against the Serbs in Kosovo.

It is unlikely that the Skopje government can survive a major upheaval. The KLA needs the support of the local population to survive, and the price of that support is a policy of national affirmation -- in other words, a Greater Albania. If Macedonia loses its cohesion and falls apart, the vacuum created will inevitably cause a chain reaction dragging Yugoslavia and Bulgaria into the fray.

The Milosevic regime would jump at the opportunity to rehabilitate its public image by taking advantage of any opportunity to reclaim parts of the lost Serbian province of Macedonia. The Bulgarians, on the other hand, will intervene, since they consider the small republic a historical part of Bulgaria. The Slavic-speaking inhabitants are considered Bulgarians, and their fate cannot be left in abeyance regardless of whichever regime is in Sofia. Hostility for Albanian Muslims could easily spill over on the Muslims in Bulgaria, thus dragging Turkey into the Balkan pot. In the 1980s, Turkey and Bulgaria had come close to war over the treatment of Bulgarian Muslims. Greece, on the other hand, will face the challenge of coping with as many as two million refugees on its northern borders and as the only European Union and NATO member in the eye of the storm.

Finally, there is the Russian wild card. It is not certain how Russian President Vladimir Putin will react to future Balkan crises. The new Russian leader can choose the path of least resisitance and provide clandestine assistance to the Serbs, or adopt a more aggressive and open policy in supporting Yugoslavia.

Are the Balkan peoples doomed to undergo a cycle of war, death and destruction? If history is any indication, the recent conflict is simply a continuation of a process that has been unfolding for more than 1,000 years. Before NATO forces entered Bosnia and Kosovo, it was the armies of Nazi Germany in the Second World War and those of Kaiser Wilhelm II during the Great War, before it became fashionable to number global slaughters. In the 19th century, the Balkans were the battleground of struggles for independence against a corrupt and decaying Ottoman Empire. Five hundred years earlier, it was the fossilized and decrepit Byzantine Empire that had lost the territory to the Ottomans; before that, the Romans and the Greek city-states fought for control of the region.

Now it is the Americans, who have led the NATO alliance in their own peculiar foray into the Balkan quagmire. The peace accords NATO achieved that ended almost three months of intensive bombing of Yugoslavia do not offer a practical solution to the problem of the KLA or Albanian nationalism, nor do they achieve security for the Balkans. Sadly, they lead to further war, millions of displaced persons and the prospect of new chapters in Balkan history.


André Gerolymatos is director of the Research Institute on Southeastern Europe at Simon Fraser University. He is the author of The History of the Balkan Wars, to be published this fall by Stoddart.

###