On July 11, the first day of the most recent NATO summit, alliance members formally invited Macedonia to join the treaty. Macedonia’s joining NATO should have been a relatively minor event. The country isn’t exactly a major strategic asset as far as military strength is concerned. The country’s entire military budget is barely $100 million, the lowest investment of any NATO member. Furthermore, that number amounts to only one percent of the country’s GDP, much lower than the two percent President Donald Trump had pushed for leading up to the summit and a demand that ended up becoming the central issue of the international gathering. But what was merely a small blip on the radar from an objective perspective has ended up becoming a major issue of contention and possibly even conflict in Europe.
Re-Opening the Can of Worms
Macedonia coming into a Western alliance triggered a variety of issues. First off was Russia. Macedonia’s acceptance of this invite extended NATO’s reach in the Balkans. This was not a happy day for the country NATO was originally created to oppose. Years ago, the ex-Yugoslavian nation was firmly under the influence of Russia. Now Skopje has joined the most important treaty of Western European nations. And Macedonia is not alone in this regard. The country’s entrance into the treaty was a kind of replay of a similar incident from two years earlier. In June 2016, Montenegro became the 29th member of NATO. Similar to Macedonia’s recent joining of the alliance, the announcement came amid strong objections from Russia. Preceding Montenegro’s initiation to NATO, Russia had begun to step up efforts to destabilize several nations in the Western Balkans. Montenegrin officials charged 14 people in connection with an alleged Russia-backed plot to take over parliament during the October 2016 parliamentary elections and assassinate then-Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic. In other words, Russia was rather aggressive in trying to keep the country under its thumb. Instead, Montenegro remained steadfast in its chosen path. Two years later, Macedonia became the second loss to Russia in a one-two combo that hit Russia in the Balkans.
It was more than losing former satellite states to the West that upset the Russian Federation. Part of Russia’s grand strategy for centuries has been maintaining its strategic depth as a bulwark against the rest of Europe. Russia’s own massive size alone has saved it several times, most famously during the Napoleonic wars and World War Two. But creating around its borders a series of allied states aligned with their own interests (and under not a small amount of direct influence from Moscow) was a central part of Russia’s national security during the Cold War. That plan largely fell apart with the fall of the Iron Curtain. Soviet bloc states regained their independence. What did not change, however, was Russia’s anxiety of Western “encroachment.”
This has been a central reason why it has been part of Russia’s maneuvering pattern to exert influence and even outright control of surrounding countries. The most aggressive of these moves have taken advantage of ethnic strife going on within the nation in question. This is what transpired during the Russo-Georgian War of 2008. Russia found allies in the self-proclaimed republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and used their split from Georgia as partial justification for the war. More recently, a similar story transpired during Russia’s incursion into Ukraine, officially dubbed the Russian “intervention.” This time, Russia used the theme of “saving its ethnic compatriots” a bit more openly. This episode eventually led to the annexation of the region of Crimea in March of that same year.
In short, clamping down on territories to its western periphery is something Russia takes very seriously. It is willing to go to war over this issue and resort to other very nasty subterfuge tactics. So we should not be surprised in the slightest when any changes in the national identity or political status of countries newly under Western patronage trigger Russian leadership deeply. This reaction isn’t limited to important issues and often extends to more trivial items. Recently, Russia’s foreign ministry allegedly waged a hush-hush diplomatic campaign to undermine an agreement between Greece and its tiny northern neighbor, the Republic of Macedonia, over the latter’s name. Yes, the country’s name.
In an agreement expected to be finalized at the end of September, Macedonia will henceforth be called the Republic of North Macedonia. Why is this so important for Athens and Skopje to work out? Well, it goes back to one of the region’s many ethnic disputes tied to territory. You see, the northern region of Greece has also historically been known as the region of Macedonia. When the Republic of Macedonia took on that name, Greece took it as a hijacking of the term. The two countries ended up in a multi-decade naming dispute. Greece has vetoed the Republic of Macedonia’s bids to join Western alliances and multilateral institutions in the region over this issue. With Macedonia’s name switch, the two countries will now be able to come to some degree of harmony.
And Russia is very upset about this.
By Macedonia and Greece coming together to reconcile a decades-long conflict, the NATO alliance is substantially strengthened. Russia reportedly went to great lengths to undermine talks between the countries’ leaders, even reportedly trying to buy off some of them. Greek Foreign Minister Nikos Kotzias accused Russia of also funding protests within Greece and declared that his country would not be bullied. Greece then expelled two Russian diplomats in July, leading Russia to cancel an upcoming visit to Athens by Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. Greek diplomats were also expelled from Moscow in response.
The blatant attempts by Moscow to bully Greece into maintaining the status quo of strife have led many observers to conclude that Russia has simply overplayed its hand. Greece has actually been rather friendly to Russia over nearly seven decades of being a NATO member and has even been an advocate for Russia in NATO proceedings. Now that relations between the two nations have substantially soured, it is highly likely that Russia will try to target the Macedonian government in “influencing” operations, similar to its attempts in Montenegro in 2016 and more recently in Greece.
Which Albanian?
In addition to the fight over outside influence, Macedonia has its problems domestically. Not surprisingly, these are also rooted in the ethnic divides that plague the Balkans.
In Macedonia itself, ethnic Macedonians are the majority. The largest minority, the ethnic Albanians, have co-existed both before and after Macedonia declared independence in 1991. All of the successive Macedonian governments have included ethnic Albanian parties as coalition partners, and all problems were able to be resolved. Despite this, there has always been a sense of uneasiness. This tension came to a head 18 years ago in what became known as the Macedonian insurgency. Through the late 1990s, Macedonia started being a bit more assertive in portraying the country’s identity as Macedonian, to the exclusion of minorities. The Macedonian government began restricting the use of the Albanian language in Macedonia and banned of the use of Albanian national symbols. The first “salvo” in the war could be placed in the 1997 Constitutional Court forbidding the use of the Albanian flag. The order sparked protests throughout the country. Resentment toward the ethnic Albanians only increased through the latter part of the decade. This was the result of a massive influx of hundreds of thousands of Kosovan-Albanian refugees that flooded the country during the period. Attending to the refugees drained the country of resources and had a rather devastating effect on Macedonia’s economy and its governmental resources through the beginning of the 2000s. The first actual shots fired came in late 2000, when groups of armed Albanians started opening fire on Macedonian police and security forces located on the border with Yugoslavia. A few weeks later, more organized operations began as groups of Albanian militants would attack police stations and military installations. The conflict lasted most of the year and was eventually put down by Macedonian security forces.
Although the insurgency only caused a few dozen casualties on both sides, it bore testimony to the potential for violence that lay dormant in the ethnic strife within Macedonia. Over the recent period, as Skopje has been growing closer to Western alliances, the issue of the disenfranchised Albanians in the country has only grown. The Albanian minority has sought more independence politically and has reportedly sought help in doing so from the Albanian government over the past two years. Now that Macedonia has become a NATO member, the issue of Macedonia’s Albanians has taken on a new dimension. Albanian nationalists in the country are pushing harder and harder for even more concessions, including territorial autonomy. The evidence that outside parties (Albania and possibly Russia) have an interest in having Albanian grievances erupt should be even more concerning. If another conflict similar to the 2001 insurgency were to erupt with foreign support, it could force other NATO members to intervene.
Eye on the Ball
To end off with a word of optimism, the issues involving Macedonia’s ascension to NATO should not trigger a pessimistic view of the treaty. Alliances are made not because all the nations involved have no disagreements, but rather as an attempt to transcend differences for the sake of more important common interests. One of NATO’s responsibilities is to bring harmony to a region that has seen its fair share of struggles. Recent achievements among member states, such as the accords between Greece and Macedonia mentioned above, show that this is achievable. The goal must be to stay steadfast in pursuit of this harmony, in spite of the forces who would prefer to divide and conquer.
