BALKAN STUDIES

Muslims are projected to increase as a share of Europe’s population – even with no future migration

Copyright: http://www.pewforum.org/2017/11/29/europes-growing-muslim-population/ 
Publication date on RIEAS web site (www.rieas.gr) on 23 December 2017

In recent years, Europe has experienced a record influx of asylum seekers fleeing conflicts in Syria and other predominantly Muslim countries. This wave of Muslim migrants has prompted debate about immigration and security policies in numerous countries and has raised questions about the current and future number of Muslims in Europe. Read more

Joshua Rovner
(Associate Professor in the School of International Service at American University. He is the author of Fixing the Facts: National Security and the Politics of Intelligence (Cornell, 2011), and writes widely about intelligence and strategy).

Copyright: https://warontherocks.com/2017/12/thucydides-long-war-problem/ Publication at RIEAS web site (www.rieas.gr) on 15 December 2017

Editor’s Note: This is the fifth installment of “The Brush Pass,” a new column by Joshua Rovner (@joshrovner1) on intelligence, strategy, and statecraft.

Is there anything left to say about Thucydides?

In a year dominated by concerns over modern technologies — ballistic missiles, nuclear warheads, and cyber weapons — scholars have spent a remarkable amount of time arguing about a very old conflict. Thucydides’ classic history of the Peloponnesian War documents the catastrophic fight between Athens and Sparta from 431–404 BC. It was a horrendous affair. Conventional combat, gruesome disease, mass murder, and civil war tore apart the fabric of the ancient Greek world. The post-war was chaotic, violent, and impoverished. Read more

Fragoulis S. Fragos
( Ret-General, Greece)

Copyright: http://greece4greeks.blogspot.gr/
Publication at RIEAS web site (www.rieas.gr) on 4 December 2017

Honorable Minister,

Your Excellency the Ambassador of the United States of America,

Dear Ladies and Gentlemen, good evening.

Energy is not only difficult to find but it is the driving force behind political developments and re-alignments. All wars were fought due to competing interests, and this holds even truer for larger conflagrations. The most important of these were primarily triggered by the struggle over energy resources. ..Read more

by Maria Polizoidou
(Reporter, broadcast journalist, and consultant on international and foreign affairs, is based in Greece. She has a post-graduate degree in "Geopolitics and Security Issues in the Islamic complex of Turkey and Middle East" from the University of Athens)

Copyright: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/11438/greece-terrorism - December 3, 2017.

European democracies in the Mediterranean are in danger of being swept away by a tsunami of uncontrolled immigration. We cannot allow this. Our societies cannot stand it. The European Union itself cannot stand it... [More than] one million 'foreigners' passed then [2015] through Greece and ended up in various countries of the European Union, mainly in Northern and Central Europe. Some of them were real refugees, from Syria and Iraq. But most of them were illegal immigrants from other countries of the world. Today it is estimated that the true refugees that are still coming are 20% of the total or fewer. The rest are illegal immigrants." Read more

Dr. Ian Hope
(Col Dr Ian Hope is a Researcher at the NATO Defense College. His research interests include Strategy, Military Planning, Military Theory and the History of War, as well as Balkans and European Security Issues. The views expressed in this paper are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the NATO Defense College or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization)

Copyright: Copyright: http://www.ndc.nato.int - Research Division –NATO Defense College, Rome, Italy, No. 142, November 2017.

The Warsaw Summit affirmed Alliance interest in and commitment to many geographic regions and nations, without stating priorities. The Western Balkans drew attention, with Serbia, Kosovo and Montenegro receiving specific mention in the Summit Communiqué.2 However, the Summit promoted a continuance of current NATO activity in this region, not a shift or amelioration. Implicit in this is that the status quo, a small NATO force in Kosovo to enhance security and several liaison offices to monitor partnership activity and the application of the Membership Action Plan in the other Western Balkans states, is sufficient. This paper will argue that such efforts are too small and disjointed to meet the growing challenges in the region, especially given NATO’s obligation to conflict prevention in the wake of its significant and successful interventions there in 1996 and 1999. Read more

BY ASHISH KUMAR SEN
(Deputy director of communications at the Atlantic Council, USA)

Copyright: http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/new-atlanticist/here-s-why-us-commitment-to-the-western-balkans-matters Publication date on RIEAS web site (www.rieas.gr) on 3 December 2017.

The United States and the European Union (EU) must deepen their engagement with the Western Balkans, a region where Russia, Turkey, and wealthy Arab Gulf states have extended their influence and that is considered integral to realizing the idea of a Europe that is whole, free, and at peace, speakers and panelists said at the Atlantic Council on November 29. Read more