Another war in Europe? Tensions between Serbia and Kosovo are high.

 

A roadblock that appeared in Kosovo. BBC/Reuters. 

Tensions between Serbia and Kosovo are high with fears of another European war breaking out. BBC. Serbia has raised their military alert to the highest level after claims that Kosovo is targeting ethnic Serbs in the country. Kosovo is a majority Muslim country with a small Serbian Christian minority. Serbia says that Kosovo is plotting terror attacks against Serbs and claims that there was a shooting incident targeting Serbs, though nobody was hurt. The high tensions started over a dispute over license plates, of all things, after Kosovo demanded that Serbs in the country give up their Serbian issued license plates. NATO has peacekeepers deployed in Kosovo. 

My Comment:

What a stupid thing to potentially go to war over. License plates? Really? Both sides appear to be extremely foolish to push an issue that absolutely doesn't matter. And it would seem to be easy to come to a compromise. Perhaps two license plates at once? I'm far from an expert about the region but given the bad memories of the pervious war they should be able to come to a compromise.

Regardless, it's not really about license plates, it's about Muslims and Christians not being able to get along. Kosovo is majority Muslim and the Serbs have a valid fear that the Serbs still left in Kosovo could be attacked. Kosovo doesn't like the Serbs having control in their territory. It's a mess. 

What is sad is that this issue was solved under President Trump. Trump was able to use Richard Grenell to broker a deal between the countries and normalize relations. Trump used the carrot of economics to bring the sides together but I guess Biden wasn't interested in keeping the agreement up. 

Biden isn't really focused on the issue at all. If he cares about a 2nd major war breaking out in Europe I haven't heard about it. Biden, scatterbrained at the best of times, is focused on Ukraine to the cost of everything else. It might backfire on him. 

If a war does break out NATO troops will likely be involved. And unlike Ukraine it would probably involve boots on the ground. For some reason NATO is on the side of Kosovo and would probably attack Serbia if a war broke out. I personally think that it's none of our business and that we should not get involved, but I don't think that will happen. 

Any such war would force the United States into a difficult position. They can't single handedly fund the Ukraine war while at the same time doing combat missions in Kosovo and Serbia. Tough choices would have to be made. I personally would be ok with either abandoning Kosovo or the Ukraine war since I don't want us to be involved with either, but it would be an interesting discussion to see who wins out in that fight. 

But war is not inevitable. Right now it's just a bunch of saber rattling and there is every chance to avoid a conflict. A compromise on the plate issue seems like common sense and it's very possible that a deal could be made. Unfortunately I don't see the Biden White House focusing on diplomacy as they have pretty much completely given up on diplomacy and like I said, they don't care about anything else but Ukraine...