Commentary

"The entire Balkans are not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier." So said Otto von Bismarck at the Congress of Berlin in 1878.

Later, towards the end of his life, he said that "if there is ever another war in Europe, it will come out of some damned silly thing in the Balkans".

Both remarks still have force more than a century on, as the European Council in Berlin issued statements explaining military action against Serbia in the name of humanitarian intervention; at the bidding of Irish, the Finns and other neutral states they stopped just short of justifying it.

The Congress of Vienna was the quintessential imperial gathering to agree on European powers' carve-up of the world - including the Balkans as the Ottoman empire withdrew following a war with Russia.

It approved Austro-Hungarian rule over Bosnia-Herzegovina and independence for Serbia, Montenegro and Romania.

The Balkan wars of 1912 and 1913, involving Serb, Greek and Bulgarian attacks against the Turks, rehearsed many techniques used in the first World War, as well as providing the spark to ignite that war the following year in Sarajevo.

These regional states were clients of the great imperial powers, their banks, arms salesmen and military trainers.

The supposedly primordial nastiness of Balkan nationalism in fact owes much to an imperial involvement which transformed their wars into European ones.

It is striking how the current conflict in Kosovo raises fears of unravelling the borders agreed at the Treaty of London, which brought those Balkan wars to a conclusion in 1913.

There is a fear that an independent Kosovo would inevitably lead to a breakup of Macedonia, where the significant Albanian minority would want to join it. In that case Bulgaria and Greece could be drawn in.

The European Union defines itself as a post-imperial entity, putting great power conflicts behind it and bringing peace to Europe after two world wars. Its justification for involvement in Balkan affairs, specifically in the Kosovo crisis, is couched in terms of humanitarian catastrophe and relief, and the potentially grave impact of a refugee disaster on neighbouring European states.

As Mr Tony Blair's spokesman put it here, there is a "vested strategic interest in a conflict right on our doorstep. History suggests that conflicts in the region are best dealt with."

This contradicts Bismarck's view of the matter. But the use of air strikes underlines too the great reluctance of governments to risk ground forces, Pomeranian or otherwise. The British writer on Balkan security affairs Mary Kaldor argues that air strikes on their own, without the commitment of ground troops, are likely to be self-defeating. They "usually increase support for extremist leaders and reduce the possibilities for an international presence on the ground".

In her book, New and Old Wars, she says we are living through a major period of transition after the end of the Cold War, including the eclipse of the nation-states and traditional territorial sovereignty. War is no longer on an interstate basis. The distinction between internal peace and the domestic rule of law and external war and international anarchy, so characteristic of Bismarck's time, has broken down.

This has major implications for international security and for legitimising the use of force for humanitarian intervention. The emergence of global legal norms, international courts and new peacekeeping and peacemaking tasks exposes the redundancy of many legal concepts based on classical nation-state sovereignty.

Critics say the NATO air strikes on Yugoslavia are neo-rather than post-imperial, however. Ms Kaldor uses the phrase benign or ethical imperialism to describe them. It would be better to avoid the term. But the idea that new legal and political norms are required is persuasive; as she puts it, "the new peacekeepers will require a loyalty to abstract ideals such as human rights in place of patriotism".

The EU is in a good position to innovate in security affairs. Its qualified majority decision-making could be explored as a model for the UN, going beyond the vetoes which currently inhibit legitimising humanitarian intervention and global legal norms and could also serve in the long run as a guarantor of international order in the Balkans.