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Fyrom's Slavomacedonism, Part I: A Historical Overview

FYROM's Slavomacedonism, Part I: a Historical overview

The Russian reemergence as a global power after years of absence following the end of the Cold War, has had many repercussions and has therefore provided the incentive for US foreign policy to accelerate certain processes and tie up loose ends. One of these has been the military encirclement of Russia (the discovery of the "new Europe" during the second Iraq war, the installation of the anti-ballistic shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, the NATO enlargement with former Soviet Republics and Warsaw-pact countries on the Russian borders, etc). Another has been the "Balkanization" of the Balkans, meaning their slicing into small, weak and quarrelling states subservient to the US, a policy also followed by the EU. This new reality is expected to greatly benefit the US-Turkish hegemony over this geopolitically vital region (many oil and natural gas pipelines already pass, or are planned to pass from there in the near future, circumventing Russian oil routes). This policy was inaugurated during Bill Clinton's presidency, with the dismemberment of Yugoslavia after 1992, and continued with the NATO bombings of Serbia in 1999 and its own subsequent dismemberment. It has now culminated with the unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo and its secession from Serbia.

Often these two policies coincide, e.g. as happens with the US goal of including into NATO the states formerly belonging to Yugoslavia. As part of this acceleration, George W. Bush has decided to recognize FYROM (Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) with the contested (by Greece) name of "Republic of Macedonia". And he chose to do this on November 4th 2004, only hours after his reelection. His aim was to stabilize FYROM's inherently unstable government in view of a very controversial referendum just three days later (November 7th 2004). The stabilization of FYROM as a state is still an open question, due to its competing Slav and Albanian populations (violent fights had broken out on 2001); its Euro-Atlantic integration is considered as the remedy for all ills. This is why G. W. Bush pushed so hard to include it in the NATO enlargement during last April's NATO summit.