Belgium has ceased to exist. The independent states of Flanders and Wallonia have been haggling fruitlessly for 20 years about how to carve up the Brussels region, which has become a no-man’s land.
Spain and Portugal are on a switchback ride towards modernisation and democracy – Latin American style – as strong-arm regimes alternate with weak elected governments made unpopular by the IMF’s periodic demands for budgetary belt-tightening. A number of serious military incidents between Greece and Turkey would have degenerated into outright war but for vigorous US intervention.
The Soviet Union fell apart only in 1999. Germany, as a quid pro quo for its reunification, has left NATO.
The Eastern European countries, although officially free of the Russian yoke, are not yet democratic. Everywhere, former Communists have managed to utilise the formal processes of democracy in order to hang on to power. Under cover of privatisation, the ruling cliques are divvying up capital assets and controlling shares in major companies. In Estonia and Latvia, trouble fomented by the Russian-speaking minorities was the justification for military intervention by Moscow, with the UN’s blessing.
The civil war in Yugoslavia has been going on for more than 15 years. Successive UN and OSCE efforts at mediation have resulted in several dozen ceasefires, all of which have broken down. For practical purposes the country is split proportionately among its ethnic communities. It took joint intervention by Washington and Moscow to stop Bulgaria, Greece, Serbia and Albania carving up the Republic of Macedonia.
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