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1/ Two days before his semiannual report to the UN Security Council, High Representative Christian Schmidt announced that he would be resigning his post as international High Representative in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH). However, he also stated he would remain in post until a successor is chosen.

https://www.oslobodjenje.ba/vijesti/bih/christian-schmidt-odlazi-sa-funkcije-visokog-predstavnika-u-bi-h

2/ The move comes after months of speculation that the US wanted Schmidt to leave and applied pressure. It follows the marked American shift in policy in BiH beginning last October, with the blanket lifting of sanctions on convicted former RS President Milorad Dodik, who remains the de facto leader of the entity.

3/ This shift was also manifest in reported US admonitions against using the executive Bonn Powers, which the US had previously assertively supported – including their application during Schmidt’s near five-year tenure.

4/ @DPCGlobal has been highly critical of some of Schmidt’s actions. But it is important that Schmidt remains until a successor is named and can arrive – otherwise, the US will be able to seize control of OHR by default, if American Principal Deputy High Representative Louis Crishock has the helm as acting High Rep.

5/ Schmidt’s announcement also notably follows the passage of legislation in the Federation regarding the Southern Interconnector project, as well as an interstate treaty between BiH and Croatia – moves aggressively pushed by the US.

6/ The EU has made its misgivings on the SIC known in a letter by EU Head of Delegation Luigi Soreca to FBiH officials. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/apr/23/eu-risks-fallout-with-us-trump-linked-balkans-pipeline-plan-intervention

7/ Dodik has been clear he wants state property fully under his control in the RS. Diplomatic sources relate to DPC that the US and Italy would be fine with a Dodik-friendly arrangement for their own interests.

https://www.democratizationpolicy.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/DPC-Policy-Note18_State-Property-in-BiH.pdf

8/ While the US may be playing for simple transactionalism and opportunity for profit, the confluence of these deals in the present environment are a recipe for even more state-weakening and ethno-territorial division of BiH, reinforced by foreign malign influence.

9/ So now the pressure is on Europe+ to come up with a Bosnia – and wider Balkan – strategy to protect its values and interests from all geopolitical challengers, starting with the US.

10/ The first step needs to be to resist the selection of a Schmidt successor who will accommodate the Trump administration’s transactionalist interests in BiH.

11/ Europe+’s members in the Peace Implementation Council (PIC) – the UK, Canada, Japan, and EU members France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, and Spain need to propose a strategy to the Union as a whole, and soon, to avoid a vacuum the US could exploit in the short-term, but with long-term consequence.

12/ Europe+ needs to ensure that it chooses Schmidt’s successor that will be ready to wield a strategy to continue to employ the Bonn Powers in the service of the Annex 10 mandate, to insure BiH’s sovereignty and territorial integrity,…

13/…protect institutions built since Dayton, and to help citizens of BiH make confident moves to a post-Dayton social contract that would enable meaningful progression towards EU accession.

14/ This will need to entail a commitment to cover the entire OHR budget – as it may well be that the US makes its displeasure felt at not getting its way by not paying its contribution. While many Europeans may balk, this is relative pocket change when compared to the influence that can have in BiH & the region.

15/ Furthermore, and just as crucially, Europe+ needs to reflect a “coalition of the willing” in maintaining a capable EUFOR by reinforcing it to brigade strength prior to October 2026 elections to demonstrate resolve to outside actors seeking to permanently destabilize the country and region.

16/ BiH is the central conflict generator and reservoir in the Western Balkans, having dragged both Croatian and Serbian democratic development backwards by being allowed by the EU-led “West” – now a term devoid of geopolitical meaning – for 20 years.

17/ Calls for Schmidt not to be replaced and OHR closed are deeply irresponsible – and either highly cynical or deluded in light of the facts on the ground and current trendlines.

18/ BiH’s Dayton political economy and operating system makes the political class gatekeepers for external actors seeking to benefit from public goods.

19/ Despite the clamor for state property to be resolved to promote “investment,” it is clear that until the country’s constitutional system is replaced with a new social contract, no resolution in the public interest is feasible.

20/ Appointing a US-approved High Rep to “resolve” state property would only enrich a handful of political spoilers and further undermine the country’s sovereignty, integrity, and declared aim of EU membership.

21/ Despite hopes in Brussels and member state capitals that they could simply do more of the same in the Western Balkans, Europe+ will have to upshift in BiH if it wants to prove itself a potent actor in its own “courtyard,”…

22a/ …and not allow a US in its own state of democratic decline to destabilize the country and region for its own short-term gain.

22b/ Sidestepping confrontation with Trump’s US by ceding influence would constitute appeasement, yielding permanent instability not only in BiH, but regionally.

23/ And nowhere on earth is Europe+ more potent collectively than the WB6, BiH in particular. If it doesn’t draw the line here, it is advertising it will not do so anywhere.

24/ Schmidt’s announcement oughtn’t have caught Europe+ completely flatfooted; succession had to be discussed, at least within foreign ministries.

25/ But this moment demands rapid strategic evolution for Europe+ members in a situation where they are relatively more empowered than elsewhere. They need to demonstrate that they can rise to the occasion.

The post Following High Rep Schmidt’s announced departure, it’s not a time for Europe+ to be timid in BiH appeared first on Democratization Policy Council.

One could practically hear a collective sigh of relief across the European Union when Péter Magyar’s opposition party won a resounding victory and incumbent Prime Minister Viktor Orbán conceded defeat in Sunday’s crucial elections in Hungary. The election was critically important to the people of that country,  but it had also become a battleground for Russian disinformation, anti-Ukrainian messaging, amateur false flag claims of terrorist threats from Serbia, and the injection of American MAGA-right wing nationalism, which itself has been very much inspired by the illiberalism of Orbán’s 16 years in power. 

The congratulations are rolling in from leaders from across the European Union. Experience and the mindset of the Brussels technocratic machinery suggest that the EU will view this as a reset signaling that everything has turned for the better in Hungary and that everyone can return to business as usual. However, this moment should be seized as an opportunity for renewal and reflection. It should inform current and future policymaking by the EU, EU member states, and the broader democratic community.

Orbán’s loss and Magyar’s win is yet another important bellwether for understanding the rise of Hungary’s illiberal state model, while also now pointing to techniques for resistance to and reversal of such antidemocratic trends. 

A first step

For the people of Hungary, this is an important step – but only the first – in rolling back the political, social, and economic damage of the past 16 years. The experience of Poland under the Law and Justice Party (PiS) suggests that it’s far easier to break institutional systems and trust than to (re)build them.

It is heartening that Magyar has noted his commitment in restoring relations with the EU and NATO; this in itself will be a great asset in removing what had often become a weight on these institutions. But it bears repeating that Magyar himself comes from Fidesz and is part of the center-right mainstream. There is no reason to think that culture war issues will simply go away. In fact, it’s very important to remember that there is now a global network of wealthy and connected people who have demonstrated they are willing to spend money and political capital supporting the Orbán vision. Magyar will face numerous challenges as he seeks to rebuild institutions and employ judges and other civil servants who are committed to the country rather than just a party or an individual. Constitutional reform needs to be part of this rebuilding. Throughout the process, Magyar’s government will need to learn how to explain what they are doing and why to the people of Hungary, who have grown accustomed to rhetoric from a state machinery retrofitted to suit Fidesz – what has been termed a “competitive authoritarian regime.” The media machine that has been created over the years by Orbán’s cronies, who together with the state control an estimated 85% of the media, will in particular be difficult to dismantle and rebuild.

Clean-up job

A lot now depends on how Magyar works to clean up Hungary’s systems, as he and his team dig-out a decade and a half of corruption and self-dealing. It’s important to remember that it was the shared frustration with endemic corruption that enabled a unified opposition and brought 77% of the people out to vote. This shameless and widespread corruption (described as a “post-Communist mafia state” as early as 2016)  naturally accompanied the building of a state based on power, self-dealing and patronage, and which enabled the erosion of governance and services that ensues when bureaucrats and independent experts are bullied and replaced with loyalists and sycophants.  It took people getting fed up with this corruption to lead to this opposition victory. It will be interesting to see what connections, European and beyond, will be exposed in the coming weeks and months. The recent revelations of Foreign Minister Peter Szijjarto’s reporting to his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, from EU meetings on sanctions like a control officer, foreshadow more such linkages.

Soul-searching in Brussels – and beyond?

At the level of the European Union and its machinery in Brussels, this development should prompt some soul-searching on how certain aspects of the EU itself enabled Orbán’s long hold on power. Let’s not forget how long it took to get Fidesz out of the center-right pan-European EPP; Fidesz finally left on its own in 2021 – Orbán’s 11^th year in power – following suspension in 2019, but remaining in the EPP European Parliamentary group for another two years.  This network has a lot to answer for in nurturing Fidesz (and other reactionary “national conservatives”). It will be interesting to see if they maintain public and friendly links with politicians and other reactionary figures coming over from the other side of the Atlantic. Closer to home, it’s important to remember that the EPP is still “investigating” Serbia’s ruling SNS following the numerous abuses of power by the party and President Aleksandar Vučić. 

In fact, the frustrations that finally hit a boiling point among people in Hungary will sound extremely familiar to citizens throughout the Western Balkans, who similarly feel that they have lost a generation to the same corrosive political and economic trends, following wider hope a generation ago in most of these countries. They have all experienced a different flavor of kleptocratic self-dealing and poor governance for much of the past three decades,  layered on top of the trauma and dislocation of the violence that accompanied the destruction of Yugoslavia. 

These trends also are becoming increasingly familiar to citizens of the US who have seen an even more rapid-fire dismantling of checks and balances and expertise over the past 16 months. 

Defending democracy

The EU (and the broader set of democratic countries that have been described by Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney as “middle powers” and by DPC as “Europe+”) would do well to learn from this and other cases to better formulate and message their own policies and remind their citizens of why democratic values and human rights are not just some lofty ideal but are inextricably related to governance success, broad-based and shared prosperity, and comprehensive security. 

Hungarians have demonstrated that democracy can and must be defended from below – and that it helps to have convincing, inspirational leadership which recognizes that need for a broad popular coalition in favor of a governance system based on rules, not connections or loyalty.

The EU should also consider the lesson that should be learned in terms of its enlargement agenda. Corruption and political and social control are not bugs in the system of countries struggling to move towards healthier democratic systems and ultimately EU membership. Rather, they are the feature of authoritarian and kleptocratic regimes that have as their bottom line consolidating and staying in power.

No business as usual

Tisza’s overwhelming victory cannot be an excuse for the EU simply breathing a sigh of relief, then coasting or returning to business as usual. The Union and its member states failed the diagnostic test that 16 years of Orbán’s increasingly disruptive rule – and his now demonstrated service to Moscow (and Trump’s MAGA movement) – posed to the EU as a community of rules and values. This needs to be remediated, including through developing EU-wide popular democratic defense and resilience. The influence of malign actors in Europe’s neighborhood and in the EU itself will only become more sophisticated and targeted. Finding ways to inoculate themselves from these infections will be critical and will include efforts to identify and counter disinformation, but also to find ways to maintain digital sovereignty over their information space. This will be needed to counter not only Russia but a United States under Trump and with its own emboldened and increasingly unaccountable Silicon Valley class. This class has weaponized US state power against the EU’s ability to defend the privacy and interests of its own citizens. 

However, for now, before sitting down to understand what happened to bring about this result and what could happen next at a time of global uncertainty and risk, one can be forgiven for wanting to exhale – and celebrate. But it should be taken not as a signal that everyone can relax, but as a moment that should be seized to regain the progress, momentum, and values-based self-confidence that the democratic world has allowed to shrivel during a period in which antidemocratic forces have shown increased swagger.

The post The people of Hungary deserve support, not complacency appeared first on Democratization Policy Council.

The Munich Security Conference in 2025 was notable for a number of reasons. It was during that period of time when people were wondering whether or not Elon Musk was really going to be allowed to dismantle and defame USAID and the rest of the soft power foreign policy establishment that had served the United States so well for decades. And MSC 2025 was the platform where US Vice President Vance stood in front of a room full of leaders who he should have viewed as his allies and instead unleashed a disrespectful and arrogant tirade demonstrating that the US was pivoting away from its long-term trusted allies, and instead was prepared to curry favor with autocrats, petrostates, the extreme political right in Europe, and anyone willing to facilitate a deal that would enrich the current presidential administration and his allies.

As 2025 continued to unfold, it became clear that the United States was no longer the same country, either in terms of its democratic practice at home, nor in terms of its role on the international stage. Whether considering the damage to the international trade system through unpredictable and often petty tariff levies or threats of tariffs, the pardoning of a former Honduran leader found guilty of narcotrafficking in American courts, followed shortly thereafter by the military action in Venezuela that resulted in the extraction and some would say kidnapping of the current leader, or the threats to “take” Greenland to somehow make it a colony or adjunct to the United States, it is clear that the US is determined to destroy an international system that has worked quite well for it. The implication of its published National Security and National Defense Strategy is one of a US seeking hegemonic power for itself, while accepting its pursuit by Russia and China – a Yaltified world with all others “on the menu,” as Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney put it in his memorable Davos speech last month.

In its self-interest, European Union and other democratic states need to firmly demonstrate in Munich that they have no illusions that the world is now a very different place. While many countries, including EU member states, had hoped that they could lay low and see if the United States comes back to its senses in the next presidential election, the damage done has been so thorough, and the division and polarization in the United States itself is so considerable, that it will be a generation before the country can be considered trustworthy and predictable again. We think the cover charge for reentry should be high. The democratic world should neither hide from this reality, nor think that they should jettison their commitment to democratic values and a rules-based order; if democratic countries think they can beat authoritarian systems at their own game, it will be a race to the bottom that everyone will lose.

Instead, these countries should embrace the notion that they are offering something different in this newly emerging world. While Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney used the term “middle powers,” and we at DPC have suggested the term “Europe Plus”, it’s clear that this constellation of countries should recognize that their value-added in an increasing rules-free world is in fact their values. They need to begin to act with the same confidence that their non-democratic peers have demonstrated. To be effective, they need to do so collectively, in a coordinated fashion. Since the end of the Second World War, the US served as the center of gravity and universal connector of the democratic world. The center of gravity is now the EU/Europe+; yet it is clearly having difficulty recognizing it has inherited that role, let alone that it should be prepared to exercise it.

While referring to these countries as middle powers is useful in terms of contrasting these countries with an unpredictable and increasingly undemocratic United States, a rising authoritarian China, and a socioeconomically weak but militarily formidable nuclear Russia, the word “middle” undersells the power and suasion of these countries. Beyond their considerable economic heft as a collective, these countries offer a vision of hope and an ideal towards which other countries and individuals still do aspire.

DPC has therefore outlined in broad terms what we hope we will hear these leaders say and confirm while together in Munich on the stage, or in side-bar conversation. While the damage that the United States is doing to itself economically and to a world facing climate peril is incalculable, science and economics are on the side of those who recognize that the era of petrochemicals and fossil fuels is over. The EU and anyone who believes this reality should work together, countering the harm, and self-harm, the US is committing.

The EU and its allies can also be in the front ranks of preventing the total anarchy of technological and AI pressure and subversion that is the desired end-state by many who desire to profit from tech markets or even the social disruption that unregulated technology can enable. They can take the experience they have in at minimum monitoring and at best preventing misinformation and disinformation from flooding their social spaces; experience they have learned through the experience of dealing with malign actors like Russia, but which can be applied to others such as the United States. They can be a voice to ensure that countries not to mention individuals have a say in whether or not their children are sent personalized revenge porn on their phones, or whether the intellectual property theft of AI further shuts down voices and proper reporting in terms of journalism by offering instead the never-ending polluting doom scroll. It is worth remembering that one of the reasons that some would like to see the destruction of the European Union is because then there would be no GDPR, no Digital Service Act (DSA) an no future regulation to prevent the will to power of Silicon Valley technologists and nihilists. The fact that Secretary of State Marco Rubio will be coming to Munich, and has announced plans to only visit two of the most reactionary countries in the EU, Slovakia and Hungary, shows once again that the US, as articulated in its National Security Strategy, is prepared to destabilize and  disrupt the European Union in order to bring its own social and political polarization to the continent.

European Union participants in Munich can also use the time to continue to determine how the EU can best strengthen itself as a geopolitical bloc, among its current members (including the weakest links), but also in terms of its enlargement agenda. This has been slow and disappointing in the Western Balkans, largely because the EU has pursued lacking any vision or strategy, instead pursuing it through the presumption that its partners are the regional leadership class, rather than citizens who express consistent desire for the Union’s declared values for rule of law, democracy, and accountability, and human dignity writ large. The forces which hold sway in that region are a microcosm of those gaining traction in the wider world, exemplified by Washington and Moscow. An enlarged EU rededicated to being an assertive community of values, employing all its levers of influence, is one that could naturally enlarge. This is not a matter of charity, but an urgent matter of collective self-defense against the global forces of unaccountable power and their local allies and partners.

To refer back to Canada once more, MSC 2026 needs to be an “elbows up” moment for Europe+, in which it recognizes its collective strengths, strategizes to remediate its vulnerabilities, and projects a collective self-confidence to potential partners and adversaries alike.

The post The Munich Security Conference 2026: Will the middle powers show they can punch above their weight? appeared first on Democratization Policy Council.

The new US National Security Strategy is a troubling document, but at least provides total clarity into the way Donald Trump and his team think and intend to act. It should dispel any wishful thinking by European or other democratic governments that they can somehow ride out this challenge and hope that things will someday snap back to normal. Following months of “business as usual” after the first salvos in Munich and the berating of Zelenskyy in February, this complacency needs to be abandoned .

The strategy, which in large parts reads more as a manifesto, is not only a confirmation that the trans-Atlantic partnership and alliance is functionally over – including NATO’s Article 5 – but also sounds a clarion call to other reactionary, right-leaning thinkers and anti-democratic leaders that the US is embracing a foreign policy based on transactional self-dealing and the active undermining of democratic governments and open societies. It must be taken both literally and seriously.

From the perspective of Europe, a number of points have already raised alarms. This document is firmly closing the book on the notion that comprehensive security can be best ensured by providing support for functional, rights-based and rule of law-based democracies. However, while it is bad enough that venal transactionalism and swagger is replacing a values-based approach that has served the US quite well for over three quarters of a century, the one time that values (other than power and money) is raised in the strategy is within the context of Europe. This context is focused not on a vision of a democratic and mutually reinforcing alliance, but on  pulling Europe itself further to the illiberal right (a la Orbán’s Hungary) on issues related to migration and economic development, but also presumably big tech and the climate. We see that the Great Replacement Theory, which was once relegated to the far-right margins of politics, is an active thought system for Trump and his coterie – as it is in reactionary circles in Europe. This will boost regressive and anti-democratic elites and stoke grassroots-level polarization. The US is now seeking to export, as a matter of policy, the same polarity and domestic political dysfunction that has brought it to this point. The paragraphs referencing Ukraine, alone and in the context of the broader document, have already been enthusiastically embraced by  Moscow.

The references to the Monroe Doctrine and what they are branding the “Trump Corollary” are another sign of the US narrowing the full spectrum of its global engagement to focus on its hemisphere. This administration prefers the visions of centuries past over those of the 20th and the 21st, and is blind to the way that the 19^th century paved the way for the tragedies of World War I and World War II which ushered in the world order now being aggressively deconstructed. It is worth remembering that the Monroe Doctrine was aimed at asserting that the US would not interfere in Europe’s affairs, and similarly Europe would not interfere in the affairs in the western hemisphere. Yet taken together with the jettisoning of values, it sends a signal that while the US intends to support its ideological allies in Europe, it expects Europe to stay out of the way.

This view of geopolitics raises the question of what other spheres would exist, and reinforces the sense that Trump and Co would like to pursue a modern “three-way Yalta” of the world with Russia and China.

China is viewed as both an adversary and serious competitor, and one can wonder whether Trump envisions some new form of containment within these new spheres of influence.  Russia, perversely, is not even mentioned as a nuclear adversary, let alone a systemic or values rival. The vision for relations with the Middle East and Africa is a mix of values-free transactionalism with the potential for self-dealing among the well-connected elites; the final paragraph of the document on Africa refers to business opportunities and return on investment while noting extraction opportunities that are sure to raise concerns about a new form of colonial exploitation.

At no point in the 29 pages is popular agency mentioned at all; democratic accountability as an underpinning of security, prosperity, and dignity is relegated to the rubbish bin. Trump is attacking Europe precisely because it represents the values that he is actively discarding home and abroad; one can hear echoes of Putin’s invasion of westward-facing Ukraine.

As always, when playing this real-life version of Risk and drawing lines on the global game board a big question will be what Europe looks like without the US in its camp, and with a predatory Russia on its eastern flank. It is critical that Europe does not view this document either as something to be ignored, or as sketching out new rules of the game that it will figure out how to play.

Europe and other democratic allies – Norway, Switzerland, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, South Korea, Taiwan and others (what could be termed “Europe Plus”) – will only be able to fight against these anti-democratic and frequently kleptocratic trends if they work together and offer a new vision for the democratic world. While EU enlargement continues to be a policy that has both energized and exasperated the continent, the fact that there are candidate countries that see the value of joining (Ukraine is fighting and dying for this right) shows that there are still citizens who recognize that their future would be better with this democratic orientation.

It is easy to turn fatalistic in the face of autocratic momentum; however, given the chance, people choose a life of opportunity and dignity over closed and repressive systems. Europe has an opportunity and an obligation to push back by recognizing its role in consolidating a democratic “Europe Plus” and immediately developing active strategies to counter the new threat that its erstwhile ally has become.

The post Europe Must Build Alliance to Counter Hostile US appeared first on Democratization Policy Council.

As if there were any more need for evidence that the second Trump administration aims to throw the international liberal order game board off the table, taking the money and game pieces with them as they leave the wreckage, we are again seeing examples of what this could mean. Trump’s transactional, bullying, mafia politics on the international stage, combined with his zero-sum real estate mentality, brings a dangerous mix to complicated and sensitive regions around the world that have existed in a sort of geopolitical suspended animation for decades or in some cases generations.

We are seeing him seek credit for a “peace deal” between Armenia and Azerbaijan that is less a peace deal and more of a framework primarily aimed at securing a US role in a regional energy hub; an economic transaction taking advantage of Armenia’s weakened posture following Azerbaijan’s autumn 2023 offensive to remove Armenians who had lived in what was known as Nagorno-Karabakh for centuries. It also fully ignores the work Armenia and Azerbaijan have done themselves to get to this point. Yet this in many ways neatly encapsulated his view of geopolitics, and it’s difficult to avoid visions of Sharpie-fueled fever dreams inspired by the likes of Mountbatten and Radcliffe and the mapmaking  prior to the India – Pakistan partition; or talks between Slobodan Milošević and Franjo Tudjman at Karadjordjevo in 1991 as they sketched options for carving up Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Trump has been gearing up for a Friday meeting with Putin in Alaska and has already used the phrase “land swap,” with regard to the war in Ukraine, which must be music to Putin’s ears. (His erratic performance at the August 11 press conference where he noted his plans to deploy National Guard troops and federal law enforcement to Washington, DC, as well as referencing his upcoming plan to go to “Russia,” by which he presumably meant Alaska, must have also delighted the Kremlin.)  It is worth noting that the phrase “land swap” was heard during the first Trump administration when it was used to refer to the conflict between Serbia and Kosovo, and the notion of “solving” it by trading pieces of land. While the notion of a “swap” generally means some sort of like for like exchange, on Ukraine it is clear that Putin has not retreated from his aims to internationalize Russia’s territorial claims to occupied territory, deny Kyiv security guarantees, and ensure an open playing field for ongoing interference in and control over Ukraine’s destiny.

However, whether or not Trump is fully aware of the meaning and symbolism of this phrase, this language fits in with the image he holds of himself as a “dealmaker”. At the same time, it feeds into his preference for big-man politics, and short-term decision-making and pronouncements without regard for the long-term impact or consequence. From the perspective of a real estate agent, property has clear ownership. It’s mine; it’s yours. There is little patience for ambiguity. However, there are many places around the world that have occupied a sort of grey zone aimed at enabling a limbo status quo in the interest of avoiding heightened or even violent conflict.

Right now, Nagorno-Karabakh is on his mind, as is Ukraine and the current Thailand-Cambodia border conflict. While Trump’s views of maps may lead him to see these as real estate disputes, this kind of simplification ignores cultural, demographic and human experience. It also favors the appetites of the big man politics to which he is attracted.

Simplistic nationalist and irredentist ideologies sell the false narrative that some group of people cannot be secure and thrive unless they are the sole occupiers of some bit of land. Places that complicate simple lines and maps, and that challenge this mindset, need to be destroyed or oppressed. It is in the pursuit of this simplistic vision that we see yet another attack on the notion of the liberal international order.

Following decades of horrifying human tragedy in which people have been killed or forcibly moved in the pursuit of geopolitical sorting (the 1915 Armenian genocide; the swapping of millions between Greece and Turkey in 1922; the wars in the former Yugoslavia, Lebanon; the generational tragedy of Israel/Palestine), for a now seemingly short period of time there was the imperfect ideal that places of diversity and political “ambiguity” could be differently managed. The idea was that people living in places with a history of political and demographic contestation should not need to fear being forcibly moved, killed or subjugated, but should be able to enjoy rights as a minority or a majority in that space under the umbrella of the basket of human rights ushered into the post-World War II and post-Cold War orders that would guarantee minority rights and participation, and the basic right to exist.

This led to a number of ambiguous situations. Some were termed “frozen conflicts,” particularly in the former Soviet Union in places such as Nagorno-Karabakh, Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, and Transnistria in Moldova – places that have often been a part of Moscow’s irredentist appetites. (The Baltic countries with significant Russian populations, were lucky to solidify their relationships with the EU and NATO during the period of what could be considered from today’s vantage point “peak liberal democracy”.) Beyond the former USSR, this phenomenon has been seen in other places where the political status is somehow contested or believed by some polities to be up for grabs, such as Kosovo, Kashmir and Taiwan.

While realpolitik geopolitics increasingly seems to be ascendent, it’s worth remembering that practical ambiguity served multiple purposes. Perhaps most importantly it enabled human beings to stay in their homes and communities, turning the page on a history in which population expulsions were acceptable. It created political space for a process of political and economic normalization that, ideally over time (though imperfectly pursued), would eclipse narrow self-interest focused on bits of land. And it helped to minimize big power appetites for their own irredentist territorial expansion and renewed empire building that could potentially set off new geopolitical competition.

Were these ambiguous arrangements ideal? No. Critics will claim that these political conflicts were not definitively settled, arguing that that proves that this theory was flawed. What they fail to appreciate is the historically short period of time in which the liberal approach as even tried – decades of experience in which human rights were at least aspirationally a priority, compared to centuries and millennia of brute force regardless of the consequences.

The language that we are hearing now from the Trump administration is in line with his apparent agenda of wanting to erase (“cancel”) all liberalizing trends of the 20th century, whether domestic or global. And his singular psychological framing capacity as a real estate agent means that he has no cognitive space to understand the benefits of ambiguous solutions for diverse and complex places. In his worldview, only one person can control a plot or a building; while this may make sense in real estate sales, this creates a basis for complete zero-sum geopolitics.

These issues need to be kept in mind as there will be a very disruptive period ahead. Talk of land swaps impacts people, leads to a radicalized political environment and can lead to resistance and violence. While the people of Ukraine are certainly following this news with a sense of forboding, people in places including Kosovo, Taiwan, Palestine, Bosnia, Burma and beyond have reason to worry.

At a time in which the illiberals and far-right seem ever more ascendant and confident, it can be easy to lose hope and perspective. It has been in particular disappointing to see that the European Union has been unable to reorient itself in a way that reaffirms their values such as those outlined in both founding and enlargement documents, norms and policies;  it is rare to hear mention let alone embrace of the Copenhagen criteria.

Decision makers in the member states and Brussels have been ready to shift their own centers to the right rather than to recognize that their competitive advantage is in fact the support for open societies and the rule of law rather than the rule by law. As in the US, this shift has been accompanied by a narrative focused on the issue of migration. However, the perceived risks of migration and people on the move seeking safety would only increase in a renewed era of population transfers, expulsion, or endemic oppression. And people are not seeking to migrate to Russia, China or other autocratic states. 

In the short term the EU and its democratic allies around the world (Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Switzerland, Japan, South Korea etc.) need to recognize that they will never thrive in a world with a new geopolitical map in which illiberal autocracy is the dominant business model. Appreciating the extent of the threat and doubling down on the attraction of the liberal model to people who have lived under and fled from the alternatives needs to be at the heart of their reorientation to the world Trump is enabling.

The post “Sharpie Geopolitics” in a Time of Complexity appeared first on Democratization Policy Council.

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I was closely involved in compiling data on Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) for the GEO-POWER-EU Interdependence Database recently launched by the GEO-POWER-EU research consortium. The aim of the database is to provide data on a number of social, economic, security and political issues in order to better understand how nine countries (the Western Balkans 6, and the Eastern Partnership, consisting of Moldova, Ukraine, and Georgia) engage with five different geopolitical actors: the EU, the US, China, Russia and Türkiye. While the first iteration of the database is now available for public use, the experience in data identification and collection has itself been a dynamic and a challenging one.

One of the biggest challenges in identifying data for the database is the inherent lack of available data for a large number of the indicators, amplified by the convoluted institutional framework of BiH, which makes identification of relevant stakeholders and depositories challenging. This is perhaps the biggest difference between BiH and the other countries being studied, and something pointed out by the Venice Commission nearly two decades ago in 2005.

One example of a lack of available data is the “Number of employees in diplomatic missions” in the 2007-2024 timeframe. This is included in the database to provide a data point that can contribute to understanding the extent of interest in and engagement in one country by another over time, specifically since 2007. The reason why this was challenging is quite simple: there is not a single person in the MFA who has the relevant documents that show the number of employees for 2007, as confirmed by an official in the Bosnian state-level institutions.

This suggests several things. First, data which should be archived somewhere in the institutional databases is not archived, and there is a lack of systemic approach to the digitalization of such documents. Despite foreign efforts at mitigating this, such as the 2020-2026 UNDP-led project “Digital transformation in Bosnia and Herzegovina”, it remains clear that strengthening state level institutions is not a priority of certain political actors.

Second, there is a chronic lack of human resource capacity within some institutions in the country when it comes to data collection and provision that may be sought through Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.  If this kind of record keeping and archiving is not being done now, it is reasonable to wonder about the capacity of the country to do this systematically during the EU accession process, and potentially in the future if a member.

Third, and on a related point, a researcher or any interested citizen will encounter a myriad of other challenges related to archiving, accessibility and systemization, not to mention the reality that finding civil servants prepared to assist with such information provision is often unpredictable.

These three impediments are not limited to this particular indicator and the capacity of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but also to other institutions that should be tracking and archiving data taken for granted in many other countries.

While data collection for BiH was in some cases challenging, the fact that data was eventually assembled and systematized will provide future researchers, policymakers, and BiH citizens with foundations from which to build. The long-term orientation of the project and its data-driven approach to geopolitical research and analysis could over the next two years indicate a roadmap for more effective data collection and citizen accessibility. As just a few examples, the following caught my attention as I have long been a student of issues related to security and security cooperation.

One example is illustrated below, which highlights the number of peacekeeping troops in the country:

The source of this information included local media outlets and official policy documents from EUFOR contingent contributing states. It highlights a gradual increase of EUFOR troops stationed in the country, as part of Operation Althea, an EU peace enforcement mission tasked with ensuring a “safe and secure environment,” in Annex 1A of the Dayton Peace Agreement, operated under Berlin-plus arrangements for NATO support. Several non-EU member states contribute forces, with the largest contingent of these coming from Türkiye. From 2010 onward, the number of soldiers, as well as countries involved, diminished to a low of roughly 600 troops, even as politically driven frictions escalated to a high in late 2021/early 2022. This remained the case until Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, when EUFOR was effectively doubled. It is now roughly three times its force levels four years ago. (Ex. 1. Increase in Op. Althea troops – depicted below). What may seem to be boring or bureaucratic data points actually contributes to an important story.

Another trend that caught my eye is illustrated in the chart below:

This visualizes a period of relative international isolation between 2012 and 2022, during which very little progress was made on the EU, or NATO, integration path, while at the same time, BiH officials had very few visits from international actors to the country. This corresponds to a period of time of general heightened tensions among local political actors, including divisive and secessionist rhetoric coming from Republika Srpska (RS), one of the two entities within BiH, as well as several election results not fully implemented due to political deadlock. The result of this domestic dysfunction was corresponding international dysfunction.

There is always a reason to be wary of telling a story through purely quantifiable data. However together with qualitative insights and analysis Data that is properly collected and archived overtime can contribute to not only an understanding of recent history but the current day. The GEO-POWER-EU interdependence database provides valuable insight into BiH, both by bringing together available information, while also demonstrating significant data and data access gaps. Filling these gaps, ensuring citizen access to data that should be publicly available, and ensuring that both policy makers and independent analysts can contribute to Data driven decision-making should be seen as a priority not only for the institutions of BiH, but for the European Union and its member states who claim to want the country to have an EU membership perspective.

This was funded by the European Union’s H2020 Research and Innovation program under grant agreement #101132692 – GEO-POWER-EU – HORIZON-CL2-2023-DEMOCRACY-01

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European Council President António Costa made a speech on May 13 during his scheduled visit to Belgrade, which was on the surface unremarkable; the well-worn, “industry standard” talking points of EU institutions. However, it was the context that made Costa’s remarks sound remarkably off-key to anyone who understands the current dynamics in Serbia and the Western Balkans as a whole – including the people who live there. Borrowing a term first heard by the authors in this context two years ago, people feel like the victims of a campaign of gaslighting.

First, Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić, whom Costa affectionately addressed more than once as “Dear Aleksandar,” had just returned from a May 9 Victory Day parade in Moscow with indicted war criminal Vladimir Putin, despite repeated warnings from EU officials.

Furthermore, Costa visited a Serbia in which a student-led movement has been demanding accountability and justice for 16 needless deaths in the November 1, 2024 Novi Sad railway station roof collapse, also calling for an end to the endemic corruption and state capture attributed to Vučić and his long-dominant and responsible coalition. The EU has generally pretended not to hear these voices or demands, despite the fact that Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos stated that they were consonant with the country’s standing reform obligations as a candidate. There were no reports of Costa lovingly showing support for Serbia’s “dear youth.”

While baffling and discouraging to hundreds of thousands of Serbian citizens, the EU often acts as if it had no leverage over Serbia. Yet the data from the GEO-POWER-EU Interdependence Database show otherwise, leading to reasonable questions about the EU’s betrayal of the very values its members should preserve and promote.

A quick visual shows that Serbia’s economic relationship with the EU far exceeds that with other geopolitical options, in terms of exports of goods and services:

…. as well as import of goods:

There is a similar dominance in terms of FDI:

While economically Serbia’s ties to the EU are clear and dominant, there is more evident geopolitical diversity on other measures, with Russia and China making some significant arms transfers, for example:

 And those same countries demonstrating a continuing interest in police cooperation:

There has also been a consistent interest in physical presence, particularly by Russia:

In addition to this security sector presence, Russia has also demonstrated an interest in media penetration, which is consistent with its interest in shaping narratives in general, and plugging into longstanding claims of cultural affinities:

(It bears noting that as the US has indicated an interest in reducing or completely eliminating media engagement, these numbers are likely to change in the next 1-2 years.)

The database enables a view of many other indicators. However, the picture that emerges allows a few conclusions to be made. At the most basic level, it is clear that Serbia is continuing a long tradition of diverse relationships towards both the west and the east: “sitting on two chairs.” While the economic chair is firmly anchored by the EU, on important issues of security and cultural influence, there is more diversity, and more willingness to engage with “the east,” including with partners that are illiberal and authoritarian.

These trends should concern Brussels. If Serbia is seen as a credible candidate for membership, the more it builds its security sector with help or encouragement from actors such as Russia and China, the more difficult it could be to align its security practices and policies with the EU. Similarly, influence operations by Russia in Serbia – through direct official interaction, the media, cultural activities etc. – aimed at shaping public opinion and supporting public political narratives will have an impact on a population that has already lost faith in the idea of an EU-oriented future.

Furthermore, these trends show that in the void of applying its potential leverage against authoritarian adversaries (Russia, China, but also Turkey and Gulf State absolute monarchies), those challengers have gained unnerving footholds in the country’s economic, political, social, and security spheres. This traction is amplified by the EU sidelining its own values allies in Serbian society now illustrated by half a year of effective policy inertia. Meanwhile, the erratic changes in US foreign policy, as ideas about comprehensive security and the value of the trans-Atlantic alliance are being scuppered in favor of raw short-term transactionalism, create further space for anti-democratic foreign influence.

While the EU’s relative position competing with geopolitical challengers declined, even since Commission President Ursula von der Leyen launched her first term in 2019 by proclaiming an aim to assemble a “geopolitical Commission,” it still outmatches competitors across a host of key indicators, as well as maintaining advantages of geography and societal/cultural links. The EU needs to apply this leverage in service of its foundational values, in alliance with Serbian citizens who have demonstrated that they share them and want EU support, to have a hope of achieving enlargement, including by “selling” it to its own citizens. Supporting the values being expressed clearly by Serbia’s citizens could then serve as a catalyst for a new values-based approach to the other countries in the Western Balkans. The database shows the EU some of its tools. But only political vision and will to shift policy will bring their effective application.

[1] Disclaimer: This article draws on data from the GEO-POWER-EU INTERDEPENDENCE DATABASE (2025) to examine EU leverage and authoritarian influence in Serbia, in combination with current political developments.    

This was funded by the European Union’s H2020 Research and Innovation program under grant agreement #101132692 – GEO-POWER-EU – HORIZON-CL2-2023-DEMOCRACY-01

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Prime Minister Mark Carney’s Liberal Party will return to power for a fourth straight term. This despite having been down double digits in polls just months ago against the opposition Conservatives, led by challenger Pierre Poilievre. Trump’s levying tariffs and open advocacy of annexing Canada as “the 51st state” were decisive for Canadian voters, who deemed Carney, former Bank of Canada and Bank of England Governor, the safer pair of hands, given the nature of the threat to the country’s economy and independence.

This electoral result has wider implications, being the starkest popular reaction thus far in the democratic world to Trump’s performative cruelty and assault on democratic norms at home, together with his direct confrontation with steadfast allies, partners, and the international system which the US previously championed. The tectonic ruction of Trump’s disruption-by-design has generated adjustment throughout the democratic world, but Canada’s has been deepest, most resolute, and profound. Foreign Minister Melanie Joly demonstrated this three weeks ago at a NATO meeting.

Voters have now reinforced her conclusion. Nowhere in the democratic world has the breach – driven by Trump – elicited so clear a response. This includes a redoubled commitment to Canada’s ties to Europe, but also Pacific democracies, those in the Western hemisphere, and Africa as well. Canada has demonstrated it’s possible to resist and adapt to changing circumstances while maintaining the values that have consistently made it a global magnet. This can provide a boost to Europe+ and hopefully provide momentum for resistance against the illiberal spasm that is doing so much harm to so many. Europe+ needs now to demonstrate a similar recognition of this changed world.

The will to straddle and hedge remains strong, as NATO SG Mark Rutte demonstrates. This is unequal to the moment. Europe+ should take this opportunity to maintain and strengthen the values that have enabled economic and social development for decades, in the face of a tide of self-dealing authoritarianism worldwide.

Countries that recognize the importance of democratic values for not only prosperity and rights, but individual dignity, would do well to recognize the need for far greater coordinated action to withstand the multifaceted threats to liberal movements and the kleptocracy that comes with them. The call for solidarity from Canadians is one that Europe+ – the remaining democratic world – must heed. This will demand creativity, popular solidarity within and among democracies, and crucially leadership.

The opportunity for Brussels, London, Paris, Berlin and others to rally to the challenge is clear. At the moment those with the most to lose from authoritarianism – Canadians and Greenlanders, along with Ukrainians – have demonstrated the strongest clarity of vision.

As Foreign Minister Joly underscored, the people with the power to stop Trump are Americans. After his first 100 days, it seems increasingly clear that they are recognizing the danger as well, not only to their neighbors, but themselves and their rights. Unless and until Americans brake and reverse his agenda, Europe+ has to make its own arrangements, wrenching though that may be. Canada leads the way.

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The latest episode of National Public Radio (NPR) veteran Diane Rehm’s “On My Mind” podcast, with The Atlantic’s Isaac Stanley-Becker, discussed the central role of the application of fear in the second Trump administration. It is worth the listen.

I’d previously called Trump, “America’s first Balkan president,” as his methods from the outset carried parallels with the Balkan leaders from the late 1980s forward, particularly (but not solely) Slobodan Milosevic in rump Yugoslavia/Serbia, who worked to generate division and enmity from the commanding heights of power through propagating fear and dispensing patronage.

These levers remain vital for the Balkan leaders of today, including Milosevic’s understudy Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, whose most recent campaign slogan “mir i stabilnost” (stability and peace) conveyed the implicit threat that without his continued control these desirable states of being would cease.

Trump’s messaging to his supporters – “if you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore” – conveys the same idea:  only he can ensure your security. Now returned to power, he is pursuing a retribution agenda against his critics and perceived enemies, first using Elon Musk’s DOGE to gut so-called “woke” institutions like USAID, and expanding to RFE/RL, VOA, USIP, the Department of Education and beyond. He’s intentionally generating fear among foreign students, legal residents, naturalized residents, as well as the legal community, media, academia, civil society, and the wider society.

The patronage element became evident even before Trump’s inauguration with his cabinet picks – all loyalists, many billionaires, often with thin qualifications but for their fealty to him, as with the allegiance of tech titans, caricatured here by Ann Telnaes, who left Jeff Bezos’ Washington Post after this cartoon was pulled.  Trump meme coins provide a potential route to provide financial tribute, for domestic and foreign actors alike.

Patronage serves as a vital binding agent for these (and other) prime beneficiaries of the Trump regime. But what has solidified Trump’s popular base (those in the red MAGA hats and often decked out in Trump swag), which stands to pay for his policies, both in the near and longer term? What has made him a powerful political force is his effective weaponization of inat.

Inat is an Ottoman Turkish word widely used in the Balkans, usually translated as “spite.” But while not inaccurate, that does not convey its core connotation – that those who feel it are willing to sustain pain themselves to see harm come to those they resent, have a deep-seated grievance against, despise – or fear.

Trump managed to dowse for the dark soul in America and bind it to more prosaic and widely felt resentments and discomfort at the speed of social change – providing an ever-expanding series of targets for his personalized constituency.

This reached its first term apogee in the attempted violent putsch on January 6, 2021. But its long tail can be demonstrated through the alchemy wrought on large segments of the public’s consciousness and memory in the five years since the arrival of the Covid pandemic and the protest cycle after the murder of George Floyd. That window of opportunity in 2020 has since closed – it now seems like a Covid fever dream.

An effort to recast the entire historical episode as “chaos” and “radical” began in 2020 and is now orthodoxy in Trump’s GOP. Despite the threat to Trump’s support base made evident then, he managed not only to consolidate it, but build it further during the Biden presidency. His dominance of the Republican Party is effectively absolute; all legislators and executives feel disposable unless they bend to his whims, and hand over power, effectively rendering the famed American “checks and balances” as hollow words.

Trump’s inat politics, already applied abroad in his first term, are now wreaking havoc on a global scale: the betrayal and coveting the territory of foundational allies Canada (until now the country’s neighbor and best friend) and Denmark, extortion against Ukraine and Panama, initiation of trade wars. All targets of aggression are portrayed as exploiters of American goodwill, in need of retribution. There is never discussion of how the US (and in particular the very business leaders now aligning themselves with Trump) benefited from the international practices and norms in places for decades.

This is a trope familiar in the Balkans as well – the aggressor and dominant power actor portraying itself as victim. This was most recently on display last year during the UN General Assembly vote to commemorate genocide in Srebrenica, when Vucic wrapped himself in the Serbian flag and cried at what he claimed was an injustice against all Serbs.

Patronage and fear are also applied on the global stage. The fear of losing American military support for the war of defense against imperial aggressor Russia was an evident driver for Ukraine to engage in “peace talks” which seem aimed at achieving a deal amounting to Ukrainian capitulation to Russian aggression and US-led colonial extraction of the country’s resources – an idea broadly rejected by Ukrainians. The US is now effectively engaging in a coercive pincer with Russia against Ukraine.

But that fear has been felt also in the rest of Europe, where it is painfully – and finally – sinking in that US commitment to Article 5 and NATO is highly questionable under Trump, and is probably effectively dead. Seeking to divide European countries through the dangling of potential patronage – particularly to exploit British hopes of a separate trade deal – or at least exemption from tariffs – has been ruthlessly exploited, as have affinities among political leaders on the right, like Victor Orban.

Thus far, Europe+ has demonstrated laudable coherence. But the scale of the challenge is immense, given the centrality of the US in the NATO architecture. For Europe to rise to the challenge of its own defense and those of its proclaimed values – its comparative advantage against Russia, China, and a hostile US – it will have to go far outside its current comfort zone of consensus decision-making and liberal economics.

Finally, the exuberant mean-spiritedness of the Trump administration’s actions – condemning millions to potentially starve, die of HIV/AIDS for want of ARVs, or die unnecessarily after natural disasters, to give but three real time examples – bears underscoring. As Adam Serwer titled an Atlantic article and his later book, “The Cruelty is the Point.”  It is a vulgar display of power.

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