War Risk Triangle

The killing of policemen, shooting, the planting of explosives and similar acts in the South of Serbia, along the border with the Southern Region are reminiscent of the time which lead to the escalation of bloodshed in Kosovo in the past. With regard to Kosovo where there is no end to violence, there is an ever growing, dangerous tendency toward making threats of resolving the existing violence with additional, greater violence. Admittedly, there is no shooting going on in Montenegro, but the relations between the Montenegrin authorities and the Federal Army are ever more reminiscent of those we witnessed in Slovenia and Croatia in 1991, before any shooting actually took place. The population, which remains obedient in this context, continually perpetuates hearsay picked up at the bakers, the barbers or in a taxi regarding further disintegration and where and how a new war will begin and how it will look.

Who is brandishing weapons and why?

No one in their right mind can say that the KFOR fulfilled its stated mission in Kosovo. As the most pressing problems, safety and the exiling the non-Albanian population are being swept under the rug, while the hawks in NATO and in the American Administration are accusing Slobodan Milosevic's regime both for things for which it is guilty, as well as for things for which it could be guilty, and even for things for which it simply could not be held responsible. It seems that they found an ideal enemy whose nature provides an alibi for the most diverse diplomatic-political-military machinations.

Furthermore, the expansion of the Albanian national movement gathered around the Kosovo Liberation Army cannot be put an end to through a formal disbanding of that Army, through its disarming and channeling into something that this organization is not. Extremists simply have to continue their activities in order to maintain power and influence; because of their ethnic makeup, the bordering communities in the South of Serbia are fertile ground for continuing their work, including the fact that relations between Belgrade and NATO facilitate this to a large extent.

Then there is Slobodan Milosevic himself. The manner in which he holds onto power requires enemies and confrontations. Montenegrin President Milo Djukanovic has been Miosevic's political opponent for some time, while Montenegro is the last remaining place for demonstrating and using force in the manner in which the present regime has practiced thus far. The issue is not, just as it never was, whether the federation will be maintained, but whether the population can be sufficiently frenzied in order for it to support the existing government in the face of a constant, undeclared state of war.

Therefore, are we afoot a new war?

The combination of all these elements makes for a truly explosive mixture. All that remains is hope that the spark which could set fire to the whole will not occur; if not for reasons of sanity, then at least because of the fact that a crisis caused by some new war would sweep away all the interests that potential players could have staked in the whole. This holds equally true for the hawks in NATO, as it does for the extremists in the KLA and for the regime in Belgrade. However, the fact is that the current regime in Serbia has reached its last days. It is unable to normalize and stabilize relations with the rest of the world, to reestablish the federation on solid feet and to establish order on the entire territory of this state. That is why the shadow of war is ever present, and the ritual swearing by patriotism and sovereignty among the regime's officials is nothing else but rationalization which avoids admission of impotence and the catastrophic results of policies.