Global Research

All Global Research articles can be read in 51 languages by activating the Translate Website button below the author’s name (only available in desktop version).

To receive Global Research’s Daily Newsletter (selected articles), click here.

Click the share button above to email/forward this article to your friends and colleagues. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

Global Research Fundraising: Stop the Pentagon’s Ides of March

***

NATO is the single most dangerous threat to global security. The belligerent alliance is anything but what it claims to be. Although formed as a supposedly “defensive alliance”, NATO never actually defended anyone or anything in the 75 years of its most unfortunate existence. Quite the contrary, the belligerent alliance attacked dozens of countries, particularly in the aftermath of the (First) Cold War, with its first victim being Yugoslavia/Serbia.

The political West fabricated the narrative that Serbs were allegedly “war criminals” in order to justify its direct invasion of the country it previously carved up by backing various separatist movements, particularly the narco-terrorists in Serbia’s southern province of Kosovo and Metohia, radical Islamists in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as the Neo-Nazi/Ustashe regime in Croatia.

In the last over two decades, the United States made sure to “legitimize” this conquest by imposing its narrative on everyone in the region and the rest of the world.

An important segment of that was pushing the newly established countries (in reality mere satellite states) into joining NATO, regardless of the will of the people.

Just how “sovereign” these new entities are is perhaps best illustrated by their infinitely servile relationship with the belligerent alliance, with Albania being perhaps the most extreme example. Namely, on March 4, Tirana officially re-opened the Kucova Airbase. The site was built in the early 1950s, but was largely abandoned in the 1990s, when the Albanian Air Force effectively stopped existing after it retired all of its fixed-wing aircraft, leaving only a handful of helicopters.

Source. NATO

Over the last several years, NATO invested in reviving this (First) Cold War relic “into a modern hub for NATO future air operations”, according to its own announcement. Kucova Airbase is located approximately 85 km south of Tirana and its new official purpose will be to serve as a logistics, air operations, training and exercises hub for the Albanian Air Force (FASh) and other NATO air forces. However, in reality, as previously mentioned, the Albanian military doesn’t really have a functioning air arm, as FASh is quite small and doesn’t really need an airbase such as the one at Kucova. On the other hand, NATO does, which is why it invested around €50 million (nearly $55 million) in the renovation and modernization of the airbase. NATO insists that it’s of strategic importance.

“The airbase will serve as an important NATO air hub,” said Acting Spokesperson Dylan White, adding: “The makeover of Kucova Airbase is a strategic investment and shows that NATO continues to strengthen its presence in the Western Balkans, an area of strategic importance to the Alliance.”

The opening ceremony certainly suggests that it’s considered extremely important, as it was attended by the Albanian President Bajram Begaj, Prime Minister Edi Rama, President of the Assembly Lindita Nikolla, Defense Minister Niko Peleshi and the Chief of Defense Major General Arben Kingji. In addition, Italian Defense Minister Guido Crosetto, Turkish Lieutenant General Göksel Kahya and several other high-ranking officials and military officers were present and also spoke at the ceremony. NATO also sent the Commander of the Combined Air Operations Center Torrejón, Lieutenant General Juan Pablo Sanchez De Lara and the General Manager of the NATO Support and Procurement Agency (NSPA), Stacy Cummings. This suggests that the airbase will be a major logistics hub for NATO.

According to their own assessment, Kucova is the belligerent alliance’s biggest project in Albania in the last decade.

Renovation work began with a ground-breaking ceremony in 2019 and includes upgrades and modernization of the control tower, runways, hangars and storage facilities. The renovation was officially funded by NATO’s Security Investment Program (NSIP), the purpose of which is to cover major construction projects in various vassals and satellite states. Albania is certainly among the least sovereign ones, as evidenced by what will effectively be full exterritoriality rights for the Kucova Airbase. As previously mentioned, FASh lacks any fixed-wing aircraft, so it doesn’t really need an airbase with modern runways, hangars, control towers and storage facilities.

This probably makes it the first such airbase in the area, suggesting that NATO is moving its major logistics hubs eastward, making it a part of the political West’s general “Drang nach Osten”. The mainstream propaganda machine is already making laughable claims that the airbase is there to “ease growing fears in the Balkans over creeping Russian influence”. Obviously, the only growing fears that the region should have is finding itself in an even firmer grip of NATO’s warmongering claws. Unfortunately, that’s precisely what’s happening now, as evidenced by the presence of USAF F-16s and F-35s. According to Defense News, the project “gained urgency as Moscow foments anti-Western sentiment in the Balkans”. Once again, such ludicrous claims are based on nothing but Neo-McCarthyism.

“This is a base that (will add) another element of security for our Western Balkans region which we all know is endangered from the threat and neo-imperialist ambitions of the Russian Federation,” Albanian Prime Minister Edi Rama said during the opening ceremony.

Truly horrific that “poor Albania” is jeopardized by the “big bad Russian Bear“. However, in all seriousness, Tirana should be the last to speak of someone else’s “neo-imperialist ambitions” given the fact that, with US/NATO help, it established political power and influence in at least three states and entities of former Yugoslavia ever since NATO invaded the region and sent its occupation forces. This includes Albanian elements in Montenegro, North Macedonia and the NATO-occupied Serbian province of Kosovo and Metohia. Albanian radicals usually project power through their narco-terrorist operations that are affecting not just Europe, but much of the world, which has become a major issue for the Albanian people too, as they’re leaving en masse wherever the narco-terrorists take over.

*

Note to readers: Please click the share button above. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter and subscribe to our Telegram Channel. Feel free to repost and share widely Global Research articles.

This article was originally published on InfoBrics.

Drago Bosnic is an independent geopolitical and military analyst. He is a regular contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from InfoBrics