The EU doesn’t include the UK, Canada, Norway, or Turkey. It isn’t really a good NATO substitute.

I’m surprised it took this long. The complete chaos in the US offers a perfect opportunity for China to make its move.

Thank you for writing that longer post, it fills in a lot of detail that my friend tried to explain. It sounds like that transitional period will be VERY precarious. Would Serbians consider the help of an international group (the UN, or whoever you choose) to help keep things stable?

My understanding is that there isn’t really an obvious opposition party, right? Do you think once big-lips is finally gone that the replacement will be a complicated German-style coalition?

I have one Serbian friend who lives in a small town there and has been keeping me up to date on this. There are big marches every weekend and smaller ones every day, especially in the four university cities (Belgrade, Novi Sad, Nis and Kragujevac). The particularly interesting (to me) point that he raised is how much respect and support Serbs are getting from neighbouring countries, which, if you know anything about the Balkans, is truly remarkable. If they can pull this off it may have positive repercussions not only in Serbia but in the whole region.

These are a bunch of civil servants, not tradespeople. Trade unions are the ones you don’t fuck with.