For Serbia and Kosovo, Support Comes With Strings Attached
After 20 years, the two countries remain enemies. And the superpowers seem to want them to stay that way.
A mural depicting Russian President Putin in Zvecan, Kosovo.
Photographer: Pierre Crom/Getty Images
For centuries, small countries have relied on bigger ones to protect them. The trick was to avoid becoming too much of a pawn in the greater game of the superpowers.
Spanned by mountains that run more than 550 kilometers (342 miles) and bounded by the Adriatic Sea, the Western Balkan region is a case in point. The Greeks, Romans, Slavs, Ottomans, and Austro-Hungarians all used it as a gateway to expand empires, moving populations and redrawing borders in the process. A patchwork of small states might band together to form a buffer for a while before falling apart. They’d find protectors in each of these civilizations—after being conquered.