As if the war in Ukraine, the pending conflict between Iran and Israel and the burning Red Sea are not were enough, the Balkans - the powder keg of Europe - is now heating up. And the Russia-China-Iran troika is behind it all, Max Primorac, senior fellow at The Heritage Foundation's Margaret Thatcher Freedom Center, and Gordan Akrap, president of the Hybrid Warfare Research Institute, write for The Hill.
The recent diplomatic spat between neighbors Croatia and Montenegro, just as the latter was poised to join the European Union, would not normally be front-page news. But Russia's fingerprints are everywhere, and the White House needs to pay attention.
The dispute stems from a recent vote by the Montenegrin parliament to indict Croatia for World War II crimes committed by a pro-Nazi German regime. But Montenegro needs the approval of EU member Croatia to proceed with its accession. The vote was a deliberate effort to thwart efforts by the country's pro-Western prime minister to remove the tiny republic of 600,000 people from Moscow's political orbit.
The fact that Montenegro, a NATO ally, could be taken over by Russia in this way reflects the failure of Western diplomats to resolve unresolved Balkan issues since the violence of the breakup of the former Yugoslavia 30 years ago.
With America's resources already dispersed to deal with other conflicts, there can be no more tolerance for such nonsense.
We are familiar with Moscow's brutal efforts to block Ukraine's integration with the West. The same motivation underlies the Kremlin's efforts to undermine stability in the Balkans. Russia began attacking Montenegro when it joined NATO in 2017. Through coup attempts, cyber attacks, funding of pro-Russian political parties and disinformation campaigns through Russian-controlled media, the country is under constant siege.
Montenegrin officers assigned to NATO were dismissed as Russian spies. Parliament Speaker Andrija Mandić, who spearheaded the smear campaign against Croatia, was previously accused of involvement in a Kremlin-instigated coup.
However, none of Russia's actions would be possible without the support of its regional proxy, Serbia, which remains wedded to the Greater Serbian ideology that caused the violent breakup of the former Yugoslavia. Serbia recently hosted the "All-Serbian Assembly" - a copy of Vladimir Putin's Russian World Doctrine, which justifies aggression against countries where Russian minorities live.
This is a direct threat to Serbia's neighbors, where Serbian communities live in Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo and North Macedonia. Serbian chauvinism prompted Muslim leaders in Bosnia and Herzegovina to revive past relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran, issue statements in support of Hamas, and host Iran's foreign minister. The Serbian Orthodox Church, which plays the same destructive role as the Russian one, reinforces these divisions.
For decades, Europe and the US have tried to help Serbia enter the 21st century. The US alone provided over $1 billion in aid. It is time to admit that the effort has failed and to punish Belgrade for its machinations.
There are four things America's leaders can do today.
First, they can openly support Kosovo and reject Serbian efforts to destabilize it by agitating the Serbs living there. We must expand US government programs by catalyzing private sector investment to strengthen this pro-American stance. All future US aid to Serbia should be frozen until it ends its threats of military invasion and recognizes the independence of Kosovo. This will undermine the ahistorical concept of the Serbian world and deprive its Russian puppeteers of creating a regional problem.
Second, they should support Croatia as a solution to ending Eastern Europe's energy dependence on Russian oil and gas. Croatia's underutilized national pipeline JANAF and the LNG terminal in the North Adriatic can easily meet the energy needs of Hungary, Slovakia, Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and others. There is no excuse for these countries to continue to fund Russia's billion dollar war machine. That Moscow offers them a discount - a bribe - is unacceptable.
Third, leaders can strengthen diplomatic tools by expanding the Balkan sanctions regime against Serbian actors promoting Russia's destabilizing activities in Montenegro and the region. This should include domestic media controlled by Russia. Serbia has yet to join Europe in imposing sanctions on Russia and instead recently signed a free trade agreement with communist China. Their lax immigration laws have allowed terrorists to control people smuggling operations in Europe. Until it changes course, the European Union should remove Serbia from visa-free travel to the rest of Europe.
Fourth, US leaders should engage the government-appointed US Commission on International Religious Freedom to find ways to break the grip of the pro-Russian Serbian Orthodox Church on the Orthodox community in Montenegro. It is important to help the Montenegrin Orthodox Church regain its former independence from Serbia in the same way that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church freed itself from the Russian Patriarch, who is a former KGB agent.
As international politics heat up, the White House and European allies have a unique chance to contain this impending explosion in Europe's powder keg. History warns us that we must seize this opportunity.