Dilemma in the South or The Greek Question

Day 2,710, 13:11 • Published in North Macedonia North Macedonia • by Severrus Snape
This is the English version of Howly's original article Dilema na jugu ali grško vprašanje

This is not my personal opinion, this is Howly's point of view, and his alone! I just did a favor to publish it in English!




After a short break of writing geopolitical analyses I decided to write a thought or two about the recent happenings in the south of the Balkan peninsula where the main shifts are taking place in a more or less dead game – but at least something is happening and that can be a reason for encouragement amongst those who are unsure where the situation is taking us. In short to sum it up; Greece is part of a proSerbian pact of countries since the fall of EDEN and the consequent move of focus by the Serbian diplomacy that wanted to first get Romania and then Greece into its own camp. Undoubtedly Serbia succeeded in this task, but on the other side the great losers of this were arrogant Bulgarians and reckless Macedonians who were not so long ago comparable in size with Bulgaria and Greece. Meaning they had similar number of fighters and were able to inflict a damage on the battlefield that made them a potential threat to hostile countries on an already overfilled Balkans.


The current situation in the Balkans where Macedonia and Bulgaria are still so far considered as enemies, but given the situation it can be said that sooner or later a more subtle support might be coming and a gradual change of Greece with the tandem of neighbouring Bulgarians and Macedonians, that once formed ONE.

Why the Greek question?
Since the formation of Asteria Greece has been considered as its founding member – but the situation changed due to internal conflicts that arose in the Greek community. Political pressure, better said the decision of those in power at the time, led to Greece leaving Asteria but still keeping friendly relations with the alliance members. Paraphrasing it we could say – »dear, I'm leaving you, but we can still be friends«. Even the fact that Greeks are considered as proSerbian is a nebulous statement. The strongest Greek military unit GAMA which can make things difficult for anyone with her rich local and foreign fighters was never proAsteria or that it would fight for a country that's from the Slovenian perspective considered as allied. We can hardly describe them as supporters of anyone, it would be most precise to say they fight in the name of exEDEN being strong allies especially of Croatia. This proEDEN alignment is a particular problem when we look at the statistics of Greece and find out that at least half of the committed damage belongs to GAMA (and they are presumabely not the only ones who form the opposite pole).

The value of Greece, with this detail, becomes more of a problem than a solution, especially if we follow Serbian logic of thinking that very often values damage more than friendships. It has to be said that is why in some regard Greece even ended up in the proSerbian camp. For the time being when the future geopolitic map of the Balkans was being formed the Serbian leaders and its foreign policy were posting various articles that showed how Greece would be able to commit more damage in comparison to Macedonia or Bulgaria if the two were left out. At the time they wanted Turkey to join as well, but she kept her pose and stayed neutral, but surprisingly kept a friendly relationship with Greece from the times of EDEN even though the mentioned two had prolonged and hard wars throughout the history of eRepublik. She stayed adversaries with Bulgaria and Macedonia which suited Serbs.

Macedonia and Bulgaria on the other hand would more effectively secure the southern flank of Serbia – also Asteria would know what value it gets in these two countries if they were to align together, with Greeks it's not so apparent. Main Greek military units are more or less hostile or they have a lukewarm attitude and even that is more based on the Serbo-Greek friendship where other countries in the alliance are left out. Greek attitude is focused solelely on the interests of Greece, too often do Serbs approach such state and Slovenians are very often able to see during diplomatic occurrances irresolute and excuse filled Serbian diplomacy. An explicit case so you can relate to Greece when I'm talking about her.


Gaining of Macedonia and Bulgaria but at what price?
Look eastern on the map from Macedonia and Bulgaria, that's where Romania is located. With the mentioned the main problem is her close ties with Greece from the times of EDEN. When Serbia was trying to get Romania on its side alongside Greece the »old friendship« was a useful tool to get them both. But if things were to realign the geopolitical state even the subtlest change of focus from Greece to Bulgaria and Macedonia may cause the loss of Romania. Without the country which Romanians consider as their closest friend, they might feel isolated and turn towards neutrality with their interests being threatened. Hungary would be more than glad to see it happen, Serbs not so much as they would be in danger with Greece expanding across Macedonia or Bulgaria and crossing into the south of Serbia, from the east Romanian soldiers may arrive and the western fron would be compromised by Croatians. So, for the situation to be acceptable, we'd have to change Greece for the tandem of Macedonia and Bulgaria but at all cost keep Romania in the alliance.

Dominos could cross Atlantic ocean where Argentina and Chile might switch sides – and become friendly with the alliances that just recently supported their mutual enemies. The situation is becoming more likely with every passing moment where the interests of Macedonians and Bulgarians could overlap with Serbian ones. The common enemy could unofficially revive ONE. I personally doubt any official announcement will be made regarding alliances until our side can profit from the chaos in Greece and sublty support Macedonia that is draining the damage of the enemies of our alliance in her battles.

When and how it could happen – only the leaders know and those in the inner circles of alliances. Also, I'm not too sure they will do the wisest thing in the given moment and change unreliable, even hostile allies for someone who has near identical interests with you and is a constant damage drain for your enemy. Time will tell fairly soon.

Best regards,
Howly