Britain stirs the Balkans pot - again

Key Markets report for Tuesday, 15 April 2025

On Thursday, 25 February this year, Bosnia’s state news agency FENA reported that, “Bosnia and Herzegovina and United Kingdom signed a bilateral military cooperation plan for 2025.” That was pretty much the full extent of the news; no details about the plan were disclosed. At the time I wondered why on earth would the government of Bosnia sign a military cooperation plan, of all nations out there, exactly with Great Britain? Bosnia is a small, mountainous and nearly landlocked republic in the middle of Western Balkans made up of cantons dominated by three main ethnic and religious groups: Bosnian Muslims, Croats (Catholics) and Serbs (Orthodox Christians).

The central government in Sarajevo is Muslim-dominated and even though today Bosnian officials almost unanimously opine that there is no danger of war breaking out in the country, the danger could, conceivably, lurk in the east, if Bosnian Serbs decided to separate and reunite with Serbia proper. In that case, it might make sense for Sarajevo to reinforce its security through military cooperation agreement with their Western neighbor Croatia, or perhaps with a fellow Muslim power like Turkey, or even Albania. But Britain??

British army is nowadays commonly referred to as a joke. It has barely 70,000 troops, a handful of tanks and aircraft, and next to no navy. It has a few submarines and nuclear missiles, but that’s about it. Furthermore, its nuclear arsenal can’t be deployed without the green light from the U.S. Otherwise, British arsenals are dangerously depleted, its ability to deploy any troops, provide either weapons or ammunitions even to itself has atrophied dangerously, and its track record in “advising” and “helping” other nations, like Ukraine, only reinforces its reputation as a joke.

Britain’s many military entanglements

Yet, for some reason, nations like Bosnia and Herzegovina are busy signing military cooperation agreements with Britain. Great Britain also has bilateral military cooperation pacts with France, Sweden, Poland and Ukraine. It also has a very close security and intelligence cooperation with Qatar, Turkey and Israel. Two years ago, then foreign secretary James Cleverly was touring Africa offering military support to Ghana, Nigeria and Zambia.

Of course, Mr. Cleverly wasn’t offering troops, weapons or ammunition which Britain doesn’t even have enough for its own defense. Instead, he was "ready to seriously consider any requests from African leaders regarding capacity building and training in the British Armed forces," suggesting that British troops can export the professionalism of the British military to the African continent.

The fearsome woke-fessionalism of the British military

Last week, Britain’s foreign minister David Lammy toured Western Balkans. Among other nations, he visited Kosovo, another landlocked Balkan nation. Kosovo’s president Vojsa Osmani also proposed a bilateral security agreement with Britain and expressed readiness to participate alongside British troops in Ukraine if the British sign the security agreement that she is proposing (nudge, nudge, wink, wink).

Crawling with spies stirring trouble

What do Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina have in common and which makes their security of such interest to Great Britain? They are both situated in Western Balkans, which British officials referred to as the second flashpoint (Ukraine being the first one), and which could be encouraged to antagonize Serbia and get a new Balkan wars going. Bosnian opposition leader Slaven Raguž recently stated that Britain is the most influential foreign power in Sarajevo and that it’s crawling with British spies. He also noted that people there perceive them as trouble makers who are stirring the pot in the region and exacerbating ethnic tensions between the Bosnian Muslims and the Serbs.

All these events have disconcerting parallels with those of 1914, when British intelligence and her secret diplomacy were choreographing the lead-up to the outbreak of World War 1. Today, as their gambit in Ukraine is failing, it seems that they dusted off their Balkans playbook in order to stir up the second European flashpoint and perhaps get World War 3 going in earnest. Then as now, the agenda is driven by the moneylender oligarchy of the City of London. The British people, of course, are being kept in the dark under the increasingly oppressive regime that is consistently fomenting misery at home while stirring up mayhem abroad.

To learn more about TrendCompass reports please check our main TrendCompass web page. We encourage you to also have a read through our TrendCompass User Manual page. For U.S. investors: an investable, fully managed portfolio based on I-System TrendFollowing is available from our partner advisory (more about it here).

Today’s trading signals

With yesterday’s closing prices we have the following changes for the Key Markets portfolio: