Sunday, December 8, 2024
It's been a settimana intensa, as I reported to my Italian teacher the other day. This past Thursday was our last day of classes at MSU, so there's been a lot going on. In the city of Belgrade, meanwhile, the Christmas Convoy rumbled through town last night.
The rumbling was so loud that I've barely been able to focus on the news. Russia, Romania, South Korea, Georgia--so much stuff going on. For my takes on the latest at home and abroad, see below.
Belgrade News
These busy days notwithstanding, it's been a fun semester. I taught, as usual, two classes: "Russia to 1917" and a new class that I designed last year called "Eastern Europe in the Cold War. " The latter is something that I'd been thinking of creating for the past several years. There are so many excellent readings and other course materials (including a Gabor Szabo video) available for a course like this, especially in the form of memoirs, travelogues, and fiction--and I'm proud to have introduced Milan Kundera to my students.
I've been on pretty much an all-turkey diet since Thanksgiving, eating stuffing for breakfast until I ran out last Wednesday, having either turkey soup or sandwiches in the afternoon, and turkey over rice in the evenings.
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| Come freeze your jingles off at the Jingle Jog |
Last night, however, we had our latest iteration of a relatively recent Belgrade tradition: the Christmas Convoy, during which semi-trucks and 18-wheelers are festooned with Christmas ornamentation and parade through the city. The tradition started in 2019 and then became a much bigger deal during the pandemic.
World News
There's also been a lot going on in the world beyond Belgrade. The news from South Korea, in particular, has been quite interesting.
It seems pretty clear that American voters are fed up with the idea of the United States playing a positive role in the world for democratization and rule of law. And frankly, I don't think it's very surprising that politicians and others in countries that are American friends and allies, such as South Korea, might feel more comfortable taking on a more authoritarian role. Increasingly, it feels like the US is heading down a road toward isolation, and that only a disaster at home on a Pearl Harbor or 9/11 scale would steer us back toward a more globalized presence.
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| Sound familiar? |
Has the US become NATO's weakest link? In some ways, this might end up being the case with respect to the Russia-Ukraine war, as Moscow seems poised to receive the great gift of a friendly American administration. Imagine: an adversary of ours with a blatantly aggressive agenda is bleeding out in eastern Ukraine, and for as long as this goes on this adversary's ability to project its power in the Caucasus and eastern Europe is straitjacketed. And yet we appear destined to let Moscow off the hook.
Lately, however, the former Warsaw Pact countries of central and eastern Europe have become part of this competition, their status as NATO and European Union members notwithstanding. This is the context, I'd say, in which we should be looking at the events taking place in Romania right now.
Much like the case with Germany in the first half of the 20th century, the West is dealing with a country in Russia that is still in the process of figuring out its borders. This process will be much more violent than it is already if the US and its allies begin to send mixed signals to Moscow. There's going to come a point when even the isolationists in this country will feel drawn to intervene, just as they did in 1917 and 1941. The point of organizations like NATO is to make sure that situations don't get out of hand to the extent that we ever reach this point again. I guess we'll see what happens.
Anyway, that's pretty much all that's going on around here. The days here have been beautiful this week--temps in the 20s and 30s, mostly, with clear skies and pretty snow-capped mountain views. These are all just the previews of winter. The real stuff is yet to come.
I find myself thinking in similar terms when considering the world more generally.
Russia-Ukraine Notes: Early October Edition
All Crimea/Ukraine posts since 2008
Re Russia-Ukraine: Changes Coming?
Back and Forth in the Quagmire
A "Mission Accomplished" Moment?
More Thoughts Re Ukraine and NATO
Looking for the Long-Term in Putin's Moves
Moscow Recognizes Two Breakaway Republics: Why do this?
The Monroe Doctrine, Putin, and Post-Soviet Space: Don't Muddy the Waters
South Ossetia and the Fate of the 'Mini-Republics' (from 2008)
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