Transnational ethnic conflict is a major source of violence and instability in the contemporary international system. It is too early to tell whether this threat will prove to be a transitory consequence of the collapse of multinational states, such as the Soviet Union and the former Yugoslavia, or will become a defining characteristic of post-Cold War world politics. In either case, recent instances of ethnic strife in Bosnia, Chechnya, Rwanda and the Kurdish area of northern Iraq remind us that ethnic conflicts will pose continuing problems for U.S. foreign policy.
