Throughout the western Balkans, formidable challenges to economic reform and democratic consolidation threaten to reawaken old problems and reinforce negative tendencies.

A decade after the Dayton agreement … progress is being made in the region's overall stability and democratic development. And the role of both Europe and the United States in Balkan affairs has changed dramatically.

The process of democratic consolidation in Serbia has begun in earnest. Equally important, the more virulent xenophobic and authoritarian aspects of Serbian political culture have waned considerably. … For the foreseeable future, the specious superpatriotism and discredited soft dictatorship of the Milosevic variety are likely to hold only marginal appeal.

Had the international community given more careful attention to the consequences a bombing campaign would have on ethnic relations in Kosovo—or at least made adequate preparations to rapidly police the area following such a campaign—the province's present ethnic segmentation and probable monoethnic future might have been avoided.