DEMOGRAPHY DETERMINES DESTINY - Russia's gamble in the Ukraine, Crimea
by Sasha Uuznov
We come back to the dreaded Triple D and I don't mean bra size, pardon the momentary lapse into patriachy, ladies! DEMOGRAPHY DETERMINES DESTINY - Triple D !
The reason Russian Federation President Vladimir "Fred" Putin is moving quickly is the demographic time bomb ticking in Russia. Ethnic Russians have the worst demographics in the world..ie lowest birthrate etc. They have the seething Caucauses (Kavkaz) in their backyard plus Islamists in Chechnya & Dagestan etc.
So even if Russia was to subdue the Crimea & the Ukraine it will stretch its resources elsewhere. Time is not on Russia's side, which is why it has to act fast to achieve its strategic objectives. Putin knows this and it's why he has to keep Syria afloat in its war against Sunni Islamists who otherwise would be waging jihad in his backyard; why he is perceived to be "hard" on homosexual activists/lobbyists.
We hate to say "we told you so"! Macedonian Foreign Policy shambles.
UKRAINE & Macedonia- After the Ukraine will the Baltic States (Latvia, Lithuania & Estonia) be next on Russia's list of acquisitions? If Russian President Putin is not afraid to use force in the Ukraine he probably won't be afraid to use it elsewhere. What does that mean for the US & EU if they don't act with force? It tells Moscow that the West is weak and Eastern Europe & the Balkans region could also come into question and be up for grabs.
Professor John Schindler of the US Naval War College writes: (link)
UKRAINE & Macedonia- After the Ukraine will the Baltic States (Latvia, Lithuania & Estonia) be next on Russia's list of acquisitions? If Russian President Putin is not afraid to use force in the Ukraine he probably won't be afraid to use it elsewhere. What does that mean for the US & EU if they don't act with force? It tells Moscow that the West is weak and Eastern Europe & the Balkans region could also come into question and be up for grabs.
Professor John Schindler of the US Naval War College writes: (link)
“Moscow understands only force and willingness to sacrifice human lives”
"As I write, the Kremlin has won a seemingly bloodless victory by seizing Crimea without real resistance. As Europe panics and U.S. leadership seems to have no idea what to do about Vladimir Putin’s single-handed shredding of Europe’s post-Cold War rulebook, the next step is unclear. To be sure, if Putin moves forces into ethnically Russian areas of eastern Ukraine – as the Duma has “approved” and he told President Obama he reserves the right to – Europe will have a real war on its hands; it is already in its biggest crisis since the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968. But a wider war cannot be ruled out. At a minimum, the post-1991 assurances that Europe would be forever at peace, that “soft power” could conquer all, or nearly so, that the continent’s biggest problems would be arguments over EU agricultural subsidies, have been shattered for good." (end quote)
For Macedonian governments, past & present, their approach with or obsession with following a particular foreign fashion to the exclusion of exploring their diplomatic options such as the obsession with Titoist Yugoslavism or now trying to desperately get into the EU tells you the inability of the "experts" in the capital city, Skopje, they are out of their league. They are unable to understand that the world is an unstable place and you need to think for yourself. Just look to the south and you see the economic basket case in Greece. You can't put all your diplomatic eggs in one basket. You need to play the balancing act.
if Putin's Russia can get away with it, assuming it does, then it may not be far-fetched for Macedonia to be in Moscow's firing line for bowing to Western pressure and its own stupidity in turning a blind eye to ethnic Albanian terrorists from Macedonia who fight in Syria. All Macedonian governments since the 2001 War in the country have been either strongarmed by the West or have cynically pandered to the demands of ethnic Albanian extremists within Macedonia... It reminds you of the Suddeten German minority bullying the Czechoslovak majority in 1938 with Hitler pulling the strings and the West appeasing before it was too late.
A parody of Kevin Costner's Western/cowboy film - Dances with Wolves. Skopje - dances with wolves, Ceca & Aziz ! Dancing diplomats & prancing politicians !
Years ago, The stupidity of Macedonian diplomacy culminated in recognising Kosovo's independence without squeezing concessions from neighbouring Serbia of which Kosovo seceded from. Belgrade asked Skopje not to accord recognition. In response the Macedonian government should have pressed Serbia and it's state funded Serbian Orthodox Church to recognise the independence of the Macedonian Orthodox Church in return for not recognising Kosovo. If Serbia refused then you could show rightly at how the Serbian government is still meddling via religion into Macedonia's affairs. But Macedonia blindly following the West just recognised Kosovo without cutting any deals because it was too afraid to ask Belgrade over the church issue. Now we have the Serbian state using religion by supporting rebel bishops to destabilise Macedonia. Ironically it was a trick perfected by the Soviets.
When you can't think for yourself others will do the thinking for you. If you are lazy with your language you will be lazy with the economy & foreign policy.
Bulgaria has seen this and it is no coincidence that the crazy historical theories hatched in a Sofia cafe are gaining currency in Skopje.
If your intellectual pursuit consists of jumping on cafe tables in Skopje, the Macedonian capital, dancing to the likes of Serb turbo-folk singer Ceca or Bulgarian gender-bender Aziz or effecting the chain smoking bohemian artist stereotype from Belgrade or Brussels or Sofia cafe society and thinking you're cool, it will not help you in the long run.
THE UKRAINE crisis shows the stupidity of Macedonian foreign & domestic policies of both the major ethnic Macedonian political parties regardless of who is in government at the time. It's a collective stupidity wrapped in an inferiority complex but advertised as culturally superiority. Moreover, If you're lazy with your language, you will be lazy with your foreign policy !
COULD MACEDONIA BE A VICTIM OF THE NEW COLD WAR?
In 2013 we wrote of Russian President Vladimir "Fred" Putin issuing a warning to the Republic of Macedonia if it didn't do something to stop sections of its ethnic Albanian minority from sending jihadist fighters to Syria in the war against the Assad regime. However, the warning wasn't so much aimed at the majority Orthodox Macedonian population. This was before the Russian annexation of the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea... It would now not be far-fetched or even out of the realms of reality for Russia to take "action" in some form such as espionage, sabotage operations if the Macedonian government, because of US pressure, refused to clamp down hard on the Islamists...
Macedonia is now caught between a rock and a hard place...its foreign policy is in a shambles, run by a political class who jump on the latest fashion without proper independent and strategic thinking; this political class has lurched from Belgrade to Sofia to Brussels to Washington... It simply has failed to understand that it must stand on its own two feet. The answers are not in Belgrade, Sofia, Brussels, Washington or Moscow but to navigate an independent course through the stormy global political terrain.
Professor John Schindler ex-NSA writes:
For years, I studied Russia as a counterintelligence officer for the National Security Agency, and at times I feel like I’m seeing history in reverse. The Kremlin is a fiercely revisionist power, seeking to change the status quo by various forms of force. This will soon involve NATO members in the Baltics directly, as well as Poland and Romania indirectly. Longstanding Russian acumen in what I term Special War, an amalgam of espionage, subversion and terrorism by spies and special operatives, is already known to Russia’s neighbors and can be expected to increase.
In truth, Putin set Russia on a course for Cold War 2.0 as far back as 2007, and perhaps earlier; Western counterintelligence noted major upswings in aggressive Russian espionage and subversion against NATO members as far back as 2006.The brief Georgia war of August 2008, which made clear that the Kremlin was perfectly comfortable with using force in the post-Soviet space, ought to have served as a bigger wake-up call for the West.
RUSSIA IN "DIS-PUTIN" WITH MACEDONIA - Syrian civil war could spill over into the Balkans?
US blowback to blame?
Is Ahmeti playing Russian Roulette?
by Sasha Uzunov - August 2013. link:
When it comes to reacting to terrorism the Russians have a record of being straight-shooters and simply cutting to the chase, if you pardon the puns. So when Moscow recently issued a warning to The Republic of Macedonia, a small nation in the Balkans region of Southern Europe, to get its house in order and stop harbouring pro-Al Qaeda Islamic terrorists, then it had better take that warning seriously--even though it is not to blame--and it is all connected to the civil war in Syria.
So why are the Russians in "dispute" with Macedonia? First, we need to clarify a few things. The warning is not directed at The Republic of Macedonia as such or the predominately ethnic Macedonian Orthodox Christian population, but at the ethnic Albanian Sunni Muslim extremists within the large ethnic Albanian minority, which forms about 20 to 25% of Macedonia's population and situated in the West along the border with Albania and Kosovo in the North-West.
Some of these extremists have found their way from Macedonia to Syria to fight on the side of the anti-Assad rebels who are aligned with Al Qaeda. One was recently killed in combat. Russia supports Syria's President Bashir al-Assad, an Alawi Muslim, who has backing from Shiite Iran.
So Russia's warning to Macedonia must be seen in this context. However, the Macedonian government, a strange coalition consisting of a Macedonian nationalist party VMRO-DPMNE and an ethnic Albanian nationalist party, DUI, deny the existence of any terrorists camps in Macedonia. read more.....
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