Kosovo’s Independence and the Kosovo Security Force

This chapter traces the political development that led to Kosovo’s declaration of independence in 2008. It describes international efforts to reach an agreement between Kosovo and Serbia, which eventually resulted in the Comprehensive Proposal for the Kosovo Status Settlement, which proposed supervised independence for Kosovo. Lack of consensus in the UN Security Council triggered Kosovo’s declaration of independence, which was supported by most Western countries. The chapter described the transformation from the Kosovo Protection Corps to the Kosovo Security Force, a lightly armed force with a restricted defence mandate, as part of Kosovo’s state-building process. Key to this process was how to align Kosovo’s interest in asserting sovereignty without antagonizing NATO as the military force in Kosovo based on Resolution 1244 and the role NATO played in the development of the Kosovo Security Force.