With the exception of Imperial Russia, "stability in the Balkan" has always been the mantra. But stability is never achieved diplomatically. If there are lessons to be learned from history they are that diplomacy is futile, peacekeeping meaningless, imposed agreements ephemeral. War is the ultimate and only arbiter of national interest. Parties resort to peace only when they are convinced that all military or coercive options have been exhausted. When nothing further is to be gained by means of force and its application - peace prevails. But peace (as opposed to a protracted ceasefire) is impossible even a second before the combatants are struck by this realization. Equilibrium is never the result of honed negotiating skills - and always the outcome of forces matched in battle. Attrition, fatigue, a yearning for stability, a willingness to compromise - are all provoked and enhanced to the acutest level by bloodshed and atrocities. It is an inevitable phase. The road to peace is bloodied. The Balkan has never been as politically fragmented as it is today. It has never been under the auspices of only one superpower. These are destabilizing facts. But one thing has not changed. The Balkan has always been the battlefield of numerous clashing and equally potent interests coupled with military might. In the last decade, the West has been busy establishing protectorates (Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, and now, most probably, Macedonia) and effectively altering borders without admitting to it. NATO, that cold war anachronism, is still busy maintaining its southern flank, composed of the eternal adversaries, Turkey and Greece. Turkey is the natural road to Central Asia and its oil riches and, further on, to an ominously emerging China. The Balkan is, once again, the playground of the grand designers. Europe's New Jews By: Dr. Sam Vaknin Also published by United Press International (UPI) Also Read Iran between Reform and Mayhem Turkey's Troubled Water Syria's Sunshine Policy Saddam's Thousand Nights The Iraqi and the Madman God's Diplomacy and Human Conflicts The Economies of the Middle East Turkey's Jewish Friend They inhabit self-imposed ghettoes, subject to derision and worse, the perennial targets of far-right thugs and populist politicians of all persuasions. They are mostly confined to menial jobs. They are accused of spreading crime, terrorism and disease, of being backward and violent, of refusing to fit in. Their religion, atavistic and rigid, insists on ritual slaughter and male circumcision. They rarely mingle socially or inter-marry. Most of them - though born in European countries - are not allowed to vote. Brown-skinned and with a marked foreign accent, they are subject to police profiling and harassment and all manner of racial discrimination. They are the new Jews of Europe - its Muslim minorities.