Take Bosnia-Herzegovina. By now, the West - through the various organs of its global financial architecture - has committed well over 5 billion USD to this godforsaken piece of land in the middle of nowhere. This is almost 3 times the official GDP of this country. It is the equivalent of 20 trillion US dollars invested in the USA in four years time. All this was in order to cement the cohesiveness of this artificial concoction of a state and to secure its future as a political (read: economic) unit. It failed, miserably so. The Republika Srpska is nowhere nearer to integrating with its Moslem and Croat neighbour. The common currency did nothing to foster a common identity. And the place represents an abysmal reversion to old colonial habits with a governor to regulate the unruly and unyielding natives, by the application of force if need be. Indeed, the ethnic wars of the modern era are a direct result of said colonial period. Borders, drawn at random and with a minimal and arbitrary knowledge of the terrain and its inhabitants - led to a hundred years of correctional warfare by the victims of this patronizing ignorance. The rule of thumb is simple: people cannot live together. Humans are misanthropes, they love to hate the different, the other. Therefore, it is best to encourage the formation of ethnically homogenous political units - where ethnic affiliation counts and of ideologically homogenous political units where ideology matters and of racially homogenous political bodies where race equals identity. A simple rule derived from the 5000 years of trials and errors called "human history". The USSR disintegrated peacefully because it disintegrated into ethnically homogenous entities (or entities with clear ethnic identities and majorities). In the process Russia gave up oil reserves, mineral riches, space launching sites, strategic locations and much of its nuclear and conventional weaponry. Despite all these incredible sacrifices, it was a peaceful process. The Czechs separated from the Slovaks in a bloodless break-up of their common state because the two resulting entities were ethnically homogenous. Well, almost - hence the persecution of the Roma in both countries. Slovenia and Macedonia seceded from the Yugoslav Federation without as much as a shot (except for the first few days of Slovenia's independence when confusion ruled supreme) - because there were very few Serbs in either. Slovenia and Macedonia are ethnically homogeneous (Macedonia with a sizeable Albanian minority, though). Hence their status as islands of peace and tranquillity in an impossible region. The war with Croatia and more so in Bosnia was a direct result of ethnic heterogeneity.