Global Policy Forum

Even as the Bush administration, the United Nations and a host of other outside and inside powers struggle over the political future of Afghanistan, the subject of the West's last military intervention, Kosovo, has taken an extraordinary step toward stability. Last weekend the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe successfully staged general elections for a provincial assembly, attracting a strong turnout not only from the majority ethnic Albanian population but from the Serb minority. The vote was free of violence, and attempts by militant Serbs to force a boycott failed miserably; many Serbs came out at nightfall, under cover of darkness, to cast their ballots. The outcome was a clear victory for political moderates -- the leading vote getter was the party of Ibrahim Rugova, a longtime advocate of democracy and peaceful reform.

Though there are plenty of differences between the two places, Kosovo offers Afghanistan a timely demonstration of how the combination of international peacekeeping and U.N.-led nation-building can get results even in a war-wrecked and poverty-stricken country. The Kosovo elections succeeded first and foremost because 36,000 NATO troops, including 5,400 Americans, are still deployed there as peacekeepers more than two years after the end of NATO's war against the Yugoslav government of Slobodan Milosevic, and a year after Mr. Milosevic's own downfall. The peacekeepers have not stopped all violence between Serbs and Albanians, but they have prevented major new episodes of conflict or ethnic cleansing, and the presence of the Americans has helped head off an ethnic war in neighboring Macedonia. Backed by NATO's muscle, a U.N. administration has been able to restore basic services, begin reconstruction and organize the elections, even while postponing the fundamental -- and still explosive -- question of whether Kosovo will remain part of Serbia and Yugoslavia in the long term, or become an independent state. Finally, European governments have given all sides an incentive to cooperate by pledging aid and holding out the prospect that Kosovo and Serbia, like other Balkan states, someday could have the chance to join in the prosperity of the European Union.

Kosovo still has a long way to go. In the flush of victory, Mr. Rugova promptly called for Kosovo's independence "today or tomorrow," a demand supported by more than 90 percent of Kosovo Albanians. But European governments still oppose independence, as does the new democratic Serb government in Belgrade; and forcing the issue now could seriously damage the Albanian cause. The United States, which is still seen by Albanians as the indispensible guarantor of their security, is rightly urging Mr. Rugova to devote his energies to proving he can form a stable and effective government in the coming months, one that will fight crime and defend the rights and property of Serbs and other minorities. If he succeeds in those practical tasks the debate on independence will be far easier to manage in two or three years time.

That likely political timetable implies a still-longer commitment in Kosovo for European and American troops -- despite the continuing desire by some Bush administration officials to arrange a pullout. But the message of the election results is that the sustained investment of troops and treasure pays off. U.N.-led, NATO-policed nation-building in places like Kosovo is entirely workable, but it requires lots of military force, lots of international administration, lots of economic aid -- and even more patience. That formula is worth remembering as the Bush administration and its allies consider the future of Afghanistan.

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