Thus far in the research, it’s been established that an intense New Cold War competition is taking place in the Balkans between the unipolar and multipolar worlds, with the latter vehemently working to bring their transnational connective projects to the region, whereas the former is ready to do whatever it takes to stop them. This situational context sets the stage for investigating the socio-political vulnerabilities of each of the Balkan states prior to commencing a detailed examination of their most probable Hybrid War scenarios.
Both Balkan Stream and the Balkan Silk Road are envisioned to run straight through the Central Balkans (with China’s multipolar megaproject presently being the only politically feasible of the two), thus making this corridor of states the geostrategic focus of Hybrid War, with specific attention being paid to the Republic of Macedonia and Serbia. On the contrary, scarcely any destabilizing attention is directed towards the Eastern Balkan states of Romania and Bulgaria, mostly owing to their relative insulation from regionally disruptive factors such as the “refugee” crisis (which will be discussed in this section at length).
