It seemed like a callous remark at the time, and no doubt in human terms it was. But Slobodan Milosevic's "ethnic cleansing" of Kosovo, and NATO's sluggish and ham-fisted response to it, has shown how well-founded the anxieties of Western diplomats were. The long-anticipated slide into general war in the south Balkans, that chronicle of death foretold, could not only destroy what is left of the former Yugoslavia, but destabilize Greece and Turkey as well. We are moving rapidly from human catastrophe -- first of the Bosnian Muslims and now of the Albanian Kosovars -- toward political apocalypse. And nowhere is this clearer than in Macedonia.

Whatever Macedonian officials claim, the creation of their state in 1992 was always more of a testimony to the inability of anyone -- including themselves -- to come up with a viable solution for the constituent republics that had made up Yugoslavia than it was the establishment of a viable entity. Macedonia is tiny, landlocked and, economically, to the extent that its economy can still be said to exist in any modern sense, largely dependent on neighboring Serbia. In the seven short years of its existence, it has been coveted by Bulgaria (which claims that ethnic Macedonians are in fact Bulgars), undermined by Greece (which objects even to Macedonia's name, which is why official international documents refer to FYROM, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) and repudiated by the quarter of its population that is ethnically Albanian and has more interest in belonging to some ethnically homogeneous Albanian state -- greater or otherwise -- than in Macedonia as it currently exists.

In short, even before the current crisis, Macedonia was largely being kept together with smoke and mirrors. It existed because everyone feared the consequences of its ceasing to exist, rather than because anyone could come up with a convincing rationale for it. But though its economy was in freefall and its political institutions ramshackle to the point of incoherence, Macedonia somehow survived.

Until Operation Allied Force, that is. The war between NATO and Yugoslavia has changed all the political equations in the south Balkans. It is possible, of course, that if NATO is successful militarily and if the money is appropriated for some kind of Marshall Plan for the south Balkans that would, before all else, focus on rebuilding Kosovo and refloating Albania and Macedonia -- the two neighboring states that have lost the most in the war -- the conflict could actually end up being positive for Macedonia. But the odds are wildly against this.

Next page | A demographic earthquake