The newest country, the Republic of Kosovo, peacefully declared its independence from Serbia this Sunday, following in the footsteps of Montenegro, which broke away from Serbia slightly less than two years ago. Thousands of gleeful Kosovars took to the streets to cheer the pronouncement. Their hopes for the success of their nascent state were encouraged by the United States’ formal recognition of the new republic, and the promises made by Italy, Germany, Britain and France to follow suit. Yet the celebrations that swept the country were not without a palpable air of uncertainty—Kosovars know better than most that if Kosovo is to become a true nation, independent and self-sustaining, it must deal with a hornets’ nest of thorny international controversies. At the same time, it must cure the internal conflicts and problems that have ravaged it for years.
Kosovo faces its first challenge from Serbia, its often less-than-caring parent country. The former Balkan hegemon has opposed Kosovo’s independence from the start, immediately denouncing the new state’s proclamation as the “illegitimate declaration of a puppet state on the territory of Serbia.” After further anathematizing American and European meddling in what it considers to be its internal affairs, the Serbs removed their ambassador from the U.S.. Crowds in Belgrade marched on the U.S. embassy, and ultimately had to be restrained by riot police.
Kosovo’s place in Serbian national history and mythology stems from the Battle of Kosovo in 1389, where a Serbian-led Christian army was defeated by the Ottoman Turks. Serbs consider this battle to have been a formative moment in their national narrative, and thus claim an intense historical connection to Kosovo. They regard it, in the words of journalist Rob Nordland, “as something akin to the nation’s Jerusalem.” This obvious ferocity of feeling makes Kosovo’s separation far more complicated than that of the nations that have already severed their ties with Serbia. So significant is their relationship with the province, the United Nations declaration ensuring Kosovo’s autonomy after massacres by Serbian troops in 1999 specified that Kosovo remain a part of Serbia. It was clear that Serbia would not let go of Kosovo then, and they almost certainly will not accede to the divorce now.
The UN will likely be unable to legitimize Kosovo’s independence this year, either, due to obstruction by Russia, which also halted last year’s UN attempt to arrange with Serbia a deal for Kosovo’s separation. Russia holds a permanent seat and veto power on the UN’s Security Council, and is Serbia’s key ally. It will almost certainly block any move by the UN to recognize Kosovo’s sovereignty. Not only does Russia share the connections of Slavic ethnicity and Eastern Orthodox religion with the Serbs, it looks extremely unfavorably on the prospect of ethnic separation from a multiethnic union, fearing a precedent that would give credence to the rebellion in its own war-torn province of Chechniya. Russia and Serbia are not alone in this concern. Joining them in opposing Kosovo in the UN will likely be Spain, Turkey and China, countries whose own internal fissures will make them look upon breakaway Kosovo as a threatening precedent. Yet the greatest dangers to Kosovo’s continued independence exist not outside its borders but rather within.
One of two major domestic problems that plague Kosovo is the ethnically based violence that initially brought in the UN. Internal peace exists only because of the ongoing presence of NATO’s Kosovo Protection Force, which has protected the province’s Serb minority from an Albanian majority that still seeks revenge for the ethnic cleansings of the late 1990s. Last week, the EU announced that it would send 2,000 “police and justice” enforcers to provide further security. It remains to be seen if these forces can prevent internecine war in the new country.
Kosovo’s second internal problem is its gloomy economic prospects. Although billions of dollars have been spent on aid and reconstruction, unemployment hovers around 60 percent. If injections of foreign aid don’t continue and increase, Kosovo’s dying economy seems certain to grind to a complete halt.
Crippled by ethnic divisions and economic stagnation, and condemned by the UN’s gatekeepers, Kosovo will not remain independent for long. That Kosovo’s new flag—a blue background surrounding a yellow silhouette of Kosovo with six white stars—hangs from the government’s headquarters in the capital Pristina means nothing. It signals not reality but rather a dream. After all, inside the administrative buildings, Kosovars are not at the desks managing their newly founded country. Kosovo’s administration is run just as it was in 1999, by a combination of the EU, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the UN Mission in Kosovo. So long as the internal and external problems remain—and all the signs currently indicate that they will—Kosovo will not be in control of its own government. Without its own functioning government, a country cannot exist for long, which is why it is only a matter of time before there are, again, 192 nations in the world.