The Powder Keg Of Europe: Is a War Possible?

The Balkan which theintersection of Europe and Asia had been known as the Powder Keg of Europe.Since the Ottomans grip over the area faltered, tensions were high between thestates and it was later designated as the Powder Keg of Europe, prone toexplode. The Balkans is designated as the powder keg of Europe due to itsvolatility of the region and the implications of it reaching outside the region,this agreed by many politician at the time though not directly saying, as Otto vonBismarck said "One day the great European War will come out of some damnedfoolish thing in the Balkans (1888).". The area has been subject to variouswars, from the 1st and 2nd Balkan War, WWI, WWII, and conflicts after the breakup of Yugoslavia. As we can see it seems that conflict is in this region's blood, as even before the faltering of the Ottomans it was the frontline of many wars between the Ottomans and the Habsburg and its allies (Birn, 2010). This makes it seems that the area is bound to explode again even as recently 1998 the area was in a state of conflict with the Kosovan war. Nowadays, even in time of relative peace, the area has not yet completely consolidated, this area is still important to a lot of world powers. A conflict in this area might be the trigger that causes another world war. Knowing this we should ask the question whether a war is still possible in this area. 

There are several things that we need to understand, for a war to happen we need something to start it and there several things that may cause this. The first and most obvious reason is the ethnically and religiously diverse region of the area. The region that compromises the Balkans are filled with Greeks and Slavs, the Slavs are split to even more groups, the catholic Croats, the Muslim Bosnians, the Orthodox Serbs, the Orthodox Bulgars and others as shown by the studies of Jovan Cviji, a Serbian ethnographer and geographer. These Slavs are usually the one that are under surveillance to cause a war in the area, as historically as proven by both world wars and the Yugoslav wars. The fact that they are add odds with each other is worsen by the fact that the territory that each country in the Balkans usually have a significant amount of other ethnically or religiously different people from neighboring countries or in the case of the Yugoslavian states especially Bosnia just mixed together. This ethnic and religious tension has not exactly died since the last conflict in the area and the only thing keeping the status quo in the region for now is the international forces that are deployed in these highly diverse areas of Bosnia and Herzegovina. 

The second reason that awar might happen in this area is related but not necessarily the same with thefirst reason. The Balkans economy isn't in a place that would be consideredgreat. Even though recently we have seen some growth in the region, it does notnecessarily solve the problems it has. Unemployment is still high for theworking age; it is averaging around 30+ % in the area. Another problem are theimbalances, the region growth in GDP is caused consumption, which bringsquestion to its sustainability. This growth in revenue is not enough to offsetthe massive public spending which gives fiscal deficit to these countries. Thisis still not considering that exports are slowing as demand from the EU isfalling due to the ongoing trade wars. This leaves the Balkans vulnerable to aneconomic shock in a form of recession (Western Balkans Regular Economic Report: Fall 2019, 2019). This might cause leaders in thecountries to find scape goats to blame, scape goats can usually come in theform of minorities. This is possible as their Eastern neighbor, Turkey, did thesame to its Syrian minority which they blame for their economic downturn.

Then the third and most likely reason that a war mightbreak out in this area is the area has a very strategic location. Not only itborders Asia and Europe, it also functions as during and after the cold war asbuffer states between NATO and Russia. Whilst the other Eastern Europeancountries have joined NATO and the EU, the Balkan on the other hand is in itselfstill dependent on other countries making it as a buffer (as pawns). Russia isfighting over influence over the area, so it stays as a buffer. The Westmeanwhile is trying to stop this Russian influence over the area. If the areastays outside the Western power sphere of influence, Russia can stop fast accessto the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea. We can see this happening asthe West is focusing its focus elsewhere; Russia is gaining sympathizers (i.e.Serbia) (Ekaterina Entina & Alexander , n.d.),this is a probable cause for a war as when the West wanted to return to theregion, it might not be welcomed so warmly as before. This is the mission ofRussia, to prevent these nations to be integrated into EU and NATO, theirtarget is to sew discord between them and the West where possible (Russia and the Western Balkans, 2019).

The Balkans as a region is an unstable place. This scarred area of the world is plagued by combat and warfare. From the glory days of the Ottomans until the most recent Kosovan War, this place is acquainted with the idea of warfare  In between ofall the wars and battles there are ethnic and religion tensions, a not so greateconomy and a strategic position for other bigger powers made it even moreunstable. People who are in the core the same people are pin against each otheras other bigger nation fight for influence. This is the harsh reality of theBalkans and sadly war is still possible and likely to happen in the future.