The Balkanized US/EU — Brinkmanship in Ukraine and the Balkans

TOM SUNIC • MARCH 25, 2023

https://www.unz.com/article/the-balkanized-us-eu-brinkmanship-in-ukraine-and-the-balkans/

Politics is the art of comparing. Experts in foreign policy, let alone self-proclaimed savants, when projecting the end results of the ongoing conflict between Russia and Ukraine are inclined to draw historical parallels, deluding themselves often into self-serving conclusions. For that matter, it’s easier for a historian to deliver his judgments on a past political conflict by using a “causal nexus” approach than for a political scientist, or a legal scholar whose deductive reasonings lead them often to wishful thinking and bizarre conjectures. Very few Western specialists, i.e., Sovietologists, Kremlinologists, etc., could predict in the late 1980s the sudden demise of communism in Eastern Europe, or the abrupt self-dismantlement of the Soviet Union, or the violent breakup of the Western multicultural darling, communist Yugoslavia. 

Some parallels with Eastern European states, still scarred and scared by the recent legacy of the communist rule are in order, although this time around, ideological or religious fervor is no longer their driving force. The main motor in today’s nation building, be it in Ukraine, Russia, or elsewhere in the Western hemisphere, is the notion of identity. For many the main priority, although uttered in discretion and in an implicit manner, is the preservation of their ethnic, racial and cultural identity.

Proxy wars, proxy meat

The root causes of the Russian military engagement in the eastern part of the mostly Russophone Ukraine, which runs the risk of degenerating into a worldwide conflagration, has already been well scrutinized by a number of independent observers. Many of them correctly state that the groundwork for the war in eastern Ukraine was laid by the US involvement in the rigged Ukrainian elections in 2014, which was met by the Russian military response in February 2022. Instead of endless speculations as to who is the prime suspect in the outbreak of hostilities in eastern Ukraine, or whose name is to be singled out for blowing up the Nord Stream pipelines in the Baltic Sea, one could resort to a simple rhetorical question instead: Cui bono? Who benefits mostly from the Russo-Ukrainian conflict? The answer then becomes far less difficult to divine. The prime beneficiary seems to be the US hegemon with Biden’s neocon advisers assuming the role of the best and the brightest world-improvers. By no means, however, are they the only instigators or profiteers from the ongoing conflict in Ukraine.

US neocon warmongering notwithstanding, it would be naive to exonerate smaller actors in Russia’s vicinity from all responsibility in fomenting and prolonging the Russo-Ukrainian conflict. With or without communism in Russia, with or without America’s neocons and influential Jewish lobbies, one must keep in mind that there are age-old simmering grudges held by each European state against a first-door European neighbor, especially if the neighbor once upon a time exhibited imperial ambitions. Non-European great powers, the US, Russia, or China can always bankroll smaller European states if those states perceive themselves under threat by their too ambitious European neighbors. Although White nationalists world-wide like to eulogize their ingroup culture and extol their common European racial heritage, there is ample historical evidence that wars between Whites in Europe and America have historically been crueler than wars waged by Whites against alien Others, be they called Jews, Muslims, or Black Africans. This is a powerful argument used by leftists or antifa activists when they rave about the necessity of establishing a stateless, multiracial, and transgender global system instead.

The historical record of each people in Europe during its process of nation-state building often gets clouded by quasi mythical historiographic accounts in which each state depicts itself as a perpetual victim of its villainous neighbor. Finland’s recent bid for entry into NATO is largely spurred by its bad memories of tsarist Russia’s attempt at Russification of the Finish people throughout the nineteenth century — far ahead of the better-known Russian/Soviet invasion of Finland in the winter of 1939–1940. The Poles had laid centuries-old claims to large parts of Russian territory — but tsarist Russia had similar claims on Polish territory, which resulted in several subsequent partitions of Poland. In addition, the Polish historical memory of the Soviet/Russian communist killing fields at Katyn in 1940, where thousands of prominent Poles were executed, can’t go away in Polish national consciousness. Miniature Baltic states whose gene pool was twice severely depleted by Russian/Soviet communist troops in 1940 and 1945 also have bad memories of the former Russian tsarist regime. A neocon apparatchik sitting in a State Department office knows full well that it won’t take a great deal of effort to tap into the pool of historical anti-Russian sentiments among Eastern Europeans, and, if needed, weaponize them for the American imperial project. A significant number of US-Jewish decision makers also have their own beef with Russia, given that their own family tree can be traced to Russian shtetels from which their grandparents were evicted by Tsar Alexander III, and where fierce fighting between the Ukrainian and Russian troops is now taking place. In times of crisis, as witnessed by the case of the Russia’s western neighbor Poland today, the US hegemon can easily whip up the Polish government into anti-Russian frenzy, similar to the Poland’s British- and Jewish-sponsored anti-German hysteria on the eve of World War II.

II.

The Delusion of a common European homeland

Simmering interethnic hatred won’t go away in Europe anytime soon despite all the EU talk about a “common European homeland.” Serb historians in the Balkans have their version of truth concerning the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991. Croat court historians must stick today to a different narrative fully in line with their new global role in NATO and after assuming the assigned task of policing the southern flank of the EU Schengen regime. The list of nationalist grievances, coupled with exorbitant victimhood stories knows no end among Eastern Europeans. Even a semi-literate peasant in Hungary reminisces often about large chunks of his land lost to anticommunist Romania in 1919 and then lost again to communist Romania in 1945. A modern Polish nationalist is in full agreement with his German nationalist counterpart about having non-European migrants kicked out or banning transgender NGOs from Europe. However, when the German nationalist begins commiserating about the fate of the ancient German city of Danzig — now renamed into Polish Gdansk — let alone dares to propose to his Polish colleague Germany’s tentative recuperation of large swaths of western Poland where millions of Germans once lived, all hell breaks loose. The idea of a “common White European homeland” championed by White nationalists in the US and Europe, sounds then like an exercise in self-delusion. The list of real or unreal grievances and perceived wrongs goes on in every single nation in Europe, stretching from Catalonia to Transnistria, from Brittany to Belarus. Even if Biden’s neocons were miraculously to leave office, even if all migrants, all Jews, all Muslims, all colored resident aliens all of a sudden were to depart from Europe and America, White Europeans and Americans will continue fighting their interethnic wars under the flowery guise of “preserving their cultural and historical memory.” Consider Scotland: still fighting the English while eagerly importing the Third World. From mythical Troy to the very real Thirty Years War, all the way to the lurking Third World War — the entire history of Europe is essentially a history of civil wars.

There’s a distinct possibility that in case of further escalation of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict, US policy makers at Langley and the Pentagon may consider harnessing client east European states and use them as proxy meat in an effort to downgrade Russia for good. Croatia with its four million citizens, being now a devout member of NATO and the EU — and in stark contrast to Russia-friendly, non-aligned Serbia — could be used by NATO as an important chain of command. Given the lasting animosity between Croatia and Serbia, the scenario of these two countries serving the two equally rival belligerent superpowers cannot be ruled out. Albanian-ruled Kosovo, carved out of Serbia in 2008, could also come into play as a big asset in future US war planning. The large US military base Camp Bondsteel, located in this tiny artificial state, does not serve sightseeing purposes, but rather as main US location for gathering military intelligence.

Historically speaking the Russians understand the ethnic and geopolitical profile of the Balkans very well. Should they start losing ground in Ukraine they might decide to spread the conflict to the Balkans and start destabilizing the entire US security arrangement in Europe. Russia could also use Serbia’s next of kin in the entity known as Republic of Srpska, an important and quasi-sovereign Serb enclave located in the neighboring EU/US sponsored state of Bosnia-Hercegovina. Wedged between Serbia and Croatia, multiethnic and multireligious Bosnia-Hercegovina is yet another EU/US attempt at creating fake political constructs whose expected lifespan hardly exceeds 20 to 40 years on the average. Sooner or later, the state of Bosnia-Hercegovina will fall apart, as was the case earlier with its larger although also artificial predecessor known as the Yugoslav state.

Following the US-sponsored Dayton agreement in 1995 Bosnia-Hercegovina was designated as a Western laboratory for various multicultural experiments. Financially it solely thrives on EU expenditures, along with significant Saudi and Turkish investments, while closely being watched by US proconsuls in the region. Thirty years after it emerged on the map, it is just another showcase example of how multicultural or multiracial countries created by foreign decrees are a blueprint for political instability. A parallel could be drawn with South Africa which 30 years after the all-Black rule can no longer be called a functional state. Yesterday it was the Balkans experiencing disintegration; tomorrow it will be America with similar patterns of ungovernability, with a likely outcome of armed conflicts of its citizens professing different racial identities. Bosnia’s ethnic components consisting of Bosnian Muslims, Christian Orthodox Serbs and a small Catholic Croat community hardly communicate with each other in good faith, each of them looking up to their own traditions. Bosnia’s Muslims look up to Turkey with no hidden historical nostalgia; Serbs from the Republic of Srpska look forward to the fusion with their next-door brethren in Serbia proper in the common hope of having Moscow stand by their side. Croats in Bosnia relish the thought that Croatia proper will always dish out cash subsidies, both convinced that no matter what the odds may be in the Balkans, the US marines will always come to rescue. A single spark from a missile gone astray from the Donbass region could easily ruin their self-delusion and set the fire to all of Europe.

The EU/US Sovietspeek vs. UkroNazis

It is no secret that the most effective fighters against the Russian forces in eastern Ukraine are local rightwing nationalists, as well hundreds if not thousands of foreign White nationalists from Poland, Baltic countries, Scandinavia and Croatia, including an unknown number of volunteers from Canada and the US. They bear the brunt of the war. Also, it remains no mystery that these derisively labeled “UkroNazis” serve as cannon fodder for EU and US policy makers whose own judiciary back home uses repressive legal measures and kangaroo courts against hundreds of the very same White nationalists. What motivates these Ukrainian pseudo-nazis to lay their lives on the line for the interests of US and EU elites? One may suspect that many naively think that in case of a Ukrainian victory, Ukraine will become a safe haven for white nationalists worldwide — sort of an enlarged recap of the first Fascist state in the Croatian port city of Fiume-Rijeka, established in 1919 by the Italian poet D’Annunzio and his squadristi coming from all parts of Europe. Even if such a rehashed commedia dell’arte scenario were to become successful in Ukraine, Ukrainian nationalists will face a very sober and a very different reality.

A case in point: during the breakup of communist Yugoslavia, Croat nationalists, Croat moneyed expats from Sydney to San Francisco, from Stuttgart to Santiago de Chile, along with several hundred US and European foreign volunteers played a significant role in prying Croatia from the Yugoslav-communist fold. Once the war was over, they were quickly silenced and disengaged by the very same people whom they attempted to neutralize in the first place, but whose lives they ironically resurrected instead. Former communist hacks in Croatia and their classier progeny are back in town, albeit rebranded as latter-day liberals blaring EU and US global ukases.

In the near impossible scenario that Ukrainian nationalists score some points of international credibility, once the hostilities are over, they will be removed by the same authorities who are now praising them to the heavens. At this stage EU politicians love decorating EU embassies with Ukrainian flags with the slogan running underneath: “Slava Ukraijini.” The same “slava” adjective, however, if translated into proper German “heil” and if used by a German man sporting those same words in his native language, i.e., “Heil Deutschland” — will land him in prison. Both EU and US officials fake concern about the “inviolability and integrity” of Ukraine’s borders but couldn’t care less about their own make-believe borders stretching along the Aegean Sea and the Rio Grande respectively, which have by now turned into highways for non-European uninvited newcomers.

The Russian authorities are trying to provide some legal cover for their military engagement by invoking the old communist slogan “denazification.” However self-serving this war cry may sound, it does provide Russia’s military engagement with some semblance of legality. All the more so as the mainstream media in Ukraine keep throwing at the Russian military the same criminalizing “nazi” appellation. Resorting, however, to aggressive nationalist sloganeering would signify for Russia a kiss of death, further alienating it from sympathetic antifa elements in the West, as well as friendly countries in Africa and Asia. There is no way for Russia, at least for now, to officially resurrect its past anticommunist and fascist Russian-American figurehead Anastasy Vonsyatsky, or sing the praise of general Andrey Vlasov and hundreds of thousands of his Russian anticommunist ROA fighters battling communist insurgents in Europe alongside their Wehrmacht comrades.

But Washington must also be careful. The present international order, with its post-WWII Nuremberg-inspired International Criminal Court, would have never been established without the communist strongman Stalin. Without massive communist military contribution during WWII, the US and Great Britain would have never been able to win the war on their own against the Axis states. The proposed warrant for Putin’s arrest will definitely backfire as many African and Asian states will increasingly demand similar accountability from the US and Israel for their own military wrongdoings.

The good point about the hyperinflated anti-fascist rhetoric is that it has by now turned into such a grotesque name-calling practice, having fewer and fewer observers believing in its derogatory significance. This word, revamped by the Allies at the 1947 Nuremberg Tribunal into the symbol of the Absolute Cosmic Evil, is still used profusely by Hollywood, ADL, SPLC, and CRIF image makers. Their methods resemble the study of demonology which can easily put to shame ancient Greek mythmakers Homer and Hesiod. But fascist labeling may soon yield opposite results. Constant smearing of rival political actors or dissident academics with shut-up words ‘fascist’, ‘neo-Nazi’ and ‘antisemite’, as is the case with most US and EU media outlets, is becoming for many a badge of honor. One of the reasons Putin’s Russia enjoys significant popularity among nationalist and traditionalist circles in Europe and America is that despite its communist past it has managed to retain many traditional values that had vanished long ago in the West. As has been suggested by some authors, the communist egalitarian utopia fell apart in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, simply because it had better succeeded in practice in the US and EU. Fancy, albeit meaningless US locutions, hardly translatable into other European languages, such as “diversity”, “affirmative action”, “hate speech”, “ethnic sensitivity training”, etc., used by the US/EU media and judiciary, were long ago tested in communist Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union. The catastrophic abuse of the language by former communist apparatchiks resulted inevitably in the implosion of their countries. Today, the balkanized America and its EU vassal are far less European and far more communist than Russia and Eastern Europe combined.