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Bulgaria: The Middle Power That Never Was

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By Jack Cross

(Maps comparing the territorial changes between the Treaties of San Stefano and Berlin, 1878, held by the State Archive of North Macedonia)

When one thinks of Bulgaria’s current position in world, you could be forgiven, by all bar the most passionate Bulgaphiles, in drawing a sizeable blank. Today, the Republic of Bulgaria inhabits a significant chunk of south-eastern Europe on the Black Sea coast yet holds little influence or geopolitical sway in its neighbourhood. This is not, however, for lack of trying.

From its de facto independence in 1878, through four wars and various crises, successive Bulgarian governments have sought to establish themselves as a middle power in the region. Despite ample opportunities, this has come to nought.

The 1st of March marks the 80th anniversary of Bulgaria joining the Berlin Pact, otherwise called the Axis, during the Second World War, a final throw of the dice to reverse the country’s fortunes. The purpose here is to examine the development of Bulgarian foreign policy and why it never achieved the Middle Power status it so clearly craved.

The modern Bulgarian state was born out of war. Namely, the Russo-Turkish War between 1877-78 that ended with the Treaty of San Stefano and established the Principality of Bulgaria, officially under the suzerainty of the Ottoman Empire. This states’ territory was significantly larger than the current republic, encompassing significant parts of modern-day Greece, Serbia and Macedonia, bordering the Black Sea and the Aegean, and dividing Ottoman Europe in two. It was a dream for the Bulgarian independence movement. However, the dream was short lived. The Great Powers of Europe would not accept such Russian expansionism on their backdoor.

So, in a rare moment of European unity, later in 1878, well organised diplomatic opposition from the rest of the Great Powers, and exhaustion from the protracted conflict, forced the Russians to accept an alternative agreement, the Treaty of Berlin. This compromise allowed for a Bulgarian principality, but radically smaller than had originally been envisioned. The new treaty established a Bulgarian state that was of relative power to that of its Balkan neighbours. And, while it gave Bulgaria autonomy over its internal affairs, the treaty prevented the principality from conducting its own foreign policy. Consequently, between 1878-1941, the driving force behind Bulgarian foreign policy was to reverse the Treaty of Berlin and to redraw its borders in the image of San Stefano.

Throughout the years 1878-1913, Bulgaria conducted a remarkably successful foreign policy in pursuit of its territorial ambitions. In 1885, Bulgarian soldiers successfully forced Ottoman authorities out of the province of Eastern Rumelia, which had been under joint Ottoman-Bulgarian rule since 1878. While the move was not in the spirit of the terms of the Treaty of Berlin, Bulgaria did not formally annex the territory, but rather forced the Ottomans to appoint Prince Alexander as governor.

A key element of Bulgarian strategy in this period was patience. Successive governments were happy to bide their time, not overreaching too quickly, carefully choosing moments that incurred minimal risk of failure or diplomatic repercussion. This was seen again in 1908, while much of Europe was gripped by the Bosnian crisis, Bulgaria officially declared its independence, throwing off the last vestiges of Ottoman rule, unifying the principality with Eastern Rumelia and elevating itself to a titular tsardom. The entire affair went off without any serious opposition and no diplomatic backlash was experienced. But it is here that hubris started to develop.

Thirty years of unchallenged expansion will inevitably give one a sense of a Balkan-style manifest destiny. The Bulgarian King and many around him began to dream of further expansion, not just to reclaim the lands lost in the Treaty of Berlin, but even further, to capture Constantinople and Salonika – to create a new Byzantine Empire for the 20th century. One can naturally see the attraction of such acquisitions, but they seemed to forget that these cities were also coveted by others; the Russians pined for the former and the Greeks for the latter.

With their patience wearing thin and the pace of their ambition quickening only four years would pass before Bulgaria would make their next move. The First Balkan War (1912-13) saw Bulgaria make significant territorial gains in Thrace and Macedonia, capturing the major city of Adrianople (modern day Edirne) and ports on the Aegean. They chose not to act alone, but as part of an alliance with the other independent Balkan states and with the diplomatic support of Russia. This war handed Bulgaria the opportunity to become the dominant force in the Balkans. Unlike landlocked Serbia, or Romania with its Black Sea coastline, Bulgaria now had access, through its new Aegean ports, to the Mediterranean and with it the chance for significant economic and naval expansion. Bulgaria was now poised to become a middle power.

Yet, over the next five and a half years, Bulgaria would, through its own miscalculations, lose any claim to this title. In June 1913, Bulgaria, unhappy with the settlement of the previous war, launched a second conflict against its former allies Serbia and Greece to secure further lands in Macedonia and the port of Salonika (modern day Thessaloniki). They started a second war with no allies and an exhausted army, the patience of previous years was now gone. Despite some initial success, the Second Balkan War quickly became a disaster for Bulgaria, with the kingdom enduring Greek, Serbian, Ottoman and Romanian invasions. The subsequent peace would see Bulgaria cede territory to all four of these opponents, including the return of Adrianople to the Ottomans.

Within Bulgarian history, defeat in the Second Balkan War is often referred to as the ‘first national catastrophe’. This gross overestimation of their own abilities would not be the last, as, in 1915, Bulgaria would join the Central Powers in the First World War, attempting yet again to reclaim the gains of 1878. But once again, their ambition was not matched by their abilities. The Great War saw Bulgaria suffer yet another defeat and lose yet more territory, including all its Aegean coastal possessions. Bulgaria was also forced to pay war reparations and reduce the size of its army. In the midst of this defeat, Tsar Ferdinand abdicated his throne and fled into exile. Bulgaria ended its third war in five years in its worst position since independence, with no allies, a weak economy and a pitiful military.

The inter-war period was one of isolation, yet the dream of San Stefano was still very much alive. The very last gamble, allying with Germany during the Second World War, merely confirmed what had been known about Bulgarian power twenty years previously, that its time had been and gone. Not only did they pick the eventual losing side, but they were too weak to make a substantial contribution to the Axis war effort, Bulgaria did not contribute a single soldier to the Axis invasions of Yugoslavia and Greece but was granted territories in line with those of the Treaty of San Stefano. It did however, oversee the transportation of Jewish populations from these areas to German concentration camps. Yet by the end of the war, it was clear Bulgaria had once again backed the wrong horse and it saw in 1944 broken, humiliated and under Soviet occupation until 1947.

Few countries in modern history have experienced a rise and fall with the speed with which Bulgaria did. In 1912, Bulgaria had all the makings of a strong middle power, none of these survive today. A popular delusion appears to have gripped Bulgaria in the decades after independence, one of expansionist destiny. But successive Bulgarian monarchs and politicians forgot the most important part of European diplomacy: the almighty strength of the Balance of Power. Those who overreach and seek power beyond what those around them will tolerate, are doomed to fail. Bulgaria’s early success was down to careful timing and realistic expectations but emboldened by their own success and convinced by the certainty of their mission, all sense of proportion or perspective was lost.

Jack Cross is currently pursuing a master’s in the History of War in the War Studies Department at King’s College London. His main research interests are diplomatic history, the role of great and middle powers within current international politics, as well as the politics of the Balkans and Middle East.

[1] Sabrina P. Ramet, ‘Realpolitik or Foreign Policy Surrealism: A Reconsideration of the Peace Treaties of Berlin (1878), London (1913), Versailles (1919) and Trianon (1920)’ (ed.) James Pettifer and Tom Buchanan, War in the Balkans: Conflict and Diplomacy before World War I (London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2016) p. 25.

[2] A.J.P. Taylor. The Struggle for Mastery of Europe: 1848-1918 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1954) p. 249.

[3] F.R. Bridge and Roger Bullen, The Great Powers and the European States System (London: Longman, 1980) p. 162

[4] George Buchanan, My Mission to Russia and other Diplomatic Memories (Devon: A & F Publications 2020) p. 58.

[5] Richard C. Hall, The Balkan Wars, 1912-1913: Prelude to the First World War (London: Routledge, 2005) p. 110.

[6] Christopher Clark, Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 (London: Penguin Books, 2013)

[7] Nikolai Vukow, ‘The great expectations: political visions, military preparation and the national upsurge in Bulgaria at the onset of the Balkan Wars’ (ed.) Dominik Geppert, William Mulligan and Andreas Rose, The Wars before the Great War: Conflict and International Politics before the Outbreak of the First World War (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016) P. 129.

[8] Richard C. Hall, ‘Bulgaria in the First World War’ The Historian, Vol. 73, No. 2 (Summer 2011) P. 301

[9] Gerhard L. Weinberg, ‘Ignored and Misunderstood Aspects of the Holocaust’ Historical Reflections, Vol 39, No. 2 (Summer 2013) p. 10.

[10] Irina Gigova, ‘Sofia Was Bombed? Bulgaria’s Forgotten War with the Allies’ History and Memory, Vo. 23, No. 2 (Winter 2011) p. 135.

 

EU Foreign Policy: More Grand Delusion than Grand Strategy

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by Eliz Peck

24 May 2019

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emmanuel Macron after the signing of a new Germany-France friendship treaty at the historic Town Hall in Aachen, Germany on Tuesday, 22 January 2019. (AP Photo/Martin Meissner).

Henry Kissinger once said that “no foreign policy – no matter how ingenious – has any chance of success if it is born in the minds of a few and carried in the hearts of none”. With the EU divided not just between – but within – its member states, a united EU foreign and security policy seems less likely than ever to succeed, regardless of the strength of its leaders.

The job title ‘High Representative of the Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy’ sounds important. And yet, relatively few everyday people living in the EU have probably heard of Federica Mogherini, or her job. In June 2016, Mogherini’s office published a European Union Global Strategy. It projected its vision of the EU’s grand strategy. In its introduction she urgently called for a united EU foreign and security policy in the face of “increasingly fractured identities.” Her calls came following the crises in Libya, Syria and Ukraine, where the EU proved itself an inadequate foreign policy actor, incapable of coordinating amongst its member states an effective and timely response to international crises.

It is misguided to simply attribute these foreign policy failures to weak political leadership. At state-level, leaders of the larger European countries have been as pro-active as domestic contexts have allowed in seeking to combat international crises. Chancellor Merkel sacrificed her political longevity when she threw open Germany’s doors in 2015 in response to the migrant crisis, asserting Wir Schaffen Das (‘We Can Do This’). The growth of the far-right, anti-immigration Alternative for Germany (AfD) party can be traced back to Merkel’s ambitious open-door refugee-policy. This domestic backlash pushed her to back-peddle on a liberal policy, instead striking a deal with Turkey in March 2016 that would curb the number of refugees arriving in Europe.

Although countries can cooperate in certain foreign policies, grand strategy is typically the preserve of an individual state. Hal Brands, Professor of Global Affairs at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, sees grand strategy as “a purposeful and coherent set of ideas about what a nation seeks to accomplish in the world”. At their very core, grand strategy and foreign policy are a projection of the values and identity of the state. We see this clearly in President Truman’s policy of ‘containment’ between 1945 and 1953, which Brands describes as ‘the golden age of grand strategy’. First articulated in George Kennan’s so-called Long Telegram, the strategy of containment sought to mobilise the military, economic and diplomatic resources of the American state during the Cold War in order to mitigate the rise of their ideological and strategic rival, the USSR. Viewed from this perspective, the Marshall Plan not only aimed for a peaceful post-war economic reconstruction of Europe but sought to promote capitalist notions of liberty and prosperity that lie at the very heart of the American Dream.

Launching a coordinated European grand strategy for multiple states and multiple identities was always going to be tough. What is more, the EU is vast. Individual strategic priorities differ because of the way that they are shaped by historical context and the geo-political landscape. Russian aggrandisement is a pressing concern for Eastern European countries like Poland, but not for Southern European countries like Italy who are struggling with the flow of migrants crossing the Mediterranean.

No issue more clearly illustrates the failure to coordinate a single EU grand strategy than the rise of China. Despite the recently published EU-China document deeming China a ‘systemic rival’ and calling for ‘full unity’ in EU responses, the member states have nevertheless prioritised national interests over falling in line with Brussels. This is seen in the growing bilateral links between China and the Central and Eastern European states – the so-called 16+1 group, eleven of whom are in the EU – who are hungry for Belt and Road investments. In March 2019, President Macron tried to show a united front when he invited Chancellor Merkel and European Commissioner Jean-Claude Juncker to his meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping. He triumphantly claimed “The face of a Europe that speaks with one voice on the international scene is emerging.” Only days later, this claim was undermined when Italy became the first G7 partner to sign a Memorandum of Understanding with China, endorsing the Belt and Road.

The new critical focus on EU foreign and security policy comes in the wake of the radically changed geopolitical landscape. Before 2016, there was little desire for a coordinated EU foreign policy as outlined in the EU Global Strategy. After plans for a European Army were abandoned in 1954, the European integration project was first economic and later political. Secure in their defensive NATO alliance, and on American support for individual foreign policy, the larger EU countries felt an officially coordinated foreign policy with their non-NATO neighbours was not a priority.

Yet Trump’s erratic ‘America First’ policies have thrown doubt on the previously steadfast NATO pact. In a somewhat frantic response, EU countries have had to look to each other for support. The 2017 formation of the Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) – an EU defence union – and Macron’s proposal of a European Intervention Initiative (E2I) at Sorbonne can be viewed in this light.

But this comes too little, too late. The time for establishing the groundwork for a common foreign and security policy was when times were good, not now. Euroscepticism dominates today’s political landscape. The rise of the far-right in Hungary and Poland, the populism of Brexit and Italy’s Five Star Movement and the domestic turmoil facing Macron and Merkel are calling into question certain values – multilateral cooperation and human rights, to name a few - that are the founding assumptions of EU cooperation. What we see now is a crisis of identity that goes to the very heart of the European project.

Collaboration between these countries is not impossible. The success of Europol and the European Counter Terrorism Centre show that states unite against a common-enemy. EU foreign policy has been even more effective in coordinating maritime missions aimed to disrupt acts of Somali-piracy based off the Horn of Africa, which threaten trade routes off the Gulf of Aden. But arguably, this success traces to the clear economic incentive for participation; most other foreign policy issues do not have such direct economic benefits. Without a wholehearted commitment to the European project, states will run into difficulty.

The last time the European territories’ foreign and security policies were coordinated under one single grand strategy was under Charlemagne, the ‘Father of Europe’ who died in the year 814 and was buried in Aachen. President Macron and Chancellor Merkel symbolically met there at the start of this year, in a show of solidarity and mutual commitment more than half a century after the Élysée Treaty was signed. Designed as a show of strength and renewed commitment, the limited progress made at the meeting only reinforced just how difficult foreign and security coordination is in the context of the current European disharmony.

Eliz Peck is an MA candidate in Conflict, Security and Development at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London. You can follow her on Twitter @PeckEliz

Image source: https://www.apnews.com/02d7f1384f454f09b31a7c852d275e4e

Strife Series on United Nations Peacekeeping, Part I – The Fate of UN Peacekeeping and the Changing Tides of Geopolitics

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By Dr Samir Puri

The UN Security Council (Credit Image: UN Photo/Mark Garten)

The UN’s viability to act as a peacekeeping force for good is always constrained by geopolitics. When the geopolitical tides change – as they evidently are in the twenty-first century, with the rise of China, the resurgence of Russia, and other developments – the UN feels the impact. When it comes to peacekeeping, the UN risks being lost at sea.

We tend to associate UN peacekeeping with interventions in war-ravaged countries. The UN’s blue helmets have deployed to countries like Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the 2000s, mitigating the cataclysms of these wars.

In fact, keeping the peace between countries was the UN’s original mission. Today, the convulsions of a changing balance of power between major world powers are starting to be felt. As such, the UN’s original mission may become much more relevant once again.

“The Parliament of Man”, wrote historian Paul Kennedy, never mentioned the word “peacekeeping” in its Charter: “In 1945, the term meant keeping the peace among nations and checking those that threatened their neighbours or countries further afield”. Indeed, when the UN Charter was signed in San Francisco on 26 June 1945 by 50 countries, the atomic bombs were yet to fall on Japan. The UN formally came into existence on 24 October 1945, mere weeks after the Second World War ended.

It is from the theme of Kennedy’s seminal work, “The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers”, that the UN was born. Since its origins, the number of UN member states has almost quadrupled to 193. But the five permanent members of the UN Security Council (U.S., UK, France, China and Russia) have stubbornly retained their places around the famous horse shoe table in the UN headquarters in New York.

The UN Security Council is where peacekeeping dreams can die. There is no better demonstration than the UN’s inability to prevent Syria’s civil war from entering its eighth year. The carnage in Aleppo in 2016, or Ghouta in 2018, can make us ask what the point of the UN is. Ever since Russia’s military intervened in 2015 to prop up Bashar al-Assad’s regime, Russia’s diplomats have wielded their Security Council veto to help Assad’s forces win on the battlefield.

The UN’s “Geneva Process”, run by Staffan De Mistrua, has repeatedly stalled. If it did not have enough obstacles already, Russia has convened its own talks in Sochi and Astana to exclude the anti-Assad rebels and undermine UN attempts to negotiate an end to Syria’s civil war. Russia simply will not allow the UN to set the pace and tone of conflict management over Syria.

Nevertheless, the UN will never be written out of the script entirely. UN agencies, like the UNDP and the UNHCR, may still be useful when it comes to clearing up messy post-conflict situations.

Even after US President George W. Bush famously circumvented the Security Council to invade Iraq in 2003, the UN still played a nascent role after the invasion. The UN sent its best man for the job, Sergio Vieira De Mello, to try to broker a political deal amongst Iraq’s newly liberated factions after Saddam Hussein had been toppled. On 19 August, 2003, Al Qaeda militants killed De Mello in a suicide truck bombing. Cowed, the UN withdrew its field presence from Iraq at a time when it was badly needed. Bush condemned the bombing. Even if his invasion of Iraq had undermined and divided the UN, then-Secretary General Kofi Annan had still tried to support Iraq’s reconstruction.

Wars such as in Iraq and Syria involve high geopolitical stakes for major world powers. In such wars, the UN’s ability to intervene and stabilise conflicts tends to be low. Conversely, the UN will always remain a much more viable platform for interventions in conflicts with lower geopolitical stakes.

As Peter Rudolf noted in a 2017 article for Survival, “peacekeeping operations have undergone considerable change since the turn of the century. Peacekeepers are deployed in a greater variety of scenarios, ranging from monitoring ceasefires to complex peace operations. The protection of civilians has become an important focus, and operations have become more robust in their use of force to defend their mandate. Despite these changes, the UN continues to champion its original peacekeeping principles, specifically the consent of the parties. Peace operations, like the evolving MONUSCO mission in the DRC, and MINUSMA in Mali have “blurred the line between peace keeping and peace enforcement”, according to Rudolf.

Elsewhere in the world, the UN provides all manner of bespoke conflict interventions that fall short of peacekeeping. In Colombia, after President Juan Manual Santos agreed to a peace deal with the FARC, ending over five decades of guerrilla war, UN observers supervised the FARC’s handover of weapons in 2017. This is vital work for which the impartiality of the UN’s personnel is an asset.

Then there is mediation and UN good offices. As Roxaneh Bazergan of the UN’s Mediation Support Unit explains, the UN provides technical support to regional organisations that try to manage wars, like the African Union in the DRC, and the OSCE in Ukraine. In 2018, Secretary-General Antonio Guterres appointed a new envoy to the Yemen conflict, charging Martin Griffiths to broker peace in the war-torn country. The odds may be stacked against Griffiths, but the UN should at least try.

Wherever there is a conflict, the UN is sure to be providing or offering some sort of specialist service. From full blown peacekeeping missions, to disaster relief, to mediation support and envoys. It is hardly fair to accuse the UN and its agencies of shirking the challenge.

Rather, the real question is whether the geopolitical winds are blowing favourably for the UN to make an impact. The pride of the great powers will often be the UN’s first hurdle. The UN could either be set up to fail, or simply not be invited in the first place.

The rise and the fall of great powers always sets the overall tone, which is why we should pay attention to the changes that are clearly afoot in the international order. The U.S. is slowly shifting from being the world’s undisputed heavyweight champion, to the world’s disputed heavyweight champion.

China will back the UN when its national interests allow it. For example, if the UN can stabilise an African country that China does business with, Beijing will not stand in the way. Otherwise, China will certainly block UN processes that intrude on its great power space. For instance, China prevented the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) from being applied in disputes in the South China Sea.

For the great powers, the UN has always been useful when convenient, and an obstacle when in the way of national interest. We should expect to witness much more of this as the world enters a new phase of rivalry and geopolitical competition.

 

Dr Samir Puri is a lecturer in War Studies at King’s College London. His most recent book is called Fighting and Negotiating with Armed Groups: the Difficulty of Securing Strategic Outcomes. In 2017, his article, “The Strategic Hedging of Iran, Russia, and China: Juxtaposing Participation in the Global System with Regional Revisionism”, was published by the Journal of Global Security Studies.

Image Source:

https://news.un.org/en/story/2013/09/451502-un-security-council-agrees-rid-syria-chemical-weapons-endorses-peace-process