Outside View: Serbs must let go in Kosovo

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 7 (UPI) -- As if Washington did not have enough tumult on its foreign policy plate, another crisis now looms in Kosovo.

Occupied by NATO in 1999 to stem ethnic cleansing of the province's Albanian-speaking majority, Kosovo wants its independence and some threaten violence if their ambition is not realized this month. As part of the NATO contingent, U.S. forces could be caught in the middle of any violence.

Undaunted, President Bush stepped into the fray in his June 2007 trip to Albania when he threw down the rhetorical gauntlet, "Sooner rather than later, you've got to say enough is enough, Kosovo is independent."

Unfortunately, Moscow, bent by Belgrade's strong objection to partition and fearful that the move could set a precedent for restive provinces in the Russian federation itself, takes another view and objects to Security Council endorsement.

But the United States has history on its side: Countries that allow separation are better off than those that do not.

Indeed, modern Russia is the poster child, a fact worth reminding Moscow about in the dialogue about Kosovo's future.

Consider this: It was not too long ago, the late1980s, in fact, that the indolent Soviet Union recognized it could not make it as modern nation state.

Hanging on to internal and external empires had proven to be an unbearable burden.

Internally, Stalin's legacy of suppression, while effectively maintaining a garrison state, had difficulty providing the basic necessities of modernity.

Externally, while the Red Army had efficiently applied sticks to halt revolts in East Germany in 1953, Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, it could not bring Afghanistan to heel. With the Soviet facade of invincibility cracked, its economy faltering and mounting discontent among its East Europe satellites, the Kremlin decided that letting its neighbors go was a better course than hanging on.

The domino effect of the Berlin Wall's fall quickly penetrated the Kremlin's own borders inviting the opportunity for the Soviet Union to disassemble itself.

And while Russia attempted to tether the former Soviet republics through the Commonwealth of Independent States, it eschewed reunion through force of arms -- allowing the collapse to harden.

The relatively placid demise of the Soviet empire provided inspiration to others.

Czechoslovakia responded. With a population divided by separate historical, religious, cultural and social traditions, the country reflected the inherent weakness of the Hapsburg empire from which it derived. Diced by Germany before and during World War II along ethnic lines, it retained a fragile unity in the Cold War only to confront its fissures with the demise of communism.

In 1993, this gave way to the peaceful emergence of two new republics providing yet further evidence that letting go can work.

Lamentably, not every country saw the wisdom of partition without resistance, and hanging on resulted in needless human suffering.

Eritrea, fought a 32 year armed struggle to achieve its 1991 division from Ethiopia. East Timor's 1999 independence from Indonesia culminated a 25 year conflict. In both cases tens of thousands lost their lives.

While the 1990s Balkan wars lasted years not decades, the human sacrifice was in the hundreds of thousands.

Even worse, Sudan's long efforts to hold on to its south put two million into their graves.

In the last two cases, the ballot box emerged as a promising alternative to violence. The result: In 2006, Montenegro exercised the franchise to peacefully end its affiliation with Serbia.

In 2011 the southern Sudanese, hopefully, will have the chance to do the same.

Unfortunately, today, many countries that faced domestic turmoil in the late 20th century continue to ignore the possibilities that letting go offers.

Thus tens of thousands died in the Chechen wars which have ended, for now, in Moscow's uneasy dominion over the province.

In Kashmir, where India and Pakistan have been at loggerheads for decades, New Delhi remains prepared to fight a regional war rather than conduct a plebiscite to define the province's future.

Further east, China -- tempting confrontation with the United States -- continues to fume about the military action it would take were Taiwan to formally declare independence. Then there is Beijing's incorporation of Tibet that remains a continuing stain.

In Iraq, where Kurdish nationalism has blossomed into a relatively stable region, Washington and Baghdad promote a united Mesopotamia when divorce makes sense.

Finally Israel continues to hold on to the West Bank believing that occupation and partial incorporation better serves security while Hamas will not let go the bygone Arab dream of vanquishing the Jewish state.

Kosovo's independence -- which the European Union and NATO peacekeepers promise to supervise -- offers a 21st century opportunity to demonstrate, once again, the benefits of peaceful devolution.

Supporters of the view that creating a country out of a defiant host "defies both moral and legal norms" -- Moscow's argument -- would do well to study the positive legacy that letting go has generated.

In promoting Kosovo's partition, this is the message the Bush administration ought to advance vigorously.

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(Bennett Ramberg served in the State Department's Bureau of Politico-Military Affairs in the George H.W. Bush Administration. The author of three books and editor of three others on international security, Ramberg has also written for Foreign Affairs and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.)

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(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)