North Macedonia is the definition of a weak link and easy pickings for an adversary. A landlocked country of 2 million inhabitants, it has weak political institutions and only a short history of independence. As of 2018, it spent only 1 percent of its GDP on defense—short of the 2 percent NATO guideline—and had just 8,000 active-duty soldiers. There is simmering communal tension between a Slavic Orthodox majority and a sizable ethnic Albanian, mainly Muslim minority, making it vulnerable to interference. Within NATO, only neighboring Albania has a lower per capita GDP and a higher level of corruption. The Economist Intelligence Unit’s Democracy Index ranks North Macedonia as having Europe’s least developed political culture.
This article was taken from Foreign Policy, and the link of the article can be find here.
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