Macedonian soldiers come under fire from ethnic Albanian rebels
Not at all. This is an important tactical victory for the government, but the rebels have been repelled rather than destroyed. They have retreated, either into the mountains or back into Kosovo. The real challenge is now political — whether the government can cement its military gains by making new efforts to address the grievances of Macedonia's Albanian population. What is at stake now is the very survival of a multi-ethnic Macedonia, and the crisis is not yet over, even though there may be a brief respite. If the government is unable to address the political grievances that the rebels have exploited, we could see violence flare up again within the next week.
The success or failure of guerrilla warfare is measured less by the guerrillas' ability to capture and hold territory than by their ability to use armed actions to transform the political situation. By that measure, have the separatist guerrillas succeeded in Macedonia?
Guerrilla campaigns aren't measured by territory conquered, or by the outcome of a single battle. In fact, we can't apply purely military criteria. The Macedonian government has scored an important victory over the weekend, but it won't mean very much unless the can capitalize on it politically. The guerrilla campaign has caused the government significant political damage in its relations with the ethnic-Albanian minority, and the country's future may be determined by whether the government is able to repair that damage by political means.
The tactical balance appears to have shifted decisively in favor of the government, in large part because it suddenly deployed helicopter gunships in the hills around Tetovo. How did this come about?
Two MI-24 Soviet era gunships arrived from Ukraine, and just in time from the government's point of view. It's a devastating weapon against guerrillas, as the Afghan mujahedeen found during the 1980s — it was only after the Afghans got Stinger missiles from the U.S. that they could counter those gunships, and the Albanian fighters in Macedonia obviously don't have anything like that.
But there's an interesting story there, since these gunships require a well-trained crew — we have to assume that the crew was Ukrainian, and the interesting question is how this decisive military aid was so quickly arranged. In particular, the question is whether it was brokered by the West or by Russia.
A large number of refugees appeared to cross over into Kosovo during the Macedonian military's offensive. Could that change the political picture?
Right now, we're talking about a few thousand people, but it's not yet a humanitarian crisis — human rights and aid organizations in the area have not characterized it as such. It doesn't look like ethnic cleansing. Rather, it's a large number of civilians temporarily fleeing a battleground. Most have not declared themselves refugees, and say they'll return when the situation is normalized. They're taking shelter with relatives and friends rather than humanitarian agencies, so it appears that they see their situation as temporary. But if fighting resumes, it could easily become a humanitarian crisis. So once again, the question is whether the government in Macedonia is now able to take political steps to consolidate its short-term battlefield victory. Right now, the situation could still go either way.