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Balkan nations, dealing with their own problems, face meddling from NATO and Russia and difficult energy decisions.

By David B. Kanin Not long ago, I took part in a conversation about the long-running soap opera called the Pristina-Belgrade dialogue.  Not surprisingly, most Western participants stressed the need for broader and deeper European and — especially – American involvement in another round of the usual diplomacy.  The majority of academics and journalists from the region were content to surrender authority for their future to the outsiders.  My observation that these powers have proven they have no strategy for managing (much less solving) Balkan problems and suggestion that economic, soci...

By David B. Kanin In April 2013, at the moment European Union dignitaries were declaring that Serbia and Kosovo had agreed to participate in a dialogue under EU mediation, a bunch of Balkan watchers happened to be together at a yearly conference devoted to exchanges of views on nations, nationalities, and other forms of communal identity.  A well-known public intellectual invited those interested in the region to attend a plenary session to discuss the implications of the new development.  (Truth be told, I was not invited but heard about it and showed up).  Many of those present expressed...