Realistically this means is that Georgia is on its own with fewer eyes to watch; it also shows a slow but certain reintegration into Moscow’s orbit of control. The Georgian Foreign Ministry warned unambiguously, “Russia’s veto will be conductive to increased instability and further human rights violations in the occupied Georgian regions, as well as the last international instrument to check uncontrolled Russian military presence in the occupied Georgian regions has been removed.”

The U.S. State Department who publicly supports Georgian sovereignty, may have been snookered by Moscow’s moves. The USA and European Union have scrambled for a last minute solution but were rebuffed by Russia who is reasserting its spheres of influence.

Kosovo presents another case. Facing entrenched ethnic hostility and discrimination from the ruling Yugoslav state, the Albanian Muslim majority bridled under Belgrade’s increasingly harsh rule. During the Milosevic regime the oppression triggered an uprising in 1999, with Serbian ethnic cleansing and forcible population transfers, and only ended with NATO military intervention. Though the UN mandate for Kosovo dates from 1999, the once powerful UNMIK mission has been significantly reduced and for all practical purposes has switched its duties and functions over to the European Union. Importantly NATO’s KFOR military force remains as a security bulwark for all ethnic communities.

In February 2008, Kosovo unilaterally declared its independence from Serbia. Vuk Jeremic, Serbia’s Foreign Minister, recently told the Security Council, “Serbia will never, under any circumstances, implicitly or explicitly, recognize the unilateral declaration of the ethnic-Albanian authorities of our southern province…..on this issue we shall not yield.”

Yet, Jeremic warned, “this has become a test case of global significance. Should it be allowed to stand, the door would open for challenging the territorial unity of any UN member state.” In this sense Security Council resolution 1244 from 1999 remains the legal bedrock of the multiethnic solution.

Serbia is the author of its own destruction, reaping the whirlwind of its brutal actions in Bosnia, Croatia and Kosovo. Even today, General Ratko Mladic, an indicted Serb war criminal remains on the lamb in Serbia, protected by elements of state security apparatus and probably up into the high echelons of the Belgrade government. Only last year Radavan Karadzic, living undercover in Serbia, was captured and taken to face trial at the Tribunal in the Hague.

While Kosovo’s independence has been recognized by sixty countries, including the USA, Britain, Canada, Turkey, and most of the European Union, significantly few states in South America, Africa and Asia have done so. Why? Countries like China, India, Indonesia, Russia (Serbia’s historic protector) and even Spain, all multinational states with nationalist rumblings, are decidedly nervous about the political precedent and all are haunted by the genie of separatism.

The People’s Republic of China confronts deep ethnic fault lines in Tibet and among its Muslim population in Sinkiang, and what Beijing claims to be a “separatist” Taiwan.

While seemingly small and distant places, both Georgia and Kosovo illustrate the a wider threat to the territorial integrity of so many states; usually not democratic, on whether separatist or independent minded regions can coexist with the central government.

Vice President Joe Biden recently toured the Balkans making an American recommitment to the region’s political freedom, sovereignty and economic well-being. Building on the Bush Administration’s political recognition of Kosovo and close ties to neighboring Albania, the Vice President said all the right things. Now however comes the real test for Washington to keep to its commitments throughout the Balkans despite the diplomatic distractions and to do the right things as well.