The UN and the post-intervention stabilisation of Kosovo

It has been argued that the decision of key Western states to support Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence from Serbia, in 2008, was driven by the fear that had this not happened there would have been a danger of renewed violence and instability. This begs the question as to whether this situation could have been averted had the United Nations taken a more active role in pacifying Kosovo following the intervention in 1999. This article argues that this was not in fact possible. For a variety of reasons, which will be explored, it was simply impossible to institute full-scale disarmament. Moreover, efforts to tackle the elements of organized resistance, which was built around former members of the Kosovo Liberation Army, would have precipitated a conflict in the territory at a far earlier stage