After the extraordinary summit of NATO heads of state, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg made an important statement
He said: “The Allies agreed that we must increase our support for partners that are at risk from the Russian threat and invasion, including Georgia and Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH).
Further: “As well as supporting Ukraine, which is now at war with Russia, NATO has a responsibility to ensure that there is no further escalation of the conflict, as this would be even more dangerous and destructive. This statement is notable above all for the fact that the alliance has lined up Georgia and BiH”
In terms of geopolitical realities, it is difficult to make any claim to this diagnosis. For well-known historical reasons, Georgia and BiH are multi-ethnic and multi-confessional states. They are referred to as “nerve centres” in their regions, which has initiated armed conflicts in certain circumstances.
But the main point is that the upheavals that have taken place there in recent decades and are probably expected in the future will occur synchronously in the global aspect of the development of international relations. It is also a fact that one can speak of a kind of “communicating vessels” model: the war in Bosnia, the 2008 declaration of independence by the Albanian enclave of Kosovo inside Serbia and the 2008 Caucasian war in Georgia.
Up to a certain point these have all been perceived locally, in a particular regional context. A notable feature of the current situation is that the North Atlantic Alliance has begun to link Georgia and BiH in a single knot, in NATO terminology, through a ‘Ukrainian front’. According to Stoltenberg, after the Ukrainian crisis, escalation is possible in the direction of the Balkans and Transcaucasus with the expansion of the space of conflict confrontation.
Let us assess the situation more concretely. Georgia has declared its intentions to integrate into NATO under the pretext of an “imminent Russian threat”. However, the ruling Georgian Dream party has not joined the West’s sanctions against Russia over the Ukraine crisis. Nor has it heeded the opinion of Western advisers to “take advantage of the situation in Ukraine to regain control of South Ossetia and Abkhazia by force”.
Georgian Foreign Minister David Zalkaliani said that “the use of force against Abkhazia and South Ossetia is not in the plans of the Georgian government. Moreover, the minister stated that he and his team would continue to take part in the Geneva discussions on security.
At the same time, Georgian President Salome Zurabishvili began to distance herself from the government by articulating support for Ukraine. She appealed to NATO “not to forget an unprotected Georgia”. Thus another front is forming in Tbilisi.
As for BiH, Milorad Dodik, member of the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina, stated that his country, Republika Srpska, will not impose sanctions against Russia and close the sky to its aircraft. He also specified that Republika Srpska (BiH consists of two entities, Republika Srpska and Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina) will not support Bosnia and Herzegovina’s joining NATO and will remain neutral, although BiH adopted the Membership Action Plan in 2010.
In response, the Balkans are beginning to be rocked. The Kosovar authorities are trying to use the “Ukrainian window of opportunity” to join NATO, and the local press writes “about the possibility of opening a second front in Europe after Ukraine”.
Without going into details of the emerging situation, the danger is that the Kosovars can see “political expediency” in the military version of events. Incidentally, they asked to join the alliance “urgently” the day after the start of Russia’s special operation in Ukraine.
If the USA sets the task of plunging Europe into chaos after Ukraine and further provoking the Black Sea region as a whole and Transcaucasia in particular, an armed conflict may break out.
It is no coincidence that the US and NATO have recently stepped up pressure on Serbia. It is being offered a project for the so-called Western Balkans. It is about economic, political and military integration of all countries of the region – Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania and unrecognized Kosovo, under control of the EU and NATO.
The aim is to stop any cooperation of these countries, especially Serbia, with Russia. Meanwhile, NATO is working on geopolitical formulas for the coming cataclysms in the space of Georgia and BiH. Stoltenberg has publicly outlined this problem.
Elena Panina