President Bush Welcomes Seven Nations to the NATO Alliance

Re: President Bush Welcomes Seven Nations to the NATO Allian
I think the NATO alliance is getting too big. It seems like we'll let any old country in now days. Especially since the saying is "An attack against one NATO country is an attack against all NATO countries" So now we have to defend all of these countries? It was better when it was a smaller union. Now they are letting so many countries in it's loosing it's effectiveness.

roverroad:

I don't recall it having any efectiveness in the first place. BTW, are you a NATO soldier? (" So now we have to defend...")?

In case you don't know, NATO wants the new members because of their strategic positions; near Russia and Balkans. Look at the map..

Does anyone else think either NATO or the UN are in need of some retooling, now that NATO's purpose is nulled?

Relative-- Slovenia was never under Soviet/Russian occupation?

I reread, and see that Bush said "an empire". It appears that he was correct in that statement. I guess which empire was incorrectly assumed.

I don't mind admitting the constant changing borders and names on the European continent are a bit much to keep straight.

Here is a little background for those like me, who were largely ignorant of Slovenia.

Ten Years of Independence in Slovenia
A Successful Case of Transformation
Andreas Oplatka
On 25 June 1991, the Slovenian parliament declared that country's independence, ending its membership in the Yugoslav Federation. A backward look at the path which this tiny country has pursued over the past decade yields a strongly positive balance.

The recent meeting between the presidents Bush and Putin near Ljubljana almost overshadowed the Slovenes' own occasion for celebration. The tenth anniversary of the country's declaration of independence falls soon after the meeting of the two prominent leaders, and the Slovenian government has been preparing for a long time to solemnly mark the occasion. Of course, the Slovenes were not at all put out that the Americans and Russians had invited their tiny land to organize the Bush-Putin meeting. Indeed they saw the request as an honor and a good sign for their own chances to join NATO and the EU. At the same time, the event gave Slovenia an opportunity to make a strong appearance even in those international media which normally do not devote much air time or printer's ink to the small countries of the world.

Without Complexes
It is well worthwhile to take a look back at the way that Slovenia has traveled in the past ten years, and at the turbulent history leading up to its independence. This, even though the inclination to celebrate is greater among the country's politicians than among the populace, who, while they fully appreciate their independence, are apparently rather skeptical about grand rhetoric. An example of the latter is the statement contained in an official document that, in achieving independence, the Slovenian nation fulfilled a centuries-old dream. This is yet another case of the relatively modern concept of the nation-state, as it is understood today, being projected back into the distant past.
The fact is that, from the High Middle Ages until the First World War, the territory of today's Slovenia was part of Austria, then (briefly) of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, and after that of Yugoslavia. The republic created in 1991 is, then, a new creation, making it all the more noteworthy how self-confidently and without national complexes it takes its place on the international stage today. It was the old fear of being crushed between German-Austria and Italy (which indeed happened during World War II) that prompted the Slovenian elite to participate in the newly created Kingdom of Southern Slavs in 1918. Seventy years later, tiny Slovenia put up the strongest resistance within Communist Yugoslavia to Belgrade's efforts to establish a Greater Serbian hegemony over the constituent republics of the weakened Yugoslav Federation.

A Special Case
Thanks to its productivity, which it owed to the ever-present tradition of an essentially Western work ethic, Slovenia remained the most prosperous part of Yugoslavia during the postwar era. Efforts at economic modernization and adoption of market criteria in this republic go all the way back to the 1960s, and were little dampened by repeated phases of ideological rigidity. At the start of the 1980s, the Slovenes - just 8.3 percent of Yugoslavia's total population at the time - produced 18 percent of the country's gross national product and fully one-third of all its exports. It was obvious that such achievement should call for concomitant political recognition. Some of today's leading political figures, such as Prime Minister Drnovsek, openly maintain that Slovenia's membership in the southern Slav kingdom at the end of World War I was a mistake and that, culturally speaking, Slovenia was in reality an alien body in that state and its successor, Yugoslavia.
The disintegration of Yugoslavia has already produced an extensive literature. It will be enough to just touch on a few highlights here: In 1987 a publication written by Slovenian intellectuals appeared, touching on questions of democratization and national sovereignty. A year later, the Yugoslav army responded by instigating the trial of three journalists, among them the later Defense Minister Jansa. Widespread protest against this procedure led to the formation of a human rights group, which in turn facilitated the founding of political parties. By 1989, the opposition was openly calling for national independence. Serbia's harsh actions in Kosovo and the annulment of that province's autonomy aroused harsh criticism in Ljubljana, which further intensified Serb-Slovenian tensions.

In the spring of 1990, Slovenia held multiparty elections which were won by the opposition. At the same time, the republic's former Communist Party chief, Milan Kucan, who played a major role in Slovenia's democratization and its exit from the Yugoslav Federation, was elected president of the republic. Having been reelected twice, he still holds that office today. As Kucan recently recalled to mind, back then Slovenia submitted to its Yugoslav partners a whole series of ideas, ranging from reform of Yugoslavia's federal structures, through confederation, to a peaceful disbanding of Yugoslavia. He writes: "All Slovenian ideas were arrogantly rejected, and that led to the independent Slovenia which the popular will called for in a plebiscite." The vote was held in late 1990 and more than 95 percent of Slovenes voted for independence.

Not long ago, Drnovsek stated that Milosevic told him in 1991 that Slovenia could leave the Yugoslav Federation, but Croatia could not. This preferential treatment was based on the fact that Slovenia's roughly two million people are ethnically quite homogeneous, and the republic has no significant Serb minority. Nonetheless, the first blood to flow in the summer of 1991 was in Slovenia, when the Yugoslav army stepped in to intervene but met unexpectedly tough resistance and was defeated by the local militia in what turned out to be only a ten-day conflict. Recently, President Kucan insisted that this was because morality was on Slovenia's side, and that made all the difference.

To those who maintain that Slovenia and Croatia destroyed Yugoslavia, Kucan says: "The Slovenes never said they could not coexist with others. We said only that we could not live under an undemocratic, totalitarian and hegemonial regime such as was created in Yugoslavia, because it threatened to throttle our national identity and rob us of our future."

The New State
As was the case for the Baltic republics, but unlike the former Soviet satellite states, the fact that Slovenia had never known national independence prior to 1991 meant that it had to create its own army and police, a diplomatic corps, monetary and customs systems, government institutions and administrative structures, all from the ground up. Moreover the economy, which in terms of raw materials supplies and external sales markets was heavily dependent on the Yugoslav hinterland, had to be reoriented. And, as was the case in every "transformation country" - that is, every former Soviet-dominated state - the even more fundamental task was revamping the entire economic and sociopolitical order. But thanks to its former membership in Yugoslavia, which had never known Soviet occupation and whose borders were open to the West, Slovenia found itself in a much easier starting position than the countries of the former Soviet sphere.
In thanking his hosts in Ljubljana, President Bush spoke of Slovenia's success story. And it is true that in recent years the country has regularly shown impressive economic growth: 5.2 percent in 1999 and 4.6 percent in 2000. Its most recent per capita gross domestic product was 9,105 dollars - higher than that of several EU member states from Southern Europe just before their accession to the Union. Prime Minister Drnovsek has repeatedly remarked of late that, as a new member of the European Union, Slovenia might well start right off as a net remitter, so that his country is not interested in membership in the hope of EU financial assistance. Among the top group of EU hopefuls, Slovenia is regarded as a model candidate, and it also believes it has a good chance of receiving an invitation in 2002 to join NATO.

Of course, Slovenia also has its difficulties and backward areas. One often-criticized point is that privatization has been lagging. The same problem that plagues other transformation countries - the fact that former Communist Party bigshots came away with the juiciest morsels when nationalized property was being redistributed - has created some bad blood. The ruling Liberal Democrats are particularly vulnerable to that suspicion, yet they seem to enjoy the permanent support of a large segment of the populace and at present enjoy a strong majority in the government. While that does not suit everyone, it does mean stability, after it turned out last year that the new parties on the right are not capable at present of joining forces to govern. Divisive tensions, the roots of which go back to the time of the Communist dictatorship and even to World War II, continue to operate subliminally.

On the whole, however, Slovenia gives the impression of an upwardly mobile and gradually more prosperous society. And though Foreign Minister Rupel complains that foreign media take hardly any notice of his country, he might draw consolation from the thought that it is a good sign when a nation seldom finds itself in the headlines.

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This is instructive of how Bush is unfairly dismissed as ignorant. If this article is true--Slovenia certainly fit Bush's description.

"Communist Yugoslavia" has always been one of the, if not the, leader of the so-called "Non-Aligned Nations". Thus, as Slovenia was part of it, it really didn't belong to any "empire".

I suppose that one's definition of 'empire' is the deal here.
Reading the above article, it certainly shows Slovenes were 'captive' and oppressed--by my standards anyway. It appears, by their standards, too.

I'm happy for their independence.

Well, the speech certainly meant Eastern block empire, to which most of the mentioned countries belonged, but not Slovenia.
Slovenia belonged to no empire, Slovenians have lately not lived in any tyranny (ok we will leave out history before 1930).
Slovenia's struggle for independence from Yugoslavia was really finished with a plebiscite in 1990. The majority voted for independence, and that is what happened - our leaders declared it. Of course Yugoslavia wouldn't let us go and so sent tanks to attack us, but the conflict was quickly over in a couple of weeks (11 days I believe), and from then on we're independent.

See, no tyranny and no empire here.
We actually lived quite well back in 1970's in Yugoslavia, much better that any in the eastern block, and even better that some 'western' countries. It was after Tito's death that the real conflicts begun with the Belgrade, ultimately leading to fall of Yugoslavia. We had all info (books, films, etc.) both from the west, and from the east. The regime wasn't like dictatorship in any way, but a mix of democracy and socialism, of course with a ruling communist party(it wasn't a free-party system).
We broke from Yugoslavia mostly because of the money, inspite of all that's been said. Look - all was good under Yugo, we had a huge market, protection, etc., we only couldn't keep all the money that we got. And we were ethnically clean, and spoke a different language, 'an easy cut'.

Looks like nobody's getting our own history right, even our own (politicians).

Now Relative, we all know Slovenia doesn't really exist, and is just an alternate pronunciation of Slovakia. Just ask Bush!

Doesn't tyranny have to precede a "struggle for independence"?

Why struggle?

Re: President Bush Welcomes Seven Nations to the NATO Allian
Sofia et al.,

Relative quotes President Bush, speeching on the occasion of the accession of (edit:) 7 former communist countries, as saying that "When NATO was founded, the people of these seven nations were captives to an empire."

I think the implication about what one empire ("an empire", after all) he was referring to, is clear: the Soviet Union.

NATO was founded in 1949. Not just had Yugoslavia never been occupied by the Soviets in the first place, its own Communist leaders had also already in 1948 broken up their alliance with Stalin amidst bitter recriminations.

The fact that they could do so without suffering any repercussions (unlike the Hungarians, for example, who, when trying to opt out of the Eastern Bloc, were invaded) already indicates that Yugoslavia was in no way "captive" to the Soviet leaders.

Furthermore, throughout the period Bush was referring to, those fourty years of communist tyranny, Tito c.s. went out of their way to challenge and taunt the Soviets, as self-assigned leaders of the "non-aligned nations" during the Cold War.

So I should think Relative's objection is easy enough to understand.

Now I understand that in your later posts, you are trying to interpret Bush's words as meaning that these nations were all captive to some sort of empire - different ones, perhaps - i.e., either the Soviet Union or Yugoslavia.

First, that seems a lawyerish interpretation to me. You yourself in your first post showed you thought he meant the Soviet Union, too. If he meant different empires, would he have used the singular there ("an empire")?

Then there is the highly questionable use - if we do accept your hypothesis here for a moment - of the word "empire" for the state of Yugoslavia.

A tyranny - depending on your interpretation of the word - yes, it may have been (at least part of the time) - or, in any case, a dictatorship. But an empire?

The only modern-age empires I know were based on the domination of one central nation or people over other territories or peoples. Go back further in time, and you see empires that purely upheld the authority of one central (royal) family over such near and distant territories. So any use of the term for Yugoslavia begs the question: whose empire?

Yugoslavia was not the creation of conquest. It came forth from the post-WW1 restructuring of the European state order, paradoxically enough in the name of the nation-state. At the time, many SouthSlavs, both Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, believed there to be a Yugoslav nation - or the possibility to create one.

Now in between the world wars, Yugoslavia ended up too much of a Serb-dominated state, which was part of the reason of the WW2 violence. But the Communist guerrillas who then liberated the country from the Nazis, mostly without external support, were cross-national, included Slovenes, Croats, Muslims and Serbs - and the Yugoslav state they created after the war was one fourty-year experiment in balancing the interests of the different nations.

The "success" of that can perhaps be measured by the extent that Serbs complained the federal state suppressed them and favoured Croats, while the Croats maintained it was vice versa - et cetera. The only entity which clearly dominated was the Communist Party - even if it, too, over time became greatly decentralised.

In the end, it decentralised to such an extent that Croatia and Slovenia did one thing, in terms of economic policy for example (trying to control inflation), and Serbia did another thing altogether (letting the bank's printing presses roll) - so Slovenia and Croatia opted out and voted for independence. The Yugoslav Army made a mere gesture of an attempt to suppress Slovenian independence and was kicked out within - a week, two weeks. And that was that, as far as Slovenia was concerned.

Applied to Yugoslavia, the word "empire" thus seems just - weird, as Relative's reaction shows (he's from there, after all).

My bet is still that Bush meant the Soviet Union - which would, applied to Slovenia, just be dumb.

Either way, some speechwriter should get his knuckles rapped.

Interesting. Meanwhile, what does anyone think about the accession to NATO of the other six nations?

If I were a citizen of Hungary, Poland or, especially, Estonia or Latvia, I would gratefully embrace my country's new membership of NATO.

As a Dutchman I didnt use to be much of a fan, but with a history like Lithuania's or the Czech Republic's, I would feel very differently ... To never again be traded off to some world power for the sake of temporary peace or geostrategies (1938, 1944/5 ...)!

I'm happy to see them in, but at the same time wonder why we still have a NATO.

I'm blocking on the names of the other three countries poised for membership. Yugoslavia (under some new name) is one.

If NATO was put together to meet the threat of Soviet expansion, and the USSR is no more--how does this impact the goals and mission of NATO?

(Former) Yugoslavia, in addition to Serbia and Montenegro, included four other republics now recognized as independent states as well: Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia [aka "Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia"], and Slovenia.

I truely believe, only some "Former Yugoslav" communists/Serbians will share your opinion. The others seem to be very glad to be indepnedent.

Sophia wrote:


We Slovenians are NOT a Slavic nation, as a majority of modern research shows. Slovenia lies 'on the crossroads' - a very important position between central Europe and the Balkans.
Historically our lands were controlled (an were part of) the Roman empire, and then by Austrians.

The very old settlers of these lands are thought to be Ilirs, which are historically a mixture of nations. Every nation that swept these lands either attacking the north from south, west from east or the opposite, left it's marks here. We are definately not Slavic, as was once thought.

There is a lot of historical evidence that for a brief periods of time, somewhere around 700 AD, there was a kingdom of Slovene people, roughly the size of modern Slovenia.
Because of constant pressure of southern and eastern nations (Avarians,...), help of Bavarians was sought, and independence lost. From then on, these lands were under the rule of (..Austro-Hungarians) and several castles scattered across the country are witnesses to medieval feudal times. Under constant attack, but never conquered by, the Turks, and under rule of Austrian/German knights.

A nation without it's own ruling elite is always struggling for independence. This is funny because in event of independence, the foreign ruling elite is replaced with own ruling elite, sometimes turning for better, sometimes for worse for the common man. But this is another story. Well in any case we have had lots of intellectuals along the way, most speaking of dream of Slovenian independence, which was finally first realized under the Kingdom of Serbs,Croats and Slovenes in 1918.
Keep in mind that at the time, this was thought of as a real independence, acquiring a ruling elite which had total independent control over Slovenia.
The 'first Yugoslavia' was born in 1929 and the period is considered a good one. The WW2 saw formal submission of Yugoslavia to Germany, but the liberation movement which was gradually merged under command of Tito, led the battle against ocupators and liberated, without help from Russia, the whole territory by 1945.
The second Yugoslavia was born, as a federation of independent republics, among them was Slovenia.
All was good while Tito was alive, and he used his vast influences to obtain a lot of western cash to re-build Yugoslavia and gain a high quality of life.
When the rebuilding period was over, problems started to creep in. Non-flexibility of the economic system was showing slow progress and the rule of one, though decentralized party, established a thick beraucracy.
Slovenia was economically far advanced and saw an ever increasing money drainage in Yugoslavian federation, as well as an increasing Serbian political pressure.

So, in 1991, Slovenia decided to split from Yugoslavia, with possible future in EU as economically and culturally more appealing alternative. The transition to independence was tough, but was greatly eased by our ex-communist-party leaders (Drnovsek - current president, Kucan - former president) who put their experience and international reputation to the good use of establishing our small country.

Meanwhile, the efforts put into negotiations with Brussels bore fruit, ultimately leading to our EU membership which begins in 25 days from today.

We are returning to our original leaders - the central european folks - but this time with our own middle-management.

Thanks, Relative, and I hope, Sofia will believe your response :wink:

Walter : Thank you for support

Sophia: I just noticed in your Slovenian history post, that


Well, this is somewhat an overstatement. It is true that we had to build a lot of consulates, and the whole diplomacy, and do some tweaking, BUT

Police : we already had police before, it only became independent from the federal police.

Army: we had to partially rebulid the army because it was centrally lead from Serbia, and was a Yugoslav army which really attacked Slovenia.
BUT, ex-Yugo army was built from two spheres: the active (operational) army, and the territorial defense army, the latter being territorialy dependent and built from 'veterans' who finished their mandatory 1-year service in the active army.
The two parts were somewhat split, and Slovenia had total control over it's territorial army, which successfully defended Slovenia from the active Yugo-army during the ten day conflict. Of course, there wasn't enough officers, which were recruited and educated in a hurry, and heavy weaponry, since the territorial army operated with (small quantities) of light weapons only, so large quantities of weaponry were bought.

Customs: we are bordering on Italy and Austria, and were Yugoalsvia's link to the West all along. Naturally enough, we inherited the customs, and only minor tweaking was required, most of it was fitting the software to the new laws of independent Slovenia, and forming headquarters.

Courts, Parliament and Goverment : they were already in place, and mostly staffed with our own Slovenian people. Some pro-Yugoslavian people had to be replaced, and the ruling communist party reformed to become one of the leading parties in now a multi-party system.

See, Yugoslavia was really a FEDERAL republic, which meant that each republic had a full govermental apparatus already in place, except for some centralized parts. [We actually posses the only nuclear plant in ex-Yugoslavia, which produces about 30-40% of our electricity.]


As a side note: during the events in 1991 around Slovenian independence, I was serving the mandatory Yugoslavian army 1-year service. It happened to me that I became an agressor to my own, newly formed independent state, a member of an army of an alien state (Yugoslavia), actually stationed outside of Slovenia in a foreign land, and in danger of being attacked by yet a third party (Croatia). All turned out well in the end, but the events required me to become a deserter first, fleeing across an alien country and crossing the borders of my newly independent one, joining it's new army briefly for several hours, then hiding from Yugoslavian military police and spies looking for me, and then officially protected and forgiven as a Yugo-deserter by Slovenia. Half of my generation boys went through this, and I was among the luckiest. The unluckiest were either being sent in tanks to attack Slovenia (not knowing that, and told that they were protecting Yugoslavia from terrorists), or being under the attack of the former.

Great stories we told each other later when we met again

Not a Slavic nation? <frowns>

What, then? Germanic? Romanic? Finugric? Slovene surely is a Slavic language, for one. Quite closely related to other South-Slav languages, in fact.

If you mean that Slovenians are not a Balkan nation, then that's another matter altogether.

Of course, you're right that no one nation unambiguously stems from one or another background. There's been a lot of mixing, intertwining, influences from different groups over history, and thus the current Slovene nation (or the Croat or Austrian nation for that matter) has lineages to all kinds of different groups. But I havent really come across any of that "modern research" that emphatically claims that "Slovenians are NOT a Slavic nation". Tips for reading material are always welcome, of course.

nimh : I know how it sounds, but we are mostly descendants of Illyrians, who mixed with Turks, Romans, and Slavs. The language is a slavic one, but this is not important since the language follows politics, not blood. By language, we are Slavic, by blood we aren't.
I will dig some reading links - I'll have to ask my father, he's the historian in our family

(for starters, try John Wilkes, The Illyrians)