"The Cold War never ended and is very much alive in the Balkans"

The Cold War was supposed to end when the Soviet Union (USSR) collapsed in 1991. But it never ended, and it is very much alive in the Balkans. After the fall of the USSR, the West, and especially the US, had the perfect opportunity to help create new security policies and structures. We had a chance to remove all the old institutions of the Cold War and to help Europe, Russia and the USA move towards a security apparatus suitable for the 21st century, writes Stephen Meyer, former deputy head of the CIA for the Balkans, in an author's text for Nedjeljnik.

Mejer writes that instead of the above, "we looked back and learned the lessons from the end of the First World War".

"At the end of the First World War, the West, especially France and Britain, cruelly punished and humiliated defeated Germany. The Germans became bitter, angry, and wanted revenge. The result was the rise of Hitler and the Second World War - only twenty short years after its end First. Similarly, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the West humiliated Russia and wrote it off as a major international power. We told the Russians that they had to accept Western political and economic models. We sent "experts" to Russia to "teach" them how to "construct a true" free democratic country. But we kept NATO and brought it to Russia's borders, while insisting that the Warsaw Pact must collapse. As long as Boris Yeltsin was president, Russia played to that rhythm and tried to accept politics and institutions of the West," writes Mejer for Nedjeljnik.

He also states that Russia was going through a deep political, economic and psychological crisis, and that intolerance and anger towards the West began to grow in that country.

"Putin had different views than Yeltsin and rejected Western norms and their dominance. The result was a new sense of Russia - not in Marxism and Leninism, but in deeply conservative and Orthodox values. Russia under Putin became angry and aggressive, and the Cold War , which the West has made sure will last, has been embraced in Moscow as well. This is nothing new for the Balkans. For centuries it has been a playground for the great powers to measure their strength. But that has less to do with the Balkans as the Balkans and more to do with the location of the region. For centuries it was a training ground for the clash of the great European powers. The interests of the great empires were broken by the circumstances in the Balkans. It is the place of conflict between the Ottoman Empire, the Austrian and Russian Empires. That is why other empires - primarily the British and the French - also kept an eye on the Balkans and interfered even if they were not physically present in the region. Consequently, the Balkans were the 'powder keg' of Europe for centuries, even though the fuse lay elsewhere. As Otto von Bismarck said, thirty years before the Great War began, ' some fool in the Balkans will set everything on fire...", wrote Meyer.