Recognition of an independent Kosovo will start a drive-by shooting trend, and demand for a self-appointed cops on the beat. Basque separatists, Welshmen or Scots could set up their micro-states. This unusual trend could formalize the rift between French- and Dutch-speaking Belgians or trigger nationalist trends in Corsica. Equally, it can rekindle visions of aspirant Hungarian minorities in Western Romania, Kurds in Eastern Turkey, or minority Turks in northern Greece. While we are at it, why not split Italy, Switzerland and Germany with this warped logic? Some absurd thinkers are very eager to redraw borders. Just pit Catholics against Protestants or both of them against the Orthodox and watch it all burn through what the EU is all about. Given the election season in the U.S., why keep the Red States and Blue States together with some silly excuse called the Constitution? Could France demand the reversal of the Louisiana Purchase?

Some nineteen years later, the rapid disintegration of Yugoslavia is still a baffling thought. It was an example of how a multiethnic society and skillful, educated people can get along, independently balance socialist and western systems and set aside differences between the Slavic Orthodox, Catholics and Muslims. But where did the confusing storm of hate come from? A beautiful land suddenly transformed into a laboratory for the New World Order. It was either a side punishment for the USSR or an exemplary show for other ex-Warsaw Pact members. Perhaps Westerners were not sure that the Warsaw Pact was truly dissolved. Like Iraq, Yugoslavia became a laboratory for experimental policy—where a thousand things could go wrong at the hands of uninformed outsiders, and only a few ideas could gain currency.

Like the Iraq of our times, a good client of Yugoslavian wares and hard-line Tito politics, the first seven or eight uncontrollable years and the thousand thoughts did in fact go awry. Civil wars, novice politicos from academia, pseudo-democratic hybrids, devolution by force or rebellion or referendum, currency meltdowns, disarmament, no-fly zones, foreign NATO forces, UN Security Council mandates, territorial segmentations and Berlin-style enclaves were part of the practice along with several conferences and faux “peace deals”. Extra venom was served on the side by bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade. The archives of Yugoslav security services and the Ministry of Defence, across from the U.S. Embassy in Belgrade, were the first bomb targets--if only to remove unwanted files and stories of the past. The final product is a rusty creature; the self-defeating Dayton Agreement that had no follow-through steps. Some thirteen years later, it is a running life-support machine while the local economy remains crippled and more than a 800,000 Bosnians are displaced.

Serbs revolted against their leader some nine years ago and sent Milosevic and others to a special criminal court in The Hague. They embarked on a new course and direction and nursed through a fragile democracy for eight years in an attempt to weave European principles through the nationalist ways. They started to deal with economic problems. And now, they face a roughly cut, intolerant scheme of collective punishment for deeds of the previous generation. Some 15% of Serbian territory and population together with sites sacred to Orthodox Slavs (say, their Jerusalem or Najaf or Angkor Wat) is about to be amputated. It seems the “West” cannot be bothered to review its 13-15 year old assessments that are about the crimes of a man that died in prison. Must all Serbs carry the burden the crimes of the Milosevic generation; or two Bosnian madmen (Karadic and Mladic)? How come Iraqis are liberated and Sunnis are pardoned in an amnesty, but Serbs, Croats, Bosnians and Kosovars are still chewing on events of 1980s? Did NATO endeavour to unify Germany or keep the Austro-Hungarian Empire divided?

This can only be analyzed if one looks at the tangled roots of the Balkans and other pending debates within the transatlantic organisations. It is beyond the simplistic fare presented. A series of stress tests and an appraisal of global institutions are the main issues. The most obvious one is the internal dispute within NATO and its search for a future beyond its Cold War structure. Is the new NATO (with new ex-Warsaw Pact members) an alliance of equal votes, and voices like EU? Or is it a top-down pyramid and a tool to project American power?

The second stress test applies to UNSC resolutions. It will be a trial of the institution and whether it is a serious and unbiased organisation, or a dilapidated old creature stuck in the wake of World Word II and narrow definitions of security. Commitments to keep peace within Resolution 1244 and The Hong Kong style, one state-two systems will be tested. In that Resolution, UNSC specifically recognised and affirmed the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, now Serbia, in which Kosovo is a province of a sovereign state.

The integrity of the world’s largest security agreement of 56 nations, the OSCE, will also be tested in this series. This test might well determine whether or not it is a mere talk shop and a place for insincere posturing.

The rudimentary and poorly assessed recognition of an independent Kosovo is a ruse and a gauntlet set up for Russia. But the state of affairs will uncover fault lines in global institutions in a dire need of modernization. The shallow end of the thinking pool is out to harm and destroy the rule of international law. That is a lot more dangerous than just a childish poke at Russia.