Discover and read the best of Twitter Threads about #Balkans

Most recents (7)

I spent months trying to warn ppl that Vucic & Dodik had invested serious capital in selling Trump WH proxies on partitions plans for #Kosovo, knowing that it was step 1 in rebooting Milosevic’s “Greater Serbia” project. Not alarmism now, eh? balkaninsight.com/en/article/us-…
ITT from March I explicitly warned that we would hear more & more talk of partitions & new borders in the #Balkans. It’s product of aggressive Serb nationalist lobbying — backed by RUS — & would result only in renewed violence. Full stop, no exceptions.
The reason why I even bothered responding to this Tim Less character, for instance, was bc I recognized was testing the waters for dangerous ideas. Kosovo is the first target bc it’s “soft”, partitioning BiH is the real objective tho. Complete 90s redux. the-american-interest.com/2017/05/02/in-…
Read 3 tweets
Shocking assault on academic freedom & freedom of speech at the University of #Zagreb. @CepoDario & his colleagues are jewels in Croatian academia, and the relevant authorities cannot allow far-right extremists to target them in this fashion. cc @Dunja_Mijatovic
Background: A. Petričušić, M. Čehulić & @CepoDario are doing important research on the growth & intersections of far-right social movements in #Croatia, the Church, veteran’s groups & the ruling HDZ. Same reactionaries now pressuring @SveUZgbu to “discipline” these academics.
An alarming & disturbing assault on basic academic freedoms in an EU & NATO state. If these extremists succeed in punishing free inquiry it will have profound chilling effect on free thought in #Croatia but throughout the #Balkans. It cannot stand. More soon; follow @CepoDario.
Read 4 tweets
This deserves much more attention. #Russia’s attempted 2016 coup in #Montenegro was far more serious & sophisticated than previously understood. @CrisLeeMaza summarizes here the key findings of new report by @ReufBajrovic, @VeskoGarcevic & Richard Kraemer. newsweek.com/exclusive-russ…
Reason why this is such a major story is bc @ReufBajrovic & @suljagicemir1, in this report from March, warn of *upcoming* Russian inference in the Bosnian elxns. BiH is far more vulnerable & volatile than Montenegro was in 2016. Are EU, US, NATO prepared? fpri.org/article/2018/0…
Some of us have been warning about Russia’s very serious meddling in Bosnia for yrs now. I warned explicitly *last Sept* that we were headed for Kremlin-backed trouble in Oct of this yr. Too little has been done by the international community to prepare. foreignaffairs.com/articles/bosni…
Read 6 tweets
I've been warning about this for months. This is both a huge diplomatic coup for the extremist nationalist #Vucic govt in Belgrade and a catastrophic development for the #Balkans, if it becomes official US policy. Fantasies of territory swaps are a countdown to violence.
This has been floated in earnest since last year (as I warned in text below for @aminterest), and has been a long-time fantasy of the Vucic (and Dodik) govts. In Trump, a weakened Merkel, and post-Brexit UK, they think they've finally found an audience. the-american-interest.com/2017/05/02/in-…
For all the diplomats, attaches, policy ppl who I know follow me, **please** listen: there is **zero** possibility of any kind of territory swap in the Balkans w/o war. That has been the one constant since the 19th century. You are being lied to by whoever tells you otherwise.
Read 6 tweets
This is, to put it mildly, irresponsible reporting by NYT. To treat presence of RUS paramilitaries in #Bosnia, a country in which less than 25 yrs ago 100K were killed by such militants, as a joke is despicable. No one is giggling in BiH -- or #Ukraine. nytimes.com/2018/03/31/wor…
I wrote this for WaPo in Nov. bc I was disturbed by the way US press had begun to normalize far-right extremists domestically, as they had done in the Balkans a quarter century earlier. Infuriating to see them "return to form" in the region. washingtonpost.com/news/democracy…
As @_edinh notes, recall only last time US media told you a reactionary mvmt & their avatar was a joke, who had no chance of upending the world order. And that was in the US, w its centuries-old democratic republic. Bosnia does not have that stability.
Read 6 tweets
Incredible the extent to which Russian nationalist revisionism has infiltrated ostensibly informed debate on the #Balkans, and filtered thru to Western discourses about the Kremlin’s foreign policy more broadly. 1/
For instance, the centrality of NATO’s bombing of Milosevic's regime in '99 in new pop-history of RUS revanchism. In this narrative, '99 was moment of trauma/betrayal for Kremlin as it signified NATO rubbing their faces in their inability, post-USSR, to protect a trusted ally. 2/
What’s notably absent in this narrative is i) any regard for the history of Yugoslav – Soviet relations, and more importantly ii) Russia’s deep and bloody involvement in the Yugoslav Wars prior to 1999. 3/
Read 13 tweets
#Europe "an increasingly complex & competitive security environment," SACEUR/@US_EUCOM Commander Gen. Curtis Scaparrotti tells #SASC in opening statement
"Our adaptation to the environment has made significant progress...particularly under the European Deterrence Initiative" per Gen Scaparrotti, calling it "the largest reinforcement of Euro-Atlantic Defense in a generation"
Gen Scaparrotti also says @NATO alliance "is strong" and that "European allies & #Canada have turned a corner on defense spending with increases in each of the past 3 years" adding $46 billion to defense spending
Read 44 tweets

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