text:  She says the Balkans are still reeling from the missteps of outside powers. During the Yugoslav conflict, Woodward was an advisor to the head of a UN peacekeeping force there. She says the EU's early recognition of Croatia and Slovenia underestimated the problem of ethnic minorities. One of the main mistakes, if not, in my view, the main mistake that outsiders made was that in recognizing these two republics as independent states,