The United States has just authorized a sale of military helicopters to Croatia. Russia countered by offering arms to Serbia.
Both history and the resent suggest something is afoot. We see a confluence of local and regional factors in a global geopolitical game. It is not only about the Balkans, but also about Ukraine and others.
Croatia is located in the western part of the Intermarium, the lands between Baltic, Black, and Adriatic seas. It neighbors Hungary and Slavonia to the north and northeast, while Serbia in the south-east and Bosnia Herzegovina to the south. Croatia hugs the Adriatic coast to the west, almost, but not quite, reaching Montenegro and Albania.
Catholic Croats are south Slavs, along with Orthodox Christian Serbs and Muslim Bosniaks. They used to be one, south Slavic (Yugoslav) people, but they split in the past along confessional and civilizational lines.
The ancestors of contemporary southern Slavs were part of the Roman Empire. After its division, some remained Latin Christians while others fell under the influence of the Byzantine Empire and its Orthodox faith.
In the 12th century Bosnia succumbed to Bogomilism, a Gnostic heresy, which originated in Bulgaria. It was persecuted for the next one hundred of years by both the Roman Catholic and the Serb Orthodox Churches.
In the 14th century both Bosnia and Serbia were conquered by the Ottomans. Many of the former Bosniak Bogomils embraced Islam.
Muslim repression led to Serb rebellions, flights, migrations north, and, consequently, the establishment of the Military Frontier, manned by the Serbs on behalf of the Habsburgs against the Ottomans. Thus, confessional communities became intermingled in a confusing mosaic of South Slavs.
Because of its remoteness, Montenegro maintained its autonomy from Turkey. Meanwhile, Croatia functioned as a virtually autonomous part of the Kingdom of Hungary, which, however, partly fell to the Turks in the 16th century.
From the 15th century the Poles and, later, the Habsburgs fought in the Balkans to push Islam back. Eventually, Russia pushed the Grand Porte of the eastern Balkans; Austria ejected Turkey from much of western Balkans.
Greece took advantage of the Great Power support to achieve independence. Uniquely, Serbia, self-liberated in early 19th century.
Albania was last in 1912 in the wake of the Balkan wars, which, first, terminated the Ottoman rule in Europe and, then, pitted the Balkan victors against one another. For the Balkan people, the First World War was merely an extension of the previous contest.
Because the United States crucially assisted England and France to defeat Germany on the Western Front in 1918, Serbia emerged a winner. It first absorbed Montenegro, the only Allied nation to disappear.
Then Serbia subordinated Croatia, Slavonia, and Bosnia-Herzegovina to its kingdom, soon renamed Yugoslavia.
The Serbs were the dominant nationality in the kingdom alienating others. Bad blood boiled over during the Second World War, when the South Slavs fought against one another in a wild array of coalitions and groupings.
Some collaborated with the Axis. Some preferred the Italians over the Germans, or vice versa. The Communists, who were the most ruthless, emerged victorious. Stalin guaranteed their triumph as the Red Army chased away the Wehrmacht up through the Balkans.
In 1945 Yugoslavia reemerged under red rule, but soon, while retaining its Marxism-Leninism, it became a maverick “national-bolshevik” state, joining the non-aligned movement. Belgrade boasted the status of the least restrictive Communist dictatorship.
Internally, the Serb element remained de facto dominant. In 1989, when centrifugal forces seized Yugoslavia (and, soon, the Soviet Union), the minorities decided to go it alone.
The Serbs objected. A war erupted. Slovenia achieved freedom fairly bloodlessly. The rest experienced an ordeal of death, fire, destruction, and ethnic cleansing.
America’s intervention put paid to the bloodshed, ending the suffering. It also thwarted Serbia’s ambitions. Belgrade lost much of its territory. It became a landlocked country after Montenegro seceded in 2006.
Meanwhile, Bosnia-Herzegovina proclaimed itself a separate state as did Slovenia, Croatia, and, ultimately, Kosovo in 2008.
Unsurprisingly, Serbia has nursed a grudge. It looks up to Russia. Serb minorities in Kosovo and, especially, Bosnia Herzegovina chafe at the bit. There was even an attempted pro-Serb coup d’etat in Montenegro in 2016.
Although parts of the Serbian political scene seek accommodation with the West and desire integration with the European Union, others prefer Russia and hope for a reversal of fortunes. Whether this means war, or just a test of wills, we shall soon see.
Peace there, as elsewhere, hinges on America’s resolve.
Marek Jan Chodakiewicz is Professor of History at the Institute of World Politics, a graduate school of statecraft in Washington D.C.; expert on East-Central Europe's Three Seas region; author, among others, of "Intermarium: The Land Between The Baltic and Black Seas." Read Marek Jan Chodakiewicz's Reports — More Here.