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It took 77 days for NATO bombs to drive Serbian forces out of the small Balkan province of Kosovo during the 1999 war. The effort to get Serbs and Kosovars to agree on the implications of that outcome has taken eight years, consumed billions of dollars and entangled a legion of diplomats. It's not working. By Dec. 10, Serb and Albanian negotiators are supposed to sign on to a detailed, internationally vouchsafed plan for a peaceful separation of Kosovo from Serbia. But Kosovo's ethnic Albanian leaders are on the verge of scuppering the already deadlocked talks by unilaterally declaring independence. And Serbia, backed by Russia, remains loudly opposed to Kosovo's independence under any circumstances. "We're looking at a slow-motion train wreck," says Tomas Valasek, a Balkan specialist at the London-based Centre for European Reform. While a new war is unlikely, and there is a slim chance that a deal could be salvaged, the Balkans appear poised once again to reveal the stark limits of international diplomacy.

The wreck has its origins in the 1999 United Nations resolution that ended the Kosovo war. Under pressure from U.S. warplanes, Serbia's then President Slobodan Milosevic agreed to withdraw troops from Kosovo and cede control to the U.N., provided the province legally remained part of Serbia. But that condition has proved unacceptable to ethnic Albanians, who make up 90% of Kosovo's population. A subsequent U.N. plan to grant Kosovo full but "supervised" independence foundered on Russian threats of a veto in the U.N. Security Council. So last summer, the U.S., Russia and the European Union decided to give the two sides until December to make their own deal on Kosovo's status. But after a late September parley in New York produced few results, even the idea of talking appears dead. Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica has declared: "There can be no negotiations on Serbia's integrity and sovereignty."

Kosovo Albanian leaders, who have sought independence since well before the 1999 war, are no less adamant. Late last month Prime Minister Agim Ceku, a former rebel commander, proclaimed that Kosovo is now ready to coordinate a unilateral declaration of independence "with the United States and other countries." If "forced" to do this, he added, he would try to make sure it was not a "surprise."

Any unilateral declaration of independence depends on the willingness of other countries to recognize the new nation. In Kosovo's case, the U.S. has already indicated its intention to do so. But the E.U. is divided: Greece, Slovakia and Spain have said they oppose self-declared independence, largely on the grounds that it would encourage separatism among ethnic minorities in their own countries. Differences within the E.U. not only undermine the unity the West has been keen to uphold, but also could complicate the E.U.'s appointed task of helping to administer an independent Kosovo. "It is Europe that would pay the price if the status process fails," the E.U.'s Enlargement Commissioner, Olli Rehn, has stated, adding that the issue should be settled "not by unilateral declarations or unilateral veto threats, but by effective and responsible multilateralism." But multilateralists have to pull together, so officials from the U.S., France and the U.K. will be pressing the view that European unity on Kosovo is more important than the principle of opposing unilateral declarations.

Behind all such calculations loom concerns over how Serbia and Russia might react to Kosovo declaring independence. All politicians in Belgrade, including pro-Western ones, have publicly opposed full independence; Serbs in neighboring Bosnia have even threatened to split from Sarajevo in retaliation. Serb officials say war is not an option, but Belgrade could suspend diplomatic relations with the U.S. and other countries that recognize Kosovo. Losing Kosovo, a vital locus of Serbian national feeling, may also radicalize Serbian politics and push moderate nationalists like Kostunica away from the E.U. and into Russian hands. "Serbia should not seek the company of those who support tearing a piece of our territory away," Leon Kojen, a former chief Serbian negotiator, told the Belgrade daily Politika. Russia's intransigence, meanwhile, is part of a general hardening of Moscow's stance on a range of issues affecting its border with E.U. and NATO member states. A forced resolution in Kosovo is bound to increase tensions between Russia and the Western allies.

The situation puts paid to long-cherished hopes that Kosovo could be guided toward independence and widely heralded as a new nation. Instead, U.S. backing for Kosovo's independence and Russian backing for Serbian unity is encouraging both sides to dig in their heels. This part of Europe has already, to paraphrase Winston Churchill, produced more than its share of history. In Kosovo, it appears doomed to keep doing so.

• ANDREW PURVIS
• The Balkan ghosts are back: Kosovo is heading for independence, and Moscow doesn't like it