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Guest Post: A Hybrid War To Break The Balkans?
Submitted by Andrew Korybko via OrientalReview.org,
In the spirit of the New Cold War and following on its success in snuffing out South Stream, the US has prioritized its efforts in obstructing Russia’s Balkan Stream pipeline, and for the most part, they’ve regretfully succeeded for the time being. The first challenge came from the May 2015 Color Revolution attempt in Macedonia, which thankfully was repulsed by the country’s patriotic citizenry. Next up on the destabilization agenda was the political turmoil that threatened to take hold of Greece in the run-up and aftermath of the austerity referendum, the idea being that if Tsipras were deposed, then Balkan Stream would be replaced with the US-friendly Eastring project. Once more, the Balkans proved resilient and the American plot was defeated, but it was the third and most directly antagonist maneuver that snipped the project in the bud and placed it on indefinite standby.
‘Lucky’ Number Three:
The climactic action happened on 24 November when Turkey shot down a Russian anti-terrorist bomber operating over the Syrian skies, and the nascent project became a victim of the predictable chain reaction of political deterioration between both sides. Given how obvious it was that energy cooperation would be one of the casualties of simmering Russian-Turkish tensions, it stands to reason that the US purposely egged Turkey on in order to provoke this domino reaction and scuttle Balkan Stream. Be that as it may (and it surely looks convincing enough to be the case), it doesn’t mean that the project is truly canceled, as it’s more strategically accurate to describe it as temporarily shelved. Russia understandably doesn’t want to enhance the position of a state that’s proven itself to be so blatantly aggressive against it, but this feeling extends only towards the present government and in the current context. It’s certainly conceivable that a fundamental shift in Turkey’s position (however unlikely that may appear in the short-term) could lead to a détente of sorts that resurrects the Balkan Stream, but a more probable scenario would be if the disaffected masses and/or distraught military representatives overthrew the government.
Turkish Reversal?:
Both of these possibilities aren’t that improbable when one takes note of the growing resentment to Erdogan’s rule and the precarious position he’s placed the armed forces in. It’s well-known how dissatisfied a significantly growing mass of Turks have become (especially amidst an ever-growing Kurdish Insurgency), but what’s less discussed is the strategically disadvantageous situation facing the military right now. As the author wrote about in October, the Turkish forces are spread thin between their anti-Kurdish operations in the broad southeast, securing the heartland from ISIL and extreme left-wing terrorist attacks, occasional interventions in Northern Iraq, and remaining on alert along the Syrian border. This state of affairs is already almost too much for any military to handle, and one of the last things that its responsible leaders need right now is to balance against an imaginary and completely unnecessary Russian ‘threat’ cooked up by Erdogan. This pressure might prove to be too much for them, and in the interests of national security and properly fulfilling their constitutional role in safeguarding the territorial integrity of the state, they might band together in overthrowing him in spite of the systemic changes he’s enacted in the past decade to defend against such an event.
The Path Forward:
There’s a very real chance that Balkan Stream will be unfrozen and the project allowed to move forward one day, as it’s too strategically important for Russia, and even Turkey, to be kept on the backburner indefinitely. It’s entirely possible that an internal political change will take place in Turkey, be it in the mindset of the current leadership or more likely with the installment of a new revolutionary/coup government, meaning that it’s much too premature for Russia or the US to give up on their respective policies towards Balkan Stream. Therefore, both Great Powers are proceeding forward with a sort of geopolitical insurance strategy, and in each case, it’s centered on China’s Balkan Silk Road. From the American perspective, the US needs to continue unabated with the destabilization of the Balkans, since even if the Russian project is successfully stopped, then it still needs to do the same thing to China’s. So long as the Balkan Silk Road continues to be built, then Russia will retain a multipolar magnet through its premier strategic partner on which it can concentrate the influence that it’s cultivated thus far. In the event that Balkan Stream is unfrozen, then Russia can immediately jump back into the mix as if it never left and rejoin strategic forces with its Chinese ally like it originally planned, and this nightmare scenario is why the US is resorting to Hybrid War in its desperate bid to destroy the Balkan Silk Road.
As has already been similarly mentioned, the Russian approach is to focus more on the economic, military, and political diversifications that were supposed to accompany the energy-based physical infrastructure it was planning to build. Instead of the gas pipeline forming the spine of a New Balkans, it looks as though the Balkan Silk Road high-speed rail will take this role instead, but either way, there’s a multipolar megaproject that acts as a magnet for Russian influence. In the present configuration, Russia has relatively less influence in directly deciding the course of the infrastructure’s construction, but at the same time, it becomes indispensable to China. Beijing has close to no preexisting ties with the Balkans outside of purely economic relations (and even those are relatively new), so Russia’s privileged involvement in supporting the project and investing along the Balkan Silk Road route (which was supposed to run parallel with the Balkan Stream and bring in the said investment anyhow) helps to reinforce regional and local support for it by presenting a friendly and familiar face that decision makers are already accustomed to working with. It’s not to suggest that China can’t build the project on its own or that there isn’t legitimate support in the Balkans for such an initiative, but that Russia’s front-row participation in it reassures the local elite that a civilizationally similar and ultra-influential partner is there alongside them and is also placing visibly high stakes in the process out of a show of confidence in its hopeful success.
Beijing Is The Balkans’ Last Hope
It’s thus far been established that the Russian-Chinese Strategic Partnership intended to revolutionize the European continent with an infusion of multipolar influence along the Balkan Corridor, which was supposed to support Balkan Stream and the Balkan Silk Road. Regretfully, however, the US has temporarily succeeded in putting the brakes on Balkan Stream, thus meaning that the Balkan Silk Road is the only presently viable multipolar megaproject envisioned to run through the region. On that account, it’s China, not Russia, which is carrying the torch of multipolarity through the Balkans, although Beijing is of course partially depending on Russia’s established influence there to help secure their shared geostrategic objective and assist in making it a reality. At any rate, the Balkan Silk Road is arguably more important than the Balkan Stream for the time being, and as such, it’s worthy to pay extra attention to its strategic details in order to better grasp why it represents the Balkans’ last multipolar hope.
Institutional Foundation:
The concept for the Balkan Silk Road was a couple of years in the making, and it owes its genesis to China’s One Belt One Road (“New Silk Road”) policy of constructing worldwide connective infrastructure. This endeavor was thought up in order to solve the dual problems of creating opportunities for Chinese outbound investment and complementarily assisting geostrategic regions in their liberating quest to achieve multipolarity. Relating to the area under study, the Balkan Silk Road is the regional manifestation of this ideal, and it’s actually part of China’s broader engagement with the Central and Eastern European countries.
The format for their multilateral interaction was formalized in 2012 under the first-ever China and Central and Eastern European Countries (China-CEEC) Summit in Warsaw, and the event two years later in Belgrade produced the idea for a Budapest-Belgrade-Skopje-Athens high-speed rail project (the author’s colloquial description of which is the Balkan Silk Road) aimed at deepening both sides’ economic interconnection. The 2015 Summit in Suzhou produced a medium-term agenda for 2015-2020, which among other things, proposes the creation of a joint financing firm to supply credit and investment funds for this and other projects. It also officially described the Balkan Silk Road as being the “China-Eurasia Land-Sea Express Line” and suggested that it be integrated into the New Eurasian Land Bridge Economic Corridor sometime in the future, implying that Beijing would like to see the countries cooperative more pragmatically with Russia (first and foremost in this case, Poland). Importantly, Xinhua reported that the participants agreed to complete the Budapest-Belgrade stage of the project by 2017.
Strategic Context:
What all of this means is that China has accelerated its diplomatic, economic, and institutional relations with Central and Eastern Europe in the space of only a couple of years, astoundingly becoming a premier player in a region located almost half the world away from it and partially a formal component of the unipolar bloc. This can be explained solely by China’s attractive economic appeal to the CEEC that transcends all sorts of political boundaries, as well as to the complementary ambition that the East Asian supergiant has in deepening its presence worldwide. Together, these two factors combine into a formidable component of China’s grand strategy, which strives to use inescapable economic lures in leading its partners (especially those representing the unipolar world) along the path of tangible geopolitical change over a generational period. To refer back to the Balkan Silk Road, this represents Beijing’s primary vehicle in achieving its long-term strategy, and the geo-economic rationale for how this is anticipated to function will be explained in the below section. Before proceeding however, it’s relevant to recall what was referenced earlier about the US’ hegemonic imperatives, since this explains why the US is so fearful of China’s economic engagement with Europe that it plans to go as far as concocting destructive Hybrid Wars to stop it.
Geo-Economic Underpinnings:
The geo-economic justification for the Balkan Silk Road is evident, and it can be easily explained by examining the larger Central and Eastern European area that it’s envisioned to connect. The Southeastern European peninsula directly segues into each of these two regions, and the Hungarian hub of Budapest is geographically located in the center of this broad space. As it presently stands, there’s no reliable north-south corridor linking Hungary and the markets around it (namely Germany and Poland) to the Greek Mediterranean ports, thus meaning that Chinese maritime trade with these leading economies must physically circumnavigate the breadth of the entire European peninsula. The Balkan Silk Road changes all of that and cuts out days of unnecessary shipping time by bringing Central and Eastern European goods to the Greek port of Piraeus and within convenient reach of Suez-crossing Chinese vessels. This saves on time and money, thus making the route more profitable and efficient for all parties involved.
In the future, the Central and Eastern European economies could ship their goods through Russia en route to China via the Eurasian Land Bridge, but while that might be beneficial from the perspective of producer-to-consumer relations, it’s hardly advantageous for resellers who plan on re-exporting the said goods elsewhere in the world. To take advantage of the dynamic economic developments currently underway in East Africa and South Asia (be it in selling to those markets or in physically building up a presence there), it’s best for either party’s entrepreneurial actors to connect with one another at a maritime node that enables them to efficiently and quickly load or offload their predetermined transshipped goods. Geo-economically speaking, there’s no better place for this than Piraeus, as it’s the closest European mainland port to the Suez Canal which needs to be traversed in order to access the aforementioned destinations, with or without any transshipping involved (i.e. if EU entrepreneurs decide to directly export their goods there and not use a Chinese middleman).
In order to connect to Piraeus, the high-speed rail corridor known as the Balkan Silk Road is an infrastructural prerequisite, and its successful completion would lead to a significant sum of European trade being profitably redirected towards China and other booming non-Western locations like India and Ethiopia. The US fears losing its position as the EU’s top trading partner, knowing that the slippery strategic slope that could soon follow might lead to the rapid unraveling of its hegemonic control. Viewed from the reverse perspective, the Balkan Silk Road is the EU’s last hope for ever having a multipolar future independent of total American control, which is why it’s so geopolitically necessary for Russia and China to see the project completed. The inevitable New Cold War clash that this represents and the extraordinarily high stakes that are involved mean that the Balkans will remain one of the main flashpoints in this dangerous proxy struggle, despite the hierarchical switch of its multipolar protagonists.
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Better China than the JewSA and Israel that only seem to offer more debt and "diversity".
What I fear is that just like they shot that lawyer in Turkey on LIVE TV, they will make an attempt on Erdogan's life and blame Russia just to start WW3 that they want so bad. When Turkey took the blame for something that Israel did, Russia did not bite and did not start WW3 >> https://goo.gl/qazI3V
Who indeed? Nice link.
The Balkans will let America convince them to remain fragented vassal slaves states instead of free trading sovereigns.
America thwarting free enterprise throughout the world to disallow nations freedom and prosperity and pursuing their own interests.
America ruins the world to rule it
America operates on its allies like a child molester does here at home. Fuck it good, then kill it.
They operate by the ziocon book.
There's no fun if they won't "squirm" a little.
http://goo.gl/wbvm16
Turkey's Erdogan is the equivalent to the Ukrainian stooge puppet set up by the USSA to fight Russia.
Too many folk recognize this folly so It wont pan out.
"The Balkans will let America convince them to remain fragented vassal slaves states instead of free trading sovereigns."
I wouldn't put it that way. Political sentiment in the Balkans is shifting dramatically ever since Russia's return on the international scene. Yes, there are still predominantly powerful Anglo-Zionist elements that are still imposing the empire-vassal relations through their iron grip as well as through Soros-infiltrated fifth-columnists, but the single fact that we have seen "disciplinary" colorful revolutions in the Balkans tells you that Balkan states that have seen through the hypocrisy are slowly changing sides as a reaction of the Empire's psychopatic behaviour, specifically after 9/11.
China has also been very active in the region lately (see this, this, this and this) and their plans are to expand the established cooperation. Having in mind USSA's military, terrorist and logistical capabilities in the region ("liberated" Kosovo and Bosnia are documented jihadi training center hubs - here and here), there is a great possibility that another hot front is opened in the Balkans, only this time I don't think China and particularly Russia will keep away from Balkan affairs.
I'd recommend you to keep a watchful eye on Serbia and Macedonia, the Tribe might try to trigger something there this spring (an excellent interview of Mr. Korybko for a Macedonian newspaper here).
The Balkans will let America convince them to remain disfragented vassal slavesvinstead of free trading sovereigns.
America thwarting free enterprise throughout the world to disallow nations freedom and prosperity by fluttering their own interests
America ruins the world to rule it
Some of fear the Washington Neo-Cons are now capable of anything. Just so long as they drag us all into a war to rival all wars ever. These fuckers have no respect for human life, to further their power they are prepared to kill hundreds of millions. I no longer doubt that for a minute. Just look at who we let run Washington. A pack of AIPAC running dogs. The more war, the more our elites now profit. Paris killings saw military stocks soar as profits now look to rise for ever. Over our bodies.
Exactly Jack! You nailed it!
Scotty, beam me up...Jack too! We need a drink.
Every time people wise up to their tactics, the false flags become even more spectacular and the fear meter hits high. With debt levels at nosebleed levels, they're becoming even more desperate.
Russia reacts to Turkey’s attack SITREP November 29, 2015 by Scott
http://thesaker.is/russia-reacts-to-turkeys-attack-sitrep-november-29-20...
Will Russia nuke Turkey?
A great speech by Kadyrov about the meaning of being Muslim in Russia
wait, there is more...
"We will not let these Chinese macro-aggressions stand, against our old and valued allies." -Hitlery
I wasn't aware that the Chinese had launched any macro-aggressions on Wall Street.
United States of Russia sounds good to me if it rids the land of the pariahs lurking under rocks.
http://beforeitsnews.com/conspiracy-theories/2015/11/us-gives-their-prox...
Vichy DC and NATO are running out of Bribe Monies. Snigger snigger!
Wow, just what the staggering EU needs-- a faster, cheaper and more convenient way of getting mountains of rinky-dink Chinese goods imported into their landmass so they can crank up the unemployment rate by further undercutting their own price structure and firing all of their own workers.
It's also interesting to hear someone refer to a scheme that further tightens Russia's grip on the gas supply of Europe as a welcome multipolar advance over the current status quo. I know what this guy used to do for a living back in the Empire of Evil days.
bull diatribe low on facts more of strawman atguments. Wow
Fact-laden response. Wow.
So what part of my observations do you disagree with?
Is a high-speed rail link that dumps Chinese goods into Europe and shreds their struggling industrial base to be desired?
Is a Russian effort to maintain its lucrative slice of the European gas monopoly best described as a welcome multipolar development?
I mean, c'mon Vern, look at the pipeline routes. What is this all about? It's about Russian efforts to get gas to Europe by some route other than through Ukraine. And about other players efforts to block those routes. Plus maybe a bit of running out the clock and waiting for LNG shipments and/or other pipelines to other producers from other places to free Europe from the de facto veto card that Russia holds over their heads.
It's all about the money. And the power. And the gas.
Neither Russia nor the Soviet Union have ever used those gas pipelines as leverage against Europe.
Yes they want to circumvent Ukraine but that is due to Ukraine's behavior. This behavior by the way is not something new with this government. The last one did it also.
Or to put it in plain street level language - you are full of shit.
That is not entirely true, as Russia has int he recent past acted against Poland when the idea of reverse flow from Poland to Ukraine was under consideration. I certainly agree that the dispute is between Russia and Ukraine, which is the root cause of all of these Russian efforts to cut them out of the loop entirely and a definite contributor to the Western efforts to block any route that does in fact bypass Ukraine.
Yet it cannot be denied that the Europeans themselves are casting about for ALTERNATIVES to Russian gas, regardless of what the current or previous conduct of Russia may be. They clearly wish to be free of the REQUIREMENT to deal with Russia for their gas but would undoubtedly be content to have Russia as a gas competitor in an open marketplace.
If that observation makes me full of shit, so be it.
So 'bel, is it cold in Langley tonight like it is here in the Northwest?
So 'bel, is it cold in Langley tonight like it is here in the Northwest?
She doesn't know. But, she can tell you that is a sunny/72 in Tel Aviv.
I'd have to check the weather reports for both places, which is something I think you can accomplish for yourselves.
But thank you for the ad hominem attacks on Thanksgiving weekend, regardless.
http://www.mintpressnews.com/migrant-crisis-syria-war-fueled-by-competin...
http://ftmdaily.com/what-jerry-thinks/whysyria/
http://original.antiwar.com/dan_sanchez/2015/10/05/seize-the-chaos/
It's very kind of you to agree with me that this is all about the money, the power and the gas. I have often expressed the opinion that the Syrian conflict is all about Cartel A and Cartel B fighting for control of a pipeline access route. That I think Cartel A and Cartel B are equally execrable rather than a game of Heroes vs Villains is apparently where we part company.
It's about DOMINANCE.
For someone already addicted to all those "rinky-dink Chinese goods", your trolling is almost remarkable. Must be that "exceptionalism" I keep hearing about all around me... By the way, the Europeans you're so generously mocking have not reached yet the stage of spontaneous freestyle gladiator fighting in their malls during special sales days, for China made HDTVs. So, I suggest when you get too full of yourself again, check youtube...
Aw did the meany disagree with you lil pup? Hump...
Let's review here.
My observation is that smoothing the one-way flood of Chinese goods into Europe would not be in their best interest, unlike what the author posts. Are you saying that it is a good idea or not?
It's *always* the Balkans.
Outside of the United States it is Clinton's and NATO's bombing of Serbia that is recognized as the first truly lawless NATO (aka American) war by decree.
7 out of 10 Latvian potato farmers agree, The other 3 knew you were not talking about them.
Loosen up, it's called competition. Anyone afraid of competition?
Here in Australia the trade with China is now the important one. Despite a Free Trade Agreement with the US 11 years ago, all we are getting is a large trade deficit, year after year. Things will go up and down again, but not so quickly.
If they want to start WWIII, they will carve out a reason.
If we allow it, which we will. Doesn't hurt bad enough yet to rouse Americans from their soporific slumber.
Who knows whats going to happen
.
Business will continue as usual as the current price allows
.
beyond that someone would have to overthrow the WWII power structure and that is not very likely
Things are so fluid now it's hard to tell where it will go.
One thing is for sure... It won't get better.
This is an interesting article, but it's a huge extrapolation. First, the U.S.'s top trading partner is Western Europe, not the Balkans. Second, it's the EU Commission that stopped the South Stream project, not the U.S. You can't say that they're the same, even if they're sometimes partners. Third, the destabilization process comes from Russia as well, because they use the EU Eastern Europe countries as a trojan horse. But all this extrapolation is typical for any pro-west, pro-east discussions on the Balkans, which tend to make many assumptions with very little proof, starting from the assumption that one camp is "good" and the other is "bad".
I agree with P Stein points with another thougth. I do not thing the US is competent enough to execute such a strategy let alone concieve of it. While it is convenient to make the US the villen for everthing bad, that assumes the ability to dream up and put together a plan to do such complex strategies.
I agree with P Stein points with another thougth. I do not thing the US is competent enough to execute such a strategy let alone concieve of it. While it is convenient to make the US the villen for everthing bad, that assumes the ability to dream up and put together a plan to do such complex strategies.
Lol who are you fooling ? South Stream was all go just before US led coup in Ukraine took place and suddenly all those nations in agreement were forced to stop south stream project from US only. I giess you didnt read the articles when it was all happening.
Trojan Horse ? How exactly they arent like US where they force nations to do what they want. Meanwhile Russia simply do trade and business with them, and if those idiots are so happy being bootlickers then let them be.
ZBig pretty much blew the grey area out of the water when he published the Grand Chessboard. Aggression, stealing, causing sectarian strife and mass death to destroy and takeover countries is somewhat wrong.
It's news to me but apparently Turkey and the US had a go at Syria 1957 that was mirror image of this and Russia prevented it. Turkey deployed thousands of troops on Syrias border and khrushchev threatened to launch on their asses. Here is a short exerpt from Russia's side of the story.
"Khrushchev protested the overthrow of the Syrian government by the West in the strongest possible way, and even hinted at a possible military action to defend Damascus."
" In August 1957, the Syrian military went into the office of the head of the country's intelligence service and betrayed a CIA plot to overthrow the government, surrendering the money they had received from the Americans. Tit for tat expulsions of US and Syrian diplomats followed, and instead of defusing the scandal, Washington went from a covert subversion into a highly public offensive, coercing Syria's neighbors and members of the Baghdad Pact, a Middle Eastern clone of NATO, into a war coalition against Damascus."
Read more: http://sputniknews.com/analysis/20151030/1029356237/secret-uk-papers-syria-russian-role.html#ixzz3sqVx1nJg
Interesting...
"The first challenge came from the May 2015 Color Revolution attempt in Macedonia" ,
To state the obvious, and this is certainly not a wild-assed guess, this has all of the earmarks of the fine meddling hand of Ms Nuland or in formal circles known as Mrs Robert Kagan.
These people are truly out of control and evil to the core.
This is one of those rare excellent articles that makes it still barely worth my time to skim through the ZH heads for something of value.
exactly! that's why muslim refugees are being tunneled through there and into Europe - to destabilize the balkans and stop (or slow down) balkan part of The Silk Road. US (and Saudis) is, on one hand, putting more oil to Middle East fire (and tolerating human smugglers, if not funding them under the table), and on the other hand encouraging European leaders to embrace immigrants which will inevitably topple those European governments because people of Europe don't with to host any more refugees. US does it because UE (and Germany especially) embraced Chineese plan to build the Silk Road and Washington doesn't like that.
why did US set Ukraine on fire? Because of Ukrainian part of the Silk Road, that was supposed to link Doneck with Kiev. now that those ppl got totally hostile to each other no link will probably be built in some forseeable future.
look at this map to understand who's next: http://www.investasian.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/MapChinaNewSilkRoa...
So, we vote out democrats and republicans, right?
Troubles are also surfacing again in Bosnia with foiled terrorist attempts by Wahabies and one successful attack two weeks ago in Sarajevo killing two soldiers. Also the Serb republic announced a referendum on separation after the newly installed constitutional courts ordered something on the Serbs they don't like.
Yes, Bosnia continues to be unstable, with its own citizens being influenced by events occurring outside its boundaries. The overwhelming majority of muslim citizens of Bosnia are not inclined to fanaticism and violence. But there are, no doubt, leftover foreign militants from the 90's wars as well as some locals under their influence. The Serbs can also be relied upon to undermine the agreements that ended open hostilities of those years, along with their dissatisfaction with the Kosovo settlemnt, as they regard that territory as their historical possesion, regardless of who is actually living there currently.
Without having information about existing container ports on the Greek Mediterranean coast, I would suggest that Thessaloniki may be a more appropriate southern terminal for a Balkan silk road, having less difficult topography to the north. For that matter, in the unlikely event that Russo-Turkish antagonism quiets down, Istanbul could also be a candidate, giving access to the old "Orient Express" corridor.