The US and its real partners in the Balkans [political Albania, the Republic of Kosova, anyway also North Macedonia and Montenegro], need a foreign policy that focuses on the core interests of the US in the region, reassessing and the vital interests of the partners.
By Dr. Sadri RAMABAJA*
Deep state and its misuse
A deep state[1] is a type of government consisting of potentially secret and unauthorized networks of power that operate independently of a country’s political leadership in pursuit of their own agenda and goals. In popular usage, the term carries extremely negative connotations.[2]
The power of the deep state comes from experience, knowledge, relationships, insight, craft, special skills, traditions and shared values. Together, these supposed attributes make the bureaucrats nameless in a supergovernment that answers to no one. This is a frightening prospect. [3]
The etymology of the notion of “Deep State” is related to the Turkish word derin devlet (lit. ‘deep state’). But even the modern concept of a deep state is associated with Turkey, meaning a supposedly secret network of military officers and their civilian allies trying to maintain secular order based on the ideas of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk from 1923.[4] There are also opinions that the deep state in Turkey and “Counter Guerrillas” were created in the Cold War era as part of the Gladio Organization to push Turkey further into NATO against the threat of expanding Soviet-style communism.[5]
During the presidency of Donald Trump, in public communication, applying the notion of the deep state, in the United States the notion of the “deep state” has been used to describe the “permanent government” of entrenched career bureaucrats or civil servants acting in accordance with the mandates of their agencies and the statutes of Congress, with emphasis when it was seen to be in conflict with the administration.
After the 2016 United States presidential election, the deep state was much more widely used as a pejorative term with an extremely negative definition by both the Donald Trump administration and the conservative-leaning media.[6]
Even all the procedural actions that are being pursued by the various courts in the USA in relation to Donald Trump’s actions during his rise as an oligarch and in particular when he was in charge of the White House, he describes as a product of the “Deep State ” and part of the political fight against his possible return as US president for a second term.
An appeals court in New York last Monday decided to temporarily freeze former President Donald Trump’s payment of a $454 million fine if he deposits $175 million within the next 10 days. Depositing this amount within 10 days would prevent the seizure of his properties.
This unexpected development on Monday happened shortly before the Attorney General of New York, Letitia James, began the procedures to collect the amount of the fine from the former president. In this case, Mr. Trump’s lawyers had turned to the appeals court to freeze the decision of Prosecutor James, arguing that it is “virtually impossible” to find any financial institution willing to sign a guarantee to pay such a fine. high of almost half a billion dollars.
The “surprises” that could hurt Joe Biden
In these circumstances, however, analysts judge, “unexpected events” in Joe Biden’s campaign for the second term, which may be related to new political developments, with an emphasis on American foreign policy, and economic developments, may damage the Democratic camp. or social issues that have occurred since the beginning of his mandate. Some of them can be:
1. Foreign Agenda: In the event that there may be any unexpected development on the international scene, similar to that in Gaza, but this time even more shocking within the transatlantic relations, which means the outbreak of war in the Balkans or the Baltics, of course at the insistence of Russia. This fact would be for Joe Biden’s administration a new crisis not only of a regional character, which would cause it deep not only diplomatic conflicts, which would require the movement of the entire state structures and an immediate response.
2. Economic Developments: Unexpected changes in the global economy or in the domestic economy of the United States may affect the Biden campaign, forcing them to review their economic policies and introduce new plans to address new challenges. .
3. Social Events: Unexpected events, such as large protests or serious social incidents, may prompt the Biden administration to act to provide a sustained and compelling response to these developments.
4. Scandals or controversies: Unexpected events related to members of the Biden administration, such as scandals or controversies, may affect public perception of the administration and of candidate Biden in particular.
While Biden will try to manage all these developments effectively, they may bring new challenges to his campaign and to his governance in general. His reaction to these “surprises” will be crucial to maintaining support and securing a second term.
Bernie Sanders’ new initiative
In these circumstances, the senator and the most influential member of the left wing of the American Democratic Party, Bernie Sanders, came up with a new initiative, as a response to the wave of reaction that is gathering in the Republican camp, now recovered again, around the controversial figure of Donald Trump.
Sanders has long been known for his leftist views, opposing the interests of the so-called representatives of the deep state and oligarchs closely connected to the state administration. His views find significant support not only within the Democratic Party, but also in the wider American society. Let’s remember the fact that in 2016, together with Hillary Clinton, he was also a candidate for the nomination of the Democratic Party for the presidential elections, in which, in the end, he successfully faced Donald Trump, unlike Hillary Clinton.
On March 18, Sanders wrote an interesting text in the influential American media Foreign Affairs, with the significant title: A revolution in American foreign policy and the explanatory subtitle: Replacing greed, militarism and hypocrisy with solidarity, diplomacy and human rights. In this text, he critically examines American foreign policy developed over decades. It is interesting to highlight the motive of the writing at this very time and the reasons why he strongly criticizes the actions of some former American presidents and their administrations, in times and circumstances of historical importance not only for the course of developments in the USA. He returns on this occasion to his strict reprimands in relation to the Vietnam War and the invasion of Iraq when Saddam Hussein was in charge, but also the invasion of Afghanistan, interpreting this whole range of developments as tears necessary to replace greed, militarism and hypocrisy with solidarity, diplomacy and human rights.
Reading further into this one-of-a-kind political essay, it is easy to see that Sanders remains an incorrigible idealist of the Democratic Party. See for this he goes further with his critical look, rebuking the “bipartisan consensus” for decades in the field of American foreign policy, which “tragically has almost always been wrong”. [7]
Sanders is an active American citizen of Jewish origin. But this fact does not prevent him from pointing out the huge costs in this essay, i.e. the billions of dollars that the US spends meanwhile “to support the Israeli army”, bringing to the reader’s attention that it is the US that “almost as the only country in the world that is protecting the extreme right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has launched a general war and the destruction of the Palestinian people, which is why tens of thousands of people are dying in the Gaza Strip, including thousands of children , and hundreds of thousands more are starving”.[8]
On the eve of the heating up of the electoral campaign, Sanders pleads for a “complete reorientation of American foreign policy”. He sees this reorientation as something extremely urgent and necessary, and adds that the establishment must completely reconsider its positions if its goal is to promote peace and prosperity and not spend trillions of dollars on endless wars and defense contracts that will not solve. existential problems of the world such as climate change, future pandemics, hunger, hatred, …
“As long as wealthy corporations and billionaires keep our economic and political system under pressure, foreign policy decisions will depend on their material interests, not the interests of the vast majority of the world’s population. Only 1% of the world’s population owns more wealth than 99% of them, … This year, even without additional spending, the United States plans to spend about 900 billion dollars on the military, almost half of which will go to a handful of defense contractors”[9], writes Bernie Sanders in this essay.
Reading the text of Bernie Sanders, a layman might think that this seasoned Democrat politician does not know or understand how this world works. Of course, Sanders knows this very well, but unlike many, he has the courage not only to publicly state what he thinks, but also to be firm in his views – which is not common in today’s politics inundated with interests and extreme pragmatism.
The expected reflection of the USA: the review of the foreign policy towards the Balkans
In the new circumstances that the Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is imposing through his vassal in the Balkans, the Serbian president, in relations with the West in general and with the Europeans in particular, a well-deserved response from the USA could serve as the most preventive well against the breakdown of order and peace in Southeast Europe and beyond.
We must all understand that a direct war with Russia, in case it imposes the extension of the flames of war from Ukraine to the Balkans, would be as terrible as the war currently taking place in Ukraine. American military leaders and security experts are clear about this fact. If Serbia imposes the course for the annexation of the north of Kosova, related to its project already coded under the name “Serbian World”, which means the Anschluss of the Serbian Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the soft occupation of Montenegro, the Russian GRU will could use Serbian forces to retaliate against American allies and partners in the region, not even sparing KFOR troops. The result would be further, unimaginable destabilization of Southeast Europe with wars that would continue for years. Consequently, the USA, without a doubt, would have extremely high costs, perhaps trillions of dollars, while the rivers of blood in the Balkans would shrink the demography to tragic proportions.
The President of Serbia, Aleksandar Vučić, during an event attended by Patriarch Profirije and the President of the Republic of Serbia, Milorad Dodik, gave an ultimatum to the West, expressing concern:
“If they choose Kosova, Serbia will wait for the best possible moment and use the opportunity to act”.[10]
Vucic has recently made these threats more frequent, taking into consideration the fact that Kosova will enjoy support from the West for membership in the Council of Europe and NATO.
Meanwhile, in a congratulatory letter addressed to Putin for the victory in the recent elections in Russia, Vucic addresses him as his mentor, with pronounced notes of complaint, lamenting the “alarming situation” of the Serbs in Kosova. He reports to Putin about the allegedly “difficult political situation that the Serbian people in Kosova were facing”, giving him the alarming statement that “Serbs are suffering a pogrom in Kosova”! The same language was used by Vuçiqi at the last meeting of the United Nations Security Council.
The propaganda narrative is a copy of the one Putin used to justify to the public the massive invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Due to the fact that this year the expected beefs in the USA are producing unexpected effects in Europe, without at all underestimating those for the European Parliament, after this week’s diplomatic successes for Kosova [ The Permanent Steering Committee of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly, which developed works in Estonia, on March 24 decided to raise the status of the delegation of the Assembly of the Republic of Kosova to the level of an associate member in the Assembly; meanwhile, last Wednesday the Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe approved the opinion of the rapporteur Dora Bakoyannis in the Committee for Political Affairs and Democracy of the Council of Europe, which paved the way for Kosova’s membership in the Council of Europe], intelligence services and well-known analysts of the country and abroad, expect that Kosova will once again be subjected to the intense efforts of the Serbian and Russian hybrid war in the coming weeks and months. The proactive deprivation of Belgrade from its influence in the north of Kosova can be helped by our Government thanks to the application of the pre-modern geopolitical course that it applies.
Under these circumstances, with the revision of foreign policy, if we were to express ourselves in the language of Bernie Sanders, the US would have to take a step back and rethink what engaged diplomats have been doing for more than three decades in the Balkans. The USA and its real partners in the Balkans [first of all political Albania and the Republic of Kosova, but also North Macedonia and Montenegro], need a foreign policy that would focus on the essential interests of The US, again, to use the language of Bernie Sanders, should be able to clarify “commitment to democratic values both at home and abroad, and to privilege diplomacy and collective work with allies to address the concerns of common security.”[11]
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1. Calque; Definition of DEEP STATE”. www.merriam-webster.com.
2. Byford, Jovan (2011). Conspiracy theories: a critical introduction. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN. OCLC 802867724.
3. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/deep%20state
3. Filkins, Dexter (12 March 2012). “The Deep State” (PDF).The New Yorker. Retrieved 31 December 2018.
4. “”Kontrgerilla”, “Gladio”, “Derin Devlet” gibi kavramlar hakkında”(Press release) (in Turkish). Turkish Armed Forces. 2006-01-16. BA-01/06. Archived from the original on 2008-03-08.
5. Rebecca Ingber, “The ‘Deep State’ Myth and the Real Executive Branch Bureaucracy”; Rebecca Ingber, Bureaucratic Resistance and the Deep State Myth
6. Skowronek, Stephen; Dearborn, John A. & King, Desmond (2021). Phantoms of a Beleaguered Republic: The Deep State and the Unitary Executive. Oxford University Press. ISBN.
7. Bernie Sanders: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/united-states/revolution-american-foreign-policy-bernie-sanders
8. Ibd
9. Ibd
10. https://www.novinite.com/articles/225044/Serbia+Threatens+to+Leave+Council+of+Europe+if+Kosova+Joins
11. Bernie Sanders: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2019-06-24/ending-americas-endless-war
[https://www.eurasiareview.com/02042024-deep-state-the-revolution-in-american-foreign-policy-and-southeast-europe-oped/
