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-…
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.
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…
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.
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.
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/
#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"
