Dear America – with this policy, you will lose the Western Balkans!

By Andrej Nikolaidis, columnist CdM

Being powerful means setting rules – of course, in a way and manner that suits you, so that your power is consolidated faster and better protected.

Having absolute power means setting all the rules.

But absolute power does not mean absolute irresponsibility. When you have set rules that work for you, it is in your interest to at least formally abide by the rules yourself. Simply because the game lasts longer in that case than when you brutally violate your own rules, which you insisted on establishing.

If you organize an event where Santa Claus gives gifts to children, and you dress up as a nice fat old man and honestly fill the bags with cheap and addictive sweets, children will come to your events year after year. Even if someone pickpockets one of the parents who left their coat in the cloakroom, the keys to which, of course, you keep.

But if you show up drunk, unshaven, unmasked, tell the children that Santa Claus doesn't exist, that it's better for them to face the harshness of life while they are young, and then pull out a gun and rob the parents…

Then someone else will organize the event next year. Because people are like children. Just as children want to believe in Santa Claus, so do people want to believe that justice exists, that doing good leads to good in return, that evil will eventually be defeated. Of course, just as children know that Santa Claus doesn't exist, so do adults know that no good deed will go unpunished. But to live is to lie: to oneself and to others. Life, as they say, always wins: the charade continues.

Foreign Affairs, on the cover of its July/August 2024 issue, asks the question: "Does America need a new foreign policy"?

On page 148, we are greeted by a text by Tanisha M. Fazal, titled "The Power of Principles – Are Rules Still Useful"?

Fazal emphasizes the fragility of key international norms, warning that their potential collapse should be a serious concern for US policymakers. This concern stems not only from the implications for human rights but also from the broader geopolitical context. The US has significantly benefited from the international system it helped establish, the author says; and if that system collapses, Washington risks losing its global influence. This would create an opportunity for China to advocate for an alternative normative order that would likely be much less liberal than the current one.

Fazal is right: we in the Balkans see how Russia is already benefiting from the fact that the US has buried its proclaimed principles in the region without honor.

Since America is a global empire; since I, like every person in the world, am an object of American foreign policy, which affects my life, these issues concern me greatly, allow me to try to answer the Foreign Affairs question: does Washington need a new foreign policy?

The answer is short: no, you don't need a new foreign policy. It would be quite enough if you started respecting your own rules that you imposed on us.

Let me explain it this way. Imagine America is a company. We are its target group and consumers of its ideological products. And then the company sends you that questionnaire: are you satisfied with our products?

We are not. In short: what you got is not what you bought. The content does not match the description on the label.

Every company knows the following. What it sells is cheap garbage. But if we feel good about the garbage we bought, the company's future is bright. You see: we don't feel good. We feel cheated. Moreover: there is no doubt that we have been cheated.

Dear America co. Your problem is neither Russia nor China. It is your hypocrisy and disrespect for your own rules. That is what gives Russia and China power. Yes: you are the source of their power.

Temper your misanthropy a little. Even if you are firmly convinced that people are stupid, if you constantly let them know, you will turn them against you. What can I tell you: it is difficult to sell a story about caring for children's lives, a narrative about human rights and the laws of war, if your political elite in your home of democracy has welcomed with ovations a man who, before the eyes of the whole world, with your money and your weapons, has killed 16,500 children in Gaza.

The Global South, which pays for your healthy lifestyles and the Green Agenda with death and tears, no longer buys the "The Devil You Know" story. It would rather try a new Devil. Because, what can I tell you, man is never so poor that he completely loses his dignity (but that dignity can disappear with enormous wealth) and permanently gives up resistance. China's lithium and diamond mining is just as brutal and devastating to people and the environment as yours. Why then do they choose China and not you? If I were prone to sarcasm, as I am, because I am one of you, a Westerner, I would say that it seems people of the Global South have decided to take your advice and have adopted pluralistic (instead of one, more Devils) and inclusive (let's include all Devils) policies.

I am telling you the following without sarcasm, without a trace of cynicism. I do not want to see the Western Balkans under the Russian and Chinese boot. I believe in the great Ideas of the West – and in that belief, your apostasy, the fact that you no longer believe in them, cannot shake me.

The way you are doing things, you will lose the Western Balkans.

You have betrayed all your sincere allies in the Balkans. Bosniaks, who are not a problem but a jewel of Europe, proof that Islam is compatible with the highest Western ideals, you have placed under the effective control of the Croatian nationalist party, HDZ, through the interventions of your High Representative, and you have further cemented their immovability, despite being in power for almost 35 years (what about the ideal of pluralism and rotation of power?). By subjecting them to humiliating agreements with Greece and Bulgaria, convincing them that the promise of a "European future" is just a distant illusion, you have pushed Macedonians far to the right and towards Russia. Montenegrins, who joined the country into NATO because they believed that alliance with you meant security, are exposed to assimilation, effective apartheid, and the loss of their entire sacred heritage: even the cemeteries where they will be buried are no longer theirs – with your deafening silence, which means clear approval. Liberal Serbia is in disbelief, because your ambassador acts as a lawyer for the local autocrat, who exports instability to the entire region, draws the contours of his Balkan mini-empire, and arms himself, with your selfless assistance. You demand that Kosovo not respect its own laws and constitution, so that the Belgrade dictator can peacefully undermine its sovereignty – you, who taught us the importance of the rule of law.

In the end, you will realize: it would have been cheaper if you had paid the dictator's lithium with money. Because everything that can be paid for with money is cheap.

And it could have been different: the Western Balkans could have been Europeanized, Westernized, and saved from Russian destruction if you had at least in that part of the planet decided to show what it looks like when you adhere to your own rules and the ideals you sell.