Who Knows?

I've been reading Madeleine Albright's memoirs recently. They've been surprisingly interesting, funny, and perceptive--a good read.

However, she spends a lot of time talking about problems in the Balkans. This is understandable, as adventures in Bosnia and Kosovo were significant foreign policy projects during the Clinton years. But despite Secretary Albright's approachable writing...I still do not have a clear handle on what's been going on in Yugoslavia/Bosnia/Serbia over the past decade and a half.

I get the gist of it: there was ethnic cleansing, ethnic groups decided to reclaim their homeland from borders that had been forced on them after World War II, Milosevic did a lot of bad stuff as Serbia/Yugoslavian leader, and Muslims were attacked. I read Lafore in high school and I'm aware of the deep history of conflict in the region. But I still don't understand what really happened, I can't keep the Bosnians/Serbs/ethnic Serbs/ethnic Bosnians/Muslims straight, I don't understand who started it and who's to blame. I know Sarajevo was torn apart--but who was doing the tearing, and why?

I think this is kind of like the theory of relativity--we all understand the gist of it (time/space dilates close to light speed), but very few people get the nuances of the whole thing. Of course, people from the region (and top physicists) probably have a better idea.