North Macedonia Officially Becomes 30th Member of NATO

[Kavagrad]

I am not in favour of NATO, in fact I want to see it being dissolved. European countries should join PESCO instead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Permanent ... ooperation

Yeah thats literally nothing.

Replacing NATO with literally nothing is also a good option.

[Albrenia]

Yeah thats literally nothing.

Replacing NATO with literally nothing is also a good option.

Uhm, why?

[Bulgar Rouge]

North Macedonia literally practices historical revisionism by stealing Greek culture and claiming it as their own. According to them, Ancient Macedon was a Slavic Kingdom and the Macedonian Slavs are directly descended from Alexander the Great despite the fact that literally nobody knew what the fuck a Slav was back then because they didn't even properly exist.

Honestly, I can understand being upset about a neighboring nation claiming your ancestral legacy as their own and claiming you're the one who stole it instead.

It's somewhat more complicated than that.

I've recently had to peer review a couple of papers on the archaeology underlying the dispute, on the basis of my own publications on the archaeology of nationalism and national identity.

There are several competing versions of the ancient and medieval history of the territory currently encompassed by modern North Macedonia. For much of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the dominant narratives were whether northern Macedonia was full of Bulgarians speaking a slightly declasse peasant version of Bulgarian or slightly misguided Serbs who had to be brought back to Belgrade's welcoming bosom (the rest of Macedonia was contested with the Greeks, who ultimately came to control the bulk of ancient Macedonia, but we'll focus solely on modern North Macedonia here). Indeed, the primary reason for the outbreak of the Second Balkan War in 1913, almost immediately after the First Balkan War of 1912-1913 was Bulgarian dissatisfaction with its share of Macedonia, and a specific feeling that Serbia had broken a secret agreement over the division of territory in what we now call North Macedonia.

It was only with the rise of Tito's government that the idea that there was a separate Macedonian national identity went mainstream, in part to weaken the Serbian component of Yugoslavia, in part to dampen Bulgarian irredentism, and in part in line with the common 20th-century communist government practice of reifying previously abstract ethno-linguistic concepts into the basis of hypothetically autonomous sub-national 'republics'.

When Yugoslavia broke up, the combination of historical Serbian and Bulgarian claims on North Macedonia, combined with the existence of a significant Albanian minority in the new republic, led to previously fringe concepts on the origins of Macedonia and Macedonians as a separate national group.

The dominant strand in Macedonian 'antiquisation' isn't that Ancient Macedonia was a Slavic kingdom; there's no serious dispute that the Slavs didn't arrive in the Balkans until the 6th century AD. Rather it rests on two twin pillars:

A) that the ancient Macedonians were not Greeks but rather a distinct ethnicity (here Demosthones's claim that Macedonians were barbarians tends to get quoted a lot), albeit one that most would concede gradually adopted aspects of Hellenistic civilisation.

B) that the Slav migrations in the early medieval period didn't replace the existing Macedonian population, but rather led to a process of acculturation whereby the ordinary Macedonians came to adopt the language of the interlopers, but nonetheless retained their identity as descendants of the ancient Macedonians.

By themselves, neither of these positions is individually outrageous or wholly outside the realm of mainstream academic debate. There is scope for discussing both of these points.

However, when combined and taken to their illogical extremes, they're taken as 'proof' that the modern North Macedonians are the only true heirs to ancient Macedon (the Greeks in this hypothesis are the true interlopers), and therefore have the sole right to use the heritage and symbols of ancient Macedon.

That's far, far more problematic - not least because the modern concept of a Macedonian national identity is so recent - and the basis of justifiable Greek concerns about what Macedonian nationalist 'antiquisation' means for Greek Macedonia. Not that the Greeks were entirely innocent here themselves, but it's fair to note that until very recently - when common sense seems to have finally prevailed on both sides - successive governments in post-independence Skopje would often embrace positions on history, heritage and the use of national symbols that were not unjustifiably considered more than a little provocative down in Athens.

The problem with Macedonia is not limited to ancient history. Bulgarian reactions to Macedonian historical revisionism have so far been tame. Macedonian claims have been ignored as a mere annoyance or just ridiculed up until now. But with the topic of EU negotiations now on the table, a Bulgarian-Macedonian historical commission has been set up to "straighten" the issues. The Macedonian side so far seems to be sabotaging this process, but the responses here are firm. Politicians from all sides of the spectrum have either hinted or been explicit about Bulgaria blocking any further integration process of Macedonia if the "historical question" isn't properly resolved. So the Greek issues with ancient history may have been settled, but there's the Middle Ages, the Ottoman period and the 20th century coming up.

[Agarntrop]

It is ironic. Haste is made to admit nations like North Macedonia, but great hesitation & prolonged deliberation is had when considering nations like Azerbaijan & Georgia. Both are equally positioned at crucial geo-political crossroads directly at Russia's southern underbelly. Nonetheless, it is equally important to acknowledge the peculiarities in nations like Georgia. In the latter, the breakaway republics of Abkhazia & South Ossetia attribute a precarious element of sensitivity to a broader balance with Moscow. In reality, both republics are merely geo-political beachheads for Moscow which ultimately prevent any long term prospect of NATO membership from flowering in the first place. From a situational standpoint, this is comparable to NATO positioning military bases in a breakaway region of Belarus surrounded by pro-Russian powers & interests. The post-Cold War spectrum consistently proves fascinating to say the least…

Azerbaijan is an oligarchic dictatorship which regularly engages in human rights abuses, and is also buddy buddy with Putin in addition to mooching money from a gullible West. This alone blocks them from entering NATO.

Yeah iirc Azerbaijan has the worst human rights record in Europe, even behind Belarus.

[Nakena]

Yeah thats literally nothing.

Replacing NATO with literally nothing is also a good option.

Enjoy Putin and Xi as your new overlords then.

Yeah iirc Azerbaijan has the worst human rights record in Europe, even behind Belarus.

Azerbaijan is outside of Europe pretty much.

[Cekoviu]

It is ironic. Haste is made to admit nations like North Macedonia, but great hesitation & prolonged deliberation is had when considering nations like Azerbaijan & Georgia. Both are equally positioned at crucial geo-political crossroads directly at Russia's southern underbelly. Nonetheless, it is equally important to acknowledge the peculiarities in nations like Georgia. In the latter, the breakaway republics of Abkhazia & South Ossetia attribute a precarious element of sensitivity to a broader balance with Moscow. In reality, both republics are merely geo-political beachheads for Moscow which ultimately prevent any long term prospect of NATO membership from flowering in the first place. From a situational standpoint, this is comparable to NATO positioning military bases in a breakaway region of Belarus surrounded by pro-Russian powers & interests. The post-Cold War spectrum consistently proves fascinating to say the least…

Azerbaijan is, as has been mentioned, a dictatorship which is only really pro-Western in the same sense as Saudi Arabia - simply a pragmatic, strategic measure which could change at a moment's notice. Georgia remains a very fragile democracy (in the loosest sense of the term), and seems to be continually backsliding, resembling the Shevardnadze days more and more. NATO dragging its feet a bit seems warranted.

[Thermodolia]

It is ironic. Haste is made to admit nations like North Macedonia, but great hesitation & prolonged deliberation is had when considering nations like Azerbaijan & Georgia. Both are equally positioned at crucial geo-political crossroads directly at Russia's southern underbelly. Nonetheless, it is equally important to acknowledge the peculiarities in nations like Georgia. In the latter, the breakaway republics of Abkhazia & South Ossetia attribute a precarious element of sensitivity to a broader balance with Moscow. In reality, both republics are merely geo-political beachheads for Moscow which ultimately prevent any long term prospect of NATO membership from flowering in the first place. From a situational standpoint, this is comparable to NATO positioning military bases in a breakaway region of Belarus surrounded by pro-Russian powers & interests. The post-Cold War spectrum consistently proves fascinating to say the least…

Azerbaijan is an oligarchic dictatorship which regularly engages in human rights abuses, and is also buddy buddy with Putin in addition to mooching money from a gullible West. This alone blocks them from entering NATO.

Only the buddy buddy with Putin part blocks them from NATO. If they weren’t buddy buddy with Putin they’d be a US ally

[Thermodolia]

It is ironic. Haste is made to admit nations like North Macedonia, but great hesitation & prolonged deliberation is had when considering nations like Azerbaijan & Georgia. Both are equally positioned at crucial geo-political crossroads directly at Russia's southern underbelly. Nonetheless, it is equally important to acknowledge the peculiarities in nations like Georgia. In the latter, the breakaway republics of Abkhazia & South Ossetia attribute a precarious element of sensitivity to a broader balance with Moscow. In reality, both republics are merely geo-political beachheads for Moscow which ultimately prevent any long term prospect of NATO membership from flowering in the first place. From a situational standpoint, this is comparable to NATO positioning military bases in a breakaway region of Belarus surrounded by pro-Russian powers & interests. The post-Cold War spectrum consistently proves fascinating to say the least…

Azerbaijan is, as has been mentioned, a dictatorship which is only really pro-Western in the same sense as Saudi Arabia - simply a pragmatic, strategic measure which could change at a moment's notice. Georgia remains a very fragile democracy (in the loosest sense of the term), and seems to be continually backsliding, resembling the Shevardnadze days more and more. NATO dragging its feet a bit seems warranted.

Let’s not act like NATO gives a shit if a nation is democratic or not seeing as they let dictatorships join all throughout and after the Cold War. *Glares at Turkey and Greece*

[Agarntrop]

Azerbaijan is, as has been mentioned, a dictatorship which is only really pro-Western in the same sense as Saudi Arabia - simply a pragmatic, strategic measure which could change at a moment's notice. Georgia remains a very fragile democracy (in the loosest sense of the term), and seems to be continually backsliding, resembling the Shevardnadze days more and more. NATO dragging its feet a bit seems warranted.

Let’s not act like NATO gives a shit if a nation is democratic or not seeing as they let dictatorships join all throughout and after the Cold War. *Glares at Turkey and Greece*

And Portugal, but just because they have does not mean they should.

[Chan Island]

Sent my congrats to a dear friend of mine who's from North Macedonia, and he's come back... very hesitant about the whole thing. Linked me to this article and added that he doesn't believe it's in the west's strategic interests.

Also said I'm the second person to have congratulated him so hey. ^^

https://thehill.com/opinion/internation ... VFtiEIjDrc

Just to have a counter argument up there.

[The Greater Ohio Valley]

Azerbaijan is, as has been mentioned, a dictatorship which is only really pro-Western in the same sense as Saudi Arabia - simply a pragmatic, strategic measure which could change at a moment's notice. Georgia remains a very fragile democracy (in the loosest sense of the term), and seems to be continually backsliding, resembling the Shevardnadze days more and more. NATO dragging its feet a bit seems warranted.

Let’s not act like NATO gives a shit if a nation is democratic or not seeing as they let dictatorships join all throughout and after the Cold War. *Glares at Turkey and Greece*

Times and attitudes can change, maybe we should start kicking dictatorships out of the alliance.

[Cisairse]

North Macedonia literally practices historical revisionism by stealing Greek culture and claiming it as their own. According to them, Ancient Macedon was a Slavic Kingdom and the Macedonian Slavs are directly descended from Alexander the Great despite the fact that literally nobody knew what the fuck a Slav was back then because they didn't even properly exist.

Honestly, I can understand being upset about a neighboring nation claiming your ancestral legacy as their own and claiming you're the one who stole it instead.

It's somewhat more complicated than that.

I've recently had to peer review a couple of papers on the archaeology underlying the dispute, on the basis of my own publications on the archaeology of nationalism and national identity.

There are several competing versions of the ancient and medieval history of the territory currently encompassed by modern North Macedonia. For much of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the dominant narratives were whether northern Macedonia was full of Bulgarians speaking a slightly declasse peasant version of Bulgarian or slightly misguided Serbs who had to be brought back to Belgrade's welcoming bosom (the rest of Macedonia was contested with the Greeks, who ultimately came to control the bulk of ancient Macedonia, but we'll focus solely on modern North Macedonia here). Indeed, the primary reason for the outbreak of the Second Balkan War in 1913, almost immediately after the First Balkan War of 1912-1913, was Bulgarian dissatisfaction with its share of Macedonia, and a specific feeling that Serbia had broken a secret agreement over the division of territory in what we now call North Macedonia.

It was only with the rise of Tito's government that the idea that there was a separate Macedonian national identity went mainstream, in part to weaken the Serbian component of Yugoslavia, in part to dampen Bulgarian irredentism, and in part in line with the common 20th-century communist government practice of reifying previously abstract ethno-linguistic concepts into the basis of hypothetically autonomous sub-national 'republics'.

When Yugoslavia broke up, the combination of historical Serbian and Bulgarian claims on North Macedonia, combined with the existence of a significant Albanian minority in the new republic, led to previously fringe concepts on the origins of Macedonia and Macedonians as a separate national group going mainstream.

The dominant strand in Macedonian 'antiquisation' isn't that Ancient Macedonia was a Slavic kingdom; there's no serious dispute that the Slavs didn't arrive in the Balkans until the 6th century AD. Rather it rests on two twin pillars:

A) that the ancient Macedonians were not Greeks but rather a distinct ethnicity (here Demosthones's claim that Macedonians were barbarians tends to get quoted a lot), albeit one that most would concede gradually adopted aspects of Hellenistic civilisation.

B) that the Slav migrations in the early medieval period didn't replace the existing Macedonian population, but rather led to a process of acculturation whereby the ordinary Macedonians came to adopt the language of the interlopers, but nonetheless retained their identity as descendants of the ancient Macedonians.

By themselves, neither of these positions is individually outrageous or wholly outside the realm of mainstream academic debate. There is scope for discussing both of these points.

However, when combined and taken to their illogical extremes, they're taken as 'proof' that the modern North Macedonians are the only true heirs to ancient Macedon (the Greeks in this hypothesis are the true interlopers), and therefore have the sole right to use the heritage and symbols of ancient Macedon.

That's far, far more problematic - not least because the modern concept of a Macedonian national identity is so recent - and the basis of justifiable Greek concerns about what Macedonian nationalist 'antiquisation' means for Greek Macedonia. Not that the Greeks were entirely innocent here themselves, but it's fair to note that until very recently - when common sense seems to have finally prevailed on both sides - successive governments in post-independence Skopje would often embrace positions on history, heritage and the use of national symbols that were not unjustifiably considered more than a little provocative down in Athens.

This is quite interesting. Thank you for posting this.

[New Bremerton]

Awesome.



The next step now is to rename NATO to ANAIPS (Alliance of North Atlantic and Indo-Pacific States) and extend membership to allied Pacific Rim nations + India in order to contain Chinese aggression, which is the far bigger threat. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, India, and Australia would be the most important potential member-states. My country (Malaysia) would also be a member-state.

To top it all off, all six English-speaking nations (USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia and NZ) could merge into a singular behemoth with its capital in Washington D.C., Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state and Nancy Pelosi as its interim caretaker Prime Minister until such time as a general election can be held to elect House MPs and Senators to Capitol Hill, the new Westminster-style federal Parliament. This new, freedom-loving Union of English-speaking States (UES) would be the single most powerful, nuclear-armed force both within ANAIPS and the whole world. What a mighty alliance UES-ANAIPS would be, and one that would fill the hearts of both the Chinese and the Russians with sheer terror and trepidation. We would be unstoppable. For the Alliance!



EDIT: Maybe I should revise New Bremerton's factbook to more closely resemble my conception of the UES.

[Pyrghium]

This was the whole point of the Prespa Agreement (and the pressure by Western Governments put on both Athens and Skopje to come to an “agreement”) in the first place.

[Czechoslovakia and Zakarpatia]

Awesome.



The next step now is to rename NATO to ANAIPS (Alliance of North Atlantic and Indo-Pacific States) and extend membership to allied Pacific Rim nations + India in order to contain Chinese aggression, which is the far bigger threat. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, India, and Australia would be the most important potential member-states. My country (Malaysia) would also be a member-state.

To top it all off, all six English-speaking nations (USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia and NZ) could merge into a singular behemoth with its capital in Washington D.C., Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state and Nancy Pelosi as its interim caretaker Prime Minister until such time as a general election can be held to elect House MPs and Senators to Capitol Hill, the new Westminster-style federal Parliament. This new, freedom-loving Union of English-speaking States (UES) would be the single most powerful, nuclear-armed force both within ANAIPS and the whole world. What a mighty alliance UES-ANAIPS would be, and one that would fill the hearts of both the Chinese and the Russians with sheer terror and trepidation. We would be unstoppable. For the Alliance!



EDIT: Maybe I should revise New Bremerton's factbook to more closely resemble my conception of the UES.

Looks like somebody played quite a bit of HOI4 here.

[Ayytaly]

Is it Mass- or Mac-?

[Czechoslovakia and Zakarpatia]

Is it Mass- or Mac-?

MaC. It's pronounced and spelled MaCedonia, not Massedonia.

[Dumb Ideologies]

Is it Mass- or Mac-?

It's pronounced Nerf Macadamia

[An Alan Smithee Nation]

Is it Mass- or Mac-?

MaC. It's pronounced and spelled MaCedonia, not Massedonia.

* sprays with mace *

[New Bremerton]

Awesome.



The next step now is to rename NATO to ANAIPS (Alliance of North Atlantic and Indo-Pacific States) and extend membership to allied Pacific Rim nations + India in order to contain Chinese aggression, which is the far bigger threat. Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam, the Philippines, Indonesia, India, and Australia would be the most important potential member-states. My country (Malaysia) would also be a member-state.

To top it all off, all six English-speaking nations (USA, Canada, UK, Ireland, Australia and NZ) could merge into a singular behemoth with its capital in Washington D.C., Queen Elizabeth II as its head of state and Nancy Pelosi as its interim caretaker Prime Minister until such time as a general election can be held to elect House MPs and Senators to Capitol Hill, the new Westminster-style federal Parliament. This new, freedom-loving Union of English-speaking States (UES) would be the single most powerful, nuclear-armed force both within ANAIPS and the whole world. What a mighty alliance UES-ANAIPS would be, and one that would fill the hearts of both the Chinese and the Russians with sheer terror and trepidation. We would be unstoppable. For the Alliance!



EDIT: Maybe I should revise New Bremerton's factbook to more closely resemble my conception of the UES.

Looks like somebody played quite a bit of HOI4 here.

I've never heard of HOI4. I've played a bit of WoW and watched Code Geass, where the idea for an English-speaking federation came from.

[Dumb Ideologies]

MaC. It's pronounced and spelled MaCedonia, not Massedonia.

* sprays with mace *

Noot Academia

[Czechoslovakia and Zakarpatia]

Looks like somebody played quite a bit of HOI4 here.

I've never heard of HOI4. I've played a bit of WoW and watched Code Geass, where the idea for an English-speaking federation came from.

The British Empire in that timeline was a autocratic and totalitarian dictatorship though, so be careful what you wish for. It's the exact reason why Lelouch launched his resistance to begin with.
PS: No spoilers, please. I am only aware of its basic plot summary from the beginning, but nothing else.

[The Narnian Council]

This will most likely trigger Ukraine and Georgia, who have been trying for 12+ years to join NATO, only to get the promise: "it will happen one day".

[The New California Republic]

This will most likely trigger Ukraine and Georgia, who have been trying for 12+ years to join NATO, only to get the promise: "it will happen one day".

The situation in Georgia and Ukraine is markedly different from NM. Sure NM has been at loggerheads with Greece for years, but it's not as bad.

[Baltenstein]

Georgia and Ukraine won't be able to become NATO members as long as they have Russian-occupied break-away territories inside their borders. Since the situation won't likely change...ever, those two countries will probably never join NATO.