I have a bad feeling about this (AP - Superpower Divide Over Kosovo Widens):
A day after Kosovo declared independence, ethnic Serbs in the north angrily denounced the United States and urged Russia to help Serbia hold on to the territory that Serbs consider the birthplace of their civilization.
Protesters also marched in Serbia's capital, and that nation recalled its ambassador to the U.S. to protest American recognition for an independent Kosovo.
Despite clamoring of Serbs to retake Kosovo, Serbia's government has ruled out a military response.
It's like watching a car crash in slow motion, you can clearly see where the car departed from normal driving, where things passed the moment of no return, and the exact point where the metal started to slowly buckle on impact. For the U.S. and the E.U. their position on Kosovo independence grew naturally from the events of the 1990's, when NATO intervened to prevent ethnic cleansing. Kosovo independence just makes, it seems just, except that it doesn't, and it's not. Armed third parties have backed an independence movement and a fully recognized country at the heart of Europe now has to decide what to do about being forced to give up territory. I'm sure that like our slow-motion car crash, events will move slowly at first, there will be diplomatic maneuvering at the U.N., small civic protests in Serbia, and then Russia and Serbia will forge a comprehensive diplomatic and military response and then things will really get out of control.
I get the impression that the U.S. and the E.U. clearly believe that Russia will acquiesce to this dismemberment of their ally Serbia, that this whole matter of ripping apart a country to create a new one without using the United Nations can be finessed because they want to make it so. I think they are underestimating Putin and his resolve to restore Russian power. In the 1990's, the tipsy Boris Yeltsin was the leader of Russia, and he and the Russia at the time were in no position to draw lines in the sand to protect their allies. Putin and the now oil-rich Russia are in an entirely different situation. I think Kosovo may well be the object Russia uses to teach the rest of the world the lesson that Russia is back. Putin pretty much has to, otherwise his bluster of the last few years has been simply that, bluster. And anyone who has been paying attention knows there's more to the man than bluster. I think a great storm has just begun, a storm that threatens to shake the foundations of the E.U. and the U.N. and bring the U.S. and Russia into direct conflict. I hope I'm wrong.