Opinion: The Balkans are a simmering powder keg — it’s time for NATO to turn down the heat

As if war in Ukraine, a pending conflict between Iran and Israel, and the Red Sea on fire were not enough, the Balkans — the powder keg of Europe — is now in meltdown. And the Russia- China-Iran troika is behind it.

A recent diplomatic row 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 all over this, and the White House needs to pay attention.

The row stems from the Montenegrin parliament’s recent vote to blame Croatia for World War II crimes committed by a pro-Nazi German regime. But Montenegro must obtain EU member Croatia’s approval to continue its accession to that organization. The vote was a deliberate effort to thwart the country’s pro-Western prime minister’s efforts to pull the tiny republic of 600,000 out of Moscow’s political orbit.

It worked .

That Montenegro, a NATO ally, can be thus captured by Russia reflects the failure of Western diplomats to resolve outstanding Balkan issues from the violent break-up of former Yugoslavia 30 years ago.

With America’s resources already spread thin dealing 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 into the West. The same motivation underlies Kremlin efforts to upend Balkan stability. Russia began targeting Montenegro when it joined NATO in 2017. Through attempted coups , cyberattacks, the financing of pro-Russia political parties and disinformation campaigns via Russian-controlled media , the country has been under constant siege.

Montenegrin officers assigned to NATO were dismissed for being Russian spies . Parliamentary speaker Andrija Mandic, who spearheaded the smear campaign against Croatia, had previously been indicted for participating in a Kremlin-instigated coup .

None of Russia’s actions would be possible, however, without the support of its regional proxy Serbia, which remains wedded to the Greater-Serbia ideology that caused the violent breakup of former Yugoslavia. Serbia recently hosted an “ All Serb Assembly ,” claiming “the Serb people [are] a single entity.” It is a knock-off of Vladimir Putin’s Russian world doctrine justifying aggression against countries home to Russian minorities.

This is a direct threat to Serbia’s neighbors, home to Serbian communities in Montenegro, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, Kosovo and North Macedonia. Serbian chauvinism has pushed Bosnia-Herzegovina’s Muslim leaders to revive past relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran , issue pro-Hamas statements and host Iran’s foreign minister . The Serbian Orthodox Church , playing the same destructive role as its Russian counterpart, amplifies these divisions.

For decades, Europe and the U.S. sought to help Serbia enter into the 21st century. The U.S. alone provided it over $1 billion in aid . It is time to admit that effort has failed and punish Belgrade for its machinations.

There are four things American leaders can do today.

First, they can openly support Kosovo and reject Serbian efforts to destabilize it by agitating Serbs living there. We should expand U.S. government programs catalyzing private-sector investments to strengthen this pro-U.S. country. All future U.S. aid to Serbia should be frozen until it ends its threats of military invasion and recognizes Kosovo’s independence. This will undercut the ahistorical concept of the Serbian world , and deny its Russian puppet masters a regional wedge issue.

Second, they should back Croatia as the solution to ending Eastern Europe’s energy dependence on Russian oil and gas. Croatia’s underutilized national oil pipeline JANAF and LNG terminal in the northern Adriatic can easily fulfill the energy needs of Hungary, Slovakia, Serbia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and others. There is no excuse for these countries to keep financing Russia’s war machine to the tune of billions of dollars. That Moscow offers them a discount — a bribe — is unacceptable.

Third, our leaders can strengthen our diplomatic tools by expanding the Balkans sanctions regime against Serbian actors promoting Russia’s destabilizing activities in Montenegro and the region. This should include local Russian-controlled media. Serbia has yet to join Europe in imposing sanctions against Russia and instead recently signed a free trade agreement with Communist China. Its lax immigration laws have allowed terrorists to control human smuggling operations into Europe. Until it changes course, the European Union should remove Serbia from visa-free travel to the rest of Europe.

Fourth, U.S. leaders should engage the government-appointed U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom to find ways to break the pro-Russia Serbian Orthodox Church’s grip on the orthodox community in Montenegro. It is important to help the Montenegrin Orthodox Church restore its past independence from Mother Serbia in the same manner that the Ukrainian Orthodox Church has broken free of the Russian Patriarch, who is a former agent of the KGB.

As international politics heat up, the White House and our European allies have a unique chance to contain this pending explosion in the powder keg of Europe. History warns us, we should capitalize on this opportunity.

Max Primorac is senior research fellow at The Margaret Thatcher Center for Freedom at The Heritage Foundation and Gordan Akrap is president of the Hybrid Warfare Research Institute.

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