With the United Nations scaling back its forces in Croatia and a resurgence of fighting in Bosnia, fears that the Balkan conflict will move south into Macedonia have been renewed.
Internal ethnic conflicts and a worsening economy in Macedonia add to the anxieties about political stability in this new nation.
With the likelihood that a war here would draw in neighboring countries, the United States has contingency plans to send as many as 1,500 more American soldiers to join the 550 already here as part of a United Nations force sent two years ago.
Moreover, the United States and other Western countries, worried about the economic discontent, are looking the other way as Macedonia conducts trade with Serbia in open violation of United Nations sanctions. It is considered one of the biggest violators of the sanctions.
At the same time, out of deference to Greece, the Clinton Administration has not established full diplomatic relations with Macedonia, a step that would contribute significantly to political stability, diplomats and Macedonian leaders say. Greece has imposed a blockade on Macedonia, its northern neighbor, in a dispute that centers on who has the right to use the name.
But the greatest threat to peace, diplomats and analysts say, is President Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia, the most powerful leader in what remains of the former Yugoslavia, who has also refused to recognize the independence of Macedonia and considers it to be southern Serbia.
A war would almost certainly be set off, analysts say, if Mr. Milosevic increased the repression of ethnic Albanians in the Serbian province of Kosovo, which borders on Macedonia. That would draw in the country of Albania, the large Albanian population here and neighboring countries that have fought over Macedonia before.
Earlier in this century, Turkey, Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece all battled for dominion over Macedonia, which was carved up after the Second Balkan War in 1913. Eventually the greatest part became a republic in Tito's Yugoslavia. It declared its independence in November 1991.
Greece objects to the use of the name Macedonia and to Skopje's use of a bursting sun in the country's flag. Both of these, the Greeks contend, have been part of their heritage from the time of Alexander the Great, a Macedonian.
"If it were not so damaging to us, it would be funny," Hari Kostov, Macedonia's Deputy Finance Minister, said about the Greek position and its blockade.
A European diplomat who insisted on anonymity said of the Greek policy, "It is totally irrational."
Under the blockade, Macedonia, a landlocked country of 2.2 million people the size of Vermont, has lost access to the Greek port of Salonika on the Aegean.
Now raw materials and exports must make a tortuous and far more expensive journey via Bulgaria or Albania. It costs $50 more a ton to bring in oil through Bulgaria, Mr. Kostov said. To avoid passing on these increased costs to consumers, the Government has reduced customs duties on oil, which is costing it $100 million in revenues a year, Mr. Kostov said.
He also cited a refrigerator manufacturing company that gets parts from Italy and sells finished refrigerators in Western Europe. It is now operating at a loss because of increased transportation costs.
"There has been a real failure of leadership, not only by the United States, but by the European Union" to get the embargo lifted, said a senior United Nations official in the region.
The international sanctions against the former Yugoslavia compound Macedonia's economic problems. Before Yugoslavia was dismembered, Serbia was the major market for Macedonia's finished goods and agricultural products.
The sanctions have cost Macedonia $3 billion over three years, Mr. Kostov said. The country's total budget this year is $1.2 billion.
To mitigate the effects of the Greek embargo, the United Nations and Western governments are ignoring the wide-scale sanctions violations by Macedonia. "We are looking the other way," a Western diplomat said.
Several hundred trucks a week cross into Serbia, a United Nations military officer said as he surveyed the line of trucks at the border crossing at Denera Jankovic, 10 miles from Skopje.
Still, the economy continues to decline, and social unrest looms. Under conditions laid down by the International Monetary Fund, Macedonia must make 25 state enterprises profitable by the end of the year or close them. Only a few are likely to make it, Mr. Kostov said, which could leave 25,000 people unemployed.
In recent weeks, workers have held demonstrations in two cities to protest the economic conditions, and more protests are planned.
"It will be a fantastic opportunity for demagogues," said Vladimir Milcin, a theater director and the executive director for Macedonia of the Soros Foundation, which supports democratic institutions in former Communist countries. Demagogues here range from strident Macedonian nationalists to Albanian separatists to advocates of unity with Serbia.
"It mainly depends on America," Mr. Milcin said when asked how political turmoil could be averted, expressing a view widely held here.
European diplomats and Macedonian leaders say that what is needed is not so much for the United States to send more troops as for it to grant full diplomatic relations.
"It would be a clear message to other countries of the region that Macedonia is an internationally accepted state and that the United States stands behind its territorial integrity," the Prime Minister, Branko Crvenkovski, said in an interview.
But American officials say Washington will not send an ambassador until there has been a substantial resolution of the dispute between Macedonia and Greece.
Mr. Crvenkovski said Macedonia is willing to compromise on the flag, but his Government is adamant on continuing to use the Republic of Macedonia as its name. Greece is just as insistent that the name be changed, diplomats from several countries said.
If peace is to be preserved, the Macedonian Government must also treat its Albanian population more fairly. Long discriminated against here, Albanians constitute the country's largest ethnic minority -- 23 percent of the population according a recent census, which is generally considered accurate though Albanians claim they are 40 percent of the population.
The Government has made some efforts on behalf of Albanians. State television has programs in the Albanian language. Primary and secondary schools teach in Albanian, and at the national university in Skopje, where the student body is less than 3 percent Albanian, places are now reserved for Albanians.
The Government drew a line, though, when ethnic Albanians tried to establish their own university earlier this year in the town of Tetovo. The Government argues that Macedonia cannot support a university for every minority group, and it is concerned that it would be a political training ground for separatists.
The police descended on Tetovo to close the university. In an ensuing clash with protesters, one ethnic Albanian man was killed.
Most of the discriminatory policies against the Albanians are a carry-over from the Communist era, but the Government has been slow to change them.
"There is a lot of room to do more" for the Albanians, Prime Minister Crvenkovski said.
On the broader question of whether Macedonia was the next flash point, he said "the risk is not to be underestimated." He compared watching Macedonia to a game of Russian roulette -- "maybe it will go off, maybe it won't."
Map shows the location of Macedonia.