In an interview for the German news magazine Zuerst! (April 2015) Srdja Trifkovic considers the significance of Otto von Bismarck’s legacy, 200 years after his birth […]
Read More →Bismarck’s System of Continental Alliances
The Balkans’ Run-Up to the Catalan Crisis
No serious expert would say that self-proclaimed Kosovo is financially viable without the support of the West. According to the estimates of independent organizations, the international community gave Kosovo $2.3 billion in aid between 1999 and 2002. Between 2005 and 2008, the country received $1.9 billion, nearly half of its GDP, to carry out reforms […]
Read More →Catalan Independence: 5 Things to Think About
Catalan independence can be good or bad – it depends on the Catalan people to make it good, or else it likely will be bad […]
Read More →Dysfunction in the Balkans – Can the Post-Yugoslav Settlement Survive?
When Yugoslavia collapsed at the start of 1990s, there was nothing predetermined about what followed. One possibility was the emergence of nation-states, comparable to those elsewhere in Europe; another was multiethnic states based on internal administrative boundaries […]
Read More →Crimea, Kosovo, Catalonia, Corsica and Kurdistan
Turning now to Crimea, Kosovo and Catalonia, the Crimean referendum, long on its Russian population’s minds, became a matter of life or death when a Western managed coup brought anti-Russian Nazis to power in Ukraine, while the Kosovo referendum enabled Albanians, a non-Slav people whose language is unrelated to any other, to no longer be ruled by Slavs […]
Read More →Before the U.S. Congress: HM King Peter II’s of Yugoslavia Speech at the Capitol in 1942
Peter arrived in the U.S. unannounced on Sunday, June 21, 1942 aboard a British bomber from the UK. He had planned on coming on a transatlantic clipper. He stayed in Hot Springs, Virginia where he spent several days incognito. From here he went by train to Washington, DC, greeted there by U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull. Then by car they went to the White House where FDR met them. Crown Princess Martha of Norway was also introduced to him […]
Read More →How Kosovo’s Albanians Destroyed ex-Yugoslavia
The first serious challenge to the post-WWII Yugoslavia was the Albanian rebellion in Kosovo-Metochia in 1944/1945, started at the Drenica Valley. Next rioting came in the famous 1968, marked with students’ unrests all over Europe. These unrests started in West Europe, in particular, France and Germany, and spread to East Europe, but more as the reverberations of West European students’ revolts […]
Read More →Behind the Project of a Greater Albania
One of the arguments for interpreting the present demographic distribution has always been the ethnic purity of proper Albania. In other words, it has been always claimed by the Albanians and supported by the official statistical data, that this “purity” testifies the unjust drawing of the borders between Albania and the neighboring countries […]
Read More →Angela Merkel Ignores Otto Von Bismarck’s Advice Never to Quarrel with Russia
Otto von Bismarck emphasized the importance of good relations with Russia. “The secret of politics? Make a good treaty with Russia”, he said. Bismarck was convinced that a European security system without Russia would be impossible and war with Russia would be disastrous […]
Read More →What Trump Has in Common with the Last German Emperor
The kaiser was particularly interested in international affairs. He dismissed Bismarck in 1890 and embarked upon what he termed the “New Course.” Bismarck was no liberal peacenik, but once he unified Germany and consolidated the empire’s gains, he sought stability. He was uninterested in colonies, opposed a naval race with Great Britain, and sought to keep France and Russia apart […]
Read More →Bismarck, the United States and the Pomeranian Grenadier
In 1914, Wilhelm II performed his most fatal idiocy: He gave the rulers of Austria-Hungary a blank check to send an ultimatum to Serbia over its suspected invovlement in the assassination of the Habsburg Archduke Franz-Ferdinand in Sarajevo that was bound to lead to war […]
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