America's Balkan Disengagement?

In: Survival: global politics and strategy, Band 43, Heft 4, S. 123-135

Abstract

In the world after September 11, international attention to the Balkans is declining. Western priorities are shifting, & drawing resources with them. The region's historic window of opportunity, which opened at the end of the 1990s, may be swinging shut. Changes to the transatlantic relationship will have multiple knock-on effects on policies & attitudes toward the region. These are likely to include the accelerated disengagement of the US from the direct management of the postwar Balkans. As developments in Macedonia in 2001 demonstrate, military, economic, & political responsibilities will be overwhelmingly assumed by the EU, its leading members &, in particular, by those West European countries -- such as Italy & Germany -- that are most exposed to Balkan instabilities. Adapted from the source document.