The joint Polish-Croatian initiative aims to bring together three distinct blocs of countries occupying the strategic space between several of Europe’s seas, which will ultimately work out to the US and China’s benefit while negatively impacting on Russia and the EU. President Trump was just in Poland to participate in this year’s Three Seas Summit,…
In recent months, the militant group ISIS, which has brutalized large swathes of Iraq and Syria for a few years in the name of establishing a “caliphate,” has been increasing its propaganda aimed at the Western Balkans. The countries of the Western Balkans — Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, and Serbia — are home to significant…
You are about to enter the ultimate minefield. Let’s start with 28 EU leaders discussing the Western Balkans at a recent summit and blaming – what else – “Russian aggression” in the EU’s backyard. Cue to a Montenegro prosecutor raging that “Russian state bodies” staged a coup attempt during the October 2016 elections to stop the country from joining NATO. And cue…
The US didn’t resolve Macedonia’s crisis, it made it much worse, and the fate of the Balkans is now in jeopardy because of the latest American-brokered “deal”. Deputy Assistant Secretary for European and Eurasian Affairs Hoyt Yee visited Skopje a few weeks ago and successfully “convinced” Macedonian President Gjorge Ivanov to give pro-American SDSM opposition leader Zoran…
Forget the Middle East and Korea: The Balkans are on the boil again As the world focuses on the Middle Eastern and Korean flashpoints, the next war may not occur in either region, but rather in a replay of an old conflict that has been largely forgotten. In an interview with Politico’s European edition, Albanian…
With Monday’s procedural vote in the U.S. Senate to allow Montenegro into NATO, the Washington elite proved once more that heightening tensions with Russia might not just be inevitable, but actually desirable. With the exception of Rand Paul (R-KY) and Mike Lee (R-UT), the entire 100-strong body of the Senate rallied behind the motion that…
