At the beginning of 2023, on the first anniversary of the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian war, Russian President Vladimir Putin met with his old friend in Moscow, the "iron man" Bashar, who has been struggling in the civil war for 10 years. Assad.
Assad's visit is to cheer Russia on and to negotiate long-term economic and military cooperation. When Assad talked to Putin, he bluntly stated:
"The Third World War has begun, but in a slightly different form."
Asian, African and Latin American countries all hope that Russia and Ukraine will cease the war as soon as possible, but NATO countries are determined to go all the way to the dark - at the beginning of the year, Europe passed a 50 billion euro military aid plan, which caused a wave of civil protests.
Europeans may have a deeper understanding of world wars than in other regions: the main battlefield of the two world wars was in Europe, the first world war made Europe lose its global centrality, and the second war directly reduced Europe to a puppet.
In the event of World War III, it may be questionable whether Europe will continue to exist.
Survival has never been a big problem for the big countries of Britain, France, Germany and Italy, but the small countries of Central and Eastern Europe are different.
A typical example is Serbia, which has been troubled for nearly 30 years, and the country has been divided since 1990, during which it was beaten by NATO and isolated by Europe. During this period, Serbia was getting smaller and smaller, and if the three wars started, Serbia's survival was unpredictable.
In March 2024, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic repeatedly voiced his opinions, warning of the threat of World War III and hoping that the world powers would work for peace.
So what exactly did Vučić experience in March 2024 that led him to issue a "three-war" warning? What is the current state of Europe? Will the so-called "three wars" really break out soon?
[a]
On March 24, Serbia was crying
On March 26, 2024, Vučić made a very pessimistic statement on his social media:
Serbia is about to have dark days and I can't say what information I've gotten in the last 2 days. But this information undoubtedly threatens the national interests of Serbia, the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Although Vučić is playing dumb riddles and does not publish the information he has obtained, it is certain that this information is very unfavorable for Serbia.
So what is Vučić doing in the days of 24, 25, and 26?
On March 24, Vučić attended a local memorial ceremony for the victims of the NATO bombing in the small city of Prokupje in southern Serbia.
This day marks the 25th anniversary of the outbreak of the Prokupree massacre and the 25th anniversary of NATO's bombing of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, in which the Serbs paid the price of tens of thousands of casualties.
Vučić arrived at the scene with his men, as well as Serb Chairman Dodik in neighboring Bosnia-Herzegovina, to speak in the rain and lay flowers.
Now that the President of Serbia and the Serb Chairman of Bosnia and Herzegovina have gathered, thinking of Vučić's later conversation, the news he received at that time must have been about the stability of the Serb community in Yugoslavia as a whole.
And Serbia's biggest problem now is the division of Kosovo.
Kosovo has become de facto independent and has been recognized by more than 100 countries and regions, including Western European countries, while Serbia, China, Russia, and other countries have refused to recognize its independence.
Vucic has long been worried that the EU or NATO's admission of Kosovo as a member would completely destroy Serbia's sovereign integrity.
Although Vučić did not disclose the information he received, on March 27 he posted a photo with his son, who was wearing clothes emblazoned with a map of Kosovo and slogans.
Vučić's fears about Kosovo were actually hinted at a year ago, when Vučić visited various parts of the south in March 2023, he also said: "World War III is coming, and the question of Serbia's survival is of paramount importance."
At the beginning of 2023, Russia and Ukraine are fighting fiercely, and Western countries are sending funds and weapons to Ukraine, and countries like Poland are directly sending troops to the war.
Serbia, as one of the few pro-Russian countries in Europe, is very uncomfortable with the anti-Russian atmosphere brought about by the Russian-Ukrainian war, and this state of affairs has exacerbated the isolation of Serbia in Europe.
The West is pressuring Serbia to start sanctions against Russia in the fall of 2023, and the bargaining chip used by the West is Kosovo.
By March 2024, the pressure from the West will be even greater, because Ukraine has almost no soldiers, and the West has ignored the peace proposals of China, India, Indonesia and other countries, and has come up with a package of aid to Ukraine to add fuel to the war.
At the same time, the West has the confidence to make demands on Serbia, and if it further separates itself from Russia, it will also push the boat along the water.
[two]
The countries of Western Europe fanned the flames, and Europe was going to war?
What is less well known is that when the Russia-Ukraine war broke out, the whole world thought it would end soon.
Western powers, including the United States, believe that a large-scale head-on contest will last for several months, that Russia is likely to achieve all its military objectives, and that the rest of the war will turn into a guerrilla war, as was the case in the previous eight years of the Ukrainian-Eastern War.
But the reality is beyond everyone's expectations, Russia's "special military operation" has failed to achieve the effect of hot knife cutting butter, but has caused a full-scale counterattack by Ukraine.
With the failure of the first wave of the Russian offensive, the two sides began a long and brutal positional battle. After a year of fighting, the "special military operation" has become a full-scale war, and NATO has ended at the end of 2023, with a large number of weapons and equipment sent to the front line.
In the summer and autumn of 2022 and the summer and autumn of 2023, the Ukrainian army launched two full-scale counteroffensives, both of which turned out to be unsatisfactory.
At the end of 2023, the casualty figure of the Ukrainian army will exceed 400,000 and may reach 500,000, making the Russian-Ukrainian war the most tragic war in Europe since World War II.
It stands to reason that as a country with a total population of less than 40 million and nearly half of the population has fled, Ukraine's mobilization capacity has reached its limit, the war has come to an end, and peace talks have become the best option.
But at the beginning of 2024, under the pinch of the United States, NATO "promised" stronger aid is on the way.
Zelensky frequently asked for help at the end of 2023, and although Western European countries and the United States paid lip service to it, there was a lot of resistance to aid in Congress - the war and the epidemic destroyed the economy, and they themselves had little to spare.
However, watching Russia move forward step by step, especially the large number of important strongholds occupied by the Russian army in early 2024, including Avdeyevka, NATO is afraid that Ukraine may really be destroyed.
At this time, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev fanned the flames and used a hypothetical map in his domestic speech, on which Ukraine was only around Kyiv, occupied by Russia in the southeast and north, and divided by Poland and Romania in the west.
With this map making headlines on the Internet, Europeans couldn't sleep at all, especially Poland, and Russia couldn't possibly let him "pick peaches".
Since Poland and NATO are one, and the three Baltic states and Finland to the north are jealous of Russia, a sense of unease has spread in Europe.
In March 2024, it was rumored on the Internet that French President Emmanuel Macron would send troops to Ukraine, with 2,000 troops in the first phase. Russian intelligence confirmed the news, and Intelligence Minister Naryshkin proved that France had planned to send troops, but French officials immediately denied it.
In addition, the German Ministry of Defense placed an order with the military-industrial complex to order more than 30 Leopard 2 tanks to be sent to Lithuania to arm the local army. Because these weapons are too expensive, it is obvious that the Germans are reluctant to throw them directly on the Russian-Ukrainian battlefield as consumables.
Of course, Ukraine also lacks tanks, so NATO has sent hundreds of T72 tanks to the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Poland and other countries, and Ukraine's arsenals are also actively repairing and transforming old tanks.
And in view of Ukraine's economic problems, it is difficult to meet the cost of purchasing weapons and ammunition, and military salaries cannot be paid. At a meeting of EU foreign ministers in mid-March, the EU decided to give Ukraine another 5 billion euros in military aid loans.
Over the next five years, the EU plans to provide an additional 100 billion euros in aid.
These measures have given Zelensky a big mouthful of blood, and Ukraine's arms are thick again.
[three]
A world war is hard to say, a big war in Europe is very likely
As of the spring of 2024, NATO has provided 65 billion euros in aid to Ukraine over two years, a figure mentioned by NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg in April.
This amount of money is more than 10 times the normal military expenditure of Ukraine, which looks like a lot, but in fact, it is only about the same as Russia's military spending in a year in normal times, which is completely insufficient to deal with a full-scale war.
Among them, the United States is the bulk of the aid to Ukraine, followed by France and Germany. And if the United States does not pay, France and Germany will withhold the noose.
If Trump comes to power, the businessman president has always opposed the war in Ukraine, and he may take office and stop all aid to promote peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.
In this case, the money invested by the US government in Ukraine may be lost, and the lawmakers and the capital giants behind them are not willing to take this risk.
As for the European Union, although the rhetoric of support is loud, the two giants of France and Germany have come up with very little real money.
Germany plans to spend 8 billion euros in 2024 to aid Ukraine, part of which will be in kind, and may again clean up old weapons stockpiles.
France's plan to send troops has been greatly resisted, and there is a lot of opposition at home, and Macron's thunder and rain on the issue of Russia are not a day or two.
Therefore, although the small countries of Eastern Europe, such as Slovakia, Hungary, and Serbia, are very afraid of the "three wars", the signs that can be seen at present are that the rich countries of Western Europe will not "turn the table" for the time being.
In 2023, French President Emmanuel Macron will visit China, accompanied by EU President Ursula von der Leyen. France was the first to extend an olive branch, followed by the German Chancellor visiting China in early 2024, and Russian President Vladimir Putin also said that he was the first to visit China after his successful re-election.
China is showing a growing presence in European affairs that the big powers cannot ignore, such as Serbia and Hungary, which are more likely to see China as a backer.
These countries not only cooperate with China economically and militarily, but also support China's claims diplomatically, because China is the only country in the world that has the ability and willingness to facilitate peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.
In fact, as the place where two world wars broke out, the contradictions within Europe did not form in a day or two, nor could they end in a day or two.
According to the state of war between Russia and Ukraine, Ukraine is still some distance from collapse, and although the polls in the US election are biased in favor of Trump, it is not ruled out that Biden will counterattack.
If everything develops according to the worst-case scenario, even if it is not a world war, a full-scale war in Europe is more likely.
If Europe shuffles the cards, the first wave will crush the shattered Eastern European region, which is a disaster for small countries, especially in the Balkans, where the national problem is bottomless, and the chaos of the 90s is still vivid.
In fact, politicians keep mentioning the "three wars" in order to avoid them. They constantly support Ukraine, but instead want an early truce.
By the end of the year, when the US elections are held, the chaos in Europe may see the end of the war: whether it will go in the opposite direction of an armistice, or whether it will run in the direction of a big war.
Literature / Shogakuno
Resources:
1. "The Russia-Ukraine War in the Media and the Goodwill Voices of the Chinese Media", Liu Jianming
2. "The Process of "Normalization of Relations" between Serbia and Kosovo is "Abnormal", Xu Gang, Peng Yuchao