Fifteen Years of Peace-building Activities in the Western Balkans: Lessons Learned and Current Challenge 13 pages, pdf  Download Back

Fifteen Years of Peace-building Activities in the Western Balkans: Lessons Learned and Current Challenge

Publisher: Partnership for Peace Consortium of Defense Academies and Security Studies Institutes

Volume: 13 pages, pdf

Description:  

While Michael Schmunk’s observations presented at the twentieth workshop of the PfP Consortium Study Group on Regional Stability in South East Europe are largely accurate, in this essay I will bring more precise emphasis on a few key issues.1 I will use the case of the Kosovo intervention as an example for my views on the region, and I shall try to generalize some of my experiences in the light of other, more recent interventions elsewhere. A partially subjective approach is chosen to demonstrate the problems that confront social scientists who attempt to bear in mind both the political and the scientific, while recognizing that they belong to two different systems. I will start with a few general statements to provide a frame for the considerations presented: 

-After the attacks of 11 September 2001, it was to be expected that international interest would shift away from the Balkans to other regions of the world. However, this trend has seemed to be reversing itself recently, suggesting that the Balkans will once again become the focus of some international attention. 

-Within the field of intervention analysis, Kosovo (and perhaps Liberia) can be seen as recent blueprints for more massive interventions. Despite the differences between the two cases, the current situation in Afghanistan can be better understood through examining lessons taken from the Kosovo intervention.