SHAKY STATUS OF YUGOSLAV REGIME NOTHING TO APPLAUD.

Byline: LOCAL VIEW Ron Burns

THE widespread cheers for growing pressure in Yugoslavia to unseat Slobodan Milosevic is surely premature and even misguided. After all, most of that pressure has clearly emerged not because Milosevic waged war against the Albanians in Kosovo, but because he lost the war against them.

This should give rise to apprehension, not glee, because if Milosevic goes, his successors could easily be far worse.

Of course, even the most reckless among them would not dare a reinvasion of Kosovo for the foreseeable future, though that term seems to have a different meaning in the Balkans, where the Kosovo conflict was just fought at least partly over a battle the Serbs lost more than six centuries ago.

However, frail Montenegro, another neighbor, looms as a potentially ripe target.

The Serbs and many of their likely opponents in the region seem to thrive on holding on to grudges instead of letting go - the choice recommended by modern psychologists as a path to peaceful and meaningful human relations. It's as if they enjoy the crushing weight of ``baggage'' - and the wait, however long, to unload it onto the other side.

We have faced such dilemmas before. We deliberately left Iraq's Saddam Hussein in power after Desert Storm, not because we liked him but because the alternatives were so much worse - specifically, a potential power vacuum that would almost certainly have given way to the influence of neighboring Iran.

Milosevic is hardly less unlikable than Hussein, and Belgrade faces no external threat. But the pervasive internal mind-set is unmistakably skewed to ethnic domination, usually out of pique over some past misdeeds. For instance, Serb anger with Croatians in Bosnia stemmed from Serbian victimization at Croat hands during World War II.

Despite our growing involvement in the region, American understanding of such long-held ethnic grudges remains at a low level. All we know for sure is that we don't like them. Thus, it's puzzling and even alarming that American and NATO analysts are evidently so pleased that Milosevic may be on his way out. There are even reports that the White House itself has approved a plan to undermine him.

The daily reports from Yugoslavia of protesting soldiers, disgruntled civil servants, an unemployment rate of 50 percent, a destabilized body politic and a generally demoralized populace may bring smiles to American faces.

But the grins will be sadly short-lived unless the effort to oust Milosevic is accompanied by an equally vigorous and informed plan to control or at least to influence who or what comes after.