New Croatian Position in Changed Geopolitical Circumstances

The Russian invasion of Ukraine has placed Croatia in a position to play a game in international relations several levels above its category. The summit of the International Crimea Platform in Zagreb, whose ‘star’ was the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi, is just one manifestation of this new Croatian position in changed geopolitical circumstances.

The political veteran of the American Democrats, however, had her media attention attempted to be diverted by Croatian President Zoran Milanović with pathetic comments about her and the summit itself. It’s as if a plowman ridicules the world championship in rallying because it drives slower than in Formula 1.

However, Zoran Milanović, with his pro-Russian political stances, publicly reiterated understanding for oriental despots, and his own political irrelevance has long turned him into a completely irrelevant figure on the international political stage and has become merely a (constant) reminder of Croatia’s internal political misery.

Meaningful Process

Yet, despite all its internal political deficits, Croatia has the opportunity to truly be, as Pelosi noted, a ‘key American ally, a regional leader, and a NATO partner’ in this part of the world. Thanks to this, it can strengthen its economic and security capacities, as well as protect its national interests in relation to the neighboring Balkans. A key reason for this new Croatian geopolitical opportunity lies in the Croatian-American experience from 1995 in liberating Croatian territories from Serbian occupation and creating conditions for the Dayton Peace Agreement in close partnership with the U.S.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine under the guise of saving and spreading the ‘Russian world’ in all elements (political, propaganda, military) appears to be a repetition of the Greater Serbian aggression against Croatia in 1991. The Ukrainian path towards ending the war and occupation with international assistance models the path that Croatia went through from 1991 to 1995.

After the EU showed its impotence to act practically against the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014, effectively handing Ukraine over to Putin’s goodwill through the so-called Minsk agreements, a political and then military platform began to be built under American leadership for the liberation of Ukraine within its internationally recognized borders, including the annexed Crimea. Europe has silently given up on the reintegration of Crimea into Ukraine, just as it silently gave up on the reintegration of Croatian Podunavlje thirty years ago, considering it a military and politically impossible mission.

The International Crimea Platform, which was launched in the summer of 2021 and today gathers more than forty countries and state alliances (value-wise) of the Western world, is an expression of international political will for the liberation of occupied Ukrainian territories and their complete reintegration. Its purpose is to send strong political messages; it does not pretend to be more than that or to have any executive or operational powers. As such, it is an integral part of the process that, along with military operations on the ground and significant assistance from Western allies led by the U.S. (and the EU has its important share), leads to the liberation and complete reintegration of the occupied parts of Ukraine.

What distinguishes the Crimea Platform as part of a meaningful process that realistically leads to the end of the war and some peace agreement from Macron’s initiative of the European Political Community, behind which there is no European military-political power, is that it attempts to cover up the European military-political impotence to act independently against the Russian invasion.

An Opportunity to Seize

The choice of Zagreb as the venue for the parliamentary summit of the Crimea Platform (which it organizes together with Ukraine) symbolically reminds of the Croatian-American partnership that brought peace to Europe in 1995. However, the political and geopolitical context today is incomparably more favorable for Croatia. Croatia then had to convince the U.S. that it was a reliable partner and that military operations of the Croatian armed forces were key to achieving peace agreements. Today, that former partnership is used by the U.S. as its benchmark in the Russo-Ukrainian war and peace management.

Croatia, which today enters this process from the position of a NATO member and a Schengen European Union member, has the doors open to profit from the partnership with the U.S. from 1995 – by taking an important position on the new energy, and thus economic map of Europe, strengthening its defense-security capacity, supporting the return of political equality for Croats in BiH…

Andrej Plenković has, evidently, after a long neglect of transatlantic relations, recognized the opportunity. And now it needs to be seized.