Tag: Southern Europe

International Update–2018

There are so many things happening in the world that it is difficult to write about it all….so IST tries to do an update when events out run the time we have to post…..

The Horn of Africa is always a busy place and an important spot to keep an eye on…..

Ethiopia and Eritrea have set aside their long standing animosities….and are trying to work together…..I wrote about some of this before……

https://lobotero.com/2018/07/11/ethiopia-a-rising-star/

There is more about this situation……

Ever since Ethiopiaannounced in early June that it will fully accept the terms of a 2000 peace agreement with neighbouring Eritrea, the pace of normalisation of relations between the two countries has been truly stunning.

First, a high-level Eritrean delegation made a visit to Addis Ababa on June 26 and kickstarted the talks on ending the decades-long conflict. Only a couple of weeks later, Ethiopia’s reformist new Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed made a landmark visit to Asmara and met the Eritrean president face-to-face. 

https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/eritreans-happy-peace-wary-afwerki-promises-180709094420940.html

Eritrea has pulled troops back from its heavily militarised border with Ethiopia as a “gesture of reconciliation”, the pro-government Eritrean Press agency said on its Facebook page.

There was no immediate confirmation from the government in Asmara, but the move would be consistent with rapidly improving ties between the Horn of Africa neighbours, whose 1998 war killed tens of thousands and led to two decades of military stalemate.

(reuters)

For a couple of years I have been watching the situation developing in the Caucuses……

https://lobotero.com/2016/05/16/regional-conflict-brewing-in-azerbaijan-armenia/

https://lobotero.com/2018/06/05/between-the-two-seas/

Hostilities run deep in this region and are ever threatening conflict in the making……

Azerbaijan has sharpened its threats of war against Armenia in an apparent attempt to ratchet up tension over Nagorno-Karabakh, the territory that both sides claim.

Verbal threats toward Armenia are nothing new for Azerbaijan, a state for which the phrase “bellicose rhetoric” has become something of a journalistic cliché. But Baku’s rhetoric in the past has tended to couch military threats in the conditional tense, a last resort if diplomatic negotiations fail. Increasingly, however, the military option is being portrayed as the only one.

“The developments unfolding in the world confirm that the international law does not work,” Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev tweeted on June 28. “If it did, Azerbaijani lands would have been freed from the invaders long ago.”

https://lobelog.com/azerbaijans-saber-rattling-grows-louder/

And then there is Syria and yes it is still a complete mess……

Sen. Lindsay Graham, a prominent Republican voice on national security and international policy, spoke out last week during a visit to the Middle East warning Turkey against further military involvement in the Syrian civil war. After meeting with Turkish President Erdogan, Sen. Graham cautioned the NATO ally—“You don’t want any further incursions in Syria by the Turkish military, you’ll get yourself in a quagmire.”

In a world filled with hyperbole, political spin, and fake news, it is rare to hear such an accurate and evidence-based statement as this. The civil war in Syria, raging for more than half a decade, has been a sterling example of a ‘quagmire’ in the geopolitical context since its inception. Even before the fighting started, Syria was one of the most complicated and volatile states in the Middle East.

https://www.realcleardefense.com/articles/2018/07/17/yes_syria_is_still_a_mess_113614.html

That is the round-up…..I hope you guys find it informative.

Between The Two Seas

The two seas I am referring to are the Black Sea in the West and the Caspian Sea in the East…..this region could very well become what is known as a linch pin event….

“Linch pin?”

I explained this in a post I wrote for another site about 4 years ago…..please read for it explains everything….this is an important situation developing……

https://legationes.wordpress.com/2015/07/10/looking-for-the-linchpin/

The reason I reference this is because this region is once again heating up….

Azerbaijan and Armenia both lay claim to the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. This disputed region is located entirely inside Azerbaijan – indeed, it is internationally recognized as Azerbaijani – but the government in Baku hasn’t exercised political authority over it in decades. That honor falls to the ethnic Armenians who populate it. In fact, Nagorno-Karabakh had been a semi-autonomous Armenian enclave ever since the Bolsheviks came to power in Russia. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, of which Azerbaijan was a part, the ethnic Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh, backed by Armenia itself, fought a war with Azerbaijan to keep the territory. A truce was brokered in 1994, and though negotiations over its official resolution have continued ever since, they have been entirely unsuccessful.

Minor skirmishes there erupt every so often – the bloodiest of which occurred in 2016 – but they have never escalated to all-out war. Partly that’s because war would be detrimental to Russia. Its interests are too many in the Caucasus to allow Turkey or Iran to gain a foothold there – something they would surely do if they backed Armenia in a conflict. Still, if Nagorno-Karabakh ever is a cause for war, then Azerbaijan, whose military dwarfs Armenia’s, would have the upper hand.

(Geopolitical Futures)

Our crackerjack State Department needs to pull its head out of the president’s ass and keep an eye on this situation or it could quickly become a problem that Trump will want to fix by some sort of attack.

The region is getting more unstable as the months go by……..

The springtime political upheaval in Armenia stunned neighbouring governments – not least that of Azerbaijan. Since 23 April, when mass demonstrations impelled Armenia’s long-time leader Serzh Sargsyan to resign, the Azerbaijani authorities have struggled to understand the implications for the three-decade-long conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia over Nagorno-Karabakh.

Prior to Armenia’s “velvet revolution”, observers in the Azerbaijani capital Baku believed Sargsyan would continue indefinitely as prime minister. At the outset of the anti-Sargsyan unrest, the demonstrations were small, and Azerbaijanis remained doubtful that the unrest would force a change in Armenian politics. They drew comparisons to “electric Yerevan” – the 2015 protests in the Armenian capital against electricity rate hikes. Even as the demonstrations grew, the Azerbaijani authorities did not imagine that Sargsyan would step down. Every previous uprising in the region had had a “geopolitical colour” – some relation to the standoff between Russia and the West – and they did not know what to make of a popular revolt centred solely on national politics.

https://www.crisisgroup.org/europe-central-asia/caucasus/azerbaijan/azerbaijan-armenias-political-upheaval-double-edged-sword

Armenia has had an election and the new leader is hoped to bring a close to the conflict with the country’s neighbor…..but those hopes could be premature….

For the past month Armenia has coasted on a wave of popular emotion and international goodwill, ever since peaceful protests forced the resignation of veteran leader Serzh Sargsyan and brought to power opposition leader Nikol Pashinian.

Pashinian, who is 42, has appointed a new government even more youthful than himself. He has also promised to crack down on corruption and clean up the old oligarchic system. A country that many had characterized as isolated, stuck, and completely dependent on Russia has confounded stereotypes and now looks dynamic—trendy even. The revolution is still only half-finished, but for the first time in two decades, Armenia is a good news story.

http://carnegieeurope.eu/strategiceurope/76414

I will be watching since no one else seems to care……all conflicts are important when they could possibly involve American troops…..we have enough war…..we need NO more.

Watch this blog…….

The Balkans, Smolder Again

Ever since the 1990’s I have watched the Balkans, since the split of the former Yugoslavia, because of the conflicts that fired up over the different independence movements in the region.

The Balkans have never been as calm as they wanted to be….it has been volatile and remains volatile….. I written about this region on several occasions….

https://lobotero.com/2017/05/01/the-balkans-smoldering-ashes-of-conflict/

https://lobotero.com/2018/04/10/what-of-the-balkans/

As you see the Balkans remain a source for conflict that never seems to go away……..read about the history of the Balkan Wars…..

The changes made in the map of Europe by the Balkan Wars of 1912-1913 were not merely the occasion but a cause and probably the most potent, and certainly the most urgent, of all the causes that led to the World War which has been raging with such titanic fury since the summer of 1914.

Had the Balkan Allies after their triumph over Turkey not fallen out amongst themselves, had there been no second Balkan War in 1913, had the Turkish provinces wrested from the Porte by the united arms of Bulgaria, Greece, Servia, and Montenegro been divided amongst the victors either by diplomacy or arbitration substantial justice would have been done to all, none of them would have been humiliated, and their moderation and concord would have commended their achievement to the Great Powers who might perhaps have secured the acquiescence of Austria-Hungary in the necessary enlargement of Servia and the expansion of Greece to Saloniki and beyond.

http://historion.net/balkan-wars-1912-1913/introduction

The region is a source of wonder for me, at least….so many different ethnic groups in one small area has got to be a powder keg.

What Of The Balkans?

I spend a lot of time doing research on international situations……I usually concentrate my time on the affairs in the Middle East but from time to time I see a problem in the world that needs attention…..and this time it is the Balkans.

I have written a couple of post about the Balkans….listed below in case that wee missed….

https://lobotero.com/2017/03/03/balkans-a-return-to-yesteryear/

https://lobotero.com/2017/05/30/the-tinderbox-that-is-the-balkans/

This region is once again making the rounds in think tanks…..

  • The confluence of a rising series of pressures in the Balkans, as well as the attention of Russian Security Council secretary Nikolai Patrushev – who has taken on the region as a special responsibility – suggests 2018 will see the launch of a renewed Russian campaign in the Balkans.
  • Russia looks to the Balkans as a battlefield in its “political war”, in part to compensate for its mixed success with “active measures” in Europe. Russia is seeking to create distractions and potentially bargaining chips with the EU, especially as this push coincides with the EU’s own renewed attention to the region.
  • The aim is not to assert authority over the region for its own sake so much as to harness and magnify existing tensions. In Russian eyes, the EU’s approach towards the Western Balkans is neither serious or systematic and so offers Moscow opportunities to create leverage.

http://www.ecfr.eu/publications/summary/do_the_western_balkans_face_a_coming_russian_storm

The Balkans are too confusing…..so many different countries with so many different agendas…..is there any way to make sense of the Balkans?

What might qualify in Germany or the United States as “political instability” would be seen as business as usual in the Balkans, where insecurity and political violence are all too common. Consider the following two examples. In Montenegro, NATO’s newest member, two car bombs exploded in the past seven days and a major protest against violence is being planned by a Western-funded nongovernmental organization for the weekend. In Kosovo, just days after Kosovar forces arrested and deported a Serbian government official, the prime minister fired his interior minister and his intelligence chief for deporting six Turks accused of being involved in the Gulenist movement, which Turkey blames for the 2016 attempted coup, without his approval. (The Kosovar president has refused to accept the dismissal of the intelligence chief, and he remains in his post.) In other parts of the world, events like these might attract attention. But in the Balkans, they barely raise eyebrows.

https://geopoliticalfutures.com/making-sense-balkans/

These are a few articles and/or white papers from a few think tanks….the US needs to worry for we have NO diplomatic corps to speak of and that does not bode well for a calming effect on the region.

Oh Albania!

Albania is one of those countries that people scratch their heads when it is talked about…..

Is the US really in bed with a terrorist organization?

I ask this because MEK is what is called a “terrorist” organization……

On March 22, 2018 the former Mayor of New York and adviser to President Trump, Rudy Giuliani was in Tirana. He was invited to Albania’s capital by Maryam Rajavi, the head of the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MEK) organization, to celebrate the Iranian festival of Nowruz with the Iranian jihadist organization which Albania has hosted since 2013. In this meeting, which was secretly organized by the Mojahedin, Giuliani showed his support for some 3.000 Iranian radicals that Albania hosts. In his speech Giuliani encouraged the Mojahedin to continue their fight against the government of Iran and called for regime change in Tehran.

The gathering of the Mojahedin was also attended by three Albanian politicians. They were Pandeli Majko, Minister for the Diaspora in the present Albanian government. Majko served as Minister of the Interior during the era of secret CIA renditions in Eastern Europe when Albania was used by the CIA to rendition and torture people. Majko who has never denied his cooperation with the CIA or the existence of secret prisons in Albania, has defended the illegal renditions and torture and has criticized those who spoke against the torture chambers of the CIA.

https://www.globalresearch.ca/is-albania-a-partner-of-the-us-in-supporting-international-terrorism/5633671

Maybe there is something to the conspiracy theory that the US is in league with terrorists…….

A Coming Russia-Ukrainian War?

I could bore the crap out you with posts about a memo….or how many Trump advisers have hit the pavement……or…….

I do a lot of reading and studying world events looking for that next war to inflict damage on the human race.  I spend hours reading and analyzing events that are not necessarily reported by the mainstream media.

The Ukraine has been a hot spot for a couple years now…..the US and Russia are facing off……a face-off that could become a hotter conflict any day now….why?

A new draft law adopted by the Ukrainian Parliament and awaiting Petro Poroshenko’s signature threatens to escalate the Ukrainian conflict into a full-blown war, pitting nuclear-armed Russia against the United States and NATO

While much of America’s – and the world’s – attention focused this weekend reflecting on Donald Trump’s first year in the Oval Office, holding one-year anniversary events for the historic Women’s March and drawing up balance sheets of his promises and achievements, Russia has had a rather different issue on the front-burner: a possible war with Ukraine.

The situation in the Donbass region of south-eastern Ukraine has been a feature of Russia’s political talk shows for the past couple years, along with the military campaign in Syria and more recently the stages in the preparation for presidential elections on March 18.

https://consortiumnews.com/2018/01/21/a-coming-russia-ukraine-war/

All these situations are stretching the US military thin….so thin that a breaking point is very close.

The US is making the world a safer place…..one war at a time.  And most of them are useless use of American military power.

ISIS Acquires A New Target

There is a lot of chest thumping at the diminished presence of ISIS in Iraq and Syria…..some, Trump included, are even going so far as to claim the ISIS is a dead organization.

I am not one of those people.

I have written numerous times that ISIS is diminished but not totally defeated….to me Southern Asia is looking like the next region that could suffer from the rise of ISIS….even Africa is part of the resurrection….and there is yet another area that could be in the ISIS game plan…..the Balkans.

So-called Islamic State has vowed to decapitate ‘infidels’ and kill Serbs, Croats and Muslim ‘traitors’ in the Balkans in a new threat to the region published in the Bosnian version of the jihadists’ magazine.

“No, we swear by Allah, we have not forgotten the Balkans,” the Bosnian version of ISIS’s magazine Rumiyah warned as the terror organisation issued a new threat to the region.

In an article entitled “The Balkans – Blood for Enemies, and Honey for Friends”, the terror group makes direct threats to Serbs and Croats over their roles in the Balkan wars, as well as to Muslim ‘traitors’ to the Islamic faith.

http://www.balkaninsight.com/en/article/isis-wows-to-wreak-vengeance-on-balkans-in-new-threat-06-08-2017

Now the question is…… will the US return to the Balkans militarily?

The 1990’s gave us the Balkans Wars of Serbia, Bosnia and Croatia….the US and NATO fought several wars in the region….is the Trump admin willing to return to the Balkans…..

Making the world a safer place….one war at a time.

An Old Nightmare Returns

I recently read an article about the situation in Balkans….where there is growing concern that the rise of the military and far Right politics might be a harbinger of things to come and a repeat of history…..

Source: An Old Nightmare Returns: The Balkans Simmer Again | The National Interest Blog

After I read the article I thought if only someone had been paying attention then just would not come as a surprise……

Wait!

Someone has been watching!  Me!

Source: The Balkans: Smoldering Ashes Of Conflict – In Saner Thought

There are many differences between the Balkans and the Middle East, but they have two things in common. Both regions are former pieces of the Ottoman Empire that have not found stability since that empire receded in the late 19th century.

Source: Will the Balkan Tinderbox Ignite, Again? | The Cipher Brief

So someone has been watching and reporting…the problem is NO one is paying attention.

Since I am an analyst of international conflict then nothing about this is surprising and I will continue to be a voice of caution.

The Tinderbox That Is The Balkans

For over a hundred years the Balkans have been a fertile land for armed conflict.  I bring this up because after those hundred years the region is no closer to a peaceful co-existence.

In the beginning of the 20th century there were wars after wars in the Balkans…..

1912–13, two short wars, fought for the possession of the European territories of the Ottoman Empire. The outbreak of the Italo-Turkish War for the possession of Tripoli (1911) encouraged the Balkan states to increase their territory at Turkish expense. Serbia and Bulgaria accordingly concluded (1912), with the aid of Russian secret diplomacy, a treaty of alliance. In a secret annex, the treaty provided for joint military action and the division of prospective conquests. The outbreak of the war (Oct., 1912), in which Greece and Montenegro joined the original allies, was followed by the speedy expulsion of the Turks from all of European Turkey, except the Constantinople area. After the conclusion of hostilities Serbia showed intentions of annexing a large part of Albania, in order to gain an outlet on the Adriatic, but this step toward a Greater Serbia was opposed by Austria-Hungary and Italy and by the Albanians, who had proclaimed their independence. Conferences of the ambassadors of the Great Powers at London created (1913) an independent Albania of fair size, thus cutting Serbia off from the sea. Dissatisfied with these terms, Serbia demanded of Bulgaria a greater share of Macedonia. Bulgaria thereupon attacked (June, 1913) Serbia, only to be attacked by Romania, Greece, and Turkey. As a result of this Second Balkan War, Bulgaria lost territory to all her enemies by the Treaty of Bucharest (Aug., 1913). The Balkan Wars prepared the way for World War I by satisfying some of the aspirations of Serbia and thereby giving a great impetus to the Serbian desire to annex parts of Austria-Hungary by alarming Austria and stiffening Austrian resolution to crush Serbia and by giving causes of dissatisfaction to Bulgaria and Turkey.

Source: The Balkan Wars: 100 Years Later, a History of Violence | TIME.com

For a more in-delth look at the history of the region…….

Source: historion.net • History Online • The Balkan Wars, 1912-1913 • INTRODUCTION.

In the 1990’s war returned to the Balkans after a quarter century of relative calm under the leadership of Tito……better known as the Yugoslav Wars…..if became to a conflict of ethnic cleansing that involved almost all the region…..and of course the US had to weigh in on the conflict…..

In the early 1990s, the Balkan country of Yugoslavia fell apart in a series of wars which saw ethnic cleansing and genocide return to Europe. The driving force was not age old ethnic tensions (as the Serb side liked to proclaim), but distinctly modern nationalisms, fanned by the media and driven by politicians. The crux was that as Yugoslavia collapsed, majority ethnicities pushed for independence, and these nationalist governments ignored their minorities, if not actively persecuted them, e.g. forcing them out of jobs.

As propaganda made these minorities paranoid, they were armed, and stirred into actions which degenerated into a bloody set of wars. While the situation was rarely as clear as Serb vs Croat vs Muslim – many small civil wars erupted over decades of rivalry – key patterns exist.

Source: The Wars of the Former Yugoslavia

I bring up all this history because the war drums are beating yet again….

There are many differences between the Balkans and the Middle East, but they have two things in common. Both regions are former pieces of the Ottoman Empire that have not found stability since that empire receded in the late 19th century. Both also have been objects of serial intrusion by outsiders who impose their interests and then flounder as their policies fail and hegemonies decline.

The Balkan region – a fluid concept with changing “membership” over the past two centuries – continues to struggle to orient itself in the wake of the collapse of the former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s. The shards of that country are going in different directions. Slovenia and Croatia have acceded to the European Union (EU) and now give casual advice to EU and U.S. officials on how to stem the West’s serial failures in the region.

Source: Will the Balkan Tinderbox Ignite, Again? | The Cipher Brief

AS the conflict fires heat up the US will once again insert itself into the fray under guise of the NATO charter.

The Balkans: Smoldering Ashes Of Conflict

All eyes are on North Korea with few glances toward Iran and a bit of fist pounding over Syria and Iraq……but these could just be diversions from a war that is brewing and No one is noticing….

Well not everyone is so diverted…..I have been watching the situation in the Balkans for some time and some of it does not look too promising for a peace region…..unfortunate since the late 1990’s the Balkans have been all but ignored….plus I have a loyal visitor to IST that writes mostly about the Balkans and I thought I would see her take on this situiation/s…..

Some of my thoughts on the situations in the Balkans…….

Source: Balkan War Drums Beat Again – In Saner Thought

But wait there is more……

Source: Balkans–A Return To Yesteryear? – In Saner Thought

Something I read made me think about my past posts…..it seems I am not the only one that is watching the Balkans…..

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 Prime Minister Edi Rama threatened war if Kosovo is denied entry into the European Union:

“Albania’s prime minister said a union between Albania and Kosovo cannot be ruled out if EU membership prospects for the Western Balkans fade.

Source: Will the Next War Erupt in the Balkans? by — Antiwar.com

There is very little peace in the region that was ravaged by war in the 1990’s…..but that matters not….what matters is to quell the fiery rhetoric and the threatened actions to prevent the region bursting into flames…..yet again.

Serbian officials are warning that the Albanian ambitions to absorb Kosovo could easily lead to another war in the Balkans, and that NATO and the European Union need to publicly rule out that possibility in an effort to forestall another ethnic war spanning the region.

The status of Kosovo is a big sore spot in the region, after NATO’s 1999 war imposed a separation of Kosovo from Serbia, which was supposed by the Kosovar Albanian majority but widely opposed by ethnic Serbs in Kosovo. Kosovo’s independence is heavily contested, with a number of countries refusing to recognize it.

Political turbulence is once again showing its ugly head in the Balkans…..

The trouble in the Balkans today is not Russian meddling, though there is some of that, but a special case of the malaise afflicting Eastern Europe: unchecked executive power, erosion of the rule of law, xenophobia directed at neighbours and migrants and pervasive economic insecurity. The pattern varies from country to country but is palpable from Szczecin on the Baltic to Istanbul on the Bosporus. The countries of the Western Balkans – Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro, and Serbia – have long tended to follow patterns set by their larger, more powerful neighbours. They are doing it again.

Source: New Balkan Turbulence Challenges Europe | Crisis Group

Mounting political instability in the Western Balkans has the potential to spark new crises on the EU’s immediate borders. Political tensions are particularly high in Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and Kosovo. Many EU policymakers are concerned that Russia aims to exacerbate this disorder, a worry that has intensified since elements of the Russian intelligence service were implicated in a failed coup in Montenegro last year. But the region’s crises are rooted in a prevalent winner-takes-all party politics and flaws inherent in the political settlements forged to end the Yugo­slav wars. While Russia has deep-seated interests in the Balkans, its interventions are more opportunistic than strategic.

Source: The Western Balkans: Fragile Majorities | Crisis Group

While writing this post news came out in the Balkans…..

Hundreds of protesters forced their way into Macedonia’s Parliament Thursday and attacked several leading lawmakers, leaving Social-Democratic Union party leader Zoran Zaev with blood pouring down his face. The protesters, supporters of the conservative VMRO party, were enraged by the election of a new Parliament speaker by a coalition of Social Democrats and ethnic Albanian parties, the BBC reports. Nationalists, who are calling for new elections, have been protesting in the streets since Zaev created the coalition. His attempts to form a government have been blocked by President Gjorge Ivanov, whose candidacy was supported by VMRO.

Police say Ziadin Sela, leader of the Albanian Alliance, was the most seriously injured lawmaker, reports Radio Free Europe, whose journalists were attacked by the mob that stormed the Skopje Parliament building. Stun grenades were fired as police tried to force back protesters and clear the way for evacuation of lawmakers. At least 77 people were injured, including 22 police officers. “We condemn the violence in the strongest possible terms,” the US Embassy in Macedonia said in a statement. “It is not consistent with democracy and is not an acceptable way to resolve differences.”

Without the proper diplomats (thanx to the emperor) all the US can do is watch the events unfold…..from the sidelines……

This could escalate into all out bang bang conflict and yet we are powerless to do anything but observe.