Dominoes begin to fall - small Balkan sparks world conflict

[EnergyUnlimited]

I dream of joining a Serbian Militia and helping remove the Albanian element from Kosovo back to Albania.

ANyone know where I can sign up?

Young men are making best meat for the canon.
They also tend to fight not their wars.

These are Serbs, who are to throw away Albanians from Kosovo.

[mos6507]

At one level I'm sure everyone would love to have an independent Kurdish state. But when you look at it from game theory, the current situation of de facto autonomy is safer, kind of like the situation in Taiwan. The second either of these countries declare total autonomy, it risks touching off a regional war. The Kurds have enemies in Turkey and the Sunnis to the south. Of course, such subtleties are lost on many of the absolutists at PeakOil.com.

[jlw61]

Didn't Hitler start his power play by telling the Germans they were the greatest people, and then, he started taking over countries, with no one stopping him?
Or, have I mixed up the facts?

Actually you have it correct but overly simplified.

Hitler rises to power telling the people how wonderful they are and how he can help them out.

Hitler eventually becomes [s]president[/s] chancellor.

[s]Planes crash into the trade towers[/s] A fire breaks out in the Reichstag.

Hitler is granted emergency powers and creates a lot of executive orders and imprison dissidents and [s]Muslims[/s] Jews.

Hitler invades the [s]middle east[/s] Rhineland and Poland.

Then whole world goes crazy when all it would have taken was a single bullet to stop a world war.

[Cid_Yama]

<b>Russia 'freed' to recognize seperatist movements worldwide</b>

Russia will reap the whirlwind as ethnic secessionist movements throughout the former Soviet Union grow stronger.

Jubilant Russian nationalists claim that "Western betrayal" has freed the Kremlin from any obligation to follow international laws in its own neighborhood.

"Russia faces a terrible dilemma now," says Nadezhda Arbatova, a leading scholar at the official Center for European Studies in Moscow. "I'm sure there will now be intense political pressure on the Kremlin to recognize breakaway entities in other former Soviet states, and extend this process to other areas, such as Ukraine," where there are restive ethnic Russian minorities.

Russian ultranationalist leader Vladimir Zhirinovsky, a candidate in presidential elections slated for March 2, welcomed Kosovo's independence with the bombastic claim that "a new division of the world has begun" with the West's demonstration of how to "create new states" from the bodies of older, sovereign ones.

There are four pro-Russian breakaway statelets on post-Soviet territory. The leaders of two, South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia, were in Moscow this week to press their case for full diplomatic recognition of their de facto independence. But the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union left large Russian minorities stranded in newly created independent states, as well as many other restive ethnic minorities locked into Soviet-era "autonomous" entities.

"This is a real Pandora's box, and there's no reason to be happy it's been opened," says Gennady Chufrin, vice rector of the official Institute of World Economy and International Relations in Moscow. "If we start recognizing separatist entities, there will be no end to it. The international order, as we have known it, faces collapse."

"Russia will crush separatism on its own territory even more drastically than before, while supporting pro-Russian separatists elsewhere. It will be easy to explain this to the Russian people. It's the end of so-called morality-based foreign policy; now only power decides."

http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/0220/p06s ... tml?page=1

[dissident]

How cute, the Christian Science Monitor is worried about Russia taking advantage of the west's self-serving, international law breaking move. One gets the feeling that elements in the west are hoping Russia bites this bait. But like for most of history it will be the west that gets the blowback from its arrogance.

[btu2012]

I was not expecting, that you will write such a things.

It's just common sense. The idiots who devised this plan have no understanding of the situation of the Balkans and CEE.

Sad to see so many EU governments supporting this dumb move.

Btu

[EnergyUnlimited]

I was not expecting, that you will write such a things.

It's just common sense. The idiots who devised this plan have no understanding of the situation of the Balkans and CEE.

Sad to see so many EU governments supporting this dumb move.

Btu

Mr Solana, head of EU diplomacy supports diplomatic recognition of Kosovo.
So are you against united European policy?

[btu2012]

Mr Solana, head of EU diplomacy supports diplomatic recognition of Kosovo. So are you against united European policy?

On this issue Mr Solana represents the agreement of a fraction of EU governments and not any sort of consensus. Encouraging separatist movements is against EU principles.

The EU needs Serbia as a partner in the Balkans and as a future EU member.

The plan to create a Muslim majority enclave in the Balkans is misguided.

Kosovo holds enormous symbolic significance for Serbia due to its history. The current plan rewards an ethnic minority for breeding themselves into a local majority and then separating from their host country. This sets a precedent which will be taken very seriously by many nations.

Btu

[dinopello]

I was not expecting, that you will write such a things.

It's just common sense. The idiots who devised this plan have no understanding of the situation of the Balkans and CEE.

Sad to see so many EU governments supporting this dumb move.

Btu

Some Serbian immigrants I work with feel the same way. I can understand the direct contradictions with this, but then what do you think were the motivations for supporting Kosovo independence ? Was it to appease Saudi or Turkey ? I really don't know what's going on here but I figure there must me some more complex diplomatic act going on. Note, that I do not assume there is some wise policy going on, just that there is something going on.

[btu2012]

dinopello: Some within the EU want to "isolate" the Balkan Muslim element into a Muslim enclave (Kosovo plus Albania, who are likely to merge in the medium future).

Btu

[EnergyUnlimited]

I really don't know what's going on here but I figure there must me some more complex diplomatic act going on. Note, that I do not assume there is some wise policy going on, just that there is something going on.

That is a simple American plan relying on destroying of existing global order.

Essentially it is calling for superpowers to start building their influence zones.

[btu2012]

Essentially it is calling for superpowers to start building their influence zones.

I doubt that this plan has the best interests of Kosovars at heart.

Kosovo and Albania are unlikely to be successfully integrated within the EU, they will probably end up in a rather bad position. Their celebrations are likely to turn to tears in the medium term.

This enclave is likely to end up being the poorest region within Europe.

Btu

[Tyler_JC]

Essentially it is calling for superpowers to start building their influence zones.

I doubt that this plan has the best interests of Kosovars at heart.

Kosovo and Albania are unlikely to be successfully integrated within the EU, they will probably end up in a rather bad position. Their celebrations are likely to turn to tears in the medium term.

This enclave is likely to end up being the poorest region within Europe.

Btu

I'd say it already is the poorest region of Europe.

In my European Union Politics class, Albania was the punchline to nearly every joke.

In my notes I'd routinely write things like, "France decided to change its domestic economic policy in the 1980s in order avoid turning into Albania."

Albania was ruled by an absolute lunatic (Enver Hoxha) for 40 years. When Capitalism came to the country, it quickly turned into Anarchy.

Half of Albanians work in agriculture. Unemployment is well over 30% and most economic activity goes on in the "gray market".

Kosovo might be free, but that might just mean the freedom to be poor.

[btu2012]

Kosovo might be free, but that might just mean the freedom to be poor.

My point exactly. Would the EU want to deal with such a basket case as one of their own ?

The EU can now chew on the rest of the Balkans, and (greater) Albania can go the way of Burundi.

At least that's what the authors of this plan seem to think.

Btu

[btu2012]

And if it did then US administration would do anything to prevent it working.

It has been planned for years by some within the EU together with the US.

Greater Albania and Serbia are "problem regions" for the EU, but Serbia has more potential and strategic importance.

The map drawers seem to have overlooked the collateral effects of this brilliant plan.

Btu

[btu2012]

Energy Unlimited... I was thinking the same thing. What he said actually made sense! First time for everything, I suppose... lol.

Do I detect a certain level of bitterness ?

Btu

[EnergyUnlimited]

The map drawers seem to have overlooked the collateral effects of this brilliant plan.

Btu

Yep, they didn't think about Muslim mini-states emerging somewhere around Paris. ...or about Turkish enclaves in Germany

Now seriously, this move is a blow against one of core EU policies, eg integration of immigrants within host nation.
You should expect increased hostility towards immigrants in EU and in particular this concerns member states hosting larger minorities.
This will give new lease of life to racism.

[Cid_Yama]

<i>I can understand the direct contradictions with this, but then what do you think were the motivations for supporting Kosovo independence ? Was it to appease Saudi or Turkey ? I really don't know what's going on here but I figure there must me some more complex diplomatic act going on.</i>

It was done in an attempt to block this.

<b>Russia signs Serbia, wins "pipeline war" with EU</b>

Russia won the right on Friday to route a major gas supply route to Europe through its ally Serbia, a move analysts described as marking a Kremlin victory in a "pipeline war" with the European Union.

The gas agreement, signed in the Kremlin before President Vladimir Putin and visiting Serbian leaders, alarmed the United States because it increased Moscow's control over energy supplies to Europe and could undermine a rival EU project.

"The Kremlin has played a very smart and effective game over the past two years, effectively winning a pipeline war with the European Union."

The United States believes the deal with Serbia, which followed a similar agreement with Bulgaria, is deeply worrying, according to a confidential Serbian government document obtained by Reuters minuting discussions between Washington and Belgrade.

"The U.S. side warned about the political influence Moscow would gain by controlling energy resources in Serbia and the region.

"They were especially concerned with Bulgaria's decision to join the deal with Gazprom, because it undermines attempts to diversify European gas supplies."

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/0801 ... rbia_col_1

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7195522.stm

[mekrob]

So when people compare Israel/Palestine to Kosovo and Serbia, doesn't anyone else think that maybe they are comparing them falsely? Perhaps if you side with Kosovo, then you should also be siding with Israel and not necessarily with Palestine?

Kosovo, as has been mentioned time and time again, came into existence as an Albanian state because of rapid growth of Albanians. This growth came in large part due to breeding.

Israel, the Jewish state, came into existence through the rapid growth, both demographically and economically, of European Jews and Middle Eastern Jews (although the latter came later, usually after the declaration of statehood). This was coupled with voluntary expulsions as well as forced expulsions of Palestinians, much like Serbs were forcibly kicked out of Kosovo by Albanians in many instances.

Further, when the Palestinian population inside Israel soon began to become too large whereby the Jewish population would be make weaker and thus have less control of the state, they would open the floodgates on occasion to outside Jews and "Jews" (thus the Neo-Nazis that are citizens of Israel).

So on one hand, we have Kosovo that was taken over by Albanians through breeding, immigration and reductions of ethnic Serbs and we also have Israel which was taken over by Jews through influxes of immigration (largely), breeding (slightly) and reductions in the numbers of non-Jews.

Similar cases, no? Perhaps the precedent was set before Kosovo and likely before Israel as well.

Just a few thoughts about two complex situations.