Hand-wringing is not an attractive option, especially in reference to the volatile Balkans, but as fighting worsens in Kosovo between the Serbian authorities and ethnic Albanian separatists there is little else that the West can do. US envoy Richard Holbrooke, who was instrumental in bringing the Bosnian crisis to an end, is in the area once more in the wake of renewed Western sanctions against Serbia. But Mr Holbrooke does not have a blueprint tucked in his back-pocket this time; indeed he describes his visit as one of listening and learning.

Further evidence of the impotence of the major powers in the face of a dangerous situation in Europe can be found further south in Rhodes where the Kosovo situation has focused the attention of an EU security conference on the abilities of the Western European Union. Some European nations see the WEU as a key provider of European security. Others differ. The secretary general of the organisation said last week that he now runs ''an operational instrument of crisis management''. Thankfully, nobody in possession of sanity, including Mr Blair, envisages the WEU within a million miles of Kosovo in anything like a crisis management role. Unfortunately, Mr Holbrooke's extreme caution and the WEU's pretensions illustrate the intractability of conflicts which are too close to home for comfort.