"Well, the attacks in the Presevo Valley area are a campaign issue for all the parties in the Yugoslav election. Milosevic's party is using them to propagate conspiracy theories, saying it's another American plot to dismember Serbia. For President Kostunica's coalition, this has been a chance to prove that they can handle this sort of crisis in a different way than the former regime, and actually cooperate with the international community to solve the problem. The problem is that the guerrillas have no interest in giving up. And of course the wider Kosovo Albanian population, even if they don't support them, won't try to discourage the guerrillas either. For them any trouble for Serbia is good."
Does the fact that President-elect Bush's foreign policy advisers signaled during the campaign that he'd pull U.S. troops out of the Balkans create an urgency for the Albanian separatists to act? After all, the U.S. has been the most enthusiastic backer in NATO of their demand for Kosovo's independence, which is opposed by most European NATO members.
"Yes, but the issue of U.S. troops is much more important than simply what happens in Kosovo or Presevo. If the U.S. pulls out, there would be two consequences: First, Kosovo, but possibly also Bosnia and Macedonia, would plunge into, if not outright war, then at least a permanent state of low-intensity conflict. But even more important for Washington, I don't think the U.S. can pull troops from harm's way in the Balkans and then still demand command and control over NATO troops in Europe. The U.S. would lose its moral claim to maintain the tradition that the commander of NATO in Europe is an American general. And I'm not really sure that Bush is prepared to have the U.S. accept a second-fiddle role in NATO."
Presumably, also, the region's most violent nationalists are also more afraid of the U.S. than of any of the European NATO members.
"Yes, any unilateral withdrawal by the Americans would immediately make the situation much worse. It's not just about troop strength. The Europeans already provide the bulk of the peacekeeping force in Kosovo, but even if they made up the shortage in troop strength if the U.S. pulled out, the problem is the message it sends. Everyone in the Balkans knows it was U.S. leadership that got NATO involved in the Balkans. The interventions in both Bosnia and Kosovo wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for the Americans, and if the U.S. pulls out its troops, that sends a powerful message."