It's well and good to worry about Pyongyang's nuclear capability, but it also matters for reasons the West seems disinclined to think about.

If Erdogan believes it is up to any state and any region to choose its own name, then no longer should the Turkish government complain when diplomats and officials speak of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Iraqi Kurdistan, or even South Kurdistan.

Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia and its subsequent recognition by the West could spell a new, disruptive era of separatist civil wars.

Serbs should decide Milosevic's fate, not a distant, unaccountable international body that is very far from having proven either its effectiveness or desirability.

Was the conflict between Serbs and ethnic Albanians over Kosovo best understood as an internal dispute within a sovereign state, or did it represent a threat to the vital interests of other nations?

If real progress is to follow, the U.S. and its allies need to shed any romantic notions they have about a democratic Serbia that will prosper overnight and return effortlessly to the family of nations.

The strange debate over Bosnia: whether the United States should use force to oppose aggression far from home?

An imposed settlement of the Kosovo question and the partitioning of Serbia's sovereign territory without its consent is not in the interest of the United States.