This commentary is by Nathan Fry, the Vermont National Guard’s bilateral affairs officer at the U.S. Embassy in Skopje, North Macedonia. He is a Russian speaker, worked and studied in Russia, Belarus and Kyrgyzstan for nearly a year, and once dreamed of bringing his children to walk the streets of Moscow. The opinions expressed in this article are his alone.
On Thursday, Feb. 24, I woke up at my usual 5:30 a.m. to get an early start to a typically busy work schedule as a military diplomat serving in the U.S. Embassy in North Macedonia.
Unlike my previous assignments at the “tactical” military level, where decisions happened quickly and every day seemed to have its share of adventure, I had spent the first 18 months at the “strategic” level getting used to a slower pace of change and a culture more focused on building and maintaining relationships.
I would start the day with a final travel brief to a contingent of North Macedonia’s senior military and emergency management leaders scheduled to depart for Washington, D.C., and Vermont on the following Sunday. Then it was a sprint over to North Macedonia’s main military base to escort the U.S. ambassador during a closing ceremony for a training event between U.S. Marines and North Macedonia’s special forces.
The afternoon was scheduled with a senior U.S. military leader from the NATO Kosovo Force to receive some information briefings on training opportunities with North Macedonia’s army. If I was lucky, I’d get a few minutes for emails and routine office work at the end of the day.
Despite the building tension with Russia, I avoided checking the morning news for a few minutes, allowing myself time to throw on running clothes, stretch, and grab breakfast before I planned to get a quick run in. On Feb. 24, my run never came.
Down in the kitchen, I opened my phone to my go-to news site, expecting to see updates about troop movements or negotiations. Instead, the headline read “Russia Invades Ukraine.”
I took a deep breath before scrolling down. After 15 years in the military, I’ve tried to remember in times of crisis the old mantra that “the first report is always inaccurate” and paused to consider that maybe the headline was an overstatement. As we all know now, it wasn’t.
I rushed through breakfast, packed my bag, and raced to my office at North Macedonia’s Ministry of Defense on my bike. It was now around 7 a.m. and the streets were still quiet, with only buses and a few cars on the street.
Opening my email in the Ministry, I found no messages from the Embassy regarding changes to the ambassador’s schedule. Picking up the phone, I rang her executive assistant.
“I expect you know why I’m calling,” I cut right to the point after we exchanged greetings.
“She’s still on,” he replied, “but there’s going to be a change. Can you get her 15 minutes of one-on-one with the minister of defense before the ceremony? We can shift the actual ceremony later, if necessary. The ambassador needs to have face time with the minister.”
I agreed to set up the meeting and, after we hung up, a flurry of phone calls began to adjust schedules and arrange meetings between the ambassador and North Macedonia’s key leaders. The diplomatic pace that I was used to — steady and deliberate — had kicked into high gear in a matter of minutes.
A day of assurances
Throughout the U.S. Embassy in North Macedonia and in every U.S. Embassy on the European continent, the same process repeated itself throughout the day — hasty phone calls, schedules rearranged, meetings canceled or extended, leaders conversed, and assurances offered to friends, partners, allies.
On Feb. 24, I witnessed one small part of the reaction to the most significant armed conflict that has occurred on the European continent since World War II. And, given how far away and insignificant this conflict may feel to the ordinary American citizen, I think it’s worth taking a moment to try to detail the ways that Russia’s attack on Ukraine matters to the United States and our legacy to the world.
Over the last 100 years, Europe has seen four significant periods of redrawing borders and the creation of new states — after the First and Second World Wars, in the period from 1989 to 1992 as the communist states of the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia separated, and in 2008 when Kosovo broke away from Serbia.
During each period, the trend has generally been toward breaking up larger states to provide national identity to smaller countries, such as when Yugoslavia dissolved into Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia. And, although these new states often gained a unique national identity that they previously did not have, being a small, independent state comes with its risks — border disputes, a small economy, and old rivalries are common issues.
Soon after the breakup of the Soviet Union, many former Soviet states determined that aligning westward, toward Europe, rather than eastward, back to Russia, would solve many of their challenges as small, new nations. They declared their intent to integrate into Western Europe, applied for NATO membership, and, in most cases, saw European Union membership follow soon after.
Until 2021 and Russia’s invasion, this seemed to be such a recipe for economic and national success that even countries on Europe’s periphery, such as Ukraine and Georgia, voluntarily aspired to this path. NATO membership meant, at its core, assurance — assurance of recognized national borders, of open cooperation among neighboring militaries, of intelligence sharing rather than espionage, and of a recognition of even small states as peers and valuable contributors to the alliance.
NATO truly meant national security. This national security led to stability, stability to EU membership, and EU membership to increased national prosperity. Like any superior product that outshines its competitors, the contrast between the Western model and Russia’s stalled economy didn’t need to be advertised.
Of the 22 European countries that emerged out of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Warsaw Pact countries and Yugoslavia, all but six had voluntarily joined NATO by March 2020 and most of these 16 NATO members were either EU members or in discussion to become members on the day that Russia attacked across the border into Ukraine. (Current European countries that formed the Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact nations were Russia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Poland, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, Romania, (east) Germany and Albania. Countries that formed Yugoslavia were Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro and North Macedonia. Currently, only the European countries of Russia, Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine, Serbia, and Bosnia and Herzegovina are not NATO and/or EU members.
About North Macedonia
I know firsthand about the allure of NATO because I’ve spent the last 18 months living it, not only in my daily work with North Macedonia’s military but also in the small interactions of daily life that most Americans don’t see reported on their news feed.
North Macedonia, as a small country surrounded by neighbors that all seem to have a historical claim to some aspect of its heritage, culture, language, or symbols, is often politically embattled to prove its legitimacy to its larger and more powerful neighbors. But even during the height of the political theater, we’ve consistently seen respect and cooperation from neighboring militaries.
For example, at the same time that Bulgarian politicians were vetoing North Macedonia’s admission into the EU, North Macedonia’s special forces were conducting rigorous, effective multilateral combat training with Bulgarian and Greek commandos. Beneath the veneer of political discord was the cooperation of NATO members who respected each other, with the understanding that they might have to rely on and trust each other on the battlefield.
In Kosovo, NATO’s assurance of a peaceful life for Kosovo’s inhabitants has taken on an almost sacred respect for the alliance within the country’s Albanian majority. NATO’s intervention in Kosovo during the 1998-99 conflict between Serbia and Kosovo saved countless lives, paved the way for Kosovo’s independence, and is now commemorated with American flags flying alongside Kosovo’s national flag on houses and businesses throughout the country.
Drive through any border checkpoint with a U.S. passport and you’re likely to have the border guard pose a question to you: What’s America’s 51st state? The answer, the guard will gladly tell you, is Kosovo.
And perhaps the most telling indicator of the feeling of security that NATO brings to many people is not how soldiers and diplomats feel about it, but how teenagers in North Macedonia feel about the alliance. In the weeks of building tensions between Russia, Ukraine and NATO, my wife, Kim, had several conversations with her students at the international school where she teaches about the situation and their concerns about the potential for a large conflict to break out only a few countries away (for reference, Kyiv is only about 1,200 miles, or a 20-hour drive, from North Macedonia’s capital Skopje).
In one classroom conversation, a student inquired about whether North Macedonia was a NATO member yet and, when told “yes,” responded calmly, “Oh, then we’re good.” The assurance of security that being a valued and respected member of the larger NATO alliance brings is simply something that many Americans do not understand, given our large country, a national heritage that is distinct from our peaceful neighbors to the north and south, and two oceans that separate us from our nearest meaningful threats.
But while it is one thing to project assurance, it’s a completely different thing to actually deliver on assurances of security in the largest conflict on European soil in nearly 80 years.
Why leaning west makes sense
In the opening weeks of the Russian invasion, as headlines fly back and forth about whether diplomacy worked with Russia or not, I can say with confidence that it is working in my little corner of the alliance. As I described at the start of this article, in the opening hours of the invasion, it became the U.S. Embassy-Skopje’s primary mission to make direct, physical and meaningful contact with our partners.
As with any organization, members look to key leaders as an example during times of crisis. The United States, as the core of the NATO leader countries, immediately went to work through civilian and military diplomats to provide that ever-important assurance to other members that we will uphold our commitments to the alliance if the conflict were to spread. Our partners, in turn, responded with their own assurances to stay true to the NATO charter.
The contrast between Ukraine’s two options is apparent — to the west, NATO, an alliance that recognizes the territorial integrity of even its smallest members, promotes cooperation and trust that seeks to bridge historical rivalries, and has a proven track record of lifting its members into prosperity. In the east, Russia, a single country cloaking its intentions in what are clearly falsehoods, violating the Ukrainian borders that post-Soviet Russia once officially recognized as legitimate, and killing Ukrainian soldiers and civilians with whom it claims brotherly solidarity.
Again, Russia’s actions are the best advertisement to European nations as to why leaning west, to the EU and NATO, is preferable to being aligned with Russia.
Two weeks into this conflict, we do not know what will come next. While a de-escalation may be possible, a simmering insurgency seems more likely and even an escalation could still occur within the coming weeks. As with all wars, many of us will suffer to varying degrees — some will go to war to fight and die, while others may simply pay higher gas prices or go without certain comforts that decades of peace have given us.
Regardless of the direct effect on us as individuals, I urge us all to remember the one way that this conflict will affect us as Americans — in our credibility and trustworthiness on the world stage in fulfilling our promises and commitments. We Americans pride ourselves in our honesty and integrity.
Although there are certainly instances in our past when our governmental leaders have misled the American public and the world, the strength of American altruism and trustworthiness has somehow weathered our missteps and mistakes — mostly, I believe, because of the person-to-person relationships that I saw spring into action over the last two weeks after Russia’s invasion.
Yet the strength of these relationships at the embassy level pales in comparison to the power of the collective voice of the American people. If the time comes for the United States to uphold its commitments to its NATO allies, recognize that even teenagers in 29 other NATO allies are pulling their attention away from TikTok long enough to see what the United States will do.
Other nations will follow the United States’ lead to keep our collective word and defend every partner as an equal, regardless of size, gross domestic product, or cultural heritage. Ultimately, the American people will decide whether our word to our NATO allies and EU partners was spoken in truth or in vain.
