[P-Marlowe]

Kosovo is counting on NATO to secure the new nation's borders and help provide stability as Serbia angrily challenges its statehood, the president said Thursday in his first interview since Kosovo declared independence.

Oh boy. This is a dangerous development.

If it comes down to Russia and Serbia v. NATO, this could end in a hail of nukes. That is all we need is for NATO to come to the aid of Kosovo when Russia and Serbia start rolling their tanks to quell this "rebellion". We may soon see the world's first tactical use of nuclear weapons.

[xzins]

It would be crazy to give Russia an excuse for flexing their muscles.

[farlander]

Don’t think so. The Europeans don’t have the balls, and, Kosovo is not *THAT* important to them. I think what we have here is the EU and the US misjudging how important this is to the Russians and the Chinese. That’s what crisis are made of. However, if the Russians press the EU where they’re weak (Russians are masters of linkage), I betcha they fold.

Furthermore, US has the world’s only real expeditionary capacity, and that’s mostly tied up in ME. If NATO was going to get to Kosovo by ground, they’d have to do an amphibious landing in Montenegro (no ports of sufficient size are really available in Albania). It’d be a logistics nightmare. And with resources already thin with the ME engagement, it’d be just an opportunity the Jihadists and Iran would want/need to destabilize Iraq and possibly other countries.

Yea it’s a mess but the scary thing is if Serbia rolls tanks with Russian support there’s not that much that anyone could realistically do. An airborne division of Russian troops would make life seriously nasty down there. Tho, questions remain regarding the levels of Serbian combat readiness - it’s questionable whether they’d even be capable of mustering much to roll with.