The Brčko District model for north Kosovo?

Read more: http://www.transconflict.com/2011/10/th ... osovo-710/

I did not want to post the whole article here but I wanted to comment on the suggestion on the feasibility of cloning the Brcko model for northern Kosovo.

There are some parallels between the two, in so much as they are contested. Brcko was contested between the RS and the federation. The Serbs wanted to keep their corridor in tact and the Federation wanted to split it in half.

Northern Kosovo is contested between the Serbs and Albanians. Serbs want to hold on to something in Kosovo and the Albanians want to establish the rule of law there.

In Brcko they took a third option and that was to make it a separate entity within BiH (which I think was a cop out decision).

I think it worked for Brcko because of the presence of American forces in the region who could back up the arbitrator for Brcko. I think the French who are up there don't have the backbone to clamp down if things got out of hand. Look at the role of European forces in Bosnia during the war... everyone basically fought around them.

One other thing I wanted to add to this is that I find the Brcko agreement unique. Like I said you had American forces up there but keep in mind the Serbs were on the ropes going into Dayton. I don't know what would have happened if the Dayton talks had failed and I think no one really wanted to find out.

I also think that with Northern Kosovo both sides are going to be as tough as possible. I don't think the international community has any way of clamping down on Serbia to force the issue aside from membership in the Eu, and as the Eurozone goes down the drain I can see Serbia thumbing its nose at everyone telling them where they can stick it. Plus Russia still backs Serbia on Kosovo and given that the Russians seem to be stepping up I can see where the Serbs get a lot more intimate with the Russians, especially after Vladimir Putin announced his new vision for creating a new regional block with former members of the now defunct Soviet Union maybe we can add Serbia to the list?