While I agree with the basic position Sean Gabb takes on whether Britain should be involved in what is effectively a war with the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia a.k.a Serbia, I feel that certain matters need further discussion.

In the first place, the famed Slav brotherhood is strictly for the birds. Slav brothers have been killing, terrorizing and invading each other for centuries. As far as most of them are concerned, the real enemy is always some other Slav nation. The notion that the Czechs and Poles will not pull their weight in NATO because of the Serbs does not make much sense. Belonging to NATO, to the West, to Europe is far more important to them than some poxy war in the Balkans. After all, one of the main reasons they want to be in NATO is fear and distrust of the big Slav brother to the east. In addition, the Poles are Catholics and very strongly so. They are not likely to have forgotten the treatment the Serbs meted out not so long ago to their Catholic Slav brothers, the Croats. The Slovaks are in a slightly different position. They have not been short-listed either for NATO or for the EU and are being lectured by the West on the shortcomings of their political and economic system. This, rather naturally, makes them resentful. The bombing of Serbia, I suspect, comes under the heading of "And another thing". Whether the new members, the Czechs, the Poles and the Hungarians will turn into fully operational members of NATO or whether enlargement will prove to be a costly mistake remains to be seen.

One last point on what the Slavs feel for each other: it is a truism of Balkan history that the Croats and the Hungarians are ancient enemies, part of that pattern of "ancient tribal hatreds" that ignorant British journalists are so fond of prattling about. Yet during the time the Balkan war was waged in Croatia, Croats as well as Hungarians fled to Hungary, preferring to take shelter with their ancient enemy than to await the arrival of their Slav brethren. They, at least, recognized that there were other forces at work as well.

Russia, it is true, is making bellicose noises, but, one has to say, not very bellicose. According to Izvestiya of Friday the 25th March, 31 volunteers signed up to go and fight in Kossovo. This is not a huge vote of confidence. There have been calls for volunteers, in particular from the Liberal Democrats (Mr Zhirinovsky's lot) but none of said callers signed up themselves. Izvestiya has made the point that Russia can no longer play at power politics while begging for money. Furthermore, in their opinion, the posturing of politicians, including Mr Primakov's famous order to turn the aeroplane round, had more to do with the domestic situation, which is once again critical. One worrying thought expressed by a number of Russian journalists is that the situation in Serbia will be used to put Russia's internal economy and politics on "war footing".

On the whole the Russians, though they have almost certainly already broken the arms embargo on Serbia, find that country and its egregious leader rather a nuisance, as well as a drain on resources they can ill afford. My guess is that Mr Milosevic is seriously in hock to them for all the arms he has already had. That being so, it might not have been impossible for the West to try to persuade the Russians to use their "influence" on Mr Milosevic a little more strongly.

This brings me to the question of how we have found ourselves in this preposterous situation. As of Wednesday the 24th March, Britain and NATO are in a different international ball game altogether. In the first place, the problem lies with the usual Western inability to perceive a problem when it arises rather than when it has become insoluble. That Kossovo was going to blow had been obvious from 1989 onwards, when its autonomy was destroyed by the Serb government as the first step towards the accomplishment of that rather lunatic dream of Greater Serbia, thought up by Serb Academicians and eagerly seized on by the Communist Boss Slobodan Milosevic. It has to be said that the results of this struggle for Greater Serbia have been pitiful: not only has Yugoslavia disintegrated (it was not going to survive Tito's demise for very long) but Serbia has lost land that ought to have belonged to it if the division had been more amicable (Krajina springs to mind); the Serbs have inflicted a great deal of suffering on their brethren but have had to put up with a great deal themselves, not least from their own government; their lives have become poorer and poorer; and they have lost what good name and support they ever had in the world. Even the British, who in a kind of a parody of the club bore colonel, kept going on about gallant little Serbia, have had to acknowledge that it is nothing of the kind. Russia's attempt to censure NATO at the UN failed because there was no support. The Third World countries who can usually be relied on to make anti-American noises are, often Moslem or part-Moslem. They are not likely to speak up for the people they see as Moslem-slaughterers.

There have been warnings about Kossovo for some time, but Western governments have either ignored them or brushed them aside. They refused to support Ibrahim Rogova, who is, by those standards, relatively liberal and civilized, thus finding themselves almost inevitably having to support the KLA, which is none of those things. Strong pressure on Mr Milosevic to restore Kossovan autonomy at the time of the Dayton Agreements may well have defused the situation. Instead, the West tried to fudge it. When the Kossovans started calling for independence, the West threw up its hands in horror at the thought of Serbia "being dismembered". In the same way they had thrown their hands up in horror at the thought of Yugoslavia being dismembered, thus ending up supporting the most lunatic ambitions of the Serb government until the situation became intolerable. Active armed western involvement is the result of early fudging and refusal to act. I have no doubt this pattern will repeat itself again and again.

The other important reason for this mess is the obsession with peacekeeping that has developed after the collapse of the Soviet Union. This notion has become rather tied up with debates about what if any roles should be assigned to NATO in this new world. The problem with peace keeping has always been the same. What if the people in question do not want the peace kept? Do we then go in "peace-making"? (Sensibly, the Russians use the same expression for both.) I remember having arguments on this subject at Libertarian meetings. Also, about a year ago I was at a talk given by Robert Fox, the journalist, who has just fled from Pristina, terrified of what the Serbs and, especially Arkan's gang might do to him. Mr Fox maintained forcibly that Britain's strong position in the world came from what he described as being "numero uno peace keeper". This was very important, in his opinion, given the number of nasties there are in power and the number of wars, civil wars and massacres that go on. Apart from Bosnia (a special case, surely) the example he used was Algiers. I tried to get some idea from him about the political aspect of the whole problem. For instance, I tried to explain to him, Algiers is an independent country. At what point will the British government be justified in putting British troops there? Either he could not or he would not understand what I was driving at. Well, the problem has arisen a great deal sooner and a great deal nearer home, than I had thought. (Incidentally, it is rather odd to see the left pontificating about the Serb bombing. Are they not the people who are always calling for international peace-keeping missions, just as they are now calling for international courts? That, too, will end in tears.)

Where do they go from here? It seems to me that the possibilities in Serbia itself are limited. Either Mr Milosevic agrees to negotiate very soon (he is, at the moment in a win-win situation - if he stands up to the might of NATO, he is a hero; if he agrees to negotiate he is still a hero, for who could have stood up to the might of NATO), or the West will have to use Russia to put that pressure on him. The Russians will probably be agreeable. They do not want to break relations with the United States - in fact they signed a nuclear deal last week, despite all the huffing and puffing - and they need IMF money. Furthermore, as peace brokers in the region they will acquire some badly needed kudos. Some temporary arrangement will then be made in Kossovo. But as Sean Gabb says, some kind of a long term aim for the whole region has to be devised. Above all, it is time to think very seriously, indeed, about the whole concept of peace-keeping.