From Yalta via Abu Dhabi – the New World Order and Kosovo as an interest of the Great Powers

Written by: Zeljko Sajn for Kosovo Online

The impetus for this analysis is the 81st anniversary of Yalta (4 February 1945), the conference that symbolically marked the establishment of the postwar world order and the division of spheres of influence among the great powers. More than eight decades later, the world once again finds itself in a phase of profound geopolitical transition, in which the foundations of that order are rapidly eroding. The question of a new world order is no longer a theoretical debate, but an ongoing process whose contours are increasingly taking shape outside the traditional centers of power.

The contemporary international system shows clear signs of strategic fatigue. The unipolar model established after the Cold War is losing its capacity to generate stability, while global institutions are weakening and conflicts are becoming protracted. In such an environment, the realist school of international relations is regaining prominence. Henry Kissinger warned that the world is entering a period of permanent instability because there is no longer a shared understanding of a legitimate international order, but rather competing narratives without clearly defined limits of power.

This diagnosis is further reinforced by John Mearsheimer, who argues that NATO’s expansion constituted a violation of the basic principles of the balance of power. As he emphasizes, great powers do not tolerate military alliances in their immediate surroundings, and ignoring this reality has led to conflicts whose consequences are now felt most acutely in Europe.

In this process, the European Union has revealed itself as a politically and strategically constrained actor. For decades reliant on the American security umbrella, the EU today lacks both a unified vision and genuine autonomy. Its policy toward the war in Ukraine and toward Volodymyr Zelensky is increasingly less the result of independent decision-making and increasingly a reflection of transatlantic discipline. NATO, rather than serving as a stabilizing factor, is becoming an instrument for prolonging conflict without a clear political exit strategy.

French historian and demographer Emmanuel Todd assesses that the West is entering a phase of structural decline. In his view, contemporary conflicts expose deep demographic, industrial, and cultural weaknesses of Western societies, which no longer produce stability but rather dependency—military, political, and economic.

As for the Balkans, the “Yalta order” effectively confirmed the division of influence agreed as early as the autumn of 1944 between Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin, in the so-called “percentages agreement.” According to that division, Yugoslavia was envisaged as a space of balance—50 percent Soviet and 50 percent Western influence; Greece almost entirely within the Western sphere (around 90 percent); while Bulgaria and Romania fell under dominant Soviet influence (75–90 percent). Albania also belonged to the Eastern bloc, while Turkey remained firmly tied to the Western security framework. This percentage-based division demonstrates that the Balkans were shaped not by principles, but by agreements among great powers.

That logic did not disappear with the formal end of the “Yalta order”; rather, it was transformed and carried over into the contemporary security framework. Today’s dominance of NATO in the Balkans represents a continuation of the same matrix of managing the region through external oversight rather than internal balance. Within this continuity, Kosovo and Metohija appear not as an exception, but as the result of a long-term process in which regional issues are resolved according to the interests of great powers rather than the principles of international law or the will of the local population.

In such a global environment, new centers of balance are emerging. Abu Dhabi stands out as an example of an actor that understands the logic of a world in transition. By maintaining relations with leading powers and countries of the Global South, it does not choose sides but manages interests, relying on pragmatism and long-term strategic positioning.

“Yalta” in the Balkans has never truly ended—it has merely changed form. NATO has assumed the role of external arbiter, while Kosovo and Metohija represent the most visible expression of the continuity of a policy in which territories, influences, and sovereignties are still treated as elements of geopolitical allocation rather than as matters of law.

If Tehran in 1943 was the prelude and Yalta the confirmation of one order, Abu Dhabi today is becoming the pathway of its successor.