1. How We Succeeded In Kosovo
- Author:
- Wesley K. Clark
- Publication Date:
- 09-2019
- Content Type:
- Journal Article
- Journal:
- Brown Journal of World Affairs
- Institution:
- Brown Journal of World Affairs
- Abstract:
- The countries of Southeast Europe contain numerous ethnic groups that are united by shared geography but divided by language, history, and culture. These nations are located at the crossroads of Asia and Europe, and, for centuries, were subjected to Turkish invasion, Austro-Hungarian resistance, Russian Pan-Slavism, Venetian culture along the Adriatic coast, and the respective weights of Islam, Roman Catholicism, and the Eastern Orthodox Church. Melding these groups into the state of Yugoslavia at the 1919 Versailles Peace Conference proved only a temporary solution: with the death of Yugloslav President Josip Tito in 1980, the fractionating forces became dominant, and by 1991, Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, and Bosnia were each struggling to secede or survive against a Serb-dominated Serbia-Montenegro. Southeast Europe became a land of open warfare. In a small corner of Serbia stood a region known as Kosovo, ceded by the Ot- toman Empire to Serbia at the end of World War I. Roughly a square, 65 miles on a side and surrounded by high mountains on three sides, this fertile valley was the center of the nineteenth century Albanian National Awakening. The vast majority of its almost two million people were Albanian, with smaller numbers of Serbs, Roma, and Bosnians. Inside Serbia, Kosovo was designated as the autonomous Province of Kosovo and Metohija.
- Topic:
- Foreign Policy, NATO, Ethnic Conflict, History, and Humanitarian Intervention
- Political Geography:
- Eastern Europe, Kosovo, and Balkans