Towards a new stable equilibrium for the Western Balkans?

The term Yugoslavia means the country of Slavs from southern Europe, whose population speaks one language. These Slavs came in the tenth century from the White Serbia  (now Poland and eastern Germany) and were originally established in the region of Macedonia. After going through a process of assimilation of Greco-Roman culture, Slavic tribes adopted the Orthodox religion of the Byzantine Empire, and were allowed to live in the Roman province of Illyria and Dalmatia. In the twelfth century "south Slavs" created their first state called Serbia, around which gathered all Slavic formations of the Western Balkans.

Serbian might peaked in the mid-14th century, during the reign of Stefan Dusan, who was crowned "Tsar of Serbs and Greeks" in Skopje (now the capital of Macedonia) on April 16th 1346. Serbia then was made of 14 regions, including Albania and almost the whole of Greece.

After the battle at the Field of Blackbirds (Kosovo) in 1389, the Ottoman Empire divided the occupation of the "South Slavs" territory with Hungary (transformed into the Austro-Hungarian Empire) for almost 500 years. In the provinces of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Macedonia, Kosovo, and Albania, the Turkish administration established the Muslim populations from other parts of its empire, and forced much of the Serbian population to abandon the Orthodox religion and become Muslims - the same thing Austro-Hungarian Empire did in Slovenia and Croatia, catholicizing by force. However, the Slavs in southern Europe continued to speak the same language, Serbian.

One of the aims of the Russian Empire in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 was that of Orthodox people’s (like Russia) liberation from the yoke of the Ottoman Empire. When Russia fought for the independence of Romania, Bulgaria, and Serbia-Montenegro, Romania and Bulgaria's contribution to the war was symbolical: out of the 2000-3000 soldiers, four or ten soldiers were holding a firearm.

On December 1st, 1918, Serbs, Montenegrins, Croats, and Slovenes created the Kingdom. In 1946, the resistance movement Yugoslav Partisans, led by Slovenian-Croatian Josip Broz Tito who fought against Germany, Hungary, Italy, and Bulgaria in World War II, formed the Federal People's Republic of Yugoslavia. The Federation was a copy of the US, composed of six republics (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Macedonia, Serbia) and two autonomous provinces (Vojvodina and Kosovo-Metohija), each republic and province having its own constitution, Supreme Court, parliament, president, and prime minister.

Declassified CIA documents demonstrate a US plan called the "Transformation of Yugoslavia" approved by the White House on October 18th, 1990 [1]. In June 1991, the implementation of this plan by the Americans and their European NATO allies started, which meant the secession of Yugoslavia by a civil war. This purpose was almost entirely achieved, which is the accession to NATO of all republics and autonomous provinces of Yugoslavia, except Serbia.

Under the plan, most Presidents, Prime Ministers and MPs of Yugoslav republics were bought by the White House, as well as military commanders of army units of Yugoslav Army deployed in Bosnia and Herzegovina, Slovenia, Croatia, and Macedonia. These republics of Yugoslavia were studded by NGO's from George Soros, who were actually officers from the Pentagon's Special Operations forces and CIA agents. They instantly became advisers of secessionist governments and prepared expert groups to initiate protest movements (Otpor for example), which degenerated into civil war. Germany, UK, Italy, and France supplied arms and ammunition to secessionist Croatians and Slovenians, trained and supported by the mercenaries company MPRI (Military Professional Resources Inc.), contracted by the US. Albania has become a corridor of penetration of Muslim mercenaries in Kosovo, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Macedonia. Muslims mercenaries were armed by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, UAE, Turkey, and Albania, and transported by planes and amphibious ships of the Pentagon.

In March 1999, NATO launched a bombing operation of Serbia, which lasted 78 days without UN Security Council approval, in order to detach the last "slices" of Kosovo. Serbs will never forget that "to stick the knife in the back" of Serbia, NATO received approval from Romania and Bulgaria, Orthodox countries like Serbia, to use the airspace of these countries for NATO air strikes. However, Romania and Bulgaria were not members of NATO in 1999.

Thus, a stable balance that has worked for over half a century in Yugoslavia and brought prosperity was shattered by the US, first by corruption, then militarily. Instead of being imposed one unstable and can not last long in the Western Balkans. Serbia has not resigned and will never give up Kosovo because it is the cradle of Serbian civilization in the national territory.

The Western Balkans are the countries that can host an advanced base for NATO, where US military capabilities may lead to Middle East, North Africa, the Black Sea region, and Central and Eastern Europe. In a previous article we talked about the theater of military action (TAM), European alignments and strategic directions [2]. Greek operational direction has its origin in the Greek port Thessaloniki, a gateway to the Asian continent and African one. From Thessaloniki Greek operational direction, the lane goes up the River Vardar Skopje (Macedonia), where it changes course for Serbia on the river Morava up to Nis, Belgrade, Budapest and Central Europe. The well-synchronized routing operation of hundreds of thousands of immigrants from the Middle East and Far East to Western Europe seems to have been conceived and executed by the strongest intelligence services in the world, with the aim of undermining the economy of rebel states against US policy - like Greece Serbia, Hungary and Macedonia. It seems that Macedonia, which is not a NATO member and is in its great majority Orthodox, speaking Serbo-Croatian, greatly disturbs the "gendarme" world of Washington.

Croatian fascist movement Ustasha, like the Right Sector in Ukraine, designed by the ideas and model of Stepan Bandera, collaborated with Nazi Germany in the Second World War, building camps of mass extermination and the assassination of 530,000 Serbs, Hebrews, and Gypsies. In 2014-2016, the Ustasha movement rebounded strongly, won seats in the European Parliament and Croatia, being financially supported by Washington. Croatia, a NATO member, poured fuel on the fire in its relationship with Serbia, ordering from the corporation Lockheed- Martin, ground to ground missile systems ATACMS MGM-140, with a range of 300 km, which is a direct threat for a Serbian state that has no ground to ground missiles. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg announced that under the measures taken against "aggressive" Russia, a NATO brigade with 5,000 troops will be deployed in Romania, neighboring Serbia.

The existence of outbreaks of ethnic and religious conflicts in areas close to Russia, the Western Balkans, have long held Moscow’s attention, who examined them carefully and act in its own interest. With the operation in Syria, the Russian army gained the ability of complex surveillance with satellites, unmanned aircraft and radio-electronic equipment - everything that happens in an area the size of the Western Balkans. Russia's interests are as during 1877-1878 - to support Christianity in this area, the majority religion in Russia.

Serbia fears a new NATO air assault, especially since it no longer has nine MiG-29 multirole aircraft, whose resource expires in 2018. Serbia has submitted a list of Russia's military purchases worth USD 2.5 billion, comprising of AA missile systems Pantsir-S1, short-range Tor and Buk 1M, medium range and S-300 long-range. Only Serbia has no money and stated that Russia does not intend to deliver weapons for free. Instead, Russia has such weapons procurement in large quantities and proposed a deal to the Serbs. The two countries signed a military partnership as NATO has with other countries in the Balkans, while Russia undertakes to intervene militarily if Serbia is attacked.

Russia took the first step in this partnership, announcing that starting from 2016 military exercises with Russian airborne forces in Serbia will be held regularly. Given that Serbia is surrounded by NATO countries, Russian airborne troops must be supported by the deployment in Serbia of Russian long-range S-300 / S-400 AA missile systems, Russian intelligence drones, electronic warfare equipment type Krasukha-4 and Borisoglebsk-2 subordinated to the automated complex C4I (command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence and Interoperability), and supersonic Su-30 SM fighters. And thereby Russians can manage to create in Serbia an "exclusion zone", like in Crimea and in Kaliningrad, impervious to all means of NATO (“Anti-Access / Area Denial" - "A2 / AD bubble"). It should be noted that the antiballistic American shield at Deveselu is located at a distance of 318 km from Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, and Russian ground-ground missiles Iskander (which can be deployed in Serbia in response to the arming of Croatia by systems ground-ground MGM-140 ATACMS) have a range of 500 km.

It is quite possible that the Russian troops will be stationed indefinitely in Serbia, and the aversion that Serbia's population feels because of the role of NATO regarding the massacre of Serb civilians in the former Yugoslavia will allow Russia to become the protector of Serbia, who decided to ensure integrity territorial, along with Kosovo and maybe more. In this context a likely scenario would be to reignite incidents to entice in Kosovo, followed by the brutal repression of Serbs by members of the Kosovo Liberation Army (UCK), trained by the CIA in Afghanistan and Trojope in Albania. The Washington Times published an enlightening article about common law offenders that make up their camps and the terrorist UCK [3].

Serbian soldiers could enter Kosovo by surprise and occupy Kosovo quickly. The situation is not like 1999, as NATO has no forces that can directly intervene in Serbia and this time there will be Russian troops - NATO would not risk hitting targets in Serbia. If the Albanian Army, NATO member, enters and tries to repel the Serbs in Kosovo, it will never receive a UN mandate, because it will hit the Russian Veto as a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Russians know Albania very well, since 1952 Albania has enabled the USSR to build the underground Pashaliman base (south of Vlora) for Russian submarines in the Mediterranean.

As in the past three years, Russian journalists are the most present, more credible, and more professional in the areas of military conflict. They will present all the news channels hundreds or thousands of images of Albanian soldiers captured in southwestern Serbia, creating a perception that since 1999, NATO would attack Serbia again. In these circumstances NATO cannot activate Article 5 on collective defense, as Albania is not being attacked by anyone. A similar problem might face Bosnia-Herzegovina - a creation of NATO, which is not a NATO member, inhabited with more than 50% of Serbs.

Montenegro - an Orthodox state inhabited by Serbs - is still not an official member of NATO, and has exit to the Adriatic, which makes it extremely attractive for Russia. As a conclusion, the solid presence of Russia can change the unstable balance in the Western Balkans imposed by the US with a stable one by peaceful, diplomatic means, bringing together South Slav Orthodox into a new Yugoslavia. Moreover, Gazprom's intention is that, through the South Stream pipeline, to ensure full energy needs of the region, and Russia and China are major investors for infrastructure projects in the Western Balkans. If the US opposes the natural course of history, the balance will be restored by military means. Only in the beginning, the Western Balkans is likely to enter into chaos, much deeper than in the period 1991-1999. And in this game of instability will be attracted to one side and other countries like Romania, Bulgaria, Italy, Greece, Hungary, Turkey, and China.

---------------

[1]. Yugoslavia "Transformed", 18 October 1990 (http://www.foia.cia.gov/sites/default/files/document_conversions/1817859/1990-10-01.pdf).

[2]. THE GEOSTRATEGY OF GAZPROM (http://katehon.com/article/geostrategy-gazprom).

[3]. KLA Rebels train in terrorist camps, by Jerry Seperate, The Washington Times - May 4, 1999 (http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/KLA-binladen.htm).