Massacres continue in Kosovo while the international community debates airstrikes. Sounds like what happened in Bosnia, right?

Yes and no. In the interest of keeping the conflicts straight, here are some similarities and differences.

The Countries:

Similarity: Both Kosovo and Bosnia were part of the former Yugoslavia, which began to break up in 1991.

Difference: Bosnia, when armed conflict erupted in 1992, was an independent country. The Serb attacks, intitially sponsored by the Yugoslav National Army, began as a war between nation states. Kosovo, on the other hand, is a province of Serbia, which together with Montenegro makes up the new Yugoslavia (Milosevic revoked Kosovo's autonomy in 1989). Thus, though the Kosovo Albanians are fighting for independence, the breakaway struggle is technically internal to Yugoslavia. The difference between an internal conflict and a war between nation states is very important in international law.

The Players:

Similarity: The main aggressor in both conflicts is Slobodan Milosevic, current president of Yugoslavia (former president of Serbia). The main international negotiator is Richard Holbrooke, special envoy to the Balkans, who negotiated the Dayton Peace Agreements that ended the war in Bosnia in 1995. As he awaits confirmation as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Holbrooke is ducking in and out of Yugoslavia prodding Milosevic into agreement.

Ethnic Composition:

Difference. Kosovo's two million people are approximately 90 percent Albanian and nine percent Serb. Bosnia's prewar population of four million was a relatively even mix of Serbs, Muslims, and Croats.

Interference: