Where national pride and ethnicity come together, complications will soon arise. The Serbian occupants of northern ‘Kosova’ are not quite ready to acquiesce to Kosovar independence. The Balkanization of any country seems a messy affair and counters the currents of a European super state or a North American free trade zone. Sometimes I wonder if the natural state of a region isn’t a loose confederation that respects the local character of the land and its inhabitants. And, if so, what happened to Yugoslavia and why does the United States still have a role there so many years after Bosnia?

Anyhow, perhaps the emerging European super state is a mere economic spoiler against the might if the United States. Will the European Union, brought on by the might of the bureaucrats in Brussels, be able to weather the strains of European national pride or will it violently dissolve like Yugoslavia did?