Skopje's NATO Adventures: A Conversation on Insanity and Megalomania. The FYROM: Bribing its Way to Membership

Marcus A. Templar
National Security Advisor, Macedonian League

Abstract
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The “principles of democracy, individual liberty and the rule of law”[1] are man’s natural and inalienable rights upon which healthy societies are built. An alliance such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), being a voluntary organization, requires from its candidates and its active members that they guarantee the protection of values of human decency in individuals. NATO is, in other words, a society of free states consisting of tolerant citizens, who live in harmony with their neighbors with whom they wish to ally.

Whether one regards NATO as North America’s and Europe’s encroaching hand or whether one conceptualizes the Alliance as the ready policeman of the world, NATO considers itself as the instrument of stability and solidity of the North Atlantic countries.

Upon the fall of the Wall in 1989, NATO hastily employed an open door policy, inviting and admitting former Warsaw Pact country members that militarily qualified to join, but lacked democratic values and principles, the absence of which contravene NATO’s own values. On other occasions, the Alliance invited quasi-qualified countries on the basis of their strategic geo-political location only vis-à-vis the former Soviet Union (USSR).

The Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia’s (FYROM) candidacy to NATO is not only problematic, but also pointless. The FYROM does not meet any of the preconditions set by NATO and save for the exception of some troops that the FYROM sent to NATO’s International Security Assistant Force (ISAF), it does not meet any other NATO requirements, including a less than medium rated strategic location.

This fact-based paper attempts to prove that the FYROM has not met the preconditions of a democratic society or the military criteria for joining NATO. The conclusions are based on the results of competing hypothesis in intelligence analysis.

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Thesis Statement

NATO’s principle for enlargement has created misunderstandings and illusions for some countries that desire NATO membership for reasons of security and other times for reasons of prestige. Misunderstandings arise because they feel that their membership is guaranteed “as is” without changing their modus operandi, and illusions because they assume that NATO membership is going to boost their government’s prestige and national pride, sometimes even at the expense of the other member states.

NATO’s Enlargement Process

A group of experts on NATO in their report on NATO 2020 Strategic Concept expressed the following opinion, “consistent with Article 10 of the North Atlantic Treaty and the principles for enlargement, the process for states that have expressed their desire for membership should move forward as each state fulfils the requirements for membership. It should go without saying that NATO is an entirely voluntary organization.”[2]

While the strategic goal of all Balkan countries is NATO membership, it does require the achievement of certain political and military preconditions in addition to military, economic, and security criteria. The question is, “what would a number of countries offer to the Alliance considering their insignificant defense budgets”?

The political preparation of the candidate country has to abide by the Study on NATO Enlargement, Chapter 5: What are the implications of membership for new members, including their rights and obligations, and what do they need to do to prepare for membership? According to paragraph 72 of Chapter 5, prospective members have to meet the following before NATO even considers preconditions and criteria for membership:[3]

1. Demonstrated a commitment to and respect for Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) norms and principles, including the resolution of ethnic disputes, external territorial disputes including irredentist claims or internal jurisdictional disputes by peaceful means.
   
   
2. Shown a commitment to promoting stability and well-being by economic liberty, social justice and environmental responsibility;
   
   
3. Established appropriate democratic and civilian control of their defense force;
   
   
4. Undertaken a commitment to ensure that adequate resources are devoted to achieving the obligations described in section A and C.

These points present a barrier for the FYROM in achieving its aspirations. As we will see, the FYROM has failed to achieve A and B above, with C being under discussion. As for D, it is more or less associated with C. Regardless of what the government officially claims abroad, its education system internally teaches that the entire territory of geographic Macedonia belongs to the FYROM. During the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) deliberations, Greece brought the matter to the attention of the Court showing actual footage of what educators teach in the FYROM schools as well as irredentist maps displayed on the wall above the boards in each of the classrooms.

Regarding the issue of good neighborly relations, Skopje has done absolutely nothing to improve its image. It has infuriated Greece and the EU by erecting a statue of Alexander the Great in downtown Skopje renaming it Equestrian Warrior thus forcing EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Füle to state,
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"Seriously, if you have a neighbour, and I'm not talking about two states now, and there is an issue between two of you, whatever the nature of that issue is, and you are trying sincerely to solve it, I guess you would avoid doing anything that your neighbour might call a provocation. This is simple logic. I would expect the government in Skopje to avoid doing things which would be called by the other side provocations."[4]

During NATO’s 2008 summit in Bucharest, President Bush for his own inexplicit reasons pushed for NATO membership of Albania, Croatia, the FYROM, the Ukraine, and Georgia. NATO deciding by consensus of all member countries admitted only Albania and Croatia. Ukraine and Georgia, torn by bad governance that brought domestic instability, corruption, etc., did not meet the preconditions or the OSCE political criteria; they could hardly meet the NATO military criteria. It is doubtful if these countries even share Western values. Besides, they both border with Russia, which was looking at their possible membership rather uneasily, especially when one considers the hostilities of August 2008 between Russia and Georgia over South Osetia.

It is highly debatable whether Croatia, and especially Albania, was in a position to assume the commitments and obligations of membership, and contribute to security in the Euro-Atlantic area. Even if Croatia had met preconditions, its usefulness in the Alliance is problematic. The case of Albania is worse. Considering that modern equipment is highly sophisticated, its price tag is staggering. Not only is Albania’s military small (14,245 personnel), but also the sums vested in its defense budget of US$221m cannot possibly buy more than nine F-16C/D. Militarily Albania cannot be taken seriously since its military capabilities and contributions to the Alliance are almost non-existent. NATO requires from each candidate member that all modifications in laws and procedures exist in reality and not just on paper.[5]

Using the requirements outlined above, the following findings emerged regarding the “long list” of potential NATO members: Regarding the Membership Action Plan (MAP) Slovenia and Slovakia had largely met the criteria outlined by NATO and their accession posed no major strategic problems for NATO. Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia were advanced in terms of meeting NATO preconditions, but the strategic ramifications of their accession loomed large. Bulgaria and Romania had the opposite problem as they were unable to meet NATO preconditions, even though the strategic implications of their accession were not problematic. Currently, Austria, a European Union member and not in NATO yet is in a good position to join, if it chooses to do so.[6]

Although Croatia and Albania did not fully meet NATO preconditions and criteria, they were allowed to join NATO strictly for strategic reasons. The FYROM, facing objections raised by Greece, France, Bulgaria, Romania, Spain, and other members, was not allowed membership. Skopje has been dragging its feet in its negotiations with Greece and scheming in any way possible in violation of the UN Law on Treaties. Article 26 (pacta sunt servanda) states: “Every treaty in force is binding upon the parties to it and must be performed by them in good faith.”

The FYROM has serious domestic issues of instability.[7] The first is an Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) issue, whereas the second is both an OSCE and a NATO issue. The final communiqué of the NATO enlargement meeting of the Ministerial Meeting of the North Atlantic Council held at NATO Headquarters, Brussels 5 Dec 1995 explains the plan of NATO’s expansion.[8]

According to the NATO Enlargement Study of September 28, 1995, the enlargement process is highly regulated and is divided into five stages.[9] The first two stages are only preparatory. The third stage is the key to membership. If a country passes stage 3, it means that the country has met the preconditions, but not necessarily the criteria.

Stage 1 is the expression of desire of a country to cooperate with a goal to eventually join NATO. “The expression of a military cooperation is realized by the participation of the applicant to join the Partnership for Peace (PfP) program. The PfP is a program of practical bilateral cooperation between individual partner countries and NATO. It allows partner countries to build up an individual relationship with NATO, choosing their own priorities for cooperation.”[10]

Stage 2 is just one-step up the ladder as a preparatory step to membership.

Stage 3 is the most difficult of all steps. It is the judgment step and it is NATO’s explicit call. It is a verdict based on negotiations, deliberations, and consultations with a consensual decision. A country either has what it takes to be a member of NATO, or it doesn’t. The country has to meet the preconditions for membership.

Stage 4 is the stage of scrutiny on the criteria listed in NATO’s 1995-enlargement study. Pros and cons of the country’s potential accession are discussed along with any shortcomings in meeting membership preconditions.

Stage 5 is the final step beginning with the consensus of country members recognizing that the aspiring country has met NATO’s preconditions and is minimally prepared to function within NATO. This determination is strictly political and depends on each member country’s political view. This is the stage of intra-alliance bargaining regarding the invitation date to join.[11]

Preconditions:[12]

According to the study, countries seeking NATO membership would have to be able to demonstrate that they have fulfilled certain requirements. These include:

• A functioning democratic political system based on a market economy;
• The fair treatment of minority populations;
• A commitment to the peaceful resolution of conflicts;
• The ability and willingness to make a military contribution to NATO operations; and
• Commitment to democratic civil-military relations and institutional structures.

Once admitted, new members would enjoy all the rights and assume all the obligations of membership. This means that at the time they join NATO, they have to accept all the principles policies, and procedures previously adopted by other Alliance members.

A precondition that applies only to the FYROM based on OSCE principles is solving the name issue with Greece.

According to the release NAC-S(99)66 of April 24, 1999 on the Membership Action Plan (MAP), the Alliance has set certain requirements which are a practical manifestation of the Open Door divided into five chapters. However, the Alliance warns, “the program cannot be considered as a list of criteria for membership.”[13]

• Political and Economic issues
• Defense/Military issues
• Resource issues
• Security issues
• Legal issues

The resulting assessment is supplemented by an analysis of the strategic costs and benefits entailed by a given country's accession to NATO. Each country's strategic position is assessed according to four criteria:

Criteria:[14]

• Relevance to NATO’s ability to project power in areas of likely contingencies;
• Creation of interior and easily defensive borders within the alliance;
• Risks that may accrue from a higher level of commitment to a new ally; and
• Added transaction costs of a new member for the alliance's cohesion and ability to perform its main missions on the basis of consensus

Whether Skopje meets NATO Preconditions and Criteria is controversial depending on the level of political hypocrisy. Objectively, the FYROM is not even near fulfilling its NATO obligation on its own without any help from the United States. Skopje should be required to fulfill its obligations before it reaps the benefits.

A functioning democratic political system based on a market economy

It is a very important precondition, but also the most violated by Skopje. In fact, a functioning democratic political system never existed and not one state of the EU or the Untied States cared about it. I dare state that they still do not. If they did, they would have taken a good look at the situation and they would have avoided falling into the trap set up by the politicians of the FYROM. Western multicultural countries demand unquestioning support for the economic philosophy of free market and competition. However, in the FYROM the reverse is true. In some Balkan countries, even if countries have left communism, they continue to function as though they are still under the communist spell. They have permitted some constituent national groups as long as there is an unswerving loyalty to the dictates of the governing party or ethnic majority. Any deviation from this is likely to be immediately suppressed by military force, if necessary.[15] This is exactly the behavior of the FYROM authorities regarding loyalty.

Early on a Monday morning (00:40h, June 6, 2011) Martin Neškovski, an unarmed 22 year-old man celebrating the victory of his political party in Skopje's Central Square, was beaten to death by a member of the FYROM special police force, Tigers. Admittedly, police personnel are empowered to keep law and order and could abuse their power. Such abuse is not limited to the police of the FYROM and it could happen anywhere; in this instance however, it is different: No investigation was done. They placed the man’s body in a plastic bag (as if nothing happened) and left. This kind of abuse can take the form of intimidation such as the loss of one’s job, having a loved one physically harmed, or even losing one’s own life. False imprisonment of dissidents is common including the one of Bishop Jovan VI (Vraniškovski) of Ohrid and Exarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church. Vasko Gligorov, a historian, was arrested, kept in police custody for three days, and then sent to a mental institution where he underwent electro-shock treatment. The official explanation was that he endangered himself and others (by stating the ancient Macedonians were Greeks!). These are only some examples of what is happening in that country.

Since the inception of the People’s Republic of Macedonia, democracy is an empty word for the people of the FYROM. The mere superficial adherence to any democratic principles at present is a simple polling, which is political manna in their view. Nevertheless, is it? European Union (EU) officials have warned the FYROM government to hold fair elections or they would become the black hole of Europe. A few weeks before the 2011 parliamentary elections in the FYROM, diplomats noted media reports that civil servants had been threatened with losing their jobs if they did not vote for the ruling party. "There is too much at stake. If any of those predictions come true, this small country is risking its future. The EU will be further off than ever," a senior Western diplomat told Reuters. "One person was shot dead and several were wounded in an election-related incident in an ethnic Albanian area during the 2008 elections."[16]

On December 19, 2007, only a few months before the NATO Conference in Bucharest, President Crvenkovski delivered his annual address to the Parliament stating that,
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"The long and unsuccessful negotiations and even worse not putting in action what has been agreed, seen from the Brussels viewpoint, has damaged the image of Macedonia and has created the perception that the country has insufficient democratic potential and institutional capacity, while perception is of the utmost sometimes even of decisive importance,"[17]

​Considering the incidents of fraud, intimidation, violence, etc. of previous elections, a delegation consisting of representatives from the EU, NATO, OSCE, and United States visited Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski on May 13, 2011. After the meeting, the OSCE issued the following statement.
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"We, the Head of Delegation of the European Union and Heads of Mission of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, and the United States of America met on 13 May with Prime Minister Gruevski to discuss the parliamentary elections scheduled for 5 June 2011, as we also reach out to other political leaders.

We urge all responsible political stakeholders to do their utmost to ensure that elections are in line with established international democratic standards, free from intimidation and violence. We also embrace the Code of Conduct for Free and Fair Elections signed by the political parties on 12 May, and all other commitments to this end.

We urge the government and other relevant institutions to ensure that the electoral process has the confidence of all political parties and above all the citizens, who we encourage to exercise their democratic rights on Election Day.

​We fully support the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) Election Observation Mission."[18]

Although officially one could consider the elections fair and free, unfortunate incidents before, during, and after the elections did take place. The FYROM’s aspirations to join NATO are not even near the preconditions set by NATO. The country’s institutions have no concept of how to implement enacted laws that protect citizens while mentally fighting the communist understanding of democracy by replacing it with neo-fascist ideals. Their goal is to protect the state from all evils, including democracy, if they interfere with the wishes of the political elite.

The pre-Cold War perception of NATO membership was different from the present one. During the time that the USSR was a formidable adversary, the concepts that the present preconditions demonstrate were irrelevant to the Alliance. The most important criterion was the defense of Western Europe, the United States, and Canada determined by the military contribution to the Alliance of the country-candidate through its strategic location in relation to the USSR and its allies.

Iceland is the only NATO member, which maintains no standing army, although it contributes financially to NATO's overhead costs. Its Coast Guard’s “might” of three ships and four aircraft armed with small arms, naval artillery, and air defense weaponry, for instance, cannot be seriously taken as a militarily vital contributor to the defense of any country, let alone itself. The only factor that made Iceland important to the Alliance is its geo-strategic position that dominates the northern seas.

The Wall fell; the Iron Curtain ceased to exist. The federation of the USSR broke up into mostly militarily weak countries with no means to sustain strong armies. Soviet arms manufacturers that were disseminated in various locations all over the vast country ceased to exist. Almost immediately, similarly-formed multinational countries such as Czechoslovakia and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) disintegrated. Therefore, NATO finding itself as the only alliance that could be deemed as a super power, considered accepting countries of the Warsaw Pact; these countries however, had to meet certain Western values, including democracy. The preconditions set by NATO are derived from sociological factors that are aimed at domestic as well as regional stability, a very important factor in an alliance since any means of instability could be its Achilles’ heel. One condition that had to be fulfilled was the political consensus of political forces within the candidate country through public debate.

Nevertheless, this never happened in the FYROM. The decision to join NATO was not a result of any public debate. It came as the result of the Slavic-Albanian war that ended on August 13, 2001 with the hope that both Albanians and Slavs would be forced to be nice to each other using NATO as their stabilizing, if not an imposing factor, instead of the other way around. Even the former Foreign Minister of the FYROM, Antonio Milošoski, did not understand the concept of a country’s stability. Asked to comment on the Greek veto on Macedonia's NATO entry, Milošoski qualified the move as “Greek hypocrisy that preponderates over the wider interests in regional stability [sic],”[19] as reported by the online news agency MINA. The FYROM is supposed to have domestic stability formed from within, i.e. security, self-confidence, functioning as a wholesome democratic society operating as an independent country, instead of expecting its own security to come from the outside. It is as if it requests to join NATO in order to become its protectorate. One can say that the level of instability in NATO’s operations in the Balkans and specifically in Kosovo, Bosnia & Herzegovina, and the FYROM, is disturbing.[20]

Siniša Tatalović of the University of Zagreb in Croatia, and Political Affairs Adviser to the President of Croatia, emphasizes that the FYROM “is a parliamentary democracy, and its constitutional model accepted the solutions of the developed Western democracies.”[21] What Tatalović fails to mention is the difference between theory and practice in applying democratic values by the FYROM. The citizens of the FYROM are obviously affected by their previous communist education that was continued in their country after communism fell. Education in the FYROM has changed only on face, not in substance.
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This assessment is based on the concept of how people learn, which is:
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Because learning involves transfer from previous experiences, one’s existing knowledge can also make it difficult to learn new information. Sometimes new information will seem incomprehensible to students, but this feeling of confusion can at least let them identify the existence of a problem (see, e.g., Bransford and Johnson, 1972; Dooling and Lachman, 1971). A more problematic situation occurs when people construct a coherent (for them) representation of information while deeply misunderstanding the new information. Under these conditions, the learner doesn’t realize that he or she is failing to understand.[22]

The Freedom House report of 2011, an independent watchdog organization that supports the expansion of freedom around the world, strongly disagrees with Tatalović’s point of view. According to Neda Milevska-Kostova’s report by the Freedom House, which includes data provided by the World Bank, World Development Indicators 2011 (Nations in Transit Ratings and Averaged Scores - best score being 1 and worst being 7.00), the FYROM’s score on Democracy is 3.82. Specifically, in the field of National Democratic Governance, the FYROM scored 4.00; in Electoral Process it scored 3.25; in Civil Society it scored 3.25; in Independent Media it scored 4.50; in Local Democratic Governance it scored 3.75; in Judicial Framework and Independence it scored 4.00; and in Corruption it scored 4.00.[23] In general, the country is considered as being PARTLY FREE.[24] Turkey is an old member of NATO meeting the strategic criteria of the Cold War, but not meeting the EU requirements which are similar to NATO preconditions and criteria.

Freedom of the Media including Academic Freedom

The FYROM’s “constitution includes basic protections for freedoms of the press and expression, but government representatives do not uphold them consistently. Journalists remain subject to criminal and civil libel charges, though imprisonment has been eliminated as a punishment. Most of the country’s private media outlets are tied to political or business interests that influence their content, and state-owned media tend to support government positions. The government of Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski and its media allies has shown growing hostility toward critical or opposition-oriented news outlets.”[25]

Biljana Vanskova, professor of the Faculty of Philosophy of the University Sts. Cyril and Methodius of Skopje, offers the best account regarding the details and the conditions under which the FYROM obtained its constitution and thus its legal legitimacy:
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The major focus was on democratic legitimisation with special emphasis on fundamental human rights and freedoms. Again the solution was easy to find – the list was copied from the basic international documents and pasted into the Constitution. There was nothing much to constitutionalise in autumn 1991, so the Constitution was more a list of good intentions than a product of the social reality. Having lacked democratic traditions, the constitutionalists had a rare opportunity to draft a political system ‘out of nothing’. The ‘tabula rasa’ situation allowed free selection among the available Western models.[26]

Since the fundamentals of democracy were imposed on the people of the FYROM who, due to their communist past, could not relate to the concept of democracy, it is impossible to effectively instill the ideology of democracy by force. Democracy is a matter of spiritual growth, mental maturity, and social stability with emotional, mental, social, and spiritual benefits, not a force-fed political education of democratic values unknown to the society.

The concept of what democracy is not has become obvious to all who followed the elections held in the FYROM after its independence. Violence, fraud, intimidation, imprisonment, and/or institutionalization of adversaries, and even murder have been the modus operandi of the otherwise “democratic” FYROM. If elections were the only criterion of what democracy is all about, their country belongs to the same category of “democratic” countries such as North Korea and Belarus.

The FYROM, with anti-democratic articles such as article 6 of the “Law on the Scientific Research Activity,” and articles 178 and 179 in their Penal Code, is guaranteed a place within the above-mentioned “democratic” countries. Article 6 of the “Law on the Scientific Research Activity” and articles 178 and 179 of the Penal Code complement each other against the idea of offending Macedonism. Nobody may research the matter of their own Macedonism or the status of the ancient Macedonians, which has been officially established through political means. Those two topics are not subject to research in the country. Research on how the Slavs became Macedonians seeking primary sources is considered an insult to the human dignity of the “Macedonians” i.e. Slavs. If anyone researches anything on the history of the Slavic tribes that constitute the Slavic population of the FYROM, in an attempt to prove that the population is Slavic and has nothing to do with the ancient Macedonians, he/she is subject to prosecution based on the above law and articles 178 and 179 of the Penal Code.

Democracy requires freedoms that the people of the FYROM do not understand and their leaders are not ready to offer for fear of their own political downfall. Ironically, even the FYROM diaspora born in democratic countries and enjoying the fruits of democracy, do not wish that their home country enact true democracy in fear of losing their own future relevance in the political process of their home country. Once their home country becomes democratic, the FYROM diaspora will fall into oblivion.

The problem with democracy in the FYROM is not that the people do not want it; they do, but they do not know what democracy is all about, except for what they hear from their own politicians. Their own politicians impose on the people ideals, concepts, and laws, assuming that they know what is good for the people. For as long as the politicians sell their constituencies nonsense instead of the truth by forcing suppression of speech and Press through intimidation, the false concept of what democracy is will continue for the people of the FYROM, regardless of social standing or ethnicity.

This brings us to territorial nationalism, which is the result of non-democratic thinking.[27] Ethnic Slavs of the FYROM and the FYROM’s diaspora advocate territorial nationalism, which almost led them to the disintegration of the country in 2001. Their attitude to the Albanian population of the state was: “if you don’t like the way we treat you, go to your country,” forgetting that these people were already in their country, the FYROM. Simultaneously, they expect and demand that Skopje finds the right patrons to help them annex the Greek region of Macedonia, which is inhabited by Macedonian Greeks, expecting them to revolt against Greece! The FYROM population and diaspora have no concept that the Macedonians of Greece are Greeks, not Slavs.

Since 1949, the FYROM citizenry and diaspora have kept their eyes on what they call “Aegean” Macedonia and in the last 20 years have dangerously increased their ultra nationalistic activities openly and without pretext, claiming the Greek region of Macedonia. The oxymoron of the matter is that on one hand the same people declare that Greece’s fear of losing its northern region of Macedonia to the Slavs is absurd, but on the other hand, they demonstrate their desire and goal to unite “Macedonia” into one larger country. They applaud anyone who promotes a “United Macedonia” or displays maps of “Macedonia” like the map according to 19th Century Bulgarian teacher and education minister Vasil Kŭnchov (pronounced Kanchov in Bulgarian).

At this juncture, the FYROM diaspora has reached the point of standing at the door step of the U.S. Congress creating a caucus with the sole purpose of destabilizing the Balkan Peninsula in hope that that they will do in Greece what the Albanians did in Kosovo. The difference is that in Kosovo, the Albanians comprised 90% of the population whereas in Greece the Slavic element in the last EU elections obtained only 4,530 votes out of 10,014,795 registered voters in the country (0.000452330776615997%).[28] The threshold for political parties in Greece is 3%, which is in the normal range of European parties compared to Turkey’s 10%. The FYROM does not use thresholds, but instead it uses the d'Hondt method, which is a highest averages method for allocating seats in party-list proportional representation.

An example of irredentism, where a claim to territory was combined with arguments about the allegiance of the population, is provided by the Moroccan claim to Mauritania in the early 1960s. The Moroccan claim was based on history. In this case, the claim was based on the overlordship or suzerainty, which the Moroccan sultans had exercised over the peoples of Mauritania before the establishment of the French Empire in West Africa and the French protectorate over Morocco itself. What gave the claim its salience in the politics of contemporary Moroc­co was the fact that the vision of a greater Morocco was shared by the ruling dynasty and by the Istiqlal, the nationalist part which in most other respects was in opposition to the regime. In this case, irredentism opened up a prospect of a bipartisan foreign policy.[29] If one replaces Morocco with the FYROM, and Istiqlal with the ruling VMRO party in Skopje, one sees the present situation very clearly. Although Moroccan claims on Greater Morocco especially within the Istiqlal party were quickly shelved, Morocco and Mauritania fought a proxy war over Western Sahara.

Ever since independence, the FYROM diaspora never let an occasion pass without declaring that all three parts of Macedonia should unite under the government of the “Macedonians” i.e. Slavs, with Thessaloniki (in Greece) as their capital. This is a pure and expansionistic nationalist notion mostly associated with militarist governments during the 20th century such as Nazi Germany and the Japanese Empire. It is transnationalism that advocates the FYROM’s right to increase its borders at the expense of its neighbors, especially Greece and Bulgaria, and possibly Serbia and Albania, under the pretext of population homogeneity. The demographics of the Greek region of Macedonia at least do not support such a population claim, because 2.5 million Greeks inhabit it.

Historically, and contributing to internal strife, the issue of Yugoslav nationalism became an overpowering force and political parties and people did not consider that internal borders were not drawn on ethnic lines. Furthermore, it did not consider that two of the Yugoslav republics were the artificial products of micro-politics: "the Slovenes acquired a national consciousness only in the nineteenth century ... the Montenegrins, Macedonians [sic], and Bosnia-Hercegovinian Muslims...are the products of twentieth century mutations in South Slavic national affinities and are, indeed, still in the process of formation."[30]

Tito had practical external and internal reasons for the promotion of the Macedonian republic. Sovereign Macedonia was useful in terms of neutralising Bulgarian claims on the territory and population. Internally, it was directed towards diminishing the relative size of Serbia in comparison with the other republics. The Macedonian leadership also flirted with the national sentiments whenever it was useful. In regard to the central government it could complain on the basis of allegedly ‘reawakened’ fears from the Belgrade terror in Southern Serbia. Macedonians [sic] could always rely on the sympathies from the Croats and Slovenes against centralist tendencies.[31]

But the other constituent republics of the SFRY found the FYROM nationalism useful in promoting their own interests:
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The involvement of the Macedonian reformists gave enough coverage to their northern partners, who received protection against Belgrade’s accusations about nationalist deviations: the Macedonian case was perfect, since the nationalist element that was the moving force in the process of construction and ‘affirmation’ of the young nation could not be doomed as nationalistic.[32]

The Ottoman population statistics during the Ottoman Empire in the Empire’s European administrative units or vilayets of Kosovo (Kosova), Manastir (Bitola), and Selanik (Thessaloniki) submitted to and published by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in 1914, provided the national statistics listed below.[33] In the case of the “Macedonian-Slav” ethnicity, the 1921 and 1931 censuses do not even mention the existence of “Macedonians,” but indicate a Serbian and Bulgarian presence.[34] However, the 1981 published Yugoslav figures for the FYROM introduce “Macedonians” as a separate ethnic minority into the 1921 and 1931 censuses.[35]

The Greek Community in the FYROM contests that the actual number of Greeks there is approximately 250,000 and the late first president of the FYROM, Kiro Gligorov, has already stated there are only 100,000 Greeks.[36] Furthermore, the 1921 “State Board of Statistics in Belgrade” census numbered Greeks to be 41,597, and in the 1931 census to be 44,608. In 1949, Skopje alone had 30,000 Greeks.[37]

In 1981, the SFRY issued a revised census for the same area showing that in 1921 only 2,000 Greeks inhabited the area of the present day FYROM while the revised 1931 census counted only 1,000 Greeks.[38] Thus, the question is: “What has happened to the Greeks of the FYROM?”

In the town of Pehčevo, according to the 2002 census, there were 5,517 residents - the vast majority of whom are of Greek ancestry. In 1923, after Greece’s defeat in the Greco-Turkish War, the ancestors of the present inhabitants of Pehčevo left Gallipoli, Eastern Thrace (Trakya in present-day Turkey) and came to Greece as refugees. They arrived in Thessaloniki, but eventually went north to the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes, to work in the mines of the Maleševski Mountain range. They settled in the village of Pehčevo, which today is the seat of the municipality in the easternmost part of the FYROM.

​Oddly enough in the census of 2002, only a few residents made it in the statistics as “Greeks” and were referred in the record under “others.” Due to statistical scheming, the Greek inhabitants made it as “Macedonians” and most others as “Turks” since they originally left Turkey (Specifically, the census states: “Macedonians”: 4,737, “Roma”: 390, “Turks”: 357, and “others”: 33).[39]

Based on the above,[40] Stefanos Doumtsis concludes,
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This in itself makes a weighty argument against the existence of a “Macedonian” nation and the discrepancies of demographics within Yugoslavia. Regardless of the significance or validity of absolute numbers, the conclusion drawn on the validity of any census conducted in the former Yugoslavia and FYROM happens to be highly unreliable and untrustworthy.[41]

But the FYROM has a different and much more serious demographic problem. As the population growth continues, "the projected population in FYROM by 2050 is going to be negative, below the 2 million mark. The demographic shift of Albanians, assuming current birth rates of 1.14 percent, will be approaching 46 percent or 980,000 and the Slavs will be 691,108 or 37 percent of the total population."[42]

In addition and was seen above, the population of Greece’s northern region, Macedonia, is about 3 million with a Slavic-minded minority of about 5,000 - a negligible number. The Slavic émigrés whose families had voluntarily left Greece for political reasons in 1949, at the end of the Greek Civil War, claim that the democratic forces of Greece forced their families out of the country in order to ethnically cleanse Greece. If that argument were true, Greece would not have about 5,000 Slavic-minded citizens now that are free to participate in the democratic institutions of Greece and are equal to all other Greek citizens. What is additionally interesting is that the same people, who claim that they have been ethnically cleansed and eradicated by the democratic forces of Greece in 1949, also claim that they have a minority of 100,000 in the Greek region of Macedonia. If there had been an ethnic cleansing in 1949, not one Slav would have been left in Greece. The question is which of these claims is true? The fact is that neither is true. The Greek Civil War started as a violent war in 1944 aimed at regime change in Athens, but it ended up being a war for territorial occupation of the Greek region of Macedonia on behalf of Yugoslavia. As the Slav insurgents were losing the war they spread rumors that the democratic forces of Greece were killing civilians spreading fear which resulted in the Slavic population leaving the country. Those who claim that the Greek Army had committed ethnic cleansing are descendants of those who had lost their homes due to Slavic intimidation and lies.[43]

The only way that Greece’s northern province Macedonia could be united with the territory of the FYROM would be as a result of war. But if for argument’s sake we assume that in the future the FYROM somehow incorporates the Greek region of Macedonia under Skopje’s Slavic government, what is their government’s plan for the Greek population that numbers close to 3 million? Are they going to ethnically cleanse a more populous population with a very strong culture? Any realization of such dreams would in fact result in the extinction of their Slavic culture because let us not forget that the FYROM Slavs have received their religion from the Greeks with plenty of Greek terminology in their canonical books. In addition, their food is similar to Greek food and their language includes many Greek words and expressions including the name “Macedonia.” Even most of their first names are Greek in origin.

Democratic civilian-military relations[44]

On March 27, 1992, the last soldier of the Yugoslavian People’s Army (Jugoslavenska Narodna Armija - JNA) returned home after the Petokraka[45] was lowered in the FYROM. Strong and firm calls for the demilitarization of the FYROM were heard. In September 1991, even the nationalist party “Movement for All-Macedonian [sic] Action” (MAAK)[46] that had been calling for secession since 1990, proposed a radical solution in the form of a “Manifesto for Demilitarisation of the Macedonian [sic] Republic.” Some domestic authors are uncritically euphoric about the document:

The process of gaining independence from the ex-Yugoslav federation peacefully has cast light on the Republic of Macedonia [sic] as a civilised state and the small Macedonian [sic] population as a great civilised people striving for establishing eternal peace in Kant’s sense of the word: Zum ewigen frieden. […] The essence of the Macedonian [sic] peace model on the Balkans has been pointed out in the ‘Manifesto for Demilitarisation of the Macedonian Republic’ in September 1991.[47]

However, according to Biljana Vankovska, the FYROM’s peaceful exit from Yugoslavia had nothing to do with any political decision, although the FYROM’s political elite takes credit for it. It was simply coincidence: Soon after the FYROM became a demilitarized country with almost no armament whatsoever, it had an opportunity to either stay demilitarized or start building up its armament.[48] It had virtually no external enemies threatening it. On the contrary, Bulgaria was ready to recognize it and it did recognize it as an independent country guaranteeing its borders and Greece being a member of NATO, recognized it as well. While Greece recognized a Slavic country north of its borders, it did not and does not recognize the FYROM’s constitutional name. Albania had political troubles of its own and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY; i.e. Serbia & Montenegro) had taken its army out of the FYROM peacefully. Therefore, saying that demilitarization was peaceful all the while and trying to persuade everyone that the FYROM is an “oasis of peace” led by the government’s policies in 1991-2, is utter nonsense. One might argue the same in regards to a “neutral Macedonia” [sic] because the public did not pay serious attention to this treating it only as “a nice but unrealistic idea.”[49]

The same sentiment is echoed in the statement of Eric J. Hobsbawm. According to him, in the years before its independence, the FYROM was not immune to nationalism however, it did not wish to secede nor did it prepare itself for independence. It was for this reason that foreign analysts praised the FYROM as the only peaceful actor in the breakup of Yugoslavia.
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It was not the ‘Macedonian Question’, well known to scholars as leading to battles between rival experts in a half-dozen fields at international congresses, which provoked the collapse of Yugoslavia. On the contrary, the Macedonian People’s Republic did its best to stay out of the Serb-Croat imbroglio, until Yugoslavia was actually collapsing, and all its components, in sheer self-defence, had to look after themselves.[50]

Soon after independence, it became apparent that the state was breeding deep ethnic conflict potential due to lack of democratic values. The surrounding enemies that the FYROM governments later encountered were created by the FYROM political elite for internal consumption in order to create scapegoats for their failures, as the Nazis did with the Jews. The FYROM’s diaspora, living in a time warp away from the home country, based their irredentist views on tales rather than historical facts that were organized on platforms of revenge for perceived injustices especially during the Greek Civil War. They chose not to realize that if the FYROM’s neighboring countries wanted, they would have plenty of opportunities to divide the country among themselves. When Serbia’s Milošević suggested the division of the FYROM to the other three countries (Albania, Greece, and Bulgaria), the reaction of those countries was negative.

For Greece, annexing the suggested part would be an additional sociological and demographic burden that would create unnecessary problems without offering any factual solutions and benefits. Its ethnic Greek population lives mostly north of the suggested line in the area of Skopje. The remaining Greeks are spread haphazardly all over the country, especially in the southwest and south. In addition, there are no reliable statistics in the country and Greece never had professional personnel dedicated to collect information on Greeks in the FYROM.

The issue of the relations between civilian and military is crucial since the military is part of the people and consists of minorities. The Albanian minority of the FYROM, was strong enough to take arms to defend its own survival in a Slavic dominated society. No government in the FYROM has paid appropriate attention to the issue of civilian control over the military, which is an accepted fundamental norm in democratic societies as part of checks and balances.[51]

Even though the country was facing a double embargo by the UN in the north and Greece in the south, it was not threatened militarily from an external enemy, but from an internal one: the Albanians. It was evident that the republic’s break from Yugoslavia would be a problem for the two main ethnic groups to reconcile their differences while a war raged in Yugoslavia.

Nevertheless, the Albanians marched to their own drummer. They boycotted the 1991 referendum on independence from Yugoslavia, and in 1992 they held a successful referendum on their own independence based on their inherent right to self-determination. The Slav-dominated government declared this illegal and in violation of the UN Charter (Articles 1.2 and 55). In early November 1993, the police arrested a group of Albanians (including a Deputy Minister of Defense of the FYROM) and accused them of attempting to establish paramilitary forces. Following that incident, in 1994 the Albanians declared an autonomous “Republic of Illirida” in the western part of the FYROM. The idea was to declare independence afterwards and then unite Illirida with either Kosovo, or Albania. They almost succeeded in 2001, but because of Francisco Javier Solana, José Manuel Barroso, and Geoffrey George Papandreou, they did not succeed. At that period, the FYROM Press exalted George Papandreou for his efforts to keep the country together.

According to Yelena Guskova of the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences (ISL RAS), George Papandreou announced the idea of the “Federation of Balkan States” that would include all Western Balkan countries minus Slovenia – an idea which was supported by the EU leadership. In essence, what he was proposing was a new federation of the countries included in the Stability Pact for South Eastern Europe, signed on June 10, 1999 per EU initiative. The new federation would include Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia (including Kosovo), and the FYROM.[52]
 
In theory, it is a good plan, but only for the future. These countries faced and are still facing different issues and only a natural process, not a solution imposed by outsiders, would enable them to find the right solution from within. What Western Balkan countries need is economic and political stability that could transform the independent political entities to a possible federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) with Montenegro and Serbia; and why not the FYROM? Without establishing good neighborly relations, however, first with themselves and then with their potential adjacent countries, such an idea will remain only in the dream stage. Outside organizations should help from the sidelines without trying to impose their solutions based on their own political gains.

During the Slavo-Albanian war in the FYROM and while indicators pointed to the disintegration of the FYROM, a delegation of FYROM Slavic Parliamentarians visited Athens for discussions with Panos Beglitis, Director of the Information Department and Spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the socialist PASOK government. Although the contents of those discussions have not been disclosed, the information that the Slav media of the FYROM exposed suggested that they were related to the existence of the FYROM after the Illirida break up. Some media even suggested that the delegation sought the possibility of a federation between the FYROM and Greece.

As in most democratic countries, the military represents the people because it is part of the people and is designed to defend the country from external dangers. In theory, it is exactly what happened in the FYROM, but in practice nobody expected the army to be involved in any defensive war because the danger was within as it was proven later. According to a member of the General Staff, “one cannot expect loyalty from a military consisting, among others, of Albanians and Kosovars.”[53]

Politics marred the FYROM’s army of the new republic, which encountered a new internal rival: the police. In the argument on which force was more effective, the police proved the most important and functional rival to the army security forces since the danger to the Slavic majority was from the minorities, especially the Albanians. The antagonism of the security forces crowned the police as the winner, and as a result the police benefited from government funding and equipment. In addition, the army felt inferior since its slow-moving and perplex top brass, did not know what to do about raising morale. The result was that “Chief of Staff, Gen. Arsovski, several years later proposed an internal security doctrine that would allow the military to intervene in domestic riots when the police were not sufficient to cope with them.”[54] He probably copied the idea from the first paragraph of the original Preamble of the 1982 Constitution of Turkey.[55]

Since the country had no democratic traditions, the legal system was based on a constitution filled with adopted Western principles that were not understood by the people. These principles were taken from various countries in bits and pieces which often had no cohesion or reconcilement. They were improperly espoused without public debate, and the laws enacted regarding the army were the result of political polarization.
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Civil–military relations have been shaped in an atmosphere of sharp political fragmentation and antagonism. The party system is divided along ethnic lines, but there are also traditional divisions among the Macedonians [sic] (and Albanians) themselves. A political opponent is usually seen as an enemy who should be discredited as a ‘traitor’. Some years ago the SDSM government was accused for its ‘soft’ policy towards Albanians’ demands. From the beginning VMRO has declared itself as the only genuine Macedonian [sic] party, and introduced the division of ‘patriots’ and ‘traitors’, i.e. ‘real Macedonians’ and if ‘the others’. Having got in power, the situation changed: VMRO made a coalition with the radical Albanian party (PDPA) and was blamed for ‘dividing’ Macedonia [sic] between Albania and Bulgaria. Fermentation of the civil-military relationships has not reached its zenith, since both the political system and the military have been going through mutations with uncertain outcomes.[56]​

The constitutional issue of the FYROM is that it has a dual top leadership: the President and the Government compete against each other because of the vagueness of the particular provisions. Both, the President and the Government draw their legitimacy from the people and because of the issues I mentioned above regarding the source of various laws, it is very difficult and often times impossible to delineate who runs the country. Sometimes one has to distinguish who has the final say on certain matters. The 1992 Defense Law which is still valid, failed to address the issue and drew definite lines of responsibilities among the President of the Republic (as designated Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces), the Government (Ministry of Defense), and the General Staff.[57] In other words, all of three are responsible and nobody is responsible. The same goes for the name negotiations with Greece. Although Greece negotiates with the government of the FYROM, according to some FYROM newspapers the person responsible for the name of the country is the President according to Article 79.1 of the Constitution, which states, “The President of the Republic of Macedonia [sic] represents the Republic” who, elected directly by the people of the FYROM, bears full legitimacy.

Although many years have passed since independence, the problem continues either because the laws have not been modified to the extent of clearly closing the gaps or because politicians find such laws convenient to advance their own agendas. They push the arguments that they have with each other as part of democracy and not of laws put together in haste.

The Civilian - Military relationship had been shaped in an environment of political polarization and ethnic antagonism. It is “we” against “them” and “patriots” against “traitors,” and although the FYROM’s diaspora feels Greece is the enemy, the Civilian – Military antagonists see themselves in a tug of war between Albania and Bulgaria. What is true is that the war of 2001 found all of them unprepared and puzzled as whether the enemy is an external or an internal one.

Treatment of minority populations in accordance with democratic governance

The first Constitution of the “Republic of Macedonia” of 1991 acknowledged the FYROM as the country of the “Macedonian” nation and other nationalities living within. This definition was based on the Constitution of the SFRY, which recognized “Nations and Nationalities,” another term for minorities. From 1991 to 2001, the definition of the state, especially in terms of the usage of words “nation” and “nationalities,” was an open political issue.[58]

An explanation regarding the system of Nations and Nationalities is pertinent. According to it, any of the six constituent peoples of Yugoslavia, all Slavs (i.e. Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Montenegrins, “Macedonians” and Muslims), constituted a narod or a nation, because their mother country was inside the SFRY. They were not a minority. But if the mother-country of a specific ethnic group, regardless of its population size, lay outside the borders of Yugoslavia, then that group was considered to be a narodnost or nationality, therefore a national minority (i.e. Albanians, Hungarians, Turks, etc.) As explained, the system of Nations and Nationalities (or national minorities) had nothing to do with the size of an ethnic population, but only with whether its origin and mother country was inside or outside SFRY. Therefore, although less in number, the Montenegrins formed a nation living in a Republic, whereas the Albanians, despite their greater numbers, were only a nationality living in a Province.

Another very important distinction has to be made regarding the definition of nationality in international law and the manner it is used by the constitution and the laws of the FYROM as explained above.

Nationality in law is a simple membership in a nation or sovereign state. It is to be distinguished from citizenship, a somewhat narrower term that is sometimes used to denote the status of those nationals who have full political privileges. Before an act of the U.S. Congress made them citizens, for example, American Indians were sometimes referred to as “noncitizen nationals.” The UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948) states [in article 15 (1)] that “everyone has the right to a nationality” and [in article 15(2)] that “no one shall be arbitrarily deprived of his nationality.”

Nationality is of cardinal importance because it is mainly through nationality that the individual comes within the scope of international law and has access to the political and economic rights and privileges conferred by modern states on their nationals. Under international law, citizenship and nationality are synonymous, although the two may have different meanings under national law as in the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) and possibly its heir states. Canadian, Greek, and U.S. passports, for instance, state the word nationality with the connotation of citizenship. In some cases, as in passports of the former SFRY nationality was missing, because internally the SFRY was using nationality as ethnicity. Any mention of nationality SFRY would have caused confusion.

Countries do not recognize ethnic groups of other countries because it is against the UN Charter, which considers such a move as interference in the internal affairs of other countries, nor do countries have the obligation to recognize ethnic groups within their own borders. The only thing they have to do is to guarantee equal treatment of their citizens and protection of foreign nationals. Equal treatment means just that; it does not mean special privileges because it creates inequality in a society. Recognition of ethnic groups is one of the outdated remnants of the communist era, something very familiar to the FYROM citizenry.

However, the international conditions that had required rapid recognition of Macedonia [sic] as a sovereign state by ignoring the fragile ethnic composition of this tiny Balkan country led to ethnic strife and consequently a political reform process. This process was definitely predominated by the political demands of the ethnic Albanians at the expense of the majority Slav Macedonians and the other smaller ethnic groups, including the Turks.[59]

Also it can be argued that the difference in understanding the above is the main problem in the relations between the FYROM and Greece because the FYROM’s past mentality still bears influence. This is especially evident as the political elite in the FYROM and its diaspora argue that there are oppressed ethnic “Macedonian” minorities in neighboring countries. Any time the matter of nationality comes up, the FYROM and its diaspora translate it as ethnicity while the Greeks understand the same word as citizenship.

Treatment of its own minorities is a thorny issue for the FYROM. It took a war to bring the Albanians close to what they wanted: equality and the Ohrid Agreement between Slavs and Albanians. However, according to the FYROM’s President Gjorgje Ivanov, “achievements regarding its [Ohrid Agreement] implementation in the past nine years are tangible, but its complete implementation costs a lot. Its full functionality requires a US$ 8,000 GDP per capita, with Macedonia’s [sic] only being half of this amount.”[60] This means nothing more than the FYROM signed the agreement only to get out of the jam with the Albanians as it did with the Interim Agreement with Greece in 1995. The FYROM’s GDP is only $4,538 per capita.[61] How long should the Albanians that unofficially constitute a population of 800,000 wait to receive equal treatment? What exactly does the FYROM government do with the money they receive from the EU and NATO for home improvement? The “Skopje 2014 Project” modeled after Papandreou’s “EU 2014,” including the “Antiquization Project,” has cost the FYROM taxpayer an estimated €200 million thus far. Then we have the other minorities such as the Serbian, Turkish, Greek (Vlach) that FYROM officials tend to ignore. It is perhaps the FYROM’s meaning of transparency!

Paragraph 59 of the 2010 Annual Report by the Defense and Security Committee of NATO Parliamentary Assembly regarding democracy in the FYROM states,
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The case of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia deserves special mention. Despite considerable and indisputable achievements, implementation of the Ohrid Accords, concluded in August 2001 and seeking to put an end to interethnic violence, still gives rise to problems. It also remains a reason for tension with political parties representing the Albanian minority; the DUI (Democratic Union for Integration) in 2007, then since August 2009 the DPA (Democratic Party of Albanians), have taken it in turns to boycott parliament to denounce the failure to implement certain provisions in the Ohrid Agreement. The October 2009 Progress Report by the European Commission lays stress on progress in implementing laws on languages, on decentralisation and on equitable representation, but notes that “further efforts in a constructive spirit are needed to fulfil the objectives of the Agreement” and that “continued efforts to deepen political dialogue including on interethnic issues would consolidate the engagement of all parties.” The Membership Action Plan for the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia for 2009-2010 refers to the same areas of progress and the same weaknesses.[62]

Nazif Mandaci in his paper “Turks of Macedonia [sic]: The Travails of the ‘Smaller’ Minority” exceptionally describes the problems that non-Slavic minorities of the FYROM are facing on a daily basis. He concludes in essence that the Slavic authorities look towards the EU for stability in the country and regime survival. His arguments remind me of Kim Jong-Il of North Korea relying on China for the same, and one could even argue the same regarding Belarus’s Alexander Lukashenko depending on Russia’s support.
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Fortunately, at the end of 2005, the European Council heeded the call of the Commission for granting candidacy status to Macedonia [sic], thereby refreshing the hopes of the Macedonian [sic] ruling elite, who see EU membership as the sole outlet primarily for the survival of the multinational state. However, since then, the hard process of adoption of EU regulations seems to be under the mortgage of the ethnic tensions between ethnic Albanians and Macedonians [sic], which are ebbing and flowing due to disagreements and partial consensuses on the interpretation and implementation of the Ohrid (Framework) Agreement.[63]

On March 31, 2003, the EU took command of the NATO mission in the FYROM under Operation Concordia and sent Greek and Italian troops to the country in order to make sure all was in control. In addition, it offered diplomatic and economic aid. Nevertheless, the EU never effectively encouraged the Slavic majority of the FYROM to democratize. This kind of an attitude has created more problems than it has solved. It has rewarded the autocratic and anti-minority policies of the Slavic majority. In 2005, the EU offered candidacy to the FYROM, rewarding the Slavic majority for its efforts to suppress its minorities and effectively censoring democracy. It is true that regional stability is of absolute importance, but rewarding the nationalist policies of the establishment is simple carelessness to the point that “the stability of the country as well as the western Balkans as a whole is subject to what extent the European Union looks amiable in keeping its promise to Europeanize the once conflict-ridden region.”[64]

The ability to make a military contribution to the Alliance

The above stipulation means that the candidate’s armed forces must be able to fit into the alliance framework. Considering that modern weapons are very sophisticated and consequently expensive, such commitment requires money that each country has to contribute on its own. To date, the FYROM’s economy is not great and it is getting worse. The country’s GDP per capita went from US$4,526 in 2008 to US$4,538 per capita in 2010, and the Defense expenditure keeps decreasing from US$194m in 2009 to US$140m in 2010 finally reaching US$131m in 2011. All this while U.S. Foreign Aid has remained the same at US$2.8m in 2008 and in 2009, but then increased to US$4.0m in 2010, and rose to US$5.00 in 2011.[65]

This aid does not include the additional US$100 million that the U.S. National Security Council has provided for improvement of the quality of life and the education of the FYROM’s population since independence, and neither does it include any funding that supports the implementation of the Ohrid Framework Agreement, and the training of military personnel, among others.[66] 

One cannot but wonder why the United States is giving so much aid to the FYROM.

A commitment to the peaceful resolution of conflicts

The name dispute with Greece falls under the precondition of the peaceful resolution of conflicts, something that Skopje avoids doing. Furthermore, Skopje hinders any serious negotiations by attempting to derail the outcome by other means such as lawsuits (against Greece at the International Court of Justice in the Hague), dragging its feet or even transferring the name “war” to its proxy, its own diaspora. The relationship between the FYROM government and its diaspora is an on-going cycle that feeds each other’s nationalism and finances.

The doctrine of irredentism is derived from the Italian irridenta meaning those territories, Trente, Dalmatia, Trieste, Fiume which, although culturally Italian, remained under Austrian or Swiss rule and thus unredeemed after the unifica­tion of Italy itself. In modem political usage the term has come to mean any territorial claim made by one sovereign national state to lands within another state. These claims are generally supported by historical and/or ethnic arguments: that is, the irredentist state insists that part of its rightful homeland has been unjustly taken from it, or that a part of the nation itself has been falsely separated from the organic national community.[67]

Although, in all cases, irredentist claims are made by one state on the territory (the real estate so to speak) of another, irredentist claims vary in the extent to which they combine the elements of territoriality for its own sake and genuine national sentiment. A current, if extreme example, was provided by the Argentine claim to the Malvinas or Falkland Islands, which has been deliberately kept in the forefront of the Argentine national conscious­ness by the process of official national propaganda and censorship. All Argentinean maps show the islands as belonging to Argentina. Argentinean history books describe them as an integral part of the nation, despite the fact that there has been virtually no Argentinean population on the islands for 150 years and not much before that.[68] Replacing Argentina with the FYROM, one sees the present situation very clearly.

Greece on the other hand has not taken the matter seriously. According to an article in the newspaper Makedonia of Thessaloniki,[69] in 2008 alone and while the Greek economy was already ailing, Greek companies invested €1Billion (about $1.42 billion) in the FYROM economy offering 20,000 jobs to its economy where unemployment is as high as 35%. All this took place at the expense of Western Macedonia (Greece) because investment from there went to Skopje making Western Macedonia the poorest region in Greece.

As indicated by the same article, 280 Greek-owned companies are operating in the FYROM, and they don’t pay a cent to the Greek Revenue Service. Of the 17 largest foreign investments in Skopje, seven are Greek and the ten largest Greek companies have invested over 780 million euros in the country. In addition, more than 7 out of the 20 largest companies in the FYROM represent Greek interests.

Nevertheless, the article continues on to explain a few details that the FYROM government does not consider. Although the FYROM authorities bring the above Greek investment down to 262.4 million euros, they do not calculate the total annual Greek investment, regardless of the country of origin. The Greek side explains that Skopje’s assertion would be true only if one calculates the investment that comes directly from Greece. However, “given that a significant part of Greek equity funds have poured into the FYROM by Greek-owned companies headquartered in other countries such as the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Cyprus, and Ireland, the size of Greek investments is much higher than officially registered.”[70] The financial dependence on Greece is proven by the fact that just before Christmas 2011 the FYROM asked and received a loan of €130 million.[71]

This cap pictured above is an example of irredentism by the FYROM. It was sold in NATO Post Exchanges (PX) branding the irredentist red map of a “United Macedonia” with the Greek symbol known as the “Sun of Vergina.”

NATO Criteria

• Relevance to NATO’s ability to project power in areas of likely contingencies
• Creation of interior and easily defensive borders within the alliance
• Risks that may accrue from a higher level of commitment to a new ally, and
• Added transaction costs of a new member for the alliance's cohesion and ability to perform its main missions on the basis of consensus.

NATO’s membership criteria must be viewed as a whole, not in segments according to their individual requirements. The issues are interrelated and considering them separately will not offer the real picture. Professor Biljana Vankovska of the FYROM makes an interesting observation about the mentality of the FYROM population and their understanding of their country’s state of affairs. She explains,
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“Macedonia [sic] still lives somewhere between the ‘pipe dream and the reality’, without knowing what is worse, the dream or the reality. For ten years it has been living on an imagined peace island, while the population strongly believed in the country’s utmost strategic importance for the international community. The price for the illusions and mistakes is being paid but probably the most important thing is for the country to get awake and not to allow a new round of a post-conflict virtual reality.”[72]

Relevance to NATO’s ability to project power in areas of likely contingencies

The FYROM is a small country with a small military of only 8,000 standing personnel and 4,850 reservists. Comparing its total force (active and reserve), it is approximately equal to a U.S. Army Infantry Division (on the average five Brigades with six Battalions each) headed by a Major General (Two Star). The quality of each U.S. Commander is superb in any way possible. Judging from a recent statement made by the President of the FYROM, Gjorgje Ivanov, the top Commander of the military does not meet NATO standards [see below]. The FYROM government is working on establishing the profile of the new Chief of the General Staff with the hope that they will find the individuals that fit the profile. Militarily, the FYROM Army is outdated with donated, mostly discontinued equipment and, although it has deployed [to Afghanistan]; its military skills are questionable regardless of its soldiers’ level of ardent desire to excel. But if the leader of the FYROM Army does not meet NATO standards, how does anything coming out of his office?

The FYROM’s Army includes its Air Force, which following the Eastern Bloc tradition and being a landlocked country, employs only a small naval force that uses the country’s lakes and rivers. Its Army maintains 8,000 professional personnel distributed as follows: two Corps HQ (cadre), one Tank Battalion, two Infantry Brigades, one Special Purpose unit (one Special Forces Battalion and one Ranger Battalion), one mixed Artillery Regiment, one Air Defense Artillery Company, one Signal Battalion, one Nuclear-Biological-Chemical Company, and one Security Military Police Battalion.

Under NATO, the issue is leadership and how good the profile of the leader is. Leadership is a decision-making process requiring stamina and the capability of the leader to “take the flak.”

President Ivanov has admitted that the country lacks the person appropriate to be the leader of the Army in terms of full NATO membership. He articulated his desire in the following statement:

“Talks aim at creating a profile of the future chief of staff. We are not discussing about individuals, but about profiles that need to be met by the ARM [Army of the Republic of ‘Macedonia’ sic] chief of staff. The future chief of staff has to meet the NATO criteria, since Macedonia [sic] is a candidate country. Consultations are under way with the defense minister and the incumbent chief of staff,”[73]

Basically, President Ivanov is looking for individuals who possess not only the right education, but also the following qualities as ancient Chinese military General Sun Tzu has suggested: Intelligence, Credibility, Humaneness, Courage, and Discipline. The pivotal question is whether he is looking for a man among his Slav officers or among his military at large, including the Albanians, Serbs, Turks, et al. Considering himself a leader, his own credibility is at stake as well his army’s image abroad. If he chooses an Albanian, what is going to be the reaction of the Slav soldiers? It will be the test for the harmony of the multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society that the Slav politicians have been advocating all along.

Thus far, the FYROM has deployed to Afghanistan through the International Security Assistance force (ISAF) 161 personnel. It the past, it participated in the Multi-National Force – Iraq (MNF–I) deploying 77 personnel which was not a NATO deployment. They deployed for only one reason: to cajole President George W. Bush with hope for the U.S. recognition of their country as “Macedonia,” something that they succeeded in doing.

Irrespective of whether the FYROM deployed military personnel as a way of “greasing” its way into NATO membership and bypassing the 1995 Interim Agreement with Greece, or by cajoling the personnel supported by the Bush Administration and NATO leadership, the fact remains that it has deployed troops. The FYROM had deployed a military contingent abroad with heavy military assistance from the United States, and the NATO leadership knew it. NATO requirements demand that the FYROM does it with its own money – something it cannot do.

Creation of interior and easily defensive borders within the Alliance

Siniša Tatalović has mentioned that the FYROM is “for centuries a cross-roads region of the communication line connecting three continents: Europe, Asia, and Africa.”[74] Although this statement is without merit, it is concurrently scary. The statement is without merit because the FYROM’s strategic location as we will see below is not even marginal. Secondly, it is scary, because even though this man is the adviser to the Croatian President on political matters, he cannot read a map – unless the map he is looking at is the same as Kŭnchov’s map as adapted by the VMRO. Furthermore, the FYROM Slavs express their desire with the “Macedonian” salute as expressed in the photo below depicting the three “parts of Macedonia” and the letter O, the first letter of Обединување (Obedinuvanje) meaning “Union.”

One wonders how Tatalović can connect Africa with Skopje, without bypassing Thessaloniki, and the Greek province of Macedonia. Unless the FYROM has lately moved south by about 70 kilometers, one cannot even think of calling it a “cross-roads region of the communication line connecting” the two continents, let alone three. The ONLY way that this statement would be true is if in the term “Macedonia” one includes the Greek region of Macedonia or Macedonia proper and specifically the port of Thessaloniki. That is the part of “geographic Macedonia” that has strategic value and the FYROM’s leadership knows this and it is exactly why irredentist education takes place in the FYROM. The FYROM itself has almost medium strategic value. If one wants to travel from Asia to Europe, one can bypass the FYROM altogether by using the path through Bulgaria, Serbia, and so on. On the other hand, the seaports of Thessaloniki, Kavala, and even Alexandroupolis are the keys to the Balkans. Does Dr. Tatalović advocate the incorporation of Greek Macedonia to the FYROM? What means is he going to use in order to achieve his plan?

Even with the planned Corridor VIII Highway (Bari/Brindisi-Durres/Vlore-Tirana-Pogradec-Skopje-Sofija-Burgas-Varna), the strategic position of the FYROM is not going to improve. If anyone thinks that such a highway is going to alleviate Skopje’s need for the port of Thessaloniki, one has to have in mind that during Greece’s embargo (which excluded food and medical supplies) the FYROM was transferring oil through Bulgaria for a price that was almost double the price of oil imported through Greece.[75] In about one year, the FYROM’s economy was near collapse. Even today, the FYROM’s economy heavily depends on Greece. The three main rivers of the FYROM are not navigational[76] and the country has no effective means to defend its territory with the military materiel. Finally, its government is more interested in “Antiquization” by returning to a past that was never there. The U.S. taxpayer would have to constantly shoulder the financial burden in order for the FYROM to upgrade its arsenal and maintain a mediocre army while its own government spends the money of its own taxpayers to support Gruevski’s megalomaniac plans to glorify ancient Greek heroes thereby fulfilling the ardent desire of the FYROM Slavic taxpayers who are subconsciously identifying themselves with the Greeks.

The main problem is that the FYROM is a small country and target range distance is against it. Modern artillery guns can effectively hit a target from, say, 50 kilometers away. On the other hand, there are no inimical adjacent countries. The enemy is within, and as much as most citizens of the country would consider the Albanians as the enemy, in reality the enemy is the Slavic majority digging its own grave.

For all those who pretend to be concerned with regional stability, I would suggest that they should pay attention to the psychological stability and the mental condition of the Slavic population of the FYROM and its diaspora first, because their future psychological instability and their mental disorders could throw the Balkan Peninsula into a new bloodbath. When under the free speech that will come with NATO and EU membership, the Slavs of the FYROM realize that their own political elite was lying to them about being “Macedonians and true descendants of the ancient Macedonians,” what does anyone think will happen in the country?

Risks that may accrue from a higher level of commitment to a new ally

Over the years after its establishment, NATO has evolved from a defensive organization strictly operating within the theater of its country-members to a confused organization during the late 1980’s and early 1990’s looking for a raison d'être. Therefore, in the early 1990’s NATO demonstrated its might by getting involved in a war that some of its country-members acting as individuals started.

Former U.S. Ambassador Warren Zimmerman had criticized Germany for supporting Croatia’s recognition,[77] while the late former U.S. Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger clarified on American PBS-TV in December 1994 that “‘Germany bears full responsibility for the bloody conflict because of its insistence on recognizing Slovenia and Croatia at all costs.’ This took place in November 1991. The German action led to a wildfire escalation of the conflict in Bosnia, he said. Eagleberger spoke as the Atlantic Alliance sank deeper into a state of crisis.”[78]

As NATO was transforming to the new reality, it assumed a greater role. The prevailing philosophy was that it should expand and embrace as many countries of the former Warsaw Pact as possible in order to counter a formidable adversary that was stripped from its erstwhile power. Whether one might argue that the war industry was behind this move or whether it was a prudent decision is a matter of opinion. What is not a matter of opinion is that the small countries cannot sustain a military that keeps getting increasingly expensive as the sophistication of the arms and equipment reaches the stratosphere.

The risks that the NATO members accrue are not assumed “in blood.” As NATO expands and the United States becomes the “policeman” of the world, they are also at risk in monetary terms. NATO members have to keep afloat in this bad world economy as they deal with their own sociological issues. Membership might be prestigious, but it is expensive and is becoming more expensive by the minute. The FYROM already has a 30-35% unemployment rate while spending US$230 million in extravaganzas and raising internal nationalism at the expense of Greece and Bulgaria. It cannot afford to spend more unless the United States keeps feeding the FYROM’s military and ethnocentric political elite.

Added transaction costs of a new member for the Alliance's cohesion and ability to perform its main missions on the basis of consensus

NATO is a military alliance of 28 independent countries that decides on various issues after consultation and consensus. There is no voting in NATO, and sometimes members agree to disagree as was the case of France and Germany vetoing Turkey’s air defense missiles to protect it against retaliatory attacks from Iraq. The principle of consensus as the sole basis for decision-making was established at the creation of the Alliance in 1949.[79]

Although any European country is welcome to join the Alliance, the candidate has to meet all preconditions and all criteria for membership. Occasionally when a country candidate has issues with its neighbors, special preconditions are set in order to conform to good neighborly relations. It is inconceivable for a country to become an ally of another country with inimical relations. What kind of allies can they be?

The FYROM’s economy is small with a GDP in 2010 of US$9,400,000,000. During the same year it spent US$159,000,000 in military expenditures or 1.7% of its GDP.[80] In order to receive votes, political elites of small countries have raised the hopes of their constituencies by applying for NATO membership. While satisfying the diasporas, U.S. politicians have accepted third rate militaries of countries that have their priorities elsewhere. Skopje’s duty to meet NATO’s preconditions and criteria have been overlooked under pressure of their diaspora here at home, and the United States has accepted burden after burden in order to militarily assist new members of NATO. Furthermore, as mentioned before, the FYROM’s priorities seem to lie in “Antiquization.”

Comparing the FYROM’s commitment to that of other small NATO countries with similar military expenditures, the question that arises is whether these countries seriously contribute to the Alliance. As a matter of synergy and as a matter of practice NATO cannot and will not inherit strategic liabilities of candidate countries amounting to ethnic tensions, intra-national and territorial disputes, etc.[81]

Now the United States feels the squeeze since the new members of the Alliance are incapable of taking care of their own and they expect military assistance from the United States. Thus the question is, “What exactly does the United States expect from these small countries?”

Since these small countries are depleted of money, the Alliance (i.e. the United States, for the most part) is forced to pay for sophisticated armaments that the militaries of the new members must have in order to operate sufficiently and respond to the obligations of membership. But while they are trying to catch up with the present technology, the already militarily-advanced NATO countries keep going, resulting in an endless catch up game.

Former U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert M. Gates, expressed these sentiments when talking about NATO allies who do not expand military expenditures and lack political will to do so. Mr. Gates further criticized the ongoing process of what he called a two-tiered membership structure defined as “between those willing and able to pay the price and bear the burdens of commitments, and those who enjoy the benefits of NATO membership but don’t want to share the risks and the costs.” He added that some NATO partners are “apparently willing and eager for American taxpayers to assume the growing security burden left by reductions in European defense budgets.”[82] “There is clearly a longstanding concern about the transatlantic gap in defense,” said NATO spokesman, Oana Lungescu, when asked about Mr. Gates’ comments. “There is a risk that European allies may fall further behind in terms of technological development because of low levels of defense spending.”[83]

The FYROM definitely cannot bear the burden of NATO membership on its own. According to the ratings posted on the Enlargement Study of the Rand Corporation, and using a scale of 10 as High (Excellent) and 0 as Low (Bad), the FYROM stands as follows:

• On the Assessment of Strategic Attractiveness to NATO:
  
  • the FYROM’s Strategic Position is Medium or 4.2;
    
  • the FYROM’s Armed Forces Readiness has scored 5.0 or Medium, for an:
    
    • ​Overall 4.6 or Medium.[84]
      

​

• On the matter of Preparation for and Attractiveness to NATO:
  
  • ​the FYROM scored on Criteria: Low (1.7);
    
  • the Strategic Attractiveness of the FYROM is an Average Medium (4.6) as we saw above.
    
    • ​The Overall rating ebbs to a Medium Low (3.2).[85]
      

• On the matter of Meeting criteria:
  • The Political criteria are considered Low to Medium (1.5) while the
    
  • Economic criteria are deemed Low (1);
    
  • ​the Military criteria are Medium to Low marked as 2.0
    
    • ​For a total of 4.5.

​

• The Overall average for meeting all NATO criteria is a Low (1.7).[86][87]

According to Irina Gelevska of Skopje’s Channel A1, in October 2010, the FYROM budget for the Fiscal Year (FY) 2011 has increased the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ budget by €11 m (US$ 16 m) at the expense of the military budget which decreased by more than €8 m (US$ 11.5 m). It means that in the FY 2011 the military budget went down from €107 m (or US$155 m) to €99 m (or US$142 m). The report continues that “the funds for the program of promoting defense and security activities for NATO entry have been reduced twofold, from €4.2 m (US$6 m) to €2.2 m (US$3.2m).”[88] Former Defense Minister for the FYROM, Lazar Elenovski, stated, “Obviously, by using this element, the government puts into jeopardy the army’s funding by drastically reducing the defense budget.  On the other hand, we know that there have been no effects on the Ministry of Internal Affairs' budget, but it has instead been increased.” These allocations of military expenditures bring the military expenses down to 1.4% of the gross national product. Is the lopsided increase of the Ministry of Internal Affairs’ Budget against the decrease of Defense Budget happening because the FYROM’s Prime Minister expects trouble in the domestic front and not from the surrounding “enemies”? The response is probably that Mr. Gruevski is using the Interior Ministry troops in order to get rid of his own political enemies.

Lazar Elenovski, presently President of the Euro-Atlantic Council of the FYROM, and Biljana Radeva, Secretary General of the Euro-Atlantic Council of the FYROM, drafted a 16-page paper entitled “The Global Guardian: The New Strategic Concept and Macedonia [sic].”[89] In this short paper the authors have devoted only two paragraphs in which they stress that their country sent 4% of its 8,000 strong army.[90] This is untrue. In reality, the FYROM has sent 165 soldiers to Afghanistan or 2.06% of its army.[91]

Regarding Mr. Elenovski’s statement that NATO’s decision to exclude his country from membership was purely political, it appears that he has forgotten his previous statement which he uttered on August 25, 2010 on Skopje’s Channel A1 when he protested against his country’s defense cuts. That statement along with some other information he mentioned indicated that the FYROM does not meet the criteria. Besides, stage 3 of NATO enlargement is purely political and as such any decision constitutes a precedent (see page 6). Additionally, the authors’ statement that their country shares “the same values with the Euro-Atlantic [sic] family” is outright false. Lack of democratic values and governance of the FYROM are not something that everyone in the Euro-Atlantic family shares. Democratic values are much more than political; they are values imbedded in the lives of free people. Thomas Jefferson’s “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness” are three aspects listed among the “unalienable rights” or sovereign rights of a free man in the U.S. Declaration of Independence.

The FYROM’s National Goals and National Interests

“Thessaloniki is Ours” was the slogan that reigned during the celebrations on the 20th anniversary of the FYROM’s independence.[92] One never before had heard the slogan proclaimed with such enthusiasm. It is obvious that Thessaloniki, the Capital of the Greek region of Macedonia, is the national goal of the FYROM Slavs.

National goals of the FYROM are the reflection of the expressed values of its Slavic population. In the political arena, such domestically and internationally envisaged values are increasingly manifested as being of vital official national interest.

On September 8, 2011 and in the presence of the President of the FYROM, Georgi Ivanov, and the Prime Minister, Nikola Gruevski, the FYROM singer, Goče Nikolovski, sang the following song (There was no reaction by the official government of the FYROM, which means that they had given their tacit consent to the words of the song):

​Pearl of the Balkans

First Stanza
Tears are falling by themselves; forgive me
They are as hard as your mountains
A heart cries from three sides
It bleeds for many years (twice)

Chorus
E, e, e, e, ey, Macedonia
You are the Pearl of the Balkans
Unite Pirin, blue Aegean
With the clear waters from the Vardar

Second Stanza
There is only one truth
There is one Macedonia
Divide her, cut her to pieces
We will still love her (twice)

Chorus

Third Stanza
Macedonians sing as loud as you can
Dance the Macedonian dance
Remember her, dear mother
Macedonia lives on (twice)

​Chorus

This event is not an isolated incident, although Greece has made the erroneous strategic decision to downplay or to ignore such common occurrences. Furthermore, the people of the FYROM are being encouraged by simple gestures or words of various foreign officials who might mean well, but give the wrong impression. The slogan “Thessaloniki is Ours” has been transformed from a dormant concept to a dynamic plan put into full motion with the aim of absolute completion and it is very much alive in the hearts of the FYROM Slavs.

A group known as “Falanga” (a name copied from the ancient Greek military phalanx) has turned the slogan into a song. On January 19, 2012, during a game of handball in Niš, Serbia, the U.S. Assistant Undersecretary of State, Philip Reeker, sang the song along with “Falanga.” The text from the “Macedonian [sic] Information News Agency” (MINA) is very clear, “Reeker, who speaks excellent Macedonian [sic] … celebrated Macedonia's [sic] win with fans and the players by singing ‘Izlezi Momce’.”[93] FYROM Slavs of all ages sing this song. Children as young as 4-years old are taught the song which proves that the Slavs are instilling in their children the desire to one day to take claim to Thessaloniki.[94]

The song’s lyrics:

Young man, go straight to the balcony
and salute the breed of Goce [Delčev]
Lift [your] hands high [for the “Macedonian” salute],
and even the area of Thessaloniki will be ours.

​On February 4, 2012, the organization “United Macedonians” held their traditional Goce Delčev Night in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Present at the ball were the Metropolitan[95] Metodij (Methodius) of the FYROM Orthodox Church in Toronto, the Ambassador of the FYROM to Ottawa, Ljuben Tevdovski, and the Consul General of the FYROM to Toronto, Dragan Gjurčevski.

Also present was Sonja Tarčulovska, a FYROM singer and the wife of Johan Tarčulovski who was convicted as a war criminal by The International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY) during the Slav-Albanian war in 2001. Mr. Gjurčevski, whose Facebook photograph shows his heart stamped with “United Macedonia,” read a letter of greetings from Johan Tarčulovski expressing “the gratitude, love, pride and respect for the family sacrifice for the survival of the Republic Macedonia [sic] and the Macedonian [sic] people.” Following the reading of the letter, Mr. Gjurčevski handed over a check for $5,000 intended to help in the future education of the Tarčulovski family’s two minor children.[96]

By giving moral support and comfort to the wife and praising a convicted war criminal that killed a non-combatant population of the Albanian minority, indicates the degree of disregard the FYROM has toward its minorities and the lack of human decency of the Slavic majority, the FYROM Slavic dominated government, and the Church of this country. This attitude towards their Albanian minority is the main cause of the FYROM’s instability, not the name issue with Greece.

Without collaboration, the FYROM officials often argue that the name “Macedonia” is a matter of national security for the country. This argument is absurd. Whatever the country’s name is going to be, it is not going to change the problems the FYROM’s citizens encounter daily. The examples we saw above (maps, songs, support of war criminals, and usurped symbols) are part of the FYROM Slavic socio-cultural mindset and are only the prelude of what is going to happen after they receive any version of the name Macedonia.

If the FYROM is recognized by Greece as “Macedonia,” the next item in the FYROM’s agenda will be to officially claim the incorporation of the lands from Greece, Bulgaria, and in some instances Albania. Active lobbying through exhaustive public relations campaigns, systematic cyber operations, intensive silent warfare, and constant provocations will be the means to first establish their case, and finally persuade the right patron (such as Canada or the U.S.) in order to use their persuasive powers in order for the FYROM Slavs to achieve their national goals.

Mr. Philip Reeker’s exuberance during a handball match, singing one the FYROM’s irredentist songs and the photo of Ted Opitz , Senior Regional Advisor to the Minister of Citizenship, Immigration and Multiculturalism of Canada standing next to the FYROM Ambassador to Ottawa in front of the irredentist map of a “Greater - ” or “United Macedonia” are only indications that the FYROM Slavs have already started working on their dream. The FYROM Slavs are working hard in order to find the right moment and then they will try to do something similar to what the Albanians did in Kosovo. Making alliances for the attainment of their ethnic Slavic goal is their paramount desire

Nevertheless, the matter of the FYROM’s final name is solely an issue that concerns only the Slavic, not the Albanian population. The matter of contention that the name issue is of vital interest and it constitutes an issue of national security lacks national unanimity. Given that the issue has the potential to directly impact the pursuit of the national goal of only the Slavic element of the FYROM, one can classify it as the FYROM’s Slavic ethnic interest and not of national interest.

In addition, one may not interpret the national goal of aggression as an issue for the FYROM’s national security because external enemies do not threaten the country. The name dispute with Greece is not the cause of the interethnic problems in the country; but it could be used as the pretext for a future war precipitated by the FYROM against its minorities and even its neighbors.

The psychological dimension of the issue is subjective because it reflects opinions and attitudes of the Slavic population of the FYROM that are not shared by at least one third of the country. The Slavic society of the FYROM, fueled by the FYROM’s diaspora, nourishes the thought of the eventual incorporation of the Greek region of Macedonia to their country.

The FYROM diaspora consists mostly of Bulgarian speakers who left the region of Greek Macedonia between 1900 and the end of WWI, with a good number of people (or relatives of those) who left after the end of the Greek Civil War (1948). Accordingly, the FYROM cannot classify such monoethnic interest of aggression as an issue of the national security of the country; the Albanians do not share it.

The dream of the FYROM Slav nation, as demonstrated in songs, maps, and carefully manufactured history, is the incorporation of Greek and Bulgarian lands into their country with disregard of demographic reality on the ground. Officials of the FYROM such as Ambassador Ljuben Tevdovski and Consul General Dragan Gjurčevski keep attending balls where the map of “Greater Macedonia,” Greek symbols, and other forms of irredentism are displayed and celebrated by the FYROM diaspora. In addition, the representative of the Church of the FYROM to in Toronto, Metropolitan Metodij (Methodius), who spiritually guides the education of his flock, gives the approval of his Church of a “Greater Macedonia” being a part of the national values of the FYROM Slavs. Thus, the official FYROM nurtures and cultivates the idea of a “Greater Macedonia,” which is not a value shared by the NATO Alliance. This irredentist behavior justifies and makes the case for Greece’s stance to reject the FYROM’s membership to NATO and the EU.

An issue of vital importance in the relations between the FYROM on one hand and Bulgaria and Greece on the other is that the FYROM does not recognize the sovereignty of Greece and Bulgaria over their part of present-day geographic Macedonia. The government, the Press, the Slavic population of the FYROM and its diaspora constantly and purposely call the Greek and Bulgarian areas as the communist predecessor did: “Aegean” (Greek), and “Pirin” (Bulgarian) Macedonia. The question arises, what means is the FYROM going to employ in order to implement its “vital” national interests against Greece and Bulgaria?

The absence of the word “Macedonia” in the final FYROM’s name is of utmost importance to the territorial integrity of Greece and thus it constitutes a matter of national security for her. The addition of the name “Macedonia” to the final name of the FYROM will precipitate future claims over the Greek region of Macedonia.

Conclusion

One of the thoughts one takes away is that upon independence the Slavic majority of the FYROM adopted anything they could in order to make a modern country without concerning themselves about details of the country’s sociological reconcilement. The idea was that the most important thing is to have a constitution, history, name, and heritage and after they are adopted then work something out in order to make them fit to their benefit.

Thus, the FYROM Slavs have adopted ancient Greek history making themselves descendants of glorious warriors, because the history was there and nobody internationally used the name “Macedonia.” In addition, the FYROM Slavs have adopted more history from Bulgaria such as Tsar Samuil, and then they have added all Bulgarian revolutionaries to their pantheon of heroes. The FYROM Slavs have played the card of the victim in the Civil War of Greece using Greek children that they kidnapped and called them “Macedonian.” The FYROM Slavs have adopted the basics of the SFRY Constitution as well as laws from other countries regardless of whether the details of the laws matched the political understanding of their people. Now somehow they find themselves having three different ancestors (Ancient Greeks, Bulgarians, and Slavs) with the usurped name of “Macedonia” and its derivatives and being in a multiethnic country, they neglect the presence of minorities.

It is as if one buys a pair of shoes that are too small and then tries to fits his feet into the shoes disregarding the pain and discomfort the small shoes cause only because they look good to the eye of the beholder. This generation may be suffering, but they will make sure that the next generation has smaller feet.

Whether Skopje meets NATO Preconditions and Criteria is controversial to the level of political hypocrisy from both sides of the Atlantic. Although the website of the U.S. State Department states that Macedonia [sic] had met the criteria in 2008, FOCUS News Agency of Sofia, Bulgaria on December 4, 2009 cited the Bulgarian Prime Minster, Boyko Borisov, as stating that Bulgaria would have supported the FYROM if they had met the criteria, adding that the only thing his country has seen is, “hate speech against Bulgaria and Bulgarians coming from politicians, [and] state institutions.” Prime Minster Borisov wanted the FYROM to remove hate speech “from textbooks, the school curriculum, and the media; give up all minority claims towards Bulgaria.”[97] This statement echoes the Greek complaints officially voiced during the International Court of Justice (ICJ) presentation against the FYROM in 2011. The FYROM has failed the preconditions, and since its budget is below 2%, it does not meet the criteria.

Objectively, the FYROM is not even near fulfilling its NATO obligations (Preconditions and Criteria) on its own merit. Without monetary assistance from the United States, Skopje cannot fulfill the required obligations of NATO and therefore it cannot associate itself with NATO’s prestigious name for domestic political consumption. Admitting the FYROM into NATO in its present socio-political condition will force NATO to receive Skopje’s problems relieving the perpetrators from their responsibilities of fair and democratic governance that rely for the country’s defense on multicultural armed forces.

As Aristotle, the Macedonian-born polymath and teacher of Alexander the Great put it: “A fundamental principle of the democratic form of a constitution is freedom, which is what is usually asserted, implying that only under this constitution do men participate in freedom, for they assert this as the aim of every democracy” (Aristotle, Politics, 1317b [Book 6, Part II]). When the FYROM reaches that point, then everyone can surely say that the country meets NATO’s requirements, not just the criteria.

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[2] NATO 2020: Assured Security; Dynamic Engagement, Analysis and Recommendations of the Group of Experts on a New Strategic Concept for NATO, 17 May. 2010, http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_63654.htm (accessed July 13, 2011).

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[4] “EU shows 'yellow card' to FYROM,” ekathimerini, http://www.ekathimerini.com/4dcgi/_w_articles_wsite1_1_21/06/2011_395365 (accessed June 22, 2011).

[5] Ted Galen Carpenter, “Balkan Tensions and the Future of NATO” (speech delivered at the 64th Conference of the Pan-Macedonian Association,  Chicago, IL, May 29, 2010).  http://www.panmacedonian.info/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=324:to-sink-or-toswim-by-marcus-templar&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=50 (accessed June 21, 2011)

[6] Thomas S. Szayna, “NATO Enlargement, 2000-2015: Determinants and Implications for Defense Planning and Shaping.” (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2001). http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1243 (accessed June 13, 2011).

[7] NATO relations with the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia http://www.nato.int/issues/nato_fyrom/index.html (accessed June 17, 2011).

[8] Final communiqué on NATO enlargement meeting http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_24718.htm?selectedLocale=en (accessed June 21, 2011).

[9] http://www.nato.int/docu/basictxt/enl- and 9501.htm  http://www.nato.int/docu/handbook/2001/index.htm#CH3

[10] NATO, “The Partnership for Peace programme,” http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_50349.htm (accessed June 18, 2011).

[11] Thomas S. Szayna, “NATO Enlargement, 2000-2015: Determinants and Implications for Defense Planning and Shaping.” (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2001). http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1243. (accessed June 13, 2011).

[12] NATO Handbook, Chapter 12  (NATO enlargement), 247-272[1], 117.

[13] NATO Membership Action Plan, http://www.nato.int/docu/pr/1999/p99-066e.htm (accessed June 19, 2011.

[14] Study on NATO Enlargement, 03 Sep. 1995. http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/official_texts_24733.htm?selectedLocale=en  (accessed June 19, 2011).  This set of criteria was simplified in Thomas S. Szayna, NATO Enlargement, 2000-2015:
Determinants and Implications for Defense Planning and Shaping.” (Santa Monica: RAND Corporation, 2001). http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1243 (accessed June 13, 2011).     

[15] Anthony H. Richmond, “Ethnic Nationalism and Post-Industrialism,” in “Beyond Nationalism?,” eds. John Hutchinson, Anthony D. Smith, Nationalism  (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 267.

[16] Kole Časule, “Macedonia vote ends peacefully after bitter campaign,” Reuters, U.S. Edition, Skopje, June 5, 2011 http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/05/us-macedonia-electionidUSTRE7542GH20110605 (accessed June 15, 2011).

[17] Skopje MIA (in English), December 19, 2007, "President Crvenkovski Delivers Annual Address in Macedonian Parliament."

[18] OSCE Mission to Skopje, http://www.osce.org/skopje/77556 (accessed June 17, 2011).

[19] “Milošoski: It'll be difficult to find solution with Greece,” MINA, 18 April 2008, http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/968/45/ (accessed June 16, 2001).

[20] Christopher S. Chivvis, Recasting NATO Strategic Concept: Possible Directions for the United States, Project Air Force, Direction 1: Refocus on Europe, Strategic Rationale, The Rand Corporation, 2009. http://www.rand.org/paf (accessed June 16, 2011).

[21] Siniša Tatalović,  “National Security of Macedonia,” Politička Misao, Vol. XXXV, (1998), No. 5, 105-124, 105.

[22] John Bransford, National Research Council (U.S.), Committee on Developments in the Science of Learning, National Research Council (U.S.), National Academy Press, 2000, 70. Compare to Plato, “the Cave,” Republic and Leo Lionni, Fish is Fish, 1970.

[23] Neda Milevska-Kostova, MSC, MCPPM is executive director of the Centre for Regional Policy Research and Cooperation ‘Studiorum’ in Skopje, and assistant professor of Public Policy and Management at the University American College in Skopje.

[24] Neda Milevska-Kostova, “Macedonia,” Freedom House, July 2011. http://www.freedomhouse.org/sites/default/files/inline_images/NIT-2011-Macedonia.pdf (accessed January 20, 2012).

[25] UNHCR, Refworld, Freedom of the Press 2011 - Macedonia, http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/docid/4e89adc6c.html (accessed January 24, 2012).

[26] Biljana Vankovska, "Looking West: Civil-Military Relations in Macedonia" (paper presented at the XVII World Congress of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) Congress, Seoul, August 17-21, 1997), 16.

[27] Statistics published upon permission from the author.  Stefanos Doumtsis, Major, USAF, “Balkans: Ethnic Minority Implications for FYROM’s Future Stability - Beyond Kosovo- An I & W Tool for the Intelligence Analyst,” U.S. National Defense Intelligence College, Class 2010. 

[28] Ministry of Internal Affairs of Greece, December 6, 2009, http://eklogesprev.singularlogic.eu/e2009/pages/index.html (accessed June 16, 2011).

[29] James Mayal, ““Irredentist and Secessionist Challenges,” in “Nationalism and the International System,” eds. John Hutchinson, Anthony D. Smith, Nationalism  (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 271.

[30] Ivo Banač, The National Question in Yugoslavia. Origins History Politics (Ithaca: Cornell University, 1984), 23.

[31] Biljana Vankovska, "Looking West: Civil-Military Relations in Macedonia" (paper presented at the XVII World Congress of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) Congress, Seoul, August 17-21, 1997), 9.

[32] Stefan Troebst, Bugarsko-Jugoslovenskata kontroverza za Makedonija, 1967-1982, 74.

[33] Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Enquete dans les Balkans (Paris, 1914), 9-10.

[34] Stojković, Ljubiša and Miloš Martić, National minorities in Yugoslavia (Beograd Publishing and Editing Enterprise “Jugoslavija”, 1952), 29.

[35] Popis stanovnistva domacinstava I stanova u 1981 [Population, household and housing census in 1981]. Beograd: Savenzi zavod za statistiku, 1982.

[36] Kiro Gligorov, “Ethnically pure states is an anachronism” Český Deník, June 10, 1993, Prague, interview with Teodor Marjanović and Stanislav Drahný.

[37] Stojković, Ljubiša and Miloš Martić, National minorities in Yugoslavia  (Beograd : Publishing and Editing Enterprise “Jugoslavija,”), 1952, 29.

[38] Popis stanovnistva domacinstava i stanova u 1981 (Beograd: Savenzni zavod za statistiku), 1982). [Population, household and housing census in 1981].

[39] State Statistical Office of FYROM, “Total population of the Republic of “Macedonia” by ethnic affiliation, by municipalities, Census of population, households and dwellings 2002,” State Statistical Office, http://www.stat.gov.mk (accessed May 3, 2009).

[40] Natasha Gaber and Aneta Joveska, “Macedonian census results - controversy or reality?” South East Europe Review for Labour and Social Affairs (2004).

[41] Stefanos Doumtsis, Major, USAF, “Balkans: Ethnic Minority Implications for FYROM’s Future Stability - Beyond Kosovo- An I & W Tool for the Intelligence Analyst,” U.S. National Defense Intelligence College, Class 2010. 

[42] Stefanos Doumtsis, Major, USAF, “Balkans: Ethnic Minority Implications for FYROM’s Future Stability - Beyond Kosovo- An I & W Tool for the Intelligence Analyst,” U.S. National Defense Intelligence College, Class 2010.
 
[43] The mother of the present FYROM Prime Minister Nikola Gruevski is one of those who left Greece for the communist “paradise” of Yugoslavia.

[44] Biljana Vankovska, “Looking West: Civil-Military Relations in Macedonia” (paper presented at the XVII World Congress of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) Congress, Seoul, August 17-21, 1997).

[45] Petokraka is the name of the old flag of SFRY branding the five-point star in the middle of the white horizontal band.  The complete phrase is Petokraka zastava or Five-Pointed flag.

[46] Македонска Акција or “Macedonian Action.”

[47] Olga Murdzeva-Škarik and Svetomir Škarik, “Peace and UNPREDEP in Macedonia,” paper presented at XVI IPRA General Conference, Brisbane, Australia, 8-12 July 1996, 11.

[48] Biljana Vankovska, "Looking West: Civil-Military Relations in Macedonia" (paper presented at the XVII World Congress of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) Congress, Seoul, August 17-21, 1997), 11.

[49] Trajan Gočevski, Neutralna Makeodnija: od vizija do stvarnost (Neutral Macedonia: From Vision towards Reality) (Kumanovo: Makedonska riznica, 1995).  50 Eric J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 166.

[50] Eric J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1870 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 166.

[51] Biljana Vankovska, "Looking West: Civil-Military Relations in Macedonia" (paper presented at the XVII World Congress of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) Congress, Seoul, August 17-21, 1997), 16.

[52] Yelena Guskova, “Процес стабилизације на простору бивше Југославије и међународне организације” (The Process of Stabilization of the Former Yugoslav States and International Organizations), Institute of Slavic Studies Russian Academy of Sciences, February 16, 2005. http://inslav.ru/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=169&Itemid=1

[53] Budo Vukobrat, “Mitre would like to go to NATO!”, AIM Press, 5 March 1998 http://www.aimpress.org  (accessed June 17, 2011).   

[54] Biljana Vankovska, "Looking West: Civil-Military Relations in Macedonia" (paper presented at the XVII World Congress of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) Congress, Seoul, August 17-21, 1997), 15.

[55] Constitution of Turkey (1982) http://www.hri.org/docs/turkey/con0.html (accessed June 20, 2011).

[56] Biljana Vankovska, "Looking West: Civil-Military Relations in Macedonia" (paper presented at the XVII World Congress of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) Congress, Seoul, August 17-21, 1997), 15.

[57] Biljana Vankovska, "Looking West: Civil-Military Relations in Macedonia" (paper presented at the XVII World Congress of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) Congress, Seoul, August 17-21, 1997), 19.

[58] Dane Taleski, “Political Parties and Minority Participation,” Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Skopje 2008.

[59] Mandaci, Nazif  (2007) ‘Turks of Macedonia: The Travails of the “Smaller” Minority,’ Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs, 27: 1, 5 — 24.

[60] President Ivanov, “Framework Agreement is specific Macedonian model of multiethnic society,” MIA, August 14, 2010.

[61] Military Balance 2011, International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), 186.

[62] Marc Angel (Luxembourg), Rapporteur 2010 Annual Report by the Defense and Security Committee of NATO Parliamentary Assembly, 208 CDSDG 10 E rev 1- The Western Balkans, 15 Years After Dayton : Achievements and Prospects. 

[63] Nazif Mandaci, 'Turks of Macedonia: The Travails of the “Smaller” Minority', Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs (April 2007), 27: 1, 5- 24.

[64] Nazif Mandaci, 'Turks of Macedonia: The Travails of the “Smaller” Minority', Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs (April 2007), 27: 1, 5- 24.

[65] Institute of International and Strategic Studies, Military Balance 2011, 186.

[66] Federation of American Scientists, foreign military assistance. http://www.fas.org/search/index.html? cx=011272476961064978591%3Alx1cammk60s&cof=FORID%3A11&q=foreign+military+assustance+macedonia (accessed June 24, 2011).

[67] James Mayal, “Irredentist and Secessionist Challenges,” in “Nationalism and the International System,” eds. John Hutchinson, Anthony D. Smith, Nationalism  (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 270.

[68] James Mayal, “Irredentist and Secessionist Challenges,” in “Nationalism and the International System,” eds. John Hutchinson, Anthony D. Smith, Nationalism  (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 270 - 271.

[69] Μαρία Μαθιοπούλου, ΣΚΟΠΙΑ: Ενα δισ. ευρώ και 20.000 θέσεις εργασίας ο ελληνικός μποναμάς July 20, 2008 20/07/2008, http://www.makthes.gr/news/politics/21350/ (accessed June 13, 2011).

[70] Μαρία Μαθιοπούλου, ΣΚΟΠΙΑ: Ενα δισ. ευρώ και 20.000 θέσεις εργασίας ο ελληνικός μποναμάς July 20, 2008 20/07/2008, http://www.makthes.gr/news/politics/21350/ (accessed June 13, 2011).

[71] Macedonia Hellenic Land http://www.macedoniahellenicland.eu/content/view/2427/83/lang,el/
a.   Kole Casule, Matt Robinson, Anna Willard, “Macedonia to take 130 mln euro bank loan-finmin,” Reuters. Skopje, Nov 8, 2011. http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/08/macedonialoanidUSL6E7M83O120111108feedType=RSS&feedName=rbssFinancialServicesAndReal (accessed January 21, 2012)
b.   Gordana Filipovic, “Macedonia Accepts World Bank-Backed Citi-Deutsche Bank Loan”, November 09, 2011 Bloomberg/Businessweek (January 21, 2012), businessweek.com/news/2011-11-09/macedonia-accepts-world-bank-backed-citi-deutsche-bankloan.html (accessed January 21, 2012)
c.   World Bank, World Bank Finances; Section 0.1 IBRD: Summary of Active Loans for Macedonia, former Yugoslav Republic.  finances.worldbank.org/Loan-and-Credit-Administration/IBRD-Summary-of-Active-Loans-forMacedonia-former-/k85p-rbdd (accessed January 21, 2012)

[72] Biljana Vankovska, "Looking West: Civil-Military Relations in Macedonia" (paper presented at the XVII World Congress of the International Political Science Association (IPSA) Congress, Seoul, August 17-21, 1997), 27.

[73] Gjorge Ivanov, “New ARM chief of staff has to meet NATO criteria,” MINA, 27 April 2011. http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/18034/45/  (accessed June 17, 2011).   

[74] Siniša Tatalović, “National Security of Macedonia,” Politička Misao, Vol. XXXV (1998), No. 5, 105-124, 106.

[75] The embargo of Greece on the FYROM was much less painful than the United States has imposed on Cuba since February 7, 1962.  Greece’s embargo excluded medicines and food. The U.S. embargo on Cuba has been a complete one.  If the Untied States is justified to continue the embargo against a small, defenseless and weak island country, one cannot see why Greece was not justified to do so against the FYROM.  The national interests and national security of Greece are very much at stake.

[76] None of the three rivers (River Vardar (Thracian and Greek Axios) and its tributaries, Bregalnica and Crna (ancient Greek Erigon) of the FYROM can be considered navigational except perhaps for Patrol River Boats (PBR 2).

[77] Warren Zimmermann, Origins of a Catastrophe: Yugoslavia and Its Destroyers (Times Books 1996), 249.

[78] “US slams Germany for Yugoslav war,” HaGalil.com November 07, 2002. http://www.klick-nachrechts.de/germany/croatia.htm  (accessed June 23, 2011).

[79] NATO, Consensus decision-making at NATO.  http://www.nato.int/cps/en/natolive/topics_49178.htm (accessed June 20, 2011).   

[80] IISS, Military Balance, 2011.

[81] Ted Galen Carpenter, “Balkan Tensions and the Future of NATO” (speech delivered athe 64th Conference of the Pan-Macedonian Association,  Chicago, IL, May 29, 2010).  http://www.panmacedonian.info/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=324:to-sink-or-toswim-by-marcus-templar&catid=1:latest-news&Itemid=50 (accessed June 21, 2011)

[82] “Gates warns NATO: Carry your weight or else,” NewsOK, June 16, 2011 http://newsok.com/gateswarns-nato-carry-your-weight-or-else/article/3577450 (accessed June 22, 2011).

[83] Thom Shanker, “Defense Secretary Warns NATO of ‘Dim’ Future,” New York Times, June 10, 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/11/world/europe/11gates.html (accessed June 21, 2011).

[84] NATO Enlargement 2000-2015. Table 4.24.

[85] NATO Enlargement 2000-2015. Table 4.26 which is a combination of tables 4.16 and 4.24.

[86] Thomas S. Szayna, “NATO Enlargement, 2000-2015: Determinants and Implications for Defense Planning and Shaping.” (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2001), 165. http://www.rand.org/pubs/monograph_reports/MR1243  (accessed June 13, 2011).

[87] Ted Galen Carpenter, “Balkan Tensions and the Future of NATO”, CATO Institute, 2010. Speech at the Pan-Macedonian Association Conference. May 2010. http://www.panmacedonian.info/index.php? option=com_content&view=article&id=322:balkan-tensions-and-the-future-of-nato&catid=1:latestnews&Itemid=50    (Accessed February 4, 2012).

[88] Irina Gelevska, "Government Deprives Defense Ministry of More Than 8 Million Euros; Interior Ministry Obtains 11 Million Euros More," Channel A1, Skopje, 25 Aug 10.

[89] Lazar Elenovski, Biljana Radeva, “The Global Guardian,” supported by Royal Norwegian Embassy, Euro-Atlantic Council of Macedonia, October 2010.

[90] Institute of International and Strategic Studies, Military Balance 2011, 186.

[91] Ben Birnbaum “Macedonia complains Greece is “irrational.”  Athens wants neighbor to rename itself,” February 6, 2012, The Washington Times. http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/feb/6/macedonia-complains-greece-isirrational/#disqus_thread (accessed February 7, 2012).

[92] Tromaktiko Blog Post, January 18, 2012, http://tromaktiko.blogspot.com/2012/01/blogpost_9285.html (accessed January 20, 2012).

[93] MINA, “Reeker: Of Course I'll Cheer for Macedonia”  http://macedoniaonline.eu/content/view/20152/45/ (accessed January 26, 2012).

[94] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=42-bH9_1OGo

[95] Metropolitan is the Orthodox equivalent of a Roman Catholic Cardinal.

[96] “United Macedonians” Honored Goce Delchev („Обединети Македонци“ му се поклонија на Гоце Делчев“), Kurir, February 5, 2012.  

[97] The Center for Southeast European Studies, “Bulgaria will support Macedonia’s[sic] NATO and EU aspirations if criteria fulfilled,” Focus News Agency, December 4, 2009. http://www.csees.net/? page=news&news_id=73409&country_id=3 (accessed June 24, 2011)