Selim Ibraimi- This may sound like we are talking about an individual perspective, but in reality, it is the perspective for the future of a state in international politics, the chance of survival, or the perspective for future changes.
In the context of geopolitics, it is slightly different from the point of view that an analyst of the area must take into account all factors to see the strategic perspective, including the past, the present, and the possible characteristics of the future, based on judgments and predictions. In our time, the perspective of a state is a consequence of internal and external factors.
And this is because of the importance of powers, in particular economic, political, and ideological, which have an impact on the region, e.g., in the Balkans and other areas of the world, where the individual perspective remains outside the analysis, and the strategic one comes into play.
In reality, recent events in the region and in Europe show that the geographical determinism of the region is losing its power due to technological interventions, and the advancement of intelligence (espionage) and artificial intelligence methods from everyday life to the highest state circles.
Let us take a historical look at our idea, which is related to today’s current affairs. The strategic perspective is something other than a perspective that another individual party presents for a certain event or for a process. The strategic perspective here has to do with the state and sometimes the role of external actors in the governmental bodies of a state.
It must be said that the strategic perspective arose centuries ago, mainly with the increase in the importance of religion in Europe, the expansion in the Mediterranean, and, in the Balkans, without excluding other parts of the world.
The perspective at that time was mainly based on judgment, which also relied on intelligence or on building a network based on informants, such as merchants, etc.
All these developments formed the strategic perspective that was necessary for the statesmen of that time. Now in modern times, with the development of technologies and artificial intelligence, things have changed, and the strategic perspective for states has also undergone dramatic changes.
In recent days, the media in North Macedonia reported that informants in favor of Serbia and Turkey have been discovered in the cabinet of President Gordana Silajnovska.
This can be seen as a perspective of strategic intelligence with the infiltration of spies, which for North Macedonia and states such as Kosovo, Montenegro, Albania, etc., can have direct effects on political and social life.
Recent events always remind us of the past. As an example, here we can bring the role of Ragusa (today Dubrovnik) in the Middle Ages in favor of the Ottoman Empire. Raguza then sent spies to European cities in the service of Ottoman officials to receive and gain information about the activities of European armies, the economy, trade, etc.
All this data was a new and important perspective for the Ottomans in undertaking military offensives on the borders of the then European city-states. In this context, as historian Emrah Safa Gürkan writes in his work “Spies for the Sultan: Ottoman Intelligence in the Great Rivalry with Spain” (Georgetown University Press, 2024), at the time of the Great Siege of Malta, when the Ottoman Empire lost all contact with its fleet, a Habsburg agent reported with amazement how the Ragusan intelligence network operated with extraordinary speed: “Every day, news reaches Ragusa from Messina, especially regarding the activities of His Majesty’s general, Senor Don Garcia de Toledo. Every time he washes his face, we hear about it in Ragusa, and immediately a Turkish spy sets off to take this news to Istanbul.”
From the evidence that the author brings in the book, we can see how Ragusa and the city-states of that time survived by selling information to the empires of the time.
It cannot be considered as a curiosity, but a tradition that would remain as a successor in regional and international politics.
Ragusa then used its strategic position and the importance it had between Venice and the Ottoman Empire.
In modern politics, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, and other Balkan countries are in the same position; some have a more suitable position, and some are more complicated states.
“Squeezed” between major regional powers such as Russia, Serbia, Turkey, the EU, and the US, under pressure, states are forced to take actions that often go to the detriment of national interests, and sometimes from the same states they become the object of attacks and manipulations, as in the case of North Macedonia.
The infiltration of spies into the cabinet of the essential, as reported by the media in Skopje, is not an unusual event.
It can be seen as a continuation of the same old geopolitical logic, where information remains the most powerful strategic weapon.
The differences from the Middle Ages to the present day are that technology and other tools have changed the way information is transmitted, but not the nature of the game, which remains the same.
According to current trends, this reality will be to the detriment of current states, making states like North Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, or even Albania more vulnerable.
The above comparison is an example of the need to constantly learn from the past for the challenges of the time.
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