The EU thread

[Jacob]

Can the Euros really not handle Putin and his nonsense on their own? The EU has more than twice as many people and tons more resources.

I doubt it.

IMO the EU lacks the coherence, not to mention that Putin has a number of active assets like Orban inside the EU.

[HVC]

So what are the odds the Serbia starts another world war?

[The Brain]

So what are the odds the Serbia starts another world war?

Flo Rida can answer that one.

[Josquius]

I absolutely expect Putin to pull more shit in the European periphery at some point, and Serbia seems like a perfectly viable vector for it. Not that Serbia isn't able to stir things up on its own.

In terms of grand strategy, I wonder how deep the trouble in Europe would have to be to impact the current strategic shift to Asia-Pacific by the US?

Can the Euros really not handle Putin and his nonsense on their own? The EU has more than twice as many people and tons more resources. Pretty comical. It would be like Mexico pushing us around. Granted Mexico with nukes but the Euros have nukes as well.

North Korea has managed to push America around a fair bit.
When one side is mad and doesn't really care about peace and stability (or at least gives off that message) then size and wealth disparities lose relevance.

[Syt]

I find myself thinking, "Eh, Serbia/Kosovo do these things all the time", it'll blow over again.

Which is of course dangerous, because it will keep blowing over until suddenly it doesn't.

[Syt]

That said, I hope Serbia who are kind of trying to balance their sugar daddies EU, Russia, and China are careful about how far they let escalate things.

However, even if they decide to take Kosovo by force, and Russia supports them and draws a line for NATO/EU to not intervene or else, Serbia would stand to lose a lot through being immediately cut off from all things EU, most likely. I can't see even Orban and PiS going against that, not without serious consequences (wishful thinking, I know )

[Tamas]

That said, I hope Serbia who are kind of trying to balance their sugar daddies EU, Russia, and China are careful about how far they let escalate things.

However, even if they decide to take Kosovo by force, and Russia supports them and draws a line for NATO/EU to not intervene or else, Serbia would stand to lose a lot through being immediately cut off from all things EU, most likely. I can't see even Orban and PiS going against that, not without serious consequences (wishful thinking, I know )

That would be tricky for Orban. His human wallet (village gas fitter turned richest man of the country) has been investing in to one of the Serbian (Hungarian) football clubs there (plus transferring Hungarian grants to the same) so I assume there's at least some cross-border oligarchic understanding. But, there's a substantial Hungarian minority living in Serbia, sabotaging EU action against a genocidal Serbian regime would NOT be easy to explain at home.

[The Larch]

Vucic is not in it to recreate Greater Serbia but to become Serbia's autocrat. He will do knee jerk nationalistic displays like this from time to time to rile up his base or to distract from some other internal stuff but he's not crazy enough to actually start a war over anything like this.

[Sheilbh]

In terms of grand strategy, I wonder how deep the trouble in Europe would have to be to impact the current strategic shift to Asia-Pacific by the US?

Albania, Montenegro and North Macedonia are all in NATO - so I'd hope that any sort of direct threat to NATO members would re-focus the US (at least for a bit). Not least because I think that would go to their credibility in Asia-Pacific.

Vucic is not in it to recreate Greater Serbia but to become Serbia's autocrat. He will do knee jerk nationalistic displays like this from time to time to rile up his base or to distract from some other internal stuff but he's not crazy enough to actually start a war over anything like this.

Maybe-ish. I think he's already got total dominance over Serbia. He wins elections at the first round like Putin and his party (plus allies) already have over 75% of the Serbian parliament. Opinion polls indicate they might even go from winning 50%+ of the vote to 60%+ next time.

I agree in terms of not wanting to start a war directly by invading a country. I think what's more likely is they go in on more of this "Serb world" stuff - Serbian minorities in neighbouring countries (including Republika Srpska) get very into it, go to far and that causes a crackdown by the neighbouring government. If that sort of scenario (which is sort of what's going on in Kosovo but not quite) happens it may be very difficult pull back or de-escalate - so basically the traditional route to a Balkans war involving Serbia.

I'd guess the most likely would actually be if Republika Srpska held a referendum on seceding from BiH and joining Serbia.

Edit: I always think of the pessimism of international NGO/diplomatic etc workers in Sarajevo who I'd meet and hear about from a friend working there who all thought that BiH would collapse at some point (almost certainly due to Srpska trying to leave) and descend into another war - so I may be overly pessimistic about the West Balkans

[garbon]

Why are we acting like the US has divested all interest in Europe?

[Tamas]

Why are we acting like the US has divested all interest in Europe?

Je suis France's diesel sub deal, apparently.

[Sheilbh]

Je suis France's diesel sub deal, apparently.

For me it's more Biden's remarks on Afghanistan - and for all the talk about the confusion in Biden's foreign policy it seems fairly coherent to me.

The US is now focused on great power competition, overwhelmingly in the Pacific. Most of that is because of China's rise but I think Russia is still a concern for the US. However the US is only going to intervene in clear time-limited conflicts (not ongoing occupations/nation-building) for the US's "vital interests".

I think "vital interests" would definitely include NATO members (so Albania, Montenegro and North Macedonia). I think it's less clear how much the US would engage in dealing with Serbia de-stabilising Kosovo or BiH and how much they'd, frankly, just expect Europeans to handle that.

But I think since the Afghan withdrawal it is likely that Putin will try to test the limits of US commitment to Europe and its neighbourhood and, as Jake says, Serbia's a possible vector for that.

[Sheilbh]

Off-topic from Kosovo-Serbia, but what's going on in the Netherlands?

There was a journalist who was murdered by a drug gang in July and I just read that Rutte is going to get 24 hour police protection (which apparently isn't the normal for a Dutch PM) because they've assessed that threats against his life from a drug gang (I assume the same one) are credible. It seems pretty bad - I assume there's some big trial or some big police investigation/crackdown that's hurting their business.

[Duque de Bragança]

Vucic is not in it to recreate Greater Serbia but to become Serbia's autocrat. He will do knee jerk nationalistic displays like this from time to time to rile up his base or to distract from some other internal stuff but he's not crazy enough to actually start a war over anything like this.

I feel reassured now, obrigado! As far as balkantardism goes, it is business as usual.

[Jacob]

Why are we acting like the US has divested all interest in Europe?

I don't think we are, but the question was "can't Europe handle Russia by itself?" Personally I think the answer is "no".