Quote Originally Posted by HoreTore View Post
That's the US+western europe vs eastern europe(russia) fight. I doubt China or India cares too much about that. So I'd guess that the chinese and indians see it as an uninteresting backwater. There's nothing there for either of them to exploit there, and little business to be done...
Global Powers think globally. That's why they're called Global Powers. If it's interesting enough for one global power to build a huge military base and fill it with tens of thousands of soldiers it's interesting enough for others. If we try to follow your logic, then the same could be applied to US, which, as we know, didn't find Balkans either uninteresting or backwater. Not now, not 20 years ago when the ex-yu situation started to heat up, not 30 ago when Tito died and one US carrier immediately sailed in the Adriatic and so on... And world is getting smaller. If anything, areas like this will become even more interesting for the big guys. And stuff like independence of Kosovo, which is illegal and has no moral or historical justification, will serve as an excellent point of pressure....