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Associated Press, 01/02/98 01:11
LONDON (AP) - Serbia's restive Kosovo province
could be a flash point in 1998. Israel's
northern border with Syria and Lebanon may heat
up.
There's a risk of another border conflict between
Peru and Ecuador, and trouble in divided
Cyprus.
Military analysts considering what the New Year
may hold warn of potential hot spots
throughout a troubled world.
Tensions in Rwanda and Burundi may blow up again,
and the United States can expect
more problems with Saddam Hussein. The analysts
predict more difficulties for Israel with
Hamas, further trouble for Egypt with Islamic
extremists and no end to civil wars in
Afghanistan and Sri Lanka.
"In terms of arms control, the priorities for
1998 must be to identify and control weapons of
mass destruction, to continue nuclear disarmament,
and prevent countries like Iran from
becoming nuclear weapon powers," said Paul Beaver,
spokesman for Jane's Information
Group, which publishes Jane's Defense Weekly.
Kosovo, where more than 90 percent of the people
are ethnic Albanians seeking
independence, tops the list of potential hot
spots.
In the last six months, many weapons stolen in
Albania have reached nationalists in
Kosovo, giving them arms capability equal to
the Serbian police for the first time, Beaver
said.
"I would expect there to be some problem in Kosovo in the next 12 months," he said.
Michael Clarke, executive director of the Center
for Defense Studies, an independent think
tank, called the Kosovo situation "very dangerous."
"Kosovo, if and when it blows up, will be a lot
more dangerous than Bosnia ever was
because it won't be so containable," he said.
Problems in Kosovo could lead to a wider conflict between Serbia and Albania.
Albania also was spotlighted by the National Defense
Council Foundation as a country
where law and order broke down in 1997. The Alexandria,
Va.-based think tank listed
Albania on its yearly index of world conflict
areas.
Serbia faces problems on another front in 1998.
Clarke and Beaver agreed that tensions
between Orthodox Christian Serbs and Muslim Slavs
in Bosnia could lead to renewed war.
President Clinton's decision to keep American
troops in the NATO-led peacekeeping force
in Bosnia won praise from the analysts.
Clarke said NATO needs a success in Bosnia because
of Russia, which remains
concerned about NATO's planned expansion into
eastern Europe.
"The success of these forces will be critical
to convincing the Russians that NATO has a
useful role to perform which is not anti-Russian,"
he said.
Beaver said there is a real concern that Israeli
policies could lead to conflict on its northern
border, either with Lebanon or Syria.
The analysts said Iraq's latest face-off with
Washington gave Saddam breathing space,
possibly to redeploy his weapons of mass destruction
and to increase the profile of
Baghdad's protests against U.N. trade sanctions.
It also forced the United States to spend
millions of dollars to send two aircraft carriers
and additional air power to the region.
"And he can do this whenever he wants," said Philip
Gordon, a fellow at the International
Institute for Strategic Studies. "If he wants
to do it again tomorrow, the U.S. response will
have to be the exact same one."
Greece and Turkey remain at odds over the ethnically
divided island of Cyprus, where
tensions have risen following the European Union's
decision to leave Turkey off the list of
potential members.
Gordon said the situation is compounded by the
Greek Cypriot government's expected
receipt of Russian surface-to-air missiles next
year and Turkey's pledge to destroy them if
they are deployed.
In Southeast Asia, the financial crisis could
lead to instability if the economic readjustments
prove to be symptoms of weakening government
structures, Clarke said.
"The Chinese will have more problems with their
northwest frontier," Beaver said, "and we
continue to watch North Korea with great trepidation."
In South America, the major concerns are in Venezuela,
Colombia, Peru and Ecuador
"which have undefined borders," Beaver said.
"This is leading to increased instability and
the risk of border conflict."
senden