An Obsession with Square Kilometers

The question of national interest (which should always be written with quotation marks) is in fact a search for an answer as to the motives and goals of one specific state.

Just as it can be claimed that most people wish to live and be healthy and alive, because the small number of suicides and hypochondriacs is proof of this, the same can be said of states - most states wish to survive as organizations within a given territory and with a particular population. This claim is true in principle, but some states become suicidal, and don't give a hoot about their survival. This happens when the political elite with, or without the approval of the majority of the population, wishes to merge into a new state, or dismember the existing one. Sometimes the wish for unification is sincere as with Austria's urge to unite with Germany in the period between the two world wars. Sometimes it is just a useful phrase, one that most of the Arab regimes use in their alleged wish for a great all-Arab state. It remains to be seen if the heads of the Serb states and their ministers and commanders really and truly wish to become part of Greater Serbia. Experience has shown that those supporting Vojvodina's full autonomy prefer to hold top posts in a small state rather than be ordinary citizens in a big one.

A tendency towards a conscious breaking up is strongest in multi-national states influenced by nationalism, and a belief that every nation should have its own, separate state. The latest example to point is the splitting up of Czechoslovakia into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. This move was carried through by the political elite, even though most of the population opposed it. This is not the first time that nationalism is set up vertically and then spreads horizontally. As in other matters, Yugoslavia's case was more complex. It is clear now that the Communist-nationalist elite wanted the disintegration of Yugoslavia. They just didn't manage to agree over how to divide the territory and material goods. Slogans that life is better on one's own, didn't prove true in the case of the Czech Republic or Slovakia, and certainly not in Yugoslavia.

Hans Morgenthau, an American political scientist of German-Jewish extraction claimed that a state which does not follow its national interests conducts a bad foreign policy. In order to prove that these interests are objective and do not depend on who is in power, Morgenthau kept returning to Russia which he believed to have always wanted an outlet to the warm seas, regardless of who was at the head of the state - the Tsar, Stalin or Brezhnev. In this way, and against his wishes, Morgenthau became a geopolitician, one of those who believe that a country's geographical position is the only factor which determines its fate. Geopolitics have, thanks in part to Hitler's wholehearted acceptance of the idea, gained the reputation of a parascience. This is best proved by the number of geopoliticians in present day Serbia and Croatia, perfect environments for swindlers. On top of it all, Serbian geopoliticians don't even know their geography, and are given to claims that Germany wants an outlet to the warm seas (at Serbia's expense, of course), even though none of Germany's numerous ports ever freeze over.

Those who studied national interests from an empirical angle, came to the conclusion that this was not an objective and permanent trend, but that "national interests were those which the elite in power defined as such at a given moment." This statement is brutally precise, because all national interests are basically a conscious or unconscious pompous fabrication launched by a small elite which uses it as a cover for its biases, interests or misconceptions concerning its interests.

The pseudo rationality of long lasting ideas concerning national interests is based on a slothful spirit. In pre-modern times all rulers believed that it was their mission to acquire as much territory as they could. It took the industrial revolution and one more century before it was understood that territorial expansion was not worthwhile, because wealth and the standard of living no longer depended on a country's area and the physical strength of it citizens. Today's prosperous countries are small and they never expanded, or stopped doing so a long time ago (Finland, Switzerland, Sweden, Norway). The richest countries in Asia are not the biggest ones, but those with the greatest productivity. Singapore is a state-city. Taiwan is more developed than China, while Japan is a defeated expansionist power.

In Yugoslavia national interests were cited in connection with realism and against idealism. During the nonaligned period, contrary to President Tito, the people thought that Yugoslavia did not have much interest in keeping company with weak and faraway countries, of running down imperialist forces in the world, supporting Arab terrorists, African dictators, Kim Il Sung of North Korea and Fidel Castro of Cuba, while all the time losing favor with developed countries and important foreign trading partners. During the period of the "international workers' movement" and nonalignment, the citing of national interests should have acted as a warning. Today this archaic medieval doctrine can be found in Yugoslavia, embellished with 19th century Romanticism. When things are analyzed, the only "realistic" thing one ends up with is an obsession with square kilometers. The rest is the worst form of "idealism", offering slogans such as "each on his own land" instead of concrete solutions, citing the danger of living with other faiths, a view that has been embraced by atheists too. All states with any power at all are proclaimed enemies, and alliances are sought with distant lands such as North Korea or nearer at home, an unpredictable Greece. The only rational result is the identification of the people with the regime. This outlook is applied in domestic politics where the opposition is not looked upon as a political opponent, but as a foreign body, a group of traitors and foreign mercenaries. The political elite promises a Swedish standard of living, but prefers to fantasize about China, never stopping to emphasize that it is they who determine the national interests. The elite's insecurity can be seen in the fact that they encourage fear of a national catastrophe. This explains the abundance of conspiracy theories, the popularity of fortune-tellers and prophets, including geopoliticians who wish to prove that "centers of power" want to control strategic strongholds in the Balkans. In this way bellicosity and aggression are the results of adhering to the state's and the people's basic defensive interest - survival. It is necessary to convince the people that hunger, poverty and disease are better than something much worse, that which will happen if the hungry, poor and sick stop following the satiated, rich and rosy-cheeked.