The geopolitical and strategic aspects of the Albanian question

    The Albanian question is a matter of substantial geopolitical and strategic interest with regard to territory. For some parties, Kosovo was of greater interest in the past than it is in the present, whereas for others it will be of greater interest in the future than it was in the past.
    Looking at ethnic maps which have been published in various books and periodicals in Europe and the United States over the past few years, serving to elucidate the ethnic structure of the Balkans, one gets a feeling for the geopolitical and strategic significance of the peninsula in the years to come, and for the role which the Albanian question will play in any possible geopolitical constellation.
    The Albanians have always been strongly influenced by their geopolitical position. The lands they have inhabited since ancient times have been crossroads for the Great Powers - the Great Powers of the West as well as the Great Powers of the Orient. It is also here that the great cultures of the Middle Ages met and intertwined: Roman Catholicism, Byzantine Orthodoxy and Sunni Islam. Nolens volens, the Albanians found themselves in the eye of many a storm created by the Great Powers and, more often then not, misfortune was their lot.
    Because of their geostrategic position at various moments of history, the Albanians have been regarded by the Great Powers as a people capable of playing various geopolitical roles. Up to the end of the Middle Ages, for instance, the Albanians were regarded as a barrier to the penetration of Islam. And because over the centuries, more than half of them converted to Islam, they were regarded by the East as a barrier to the penetration of Christian interests in the Balkans. Since there are Albanians of all three faiths, however, they were never willing or able to play one of these essentially religious roles exclusively. Subsequently, in the modern age, because they inhabited territories of geopolitical and geostrategic importance to the three great geopolitical powers - the Ottoman Empire, the Austro-Hungarian monarchy and the Russian Empire - the Albanians (and other Balkan peoples) were assigned other historical functions by the Great Powers of Europe: sometimes religious, sometimes ethnic and sometimes ideological. Austria-Hungary, Italy and Germany hoped that the Albanians would create a barrier to the spread of the southern Slavs, who seemed uncontainable, in particular in view of support from another of the Great Powers, Russia. But the Albanians did not play the role to which they were assigned, and Serbia and Montenegro were able to penetrate deep into the southeast Balkans. On the one hand, no Albanian national elite could be found to play the game for the Great Powers in the Eastern Crisis, but more importantly, these same powers sacrificed Albanian interests to what they regarded as the loftier interests of their own states.
    Later, from the First World War onwards, England and the United States hoped that the Albanians would play the role of a barrier to the spread of communism. But once again, the Albanians did not play the role they were supposed to. Not only did they not form a barrier to the spread of communism, they used all their energy to fling open the gates and windows of their lonely stone mansions to the aggressive and impoverishing designs that ideology.
    Why?
    During the First World War, the Albanians had hoped for assistance from the Western powers for a just solution to their national question. But in vain. None of the Powers showed any such willingness. Italy, for instance, had territorial ambitions of its own on the Albanian coast, ambitions that would soon spread to all Albanian territory. In 1939, Mussolini's Italy occupied Albania, and the Western Powers did not even consider it necessary to react to this aggression as they did to the other aggressive moves of the Fascists and Nazis at the time.
    During the course of the Second World War, the Western Powers, England and the United States, made no promises to nationalist forces in Albania that they would help them solve the greatest of their problems, i.e. the national question. On the contrary, from the memoirs of British officer Reginald Hibbert who was in Albania from 1943 to 1944, memoirs published in a book with a telling title: Albania's national liberation struggle, The bitter victory, it is clear that England gave its wholehearted support to the territorial integrity of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, i.e. to maintaining the status quo in the Balkans. This meant that Kosovo and other Albanian territories were to remain under Slav rule. In short, for British foreign policy the Albanian question did not exist.
    Ignored by the West, many Albanians turned their attention in another direction. The fact that half of the Albanian people and almost half of their territory were under Serbian and Montenegrin domination created an illusion for many Albanians who were strongly influenced by communist ideology and politics: that this ideology could bring about a solution to the national question which, after the inevitable defeat of Italy and Germany, had become just as acute as it had been before the war. It was indeed this illusion, created at a time of desperation for the West, which facilitated Albania's inclusion in the communist alliance between Yugoslavia and the Soviet Union, an event which was to have tragic consequences for the nation and for the political, economic and intellectual life of the Albanian people. The consequences of this ideological alliance, from which the Albanians would only free themselves half a century later when communism finally faded into the annals of European history, are evident to anyone visiting Albanian territory. The ruins of communism are obvious, as are the systematic impoverishment of a people divided into several countries and the brutal and systematic violations of human rights and basic freedoms.
    In their history up to the present day, the Albanians can thus be seen in various geopolitical roles, as part of international political alliances cut out for them and as part of international political alliances not cut out for them. They acquiesced willingly to some of these alliances, whereas others were imposed upon them against their will. Politics in the Balkans have always been like this. They have often made use of the Albanians, and of other Balkan peoples. But what of the present situation? A new world order is presently being created and, if this can be accomplished without war as in the past, but rather by peaceful democratic means, one could hope that the age of unwanted geopolitical alliances is over. And yet, such geopolitical constellations still exist in the Balkans. And quite logically so, because Balkan issues have never been dealt with or resolved without the assistance of powers from outside the Balkans. The small nations of the Balkan peninsula and small nations elsewhere on earth are well aware that their interests cannot be realized and will never be able to be realized without the help of an alliance with some European or global power.
    Western analysts have suggested that three political alliances may arise in southeastern Europe now that Yugoslavia has collapsed. The first of these would be a sort of re-creation of Austria-Hungary, i.e. Austria, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia and Croatia. The second would be Greece, rump Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), Romania and Bulgaria, and the third would be Turkey, Albania, Moslem Bosnia (following the division of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina into three parts), and the Islamic communities of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Montenegro and Serbia. Aside from historical and cultural traditions and economic links, the uniting factor, indeed the decisive factor in these alliances, is religion.
    Serbia has shown the most interest in such a religious alliance recently. Even though no open political alliance has been created as yet, a cultural alliance already exists, uniting Russia, Georgia, Armenia, Belarus, Greece, Bulgaria, Romania and Montenegro. This is not the only indication in our era, in which cold war and the division of the globe into ideological blocs has been overcome, that there exist political forces and indeed countries which long to return to the logic of blocs and divisions along religious lines. During his visit to Italy, the leader of the Russian Liberal Democratic Party, Vladimir Zhirinovsky, declared that one of his greatest political ambitions was to create a federation of Slavic peoples of one blood. Their capitals would be Moscow, Warsaw, Sofia and Belgrade.
    Although Albania has joined the conference of Islamic states, the Albanians cannot seriously take part in any alliance based on religion. They are themselves divided into three religious groups and any such alliance would only cause friction within the country.
    The Albanian people have their roots in Western civilization. Considering the harm that has been done to them by the alliances which have been formed in the Balkans and in Europe over the last two centuries, it is understandable that they now prefer a world without alliances and blocs. Such alliances can only serve to hinder contemporary achievements, such as the process of European integration.
    A united Europe of free and equal European peoples is the only alliance in which the legitimate rights of the divided Albanian people can be realized.
    Regardless of what the future may bring to Balkan politics and regardless of whether this future will be compatible with a new and just world order or a new world disorder dominated by force, the Albanian coastline will continue to be of strategic interest. As in the past, whoever controls this coastline can easily control the Adriatic. And it is obvious that whoever controls the Adriatic will find it easier to control the Mediterranean. This was Albania's misfortune in the past. Whether things have changed remains to be seen.