The Paradigm Of War: Chaos And Perpetual Crises – OpEd
Ukraine, Taiwan and Iran on one side and the Western Balkans, Turkey and the Middle East on the other, form the two triangles of international politics that currently endanger the world order.
The war in the former Yugoslavia and its disintegration in the 90s of the 20th century marked the beginning of the breakdown of the Versailles order and the return of geopolitics, while the outbreak of war in Ukraine marked the prelude to the third World War.
The world order imposed by the winners of the Second World War (the USA and the Soviet Union), although by no means perfect, but nevertheless “stable and based on cooperation, seems to be falling apart”,[1] rightly expressed Joshka Fisher in his commentary for Vienna’s Der Standard.
The order still in force in Europe, like the order of the European Concert of Powers (1815), is coming to an end. The relations between the world powers are gradually crumbling, therefore, the world is plunging into a new world conflict in an unprecedented form. This is happening before our eyes as the old order is ending, while the new has not yet been created.
Unlike the First and Second World Wars, which were systematic conflicts and in which the opposing sides immediately activated all their military potential to the level at which they could do so at the initial moment of the war, this new world war in into which Europe and the world is sinking is the first world war, a hybrid war that gradually escalates and into which the parties to the conflict gradually sink.
The act of exploding the Nord Stream 1 and 2 pipelines (and the drone parade in the North Sea)[2] speaks volumes about the divergences within the West and the lack of mutual trust. The victory of the extreme right, especially in Italy, but also the warning of the possibility of the return of Russian gas from a good part of the Central and Eastern European countries, makes this act of specific weight for European security. Photos taken by a Danish F-16 near Bornholm [image distributed by the Danish Armed Forces) testify to the possibility of explosions with clear intent to sabotage.
American intelligence should have had enough information that Central Europe would be able to go over to Russia’s side this coming winter. Sabotage of North Stream 1 and 2 prevents this act. Therefore, the conclusion that this act is not an accident is quite logical.
The two triangles of international politics that endanger the international order
With the war in Syria de facto began an era of wars with a local character at first glance, but which will gradually form a chain that is coming together and will go down in history as the third world war.
The annexation of Crimea (2014) was only a continuation of what had happened in the former Yugoslavia and was expected to unfold in Syria with all its reflective power beyond the Middle East. Meanwhile, the return of the Western Balkans to the attention of world powers, first of all Russia and the USA, but also the explosion of a cultural and democratic revolution in Iran in the meantime, together with the internal boilings in Turkey and the expected explosion, proves the thesis that these two triangle of international politics endanger the international order like never since the Second World War.
The current options for continuing the war in Ukraine, as a prelude to an escalating world conflict, say it all — if Ukraine begins to lose the war, the US and NATO allies will inevitably become directly involved because they do not may allow a Russian victory, and if Russia begins to lose, the regime in power in Moscow would not survive and would escalate the conflict even with some form of use of weapons of mass destruction, after which, as in the first case , USA and NATO. will be directly involved.[3]
This world conflict, as evidenced by the cause-and-effect situation in the field of energy in Europe, and especially in Germany with more pronounced proportions, as expected by realists and experts in the field, accelerates the process of destroying the existing order. After the energy crisis culminates, the destruction of financial, investment and commercial ties will follow, which will naturally follow with the drastic drop in investments and the interruption of supply lines of energy sources, goods and industrial components. The latter, the industry, especially in countries like Germany, is expected to suffer the most, leaving a million unemployed.
The deepening of antagonisms between Russia and the West
In these circumstances, when the antagonisms between the great powers – the USA, Russia and China have reached the climax, Stefanov states, the conflict is inevitable.[4] These antagonisms are even more pronounced between the West and Russia.
This realistic judgment is further reinforced by Putin’s warmongering rhetoric: “I want to remind those who make such statements about Russia, do not forget that our country also has various means of destruction and they are more modern than those of NATO countries . If the territorial integrity of our country is violated, we will certainly use all the means at our disposal to protect Russia and our people.” 1
This was the statement of the disciple of Ivan the Terrible alias the one who imitates Peter the Great – Vladimir Putin, who leads the Russian Federation. At the end of the statement, he unequivocally affirmed that there is no wavering in his determination: “This is not a bluff. Those who try to blackmail us with nuclear weapons should know that things can change and turn in their direction.”
Alarm bells for the Third War have already rung.
Situated between the superpowers in question, the European Union, due to wrong decisions in the recent past, not only in the field of energy policies, and mocking itself by sometimes “understanding” the causes of the outbreak of the war in Ukraine and the commitment for the sacrifice of another’s Freedom for the benefit of the quasi-maintenance of peace on the continent, loses its geopolitical weight and turns itself into its object. Even in their attitudes towards Serbia, they go even further, petting to the point of disgust a pin of Milosevic and considering him a real partner for “achieving peace in the region2!” Serbia, even after the bombing suffered by NATO, naturally in favor of stopping the genocide in Kosovo (1999), continuing with the banal refusal to accept the reality that the act of decolonization of Kosovo was overdue and a shame not only for him, but also for political Europe, in the clashes around Kosovo, as was the case with Vučić’s speech at the UNSC, they contribute to the deepening of the conflict on the world level that has already begun, bringing all of Europe into a subordinate position.
It is no coincidence that the war from Syria was carried over to Ukraine, and Europe, from a subject of rising geopolitics, was meanwhile transformed into the object and arena of the war of the great powers.
The paradigm of war in the eyes of modern Quixotes
In these circumstances, the media presentation of the conflicts in question, starting with the former Yugoslavia and then continuing with Syria and currently with Ukraine, continues to be done as if those developments were sports matches with fans in a surreal form, for the benefit of the cause to embed the paradigm of war in the collective thought of Europe, presenting the world order in the east as a new normal process!
At the height of the Russian hybrid war in the Balkans, in the eyes of the world, at the UN headquarters in New York, the heads of diplomacy of Russia and Serbia, Sergey Lavrov and Nikola Selakovic, signed last Friday, September 23, the “Plan of consultation of the Ministries of Foreign Affairs of the two countries for the next two years.”
What does this Plan mean for the Western Balkans (not the open Balkans)?!
History teaches us how many times Europe has neglected the lessons of Russia and Turkey, it has suffered a lot and for a long time.
In 1455 Mehmet II with the cruelty of his army was found in front of the Council of Novobërda. As the well-known historian Noel Malcolm writes, when the commander of the city refused to surrender to General Mehmed, “Novoberda was surrounded by the Turkish army, and for forty days in a row, its walls were destroyed by Ottoman artillery.” On June 1, 1455, after the surrender agreement, after Mehmed’s own promises of forgiveness, the city surrendered. After taking the city into his hands, Mehmed broke his promise and an unprecedented massacre ensued, not only against former fighters, but also against women and children. “Having taken Novoberda into his hands, he broke his word: 74 women…were given to the infidels (like SR sex slaves), while 320 children were taken to become janissaries in Anatolia. Other cities in Kosovo were also occupied… The entire territory of Kosovo was placed under direct Ottoman rule and would remain so until the beginning of the 20th century.”[5]
These scenes will then be repeated in front of the gates of Kruja Castle and other Albanian castles during the era of Gjergj Kastrioti, which would become shields of Western civilization for almost a quarter of a century.
Neither Pope Pius nor other spiritual leaders of that era would be able to unite the princes of Europe in the fight against Turkish penetration in Europe.
The long Ottoman night would therefore continue for five centuries in a row.
But like medieval Turkey and modern Russia, in order to impose the conquest of European territories, after the eventual failure at the beginning of this mission, they quickly imposed a change in the concept of war.
We are already witnessing that after the invasion of Crimea, analysts focused on what they called the Russian approach to hybrid warfare, which meant using a wide variety of new tools to achieve an old objective — to use coercion for benefits territorial. After all, the war is now taking place on foreign soil, reminiscent of the long-running dark Cold War joke: “Any nuclear weapon used in Germany is a tactical nuclear weapon”,[6] which makes Putin’s threat not to be treated as a bluff.
The war paradigm and the useful idiots of the Kosovar opposition
The reactions of Western diplomacy after the Serbian president’s scandal at the UN headquarters can be described as having mixed shades.
The EU reacted on September 26 through its spokesman Peter Stano, somewhat wiser from its characteristic somnabulism in relation to Serbia, asserting that the new agreement between Serbia and Russia causes serious concerns.
“Relations with Russia cannot develop as if nothing happened, at a time when Russia is carrying out an aggression against an EU candidate state like Ukraine,” Stano emphasized.
Whether Brussels will have the strength to exert the right pressure, especially now that it was badly challenged by Belgrade, remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, somewhat slowly and slowly, other European officials and the American ambassador to Serbia, Christopher Hill, reacted. This last one makes the impression that he does not represent Joe Biden’s administration! Meanwhile Borelli seems that, saddened by the victory of the neo-fascists in Italy, he was speechless!
In Hill’s criticism, however, a dose of legitimate bitterness can be seen, he said that at this moment “only poor recruits can make pacts with Moscow”, but is that enough?!
Meanwhile, the head of the EU delegation in Serbia, Emanuel Giofre, who was at the same conference with Hilli, continues the old song of Brussels diplomacy, telling you to Belgrade that he “expects Serbia to stay with the West” in defense of common security values”, nullifying the calls of some European MPs who expressed in the meantime the termination of negotiations with Serbia for EU membership after this agreement.
Vučić, like his ideological father – Slobodan Milosevic, having prepared the historic speech already warned as a counter-reaction to the EU, aware that the war in the former Yugoslavia and its disintegration in the 90s of the 20th century marked the beginning of the breakdown of the Versailles order and the return of geopolitics, he can appeal to his mentor Vladimir Putin to intensify the continuation of the war in Ukraine even at the price that this act of Russian heroism marks the prelude to the War third world.
Finally, the Russians and Serbs, along with the Slavic brotherhood everywhere, those who will enjoy life later, will be able to be proud that twice it was precisely their disciples who set the world on fire within a span of a century (1914–2014/22 ).
A neighborhood of officials in Brussels, worthy followers of Don Quixote, may not take this fact too seriously. That’s why they make fun of themselves and continue to love Vučić’s sedra.
Let’s not talk about the useful idiots of the Kosovar opposition and their scumbags in the television studios, who continue to mock the opinion, and in fact more with themselves, judging Prime Minister Kurti that by warning of the danger of the outbreak of war in the Western Balkans, yes I served Serbia!
This level of political misery is only a bad copy of the political misery of the leaders of the LDK on the eve of the beginning of the war in Kosovo in 1998, when organizing elections on March 21, just two weeks after the massacre in Prekaz, they were mocked together with the people, they simultaneously sent wrong messages to the western world about the expected developments in Kosovo!
They were not able to predict that precisely the resistance in Prekaz had marked the ZERO DAY in the modern history of Kosovo, i.e. the date when the individual resistance for Liri would take on a collective character, with a real possibility of marking the beginning of a world conflict, in the event that would not be intervened by NATO in time.
It is no coincidence that this neighborhood of useful idiots of the Kosovar political scene continues to consider the demonstrations of the spring of 1981 as a product of the Serbian services and the Russian KGB. Shkëlzen Maliqi, currently an adviser to our Prime Minister Edi Rama, in this line of thought, claims that those demos “were prepared by a group of Albanian immigrants but with the financial support of the Serbian state security administration and the Russian KGB.”[7]
As a source for this absurd and highly unstable statement, he brings the statements of his father (Mehmet Maliqi), who, as is known, was the Secretary of the Interior after these demonstrations and known for his strictness against their organizers and activists patriots engaged even after the demonstrations for the status of the Republic for Kosovo.
This layer of useful idiots of Serbia, who were not able to read the message of history that was being conveyed by the youth demonstrations in the streets of Pristina, unfortunately, meanwhile, are very active everywhere, not only in the political scene, but also in the media in Pristina and Tirana, falling into the limelight and turning into central figures supporting Vučić’s idea of an “open Balkan”, which comes to us as a rerun of Yugoslavia dominated by Serbia.
Meanwhile, while Putin, before the start of the new offensive in Ukraine, claims in his speech that he is not bluffing, he warns of the possibility of using nuclear weapons, in case the West continues to support Ukraine, the acceptance of the act of starting “a conflict world is even more difficult to recognize because of the widespread belief that it is not possible because of the existence of nuclear weapons in the hands of the world powers and because of the completely new forms of warfare that will be developed” [8] meanwhile.
But if the war in Yugoslavia everyone believed that they could control and extinguish it whenever they wanted, the war in Ukraine came as a replay of the First World War exactly a century later! It started with the invasion of Crimea (2014) and was massive from February 2022, believing that it will be concluded quickly, within a few weeks, but, as it is seen, it is now escalating further, taking the proportions of the war scenario in Afghanistan, and probably the First World War.
Therefore, its end is unlikely to come even with its possible formal termination and the creation of a new order, quite different from that of Versailles in 1918 based on the negotiations of the war winners at the Versailles peace conference, that put an end to that never-before-seen scandal.
The German Foreign Minister and Vice-Chancellor for many years, Joschka Fischer, in the op-ed article titled “The End of Stability” dated August 29, which we quoted above, openly confirms that a new change in the peace order is coming and all the changes so far in history have been carried out through great world wars. Fischer states without a doubt: “Although the world order built after the Second World War was far from perfect, at least it offered stability and many opportunities for international cooperation. But now it seems to be falling apart. While most crises in recent history have occurred within the existing system, we are now facing the end of the system itself. Like it or not, a new reality is being announced and there is no going back to the previous situation.”[9]
When diplomacy does not surrender to fate
The order that emerged from the Second World War under the American umbrella is shaking precisely with the deepening of the war in Ukraine and warnings about its extension to the Western Balkans and elsewhere.
This order was an extension of the First World War (Versailles Peace Conference) cemented the borders of the countries of Eastern, Central and South-Eastern Europe, but also the borders of today’s Syria and Iraq and Turkey. The war in Ukraine is putting an end to this order, although its last prologue was noticed with the outbreak of war in the former Yugoslavia and then in Iraq and Syria.
After Putin’s warning about the possible use of nuclear weapons, the perfect American diplomacy had no way of surrendering to fate. In New York last week, the US Secretary of State made no effort to downplay the latest escalation in the war in Ukraine. The fact that the Russian president chose the week of the general debate at the United Nations to throw gasoline on the fire shows his contempt for the UN Charter, Antony Blinken said.
Meanwhile, the fact that the Serbian president mocks Brussels in this very session of the United Nations Assembly, would be entirely in the logic of diplomacy for Brussels to react harshly.
Just as every member of the Security Council should send a clear message to Vladimir Putin that “these irresponsible nuclear threats must stop immediately,” Blinken will insist, every member of the EU should strongly reacted to Vučić’s statements in relation to Kosovo.
The world is already clear that Russia is in the process of giving the war a new character.
In this context, it is hinted that Belgrade will also act in relation to Kosovo after the signing in New York of the bilateral agreement on Russian-Serbian cooperation on foreign policy, in case the reaction of the West will not be at the right level.
________________________________________________
ILIRIA University/ Prishtina-Republic of Kosovo;, Director of the Albanian Institute for Geopolitics
________________________________________________
1. Jochka Fischer: https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000138658114/chaos-und-krise-statt-stabilitaet-auf-der-welt
2. Javier Blas: https://twitter.com/JavierBlas/status/1574798147783622659
3. Mario Stefanov: https://www.geopolitika.news/analize/m-stefanov-ljudima-jos-nije-jasno-da-je-poceo-treci-svjetski-rat/
4. M. Stefanov, po aty
5. Noel Malkolm, Kosova — Një histori e shkurtër, Prishtinë/Tiranë 2001, f. 95
6. James Durso: https://www.eurasiareview.com/26092022-will-vladimir-putin-change-the-face-of-war-analysis/
7. Atdhe Hetemi, Lëvizjet studentore për Republikën e Kosoëvs — 1968, 1981 dhe 1997”, Prishtinë 2020, f. 266
8. M.Stefanov, po aty.
9. J.Fischer, po aty
