Balkans

THE WEAKEST OF the successor states to the former Yugoslavia, Macedonia has in its decade of existence avoided the bloody traumas of the others. Until now. NATO peace-keepers in Kosovo need to police the border better to prevent arms from reaching the ethnic Albanian insurgents in Macedonia. The United States should make clear it is not leaving the area before peace prevails. Intervention in Macedonia itself, though called for by Russian President Vladimir V. Putin, is not an issue. Macedonia has not sought it. The fighting is brought by two small groups that have only recently appeared inside the country; one is an extension of the guerrilla Kosovo Liberation Army.

PHILADELPHIA -- It's testing time for the Bush administration in the Balkans. Already. The Bush campaign mantra was that we should bring our NATO troops home from Bosnia and Kosovo. The Bushies backed off after the Europeans rightly complained their troops were doing most of the job of stabilizing the region. But the U.S. unwillingness to do its share is encouraging a few hundred Albanian guerrillas to grow increasingly bold. The guerrillas are smuggling arms over the Kosovo border to fight in areas of Serbia and Macedonia populated mainly by ethnic Albanians.

NO ENEMY threatens the 19-member North Atlantic Treaty Organization. But some members' fears that their troops' health is endangered by other members could sow distrust and weaken the alliance from within. Much depends on whether NATO makes good on the promise by its secretary-general, Lord Robertson, to share all information about the effects of depleted uranium shells and missiles fired during Balkan campaigns in the 1990s. The United States, Britain and France used such ammunition.

LONDON - Nearly two years after the 78-day Yugoslav air war stretched the limits of NATO cooperation, the 19-nation alliance is facing a new struggle: a mounting European public relations disaster over "Balkan syndrome." Yesterday, Britain reversed its policy and joined other European countries offering voluntary medical tests for troops fearful they might have been exposed to depleted uranium in the Balkans, most prominently in ammunition used by U.S. forces in the 1999 Kosovo conflict.

PARIS - Pekka Haavisto made startling discoveries on a recent mission to Kosovo to assess the effect of uranium-tipped weapons hurtled on the province during NATO's 78-day bombing war against Yugoslavia in 1999. "We found some radiation in the middle of villages where children were playing," said Haavisto, a former environment minister of Finland who headed the United Nations inquiry in Kosovo. "We were surprised to find this a year and a half later. People had collected ammunition shards as souvenirs, and there were cows grazing in contaminated areas, which means the contaminated dust can get into the milk."

"Eastward to Tartary: Travels in the Balkans, the Middle East, and the Caucasus," by Robert D. Kaplan. Random House. 364 pages. $26.95. The best, most illuminating travel is travel done slowly. The faster the motion, the less one learns about geographical and historical distances at each border. Thanks to diligently slow travel, Robert Kaplan in "Eastward to Tartary" sees the scrap-metal squatters' camps outside capitals, the corruption wrought by thirst for new supplies of oil, the corosion of the spirit imposed by dictatorships, and the sheer messiness of young, weak democracies.

WASHINGTON -- There is an historical theory that goes something like this: Centuries never really begin and end when the calendar says they do. Rather, major shaping events come along somewhere near the start and finish to serve as psychological markers for this "alternate century." A version of this theory argues that the 20th century really began in the Balkans in 1914 with the outbreak of World War I. That said, the wave of democracy that recently swept Slobodan Milosevic from power in Yugoslavia might someday be viewed as the psychological end to the 20th century.

THE SUMMIT OF Baltic states in Macedonia on Wednesday called an end to a decade of war among the republics and peoples of former Yugoslavia. It admitted the present Yugoslavia to membership in the Balkan Stability Pact. This is an agreement under which the European Union plans to invest $4.5 billion over seven years to bring the little countries of southeastern Europe closer to the economic and infrastructural standards of Western and Central Europe. By gaining recognition for himself and for Serbia, the part of truncated Yugoslavia that elected him president, Vojislav Kostunica brought immediate benefits to the Serbian people.

WASHINGTON -- George W. Bush may not know the names of Yugoslavia's new leaders; if he does, he most likely cannot pronounce them. But Mr. Bush's instincts are right. His view is that Washington should not get involved in micromanaging events in the Balkans and that the Europeans should take the lead in matters in their own back yard. Galvanized by the recent bloodless revolution against Slobodan Milosevic's rule, the Europeans have indeed acted vigorously. The European Union (EU) has pledged $2 billion in aid over the next seven years to rebuild Yugoslavia's shattered economy.

WASHINGTON - Slobodan Milosevic's fall is a huge step forward for peace, democracy and economic growth in Yugoslavia, but it doesn't solve the Western democracies' diplomatic headaches in the Balkans, and in some ways makes them more difficult, diplomats and regional specialists said yesterday. "This changes the landscape in the Balkans and certainly in the former Yugoslavia," but it also "presents a number of challenges," a senior administration official who spoke on condition of anonymity said yesterday.