AH Challenge: Serbian Return to Kosovo post-1999

[MerryPrankster]

How might we make it so Serbian authority is re-asserted over Kosovo some time after the 1999 NATO bombing campaign?

I have a couple of ideas, but I welcome more more...

1) During the "humble foreign policy phase," Bush evacuates the US portion of KFOR (Kosovo's NATO force) and, without US support, the other European states pull out. Now what? Ruthless Milosevic isn't in power anymore, but who knows how Serbia's current leadership will act?

2) This is widespread anti-Serb violence in Kosovo; perhaps there's an ugly incident involving Serb protestors and KFOR and Serbia starts up military manevuers. If Serb made some move into Kosovo (avoiding confrontation with KFOR and focusing primarily on Albanian militants), would NATO try to negotiate or would Serbia get pasted for opposing "the international community"?

Do these seem plausible? Any other ideas?

[MerryPrankster]

http://www.balkanalysis.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=297

Says Serbia is waiting for "The Green Light" from NATO to sends its forces in.

[Melvin Loh]

Just read an article in the WEEKEND AUSTRALIAN which stated that NATO has sent in some 1000 new reinforcements to KFOR, due to a rise in Serb nationalist violence directed against Albanians and Serb accusations that the Kosovars have undertaken a pogroms against Serb residents in the province.

[Sean Swaby]

Actually what I heard on the BBC was that NATO has/is sent/sending 1000 extra troops because of Kosovar Albanian violence against the Serbs of Mitorvica culminationg in the fleeing of 1000 Serbs (which one Nato official (can't remember his name or position at the mo..need to go find that report, hope they play it again) said was now "ethnic cleasing".

[MerryPrankster]

Sean is correct on this one; the AP (which is basically most newspapers) said that most of the violence is Albanian-on-Serb, though there have been anti-Albanian riots in Serbia proper.

Finally someone in NATO gets around to saying that the KLA and friends aren't very nice. During the Kosovo war, all the Western media said was that the KLA were heroic and Milosevic is a new Hitler, even though the KLA basically wanted an Albanian-only Kosovo and provoked Serbian misbehavior by attacking Serb civilians. Anti-Serb violence has been occurring on a smaller scale since the Serb withdrawal; now apparently it's gotten so big that they can't downplay it anymore.

[Grimm Reaper]

Is this topic for alternate history or the new 'prophesy line'?

[MerryPrankster]

Grimm,

I guess it's "current events" and since the Serbs COULD have immediately moved into Kosovo (the international community be darned) once the recent violence started, it could be AH.