Belgrade offers many opportunities that the Washington foreign-policy establishment appears unwilling to recognize.

Vladimir Putin’s visit to Belgrade on January 17 poses an interesting question—are China and Russia making inroads into Serbia due to Washington’s neglect?

See at: https://nationalinterest.org/feature/why-america-blind-serbias-bright-future-41832

Western intrusion into traditional Russian spheres of influence, areas under the sway of Moscow for three centuries or more, represents a highly provocative and destabilizing policy.

Note: this article is part of a symposium on U.S.-Russia relations included in the September/October 2017 issue of the National Interest.

One of the problems that emerges when U.S. officials and the news media are focused on a small number of foreign-policy issues is that troubling developments can occur below the radar in other areas. That appears to be happening in the Balkans, a region that was a foreign-policy priority of the Western powers in the 1990s, but which has faded to near invisibility in recent years.

The brewing climate of fear and inter-ethnic mistrust has meant national leaders have been unable, and unwilling, to coordinate counterterrorism activities.

In Europe’s fragile southeast, Islamism threatens to galvanize national rivalries and unravel two decades of cold peace.