When troops start fighting wars over land, a sense of history arises. History can be seen as streams whose currents pull people along or, sometimes, drown them. People know that they are thinking historically when their minds become filled with strange images as vivid as personal experiences. That's already happened in Serbia and may now happen in America as well. PNS editor Franz Schurmann is a professor emeritus of history and sociology at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of numerous books on foreign politics.

America is heading towards a ground war in Kosovo and it's not because of Clinton pushing or Milosevic pulling us in. It's not because of NATO wanting to try out its new high-tech, zero-casualty strategy. Nor is it world horror over ethnic cleansing which arouses memories of the Holocaust. It's history.

History is stories about ancestry which entire peoples share but which in individuals become as vivid as personal remembrances. It's widely held that in the Balkans there is too much history. In America elders admonish us for having too few historical memories -- "those who forget history are doomed to repeat it."

A good way to get a sense of history is to envisage it as a stream. All streams have currents. If they are big enough we can swim in them. If we swim leisurely and carefully, it can be exhilarating or soothing. We can be such good swimmers that we may even forget we are in water. Or we may be poor swimmers or good dreamers and so run the risk of drowning.

The two main actors in the Kosovo war are Serbia (Milosevic) and America (Clinton). "Never again" is Milosevic's credo. He is not talking about the many mass killings of World War II but about the cataclysm which afflicted the Serbs in the battle of Kosovo Polje, "the field of blackbirds," of 1389 in which the Muslim Turks defeated the Serbs. Within a few decades what had been a prosperous Orthodox Christian people turned into scattered remnants of peasants, shepherds and monks.

Milosevic has vowed to turn the clock back. Serb victory will re-create a people living where there are no Muslims, Albanians, Croats, Bosnians. Peasants, shepherds and monks can live in spiritual peace -- as Serbs.

Clinton's history couldn't be more different than Milosevic's. Clinton likes to think of himself as a direct political descendant of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, a stupendous creator of history. As commander-in-chief of the armed forces FDR's greatest achievement was having won almost simultaneously total victory in Europe and then total victory in Asia.

America is now almost unanimously recognized as the world's solo superpower. That status began in 1945. FDR died in April, Germany surrendered in May and Japan in August.

During that war, however, there were bitter personal and strategic battles between the two American generals: Dwight Eisenhower in the Atlantic and Douglas MacArthur in the Pacific. Eisenhower, descended from European immigrants, believed Europe was more important to America than Asia because of common cultural and racial origins. MacArthur, on the other hand, believed America's destiny lay in Asia to the west and not Europe to the east.

FDR agreed with both of them. He decreed that the major war effort be made in Europe. But by giving China elite status in the planned United Nations Organization he agreed with MacArthur on America's future.

However FDR's presidential successors gave Europe preferential status. Truman launched the Marshall Plan and NATO. Eisenhower started the "thaw" with the Soviet Union. By the early 1960's an economically united Western Europe had become an awesome political power.

In East Asia it was different. There the U.S. fought two big counter-revolutionary wars, Korea and Vietnam, and many less spectacular actions (for example, helping the Indonesian army destroy the Communist Party with half a million casualties.)

Nixon started leveling the global playing field, a process continued by all successor presidents. By Reagan's presidency, East Asia was recognized as an economic powerhouse. By the early 1990's Southeast Asia joined the new global economic elite. But by the mid 1990's, a perception grew that Europe, including Russia, was falling behind. Europe is rich but no match for Asian industrial and technological might. Russia is poor and angry.

Now under Clinton, for the first time, America is fighting a dirty war in Europe. U.S.-Russia relations are worsening. Not just in Serbia but in Russia and the rest of Europe, new ultra-nationalisms are arising (some in "red," others in "brown" form). Anti-Americanism is spreading.

History is driving the imminent decision to commit ground troops into the Kosovo war. Clinton, as evident in his China policy, now agrees with MacArthur that America's destiny lies in Asia. And since so much of America's destiny has been making and keeping wealth, that means linking it with fast growing East, Southeast, South and even West Asia. The IMF says the Asian financial crises are over.

But the European side of the picture is darker. A revolutionary specter is haunting Europe. Now it comes from the right, not the left. NATO ground troops may shortly be fighting Serbian forces depicted as fascists, ethnic cleansers and throwbacks to the Stone Age. As in Eisenhower's day, America will again be the savior of all of Europe from killer fascisms.

All of us in the world swim, float or stand in histories. Under ordinary circumstances, most of us don't think about it. When a crisis arises, we quickly become aware of the stream around us. As sailors know, every body of moving water is like a mighty organism that has a will of its own.