Balkan states back US war in the Middle East
Stefan Steinberg ■ Over the month of September, a number of Balkan states declared their support for the current US-led military campaign in the Middle East. Balkan states in both NATO and the EU, such as Croatia, Bulgaria and Romania, joined the US-led coalition. Those non-EU and non-NATO states backing the Western military campaign in Iraq and Syria include Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Montenegro and Serbia. For many of these states, their practical commitment to the military campaign will be minimal. Nevertheless their decision to back the military campaign is significant, not least because it gives credence to the US and its allies, which are conducting military operations in Iraq and Syria in complete defiance of international law.
Andrei Tudora & Tina Zamfir ■ Romania joins imperialist war drive against Russia || The drive by American and German imperialism towards confrontation with Russia is exacerbating regional conflicts in Eastern Europe, returning the region to conditions that prevailed in the first half of the 20th century. It is transforming the region into a tinderbox that could trigger a devastating armed conflict between nuclear-armed powers. Romania’s bourgeois elites have used the crisis instigated by Washington and Berlin in Ukraine to transform the country into a hotbed of imperialist intrigues. They seek to revive irredentist and nationalist nostrums, previously associated with the fascist fringes of society, and elevate them to the status of official state policies.