Can Serbia take advantage of the new Cold War?

Serbs should take note of his Excellencies advice; it is directly inline with the advice that his Excellencies' EU and NATO colleagues provided President Saakashvili.

Perhaps with continued western advice and tutelage, a D.S. Serbia can be as successful as Georgia was in putting faith in its western friends.

Petar II Petrovic-Nejgos received different advice. As his uncle laid dieing he instructed our Bishop poet warrior as follows:

pray to God and stick to Russia.

yes the west has really helped Serbia, by doing everything to undermine its territorial integrity, pretty much putting it as a 3rd class state (kosovo is unique, nato bombing is unique), buying industry for peanuts, interfering with elections, carrots and sticks, and more carrots and sticks....mean while "Evil" "Agressive" Russia is standing by international law in Kosovo, and making Serbia a important oil transit country. Oh how dare Russia talk about sphere of influence...America and the EU would never see the world in that light, no... No, America and the EU just help countries and try make them more stable. Did bombing serbia increase stability? Is that how America and the EU create stability. Like in Iraq and Afganistan. My god Mr Montgomery your bias has gone too far. Its not the 1990s anymore most countries know what NATO hand in your country means, if its not war its sending your troops to their crazy wars in Iraq.

Mr Montgomery, by reading most of your articles very seldom do you have somthing positive to say about Serbia. Serbia was doing fine until western masters came and distroyed it. Sticking fingers in everyones eyes brought lots of hate on western world. If we in west respect others instead always using force, we could have all the oil we wanted and lots of frends, but what did we bring on ourselves and the world, especially Russia, by bullying them: death, hatred and distruction. It seems that we,in west, like to have enemies and sometimes look for them where they don't exist. Right now we need Russia as enemy, and we need to demonize them as brutally as we can in order for world to hate them.

Whenever Mont says Serbia is declining, you just know that Serbia is rising. Russia is on the move. The next target is Sevastapol in the Ukraine. The only thing Serbia needs is energy, which Russia can supply, and the eu knows it. The us looks like a helpless, overweight giant today, the europeans are too weak to "punish Russia" and bush is gotov je. The world is changing for the better. The UN fears the ICJ case because if it rules in favor of Serbia, the west is condemned to internal divisions. NATO will dissolve. If it rules against Serbia, Republika Srpska unilaterally declares independence and annexes itself to Serbia. Russia starts undermining all of its border countries by supporting opposition parties and separatists all over the world ignite the flames of insurrection.

After reading the title I expected to find an interesting article, but all I got out of it was criticism, scare tactics, blackmail and threats.

There is no reason why Serbia can't continue to increase trade and strengthen economic ties with the west and Russia at the same time. This would not be an attempt to seek concessions or to play one side against the other, it's simply good economics.

Jon

P.S. mispelling: "souring oil and gas revenues" should say "soaring".

America has no force for a cold war with Russia, nor Europe is willing to be involved. Above that, America has totally lost credibility in Belgrade after tearing off its territory and giving Kosovo to a pack of terrorists and drug dealers. If by some chance tomorrow McCain wins and starts something against Russia, the first to pay the bill will be Israel.

-To the Censor: Please overcome your usual reluctance of 'offending' your ambassador and let this post as it is. Remember the Free Speech is the pillar of Democracy. Thanks-

"Most importantly, the help, which the European Union in particular is providing to Serbia, just as Russia's, does have a price. European leaders expect Serbia to capture the two outstanding ICTY fugitives in the near future and do expect Serbia to play a less obstructive role in Kosovo. If these steps do not happen under the current democratic government, enthusiasm for supporting Serbia will rapidly diminish within EU circles" - Montgomery dixit.

This man is totally in the clouds.
1.Russians are not asking us to deliver anybody, they are accepting us as we are.
2.We do hope that "EU enthusiasm for Serbia will, not only diminish but- vanish.
3. Your 'help' to Serbia came, after your bombing, in form of your pillage of our national property and territory.
4.You have learnt nothing about the Serbs when you ignore our spiritual link to Russia. What do we have in common with your 'values' after seeing what you have done in Afganistan and Iraq, sir. Don't you feel ridiculous a bit to ask us to hand you our "ICTY fugitives" in face of enormous crimes against humanity your side is constantly commiting?

"New Cold War" is being mentioned as it is a done deal.
Can Serbia benefit? It's hard to say at this point. So far it doesn't.

"Now, however, instead of Serbia receiving concessions from Russia, it is being forced to sell one of its most valuable companies for probably one-third its true value "

We live in the era when publicly owned property is not tolerated, privatisation and all that. 1/3 is even good, most other public property in former Yugoslavia was sell for peanuts. Kosovo authorities are planning to sell Trepca mines (estimated 5 billions value) for 200 million. 4% of the value. How tragic.
On the other side.
"After all, the European Union offered significant concessions to Serbia prior to the recent elections in order to stave off a threat from the Radicals."

But, signed paper is hardly benificial. There is a clause that it won't be implemented until last two fugitives were surrendered to Hague. And I doubt that it will be implemented then. Most likely new demand would follow, like recognition of Kosovo.

As Montgomery pointed out "Most importantly, the help, which the European Union in particular is providing to Serbia, just as Russia's, does have a price."

Oh, well.
Whaterver Serbia manages to achieve in its future, it won't have to say "Thank you" to anybody, that's for sure.

And one more thing.

"Already, there is a lack of understanding among U.S. and European diplomats as to why the current government is so actively pursuing the motion to have the General Assembly of the United Nations request an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice over the Kosovo issue."

There is a lack of undertanding in Serbia too.Many are wondering why Tadic wants to go through UN? Especially, given that Georgia already filed a suit against Russia in International Court of Justice in Hague without bothering with UN General Assembly. The lawsuit at The Hague's International Court of Justice is spearheaded by Canadian, American and British lawyers. Leader is Payam Akhavan, law professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.
"We need to send a strong message that the world was rejecting practical politics based on power."
"If Georgia submitted to power realities they might as well hand the country over to Moscow," he said.
Dear Akhavan, world is not rejecting practical politics based on power.

I'm sorry Mr. Montgomery..

But unlike your previous articles, this one is a mish mash of different puzzle pieces, and i really don't understand what the final picture should look like..

It's great for coffee shop gossip, but empty on substance.
The title gave it away.

ЖИВЕЛА СРБИЈА !!!!!!!

http://www.theamericancause.org/

Please read this Thank you!!

I think, journalists should stopp cold war propaganda and arrive intellectually in 21st century. their job is only to ask questions and provide information - but not to give answers or explanations - which they googled from other articles.

It was such kind of journalism, which prepared the world for the NATO bombing in 1999.

Wasn't the Croatian Communist Revolutionary Tito the individual WE help put in power in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia after WWII and did it at the expence of our Serbian allies, Mr. Montgomery? Serbs do not need any advise from us being that WE sold them out to the commies in the first place. What advise do WE have the odacity to give to the Serbs, espepcially after "bombing them into the stoneage"...and just recently, too? To play BOTH sides of the CARD??? Fine, then we better get our heads out of our rear ends, and begin showing Serbia that we're interested...let us first start by nulifying our recognition of the Communist altered internal border of the former Yugoslavia created on November 29th, 1943, where the Serbs represented a large minority within several of theose republics. Then we can continue by telling the Serbian Albanians that Kosovo is Serbia, and if they don't like it they can go pound sand! That would be a good start for jesturing the Serbs play on our side again.

Sir-

This article is great in terms of insight it offers. On the one side, you have the U.S. which to date has brought bombs, seperation of regions, a new US Base in Kosovo- thank you very much, and lots of rhetoric and villianization of Serbia. On the other hand you have Russia, with humanitarian aid, oil, arms, political support and support for international rule of law.

Yes it is quite a choice you have outlined. Seems pretty simple don't it?

Dear Ex-Ambassador,

The notion of a "new Cold War" is only in the furtive minds of US administration officials, diplomats, analysts and bloggers desperately trying to obscure the fact that the US's 'enemy' of the past few years has not been defeated. In effect, it's a smoke screen to deflect attention from US foreign policy failure.

If a "new Cold War" breaks out, it will be soley down to the inadequacy and hypocricy of US foreign policy.

Here's an example (keeping away from the obvious one of partitionning Serbia), quote from Study NATO Enlargement, para. 6:
"States which have ethnic disputes or external territorial disputes, including irredentist claims, or internal jurisdictional disputes must settle those disputes by peaceful means in accordance with OSCE principles. Resolution of such disputes would be a factor in determining whether to invite a state to join the Alliance."

Georgia launches a military offensive using indescriminate artillery fire. Nevertheless, the US choses to campaign even stronger for Georgian membership to NATO. Please comment how that fits with the stated NATO Principle of Enlargement?

And you want to pass all the blame upon Russia for ramping up the tension.

but serbia is not yugoslavia

Good people of Serbia. Turn to Christ to heal your land and broken hearts. Make your alliance with the truth of God's word and seek to treat ALL PEOPLE with love as Christ loved the church. May God bless your future.
A from Texas, USA

Oh dear B92!

On the same day, you decide to edit out part of my post (the humorous bit with blah-di-blah introducing my riposte to ex-ambassador Montgomery's poor commentary) and yet still find the time/need to let through a completely irrelevant and nonsense post by a happy clapper from Texas who thinks god is the answer to everything.

Is that the standard you aspire to?

Tito was a Croat
Yugo was not Serbs alone
Serbia is a Russian ally
Russia is not the 'Eastern Block', only Russia now

so for all these reasons Serbia cannot fool anyone, especially when the gave away Nis to Russia to hold EU hostage on energy. We know Serbs are aligned with Russians and Russia made things worst for Serbia.

Serbia has benefited a great deal from Russia (autonomy, Independence, WWI support, made Serbia an empire again) and now cannot abandon their natural friends.

Moldova may soon give some idea of how much room for maneuver there will be in the future in the political space between Russia and the West. From recent articles in the Russian papers it looks like Russia is planning to offer Moldova to force Trans-Dniester to accept reunification with it in exchange for a promise of no Nato membership by the newly reunited country. Will the Russians ask for similar gestures of fealty from Serbia, requiring it to leave the Partnership for Peace (and the money for modernizing its military)? For example.

Serbs should take note of his Excellencies advice; it is directly inline with the advice that his Excellencies' EU and NATO colleagues provided President Saakashvili.

Perhaps with continued western advice and tutelage, a D.S. Serbia can be as successful as Georgia was in putting faith in its western friends.

Petar II Petrovic-Nejgos received different advice. As his uncle laid dieing he instructed our Bishop poet warrior as follows:

pray to God and stick to Russia.

I'm sorry Mr. Montgomery..

But unlike your previous articles, this one is a mish mash of different puzzle pieces, and i really don't understand what the final picture should look like..

It's great for coffee shop gossip, but empty on substance.
The title gave it away.

ЖИВЕЛА СРБИЈА !!!!!!!

Mr Montgomery, by reading most of your articles very seldom do you have somthing positive to say about Serbia. Serbia was doing fine until western masters came and distroyed it. Sticking fingers in everyones eyes brought lots of hate on western world. If we in west respect others instead always using force, we could have all the oil we wanted and lots of frends, but what did we bring on ourselves and the world, especially Russia, by bullying them: death, hatred and distruction. It seems that we,in west, like to have enemies and sometimes look for them where they don't exist. Right now we need Russia as enemy, and we need to demonize them as brutally as we can in order for world to hate them.

http://www.theamericancause.org/

Please read this Thank you!!

Whenever Mont says Serbia is declining, you just know that Serbia is rising. Russia is on the move. The next target is Sevastapol in the Ukraine. The only thing Serbia needs is energy, which Russia can supply, and the eu knows it. The us looks like a helpless, overweight giant today, the europeans are too weak to "punish Russia" and bush is gotov je. The world is changing for the better. The UN fears the ICJ case because if it rules in favor of Serbia, the west is condemned to internal divisions. NATO will dissolve. If it rules against Serbia, Republika Srpska unilaterally declares independence and annexes itself to Serbia. Russia starts undermining all of its border countries by supporting opposition parties and separatists all over the world ignite the flames of insurrection.

yes the west has really helped Serbia, by doing everything to undermine its territorial integrity, pretty much putting it as a 3rd class state (kosovo is unique, nato bombing is unique), buying industry for peanuts, interfering with elections, carrots and sticks, and more carrots and sticks....mean while "Evil" "Agressive" Russia is standing by international law in Kosovo, and making Serbia a important oil transit country. Oh how dare Russia talk about sphere of influence...America and the EU would never see the world in that light, no... No, America and the EU just help countries and try make them more stable. Did bombing serbia increase stability? Is that how America and the EU create stability. Like in Iraq and Afganistan. My god Mr Montgomery your bias has gone too far. Its not the 1990s anymore most countries know what NATO hand in your country means, if its not war its sending your troops to their crazy wars in Iraq.

After reading the title I expected to find an interesting article, but all I got out of it was criticism, scare tactics, blackmail and threats.

There is no reason why Serbia can't continue to increase trade and strengthen economic ties with the west and Russia at the same time. This would not be an attempt to seek concessions or to play one side against the other, it's simply good economics.

Jon

P.S. mispelling: "souring oil and gas revenues" should say "soaring".

"New Cold War" is being mentioned as it is a done deal.
Can Serbia benefit? It's hard to say at this point. So far it doesn't.

"Now, however, instead of Serbia receiving concessions from Russia, it is being forced to sell one of its most valuable companies for probably one-third its true value "

We live in the era when publicly owned property is not tolerated, privatisation and all that. 1/3 is even good, most other public property in former Yugoslavia was sell for peanuts. Kosovo authorities are planning to sell Trepca mines (estimated 5 billions value) for 200 million. 4% of the value. How tragic.
On the other side.
"After all, the European Union offered significant concessions to Serbia prior to the recent elections in order to stave off a threat from the Radicals."

But, signed paper is hardly benificial. There is a clause that it won't be implemented until last two fugitives were surrendered to Hague. And I doubt that it will be implemented then. Most likely new demand would follow, like recognition of Kosovo.

As Montgomery pointed out "Most importantly, the help, which the European Union in particular is providing to Serbia, just as Russia's, does have a price."

Oh, well.
Whaterver Serbia manages to achieve in its future, it won't have to say "Thank you" to anybody, that's for sure.

And one more thing.

"Already, there is a lack of understanding among U.S. and European diplomats as to why the current government is so actively pursuing the motion to have the General Assembly of the United Nations request an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice over the Kosovo issue."

There is a lack of undertanding in Serbia too.Many are wondering why Tadic wants to go through UN? Especially, given that Georgia already filed a suit against Russia in International Court of Justice in Hague without bothering with UN General Assembly. The lawsuit at The Hague's International Court of Justice is spearheaded by Canadian, American and British lawyers. Leader is Payam Akhavan, law professor at McGill University in Montreal, Canada.
"We need to send a strong message that the world was rejecting practical politics based on power."
"If Georgia submitted to power realities they might as well hand the country over to Moscow," he said.
Dear Akhavan, world is not rejecting practical politics based on power.

I think, journalists should stopp cold war propaganda and arrive intellectually in 21st century. their job is only to ask questions and provide information - but not to give answers or explanations - which they googled from other articles.

It was such kind of journalism, which prepared the world for the NATO bombing in 1999.

America has no force for a cold war with Russia, nor Europe is willing to be involved. Above that, America has totally lost credibility in Belgrade after tearing off its territory and giving Kosovo to a pack of terrorists and drug dealers. If by some chance tomorrow McCain wins and starts something against Russia, the first to pay the bill will be Israel.

-To the Censor: Please overcome your usual reluctance of 'offending' your ambassador and let this post as it is. Remember the Free Speech is the pillar of Democracy. Thanks-

"Most importantly, the help, which the European Union in particular is providing to Serbia, just as Russia's, does have a price. European leaders expect Serbia to capture the two outstanding ICTY fugitives in the near future and do expect Serbia to play a less obstructive role in Kosovo. If these steps do not happen under the current democratic government, enthusiasm for supporting Serbia will rapidly diminish within EU circles" - Montgomery dixit.

This man is totally in the clouds.
1.Russians are not asking us to deliver anybody, they are accepting us as we are.
2.We do hope that "EU enthusiasm for Serbia will, not only diminish but- vanish.
3. Your 'help' to Serbia came, after your bombing, in form of your pillage of our national property and territory.
4.You have learnt nothing about the Serbs when you ignore our spiritual link to Russia. What do we have in common with your 'values' after seeing what you have done in Afganistan and Iraq, sir. Don't you feel ridiculous a bit to ask us to hand you our "ICTY fugitives" in face of enormous crimes against humanity your side is constantly commiting?

Tito was a Croat
Yugo was not Serbs alone
Serbia is a Russian ally
Russia is not the 'Eastern Block', only Russia now

so for all these reasons Serbia cannot fool anyone, especially when the gave away Nis to Russia to hold EU hostage on energy. We know Serbs are aligned with Russians and Russia made things worst for Serbia.

Serbia has benefited a great deal from Russia (autonomy, Independence, WWI support, made Serbia an empire again) and now cannot abandon their natural friends.

Moldova may soon give some idea of how much room for maneuver there will be in the future in the political space between Russia and the West. From recent articles in the Russian papers it looks like Russia is planning to offer Moldova to force Trans-Dniester to accept reunification with it in exchange for a promise of no Nato membership by the newly reunited country. Will the Russians ask for similar gestures of fealty from Serbia, requiring it to leave the Partnership for Peace (and the money for modernizing its military)? For example.

Sir-

This article is great in terms of insight it offers. On the one side, you have the U.S. which to date has brought bombs, seperation of regions, a new US Base in Kosovo- thank you very much, and lots of rhetoric and villianization of Serbia. On the other hand you have Russia, with humanitarian aid, oil, arms, political support and support for international rule of law.

Yes it is quite a choice you have outlined. Seems pretty simple don't it?

Dear Ex-Ambassador,

The notion of a "new Cold War" is only in the furtive minds of US administration officials, diplomats, analysts and bloggers desperately trying to obscure the fact that the US's 'enemy' of the past few years has not been defeated. In effect, it's a smoke screen to deflect attention from US foreign policy failure.

If a "new Cold War" breaks out, it will be soley down to the inadequacy and hypocricy of US foreign policy.

Here's an example (keeping away from the obvious one of partitionning Serbia), quote from Study NATO Enlargement, para. 6:
"States which have ethnic disputes or external territorial disputes, including irredentist claims, or internal jurisdictional disputes must settle those disputes by peaceful means in accordance with OSCE principles. Resolution of such disputes would be a factor in determining whether to invite a state to join the Alliance."

Georgia launches a military offensive using indescriminate artillery fire. Nevertheless, the US choses to campaign even stronger for Georgian membership to NATO. Please comment how that fits with the stated NATO Principle of Enlargement?

And you want to pass all the blame upon Russia for ramping up the tension.

but serbia is not yugoslavia

Good people of Serbia. Turn to Christ to heal your land and broken hearts. Make your alliance with the truth of God's word and seek to treat ALL PEOPLE with love as Christ loved the church. May God bless your future.
A from Texas, USA

Oh dear B92!

On the same day, you decide to edit out part of my post (the humorous bit with blah-di-blah introducing my riposte to ex-ambassador Montgomery's poor commentary) and yet still find the time/need to let through a completely irrelevant and nonsense post by a happy clapper from Texas who thinks god is the answer to everything.

Is that the standard you aspire to?

Wasn't the Croatian Communist Revolutionary Tito the individual WE help put in power in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia after WWII and did it at the expence of our Serbian allies, Mr. Montgomery? Serbs do not need any advise from us being that WE sold them out to the commies in the first place. What advise do WE have the odacity to give to the Serbs, espepcially after "bombing them into the stoneage"...and just recently, too? To play BOTH sides of the CARD??? Fine, then we better get our heads out of our rear ends, and begin showing Serbia that we're interested...let us first start by nulifying our recognition of the Communist altered internal border of the former Yugoslavia created on November 29th, 1943, where the Serbs represented a large minority within several of theose republics. Then we can continue by telling the Serbian Albanians that Kosovo is Serbia, and if they don't like it they can go pound sand! That would be a good start for jesturing the Serbs play on our side again.