Which means Mandzic also fears George W. Bush. The mayor has heard about the Republican presidential candidate’s proposal to phase out U.S. forces from the Balkans and hand over their peacekeeping duties to Europe, which already provides the vast majority of peacekeepers in the region. In an interview with The New York Times, Bush’s senior foreign-policy adviser, Condoleezza Rice, explained that the governor was talking about a “new division of labor” among NATO allies. Extended peacekeeping in the Balkans, she said, harms the readiness of American forces to carry out their primary mission: fighting and deterring full-scale wars in places like the Persian Gulf and Taiwan Straits. The Clinton administration–and the Gore campaign–quickly criticized the Bush camp. NATO watchers in European capitals worried. And a shudder rippled across the Balkans, particularly among victims of ethnic cleansing who now enjoy international protection.
Many people there don’t see why the U.S. military can’t stay in the region for the long haul, just as it has in Korea. Not one American GI has been killed in the Balkans as a result of hostile action, and Washington has already withdrawn roughly 16,000 of its peacekeepers from Bosnia. In Kosovo, where the ethnic Albanian majority held its first free municipal elections last weekend, many people see American GIs as saviors.
An American pullout could also have an impact on NATO. “We must remain true to the principle that NATO is one for all and all for one,” says Holbrooke, a leading candidate to be secretary of State if Al Gore wins the election. The Europeans, in any case, won’t be easily persuaded to play it alone. “That’s always the position in the United States: to get back your soldiers and live like you’re on a big island,” says Col. Yves Kermorvant, a Frenchman stationed in Mitrovica, one of Kosovo’s most volatile cities. “But you can’t do that. You are the leading country of the world. And you have to deal with the world’s problems.” And the Balkans is one of the biggest.
