Synthesis of Discussions and List of Participants

Aspen Institute Meeting on Western Policy in the Southern Balkans
Berlin, October 24-26, 1998

The meeting was arranged by the Aspen Strategy Group and the International Peace and Security Program of the Aspen Institute. This synthesis was prepared by Philip Zelikow. Though participants had opportunities to discuss and comment on the text, it does not necessarily reflect the views of any participant in the meeting. Indeed, some participants may well disagree with the summary and with the way their views have been characterized.

Members of the International Commission on the Balkans, the Aspen Strategy Group, and the International Peace and Security Program met with US and European officials and experts on the issue of Western policy in the southern Balkans. Discussion focused on the crisis in Kosovo which was at a critical point awaiting either Yugoslav government compliance or noncompliance with UN Security Council Resolution 1199.

Please direct all correspondence regarding this project to Mary McKinley, Aspen Strategy Group Program Manager, at the Aspen Institute in Washington, DC.

I. THE CURRENT SITUATION IN KOSOVO (as of October 26-27)

1. Withdrawal of Serbian security forces

The criteria for Serbian compliance are only partially fixed, and formalized in secret communications between Generals Wesley Clark (SACEUR) and Klaus Naumann (Chairman of NATO's Military Committee) and Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic. The goal is withdrawal of forces involved in repression of the civilian population of Kosovo. The goal is being defined in practice by seeking the withdrawal of those Serbian forces that moved into the province during the recent crisis. In other words, Serbian forces are to return, more or less, to the status quo ante (defined as February 1998). Lists of units and weapons that, to date, the West thinks should be withdrawn were accepted by Serbia during the October 24-25 Belgrade visit of Generals Clark and Naumann. On October 26 Clark and Naumann offered their judgment about the extent of Serbian commitments and compliance to representatives of NATO member governments. Those representatives in the North Atlantic Council decided on October 27 to deem compliance sufficient, for the time being.

For those Serbian forces that remain in Kosovo, the UN statement that they should "cease all action ... affecting the civilian population" is being defined, in practice, as meaning that they should be placed in garrison. But that requirement is being defined in practice to allow checkpoints and border controls. It also seems to be accepted that Serbian forces will defend themselves.

2. Ceasefire

Some Kosovar Albanians may respect a temporary ceasefire; others may not. The Kosovo Liberation Army is a fragmented entity; central control is weak. Yugoslav security forces have scaled back their activities, at least for the time being.

3. NATO plans and authority

Since there are no set criteria for Serbian compliance with UNSC Resolution 1199, there is no clear and agreed "trigger" for NATO action. Contrary to the common belief that NATO had made a "decision to grant NATO military commanders the authority to attack the territory of a sovereign country" (Drozdiak, WP, 10/27/98), there was never such a delegation of authority to military commanders. Political authorities reserved and did not make a final decision on whether they would actually authorize strikes. Nor have they decided what targets would be attacked if there were strikes, even though SACEUR could prepare Activation Orders to assemble forces that could carry out air strikes.

NATO member states are now discussing the possible creation of a NATO Reaction Force that might deploy ground troops near Kosovo (probably in Macedonia) to aid or rescue the planned OSCE Verification Mission. However the member governments have not yet agreed on how to proceed, or on the composition, basing, or precise mission of such a reaction force.

As required by NATO's recently adopted "Founding Act," Russia has been consulted about possible NATO action in Kosovo in the Permanent Joint Council. The Russian government's representatives have been steadfastly opposed to any NATO military action in Kosovo and opposed to creation of a NATO Reaction Force. Nevertheless, NATO has chosen to proceed with threats of and preparations for military action.

4. Return of refugees

Credible estimates of displaced persons tend to lie between 200-300,000. Figures on number of refugee returns to date are unreliable. At least 10,000 of the displaced are believed to have no real shelter; many more are in damaged residences that cannot shelter them adequately during the coming winter. An estimated 140,000 Kosovars are outside of Kosovo; nearly a third of this number are in Montenegro and there are refugees in Albania, Bosnia, and Macedonia. Perhaps 40,000 Kosovar refugees are scattered throughout Western and Central Europe.

5. Humanitarian aid

Relief convoys with food, medicines, and materials for temporary shelter are beginning to reach those in need in Kosovo. The main humanitarian organizations -- UNHCR and the ICRC -- are relying on local Kosovars (especially the Mother Teresa organization) to distribute aid, with the assistance of effective informal networks for sharing food among Kosovar Albanian communities. The Yugoslav Red Cross is assisting local Serbs. Camps within Kosovo are being avoided. Assistance is also being provided to those in need outside Kosovo.

6. Political negotiations leading to elections, self-government, and local police

A November 2 date was mentioned by the UN Security Council for interim agreement between the Yugoslav government and Kosovar Albanian representatives on a process toward self-government, "local" police, and OSCE-verified elections. This date is a goal, not a deadline. The U.S. government has offered a set of ideas to aid this negotiating process. Serbs and at least some Albanian representatives are starting to take part in the process.

7. OSCE Verification Mission - plans and timetable

This mission is seeking volunteers from member states; many have been offered but not yet the full number of verifiers needed. The existing U.S./EU/Russian Kosovo Diplomatic Observer Mission team has increased in size and will metamorphose into the OSCE Mission during the next few weeks. It may take longer, perhaps months, to provide the full OSCE Mission with the training, shelter, transport, and communications it will need to provide a resident verification presence throughout Kosovo. The OSCE mission will be paid for under the existing system for large OSCE expenses, with a heavy burden falling on the European Union.

The OSCE Verification Mission will be unarmed. Its job will be to observe and report on the behavior of Serbs and Albanians. Reporting procedures and plans for coordination of political action on those reports are not yet ready and must be clearly established. Any further enforcement or military action in reaction to these reports will require further consideration in the OSCE, NATO, and the UN.

8. Investigation of war crimes

A Finnish forensic team has been allowed to enter Kosovo and conduct investigations.

II. POLICY CHOICES - HUMANITARIAN RELIEF AND BEYOND

1. Sufficiency and cost

The humanitarian crisis has political causes but presents acute, immediate needs for aid and there will be more aid needed if or after displaced persons return to their homes, or what is left of them. Humanitarian organizations such as the UNHCR, ICRC, and NGOs have sufficient capabilities to deliver needed aid in Kosovo, and to refugees outside of Kosovo (e.g., in Albania or Montenegro). The agencies will place their highest priority on emergency aid, including action to make at least one room in a residence livable during the coming winter. The major challenge is political: to create conditions that convince people that they can return safely to their homes. Camps should be avoided.

2. Distribution issues

Kosovar Albanians prefer to accept aid from non-Serbs. Direct distribution is working without concentrating recipients into distribution centers. Naturally the local partners in distributing aid will be politically empowered by that role. The humanitarian agencies also understand that, either directly or indirectly, their aid will help feed Kosovar Albanian rebels in the field.

3. International role and responsibilities in refugee return

The highest priority is the return in safety to weatherproof shelter of those currently without it, in Kosovo. Those displaced now living outside Kosovo are unlikely to return so long as the political situation remains unsettled and dangerous. Humanitarian agencies will not insist that displaced persons return to Kosovo in order to receive aid.

International organizations are not involved in any disputed claims to homes and property in Kosovo. They are relying on compliance with international resolutions by the people with guns in order to give the assurance of physical security that so many people need, and they hope that this will be encouraged by the watchful eyes of international verifiers - especially if the verifiers are staying, day and night, in key locations throughout the province.

International organizations have no current plans to provide aid to rebuild homes, farms, and businesses and replace farm animals, equipment and personal property that have been seized or destroyed. Their priority is to help individuals get through the winter. The European Commission is considering making some economic aid money available. There is also some hope that Belgrade may carry through on talk of providing at least some building materials so that families can make some repairs. Traditional economic assistance would ordinarily go through the central government, in Belgrade, but this would be complicated by sanctions and Yugoslavia's poor status as a debtor so some ingenious mechanism may be needed. If a negotiated political settlement is reached, broader economic aid may be essential to make a settlement (and the lives of the people) sustainable.

III. POLICY CHOICES - POLITICAL/MILITARY

1. Serbian security forces initial compliance with UNSC Resolution 1199 (reaffirmed by Resolution 1203).

Some compliance has already occurred. Pressure continues to coerce the Serbs to do more. Unless Serbian forces commit some startling outrage it seems likely that, as they did on October 27, NATO member states will extend any deadlines for more complete compliance. It is doubtful that any air strikes will be authorized by agreement of NATO member governments anytime soon.

NATO member governments also have almost no plan, and few ideas, for how they would proceed after they had launched such strikes. The remainder of this paper (and most of the points on humanitarian aid made above) thus assume that the Serbs will endeavor to keep their behavior (barely) tolerable to NATO governments and that there will be no strikes against the Serbs in the next few days or weeks.

Instead NATO authorities, and member governments, appear to presume that some Serb compliance with UN resolutions (and NATO demands as the agents of the Security Council) will continue. This means the Serbs will participate in negotiation of a political framework for Kosovar self-government and future elections (without necessarily coming to an agreement on the substance of such an agreement by November 2, or any other time). Belgrade is also expected to permit deployment of the OSCE Verification Mission and allow both NATO aerial surveillance and continued delivery of humanitarian relief.

Some participants in the discussion would, in theory, be willing to endorse Kosovar demands for independence. It will be practically impossible, however, for NATO member governments to move soon toward such an endorsement (even if that was their wish, and it isn't) if Belgrade is judged to be in adequate compliance with the relevant UNSC resolutions.

2. If Serbs adequately comply with imminent NATO demands, the focus changes to Kosovar Albanian choices.

Kosovar Albanian rebel factions have divided and limited control over their forces in the field. Some attacks on Serb forces are therefore quite possible at the present time and well into the future. It seems likely though that, where forces can be controlled, Kosovar Albanian rebels will go into a defensive and opportunistic military stance while NATO and OSCE wrestle with, constrain, or (they hope) attack Serbian security forces. The rebels will use the international pressure, humanitarian relief, and OSCE Verification Mission in order to consolidate and extend areas of control and influence, rebuild their strength, and rearm as much as possible during winter as they prepare for a possible resumption of heavy fighting in 1999.

In the short-term then, a critical choice for Kosovar Albanian representatives is whether they should:

(A) agree to negotiate (half-heartedly, keeping their military options open) a political framework agreement that would define a process leading toward self-government during the next three years, including OSCE-verified parliamentary elections, but accept remaining part of Yugoslavia for at least that period of time; OR

(B) reject any political deals with the Yugoslav government that do not acknowledge or accept eventual attainment of independence. The most adamant Kosovar Albanian factions are likely, if they choose this course, to contemplate ways to isolate or eliminate those Albanian "collaborators" who join in any political framework which leaves the province in Yugoslavia.

At this time Western governments appear decidedly unwilling to endorse Kosovar desires for independence. They do not rule out the possibility of Kosovar independence, especially if the Serbs egregiously defy the international community, but they do not support this goal. Several concerns seem most prominent:

(A) endorsement of Kosovo independence would set an explosive precedent in persuading national communities to remain in the multi-ethnic states of Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia, as well as other countries;

(B) endorsement of Kosovo independence would imply acceptance of a likely war with Serbia, with a further implicit commitment to defend Kosovo against the expected Serbian invasion; and

(C) an independent Kosovo may not be economically or even politically viable, especially given the strife between potential governing factions and the ominous example offered by the breakdown of political authority in neighboring Albania. Western governments may not be ready to create another "protectorate" or "ward" in the Balkans.

3. NATO options for Kosovo if there is adequate Serb compliance with UN resolutions.

If Kosovar Albanians and Serbs are prepared to seek a nonviolent, political settlement for self-government within Yugoslavia for at least a few years, Western governments have prepared a menu of ideas for that negotiation.

If, as seems likely, Kosovar Albanian rebels (and possibly Serbian security forces too) remain relatively dormant during the winter as they prepare for a possible resumption of large-scale fighting in 1999, the only way to preserve peaceful dialogue would be to prevent or deter either side from launching substantial attacks.

Unless the international community is prepared to endorse Kosovo moves toward independence, then to prevent Serbian military action the Serbian forces must, at a minimum, be protected against Albanian assaults or they must be allowed to respond to such assaults in accordance with relevant humanitarian law. The three most difficult challenges for the international community are thus to decide what to do, and what the OSCE Verification Mission should do, to address probable:

• small-scale or covert Serbian attacks on Albanian rebels or civilians (which often takes the form of what Americans in Vietnam called "harassment and interdiction" fire), especially if the attacks are in more remote areas;
• Serbian military reactions to apparent extension of areas under the control of Kosovar Albanian rebel forces (which is already happening as Serbian security forces withdraw); and
• Albanian attacks on other Albanians considered to be collaborating with the Serbs.

Any conceivable NATO options for retaliatory attacks against either Serbian or Kosovar Albanian forces (no such options have been developed at this time) will be problematical once the OSCE Verification Mission has moved into place, especially if the verifiers are dispersed throughout the province. The unarmed verifiers would be vulnerable to hostage-taking or retaliation, or local forces might seek other ways to use the international presence to complicate or frustrate effective targeting of air strikes. If NATO deploys a Reaction Force to protect the verifiers, this force would need to be able to enter Kosovo very rapidly with forces able, at the very least, to defeat or overawe local opposition and extricate the verifiers from danger.

Unless the international community is prepared to endorse Kosovo moves toward independence, then NATO member states must also seek to prevent or deter large- scale resumption of hostilities by stronger Kosovar Albanian forces in 1999. To do that, either Yugoslavia or NATO or both together must prevent easy movement of arms and soldiers between Kosovo and northern Albania and they must attempt to constrain significant improvement of the rebel position within Kosovo. But the rebels are already moving to fill the gap being left by withdrawing Serbian forces.

In effect, Yugoslavia and/or NATO must convince the Kosovar Albanians that they must engage in a peaceful political settlement short of independence because the military option will not succeed. To do this, either Yugoslavia, or NATO forces, or both must appear able to defend the remaining Serb position in Kosovo against Kosovar Albanian attack. Carried into practice, these points imply at least a tacit security understanding between NATO authorities, OSCE verifiers, and Belgrade.

4. Issues in political negotiations:

A political settlement can attempt to undo the Serbian incorporation of Kosovo in 1912-1913 and achieve independence for the province. Or the settlement can have the more modest goal of undoing the 1989 liquidation of Kosovo's autonomy within Yugoslavia. The Albanians support the first goal. The Serbians, and apparently the Western governments serving as mediators, support only the second one. The current Western stance is to pressure Belgrade to offer self-government for Kosovo, not independence, at least for the next 3 years. Then they believe the parties should negotiate the final status of the province.

Those who question the current and more limited Western position on self-government will hear an echo of the reasoning offered by Sir Edward Grey, the British foreign secretary. Grey informed the House of Commons on August 12, 1913 that an agreement had been reached placing Kosovo in Serbia, an agreement that "would be open to much criticism on purely local grounds, but the essential thing was to preserve harmony between the Powers." In 1998, the "Powers" voice concerns about the viability of a Kosovar state and the precedents that would be set for still fragile situations elsewhere in the Balkans, and beyond.

Current Western efforts seek to improve the status of citizens in their ordinary interactions with public authority by guaranteeing certain rights both to citizens and their national communities, and by delegating as much authority as possible to the communal, or the provincial level. It is expected that Belgrade would retain responsibility for defense, foreign policy, monetary policy, and the control of Kosovo's borders.

The Western governments seek to create local police forces which do not now exist, possibly with the assistance of the UN's International Police Task Force. To be resolved are such issues as the staffing of the local police, training such police, how to establish a situation in which they can openly be armed, and how to establish effective command and control over the police without the stigma of association with current Serbian internal security and police agencies.

Other issues for possible negotiation include the nature and conduct of parliamentary elections; minority rights; and the powers and duties of the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia to operate in Kosovo and investigate, arrest, detain, or try individuals suspected of war crimes (under the international law governing civil conflicts).

The Aspen Institute

WESTERN POLICY IN THE SOUTHERN BALKANS

October 24-26, 1998-Berlin, Germany

 

Meeting Participants

MORTON ABRAMOWITZ

Morton Abramowitz is a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. He recently retired as President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and recently served as Acting President of the International Crisis Group, a multi-national non governmental organization headquartered in Brussels and Washington and focused on crisis prevention. Prior to joining the Carnegie Endowment in August 1991, he was United States Ambassador to Turkey. Among his other posts have been United States Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research, U.S. Ambassador to the Mutual and Balanced Force Reduction Negotiations in Vienna, and Ambassador to Thailand.

DANA ALLIN

Dana Allin is currently Editor of Survival at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. He is the former Deputy Director of the Aspen Institute Berlin, and served as Deputy Director of the International Commission on the Balkans. He has served as a professorial lecturer at the Johns Hopkins University Bologna Center and in Washington, D.C. He is the author of Cold War Illusions: America, Europe, and Soviet Power, 1969-1989.

RICHARD CAPLAN

Richard Caplan is a junior research fellow at Jesus College, University of Oxford. He served as the New York Director and Senior Editor of War Report at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting and also worked at the World Policy Institute at the New School for Social Research as their Acting Director and Editor-in-chief of the World Policy Journal. He is the co-editor of Europe's New Nationalism: States and Minorities in Conflict and State of the Union: The Clinton Administration and the Nation in Profile.

ROBERT S. COFFEY

Robert Coffey is a Lieutenant General in the United States Army and Deputy Commanding General, US Army, Europe. He was appointed Chief of Staff, III Corps, Fort Hood, Texas in 1992 before being selected in 1993 to command the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California. He assumed command of the 2nd Armored Division at Fort Hood in 1994, and in 1996 became the Chief of Staff, HQ USAEUR & 7th Army. He assumed his current position in July 1997.

KENNETH W. DAM

Kenneth Dam is the Max Pam Professor of American and Foreign Law at the University of Chicago Law School, where he is Director of the Program in Law and Economics. He is co-Chairman, along with Sam Nunn, of the Aspen Strategy Group. He served as U.S. Deputy Secretary of State (1982-85), Executive Secretary of the Council on Economic Policy (1973) and Assistant Director of the Office of Management and Budget for National Security and International Affairs (1971-72). He has written books on the GATT, the international monetary system and most recently (with George P. Shultz) Economic Policy Beyond the Headlines.

NANCY BEARG DYKE

Nancy Bearg Dyke is Executive Director of the International Peace and Security program at The Aspen Institute, where she has been executive director of major international conferences on conflict management, conflict prevention, international poverty, and the Balkans. From 1989-93, she was on the National Security Council staff as Director of International Programs and Public Diplomacy. She previously served as Assistant to the Vice President (Bush) for National Security Affairs. Other positions she has held include Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Manpower and Personnel; Director of Policy Analysis for Near East, Africa, and South Asia at the Department of Defense; and Professional Staff Member on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

JEAN-MARIE GUEHENNO

Jean-Marie Guehenno is currently senior audit manager, director of the international department at the Cour des Comptes in Paris. He served as Permanent Representative (Ambassador) to the Western European Union from 1993-95. Prior to this he was Director of the Policy Planning Staff in the French Foreign Ministry. He has served as a member of the strategic committee of the Banque de l'Union Europeenne and the director of cultural services of the French Embassy in the United States. He is the author of The End of the Nation-State.

CHRISTOPHER HILL

Christopher Hill is the first United States Ambassador to the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia and US envoy with Richard Holbrooke on the Kosovo crisis. He is a member of the Senior Foreign Service. Prior to this he served as the Director for the Office of South Central European Affairs at the State Department and participated in the Dayton negotiations as a member of the United States negotiating team. He has also held many overseas positions in the Foreign Service, which he entered in 1977, including as Deputy Chief of Mission in Albania 1991-93.

ANNA HUSARSKA

Anna Husarska is currently a political analyst at the International Crisis Group, a staff writer at The New Yorker, and contributing editor of The New Republic. She has worked as a reporter for Spotkania (Warsaw) and Gazeta Wyborcza (Warsaw) and as an assistant editor at The New Leader and the Committee in Support of Solidarity, both in New York. From 1980-84 she worked as a foreign correspondent for the Buenos Aires Herald. She has published many translations of books and plays, working in Polish, Spanish, French and English.

MAREK JEZIORSKI

Marek Jeziorski is adviser to the OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities. Prior to this position he was the head of the South-Eastern European Section in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Poland. He served in the Polish Embassy in Albania from 1984-89, and the desk officer for Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Albania in the Polish Ministry; of Foreign Affairs from 1989-92. He studied at the Hoover Institution at Stanford and the Moscow State Institute of International Relations.

CATHERINE MCARDLE KELLEHER

Catherine Kelleher is the Director of the Aspen Institute Berlin. She was appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia in 1996. Prior to this, she served as Secretary of Defense Perry's Personal Representative in Europe and Defense Advisor to the US Ambassador to NATO. She has been a Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution and served in the Carter Administration in the White House as a staff member of the National Security Council.

CHARLES B. KNAPP

Charles Knapp has served as President of The Aspen Institute since July 1997. Prior to assuming the presidency of The Aspen Institute, Knapp served for ten years as President and Professor of Economics at the University of Georgia. Dr. Knapp was Senior Vice President and then Executive Vice President of Tulane University from 1982 to 1987. He was previously a faculty member at the University of Texas at Austin, 1972-76, and served during the Carter Administration, first as Special Assistant to the U.S. Secretary of Labor, and then as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Labor for Employment and Training. From 1981 to 1982, he held a visiting faculty appointment at the George Washington University.

HERMAN DE LANGE

Herman de Lange has been Chief Adviser responsible for the coordination of reconstruction activities in Bosnia and Herzegovina at the European Commission since 1997. Before this he was head of Unite Task Force PHARE, responsible for the coordination of assistance to the countries of Central Europe. At the Commission he has held the posts of head of division for international agricultural relations, head of the delegation of the EC in Yugoslavia, and agricultural attache in the Washington delegation of the EC.

DOMINIQUE MOISI

Dominique Moisi is Deputy Director of French Institute of International Relations (IFRI) and Editor in Chief of its journal Politique etrangere. He also teaches European studies at IEP in the political science department. He is a regular columnist for the Financial Times.

NICHOLAS MORRIS

Nicholas Morris is the Special Envoy of the UNHCR for the former Yugoslavia (and the Kosovo crisis). He has been a UNHCR staff member since 1973, and from 1973-91 served in Asia, Africa and at UNHCR Headquarters in Geneva. In 1991 he was the UNHCR Special Envoy for the Gulf Crisis, and from 1991-93 served as Chief of Mission in Pakistan. From 1995-98 he was the Director of the Division of Operational Support at the UNHCR Headquarters in Geneva.

CHRISTIAN PAULS

Christian Pauls is an Ambassador, Head of the Kosovo/Bosnia Task Force in the German Foreign Office. He was the head of the Bosnia Task Force in the Foreign Office from 1996-98. Prior to this he was the First Counselor (Political Department) in the German Embassy in Washington, DC. From 1989-92 he was a member of the 2 + 4 Task Force and deputy director of the OSCE Department at the Foreign Office. He also served as Press Counselor at the German Embassy in Rome and in the Inter-German Affairs Department at the Foreign Office.

HUGH POWELL

Hugh Powell is on the Policy Planning Staff at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office of the British government. He served in the European Union Command of the FCO from 1997-98, and worked at the British Embassy in Paris from 1993-97. He joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1991 after attending both Balliol College, Oxford, and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

JOHN ROPER

John Roper is a visiting Professor at the College of Europe in Bruges and is a member of the Council of the Royal Institute of International Affairs, London since November 1995. From April 1990 until September 1995 he was the first director of the Institute for Security Studies of the Western European Union in Paris. He has been a member of the British Parliament, 1970-83; a Labor Party Spokesman on Defense, 1979-81; Chief Whip of the Social Democratic Party, 1981-83; and a senior staff member at Chatham House. He is the author and editor of a number of published works on the problems of British and European defense and Western security.

JACQUES RUPNIK

Jacques Rupnik is Director of Research at the Center for International Studies and Research of the National Foundation for Political Science and a professor at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris. He served as Executive Director of the International Commission on the Balkans. He has been a Research Fellow at the Russian Research Center at Harvard University, a specialist on Eastern Europe Affairs for the BBC World Service, and an advisor to Vaclav Havel, President of the Czech Republic.

JAMES SCHEAR

James Schear is Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Peacekeeping and Humanitarian Assistance. Prior to this appointment, he was a resident associate and Abe Fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. From 1989-95, he consulted at the United Nations on a wide range of international security matters. He began his career in 1978 as a foreign affairs officer at the US Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. During the 1980s he held research appointments at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, Harvard University, and the Brookings Institution.

THEO SOMMER

Theo Sommer is the publisher of Die Zeit. Before becoming the publisher in 1992, he became the Deputy Editor in 1968 and was the Foreign Editor from 1958. In 1969-70, he was the Chief of Planning Staff in the West German Ministry of Defense, returning to Die Zeit as Editor-in-Chief in 1973. He also is the author and editor of several books on international affairs, strategic questions, and German and European problems.

LEO TINDEMANS

Leo Tindemans is a member of the European Parliament. He is former Prime Minister of Belgium, 1974-78, and Minister of Foreign Affairs, 1981-89. He has also devoted much of his political career to the search for constitutional solutions to the competing Walloon and Flemish demands for autonomy within Belgium. Since 1989, he has been a member of the European Parliament. He served as Chairman of the International Commission on the Balkans.

MIRANDA VICKERS

Miranda Vickers is the author of several works on Albania and the Balkans, most recently Between Serb and Albanian - A History of Kosovo. She is an honorary visiting Fellow of the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, London University, and has been working as an analyst for Albanian affairs since 1990. She is currently the Albanian analyst for the International Crisis Group.

CHRISTINE WALLICH

Christine Wallich is Director, Corporate Strategy Group, at the World Bank. Prior to this position, she was Director for the Balkan Countries in the Europe and Central Asia region at the World Bank. She has been with the World Bank since 1977, including as Country Director, Bosnia and Herzegovina from May 1996 to June 1997 and as Lead Economist in the Central Europe Department. Her areas of specialization are public finance and fiscal policy, in particular local government finance, as well as monetary policy and financial markets. She has published two books on local public finance in Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.

PHILIP ZELIKOW

Philip Zelikow is Director of the Miller Center of Public Affairs and Burkett Miller Professor of History at the University of Virginia. He has taught at Harvard University and served as a career diplomat in the Department of State and on the staff of the National Security Council. A member of the Department of State's Historical Advisory Committee, a former consultant to the Office of the Secretary of Defense, and participant in Harvard's Intelligence and Policy Project, he is also the deputy director of the Aspen Institute's Aspen Strategy Group.

Project Observers, Consultants & Staff

Mary Catherine Andrews

Jon Blyth, Charles Stewart Mott Foundation

Charles Firestone, The Aspen Institute

Mara Galaty, Aspen Institute Berlin

Tina Kaidenow, US Embassy Skopje

Heike MacKerron, German Marshall Fund

Mary McKinley, The Aspen Institute

Philip Reeker, US Embassy Skopje

Laura Kay Rozen