The Duran Podcast
25 years after NATO attack, Vucic says no to NATO
All right, Alexandra, let's talk about the 25 years of the NATO bombing of Serbia, of Belgrade, 25 years. It seems like that bombing, 78 days under the Clinton White House, it seems like that bombing is what set us on this course of where we are today. I was one of the most important events of the post-Cold War period. Now, the reason was two things. Firstly, well, actually three things. Firstly, if you actually examine the bombing war itself, it should have given warning signs to the West that their military resources were not actually as strong as they thought, because as a bombing war, purely in terms of its military effectiveness, it wasn't that effective. The Serbian military absorbed the blows. They didn't suffer significant losses. They were able even to shoot down some NATO aircraft. It should have given the warning signals that that was not picked up. So that's the first thing. The second was that in terms of the West, in terms of Western leaderships, the NATO bombing, the bombing wars on Yugoslavia did two things. Firstly, because politically it was successful, because Milosevic backed down, not because he was under any military pressure, but because he didn't want to be in conflict with the West and the Russians were telling him to back down. That was Yeltsin's time, of course. Because he backed down, that strengthened the Western belief that they could do anything. They could define the Security Council, as they did, in launching that bombing war. They could break their own rules by having a NATO conduct, an air offensive against another country, which had not attacked them. Because, remember, NATO was supposed to be a defensive alliance, but in this bombing war, it acted in an offensive way. It led to people like Tony Blair coming out and saying that sovereignty henceforth is limited. The Vesphelian system is basically over, from now on, the West has not just the right, but the duty to interfere in other countries in order to advance the cause of democracy and human rights. Yugoslavia, in that respect, gave a huge impetus to the whole near-con movement, and basically set the scene for the conflicts elsewhere, in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Syria, and Libya, in all of those places. They thought they had both the power to do it, and they thought they gave themselves the sort of moral and, as they thought, legal justification to do it, and they violated the principles of the UN system. They disregarded the Security Council. They violated Security Council resolutions. They got away with it. They said to themselves, "Now, one, we can just do whatever we want." So that was a lot of very negative things there. But, of course, the other thing it did was that it created a political revolution a critically important country, which was Russia. Now, up to this point, Russia had been led by Boris Yeltsin, his gaggle of pro-West liberals, who were in his government, the Russians in the '90s put communism behind them that had the Soviet Union collapsed. It's in their own economy collapse, but they were still pressing forward to try to integrate with the West. This was very much the policy. There was already growing opposition to it from within Russia, but the catalyst to the rejection, the complete repudiation of this pro-West policy that Russia had been following throughout the 1990s was the war in Ukraine. The military in Russia said, "Well, horrified?" They said, "These people in the West are out of control. They're attacking the country that we care about and have been friendliest with of all, which is Yugoslavia. They're breaking resolutions. They're behaving in an increasingly aggressive way. They're treating us in Russia like dirt all the time." So the military started to take action on its own initiative to slow down and stop NATO intervention in Yugoslavia. The Russian military sent troops to the capital of Kosovo, Bruszdina, without informing President Yeltsin in advance. That was a sign that President Yeltsin, that Yeltsin was losing control of the Russian government and of the security system. From that moment on, it became clear that his days as leader of Russia were numbered. And of course, the military were able to do that because they had the overwhelming support of Russian society. We don't know exactly what happened and all the power struggles that were taking place in Moscow during that time. But what we do know is that out of that power struggle, a man emerged who eventually completed that political and diplomatic revolution. And that man was, of course, Vladimir Putin, who in August was appointed acting prime minister of Russia and who is Russia's leader to this day. So this was a critically important event. It encouraged the West on its course of reckless folly, disregarding, as I said, the warnings of the problems of the military campaign, and it galvanized the Russians into changing the direction of their policy, from one of complicity with the West to one of outright opposition, which is where, of course, we are with the Russians now. Yeah, that's why I think it's important to draw the line from that bombing, those 78 days of bombing to where we are today. I mean, there's without a doubt a connection and a history to all of that. How has the attitude of NATO since the bombing, this attitude of we can do whatever we want, and no one can stop us because look what we did to the Belgrade. Let's not forget, they hit schools, they hit TV stations, they hit the Chinese embassy, they hit the Chinese embassy. Yeah, how has that affected not only NATO, but I guess my observation, my question is how do you think that has affected the evolution of the European Union? Because everyone understands that NATO and the EU, they have offices right across the street from one another, they're kind of working side by side. But do you get a sense that this attitude of NATO's has actually made its way, has seeped into the European Union as well, and that set the EU into a course over the last 25 years of also having this Tony Blair type of metro, which is we can intervene anywhere and we can do whatever we want and we're the European Union and we're backed by NATO, so we can act without any regard for any type of sovereignty or geopolitical realities. What do you think about that? The effect on the European Union was profound. Now, of course, the process of economic and political integration in Europe had already begun by this point, but it was Yugoslavia that irrevocably transformed the European Union into a geopolitical enterprise. Up to that point, it had maintained the fiction that it was an economic association and nothing basically beyond that. But of course, all the EU states or the major ones were evolved. Germany played a leading role, so I did Britain, which of course was at the EU state at that time, so did France. They're all heavily involved in all of this. The EU system, the structures supported what was happening as well and it was at this point that the EU became a geopolitical project as the Europeans and the Americans became partners in crime because that's essentially what it amounted to. When you start down that road, you can't just stop and that's what they've discovered since. You go from one to another, you've discovered that you set aside legal and moral restraints, you get away with it and you tell yourself you always can and that's led us directly to where we are. It changed the EU. It changed NATO in an important way because it's up to that point. It had presented itself as a defensive alliance. It presented itself to the Russians as a defensive alliance. They were telling the Russians throughout the 1990s, you don't have to worry about NATO expansion because NATO is a purely defensive alliance and in fact, its military significance is diminishing. It's becoming more a political construct than a military one and of course in 1999, the Russians were given the clearest, most clear cut demonstration that the reality was otherwise. So it was a major turning point, psychological, moral, legal, political and it had tremendous consequences because this is the moment as I said when Russia shifted, pivoted away from the West, began his big pivot away from the West. China at this point was already rising or it was not the superpower that it is today but it's from this point as well that the Chinese and the Russians start talking to each other, start working together at the Security Council, start forging the strategic partnership that they have today. So, Bouchich, the president of Serbia, said in a speech the other day that Serbia will never enter NATO. What's Serbia situation now? Well, it continues to be under intense pressure and yes, I understand it, it's actually quite affluent. It still hasn't sanctioned Russia either. No, it hasn't sanctioned Russia. It's still managed, it's prosperous, it's economy apparently, it's quite strong, it's been quite strong and it appears to be growing stronger even as all of the pro-Western NATO countries around it, actually demographically economically grow weaker. So, it's standing strong. It comes under constant pressure, it has to face relentless provocations. It's had to face constant attempts to destabilize it from within. There is a community of people within you Serbia, especially within Belgrade who remain passionately pro-EU. But one sense is that Serbia itself has turned the corner, that the Serbs have very alive to clue these people amongst them are. And in election after election, including the election that took place a few weeks ago, we see that Bouchich and the forces that support Serbia, Serbian sovereignty and independence win out. And Serbia, as I said, goes stronger and it retains and has deepened in fact his friendship with Russia. So, it's Bouchich, cunning man, clever man, maybe not perhaps the most principled man, but perhaps the right leader for Serbia at this time. Yeah, and I think that statement from Bouchich is indicative of where the conflict in Ukraine is going. If it was going poorly for Russia, then I think Bouchich, given how he operates and how he walks that tightrope between East and West, I think he probably would have made a very different statement, at least in connection to the European Union during that speech. He would have probably signaled that, yeah, Serbia, NATO, no, but at least EU is our future. But the fact that he probably says is that he knows, I'm sure he knows that Russia is going to win, and that Ukraine is in a terrible state and with it the collective West, the European Union, and NATO is heading for a big defeat. I think Bouchich pretty much expressed that during his speech. Oh, absolutely. He also undoubtedly knows something else, which is that NATO and the EU today are basically two sides of the same coin. The Euro-Atlantic community, as it sometimes refers to itself. If you rule out membership of NATO, you're basically now also ruling out membership of the EU. He doesn't say that explicitly, but that is the reality. It's very, very difficult to be a member of the EU and not become a member of NATO. In fact, I mean, there's a few states that still are Ireland, Austria, because of the only ones I could think of, Turkey, or turkeys and being allowed to do anything. Exactly. But overall, the overlap between the two is so close. If Serbia joins the EU, it will be expected to join NATO. If that is ruled out, then joining the EU is not going to happen. And my own feeling is, by the way, that Bouchich, as you're absolutely right, you say, he's somebody who is extremely skilled at surfing the currents. You're quite right. If Russia was losing in Ukraine, he would be talking in a completely different way. The fact that Russia is winning in Ukraine is going to push him in a completely different direction, the one that he's taking now. And even when he goes, whoever succeeds him will be more forthright about that than Bouchich himself is, and more confident in being able to express it. All right, the Durant.locals.com. We are on Rumble Odyssey, but you tell the Grand Rockfin and Twitter X and go to the Durant shop, 20% off Greek flag merchandise. Take care. [Music]