ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that the elites in South-east Europe are historically and culturally somewhat in danger to be too easily convinced that a quick jump to an intervention by military forces is an acceptable solution for the problems of governance. It highlights property of the Ottoman system of governance, a feature that was essential for its long-lasting dominance: the millet system. This system was an institutionalized method of administration that helped to exert ideological dominance of Muslims by giving a limited range of legal rights to all non-dominating religious streams. The eastern Mediterranean has been the birthplace of European culture. As its history vividly shows cultural evolution always has been embedded in a powerful political organization, in an empire. The countries in Europe's south-east, which had belonged to the Soviet bloc thus all remained economically weak, even after they came under the influence of Western capitalism.
