{"id":63853,"date":"2015-09-21T12:00:47","date_gmt":"2015-09-21T11:00:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=63853"},"modified":"2015-09-18T14:18:40","modified_gmt":"2015-09-18T13:18:40","slug":"montenegro-could-be-headed-for-a-mountain-of-trouble","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2015\/09\/montenegro-could-be-headed-for-a-mountain-of-trouble\/","title":{"rendered":"Montenegro Could Be Headed for a Mountain of Trouble"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Andrew<\/a>

Andrew Korybko<\/p><\/div>\n

Editor\u2019s Note:<\/em><\/strong> Despite public hesitation on the issue of Montenegro\u2019s membership in NATO, yesterday\u00a0the country\u2019s parliament adopted <\/a>a symbolic resolution in favor of a future accession to the alliance.\u00a0 Hereby we publish a briefing by our permanent contributor with an analysis of geopolitical context and possible implications of the chamber decision.<\/em><\/p>\n

17 Sep 2015 – <\/em>The tiny Balkan state of Montenegro is having a Ukrainian-esque \u201ceither-or\u201d choice forced upon its population, which in this case is whether or not the country should join NATO by the end of the year. By all indications, the US will support<\/a> an initiative to extend membership to Montenegro during the upcoming NATO meeting in December, and the almost more than two-decade-long-straight Djukanovic government appears<\/a> more than eager to accept. The trouble, however, is that just as many people are against joining the military bloc<\/a> as those who support doing so, and the Democratic Front party has called<\/a> for the entire opposition to gather in the capital on 27 September to protest against the government\u2019s unilateral action. They say that it would be undemocratic<\/a> for such a significant decision to be made without a referendum, let alone in such a near-even polarized political climate, and the forthcoming manifestations next weekend in Podgorica might turn into a social referendum on the government itself. With Montenegro heading towards what might turn out to be a mountain of trouble, it\u2019s important for observers to bring themselves up to speed on the situation and place it into the larger geopolitical context.<\/p>\n

Operation: Serbia\"nato<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s impossible to separate NATO\u2019s actions in Montenegro from its larger strategic goals in Serbia. The two populations enjoy exceptionally fraternal relations, and one could argue that if it wasn\u2019t for the 1999 War on Yugoslavia<\/a>, they\u2019d still be united under one state. History doesn\u2019t have any hypotheticals, however, so one must deal with the present as it currently is, and the contemporary situation is that one of the two very similar states, Montenegro, is on the cusp of joining the exact same organization that bombed it and its then-fellow Serbian countrymen 16 years ago. Aside from the national humiliation that this entails, it must also be looked at as a maneuver to further split the two brotherly states along military lines, with a NATO-dedicated Montenegro almost completing the full encirclement of Serbia and enacting heightened psychological pressure on Belgrade for that very fact.<\/p>\n

Other than the military reasons associated with this development, there are also more subtle political-economic ones as well. History demonstrates that many future EU members first \u2018paid their dues\u2019 in NATO before being allowed to join the EU, and it looks to be no different in the case of Montenegro. The reason Djukanovic is so gung-ho about joining the EU is so that he can attain \u2018institutional legitimacy\u2019 for his vast family-controlled business empire<\/a>, which includes everything from cigarette smuggling to beachfront property. His enthusiasm for the carrot of potential membership is so great that he even ordered his government<\/a> to enact sanctions against Russia as a signal of solidarity with Brussels. This decision was made despite the fact a third of all registered companies are linked to Russia<\/a>. Moscow has of course retaliated with agricultural counter-sanctions<\/a> and earlier threats<\/a> to revoke the visa-free travel agreement that brings so many Russian holidaymakers and their checkbooks to the country each year. The reason Djukanovic would risk such self-inflicted economic damage to his country is evident, and that\u2019s to clean out all the other businesses he and his family have yet to own in order to acquire them for bare-bottom prices shortly thereafter.<\/p>\n

Popular Pushback<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"montenegro<\/a>The people of Montenegro aren\u2019t taking their undemocratic whipping and forthcoming fleecing quietly, however, as the Movement for Neutrality<\/a> plans to become the core of popular resistance to both NATO and Djukanovic. As mentioned in the beginning of the briefing, the goal is for them and the Democratic Front to gather the disaffected masses on 27 September to stage a patriotic and peaceful resistance to the country\u2019s current direction. Think of it as a reverse of the historic pro-government rally<\/a> in nearby Macedonia back in May, just this time with crowds of well-behaved anti-government protesters whose numbers also greatly overwhelm their political rivals. The purpose of this manifestation is to show the world that democracy and the peoples\u2019 will must be respected in their country, which once again follows in the footsteps that the Macedonians so bravely set a couple months before them.<\/p>\n

Other motivators that could attract more people to protest are the deep bonds still felt by many Montenegrins towards their Serbian cultural brethren. The people of Montenegro understand the aggressive and unnecessary message that their ascension to NATO would send to their neighbors across the mountains, and in the interests of preserving friendly relations with them, they may decide to make a public statement through their protest action. More tangible to most Montenegrin families, however, is the premeditated economic calamity that Djukanovic is plotting for the population. As mentioned in the previous section, he purposely wants to destroy Russian-affiliated businesses (over a third of the country\u2019s total) so that his family empire can swallow them up for enormous profit, but given the scope of how many people would be affected by this aggressive \u2018corporate takeover\u2019, it\u2019s foreseeable that they might want to make one last hurrah in reversing the impending economic failure that their Prime Minister has planned for them. All of these factors thus combine to prove that any protest actions that take place on 27 September won\u2019t be directed solely against NATO, but will also be an expression of popular outrage against Djukanovic.<\/p>\n

Concluding Thoughts<\/strong><\/p>\n

The government is keenly aware of the main reason why so many people might turn out against it next weekend, which is why the potential for state-sponsored violence (either directly or through proxy mob) is so high. In a country with only a little bit more than 600,000 people, it\u2019s easy for one political provocation or false flag attack to literally engulf the entire population in chaos. This means that Montenegro might enter into an acute crisis if enough citizens demonstrate on behalf of the opposition and Djukanovic gives the panicked order to use force against them if he feels his rule is threatened. His gangster mentality dictates that he would automatically resort to such \u2018reflexes\u2019, and the geopolitical situation is such that his NATO and EU affiliations would predictably shield him from any Western criticism for attacking what would likely by that time have already been slandered as \u201cPutin\u2019s proxies\u201d. Nevertheless, this doesn\u2019t mean that Montenegrins won\u2019t take a page out of the Macedonians\u2019 playbook and staunchly resist the foreign-supported force that\u2019s attempting to take over their country, and it might just be that in hindsight one realizes that it was both peoples\u2019 democratic resistance that finally put the brakes on NATO\u2019s \u201cDrang nach Suden\u201d (Drive to the South).<\/p>\n

_____________________________<\/p>\n

Andrew Korybko is the American political commentator for the Sputnik <\/a>agency.<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 orientalreview.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

17 Sep 2015 – The tiny Balkan state of Montenegro is having a Ukrainian-esque \u201ceither-or\u201d choice forced upon its population, which in this case is whether or not the country should join NATO by the end of the year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[207],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-balkans-eastern-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63853"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63853\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}