Good morning! The results of the survey carried out by the International Republican Institute (IRI), according to which Montenegrins (citizens of Montenegro) see the greatest threat to their country in the USA, should have a sobering effect not only on us and the Americans, but also on the entire transatlantic community.
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Anti-Americanism has yielded the result?
Over the weekend, the news about the annual survey that IRI conducts every year in February or March resonated in Montenegro. Radio Free Europe has published a table showing the countries that are perceived in the countries of the Western Balkans as the most important allies, and, on the other hand, as the biggest threat.
Montenegro voted for Serbia as the greatest ally, and for America as the greatest threat. My first reaction was “didn’t we tell you”, and then I decided to look at the data and familiarize myself with the survey. You can find the entire survey on this link. Apart from this, people were asked other very important questions.
So, it is true that the largest number of Montenegrin citizens – 19% of them, consider America the biggest threat, but it is immediately followed by Russia with 17%. Russia is followed by Serbia with 10%. Therefore, the combined Russian-Serbian joint venture has a combined 27% and makes a good impression on America as a threat.
The picture of who Montenegrins (citizens) consider allies is a bit more worrying. Serbia is in first place with 32%, followed by America with 1%, Russia with 9% and Turkey with 6%.
It is interesting that there are no EU member states among the threats or allies, although a huge number of Montenegrin citizens support joining the European Union.
What the results of this survey prove, in my humble interpretation, is that the USA’s public relations strategy in the Western Balkans needs to be changed. And not only the USA’s.
In recent years, a campaign of appeasement of Serbian public opinion in the Balkans was launched with the best of intentions, in order to prove what was obvious to many – namely that the collective, political West is not the arch-enemy of the Serbian people.
However, there was the trap of equating the Serbian people with the current regime and the ruling and dominant ideology and value system propagated by the Serbian government and the majority of the parliamentary opposition. This has been the intention of Aleksandar Vucic from the beginning, who wants to seize for himself the exclusive right to certify Serbs in the region. The Serbian government seems to have introduced standards by which one’s Serbianness is measured.
Wanting to appease the vampire, Western diplomacy has recently launched a campaign of thawing relations with Serbia and the Serbian Orthodox Church with the best of intentions. What is happening, however, is that the Serbian ruling clique and ideology uses this newly acquired affection to more easily pressure and bully its neighbours. The result is that the West gets a double goal because this kind of action becomes doubly harmful to the reputation and credibility of the West.
Anti-Western sentiment among Serbs is the result of decades of indoctrination against the West, and to eradicate this resentment, much more than mere PR strategies is needed. A fundamental reform of education is needed, as well as a strategy of religious de-radicalization.
Except that they have failed to convince the Serbs that they are their friends, because it is enough to take a look at how people in Serbia answered these questions (friends: Russia 46%, China 14%; enemies – America, Albania and Kosovo over 60%), to make it crystal clear, Western diplomacy has managed to lose a good part of the favour of the traditionally favourable public of Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo and Montenegro.
A particularly harmful role is played here by people who lost their privileges and positions due to the political processes in Montenegro, and therefore inflammably feed the anti-Western sentiment in these publics, thus becoming useful idiots in the service of the interests of Russia and Serbia. Because the weakening of the West’s credibility suits Russia the most, which tends to create instability and chaos in the Western Balkans.
That’s it for today. We wish you a pleasant rest of the day.
Kind regards,
Ljubomir Filipovic, CdM analyst and columnist
(The opinions and views of the authors of the columns are not necessarily those of the CdM editorial staff)
