The EU thread

[Jacob]

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.

Exactly. Putin, I expect, is going to throw his weight around exactly as much as the limits of US commitments allow.

[Berkut]

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".

It's not just a question of what they can do if necessary, but what is the cost if it comes to that.

Europe was able to handle Germany and Austria Hungary in WW1 for example. But the cost was astronomical.

A poorly united Europe, getting all worked up over sub deals and money instead of focused on security, is vulnerable to Russia continuing to chip away where it thinks it can get away with it. That is based on the perception that the EU won't really stand up to him, even if they clearly COULD.

Maybe he is wrong about that, and there is some point where Europe would coordinate and slap him down. I would like to believe that is the case. But letting it get to that?

I mean, Europe eventually stood up to Hitler and slapped him down as well. But the cost....

Running the numbers, of course Europe could handle Russia. Hell, Germany alone could probably handle Russia if it came right down to it. But theoretical comparisons of economies and populations doesn't actually matter much when it comes to an aggressor, and the aggressor being wrong doesn't help the millions dead in the proving that they were wrong.

And now in a world with nukes....

[Crazy_Ivan80]

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?

asking the question is answering it.

[viper37]

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

Because there is a strong isolationist movement in the US at the moment.  It's only a matter of time before the US has divested all interest in Europe.  Trump wanted to shut down US military bases in Germany.  Cooler heads prevailed.  The next time he runs for President, gets elected and decided to divest all interest in Europe, who will stop him?

[viper37]

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?

They lack the will to unite, and the Brits made it clear multiple times they don't want anything to do with Europe, economically, monetarily or militarily.

Outside of France, who has a strong army anyway?

Ther US has the army, but does not want to use it anymore.

France is doing its bare minimum to not alienate citizen.  Other Euro countries are mostly peacenick who thinks Putin is the nice guy heating their homes.

[Sheilbh]

They lack the will to unite, and the Brits made it clear multiple times they don't want anything to do with Europe, economically, monetarily or militarily.

It's really not true on the UK. For all the focus on the carrier group in the Pacific, at the same time the Royal Navy's participated in the NATO Baltic exercises, NATO-Ukraine exercises in the Black Sea (where there was also a freedom of navigation exercise near Crimea) and, separately, had RN-Baltic nation exercises too. And just this year the UK became lead of one of the NATO groups in the Baltic countries.

The UK government doesn't have any interest in engaging with the EU on foreign policy - but I'd slightly query the value of that anyway given the rest of this thread - but is still very committed to NATO and showing it by actually participating in the Baltics and with Ukraine.

[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.

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

I agree that the most likely source of serious trouble in the area is bound to be Bosnia, as it's by far the country with the weakest state and the most fractured. Besides, the Bosnian Serbs are well organized through their own polity in the Srpska Republic, and tensions within Bosnia between the Serbs and other comunities are long standing and sometimes really close to getting messy.

In this sense for instance it'd be meaningful to point out that forces in the area are already considering behind closed doors ending the existance of Bosnia per se and dividing its territoriy between Serbia, Croatia and a rump Bosniak state, as proposed by the controversial "non-paper" by the Slovenian government earlier this year, which also proposed the unification of Albania and Kosovo, as well as other minor border adjustments to Montenegro and North Macedonia (removing Albanian majority areas, I assume).

For those interested in the "non-paper": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkan_non-paper

[viper37]

They lack the will to unite, and the Brits made it clear multiple times they don't want anything to do with Europe, economically, monetarily or militarily.

It's really not true on the UK. For all the focus on the carrier group in the Pacific, at the same time the Royal Navy's participated in the NATO Baltic exercises, NATO-Ukraine exercises in the Black Sea (where there was also a freedom of navigation exercise near Crimea) and, separately, had RN-Baltic nation exercises too. And just this year the UK became lead of one of the NATO groups in the Baltic countries.

The UK government doesn't have any interest in engaging with the EU on foreign policy - but I'd slightly query the value of that anyway given the rest of this thread - but is still very committed to NATO and showing it by actually participating in the Baltics and with Ukraine.

NATO and Europe are different things.  I'm talking about an integrated European military, at the very least, much more cooperation, independant of NATO or not.  There is a certain need for all of Europe to step up its game, militarily speaking, rely much less on the US.  And have a decent, coherent and mostly united foreign policy amongst EU members.  Right now, half of them are looking warily at Russia while the others will bend over for Putin as soon as he asked them.

[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 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

I agree that the most likely source of serious trouble in the area is bound to be Bosnia, as it's by far the country with the weakest state and the most fractured. Besides, the Bosnian Serbs are well organized through their own polity in the Srpska Republic, and tensions within Bosnia between the Serbs and other comunities are long standing and sometimes really close to getting messy.

In this sense for instance it'd be meaningful to point out that forces in the area are already considering behind closed doors ending the existance of Bosnia per se and dividing its territoriy between Serbia, Croatia and a rump Bosniak state, as proposed by the controversial "non-paper" by the Slovenian government earlier this year, which also proposed the unification of Albania and Kosovo, as well as other minor border adjustments to Montenegro and North Macedonia (removing Albanian majority areas, I assume).

For those interested in the "non-paper": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkan_non-paper

Obrigado for the link. Interesting, but not in a good way. I guess that the topic will come up sooner or later with the Albanians I know. Covid certainly played a part in the relative lack of publicity for that document.
Even so, this would still leave the Presevo Valley (Albanian majority area) in Serbia, once rumored to be included in a deal allowing the merger of Kosovo (bar the Serbian area i.e Mitrovica) and Albania.

[Zanza]

The UK government doesn't have any interest in engaging with the EU on foreign policy - but I'd slightly query the value of that anyway given the rest of this thread

The feeling is mutual - given the 1000+ pages Brexit thread. 

[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.

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

I agree that the most likely source of serious trouble in the area is bound to be Bosnia, as it's by far the country with the weakest state and the most fractured. Besides, the Bosnian Serbs are well organized through their own polity in the Srpska Republic, and tensions within Bosnia between the Serbs and other comunities are long standing and sometimes really close to getting messy.

In this sense for instance it'd be meaningful to point out that forces in the area are already considering behind closed doors ending the existance of Bosnia per se and dividing its territoriy between Serbia, Croatia and a rump Bosniak state, as proposed by the controversial "non-paper" by the Slovenian government earlier this year, which also proposed the unification of Albania and Kosovo, as well as other minor border adjustments to Montenegro and North Macedonia (removing Albanian majority areas, I assume).

For those interested in the "non-paper": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balkan_non-paper

Obrigado for the link. Interesting, but not in a good way. I guess that the topic will come up sooner or later with the Albanians I know. Covid certainly played a part in the relative lack of publicity for that document.
Even so, this would still leave the Presevo Valley (Albanian majority area) in Serbia, once rumored to be included in a deal allowing the merger of Kosovo (bar the Serbian area i.e Mitrovica) and Albania.

I'd count on those areas being part of the "minor border adjustments", as they've long been rumoured to be in the cards in a possible Serbia - Kosovo settlement, in which they'd exchange border areas with majority Serbian/Albanian populations (Mitrovica & surrounding areas for the Presevo Valley)

[Sheilbh]

NATO and Europe are different things.  I'm talking about an integrated European military, at the very least, much more cooperation, independant of NATO or not.  There is a certain need for all of Europe to step up its game, militarily speaking, rely much less on the US.  And have a decent, coherent and mostly united foreign policy amongst EU members.  Right now, half of them are looking warily at Russia while the others will bend over for Putin as soon as he asked them.

The EU and Europe are also different things - Ukraine is in neither.

Ultimately the options for Europe to have strategic autonomy in my view are, within the EU, France identifying its interests with and backing up the EU's periphery (Poland, the Baltics, Romania, Greece etc) to broadly support French leadership, or to look outisde the EU and involve the UK as the other reasonably decent European middle power (that identifies its interests with the periphery but through NATO). I think those are the options - I don't think building it within the curretnt structures of the EU as is will work because there are too many member states who don't really want to.

The feeling is mutual - given the 1000+ pages Brexit thread. 

Fair. But people agree the EU doesn't have a significant foreign or defence policy outside of trade - so I just don't know why any country would. Maybe politeness, I suppose.

I agree that the most likely source of serious trouble in the area is bound to be Bosnia, as it's by far the country with the weakest state and the most fractured. Besides, the Bosnian Serbs are well organized through their own polity in the Srpska Republic, and tensions within Bosnia between the Serbs and other comunities are long standing and sometimes really close to getting messy.

Yeah - but I think there is also an element of sort of slowly adjusting the region (and EU and NATO) to this type of politics. So Serbia's put tanks on the border and is flying jets overhead - over Kosovo applying the same (pre-agreed!) rules about cars to Serbia. The next time there's a flare up over something minor, instead of the response being judged against the actual issue/crisis, I think it'll likely be judged against this: did they send out tanks and planes or not?

And that cycle will continue and I think it is deliberate. It's the international version of what Orban and Vucic have done domestically in a way.

I feel like the best response would be from the region - Croatia, North Macedonia, Albania, Montenegro etc setting out a common response (the Croatian President has been fairly robust in comments). I suspect that would actually matter more than nostrums from Brussels on either EU or NATO letterhead.

[Sheilbh]

An example of what I mean about France building strategic autonomy in Europe through working with willing European countries and then maybe bringing it into the EU (a la the stability mechanism), France and Greece have signed a new "strategic partnership". Greece is also buying three new frigates from France.

The Greek Prime Minister says that the obligations in this partnership is reflects a "very strong alliance that goes beyond the obligations of one to the other in the context of the EU and NATO". I think it's interesting because France and Greece worked together to confront Turkey in the Eastern Med in recent years - which is exactly what I think France should do to build autonomy. But part of the reason for it being an ad-hoc alliance so far is that, from a Greek perception, the EU doesn't back them up on Turkey enough because of Merkel/Germany especially not having the same view of the threat from Turkey to Greece and obviously NATO doesn't work because Turkey's a member.

If France starts looking at the way it can demonstrate its support for, say, Poland and the Baltics and build up to this type of relationship that could be the start of a network allowing European autonomy under French leadership.

[Valmy]

It is just as de Gaulle predicted. The US will eventually go home or shift its attention elsewhere. Europe must look to itself.

[Berkut]

It is just as de Gaulle predicted. The US will eventually go home or shift its attention elsewhere. Europe must look to itself.

...except he predicted that like 60 years ago.

All predictions will eventually come true, if the timeline is long enough, I suppose.

I predict France will eventually cease to exist, so Europe should look for security somewhere other then Paris.