Blogposts by Tag: Conflicts

  • Powerplay behind the new Cold War

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    Rating: 4.5/5 with 2 votes

    Published Saturday, October 18, 2008 at 14:21
    by Ari Rusila in Debate (465 views and 0 comments)

    Powerplay behind the new Cold War  Georgia 08/08/08 is the date when headlines in Western mainstream media started to tell how big, bad aggressive Russia attacked to tiny, democratic, good Georgia.  After that the West continued accusations about occupation a free sovereign state started rethink enforcing its frontlines around Russian border in new cold war era.  Al this despite the fact, that day earlier 7th August 2008 Georgia had started the moths before planned war against its separatist province (look my article “OSCE report fault Georgia - one trivial statement more from EU summit” 4th Sept.2008 from my BlogArchive).  All this despite he fact, that USA had already showed the way how to break international law e.g. by bombing Kosovo and orchestrating the quasi-independence of that separatist province.   While speaking about new confrontation between East and West the (mostly western) political commentators have used first nice, warm words like freedom, democracy, sovereignty, humanitarian catastrophe to justify their planned harder actions to response Russia’s aggression.  However if we scrub the soft spoke for dummies – sorry for public – we can find the hard reality and bigger game behind recent headlines of Caucasus or Balkan events.   I try next to highlight few aspects with this power play.  Pipes  First element I would like to mention is energy. Georgia is part of a NATO... read more

    Tags: Balkans, Caucasus, conflicts, EU foreign policy, Russia, US foreign policy

  • EU as a mediator?

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    Rating: 4.5/5 with 4 votes

    Published Monday, September 8, 2008 at 01:26
    by Ari Rusila in Debate (643 views and 4 comments)

    During last conflicts in Caucasus and before in Balkans there has been discussion about EU's position between conflicting parties -between east and west.  I can agree with those who advise that EU should not take sides but rather balance its criticism with conflicting parties. From my point of view this could mean an approach with keywords such as understanding, dialogue and multi-polar world.

    The Balkans have been the focus of extensive public attention for a long time yet not many people can honestly claim to have a firm understanding of the region, its history or the complexity of the problems. The same one can say about Caucasus. I would like to claim that one factor has its share 1st creating problems and 2nd making difficult to manage them. This factor is lack of dialogue, which in both regions has created one-sided picture in western mainstream media and peoples mind.

    In dialogue, one listens to the other side in order to understand, find meaning, and find agreement. In debate, one listens to the other side in order to find flaws and to counter its arguments. Dialogue assumes that many people have pieces of the answer and that together they can put them into a workable solution. Debate assumes that there is a right answer and that someone has it. Debate can have maybe better headlines in news but it is not for sustainable solutions.

    Few days ago the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, outlined his country's national interests in a set of...

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    Tags: Balkans, Caucasus, Conflicts, ESDP, EU