President Bush arrives in Croatia on Friday. Croatia’s leadership’s all a-titter, having finally received some of the positive international attention it so cravenly craves. But keep your pants on, lads:

An EU diplomat with extensive knowledge of the region, said the visit had more important undertones. “The NATO invite and the Bush visit are coordinated. This is not because the West really cares so much about Croatia, but because they are protectively creating a safety cordon around Serbia and potential instability there,” the diplomat said.

That’s not the whole picture either. Admission into NATO makes a country’s borders virtually inviolable which ought to deter Serbia from lashing out at its neighbors. But almost more importantly, it discourages any of the new member countries from unilateral military adventurism outside their own borders—like Croatia intervening on behalf of its ethnic minority in Bosnia if that country begins to fray badly. I fully expect President Bush to sternly warn the PM and President against that sort of thing.