Peace talks between the groups will resume March 15 in France after leaders from both sides finish consulting with the public.

Any peace settlement will be mediated by NATO, which plans to deploy ground troops to the area and, if necessary, carry out airstrikes. Some of these ground troops is planned to be from the U.S.

U.S. military planes stationed in Italy and on board the USS Enterprise, along with cruise missiles and U.S. warships in the Adriatic Sea, would most likely take part in NATO airstrikes, according to CNN.

With the threat of airstrikes, NATO hopes to force peace into Kosovo. But Philip Jenkins, Penn State professor of history, said airstrikes would do no good.

"There is no basis in international law to attack," Jenkins said. "It would be a simple act of aggression."

Europe is a central interest to Americans because of past wars the United States was involved with, said Michael Bernhard, associate professor of political science.

There also would be humanitarian concerns for getting involved.

"We must understand that Kosovo is Gettysburg and Valley Forge to the Serbs. A major war was fought (in Kosovo) in the 14th century. It is unthinkable for them to hand it over," Jenkins said.

In 1389, the Serbs lost their kingdom to the Ottoman Empire at a battle in Kosovo, said Arthur Goldschmidt, professor of Middle East history.

Kosovo then took on a symbolic importance to Serbs, he said. In the late 19th century, the Serbs regained some of the region, but that area was smaller than expected.

After World War I, the United States and its allies redrew boundaries by observing the cultural makeup of the area, a move that united Serbs, Croats and Slovenes into a region that later became Yugoslavia, Goldschmidt said.

The Albanian population, which makes up more than 90 percent of Kosovo's population, is the predominant ethnic group in the area. The Albanian language is taught in schools and published in newspapers, but a small group of Serbs still lives in Kosovo, he said.

Kosovo is central to the Serbs' sense of who they are, Goldschmidt said.

"The Serbs have been made into the bad guys where the U.S. can't see them beyond being Nazis," Jenkins said. "Now the U.S. wants to push them out of their most sacred place.