Aleksandar Vučić #wingnut

Aleksandar Vučić #wingnut apnews.com

Serbia’s president called on NATO on Sunday to “do their job” in Kosovo or he says Serbia itself will move to protect its minority in the breakaway province

The fiery televised address to his nation by President Aleksandar Vucic followed the collapse of political talks between Serbian and Kosovo leaders earlier this week mediated by the European Union in Brussels

Serbia, along with its allies Russia and China, has refused to recognize Kosovo’s 2008 declaration of independence. A NATO-led intervention in 1999 ended the war between Serbian forces and separatists in Kosovo and stopped Belgrade’s bloody crackdown against Kosovo’s majority Albanians

The EU has overseen years of unsuccessful talks to normalize their ties, saying that’s one of the main preconditions for Kosovo and Serbia’s eventual membership in the 27-nation bloc

“We have nowhere to go, we are cornered,” Vucic said. “We will save our people from persecution and pogroms, if NATO does not want to do it”

He also claimed that Kosovo Albanian “gangs” need to be stopped from crossing into northern Kosovo, where most of the Kosovo Serbs live. He offered no proof for the claim

8 comments

you really want to do this Vucic? Unlike Russia, YOU DON’T HAVE NUKES and if you invade Kosovo you’ll likely to get NATO to intervene on your ass insanely fast and get your ass handed to you as a result just as the previous leadership of Serbia had back in 1999. So, again, I ask, do you really want to do this Vucic? To start a war you’re not going to win?

“We have nowhere to go, we are cornered,” Vucic said. “We will save our people from persecution and pogroms, if NATO does not want to do it”

Just like you “saved” the Serbs in Croatia whom you personally egged on to never compromise? Or the Serbs in most of Kosovo? Or the Serbs in a large part of Bosnia & Herzegovina?
The Serbs who, the vast majority of them, don’t live there anymore? Those Serbs?

I’m reminded of a Croatian anti-nationalist columnist who once said something like “When Serbia promises to ‘liberate’ Serbs in neighboring states, those among them who are savvy immediately say ‘NO! PLEASE DON’T’ and start packing their belongings, just in case.”

If Serbia attempts another ‘salvation’ in Kosovo, there might not be a single Serb left there once it inevitably fails… even in the north.

@Peacemonger373 #139339

and if you invade Kosovo you’ll likely to get NATO to intervene on your ass insanely fast and get your ass handed to you as a result just as the previous leadership of Serbia had back in 1999.

Fun fact: Vučić *was* part of said leadership back then! He was in fact the Minister of Information — that is, of propaganda and censorship.

So, again, I ask, do you really want to do this Vucic? To start a war you’re not going to win?

In all seriousness: no, he doesn’t. The chances that he’ll start an actual war are next to zero. Vučić is smart, likely sociopathic, and believes in nothing: he doesn’t actually give a shit about Kosovo Serbs. This is just yet another round of saber-rattling that will go nowhere.
Vučić has learned from Milošević’s mistakes, and has thus far taken care not to repeat them. He’s much better than his predecessor at being a machiavellian strongman who remains on good enough terms with every world power that they won’t call for his head on a platter.

Vučić is a master of smoke and mirrors, and of balancing on edges without falling over. Assume that everything he does is a carefully calculated PR move, and that he already knows well how far world powers will allow him to go. He’ll threaten with one hand, only to then pull his classic Jesus act with the other. Spontaneity is something he doesn’t do.

To quote Luke Skywalker: this is not going to go the way you think.

If Ukraine is any indication, it'll go even worse for Serbia. Russia has effective propaganda to get support from far right who believe Putin

There was a time when people thought the same about Putin and that he wouldn’t invade Ukraine, but he did, in this crazy world I’ve come to the belief that one should be prepared for any eventuality, that includes starting a pointless war that will end in Serbia’s failure. Who knows about he had got it into his head that Russia will support them once they invade Kosovo but discover they had no intention of helping them (as that would risk direct conflict with NATO and they know they won’t win that war) and the war Serbia started only last a month at most before Serbia is forced to surrender.

You honestly never know what goes through people’s heads’ sometimes, especially ultranationalists like Vucic (or at least the sociopath who pretends to be one) so I’m now my position involving those sorts of individuals is to expect all things from them, that includes the unexpected like say starting a pointless and meaningless war of conquest that ends in utter defeat.

@Peacemonger373 #139510
There was a time when people thought the same about Putin and that he wouldn’t invade Ukraine, but he did

And prior to the 2016 election, how many thought Trump had any chance of being elected?

@Malingspann #139513

My point exactly, always be prepared for unexpected shit to happen, human history is full of crap like that

@Peacemonger373 #139510

While that’s perhaps a good thing to keep in mind in general, I still don’t think we should be particularly afraid of Vučić going down the same path as Putin. In fact, he has been milquetoast when it comes to supporting Russia since Feb 24th. His party still makes pro-Russian noises because it’s extremely popular among the average idiot in Serbia, but don’t mistake typical rhetoric for actual support or even emulation of the ‘big brother’.

As I said, Vučić is no idiot. He has doubtlessly been following events very closely, and he’s probably thinking that Putin’s been making pretty much the same mistakes that costed Vučić’s old boss his position and his freedom. That’s also why he and his underlings have been so doggedly ‘neutral’ lately despite the fact that the Serbian public would probably react very warmly to a decision to fully support Russia.

Also, the notion of Russia currently being able to properly support anyone is pretty ridiculous — especially a country like Serbia, which is pretty much surrounded by NATO countries that also very much separate it from Russia.
Look at a map, Peacemonger. Serbia would have to be utterly suicidal to go against NATO, and their leadership knows that. And invading Kosovo *would* effectively be considered an attack on NATO, triggering the same sort of response as in 1999.

So, while it’s good to be open to the possibility of the unexpected happening, don’t blindly insist on it being so likely as to be much worth considering. What you keep repeating is basically a thought-terminating cliché.
Not everyone is equally unpredictable, and certainly not so unpredictable that we can’t make any sort of educated estimates on what might happen, or to consider all paths of action and all outcomes as basically equally likely.

I’m not suggesting that at all, just to keep an open mind and I have seen where Serbia is, and know how fucked it would be if it started a war, hence my first comment on this particular post, I’m just being prepared that it could (keyword is could) happen, but I do freely acknowledge that the likelihood of that happening is pretty low, though the same can be said of Trump’s election chances as well and yet he won and was president for 4 years, so anything could happen, but as you’ve made it clear the likelihood this guy (who was involved with the previous government) would repeat the same mistakes as his predecessor is very low and all of this is just hot air and red meat to his ultranationalist idiot base in Serbia.

And Honestly with all the improbably events that occurred over the last 5 years or so, from Trump winning the presidency, Putin invading Ukraine or the Supreme Court overturning Roe v Wade I just come to the conclusion that the so-called improbable can become the probable and assuming people won’t do something insane and or stupid for whatever reason is rather delusional nowadys, one can make educated guesses as to what people could do but people can do things that suprises folks all the time, I mean, yeah Trump took some documents from the white house, we all figured he’d do that, but not goddamn top secret documents that never allowed out of a fucking bunker under the white house, nuclear documents at that.