May 05, 2017
The Necessary Empire
Elections in the Netherlands, France and Germany this year have brought much drama to the old Carolingian core, where Charlemagne founded his empire in the ninth century. This has always been the richest and most strongly institutionalized part of Europe. But should the European Union continue to weaken, the most profound repercussions will be felt farther east and south.
There, along the fault line of the Austrian Hapsburg and Ottoman Turkish empires, former Communist countries lack the sturdy middle-class base of core Europe, and in many cases are still distracted by ethnic and territorial disputes 25 years after the siege of Sarajevo. They depend on pro-European Union governments as never before.
Here in Ljubljana, the capital of Slovenia, a country squeezed between Central Europe and the Balkans, officials and experts talk about a so-called phantom frontier that still exercises people’s imagination. This is the “Antemurale Christianitatis,” the “Bulwark of Christianity,” proclaimed in 1519 by Pope Leo X, in a reference to the Roman Catholic Slavs considered the front line against the Ottoman Empire. Croatia was the first line of defense against the Muslim Sultanate, and Slovenia the second. “When Yugoslavia collapsed, it was assumed that none of this earlier history was important,” one official said to me recently. “But a quarter-century after the disintegration of Tito’s Yugoslavia, we find that we are back to late-medieval and early-modern history.”
Read the full article in The New York Times.
More from CNAS
-
Sharper: NATO
Commentary
As the war in Ukraine pushes past the six-month mark, NATO stands at a critical juncture. In the face of renewed great-power competition in Europe, the alliance has proved to ...
By Anna Pederson & Michael Angeloni
-
Italy’s First Far-Right Government since World War II
Podcast
Nick Lokker, Research Assistant for the Transatlantic Security Program at the Center for a New American Security, joined KNXAM to discuss Italy's first far-right government si...
By Nicholas Lokker
-
Italy’s New Far-Right Government Threatens EU Unity
Commentary
Italy’s new political leadership should be cause for significant concern to the European Union and to the liberal order more broadly....
By Nicholas Lokker & Jason C. Moyer
-
Russia’s Plan to Stay in the War
Podcast
After Ukraine's stunning Kharkiv counter-offensive, Vladimir Putin has doubled down on his war against Ukraine, announcing a large military mobilization, threatening nuclear u...
By Michael Kofman & Ryan Evans
