The Foreign Service Journal, April 2008

tions. Medvedev added that the deci- sion could encourage a rise in orga- nized crime and drug trafficking across Europe, which would threaten Russia and other nations. And he promised that Moscow would contin- ue to back Serbia, pointing out that a new natural-gas pipeline would make Serbia a key hub for Russia’s energy supplies to Europe. Within five days of the unilateral declaration of independence, two dozen countries recognized Kosovo. China joined Russia in opposing the move, but most other states are pro- ceeding cautiously, awaiting develop- ments at the U.N. Jordan, the first Arab country to support NATO’s military operations against Serbia in 1999, is one of them. In fact, as of mid-March, no Arab country had formally recognized Kosovo; and in Africa, only Senegal had extended recognition. Both Japan and India were temporizing. Though the E.U. remains divided on recognition — at this writing six countries, led by Spain and Cyprus, were dragging their feet for fear of inspiring their own separatist move- ments — the Brussels bureaucracy is fully geared up to send a 2,000-strong police and judicial mission to join some 17,000 NATO troops on peace- keeping duty there. Peter Feith, the Dutch diplomat chosen by the E.U. as its special envoy, is already on the scene. Feith will head the Western-backed super- visory office ensuring safeguards for ethnic minorities in the new nation, including the 120,000 Serbs in north- ern Kosovo who overwhelmingly re- ject independence from Serbia. He will also assume the mantle of international civilian representative once the U.S. and leading E.U. coun- tries are able to persuade U.N. Secre- tary General Ban Ki-moon to cede responsibilities even without the con- sent of Russia, Serbia’s ally on the Security Council. The U.N. protectorate administra- tion, in place since 1999, has already ruled too long, damping the initiative of an entrepreneurial-minded popu- lation, Feith told the Feb. 27 Finan- cial Times . In anticipation of the hand- over, the FT reports, E.U. officials have set a donor conference for June to jumpstart the economically crip- pled state with $1.5 billion in aid for the first two years. With a 45-percent rate of unemployment, however, a quick fix is unlikely. Anticipating the Kosovo indepen- dence declaration, the Council on Foreign Relations’ Center for Pre- ventive Action hosted a panel in mid- December on how to manage the consequences, which provides a use- ful context for understanding events as they are unfolding today. The tran- script of that discussion and links to a wealth of additional background materials are available at www.cfr. org/publication/15086/indepen dence_for_kosovo.html . This edition of Cybernotes was compiled by Senior Editor Susan Brady Maitra. 12 F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L / A P R I L 2 0 0 8 C Y B E R N O T E S 50 Years Ago... Six months ago outer space belonged to science fiction. Then overnight Sputnik I transformed fantasy into reality. … For the immediate future, man’s penetration into the near regions of outer space has created new problems and challenges for U.S. foreign policy. These problems will grow and multiply and will repeatedly challenge us anew. — Editorial: Venturing into Outer Space, FSJ , April 1958.