Regional geopolitics

[Artsakh]

Re: Regional geopolitics

"ԱՄՆ-ն կոշտ պայմաններ է դնում Թուրքիայի առջեւ" Seriously?? Is there anybody that actually takes such nonsense coming out of lragir as journalism?

The USA is the country that doesn't show any back-bone to Turkey's continual gag-rule of the United States.

The USA is the country, in the 21st century, that goes against universal human rights and does not give a descent recognition of the first genocide of the 20th century; all the more shameful considering the America's image in the world as a champion of human rights.

The USA is the country that recall's it's own Ambassor from Turkey because he dared to label what Armenians went thru in 1915 as genocide.

The USA is the country that, at Turkey's pressure, is too scared to put up an orphan rug.

The USA is the country that, before making any statement regarding the Armenian Genocide, makes sure to consult with and get approval of a foreign country-Turkey-before making that statement.

The USA is the country that, despite it's super power status, was UNABLE to force turkey go through with what it agreed to do when it signed the Turkish-Armenian protocols and agreed to open the border and establish diplomatic relations with Armenia.

And this Igor Muradyan is about "the USA putting forth serious preconditions to Turkey"??? Whatever his ulterior motive, the "reporting" coming out of lrgagir is so blindly Anti-Russian that what they're writing just plain stupid, and I don't understand how any body could post their crap here and present it as "news" or "journalism".

And if Igor is so concerned about Russia's increasing influence is Armenia, then perhaps he should write articles about America's spinelessness and how the US is unable to force Turkey, it's strategic NATO ally, to open the border with Armenia so conditions in Armenia improve even slightly and alleviate the suffocation of blockade that Turkey has imposed on Armenia, leaving Armenia with no other choices.

[Hakob]

Re: Regional geopolitics

The following is an interesting essay about east-west conflict, and we have to think deeply about our future in it and the grim possibility of falling under booths of major warring sides like 100 years ago. I am not posting this to propagand russia. But there is a certain thruth in what it talks about and in any outcome, is very critical for us.




A Clash of Civilizations
From Fukuyama to Huntington

by Nebojsa Malic, July 26, 2014

When the Soviet Union imploded in 1991, the United States – and its junior partners in Europe – found itself bereft of an enemy. One scholar, Francis Fukuyama, concluded by 1992 that this represented the "end of history" and the beginning of an age in which "western" values such as capitalism and "liberal democracy" were unchallenged and would dominate forever.

Fukuyama’s thesis served as the foundation for a manifesto of American imperialism. Written by William Kristol and Robert Kagan, and published in July 1996 on the pages of Foreign Affairs (a publication of the Council on Foreign Relations), it offered an "elevated vision of America’s international role" as a "benevolent global hegemony." Though Kagan and Kristol were what would later be described as "neoconservatives," their prescription was soon accepted and put into practice by the "liberal" Clinton administration.

Birth of the Empire

Washington’s policy of backing Croatian, Bosnian Muslim, Albanian and Montenegrin separatists against the Serbs in Yugoslavia led to the tragedies of 1995 – a mass expulsion of Serbs from territories claimed by Zagreb and Sarajevo, in a repeat of the 1940s – and 1999, when NATO openly attacked Serbia in order to occupy its province of Kosovo. Yugoslavia itself was abolished in 2003, and Montenegro separated from Serbia in 2006 – in effect establishing the Austro-Hungarian vision for the Balkans a century after the Hapsburg Empire vanished into history.

However dysfunctional Yugoslavia was, its shards are failed states outright. Serbia had been blockaded for nearly a decade and its infrastructure devastated by bombing, but the real reason for its present predicament is the series of quisling regimes in power since the October 2000 Yellow Revolution. Macedonia, which begged Empire’s protection to avoid war, got war anyway, and is currently held hostage by its ethnic Albanians – encouraged by the Empire’s gift of "independent Kosovo". Pitched as the "great success" of Washington after the Somalia fiasco, Bosnia is still a protectorate, ruled by EU viceroys and U.S. ambassadors. Even Slovenia and Croatia, presented as "civilized" and "European" – fared better only until the loot from Yugoslavia ran out; now they are EU members with economies on par with Greece.

Under Bush the Younger, Washington invaded Afghanistan as retribution for the September 11 terrorist attacks, and in 2003 attacked Iraq on spurious claims about "weapons of mass destruction". Contrary to Bush’s campaign talk about "a more humble foreign policy," both interventions quickly morphed from punitive raids and "regime change" into decade-long "nation-building" occupations. Perfectly in line with the Kristol-Kagan manifesto, the reasons given were "ending evil" and bringing "democracy" and "freedom" to both Afghanistan and Iraq. Despite promises to bring "hope and change" to Washington, Barack Obama’s election in 2008 preserved the continuity of Empire.

There is perhaps no better illustration of this continuity than Victoria Nuland: chief of staff to (Clinton’s Russia point-man) Strobe Talbott, foreign policy advisor to (Bush VP) xxxx Cheney, ambassador to NATO, State Department spokesperson, and now Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs – in which capacity she was caught "midwifing" a coup in Ukraine. Oh, and she’s married to Robert Kagan.

Weaponizing "Democracy"

One of the last actions by the Clinton government was to introduce an experimental method of regime change: the "color revolution." The unconventional coup of October 2000 in Belgrade was so successful, it would be replicated in many places around the world, most notably Georgia (2003), Ukraine (2004), and Kyrgizstan (2005), as well as Egypt in 2011. This was the equivalent of Wilhelmine Germany sending Lenin on a sealed train to St. Petersburg in 1917, only updated for the 21st century. The Bolsheviks of yore became "human rights activists" – trained and teleoperated by the Empire.

The "revolutions" all failed in the long run, but not before laying waste to the countries they subverted, creating poverty, conflict and societal collapse. This is why an attempted repeat of the 2004 "Orange Revolution" in Kiev devolved into a violent coup on February 22 this year, sparking the current civil war in Ukraine.

It wasn’t just the color revolutions that failed; nation-building in the Middle East did as well, leaving countless dead in its wake. Even the white-knighting in the Balkans did not produce the expected gratitude among the Muslims of the world. Just about the only success has been the destruction of Yugoslavia and turning Serbia into a pathetic lackey of Brussels and Washington.

Interestingly, US insiders involved admitted that the 1999 NATO war had little to do with the "plight of Kosovo Albanians," but far more with "Yugoslavia’s resistance to the broader trends of political and economic reform" – as well as that the ultimate target of this war of aggression wasn’t Belgrade, but Moscow.

Clash of Civilizations

The same year Kristol and Kagan wrote their manifesto based on Fukuyama’s triumphalist thesis, Fukuyama’s former teacher Samuel Huntington wrote "Clash of Civilizations," arguing that the world’s future was more likely to be one of conflicts between cultural blocs – the West, Islam, Latin America, Africa, the Orthodoxy, China, etc.

What immediately jumps out from Huntington’s thesis is his argument that other civilizations would have to deal with the (Anglo-American) West, one way or another – either by seeking isolation, trying to join it, or "develop[ing] economic and military power… while still preserving their own values and institutions." Professor Huntington passed away in 2008, so it is impossible to get his clarification, but this sounds like an implicit recognition of the West’s hostility and aggression towards everyone else.

Eighteen years later, it certainly seems that Huntington’s understanding of the world was far more accurate than Fukuyama’s (and Kagan/Kristol’s). Even as its own economy falls into ruin, the West is seeking to conquer and confront the world, from "regime change" in Latin America and the Middle East to the "Asian pivot" and hostility towards China and India. But the focal point of aggressive efforts seems to be Russia – most likely because its miraculous recovery through rejection of Western totems of "liberal democracy" and "human rights" threatens to undermine the perception Western triumphalism promoted by Fukuyama.

As the centenary of the Great War approaches, Anglo-American historians seek to blame it on Russia and Serbia, the Orthodox Other. Having failed to weaponize Islam against Russia (as well as China, India and Africa) the West has turned instead to that most malignant metastasis of European political heritage, backing Nazis in the Balkans, the Baltics, and now in Ukraine.

The problem facing the West today is not only that its deluded leaders have erred in following Fukuyama, but also that they do not fully understand Huntington’s warnings. From the Tatars to Napoleon, Hitler and even Communism – which failed to destroy Russia’s traditional being no matter how hard its adherents tried – Russia has a history of not only fighting civilizational conflicts, but winning them.

The West? Not so much.
AntiWar.com

[Hakob]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Russia’s Choice, in 1914 and Now
A Tale of Two Julys

by Nebojsa Malic, July 12, 2014

On June 28, two events marked the centenary of the fateful shots which ended the lives of Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife, Sophie von Hohenberg. In Sarajevo, the Bosnian Muslim authorities hosted the Vienna Philharmonic, which performed at the same old City Hall where the angry Archduke had impatiently scowled through the sycophantic speech of Sarajevo’s mayor, before departing for a meeting with destiny. The orchestra played a Haydn piece based on the Austrian Imperial – and German national – anthem. Perhaps that is appropriate; after all, they owe their world-famous New Year’s Concert tradition to Goebbels.

Meanwhile, in the Bosnian Serb Republic, renowned director Emir Kusturica opened Andricgrad – an arts and humanities complex dedicated to Nobel Prize-winning novelist Ivo Andric – with a two-act play about the assassination and the subsequent trial of Gavrilo Princip and his fellow Young Bosnia revolutionaries. It was followed by a fireworks show and a concert of the Red Army Choir, singing "The Sacred War."

Forget the 1990s – Bosnia is still fighting World Wars I and II.

Blaming the Other

The rest of the world may be doing the same, actually. A century after Princip’s fateful shots in Sarajevo, the West – with all the Central Powers and members of the post-1917 Entente now in NATO – is pushing a narrative that the Serb "terrorists" triggered the hostilities, but that it was Russia (!) that caused the war to go European.

In a February 2014 BBC poll of historians, one flat-out blamed Serbia alone, while three placed blamed Russia as much as Germany and Austria-Hungary. One of those, Heather Jones of the LSE, claimed the Russian mobilization "frightened Germany into preemptively declaring war on Russia." Sean McMeekin, who teaches at Koç University in Turkey, went a step further:

…absent a terrorist plot launched in Belgrade the Germans and Austrians would not have faced this terrible choice. Civilian leaders in both Berlin and Vienna tried to "localize" conflict in the Balkans. It was Russia’s decision – after Petersburg received its own "blank cheque" from Paris – to Europeanise the Austro-Serbian showdown which produced first a European and then – following Britain’s entry – world conflagration. Russia, not Germany, mobilised first.

Yet there are literal mountains of evidence showing that both Berlin and Vienna anticipated Russia coming to Serbia’s aid. As David Fromkin showed in "Europe’s Last Summer", both governments expected the other to handle the Russians while they went after their primary targets – the Serbs and the French, respectively.

Moreover, Nicholas II himself told his cousin the Kaiser on July 29, 1914:

An ignoble war has been declared to a weak country. The indignation in Russia shared fully by me is enormous. I foresee that very soon I shall be overwhelmed by the pressure forced upon me and be forced to take extreme measures which will lead to war. To try and avoid such a calamity as a European war I beg you in the name of our old friendship to do what you can to stop your allies from going too far. (source)

Why Russia Intervened

Nicholas II was facing a difficult choice. Less than 10 years earlier, Russia had suffered a humiliating defeat in a war against Japan, losing its Far East possessions and two naval fleets. The revolution that followed shook the foundations of the Russian state and society; reforms shepherded by Prime Minister Stolypin stalled after his 1911 assassination by a revolutionary. Russia was recovering, but nowhere near ready for a major war. So why did the last Tsar choose one?

Because he would have lost all legitimacy had he chosen otherwise.

Russia had been the protector of Orthodox Christians in the Balkans for the two centuries prior. It had backed the Balkans Alliance in the successful war on the Ottoman Empire in 1912-13. Its prior success against the Ottomans in 1878 prompted the Congress of Berlin, which allowed Austria-Hungary to occupy Bosnia. Yet in 1908, when Vienna illegally annexed Bosnia, Russia was too weak to do anything about it. The public opinion was firmly on the side of backing Serbia against yet another Austrian act of aggression – while nobody really approved of the assassination in Sarajevo, it was clear that Austria was using it as a pretext for a war of extermination, something it had wanted for over a decade.

It was possible for Nicholas II to, accept the Austro-German propaganda about "terrorists" acting on orders from Belgrade and abandon the Serbs to their fate – but only theoretically. He was an autocrat in name, but knew perfectly well he ruled only with the consent of the governed, as evidenced by his later abdication.

Russia paid a terrible price for backing Serbia. Following a February 1917 rebellion, Nicholas II abdicated and the provisional government under Alexandr Kerensky took power; by November that year, the Bolsheviks had overthrown Kerensky. They promised "peace, bread and land"; instead, they delivered five years of vicious civil war, widespread starvation and a humiliating surrender of Brest-Litovsk. Nicholas himself was murdered by the Bolsheviks in July 1918, along with his entire family.

Matters of Right and Wrong

Yet Nicholas II Romanov never said he regretted his choice in 1914. Helping Serbia against Austro-German aggression was simply the right thing to do. This is something that critics from the West just don’t understand, thinking as they do from the viewpoints of profit and interest. They point the finger at Russia for coming to Serbia’s rescue, yet take it as a given that Britain "had to" intervene following the German invasion of Belgium. That, or they follow the lead of Niall Ferguson, who famously asked in 2000’s "Pity of War" whether German hegemony in Europe would have been so terrible. Maybe not for the British, but certainly for those Slav untermenschen the "civilized" Vienna and Berlin wanted exterminated…

The simple truth is that the first shots of the Great War were not fired by Gavrilo Princip, but by the Austro-Hungarian artillery, which attacked Belgrade in the evening of July 28, 1914.

Last year, a Bosnian-born journalist found a photograph from April 1941, showing Adolf Hitler appreciatively looking over his birthday present and trophy from the conquest of Yugoslavia: a memorial plaque to Gavrilo Princip. The plaque was displayed in the German war museum, along with the same railway carriage where the 1918 armistice was signed, and in which Hitler forced the French to surrender in 1940. Princip’s prison in Terezin Fortress was used by the SS to torture the xxxs of the "Paradise Ghetto", before sending them to the ovens of Auschwitz.

And today, almost hundred years since Austria-Hungary launched a war of extermination against "Serbian terrorists," the Western-backed junta in Kiev – championing a rabidly Russophobic identity invented by Austria-Hungary and Germany over a century ago – is waging a war of extermination against Russian-speaking "terrorists" refusing to submit to its rule. The Kremlin is now facing the same choice forced on Nicholas II, and much closer to home.

Anyone who thinks that Moscow will just sit back and watch, clearly hasn’t been paying attention.

AntiWar.com

[lampron]

Re: Regional geopolitics

These are dangerous times. The US and its junior partner, the EU, have expanded sanctions on Russia while staying silent on continuing atrocities in East Ukraine.

If NATO gains the upper hand and Russian authority weakens or disappears in the South Caucasus, we can guess from recent history that NATO will support Turkey against Armenia just as it is happy to let Turkey control 40% of Cyprus

[Haykakan]

Re: Regional geopolitics

These are dangerous times. The US and its junior partner, the EU, have expanded sanctions on Russia while staying silent on continuing atrocities in East Ukraine.

If NATO gains the upper hand and Russian authority weakens or disappears in the South Caucasus, we can guess from recent history that NATO will support Turkey against Armenia just as it is happy to let Turkey control 40% of Cyprus

Tell that to Vrej and all the others wearing colored sunglasses. Bs sources like lragir are rotting the minds of the people and the younger generation does not know any better.

[Eddo211]

Re: Regional geopolitics

If NATO gains the upper hand and Russian authority weakens or disappears in the South Caucasus, we can guess from recent history that NATO will support Turkey against Armenia just as it is happy to let Turkey control 40% of Cyprus

Toorks cannot lay claim to Armenia since their are no Turkish people there so it not all like Cyprus. If its an invasion/occupation then they will be facing an insurgency war ran by a professional military....and what do you think the Russian base and Iran are going to do, just watch/evacuate?

Plus, the West/NATO will be facing two states.....Artsakh and Armenia! not to mention the Diaspora outrage.....and you cant say that they will approve such action and let the wolfs loose on the Armenians, there is a chance they may not while the Russian leadership is sleep at the wheel, as you contemplate.

[Hakob]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Toorks cannot lay claim to Armenia since their are no Turkish people there so it not all like Cyprus. If its an invasion/occupation then they will be facing an insurgency war ran by a professional military....and what do you think the Russian base and Iran are going to do, just watch/evacuate?

Plus, the West/NATO will be facing two states.....Artsakh and Armenia! not to mention the Diaspora outrage.....and you cant say that they will approve such action and let the wolfs loose on the Armenians, there is a chance they may not while the Russian leadership is sleep at the wheel, as you contemplate.

Turks will not lay claim to Armenia, but azergeyjan will. You see as you mention US dealing with 2 states in us, we have to see that We will face 2states too(turkey and Azerbaijan). Also don't count on US doing anything in our favor(like containing Turks). Those ideas are mostly injected propaganda designed to fool public.
Looking at today's controlled media in west, specifically dead silence on massive massacres in Syria, Palestine, Ukraine and Iraq (not counting african countries), probably US reaction will be "who, what, where?" Just like it is now for 1915 genocide.
I don't think in future any one of us wants to see once a yearly half ass commemorative Memorial event in US state department for Armenian and Karabakh states(to pacify US Armenian diaspora, like now). Because this is all the support that we will get from west most likely. Hystory is the withness

[lampron]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Looking at today's controlled media in west, specifically dead silence on massive massacres in Syria, Ukraine and Iraq (not counting african countries), probably US reaction will be "who, what, where?" Just like it is now for 1915 genocide.

You are mostly correct. In 1915 the US was a neutral power, and its media reported on the genocide. So campaigners today can use material from US media then, to challenge deniers

Today it is completely different. The US media will play down or even cover up atrocities against Armenians, just as it is currently doing with massacres you mention, just as it played down anti-Armenian atrocities in 1988-91, even (on a number of occasions) shifting blame on Armenians themselves

[Hakob]

Re: Regional geopolitics

Sorry. I am typing at work. So I updated my comment above to complete my thoughts.

[Eddo211]

Re: Regional geopolitics

...World reaction will be "who, what, where?" Just like it is now for 1915 genocide...

I fixed it for you ....very true statement. Turks are waiting for a regional upheaval so they can finish us off under the fog of war.

We are on our own, all alone, and the sooner we plan our strategies as Armenians the better it will be.......but not as Americans or Russians or anything else.