I have long argued that the European Union falsely presents itself as “Europe.” For the Western Balkans, the confusion has been even greater: the narrative was that the road to the EU must pass through NATO—no NATO, no EU. Yet in the very decades when the periphery was supposedly being “Europeanized,” the EU itself lost much of its civilian identity and now seeks to reinvent itself as NATO. From soft power it has drifted toward militarization. The priests of the EU faith in the region continue to repeat their mantras—once they promised welfare, today they promise warfare.
A recent article by Macedonian and Greek authors captures this shift perfectly. Ostensibly, it warns Brussels that the Western Balkan states are ready for integration, provided the EU demonstrates more determination. But the evidence they present is telling: increased military spending, contributions to Ukraine, and demonstrations of “defensive value.” Their conclusion is that the EU should finally reward such behavior by opening its doors. To reinforce this logic, they reach for a familiar propaganda tool: inventing a bogeyman. And so China becomes the specter—simply because it held joint peacekeeping exercises with Serbia. One can almost hear the alarm bells: terrifying, isn’t it?
What is truly disturbing, however, is not China but the readiness of two PhD-level experts to argue that the Balkans should be integrated into Europe primarily through military machinery—without acknowledging the contradictions. Why, then, does NATO exist at all? And why is peacekeeping stripped of its United Nations framework and recast in a purely geopolitical register? These are rhetorical questions, of course.
This case is, in fact, a textbook example of the servile role of Academia within the broader MIMAC (military–industrial–media–academia complex). Here, academic authority is mobilized to legitimize militarization, while the media are used as amplifiers to reinforce the priorities of the military–industrial nexus.
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