The Balkans and Greece

TL;DR. Southeastern Europe is a crossroads where empires, faiths, and languages have met and mixed for centuries. The Balkan peninsula, together with Greece, sits at the meeting point of the old Ottoman Empire (centered in modern Turkey) and the Austro-Hungarian Empire (centered in Vienna), and it became home to a patchwork of Orthodox Christian, Roman Catholic, and Muslim peoples living side by side. This blend made the region rich in culture and food, but it also made it fragile when leaders turned differences into weapons. Modern Greece won independence from the Ottomans in the 1820s. New nations such as Serbia, Romania, and Bulgaria emerged across the 1800s. The First World War was sparked here, in Sarajevo in 1914. After both world wars the south Slavs were joined in a single country, Yugoslavia, held together for decades by the communist leader Tito. When Yugoslavia broke apart in the 1990s, the result was the worst wars in Europe since 1945, including ethnic cleansing, the long siege of Sarajevo, and the 1995 genocide at Srebrenica. Today most of these countries are at peace, several have joined the European Union and NATO, and the region is working, unevenly, toward a calmer future.

Key takeaways

• The Balkans are a meeting point of three great religious traditions: Orthodox Christianity, Roman Catholicism, and Islam, layered there by the Byzantine, Ottoman, and Austro-Hungarian empires.
• Modern Greece is a separate story from ancient Greece; the modern state was born in a war of independence against the Ottomans in the 1820s.
• A single country called Yugoslavia united many south Slavic peoples for most of the twentieth century, first as a kingdom, then as a communist but non-Soviet state under Tito.
• The breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s brought wars in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo, with grave war crimes that international courts have judged and named, including the Srebrenica genocide.
• Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania followed their own paths through communism, with Romania's dictatorship ending in violence in 1989 and Albania sealing itself off from the world.
• The region is diverse and welcoming, famous for warm hospitality, lively music, and a shared food culture with deep Ottoman roots and strong national pride.

Main events at a glance

The frame: a crossroads of empires and faiths

The word "Balkan" comes from a Turkish word for a wooded mountain range, and mountains are a good place to begin. The Balkan peninsula is rugged, cut by steep valleys and rivers, and that geography helped many small communities keep their own languages, customs, and churches for a very long time. The region never settled into one nation or one faith. Instead it became a layered map of peoples.

For roughly a thousand years the eastern Mediterranean was shaped by the Byzantine Empire, the Greek-speaking, Orthodox Christian continuation of Rome based in Constantinople (today Istanbul). From the late Middle Ages a new power rose to the east: the Ottoman Empire, a Muslim state ruled by sultans. Across the 1300s and 1400s the Ottomans conquered most of the Balkans, and they would rule much of it for four to five centuries. To the northwest, the Catholic Austro-Hungarian Empire, centered in Vienna, controlled lands such as Croatia and Slovenia. The line where these two empires met ran right through the region.

This is why the Balkans hold such a mix of faiths. Most Serbs, Greeks, Bulgarians, Romanians, and Montenegrins are Orthodox Christian. Most Croats and Slovenes are Roman Catholic. Many Bosniaks, most Albanians, and other communities are Muslim, often descended from people who converted during Ottoman times. Jewish communities lived here too for centuries, especially Sephardic Jews who settled after being expelled from Spain in 1492. Living together, these groups borrowed food, music, and words from one another. But when later politicians wanted to divide people, these same identities could be turned into fault lines.

The Balkans gave the English language the verb "to balkanize," meaning to break a region into small, hostile units. The word is a reminder that the region is famous, fairly or not, for fragmentation. It is also where the First World War began. In June 1914, in the Bosnian city of Sarajevo, a young Bosnian Serb nationalist shot and killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne. Within weeks the great powers of Europe were at war.

Don't be confused: "the Balkans" is a loose geographic and cultural term, not a single country or government. It usually covers Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Albania, Bulgaria, and sometimes Romania and Greece. People disagree about exactly where the edges are, and some people in these countries dislike the label. Use it carefully, as a general region rather than a fixed club.

Modern Greece

Ancient Greece, with its city-states, philosophers, and the world's first democracies, is told in an earlier chapter (Ancient Europe: Greece and Rome). The Greece that exists today is a different thing: a modern nation-state that did not exist for most of history. For centuries after the fall of the Byzantine Empire, the Greek-speaking, Orthodox lands were part of the Ottoman Empire.

The war of independence

In 1821 Greeks rose in revolt against Ottoman rule. The Greek War of Independence was long and brutal, with massacres on both sides. It also caught the imagination of educated Europeans, who admired ancient Greece and rallied to the cause; the English poet Lord Byron famously went to Greece and died there. In the end three great powers, Britain, France, and Russia, intervened on the Greek side, and their fleets destroyed an Ottoman-Egyptian fleet at the Battle of Navarino in 1827. Greece was recognized as an independent kingdom in 1832. Its borders then were much smaller than today's; over the next century Greece gradually added territory.

Faith, the population exchange, and the modern state

Orthodox Christianity is central to modern Greek identity. The Greek Orthodox Church helped keep the Greek language and sense of nationhood alive during Ottoman times, and it remains a strong cultural force.

One of the most painful episodes came after a war between Greece and Turkey that ended in 1922. In 1923 the two governments agreed to a population exchange: roughly 1.2 million Orthodox Christians were moved from Turkey to Greece, and several hundred thousand Muslims were moved from Greece to Turkey. People were sorted by religion, not by language or choice, and uprooted from homes their families had lived in for generations. The exchange reshaped both countries and left lasting memories of loss.

War, civil war, and a military junta

In the Second World War, Greece was invaded and occupied by Axis forces (Italy, then Germany and Bulgaria). The occupation brought famine in Athens and harsh reprisals. After liberation, Greece fell almost immediately into a civil war (1946 to 1949) between the government, backed by Britain and then the United States, and communist-led forces. The government side won, and Greece stayed in the Western camp during the Cold War.

In 1967 a group of army officers seized power in a coup, beginning a seven-year military junta, often called "the colonels." It ruled by censorship and the jailing of opponents until it collapsed in 1974 after a crisis over Cyprus. Greece then returned to democracy.

Europe and the debt crisis

Greece joined the European Community, which later became the European Union, in 1981, and adopted the euro currency in 2001. After the global financial crisis of 2008, Greece was revealed to have far more government debt than it could manage. The Greek debt crisis that began in 2009 led to several huge international bailout loans tied to deep spending cuts and tax rises, known as austerity. Unemployment soared, pensions were cut, and the strain tested both Greek society and the unity of the eurozone. The economy slowly stabilized over the following decade, but the crisis left scars.

Notable modern Greeks include the composer Mikis Theodorakis, whose music (including the score for the film Zorba the Greek) became known worldwide, and Maria Callas, one of the most celebrated opera singers of the twentieth century.

The Ottoman legacy and the birth of new nations

Across the wider Balkans, Ottoman rule shaped daily life for centuries: in food, in coffee culture, in the mosques and bazaars of old towns, and in administration. As the Ottoman Empire weakened in the 1800s, nationalist movements grew, often inspired by the same ideas of nationhood spreading across Europe (see Revolutions and the Age of Nations).

One by one, new states appeared. Serbia gained growing self-rule across the early 1800s. Following a major war between Russia and the Ottomans, the Congress of Berlin in 1878 recognized full independence for Serbia, Romania, and Montenegro, and made Bulgaria self-governing. Two Balkan Wars in 1912 and 1913 then pushed the Ottomans almost entirely out of Europe and redrew borders again, leaving bitterness that fed into the coming world war.

Yugoslavia: one country for the south Slavs

After the First World War, several south Slavic peoples were joined into a single new country. At first it was called the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes; in 1929 it was renamed Yugoslavia, meaning "land of the south Slavs." It brought together groups with different religions, alphabets, and histories under one crown, which created tension from the start, especially between Serbs and Croats.

The Second World War in the region

In 1941 the Axis powers (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, and their allies) invaded and carved up Yugoslavia. The occupation was savage, and the war here became several wars at once. A puppet state in Croatia, run by the fascist Ustasha movement, carried out mass murder of Serbs, Jews, and Roma. Several resistance movements fought the occupiers and, at times, each other. The two largest were the Chetniks, a mainly Serb royalist force, and the Partisans, a communist-led, multi-ethnic movement headed by Josip Broz Tito. Over time the Partisans grew strongest and won backing from the Allies. By 1945 Tito's Partisans had liberated the country largely on their own.

Tito's Yugoslavia: communist but not Soviet

After the war Tito built a communist Yugoslavia, but he refused to take orders from the Soviet Union. In 1948 he broke openly with the Soviet leader Stalin, and Yugoslavia charted its own course, accepting aid from the West while staying communist. Tito helped found the Non-Aligned Movement, a group of countries that tried to belong to neither the American nor the Soviet camp during the Cold War (see The Cold War and the Rise of the EU).

At home, Tito held a diverse federation together through a mix of genuine popularity, careful balancing of ethnic groups, and firm one-party control that did not tolerate nationalist dissent. The system worked while he lived. Tito died in 1980, and without him the bonds holding Yugoslavia together slowly frayed.

Don't be confused: Yugoslavia no longer exists. It broke into several independent countries: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Serbia, Montenegro, North Macedonia, and, later, Kosovo (whose independence some countries recognize and some do not). When older people say "Yugoslavia," they mean the former united country, not any single state today.

The breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s

During the 1980s, economic trouble and rising nationalism pulled Yugoslavia apart. Politicians in several republics, most prominently the Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, stoked ethnic fear and grievance for power. In 1991 and 1992 the republics began declaring independence, and the country came apart in a series of wars. These wars are sensitive and painful, and they should be described carefully: responsibility lay with specific leaders, militias, and forces, not with whole peoples, and individual guilt was later judged by courts.

Slovenia and Croatia

Slovenia declared independence in 1991 and, after a brief ten-day conflict, was left alone. Croatia's declaration the same year led to a longer war. Fighting broke out between the new Croatian government and Croatia's Serb minority, who were backed by the Serb-dominated Yugoslav army. There were atrocities on more than one side, including the destruction of the city of Vukovar and the killing of prisoners and civilians. Later, in 1995, a Croatian offensive recaptured Serb-held areas, and many Serb civilians fled.

Bosnia and the siege of Sarajevo

The worst war came in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the most mixed of the republics, home to Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslims), Bosnian Serbs (mostly Orthodox), and Bosnian Croats (mostly Catholic). When Bosnia declared independence in 1992, war erupted. Broadly, Bosniak-led government forces fought Bosnian Serb forces, who were armed and supported by Serbia and the former Yugoslav army; Bosnian Croat forces, at times backed by Croatia, fought sometimes alongside the government and sometimes against it. Alliances shifted during the war.

The fighting was marked by ethnic cleansing, the forced expulsion and killing of civilians to make an area ethnically uniform. The capital, Sarajevo, endured the longest siege of a city in modern European history, surrounded by Bosnian Serb forces for nearly four years while shelling and snipers killed thousands of residents, many of them civilians waiting in bread or water lines.

The Srebrenica genocide

In July 1995, the eastern town of Srebrenica, a United Nations-declared "safe area" sheltering Bosniak civilians, was overrun by Bosnian Serb forces. In the days that followed, they systematically murdered about 8,000 Bosniak Muslim men and boys and expelled the women and children. International courts, including the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia and the International Court of Justice, have ruled that this massacre was an act of genocide. It is the worst single atrocity committed in Europe since the Second World War. Several commanders were later convicted, among them the Bosnian Serb military leader Ratko Mladic and the political leader Radovan Karadzic.

The war ended later in 1995 with the Dayton Agreement, negotiated in the United States. It kept Bosnia as one country but divided it into two self-governing parts, a complex arrangement that brought peace but left a fragile, divided political system that still shapes the country today.

Kosovo, 1998 to 1999

The last of these wars was in Kosovo, a province of Serbia with an ethnic Albanian majority. From 1998, Serbian forces fought an Albanian guerrilla movement, the Kosovo Liberation Army, and large numbers of Albanian civilians were killed or driven from their homes. In 1999, the Western military alliance NATO intervened, conducting a bombing campaign against Serbian forces and infrastructure without approval from the United Nations Security Council, a step that remains debated. Serbian forces withdrew, and Kosovo came under international administration. Kosovo declared independence in 2008. Many countries, including the United States and most of the EU, recognize it; Serbia, Russia, and several others do not.

Don't be confused: "Bosniak" and "Bosnian" are not the same word. A Bosnian is anyone from the country of Bosnia and Herzegovina, of any background. A Bosniak refers specifically to the ethnic group that is mostly Muslim. So a Bosnian Serb and a Bosnian Croat are Bosnians, but not Bosniaks.

Romania, Bulgaria, and Albania

Three other countries followed their own communist paths and are worth a brief look.

Romania, a Latin-language country (its language is related to Italian and French) with an Orthodox majority, came under one of the harshest communist regimes, led by Nicolae Ceausescu. He built a cult of personality, ran up huge debts to construct grand projects, and forced ordinary people into severe shortages of food, heat, and electricity. When revolutions swept the communist bloc in 1989, Romania's was the only violent one: Ceausescu was overthrown, and he and his wife were captured, given a hasty trial, and executed on Christmas Day 1989.

Bulgaria, Orthodox and Slavic, was the Soviet Union's closest ally in the bloc and made its transition out of communism in 1989 more quietly. It later joined NATO and the European Union.

Albania, with a Muslim-majority population, became one of the most isolated countries on Earth under the dictator Enver Hoxha. He broke first with the Soviet Union and then even with communist China, banned religion outright, and sealed the country off, dotting the landscape with thousands of small concrete bunkers out of fear of invasion. When the regime fell in the early 1990s, Albania emerged extremely poor and cut off, and has been rebuilding since.

Membership in the EU and NATO

Since the wars ended, much of the region has moved toward the Western institutions. Greece, Romania, Bulgaria, Croatia, and Slovenia are members of both the European Union and NATO. Albania, Montenegro, and North Macedonia are in NATO. Several others, including Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Kosovo, are at various earlier stages, and some remain outside for political reasons. The pull of EU membership has been one of the main forces encouraging stability and reform, though progress is slow and uneven.

Daily life and culture

Visitors to the Balkans and Greece often remark first on the hospitality. Welcoming a guest with food, coffee, and a drink is a deep custom across the region, cutting across religious lines. Coffee culture is strong everywhere, often in the small, strong Ottoman style.

Music is everywhere and varied: the bouzouki and rebetiko songs of Greece, the brass bands of Serbia, the haunting vocal traditions of Bulgaria, and the wild, fast dance music sometimes called turbo-folk. Circle dances, where people link hands and move together, are common at weddings and festivals across many of these cultures.

The region is also a true meeting point of faiths. In a single old town you might find an Orthodox church, a Catholic cathedral, a mosque, and the remains of a synagogue within a short walk. For most of history these communities lived together peacefully, trading and intermarrying. That long coexistence is the region's everyday reality; the wars of the 1990s were a tragic exception driven by politics, not the normal state of affairs.

A note on food

Balkan and Greek food shares a common Ottoman-influenced foundation, which is why similar dishes appear under different names across the region. Many peoples claim the same favorites with real pride, and it is best to honor both the shared roots and the local versions.

From Greece come dishes such as moussaka (layered eggplant, potato, and spiced meat with a creamy top), souvlaki (grilled meat skewers), tzatziki (yogurt with cucumber and garlic), fresh Greek salad with feta cheese and olives, and baklava, a sweet pastry of nuts and honey.

Across the wider Balkans, grilled meats are central. Cevapi are small grilled minced-meat sausages, usually served with flatbread and raw onion. Burek is a flaky pastry filled with meat, cheese, or spinach. Ajvar is a smooth relish of roasted red peppers, often jarred at home in autumn. Sarma are leaves, usually cabbage or vine, stuffed with rice and meat. Rakija, a strong fruit brandy, is the traditional drink of welcome in many homes. Sweet, syrup-soaked pastries and strong coffee round out almost any meal.

Everyday life: relationships, family, and home

Across this region, family ties tend to be strong, and family often sits at the center of social life. Compared with much of western Europe, dating and marriage customs lean somewhat more traditional in many communities, though attitudes vary a great deal by country, by city versus countryside, and by generation. In big cities such as Athens, Belgrade, Bucharest, or Zagreb, dating looks much like it does elsewhere in Europe, while smaller towns can be more conservative.

Religion shapes family customs, and the region holds three main traditions, so practices differ. In Orthodox Christian communities (common among Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians, Romanians, Montenegrins, and others), weddings and baptisms are important family events, and the role of the godparent is especially strong. In Serbian tradition this godparent figure, the kum, and the related family patron-saint celebration called the slava, are central to family identity. In Roman Catholic communities (common among Croats and Slovenes) and in Muslim communities (common among Bosniaks, most Albanians, and others), customs around marriage, holidays, and naming follow those faiths. These are general patterns, not rules, and individual families differ widely.

Extended family matters. Grandparents often help raise children, and it is common, especially outside the wealthiest cities, for several generations to live close together or under one roof. Respect for elders is a widely shared value. Children are usually doted on and welcomed in public life, including at restaurants and family gatherings that run late.

At home, hospitality is a point of pride. A guest is typically offered food and drink straight away, and refusing everything can seem cold, so accepting a little is polite. Removing shoes at the door is common in many households. Coffee culture is strong everywhere, frequently in the small, strong Ottoman style sipped slowly over conversation; in Greece, iced coffee such as frappe is also popular in warm weather. Pets, especially dogs and cats, are kept in homes as in much of Europe, and several cities and islands are known for their free-roaming street cats and community-cared-for strays.

School, work, and the economy

School systems across the region generally include several years of free, compulsory education, followed by general or vocational secondary schools and universities, some of them old and well regarded. Public universities are a common path, and entry to the most popular programs can be competitive.

Working life varies by country. Greece is often associated with a relaxed Mediterranean rhythm, including a midday break in the hottest months and social life that continues late into the evening, though in practice recorded working hours there are long by European standards. In the Western Balkans and in Romania and Bulgaria, work patterns mix older habits with the routines of modern, EU-connected economies.

Economically, the region is varied:

• Greece has a developed economy built on tourism, shipping (Greek-owned merchant fleets are among the world's largest), and agriculture (olive oil, wine, fruit). After the debt crisis that began in 2009, the economy went through deep austerity and slowly returned to growth.
• The Western Balkans (countries such as Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, North Macedonia, Montenegro, Albania, and Kosovo) are developing economies. Croatia and Slovenia are in the EU and use the euro; several other Western Balkan states are official candidates hoping to join.
• Romania and Bulgaria are EU members. Both have growing technology and software sectors, with Romania in particular known for a large and skilled IT industry, alongside agriculture and manufacturing.

Wages in much of the region are lower than the EU average, and many families have relatives working abroad who send money home, a long-standing feature of Balkan and Greek life.

Language, idioms, and words to know

This is one of Europe's most linguistically varied corners, and the languages belong to several different families.

• Greek is its own branch of the Indo-European family, with a continuous history of thousands of years and its own alphabet (alpha, beta, gamma, and so on), which is different from the Latin alphabet used in English.
• The South Slavic languages include Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Montenegrin, Bulgarian, Macedonian, and Slovene. Some are very close to one another. Serbian is commonly written in both the Cyrillic and Latin alphabets; Croatian, Bosnian, and Slovene use the Latin alphabet; Bulgarian and Macedonian use Cyrillic.
• Albanian is a separate, distinct branch of Indo-European, not closely related to its neighbors.
• Romanian is a Romance language, related to Italian, French, and Spanish, a legacy of Roman times, though it has borrowed words from neighboring Slavic languages.

A few useful, real words and phrases:

• In Greek: yassas (a polite hello or goodbye), yassou (the more casual version), efharisto (thank you), parakalo (please, or you're welcome), and kalimera (good morning).
• A widely cited Greek concept is filotimo, a word with no exact English translation. It points to a sense of honor, generosity, and doing right by others, and many Greeks regard it as a core cultural value.
• Across the Slavic-speaking Balkans, hvala means thank you, and dobar dan means good day in several closely related languages; in Bulgarian, blagodarya means thank you.

Hospitality toward guests is itself a deeply held idea across the whole region, expressed differently in each language but widely shared in practice. Because some place names and language names are politically sensitive (for example, debates over the name of North Macedonia, settled by agreement in 2018), it is wise to listen to how local people refer to their own language and country.

Famous places to know

• Athens (the Acropolis), Greece. The capital of Greece, crowned by the ancient hilltop temple complex of the Acropolis with its famous Parthenon, one of the most recognizable monuments in the world.
• Santorini and the Greek islands. Santorini is famous for white-washed villages on volcanic cliffs above a blue sea; it is one of many Greek islands that draw visitors for beaches, history, and scenery.
• Dubrovnik, Croatia. A walled medieval city on the Adriatic coast, prized for its stone streets and sea walls and known to many today as a filming location.
• Mostar's bridge, Bosnia and Herzegovina. The graceful Old Bridge (Stari Most) over the Neretva river, built in Ottoman times, destroyed during the 1990s war, and carefully rebuilt afterward as a symbol of reconciliation.
• Belgrade, Serbia. The lively capital of Serbia where the Sava and Danube rivers meet, known for its old fortress and its energetic nightlife.
• The Black Sea coast. Bulgaria and Romania share a long coastline on the Black Sea, with beach resorts, ports, and old towns such as Bulgaria's Nessebar.

Fitting in: visiting, impressing people, and being a good citizen

Visitors are usually met with genuine warmth, and a little politeness goes a long way. Accepting an offer of coffee, a drink, or food is a friendly gesture, and sharing a meal slowly, without rushing, fits the local pace. Learning even a few words of the local language, and a simple thank-you, is appreciated.

The most important point is sensitivity about recent history. The wars of the 1990s remain within living memory, and many people lost relatives, homes, and neighbors. Topics such as ethnicity, religion, war guilt, the status of Kosovo, and contested place names and borders are genuinely painful and politically charged. The kind approach is to listen rather than argue, to avoid taking sides or making sweeping judgments about whole peoples, and to let local people guide the conversation. Speaking respectfully of all communities, and getting names and labels right, is both courteous and wise.

For entry and travel, status varies by country. Some of these countries are in the EU and the Schengen area, some are in the EU but not yet fully in Schengen, and others are outside both, so visa and border rules differ from place to place and change over time. Always check the current official rules for each country before traveling. The above is general information, not legal advice.

Suggested reading, news, and links

Books. For the wider region, Misha Glenny's The Balkans is a widely read narrative history of the area in the modern era. Readers wanting depth on a single country can look for well-reviewed histories of modern Greece or of the former Yugoslavia from established academic and trade publishers. Choose recent editions where possible, since scholarship and borders have changed.

News. For balanced international coverage, the BBC and major international newspapers and agencies are good starting points. For coverage focused on this region in English, Balkan Insight (published by the Balkan Investigative Reporting Network) reports on the Western Balkans. Reading more than one source, including outlets from different countries, helps give a fuller picture on sensitive topics.

Links. Each country has an official national tourism website, which is a reliable place for travel basics. The BBC country profiles and the Encyclopaedia Britannica offer concise, reputable overviews of each country's history and present day. For travel and entry rules, consult the official government website of the country you plan to visit, and your own government's travel advice.

Today, and how to talk about it

The Balkans and Greece are, for the most part, at peace, and large parts of the region are everyday, ordinary places of work, school, family, and travel. But the recent wars are still within living memory, and many people lost relatives, homes, and neighbors. This calls for care.

A few simple guidelines help. Speak about specific leaders and forces who committed crimes, rather than blaming whole nations or religions; courts have assigned guilt to individuals, and that is the fair and accurate way to talk. Use the agreed facts: the Srebrenica massacre of about 8,000 people has been ruled a genocide by international courts, and denying it causes deep pain. At the same time, recognize that civilians of every group suffered, and atrocities were not committed by only one side, even though responsibility was not equal. Names and labels matter, so it is worth getting them right, including the difference between Bosnians and Bosniaks, and being aware that the status of Kosovo is itself disputed.

Most of all, remember that the lasting story of this region is not its wars but its long history of mixed, neighborly life. The same crossroads that made it vulnerable to conflict also made it one of the richest cultural meeting points in Europe, and that is the part that endures.

Next, we step back to see how all these regional stories fit into the wider world of power and politics today. Geopolitics today 👉