

Ing. Salih CAVKIC
Editor in Chief
by ORBUS.BE
info@orbus.be
www.orbus.be

No more
Paris nor Brussels!
Stop
terrorism!
We want to live in peace with all
our neighbors.
regardless of their religion, color and origin.
Therefore, we condemn any
kind of terrorism!
*****
Ne više Pariz ni Brisel!
Stop terorizam!
Mi želimo živjeti u miru sa svim našim
komšijama,
bez obzira koje su vjere, boje kože i porijekla.
Zato mi osuđujemo svaku vrstu terorizma!


Prof. dr. Murray Hunter
University Malaysia Perlis


Eva MAURINA
20
Years to Trade Economic Independence for Political Sovereignty -
Eva MAURINA


Aleš Debeljak
In
Defense of Cross-Fertilization: Europe and Its Identity
Contradictions - Aleš Debeljak
ALEŠ
DEBELJAK - ABECEDA DJETINJSTVA
ALEŠ DEBEJAK
- INTERVJU; PROSVJEDI, POEZIJA, DRŽAVA


Rattana Lao
Rattana Lao holds a doctorate in Comparative and International
Education from Teachers College, Columbia University and is
currently teaching in Bangkok.


Bakhtyar Aljaf
Director of Middle-East and Balkan Studies (IFIMES) in Ljubljana,
Slovenia


Rakesh Krishnan Simha Géométrie variable of a love triangle – India, Russia and the US


Amna Whiston
Amna Whiston is a London-based writer specialising in moral philosophy. As a
PhD candidate at Reading University, UK, her main research interests
are in ethics, rationality, and moral psychology.


Eirini Patsea
Eirini Patsea is a Guest Editor in Modern Diplomacy, and
specialist in Cultural Diplomacy and Faith-based Mediation.


Belmir Selimovic
Can we trust the government to do the right thing, are they really
care about essential things such as environmental conditions and
education in our life?


Dubravko Lovrenović
Univ. prof. Dubravko Lovrenović is one of the leading
European Medievalist specialized in the Balkans, pre-modern and
modern political history.


Manal Saadi
Postgraduate researcher in International Relations and Diplomacy at
the Geneva-based UMEF University


doc.dr.Jasna Cosabic
professor of IT law
and EU law at Banja Luka College,
Bosnia and Herzegovina


Aleksandra Krstic
, studied in Belgrade (Political Science) and in Moscow
(Plekhanov’s IBS). Currently, a post-doctoral researcher at the Kent
University in Brussels (Intl. Relations). Specialist for the
MENA-Balkans frozen and controlled conflicts.
Contact: alex-alex@gmail.com


Dr.Swaleha Sindhi is
Assistant Professor in the Department
of Educational Administration, the Maharaja Sayajirao University of
Baroda, India. Decorated educational practitioner Dr. Sindhi is a
frequent columnist on related topics, too. She is the Vice President
of Indian Ocean Comparative Education Society (IOCES). Contact:
swalehasindhi@gmail.com


Barçın Yinanç
It is an Ankara-based
journalist and notable author.
She is engaged with the leading Turkish dailies and weeklies for
nearly three decades as a columnist, intervieweer and editor.
Her words are prolifically published and quoted in Turkish,
French an English.


By İLNUR ÇEVIK
Modified from the original: They killed 1
Saddam and created 1,000 others (Daily Sabah)


Aine O’Mahony
Aine O'Mahony has a bachelor in Law and Political Science at
the Catholic Institute of Paris and is currently a master's student
of Leiden University in the International Studies programme.Contact:
aine-claire.nini@hotmail.fr


Elodie Pichon
Elodie Pichon has a
bachelor in Law and Political Science at the Catholic Institute of
Paris and is currently doing a MA in Geopolitics, territory and
Security at King's College London. Contact :
elodie.pichon@gmail.com

Qi Lin
Qi Lin,
a MA candidate of the George
Washington University, Elliott School of International Affairs. Her
research focus is on cross-Pacific security and Asian studies,
particularly on the Sino-U.S. relations and on the foreign policy
and politics of these two.


ALESSANDRO CIPRI
Born in Chile and raised in Rome, Alessandro
Cipri has just finished his postgraduate studies at the department
of War Studies of King's College London, graduating with distinction
from the Master's Degree in "Intelligence and International
Security". Having served in the Italian Army's "Alpini" mountain
troops, he has a keen interest in national security, military
strategy, insurgency theory, and terrorism studies. His Master's
dissertation was on the impact of drug trafficking on the evolution
of the Colombian FARC.

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|
Brexit –
Pakistanization finally comes home
(Who Needs Greater State Projects in
the Balkans?)
Dr. Zlatko Hadžidedić
Ever
since the end of the WWI, and especially since the end of the WWII,
the UK official foreign policy line was nearly always the same,
imperial - partition and division. Divide/atomise and rule (divide
at impere) ! Was it Asia, Latin America, Africa, Ukraine, Balkans or
the Middle East – Pakistanization was the UK classical (colonial)
concept, action and answer ! With the Brexit at sight, seems that
the Pakistanization (finally) came home.
However, certain destructive UK
quasi-intellectual circles are trying to postpone inevitable.
Following lines are about that ill-fated attempt.
**********
Foreign Affairs, a renowned American foreign policy journal,
recently published an article under the title Dysfunction in the
Balkans, written by Timothy Less. In this article the
author offers his advice to the new American Administration,
suggesting it to abandon the policy of support to the territorial
integrity of the states created in the process of dissolution of the
former Yugoslavia. Timothy Less advocates a total redesign of the
existing state boundaries in the Balkans, on the basis of a rather
problematic claim that the multiethnic states in the Balkans (such
as Bosnia-Herzegovina and Macedonia) proved to be dysfunctional,
whereas the ethnically homogenous states (such as Croatia, Albania
and Croatia) proved to be prosperous. Also, the author claims that
the peoples in the Balkans, having lost any enthusiasm for the
multiethnic status quo, predominantly strive to finally
accomplish the imagined monoethnic greater state projects –
so-called Greater Serbia, Greater Croatia and Greater Albania.
According to Less' design, the imagined Greater Serbia should
embrace the existing Serb entity in Bosnia-Herzegovina (that is, 49%
of the Bosnian territory), but also the entire internationally
recognized Republic of Montenegro ; the Greater Croatia should
embrace a future Croatian entity in Bosnia-Herzegovina; the Greater
Albania should embrace both Kosovo and the western part of
Macedonia. All these territorial redesigns, claims Less, would
eventually bring about a lasting peace and stability in the region.
The question is, to what extent these proposals can be seen as
founded in the geopolitical reality of the Balkans, or the author
only acts as a spokesperson for particular interest groups whose aim
is to accomplish their geopolitical projects, regardless of the
price paid by the peoples of the Balkans?
First, let us take a look
at the author's professional background. According to his official
biographies, Timothy Less was the head of the British diplomatic
office in Banja Luka, the capital of the Serb entity in
Bosnia-Herzegovina. He was also the political secretary of the
British Embassy in Skopje, Macedonia. Now he runs a consulting
agency called Nova Europa, so he has officially left the
British diplomatic service. Thus he served as a diplomat exactly in
those two states which are, according to his analysis, the most
desirable candidates for dissolution. If one remembers that the
British foreign policy, since the 1990s, has occassionally but
unambiguously advocated the creation of the imagined monoethnic
greater states – Greater Serbia, Greater Croatia and Greater Albania
– as an alleged path towards lasting stability in the Balkans, it is
difficult to escape the impression that this diplomat, having served
in Banja Luka and Skopje, probably acted as an informal adviser to
those very political forces, such as the Serbian and Albanian
separatists, who should be the most active participants in the
realization of those greater state projects. And ever since he left
the diplomatic service, Timothy Less has regularly published
articles in which he 'foresees', that is, invites new ethnic
conflicts and ethnic divisions in the Balkans. In the Foreign
Affairs article now he attempts to persuade the new American
Administration that it should also adopt the policy of completion of
the greater state projects in the region. Ironically, Less now makes
that in order to prevent all those ethnic wars that he himself has
been announcing, that is, inviting and advocating. Obviously, the
long-term strategy of inviting ethnic conflicts in order to
implement the greater state projects in the Balkans, together with
the current strategy of advocating their completion in order to
allegedly bring the stability back to the region, must be perceived
as a serious geopolitical projection designed by one relatively
influential part of the British foreign policy establishment. In
that context, so-called 'independent experts', such as Timothy Less,
have a task to persuade the world that such projections can be 'the
only reasonable solution'.
Still, it is clear that he
is as independent as his solutions are reasonable. For example, Less
claims that multiethnic states, in which the aforementioned national
projects have remained unaccomplished, are the main impediments to
stability in the Balkans. However, the historical reality has
demonstrated that this claim is a simple red herring fallacy. For,
the very concept of completed ethnonational states is a concept that
has only led towards perpetual instability wherever applied, because
such ethnonational territories cannot be created without violence,
that is, without ethnic cleansing and wars. The strategy of 'solving
national issues' has always led, both in the Balkans and elsewhere,
only towards permanent instability, never towards final stability.
What is particularly interesting, in accordance with the principle
of national self-determination promoted at the Peace Conference in
Versailles the winners in the World War I advocated the creation of
the common national state of the Southern Slavs. Some seventy years
later, the same great powers accepted, and sometimes advocated, the
dissolution of that very state in the name of self-determination of
some other national states, since all the former Yugoslav republics,
with the exception of Bosnia-Herzegovina, had been constituted as
national states. And now, their spokespersons, like Less, advocate a
dissolution of most of these states in order to complete some
greater state projects – of course, again in the name of national
self-determination. Looking from that perspective, one can only
conclude that national self-determination, as much as the nation
itself, is a totally arbitrary category, changeable in accordance
with current geopolitical interests – of course, the interests of
the big ones, not of those small ones whose 'problem of national
self-determination' is allegedly being solved.
Since we cannot reject
Less' proposal as a mere list of the author's wishes and desires,
let us ask ourselves what is the true relevance of Foreign
Affairs in international political circles and how much this
article can really influence future actions of the new American
Administration. Foreign Affairs is a publication sposored by
the body called the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), whose
membership from the very beginning consisted of senior politicians,
secretaries of state, directors of CIA, bankers, academics, lawyers
and senior media figures. This body was founded in 1921 as a common
Anglo-American project, conceived as the embodiment of the so-called
special relationship between the United States and Great Britain,
which had been created during the World War I and has remained
present to the present day. In this sense, there can hardly be a
journal in the entire world with greater political influence,
comparable only with the influence of the CFR itself. Therefore, the
geopolitical manifesto written by Timothy Less must be taken with
ultimate seriousness, because it certainly reflects the interests of
some influential circles within the Anglo-American foreign policy
establishment. Bearing in mind all the public support that
Hillary Clinton enjoyed during her presidential campaign from
the people gathered around Foreign Affairs, it is reasonable
to assume that she would probably adopt Less' suggestions. However,
it is less likely that the newly-elected President of the United
States, Donald Trump, who did not enjoy a slightest support
from these circles, will not be so naive as to adopt the strategy of
completion of greater state projects presented in Foreign Affairs as
his own strategy and a vision that can contribute to peace and
stability in any part of the world. However, if that happens, we
shall face not only new ethnic conflicts in the Balkans, but also a
lasting instability in the rest of the world.

Graduate of the
London School of Economics, prof. Zlatko Hadžidedić is
a prominent thinker, prolific author of numerous books, and
indispensable political figure of the former Yugoslav
socio-political space in 1990s, 2000s and 2010s.
December 30, 2016
Why is Europe able to manage
its decline, while Asia is (still) unable to capitalize (on) its
successes
Prof. Anis H. Bajrektarevic
How
to draw the line between the recent and still unsettled EU/EURO
crisis and Asia’s success story? Well, it might be easier than it
seems: Neither Europe nor Asia has any alternative. The difference
is that Europe well knows there is no alternative – and therefore is
multilateral. Asia thinks it has an alternative – and therefore is
strikingly bilateral, while stubbornly residing enveloped in
economic egoisms. No wonder that Europe is/will be able to manage
its decline, while Asia is (still) unable to capitalize its
successes. Asia clearly does not accept any more the lead of the
post-industrial and post-Christian Europe, but is not ready for the
post-West world.
Following the famous saying allegedly spelled by
Kissinger: “Europe? Give me a name and a phone number!” (when – back
in early 1970s – urged by President Nixon to inform Europeans on the
particular US policy action), the author is trying to examine how
close is Asia to have its own telephone number.
By contrasting and comparing genesis of multilateral
security structures in Europe with those currently existing in Asia,
and by listing some of the most pressing security challenges in
Asia, this policy paper offers several policy incentives why the
largest world’s continent must consider creation of the
comprehensive pan-Asian institution. Prevailing security structures
in Asia are bilateral and mostly asymmetric while Europe enjoys
multilateral, balanced and symmetric setups (American and African
continents too). Author goes as far as to claim that irrespective to
the impressive economic growth, no Asian century will emerge without
creation of such an institution.
* * * *
For over a decade, many of the relevant academic
journals are full of articles prophesizing the 21st
as the Asian century. The argument is usually based on the
impressive economic growth, increased production and trade volumes
as well as the booming foreign currency reserves and exports of many
populous Asian nations, with nearly 1/3 of total world population
inhabiting just two countries of the largest world’s continent.
However, history serves as a powerful reminder by warning us that
economically or/and demographically mighty gravity centers tend to
expand into their peripheries, especially when the periphery is
weaker by either category. It means that any absolute or relative
shift in economic and demographic strength of one subject of
international relations will inevitably put additional stress on the
existing power equilibriums and constellations that support this
balance in the particular theater of implicit or explicit structure.
Lessons of the Past
Thus, what is the state of art of Asia’s security
structures? What is the existing capacity of preventive diplomacy
and what instruments are at disposal when it comes to early warning/
prevention, fact-finding, exchange mechanisms, reconciliation,
capacity and confidence– building measures in the Asian theater?
While all other major theaters do have the
pan-continental settings in place already for many decades, such as
the Organization of American States – OAS (American continent),
African Union – AU (Africa), Council of Europe and Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe – OSCE (Europe), the
state-of-arts of the largest world’s continent is rather different.
What becomes apparent, nearly at the first glance, is the absence of
any pan-Asian security/ multilateral structure. Prevailing security
structures are bilateral and mostly asymmetric. They range from the
clearly defined and enduring non-aggression security treaties,
through less formal arrangements, up to the Ad hoc cooperation
accords on specific issues. The presence of the multilateral
regional settings is limited to a very few spots in the largest
continent, and even then, they are rarely mandated with security
issues in their declared scope of work. Another striking feature is
that most of the existing bilateral structures have an Asian state
on one side, and either peripheral or external protégé country on
the other side which makes them nearly per definition asymmetric.
The examples are numerous: the US–Japan, the US– S. Korea, the
US–Singapore, Russia–India, Australia–East Timor, Russia–North
Korea, Japan –Malaysia, China–Pakistan, the US–Pakistan,
China–Cambodia, the US–Saudi Arabia, Russia –Iran, China–Burma,
India–Maldives, Iran–Syria, N. Korea–Pakistan, etc.
Indeed, Asia today resonates a mixed echo of the
European past. It combines features of the pre-Napoleonic,
post-Napoleonic and the League-of-Nations Europe. What are the
useful lessons from the European past? Well, there are a few, for
sure. Bismarck accommodated the exponential economic, demographic
and military growth as well as the territorial expansion of Prussia
by skillfully architecturing and calibrating the complex networks of
bilateral security arrangements of 19th
century Europe. Like Asia today, it was not an institutionalized
security structure of Europe, but a talented leadership exercising
restraint and wisdom in combination with the quick assertiveness and
fast military absorptions, concluded by the lasting endurance.
However, as soon as the new Kaiser removed the Iron Chancellor
(Bismarck), the provincial and backward–minded, insecure and
militant Prussian establishment contested (by their own
interpretations of the German’s machtpolitik and
weltpolitik policies) Europe and the world in two devastating
world wars. That, as well as Hitler’s establishment afterwards,
simply did not know what to do with a powerful Germany.
The aspirations and constellations of some of Asia’s
powers today remind us also of the pre-Napoleonic Europe, in which a
unified, universalistic block of the Holy Roman Empire was contested
by the impatient challengers of the status quo. Such serious
centripetal and centrifugal oscillations of Europe were not without
grave deviations: as much as Cardinal Richelieu’s and Jacobin’s
France successfully emancipated itself, the Napoleon III and
pre-WWII France encircled, isolated itself, implicitly laying the
foundation for the German attack.
Finally, the existing Asian regional settings also
resemble the picture of the post-Napoleonic Europe: first and
foremost, of Europe between the Vienna Congress of 1815 and the
revolutionary year of 1848. At any rate, let us take a quick look at
the most relevant regional settings in Asia.
Multilateral constellations
By far, the largest Asian participation is with the
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation – APEC, an organization engulfing
both sides of the Pacific Rim. Nevertheless, this is a forum for
member economies not of sovereign nations, a sort of a prep-com or
waiting room for the World Trade Organization – WTO. To use the
words of one senior Singapore diplomat who recently told me in
Geneva the following: “what is your option here? ...to sign the Free
Trade Agreement (FTA), side up with the US, login to FaceBook, and
keep shopping on the internet happily ever after…”
Two other crosscutting settings, the Organization of
Islamic Cooperation – OIC and Non-Aligned Movement – NAM, the first
with and the second without a permanent secretariat, represent the
well-established political multilateral bodies. However, they are
inadequate forums as neither of the two is strictly mandated with
security issues. Although both trans-continental entities do have
large memberships being the 2nd
and 3rd
largest multilateral systems, right after the UN, neither covers the
entire Asian political landscape – having important Asian countries
outside the system or opposing it.
Further on, one should mention the Korean Peninsula
Energy Development Organization – KEDO (Nuclear) and the
Iran-related Contact (Quartet/P-5+1) Group. In both cases, the
issues dealt with are indeed security related, but they are more an
asymmetric approach to deter and contain a single country by the
larger front of peripheral states that are opposing a particular
security policy, in this case, of North Korea and of Iran. Same was
with the short-lived SEATO Pact – a defense treaty organization for
SEA which was essentially dissolved as soon as the imminent threat
from communism was slowed down and successfully contained within the
French Indochina.
Confidence building – an attempt
If some of the settings are reminiscent of the
pre-Napoleonic Europe, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization – SCO
and Cooperation Council for the Arab states of the Gulf – GCC remind
us of the post-Napoleonic Europe and its Alliance of the Eastern
Conservative courts (of Metternich). Both arrangements were created
on a pretext of a common external ideological and geopolitical
threat, on a shared status quo security consideration. Asymmetric
GCC was an externally induced setting by which an American key
Middle East ally Saudi Arabia gathered the grouping of the Arabian
Peninsula monarchies. It has served a dual purpose; originally, to
contain the leftist Nasseristic pan-Arabism which was introducing a
republican type of egalitarian government in the Middle Eastern
theater. It was also – after the 1979 revolution – an instrument to
counter-balance the Iranian influence in the Gulf and wider Middle
East. The response to the spring 2011-13 turmoil in the Middle East,
including the deployment of the Saudi troops in Bahrain, and
including the analysis of the role of influential Qatar-based and
GCC-backed Al Jazeera TV network is the best proof of the very
nature of the GCC mandate.
The SCO is internally induced and more symmetric
setting. Essentially, it came into existence through a strategic
Sino-Russian rapprochement[1],
based, for the first time in modern history, on parity, to deter
external aspirants (the US, Japan, Korea, India, Turkey and Saudi
Arabia) and to keep the resources, territory, present socio-economic
cultural and political regime in the Central Asia, Tibet heights and
the Xinjiang Uighur province
in line.
The next to consider is the Indian sub-continent’s
grouping, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation –
SAARC. This organization has a well-established mandate, well
staffed and versed Secretariat. However, the Organization is
strikingly reminiscent of the League of Nations. The League is
remembered as an altruistic setup which repeatedly failed to
adequately respond to the security quests of its members as well as
to the challenges and pressures of parties that were kept out of the
system (e.g. Russia until well into the 1930s and the US remaining
completely outside the system, and in the case of the SAARC
surrounding; China, Saudi Arabia and the US). The SAARC is
practically a hostage of mega confrontation of its two largest
members, both confirmed nuclear powers; India and Pakistan. These
two challenge each other geopolitically and ideologically. Existence
of one is a negation of the existence of the other; the religiously
determined nationhood of Pakistan is a negation of multiethnic India
and vice verse. Additionally, the SAARC although internally induced
is an asymmetric organization. It is not only the size of India, but
also its position: centrality of that country makes SAARC
practically impossible to operate in any field without the direct
consent of India, be it commerce, communication, politics or
security.
For a serious advancement of multilateralism, mutual
trust, a will to compromise and achieve a common denominator through
active co-existence is the key. It is hard to build a common course
of action around the disproportionately big and centrally positioned
member which would escape the interpretation as containment by the
big or assertiveness of its center by the smaller, peripheral
members.
Multivector Foreign Policy
Finally, there is an ASEAN – a grouping of 10
Southeast Asian nations[2],
exercising the balanced multi-vector policy, based on the
non-interference principle, internally and externally. This,
Jakarta/Indonesia headquartered[3]
organization has a dynamic past and an ambitious
current charter. It is an internally induced and relatively
symmetric arrangement with the strongest members placed around its
geographic center, like in case of the EU equilibrium with
Germany-France/Britain-Italy/Poland-Spain geographically balancing
each other. Situated on the geographic axis of the southern flank of
the Asian landmass, the so-called growth triangle of
Thailand-Malaysia-Indonesia represents the core of the ASEAN not
only in economic and communication terms but also by its political
leverage. The EU-like ASEAN Community Road Map (for 2015) will
absorb most of the Organization’s energy[4].
However, the ASEAN has managed to open its forums for the 3+3
group/s, and could be seen in the long run as a cumulus setting
towards the wider pan-Asian forum in future.
Before closing this brief overview, let us mention
two recently inaugurated informal forums, both based on the external
calls for a burden sharing. One, with a jingoistic-coined name by
the Wall Street bankers[5]
- BRI(I)C/S, so far includes two important Asian
economic, demographic and political powerhouses (India and China),
and one peripheral (Russia). Indonesia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia,
Pakistan, Kazakhstan, Iran are a few additional Asian countries
whose national pride and pragmatic interests are advocating a BRIC
membership. The G–20, the other informal forum, is also assembled on
the Ad hoc (pro bono) basis following the need of the G–7 to achieve
a larger approval and support for its monetary (currency exchange
accord) and financial (austerity) actions introduced in the
aftermath of still unsettled financial crisis. Nevertheless, the
BRIC and G-20 have not provided the Asian participating states
either with the more leverage in the Bretton Woods institutions
besides a burden sharing, or have they helped to tackle the
indigenous Asian security problems. Appealing for the national
pride, however, both informal gatherings may divert the necessary
resources and attention to Asian states from their pressing
domestic, pan-continental issues.
Yet, besides the UN system machinery of the
Geneva-based Disarmament committee, the UN Security Council, the
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons – OPCW and
International Atomic Energy Agency – IAEA (or CTBTO), even the ASEAN
Asians (as the most multilateralized Asians) have no suitable
standing forum to tackle and solve their security issues. An
organization similar to the Council of Europe or the OSCE is still
far from emerging on Asian soil.
Our history warns. Nevertheless, it also provides a
hope: The
pre-CSCE (pre-Helsinki) Europe was indeed a dangerous place to live
in. The sharp geopolitical and ideological default line was passing
through the very heart of Europe, cutting it into halves. The
southern Europe was practically sealed off by notorious
dictatorships; in Greece (Colonel Junta), Spain (Franco) and
Portugal (Salazar), with Turkey witnessing several of its
governments toppled by the secular and omnipotent military
establishment, with inverted Albania and a (non-Europe minded)
non-allied, Tito’s Yugoslavia. Two powerful instruments of the US
military presence (NATO) and of the Soviets (Warsaw pact) in Europe
were keeping huge standing armies, enormous stockpiles of
conventional as well as the ABC weaponry and delivery systems,
practically next to each other. By far and large, European borders
were not mutually recognized. Essentially, the west rejected to even
recognize many of the Eastern European, Soviet dominated/installed
governments.
Territorial disputes unresolved
Currently in Asia, there is hardly a single state
which has no territorial dispute within its neighborhood. From the
Middle East, Caspian and Central Asia, Indian sub-continent,
mainland Indochina or Archipelago SEA, Tibet, South China Sea and
the Far East, many countries are suffering numerous green and blue
border disputes. The South China Sea solely counts for over a dozen
territorial disputes – in which mostly China presses peripheries to
break free from the long-lasting encirclement. These moves are often
interpreted by the neighbors as dangerous assertiveness. On the top
of that Sea resides a huge economy and insular territory in a legal
limbo – Taiwan, which waits for a time when the pan-Asian and intl.
agreement on how many Chinas Asia should have, gains a wide and
lasting consensus.
Unsolved territorial issues, sporadic irredentism,
conventional armament, nuclear ambitions, conflicts over
exploitation of and access to the marine biota, other natural
resources including fresh water access and supply are posing
enormous stress on external security, safety and stability in Asia.
Additional stress comes from the newly emerging environmental
concerns, that are representing nearly absolute security threats,
not only to the tiny Pacific nation of Tuvalu[6],
but also to the Maldives, Bangladesh, Cambodia, parts of Thailand,
of Indonesia, of Kazakhstan and of the Philippines, etc[7].
All this combined with uneven economic and demographic dynamics[8]
of the continent are portraying Asia as a real powder
keg.
It is absolutely inappropriate to compare the size of
Asia and Europe – the latter being rather an extension of a huge
Asian continental landmass, a sort of western Asian peninsula – but
the interstate maneuvering space is comparable. Yet, the space
between the major powers of post-Napoleonic Europe was as equally
narrow for any maneuver as is the space today for any security
maneuver of Japan, China, India, Pakistan, Iran and the like.
Let us also take a brief look at the peculiarities of
the nuclear constellations in Asia. Following the historic
analogies; it echoes the age of the American nuclear monopoly and
the years of Russia’s desperation to achieve the parity.
Besides holding huge stockpiles of conventional
weaponry and numerous standing armies, Asia is a home of four (plus
peripheral Russia and Israel) of the nine known nuclear powers
(declared and undeclared). Only China and Russia are parties to the
Non-proliferation Treaty – NPT. North Korea walked away in 2003,
whereas India and Pakistan both confirmed nuclear powers declined to
sign the Treaty. Asia is also the only continent on which nuclear
weaponry has been deployed.
[9]
Cold War exiled in Asia
As is well known, the peak of the Cold War was marked
by the mega geopolitical and ideological confrontation of the two
nuclear superpowers whose stockpiles by far outnumbered the
stockpiles of all the other nuclear powers combined. However
enigmatic, mysterious and incalculable to each other[10],
the Americans and Soviets were on opposite sides of the globe, had
no territorial disputes, and no record of direct armed conflicts.
Insofar, the Asian nuclear constellation is
additionally specific as each of the holders has a history of
hostilities – armed frictions and confrontations over unsolved
territorial disputes along the shared borders, all combined with the
intensive and lasting ideological rivalries. The Soviet Union had
bitter transborder armed frictions with China over the demarcation
of its long land border. China has fought a war with India and has
acquired a significant territorial gain. India has fought four
mutually extortive wars with Pakistan over Kashmir and other
disputed bordering regions. Finally, the Korean peninsula has
witnessed the direct military confrontations of Japan, USSR, Chinese
as well as the US on its very soil, and remains a split nation under
a sharp ideological divide.
On the western edge of the Eurasian continent,
neither France, Britain, Russia nor the US had a (recent) history of
direct armed conflicts. They do not even share land borders.
Finally, only India and now post-Soviet Russia have a
strict and full civilian control over its military and the nuclear
deployment authorization. In the case of North Korea and China, it
is in the hands of an unpredictable and non-transparent communist
leadership – meaning, it resides outside democratic, governmental
decision-making. In Pakistan, it is completely in the hands of a
politically omnipresent military establishment. Pakistan has lived
under a direct military rule for over half of its existence as an
independent state.
What eventually kept the US and the USSR from
deploying nuclear weapons was the dangerous and costly struggle
called: “mutual destruction assurance”. Already by the late 1950s,
both sides achieved parity in the number and type of nuclear
warheads as well as in the number and precision of their delivery
systems. Both sides produced enough warheads, delivery systems’
secret depots and launching sites to amply survive the first impact
and to maintain a strong second-strike capability[11].
Once comprehending that neither the preventive nor preemptive
nuclear strike would bring a decisive victory but would actually
trigger the final global nuclear holocaust and ensure total mutual
destruction, the Americans and the Soviets have achieved a
fear–equilibrium through the hazardous deterrence. Thus, it was not
an intended armament rush (for parity), but the non-intended Mutual
Assurance Destruction – MAD – with its tranquilizing effect of
nuclear weaponry, if possessed in sufficient quantities and
impenetrable configurations – that brought a bizarre sort of
pacifying stability between two confronting superpowers. Hence, MAD
prevented nuclear war, but did not disarm the superpowers.
As noted, the nuclear stockpiles in Asia are
considerably modest[12].
The number of warheads, launching sites and delivery systems is not
sufficient and sophisticated enough to offer the second strike
capability. That fact seriously compromises stability and security:
preventive or preemptive N–strike against a nuclear or non-nuclear
state could be contemplated as decisive, especially in South Asia
and on the Korean peninsula, not to mention the Middle East[13].
A general wisdom of geopolitics assumes the
potentiality of threat by examining the degree of intensions and
capability of belligerents. However, in Asia this theory does not
necessarily hold the complete truth: Close geographic proximities of
Asian nuclear powers means shorter flight time of warheads, which
ultimately gives a very brief decision-making period to engaged
adversaries. Besides a deliberate, a serious danger of an accidental
nuclear war is therefore evident.
Multilateral mechanisms
One of the greatest thinkers and humanists of the 20th
century, Erich Fromm wrote: “…man can only go
forward by developing (his) reason, by finding a new harmony…”[14]
There is certainly a long road from vision and wisdom
to a clear political commitment and accorded action. However, once
it is achieved, the operational tools are readily at disposal. The
case of Helsinki Europe is very instructive. To be frank, it was the
over-extension of the superpowers who contested one another all over
the globe, which eventually brought them to the negotiation table.
Importantly, it was also a constant, resolute call of the European
public that alerted governments on both sides of the default line.
Once the political considerations were settled, the technicalities
gained momentum: there was – at first – mutual pan-European
recognition of borders which tranquilized tensions literally
overnight. Politico-military cooperation was situated in the
so-called first Helsinki basket, which included the joint military
inspections, exchange mechanisms, constant information flow, early
warning instruments, confidence–building measures mechanism, and the
standing panel of state representatives (the so-called Permanent
Council). Further on, an important clearing house was situated in
the so-called second basket – the forum that links the economic and
environmental issues, items so pressing in Asia at the moment.
Admittedly, the III OSCE Basket was a source of many
controversies in the past years, mostly over the interpretation of
mandates. However, the new wave of nationalism, often replacing the
fading communism, the emotional charges and residual fears of the
past, the huge ongoing formation of the middle class in Asia whose
passions and affiliations will inevitably challenge established
elites domestically and question their policies internationally, and
a related search for a new social consensus – all that could be
successfully tackled by some sort of an Asian III basket. Clearly,
further socio-economic growth in Asia is impossible without the
creation and mobilization of a strong middle class – a segment of
society which when appearing anew on the socio-political horizon is
traditionally very exposed and vulnerable to political misdeeds and
disruptive shifts. At any rate, there are several OSCE observing
nations from Asia[15];
from Thailand to Korea and Japan, with Indonesia, a nation that
currently considers joining the forum. They are clearly benefiting
from the participation[16].
Consequently, the largest continent should consider
the creation of its own comprehensive pan-Asian multilateral
mechanism. In doing so, it can surely rest on the vision and spirit
of Helsinki. On the very institutional setup, Asia can closely
revisit the well-envisioned SAARC and ambitiously empowered ASEAN[17]
fora. By examining these two regional bodies, Asia
can find and skillfully calibrate the appropriate balance between
widening and deepening of the security mandate of such future
multilateral organization – given the number of states as well as
the gravity of the pressing socio-political, environmental and
politico-military challenges.
In the age of unprecedented success and the
unparalleled prosperity of Asia, an indigenous multilateral
pan-Asian arrangement presents itself as an opportunity.
Contextualizing Hegel’s famous saying that “freedom is…an insight
into necessity” let me close by stating that a need for the
domesticated pan-Asian organization warns by its urgency too.
Clearly, there is no emancipation of the continent;
there is no Asian century, without the pan-Asian multilateral
setting.
Prof. Anis H. Bajrektarevic, Chairman Intl. Law &
Global Pol. Studies
(author of the book ‘Is there life after Facebook’,
Addleton Academic Publishers, NY)
Vienna, 16 DEC 16
anis@bajrektarevic.eu
Post Scriptum
How can we observe and interpret (the distance
between) success and failure from a historical
perspective? This question remains a difficult one to (satisfy all
with a single) answer... The immediate force behind the rapid
and successful European overseas projection was actually the two
elements combined: Europe’s technological (economic) advancement and
demographic expansion (from early 16th
century on). However, West/Europe was not –
frankly speaking – winning over the rest of this planet by the
superiority of its views and ideas, by purity of its virtues or by
clarity and sincerity of its religious thoughts and practices. For a
small and rather insecure civilization from the antropo-geographic
suburbia, it was just the superiority through efficiency in applying
the rationalized violence and organized (legitimized) coercion that
Europe successfully projected. The 21st
century Europeans often forget this ‘inconvenient
truth’, while the non-Europeans usually never do.
The large, self-maintainable, self-assured and secure
civilizations (e.g. situated on the Asian landmass) were
traditionally less militant and confrontational (and a nation-state
‘exclusive’), but more esoteric and generous, inclusive, attentive
and flexible. The smaller, insecure civilizations (e.g. situated on
a modest and minor, geographically remote and peripheral, natural
resources scarce, and climatically harshly exposed continent of
Europe) were more focused, obsessively organized, directional and
“goal–oriented” (including the invention of virtue out of
necessity – a nation-state). No wonder that only Asian, and no
European civilization has ever generated a single religion. Although
it admittedly doctrinated, ‘clergified’ and headquartered one of the
four Middle East-revelled monotheistic religions, that of
Christianity. On the other hand, no other civilization but the
European has ever created a significant, even a relevant political
ideology.
Acknowledgments
For the past twelve years I hosted over 100
ambassadors at my university, some 30 from Asia alone. Several of
them are currently obtaining (or recently finished) very high
governmental positions in their respective countries. That includes
the Foreign Minister posts (like the former Korean ambassador Kim
Sung-Hwan, or the former Kazakh ambassador Yerzhan Kazykhanov), as
well as the SAARC Sec-General post (former India’s Ambassador Kant
Sharma), or candidacy for the OIC Secretary-General post (including
the former Malaysian Ambassador to the UN New York, Tan Sri Hasmi
AGAM, currently the SUHAKAM Chairman in Kuala Lumpur). It would be
inappropriate to name them here. However, let me express my sincere
gratitude for all the talks and meetings which helped an early
‘fermentation’ of my hypothesis claim as such. Finally, I would like
to name the following personalities (in their current or past
capacities) for the valuable intellectual encounters and their
sometimes opposing but always inspiring and constructive comments in
the course of drafting the article:
H.E. Mr. Dato’ Misran KARMAIN, the ASEAN Deputy
Secretary General
H.E. Mr. I Gusti Agung Wesaka PUJA, Indonesia’s
Ambassador and Permanent Representative to the UN and other IO’s in
Vienna (currently Director-General for ASEAN Affairs in the
Indonesian Foreign Ministry)
H.E. Ms. Nongnuth PHETCHARATANA,
Thai Ambassador and Permanent
Representative to the OSCE, UN and other IO’s in Vienna (currently
Thai Ambassador in Berlin)
H.E. Ms. Linglingay F.
LACANLALE, the Philippines’ Ambassador to Thailand and the UN ESCAP
H.E. Mr. Khamkheuang
BOUNTEUM, Laos’ Ambassador and Permanent
Representative to the UN and other IO’s in Vienna
H.E. Mr. Ba Than NGUYEN,
Vietnam’s Ambassador and Permanent Representative
to the UN and other IO’s in Vienna
H.E. Mr. Ibrahim DJIKIC, Ambassador and former OSCE
Mission Head to Ashgabat
However, the views expressed are solely those of the
author himself.
References:
Bajrektarevic, Anis, “Verticalization of
Historical Experiences: Europe’s and Asia’s Security Structures –
Structural Similarities and Differences”, Crossroads, The Mac
Foreign Policy Journal, Skopje (Vol. I Nr. 4) 2007
Bajrektarevic, Anis, “Institutionalization of
Historical Experiences: Europe and Asia – Same Quest, Different
Results, Common Futures”, Worldviews and the Future of Human
Civilization, (University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur, November 2008)
Malaysia (2008)
Bajrektarevic, Anis, “Destiny Shared: Our Common
Futures – Human Capital beyond 2020”, the 5th
Global Tech Leaders Symposium , Singapore-Shanghai March 2005
(2005)
Bajrektarevic, Anis, “Structural Differences in
Security Structures of Europe and Asia – Possible Conflicting Cause
in the SEA Theater”, The 4th
Viennese conference on SEA, SEAS Vienna June 2009 (2009)
Duroselle, J.B., “Histoire Diplomatique – Études
Politiques, Économiques et Sociales”, Dalloz Printing Paris
(first published 1957), 1978
Friedman, George, “The Next 100 Years”, Anchor
Books/Random House NY (2009)
Fromm, Erich, “The Art of Loving”, Perennial
Classics, (page: 76) (1956)
Hegel, G.W.F., Phänomenologie des Geistes (The
Phenomenology of Mind, 1807), Oxford University Press, 1977 (page:
25 VII)
Mahbubani, Kishore, “The New Asian Hemisphere”,
Public Affairs, Perseus Books Group (page: 44-45) (2008)
Sagan, S.D. and Waltz, K.N., “The Spread of
Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed”, (page: 112) (2003)
ABSTRACT:
Following the famous saying allegedly spelled by
Kissinger: “Europe? Give me a name and a phone number!” (when – back
in early 1970s – urged by President Nixon to inform Europeans on the
particular US policy action), the author is trying to examine how
close is Asia to have its own telephone number.
By contrasting and comparing genesis of multilateral
security structures in Europe with those currently existing in Asia,
and by listing some of the most pressing security challenges in
Asia, this article offers several policy incentives why the largest
world’s continent must consider creation of the comprehensive
pan-Asian institution. Prevailing security structures in Asia are
bilateral and mostly asymmetric while Europe enjoys multilateral,
balanced and symmetric setups (American and African continents too).
Author goes as far as to claim that irrespective to the impressive
economic growth, no Asian century will emerge without creation of
such an institution.
Key words:
Security, multilateralism, Asia, geopolitics,
geo-economics, preventive diplomacy,
(nuclear weapons, border disputes, Council of Europe,
OSCE, OAS, AU, EU, NATO, OIC, NAM, ASEAN, APEC, SAARC, GCC, SCO,
KEDO, SEATO, BRIC, G-7, G-20, Japan, China, the US, Russia/SU,
Alliance of Eastern Conservative Courts, pre-Napoleonic Europe,
growth, middle class, nationalism)
[1] Analyzing the
Sino-Soviet and post-Soviet-Sino relations tempts me to compare it
with the Antic Roman Empire. The monolithic block has entered its
fragmentation on a seemingly rhetoric, clerical question – who would
give the exclusive interpretation of the holy text: Rome or
Constantinople. Clearly, the one who holds the monopoly on the
interpretation has the ideological grip, which can easily be
translated into a strategic advantage. It was Moscow insisting that
the Soviet type of communism was the only true and authentic
communism. A great schism put to an end the lasting theological but
also geopolitical conflict in the antique Roman theatre. The
Sino-Soviet schism culminated with the ideological and geopolitical
emancipation of China, especially after the Nixon recognition of
Beijing China. Besides the ideological cleavages, the socio-economic
and political model of the Roman Empire was heavily contested from
the 3rd
century onwards. The Western Roman Empire rigidly persisted to any
structural change, unable to adapt. It eroded and soon thereafter
vanished from the political map. The Eastern Empire successfully
reformed and Byzantium endured as a viable socio-economic and
political model for another 1,000 years. Feeling the need for an
urgent reshape of the declining communist system, both leaders
Gorbachev and Deng Xiaoping contemplated reforms. Gorbachev
eventually fractured the Soviet Union with glasnost
and perestroika. Deng managed China
successfully. Brave, accurate and important argumentation comes from
diplomat and prolific author Kishore Mahbubani (The New Asian
Hemisphere, 2008, page 44-45). Mahbubani claims that Gorbachev
handed over the Soviet empire and got nothing in return, while Deng
understood “the real success of Western strength and power … China
did not allow the students protesting in Tiananmen Square”.
Consequently, Deng drew a sharp and decisive line to avoid the fate
of Russia, and allowed only perestroika. China has survived,
even scoring the unprecedented prosperity in only the last two
decades. Russia has suffered a steep decline in the aftermath of the
loss of its historic empire, including the high suicide and crime
rates as well as the severe alcohol problems. Gorbachev himself
moved to the US, and one vodka brand labels his name.
[2] The membership might be
extended in the future to East Timor and Papua New Guinea.
[3] Symbolic or not, the
ASEAN HQ is located less than 80 miles away from the place of the
historical, the NAM–precursor, the Asian–African Conference of
Bandung 1955.
[4] Comparisons pose an
inaccuracy risks as history often finds a way to repeat itself, but
optimism finally prevails. Tentatively, we can situate the ASEAN
today, where the pre-Maastricht EU was between the Merge Treaty and
the Single European Act.
[5] The acronym was
originally coined by Jim O’Neill, a chief global economist of
Goldman Sachs, in his 2001 document report: “Building Better Global
Economic BRICs”. This document was elaborating on countries which
may provide the West with the socially, economically and politically
cheap primary commodities and
undemanding labor force, finally suggesting to the West to balance
such trade by exporting its high-prized final products in return.
The paper did not foresee either creation of any BRIC grouping or
the nomadic change of venue places of its periodic meetings. O’Neill
initially tipped Brazil, Russia, India and China, although at recent
meetings South Africa was invited (BRICS) with the pending Indonesia
(BRIICS).
[6]
Tuvalu, a country composed of
low-laying atoll islands, faces an imminent complete loss of state
territory. This event would mark a precedent in the theory of intl.
law – that one country suffers a complete geographic loss of its
territory.
[7]
Detailed environmental impact
risk assessments including the no-go zones are available in the
CRESTA reports. The CRESTA Organization is powered by the Swiss RE
as a consortium of the leading insurance and reinsurance companies.
[8]
The intriguing intellectual
debate is currently heating up the western world. Issues are
fundamental: Why is science turned into religion? Practiced economy
is based on the over 200-years old liberal theory of Adam Smith and
over 300-years old philosophy of Hobbes and Locke – basically,
frozen and rigidly canonized into a dogmatic exegesis. Scientific
debate is replaced by a blind obedience. Why is religion turned into
political ideology? Religious texts are misinterpreted and
ideologically misused in Europe, ME, Asia, Americas and Africa. Why
is the secular or religious ethics turned from the bio-centric
comprehension into the anthropocentric environmental ignorance? The
resonance of these vital debates is gradually reaching Asian elites.
No one can yet predict the range and scope of their responses,
internally or externally. One is certain; Asia understood that the
global (economic) integration can not be a substitute for any viable
development strategy. Globalization, as experienced in Asia and
observed elsewhere, did not offer a shortcut to development, even
less to social cohesion, environmental needs, domestic employment,
educational uplift of the middle class and general public health.
[9]
“Obama, the first seating
American president to visit Laos, recalled that the US has dropped
more than 2 million tons of bombs on this country during the heights
of the Vietnam war – more than it dropped on Germany and Japan
combined during the WWII. That made Laos, per capita, the most
heavily bombed country in human history. ‘Countless civilian were
killed... especially innocent men, women children. Even now, many
Americans were unaware of their country’s deadly legacy here’ – the
president said in Vientiane in 2016.” It took a good 40 years to the
US press to fairly report on it, too. /Landler, M. (2016), Obama
seeks to Heal scars of War in Laos, International New York
Times, September 07, 2016, (page 6)/
[10]
The Soviet Union was enveloped
in secrecy, a political culture, eminent in many large countries,
which the Soviets inherited from the Tsarist Russia and further
enhanced – a feature that puzzled Americans. It was the US cacophony
of open, nearly exhibitionistic policy debates that puzzled Russians
– and made both sides unable to predict the moves of the other one.
The Soviets were confused by the omnipresence of overt political
debate in the US, and the Americans were confused by the absence of
any political debate in the USSR. Americans well knew that the real
power resided outside the government, in the Soviet Politburo.
Still, it was like a black-box – to use a vivid Kissinger allegory,
things were coming in and getting out, but nobody figured out what
was happening inside. Once the particular decision had been taken,
the Soviets implemented it persistently in a heavy-handed and rigid
way. Usually, the policy alternation/adjustment was not coming
before the personal changes at the top of the SU Politburo – events
happening so seldom. On the other hand, the Soviets were confused by
the equidistant constellation of the US executive, legislative and
judicial branches – for the Soviet taste, too often changed, the
chaotic setup of dozens of intelligence and other enforcement
agencies, the role of the media and the public, and the influential
lobby groups that crosscut the US bipartisanism – all which
participated in the decision prep and making process. Even when
brokered, the US actions were often altered or replaced in
zigzagging turns. The US was unable to grasp where the Communist
Party ended and the USSR government started. By the same token, the
Soviets were unable to figure out where the corporate America ended
and the US government started. Paradoxically enough, the political
culture of one prevented it from comprehending and predicting the
actions of the other one. What was the logical way for one was
absolutely unthinkable and illogical for the other.
[11]
As Waltz rightfully concludes:
“Conventional weapons put a premium on striking first to gain the
initial advantage and set the course of the war. Nuclear weapons
eliminate this premium. The initial advantage is insignificant…”…
due to the second strike capability of both belligerents. (‘The
Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Debate Renewed’ by Scott D. Sagan and
Kenneth N Waltz, 2003, p. 112).
[12]
It is assumed that Pakistan
has as few as 20 combat/launching ready fission warheads, India is
believed to have some 60, and Korea (if any, not more than) 2-3
only. Even China, considered as the senior nuclear state, has not
more than 20 ICBM.
[13]
Israel as a non-declared
nuclear power is believed to have as many as 200 low-powered fission
nuclear bombs. A half of it is deliverable by the mid-range missile
Jericho II, planes and mobile (hide and relocate) launchers
(including the recently delivered, nuclear war-head capable German
submarines). Iran successfully tested the precision of its mid-range
missile and keeps ambitiously working on the long-range generation
of missiles. At the same time, Iran may well have acquired some
vital dual-use (so far, peaceful purpose) nuclear technologies.
There is a seed of nuclear ambition all over the Middle East, with
Saudi Arabia and Turkey as the least shy ones.
[14]
“The Art of Loving”, Erich
Fromm, 1956, page 76. Fromm wrote it at about the time of the
Bandung conference.
[15]
The so-called OSCE–Asian
Partners for Cooperation are: Japan (1992), Korea (1994), Thailand
(2000), Afghanistan (2003), Mongolia (2004) and
Australia (2009). Within the
OSCE quarters, particularly Thailand and Japan enjoy a reputation of
being very active.
[16]
It is likely to expect that
five other ASEAN countries, residentially represented in Vienna, may
formalize their relation with OSCE in a due time. The same move
could be followed by the Secretariats of both SAARC and ASEAN.
[17]
In Europe and in Asia – even
when being at the HQ in Jakarta, I am often asked to clarify my
(overly) optimistic views on the ASEAN future prospects. The ASEAN
as well as the EU simply have no alternative but to survive and turn
successful, although currently suffering many deficiencies and being
far from optimized multilateral mechanisms. Any alternative to the
EU is a grand accommodation of either France or Germany with Russia
– meaning a return to Europe of the 18th,
19th
and early 20th
centuries – namely, perpetual
wars and destructions. Any alternative to the ASEAN would be an
absorptive accommodation of particular ASEAN member states to either
Japan or China or India – meaning fewer large blocks on a dangerous
collision course. Thus, paradoxically enough in cases of both the EU
and of ASEAN, it is not (only) the inner capacitation but the
external constellations that make me optimistic about their
respective success.
December 29, 2016

Geostrategic Pulse is studied at Harvard!
PDF-format - 6,62 MB
December 29, 2016
Sino-Russian neighborhood policy:
Kazakhstan – Euroasian heart of gold
By Filippo Romeo
Quite untill recently Kazakhstan was commonly
identified as an impervious, legendary and fascinating place, one of
passionate, bloody dusks whose natural beauty, combined with the
landscape diversity, made it the most seductive country in Central
Asia. Today, though these features still distinguish it, it is
placed in the new global scenario with a fully renewed guise which
makes it the jewel in the area's crown.
Over 20 years it actually managed to endow itself with its own
structure and identity, doubtlessly more incisively and further
reachingly than other ex USSR countries. This data may be even more
appreciated if one considers its population, made up of only 17
million inhavitants, is subdivided into as many as 130 different
religious confessions, which the state authorities were wisely able
to harmonize, fleeing any attempt to ethnically-religiously
characterize the Country. State modernization was also the fruit of
smart economic choices, whose strategy did not stop on exclusively
exploiting the huge energy resources available, but focussed on
encouraging ambitious development projects based on the public -
private partnership and attracting foreign investors tempted by the
the privileged geographical position placing it near the greatest
markets in Russia, China and India.
This geographical peculiarity makes Kazakhstan a transcontinental
State and also a potential logistic platform for exchange between
Europe and Asia and, in particular, in this moment which is
recording an epochal change in geo-political, geo-economic scenarios
which the greatest powers involved are also responding to via
creating and planning great infrastructural works. In fact there is
no doubt that in the emerging context, continental infrastructures
form an essential moment for upturn, as they can influence both the
technological modernization processes and foreign policy stability.
As well as broadening works in the Suez Canals and Panama, which
have surely stressed the role played by maritime links, one must in
no way ignore the importance of the land ones, which see the Asian
continent as one of the main characters.
Indeed, Asia – “pivot of the century”, which prof. Bajrektarevic
describes as the place where “demographic-migratory pressures are
huge, regional demands are high, and expectations are brewing” is
the continent most interested in and involved by projects to create
roads, tunnels and rail, infrastructures that should cross it from
one strip to another. For example, China, which is playing a major
role in this process, has for some years now got down to business,
creating several strategic infrastructural projects that are useful
in accompanying, protecting and raising the Country's expansive
capacities. This surely includes the great land and sea "New Silk
Way" project, devised by Peking with the principal aim of moving
China closer to the rest of the Euro-Asian continental mass, as well
as developing the inland zones remaining behind the coastal strip.
There can be no doubt that the full completion of this project will
have weighty geo-political repercussions, if one just considers it
focuses on linking Europe and Asia under an infrastructural,
economic profile, and at the same time going against US replacing on
the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean.
In this new picture, Kazakhstan, already identifying itself as as
"bridge" and joining land between the economies of Europe and Asia,
finds itself back in the heart of a new East-West efficiency
logistic axis represented by the current surge of motorway, Railroad
and pipeline constructions. This looks to new, ambitious business
opportunities, some of them already grasped by Italian firms (like
Salini Impregilo and Todini), already busy creating one of these
international transit corridors, while others could be profiled
following the passing of the new Nurly Zhol state development
programme, “The Walk Toward the Future”.
This programme, which aims to modernize the infrastructure and
internal transport apparatus, also in view of the Expo to be held in
the very modern Astana in 2017, intends to encurage foreign
investments in transport / logistic and industrial / energy sectors
so as to make the Country more efficient and in step with the
interconnection processes developing both on a global level and in
the "Euro-Asian" strip. The Expo event is bound to contribute to
giving gloss to the capital representing the perfect synthesis of
modernizing processes launched in the last two decades as well as
the last in the utopian cities chronologically.
Astana, bearing the signature of Japanese architect Kisko Kurokava
with collaboration from artists and intellectuals, was devised to
represent, despite its distinctive Winter temperatures, the perfect
city of the future model and celebrate the growing power of
Kazakhstan. A revolutionary city that expresses the vision of its
its planner, man dominating nature, and also embodies environmental
sustainability principles, breaking with traditional city
structures. Astana was indeed planned and created in sectors,
putting the zones in a row starting from the industrial one, located
around the station so as to exploit transport possibilities,
following with residential areas, with parks and gardens, with the
government's administrative ones and the diplomats' zone. As well as
Astana, Kazakhstan also dares on the maritime transport
megastructures, suggesting a "Euro-Asian channel" so that its ships,
starting from the Caspian Sea, can reach the Black Sea and from
there, via the Bosphorus, the Mediterranean.
Should this proposal become reality, it could turn the Country,
thanks mainly to its geographical position and its constructive big
neghbours, into the great "Euro-Asia" logistic platform, a great
centre to shift products and services and attract investments
located in the golden "heart of the world".

Filippo Romeo Director of the “Infrastructure and Territorial
Development” Programme, IsAG Rome
December23, 2016
The Role of Europe in the Balkan
region's geopolitical crossing
FILIPPO ROMEO
Geopolitics,
the study of how spatial dimension impacts on and affects states'
politics, may offer an important contribution to analysing
strategies suited to developing rail infrastructures beween Italy
and the Balkans.
The Balkan idea sets and fixes the concepts and definitions between
real and ideological, so as to generate a counterposition of
geographical and geopolitical concepts.
While in some cases the term "Balkans" does refer to a mountainous
system, in others the definition tends to stretch to indicate the
peninsula, or an area of chronic instability, a Europe powder keg or
Continent underbelly, to the point of being used to decline a value
judgement (consider the expression “Balkanization”, a paradigm used
in other geographical contexts characterised by political
instability.)
The peculiarity of this space, which was for centuries a vehicle for
great migrations, wars, traffic and cultural exchange, is provided
by its physical form, which made it a fault, or point of contact,
between different areas (Western and Eastern), religious and
cultural models (Christianity and Islam, Catholicism and orthodoxy),
as well as between two opposing economic models. The Balkans,
observing a map, further present a triple "personality" in short
distances: Mediterranean and maritime along the coast,
Central-European in the Southern plains, Balkan in the continental
mass. The ethnic mosaic, another concept linked to the Balkans,
seems, then, to represent a sole aspect linked to a wider context,
characterised by being complex and fragmentary.
The counterpositions and tensions distingishing this area, crossing
and subject to external yearning, differently renewed each year till
today, appeal to long-term factors in European history, but mainly
to insular, peripheral peculiarities and peculiarities of the closed
spaces characterising them. These conditions actually made it hard
to create and develop a proto-national awareness based on
territorial consciousness deriving from urban, borgeouis culture. In
contrast, the varied stratification of urban cultures have given
rise to various identifying paths, on which Balkan nationalisms,
mainly characterised by elements such as ethnocentrism and
xenophobia, were built.
Affermation of new nations was actually based predominantly on the
glue of purification from elements foreign to the natural Group.
Such nationalist drives, on which foreign powers ambiguously weave
cultural and geopolitical influence so as to erode definitively the
authority of the Ottoman Empire and the institutional base it set
up, will turn the Balkans into an area for European powers'
rivalries to clash (interposed). In the same way one may remember
how the unification of the Balkans was only possible with
intervention by the Sultan's foreign power.
One may indeed state the history of these territories, proceeding in
the same direction as geography, characteised by complexity and
diversity, reinforced certain peculiar traits such as diffidence
towards the State, reinforced cultural identities and weak
territorial attachment, mainly linked to the field of the small
natural region.
Such phenomena reappeared with the fall of the Berlin Wall and the
disappearance of great multinational entities (the dissolvement of
the USSR and Yugoslavia), which led to new races to fill empty
spaces, hence giving rise to Yugoslav secession wars, which were -
not by chance - situated on the ridge of a great geopolitical
transition.
Europe - in some way agent for intervention in the US area to follow
its own strategic interests - failed to take concrete action, and
this not only hindered the search for a solution, but also furthered
the existing conflicts, until one may call the area a "geopolitical
hotbed”.
All this went on while the Community in Europe was trying to find a
common market and negotiate the Maastricht Treaty to create an
Economic_Monetary Union. So this crisis created a threat for the
European constituting order, and also represented a failed chance
for Europe to show it exists and can act as a great power.
It is clear that if the policy of a dynamic era like this one can
exploit the evolved communication system so as to spread or
compromise spaces and adopt names, concepts and strategic doctrines
that do not correspond to previous geography, it still cannot change
geography itself, or what man accumulated on the land for millennia,
from an urban, economic, infrastructure, ethnic and political point
of view.
Indeed, each strategic representation cannot ignore the powerful
bonds created by geography and history. In our age's geo-history,
the "Balkan hinge", whose borders often divided historians, refers
to an idea of a firmly delineated area rather than a great
geographical region (is the natural border the Balkan chain or the
Danube? Do Rumania or Slovenia belong?
Turkey and Greece?) and occupies a European area represented by
countries that entered the EU or are have been nominated to. For
simplification, this area's central core may be represented by the
triangle of Belgrade-Thessaloníki-Sophia. Under the strictly
geopolitical profile, one may state even today the Balkans do not
constitute a unified system, but they are very fragmented in both
North-South and East-West directions. With the exception of
Slovenia, and partly Croatia - for historical reasons tighly linked
to Central Europe - the region may be subdivided into Western,
Southern and Eastern Balkans. The first area is geopolitically
characterised by the contrast between Serbia and Croatia to spread
its influence to Bosnia and Herzegovina; the second by the Albanese
issue and influence from Greece; the third has special features and
is formed of States bathed by the Black Sea.
Europe has, then, the duty to integrate this area by a development
and regional interconnection strategy that focuses on a solid
infrastructural transport network, a tool that is fundamentally
important in that it is suited to facilitate and raise economic
interexchange and the cultural "contaminations" necessary to yield
that European spirit of belonging, useful to create consolidated
continental awareness, embryo for true, structured political union.
Trans-Balkan circulation (consider the Danube axis, or Via Egnatia,
the Ljubljana-Belgrade axis, and Istanbul therefrom) historically
represented an element able to unify the region's various
populations, in contrast to country and state atomising, favouring
creation of an integrated whole, unifying the Balkans and linking
them to the world. The circulation networks, then, represent a
fundamental element, especially in this era of multi-pole
geopolitical transition.
It is actually true that planning any infrastructural system can
hardly ignore the global geopolitical and geoeconomic picture, even
more so in the current context, where continental infrastructures
constitute an essential moment for economic rebirth, able to affect
both technology modernisation processes and foreign policy
stability. In this regard it is important to refer to the fact that
it is no accident the economic power developed recently by the
Chinese colossus is supported by a series of strategic
infrastructural projects useful for accompanying, protecting and
raising the Country's expansion capacity.
This certainly involves the great "New Silk Way" project for land
and sea, devised by Peking with the main aim of moving China close
to the rest of the Euro-Asian continental mass and the
Mediterranean, and also developing the inland zone, lagging behind
the coastal strip.
But not only China, also other players like Russia, India, Iran and
countries from Africa, ASEAN and Latin America are moving to create
new communication paths.
So in the face of ths activism, experienced globally, it is good for
the European front to also approach a development and regional
interconnection strategy via a solid infrastructural transport
network to involve all Europe and, most of all, the Balkan area.
This could arise by simulating innovative initiatives to promote
public - private partnership (obviously, no integration form may be
painless, and to be held legitimate it must be based on consensus
and acceptance by local governments).
This means the development of corridors becomes essential. For Italy
in particular, corridors V and VII carry high strategic importance.
Corridor V is especially important for Po Valley - Veneto outlets to
the North-East. Primarily for the Trieste - Budapest route, which is
central to the interests of Austria and Germany, which obviously
have the understandable wish to keep intact all the Street and rail
traffic using their networks, not least with regard to traffic from
Southern France, the Iberian peninsula and Southern Switzerland.
These flows would actually be interrupted by Corridor V, should it
present better conditions than the current ones. It must also be
added that improved transborder links with the Balkan area could
also encouage concrete, real stabilisation and integration thereof
with Europe's Western part, freed from the (currently latent) danger
of terrorism and crime. Continuing current instability would
actually consolidate the proliferation of organised crime and
terrorism, making the Balkan fault even more fragmented and unstable
and creating an irreparable break with the sparkling Asian area
which is living a period of unstoppable growth and expansion.
We must then focus on fully developing the concept of "network" to
focus on creating full vertical and horizontal integration of the
Europe system. This links could encourage mitigating this
fragmentation which, as the opening foresaw, distinguished the
history of this region, which could instead reproduce land for
opportunity instead of conflict, representing at the same time an
element to support Greater European integration.

FILIPPO ROMEO Director of the “Infrastructure and
Territorial Development” Programme, IsAG Rome.
December 4, 2016
TRUMP'S ELECTION AND ITS IMPACT
ON EUROPE
Authors:
Daniele Scalea, Alessandro Cipri
It
is particularly difficult to foretell what the foreign policy of a
US president-elect will be.
We have plenty of examples of US presidents who – after coming into
office – did not follow through on their electoral campaign pledges.
Even though Obama did actually
conclude the agreement with Iran – as promised during his first
presidential campaign – he was able to do that only in his second
term, after having embittered the sanctions for years. While George
W. Bush presented himself as an “isolationist” – in opposition to
Bill Clinton and his humanitarian interventionism – he ended up
launching two major wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, restraining from
others just because of the poor-performances in these two. Richard
Nixon, who won two terms on anti-communism, ended the war against
the Vietnamese Communists and stroke a deal with Maoist China. Both
Wilson in 1916 and Roosevelt in 1940 campaigned on an isolationist
platform, just to lead their country into the first and second world
war as soon as they were re-elected.
Forecasting the foreign policy stances of the
upcoming administration is now even harder than with those of the
past, considering that the President-Elect is not a long-time
politician, and we do not even know who his Secretary of State will
be. Even though a Republican-controlled Congress is certainly good
for President Trump, the GOP is now bitterly divided among opposing
factions, with Trump's "populist" wing fighting an internecine war
against the mainstream conservatives within the party, many of whom
did not even endorse him in the general election.
In fact, regardless of the success of the insurgent candidate,
Congress is still filled up with Tea Partiers and establishment
Republicans, potentially harboring resentment towards the rising
pro-Trump hardliners. This internal conflict may well produce an
hostile Congress for President Trump, especially when it comes to
the most controversial points of his agenda, such as a review of
foreign trade strategies towards fair trade.
So, before trying to figure out the potential
consequences for Europe, let’s try to define at least some general
elements of Trump’s hypothetical foreign policy.
• First
of all, Trump has outlined a non-interventionist policy: no more
wars for state-building or regime change. He want to spend less
in military intervention and more in military supremacy, which
means more R&D and less operational costs. This would imply
sharing responsibilities with US allies, as well as leaving them
more strategic freedom in and the pursuit of their particular
interests.
• He
also wants to normalize relations with Russia, that have reached
the bottom on Ukraine and Syria. He thinks that NATO is too
expensive for Washington, whereas European allies are acting as
free riders . NATO is the 28-nations – almost 70-years old –
military alliance that unites US, Canada and Europe. Conceived
as defensive alliance against USSR, experienced a consistend
expansion of its membership in the years following the end of
the Cold War, welcoming many former communist Eastern European
countries; at the same time, it switched its focus from European
defense out-of-area operations. Those are offensive military
operations such as in Yugoslavia and Serbia, during the ‘90, or
in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and the Gulf of Aden in last fifteen
years. However – since the Ukrainian crisis – NATO is
redirecting its resources to the defense of its Eastern border,
along an arc of tension with Russia ranging from the Arctic to
Syria.
• The
July 2015 nuclear deal with Iran (the JCPOA), strongly wanted by
President Obama, has been harshly criticized by Trump. Under
this deal, Iran agreed to eliminate its stockpile of
medium-enriched uranium, cut its stockpile of low-enriched
uranium by 98%, and reduce by about two-thirds the number of its
gas centrifuges for 13 years. For the next 15 years, Iran will
only enrich uranium up to 3.67%. The main criticism on this deal
is that the Iranian nuclear programme is suspended, rather than
aborted, and in the meantime the Islamic Republic could be
strengthened by the lifting of sanctions while keeping a
regional stance opposed to the US. It is unlikely that Trump
will reject the agreement as a whole, since that would require
to negotiate a new one (and many years were needed for the
current) or to come back to direct confrontation with Iran,
which would mean major efforts in the Middle East for Washington
- something Trump wants to avoid. So, the most probable outcome
could be that the US introduces new extra verification measures
of Tehran’s compliance of the Agreement, and promptly withdraws
from it if any violation is observed.
•
Trump is a vocal opponent of
international free trade agreements, such as the North America
Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), the Transatlantic Trade and
Investement Partnership (TTIP), and the Trans-Pacific
Partnership (TTP), seen as factors of de-industrialization and
industrial outsourcing, especially in China and Mexico.
• Assuming
that these vectors remain sound and Trump Administration manages
to implement them at least in part, we could try to forecast
some effects on Europe.
• First,
we have to consider that major European NATO members have been
reducing their defence spending since the end of the Cold War.
Not considering the US, it is only since 2015 that NATO defence
expenditures are growing, as a consequence of Russian
assertiveness in Eastern Europe. NATO guideline is to spend 2%
of the GDP for Defence but, in recent years, only 3 out of 28
members follow this rule: United States (currently spending
3.61% of the GDP), United Kingdom (2.21%), and – surprisingly –
Greece (2.38%). Greek good will, which is not diminishing but
even increasing under Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, is due to
Athen's dependance on foreign loans, sometimes informally
swapped with arms purchasing. Since 2015, two more countries
abide by the 2% rule: Estonia and Poland. No wonder, since they
are the most anti-Russian countries in NATO and the most vocal
supporters of a military buildup on its Eastern border.
•
Anyway, all that said, the remaining 23 members
out of 28 spend for defence less than the recommended 2%: for
example France 1.78%, Turkey 1.56%, Germany 1.19%, Italy 1.11%,
Spain 0.91%. Since 2012, the US alone spends yearly more than
all European allies altogether. Moreover, the limited
improvement this year is due to the build-up on the Russian
border - a military build-up that Trump will probably do not go
along with.
It
is highly improbable that Trump wants to dismantle NATO and – even
if this was the case – it would be almost impossible for President
Trump to realize it without facing insuperable obstacles. Most
probably, Trump will just follow on Obama’s path in trying to lead
from behind - just avoiding to mess up with Russia again. The theory
of "leading from behind" arose in business circles, with Linda Hill
of the Harvard Business School acknowledged as its mother. In
foreign policy, it means to encourage others to take the initiative,
while quietly establishing the strategy and leading the game. This,
however, is a delicate art, because is a very short step from
leading from behind to be led from the front.
About Obama's doctrine, Charles Krauthammer wrote on
The Washington Post: “It’s been a foreign policy of
hesitation, delay and indecision, marked by plaintive appeals to the
(fictional) international community to do what only America can”.
The experience of Libya in 2011 isn’t indeed
comforting, with the UK and France pressing for a military
intervention against the Gaddafi regime, only to leave afterwards a
country broken into pieces and exposed to Islamist infiltration,
even by ISIS.
But that’s not solely Europe's fault, nor it is
completely US' fault: the responsibility is on the West as a whole,
as London and Paris messed up Libya, like the US had messed up Iraq
before, while our Arab allies are messing up Syria. Consequences are
evident: with the treat of al-Qaida doubled up by ISIS, a lot of
states in the region are either failed or on the verge of failing,
Europe is under pressure from terrorist attacks and from an
unprecedented flow of immigrants, with those two factors giving a
huge contribution to Brexit and other displays of popular distrust
towards the European establishment and institutions.
That’s why I think that the new line dictated by
Trump – although challenging – will be positive for Europe We are
facing problems that cannot be resolved without Russia’s help, not
to say with Russia’s enmity. Think about the Syrian conundrum: a
major Arab state has collapsed, and very hardly could be recomposed
after five years of savage civil, ethnic and religious war, in which
interests of many regional and world powers conflicted one another.
Tensions in Eastern Europe compel both Russia and NATO to increase
military expenditures, while mutual sanctions are harming both
economies.
Even though the European establishment is complaining
about Trump's stance on Russia and the mutual exchange of
compliments between him and President Putin, we have to keep in mind
that it was the United States to push for a confrontation with
Russia, while many EU countries – such as Italy – were in favor of
improving relations with it.
In fact, Italo-Russian relations have been free from
critical issues since the Soviet-Yugoslav "separation" in 1948 and,
even though Italy was part of the Western bloc, it often kept
pushing for an improvement in its relations with the USSR.
A few years after the end of the Second World War,
Manlio Brosio – then Italian ambassador in Moscow (and future NATO
Secretary General – looked for Soviet support for his project of a
neutral Italy, but failed in his attempt. Ten years later,
politicians such as Amintore Fanfani, or public managers such as
Enrico Mattei, launched the “New Atlantism” doctrine, according to
which
– while remaining loyal to the
west – Italy would act independently, seeking friendly relations
with Communist and Mediterranean countries. After the end of the
Cold War, Italy has always been one of the warmest supporters of
cooperation with Russia, especially during the government of Silvio
Berlusconi, whose friendship with Putin was well-known. In 2002,
during a meeting presided by Berlusconi in Pratica di Mare, Russia
and NATO signed an historical cooperation agreement.
This agreement could well be the starting point for a
new approach to collective security in Europe: one that seeks to
engage, rather than confront Russia.
However, not everyone in Europe will agree,
especially among the Eastern countries such as Poland, Estonia,
Latvia, Lithuania, Romania or Hungary that – still recalling the
period of Soviet domination – mistrust the Russians. It is true,
anyway, that recent elections in Moldova and Bulgaria, both former
Communist states, have witnessed the victory of Russia-friendly
candidates. Those Eastern countries are also very conservative and
suspicious of pro-immigration and liberal policies of Western
Europe. In the mid- long-term, this factor could orient them towards
Russia again.
Great Britain – a traditional rival of Russia – has
in recent years led the front of anti-Russian countries opposed to a
lifting of sanctions. But now that London seems next to leave the
EU, and considering that the British usually follow a line dictated
in Washington, it could be well possible that their stance towards
Russia will soften a lot.
A major obstacle remains in Germany, where the German
social-democratic party – relatively pro-Russian, for west-European
standards – is going through a difficult time. Power is still
strongly in the hands of the Christian-democrats and especially of
Angela Merkel, who is toying with the idea of assert herself as the
new leader of a liberal Western front, opposed to both Trump and
Putin. Apart from her mania of grandeur, she is also following the
objective national interests of Germany: the great winner of the
process of European integration. Free trade, combined with a common
currency (and so the inability for competitors, such as Italy, to
conduct a competitive devaluation) have given Germany the economic
dominance in the European Union. If Russia wants to move forward her
influence in Eastern Europe, it has to confront face German
opposition.
However, regardless of Russia's intentions,
confrontation with Berlin may be inevitable, with the Germans
pushing to expand their own influence in Belarus, Ukraine, and the
Caucasus.
Another major obstacle to a
Russia-West rapprochement is still the US: while Iit is true that
Trump wants friendship, he could do that also through some minor
concessions, such as a limited area of influence in the so-called
Near Abroad, as Russians call the former Soviet countries with whom
they still have critical security links. Trump is as famous to be a
tough negotiator, as Putin is to be astute politician and, despite
their good intentions, it is not guaranteed that they will find an
agreement - because a very big deal it is required between Russia
and the US.
Another side of Trump’s program concerns energy,
where he promises to encourage the production of shale oil and gas,
which is now limited by environmentalist legislation. Over the past
decade, the combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic
fracturing has provided access to large volumes of oil and natural
gas that were previously uneconomic to produce. The United States
has approximately 610 trillion cubic feet of technically recoverable
shale natural gas resources and 59 billion barrels of technically
recoverable tight oil resources. As a result, the United States is
ranked second globally after Russia in shale oil resources and is
ranked fourth globally after China, Argentina and Algeria in shale
natural gas resources. But the tight oil and shale gas industries in
the US have been suffering, mainly because of the increasing
production from the Gulf states that, lowering prices, is pumping it
out of business.
While in late in 2014 there were
almost two thousands oil and gas rigs active in the US, in last July
only 500 were still operating. Even though Trump cannot fully
control some market fundamentals, as a large oversupply and sluggish
demand, after his election U.S. shale producers are redeploying
cash, rigs and workers, cautiously confident the energy sector has
turned a corner.
According to Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, the OPEC cartel is poised
to slash crude output, with an agreement struck in September by the
Saudis and Russians to cooperate in the world oil markets. If all
signs are true, prices could well go up in the upcoming months,
giving oxygen to the US industry.
Trump’s victory also brings back on the agenda the
Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada to the US Gulf Coast (where
many refineries are located): a project blocked by Obama on the
ground of its impact on the environment. The main target of the
Keystone pipeline is to replace imports of heavy oil-sand crude from
Venezuela with more reliable Canadian heavy oil, even though a good
portion of the oil that will gush down the KXL will probably end up
being sold on the international market.
Now, under the Trump Administration both US and
Canadian oil & gas could arrive in greater amount to Europe: a net
importer of energy, especially from Russia, which counts for 29% of
total solid fuels imports, 30% of oil and 37% of gas. For years now
Washington and Bruxelles have been trying to reduce European
dependency from Russian energy, worried that this can translate in
political dependency. In late February, the U.S. started exporting
oil and gas to Europe, 40 years after the oil embargo imposed by the
U.S. Congress.
Let’s move now to the Middle East and North Africa.
As said before, the situation there is tragic and the West carries
some responsibilities for contributing to open the Pandora’s box of
regional contradictions, intervening in countries such as Iraq,
Libya, and Syria to replace a brutal political order with no order
at all.
If the US disengages from the region, however, the
risk is to barter the restraint from reckless "adventures" overseas
with an overall loss of initiative on the international scenario,
with Europe unable to afford more military and security burdens,
because of a contentious public opinion and of a very difficult time
for economy. Without the US, therefore, it is very likely that also
Europe will disengage from North Africa and the Middle East.
Anyway, at least for now, America is not going away
from the region anytime soon, especially considering the emphasis
that Trump put on ISIS' global threat during the campaign trail.
According to the upcoming National Security Adviser, General Michael
Flynn, Islamic radicalism is the enemy number one for the US. This
will translate in a solid partnership with secular Arab leaders such
as Egypt’s al-Sisi, whereas is still unclear how the Trump
Administration will deal with Erdogan or the Saudis, whose links
with Islamic radicalism are very suspicious.
Gen. Flynn believes the US is losing a global war
against Islamist extremism that may last for generations, but he
stresses that this war has to be fought also domestically, against
any ideological infiltration. Trump and Flynn want to go after
Islamism as Americans used to do with Communism. That brings us back
to Europe again. Whereas only 1% of the US population is Muslim,
Islam is thriving in Europe, due to ongoing immigration and to the
higher fertility rate of Muslim communities, which is of 2.2
children per woman, while that of non-Muslim is 1.5. According to
the Pew Center, Europe’s Muslim population is projected to increase
by 63%, growing from 43 million in 2010 to 71 million in 2050,
becoming more than 10% of the total population. Anyway, in countries
such as France, they already are almost 10% of the population and,
In some key cities – Paris and London, for example – Muslims exceed
15%. As it is well known, Europe is facing big problems in
integrating even second or third generations of immigrants,
especially Muslims. Muslim vote is beginning to matter in many
European countries and important Muslim politicians are emerging,
such as Sadiq Khan, the Mayor of London, or Rachida Dati, former
French Minister of Justice, or Sajid Javid, the British Secretary
for Local Government. Only the former is by a leftist party and they
are not suspicious of Islamism. Anyway, according to the 2014
Jenkins Commission Report, in the UK the Muslim Brotherhood “[has]
at times had significant influence on the largest UK Muslim
student organisation, national organisations which have claimed to
represent Muslim communities (and on that basis have sought and had
a dialogue with Government), charities and some mosques”.
If the Trump Administration is going to consider
Political Islam as an ideological enemy – such Communism during the
Cold War – it will likely work on barring its way in Europe. The US
has a long history of interfering in European domestic politics and
Trump has already given a taste by meeting Nigel Farage a few days
after his victory in the election. It could well be that the Trump
Administration will try to advise the Western European leadership
against persisting in their open doors policy toward Muslim
immigrants, or to favour those political forces more akin with its
ideas: usually the Right, maybe also the anti-globalist one, as the
National Front in France, UKIP in UK, the Northern League in Italy,
AfD in Germany. The leaders of all these forces, plus the Hungarian
President Viktor Orban, in fact rejoiced at Trump’s victory.
Breitbart, the news website which spearheaded Trump campaign and
from whom the new White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon comes
from, already has a London bureau, but is now planning to open new
branches in France and Germany.
A few days ago, Francois Fillon has surprisingly won
the the Right primaries in France. The hardliner among main
candidates, Fillon is pro-Russian, very conservative, quite
Thatcherist, and unfavourable to mass immigration. Very probably he
will compete for the presidency with the far-rightist Marine Le Pen.
Even if society in the US remains very different from
that of Europe, the rampant globalization of recent decades has made
it quite close compared to half a century ago. Both the US and
Europe have experienced massive deindustrialization with a
geographical concentration of the remaining high-tech industries in
a few islands of happiness – whose wealth is striking, when compared
to the many rust belts of the Western world. Both the US and Europe
have seen a deep financialization of their economies and have been
overwhelmed by the so-called politically correct way of thinking.
It’s true: in the U.S. you can find also the Bible Belt, but if we
consider the European Union as a whole, we could see a Catholic Belt
in its Eastern countries, opposed to Sweden (a European California)
or London and Paris (European New Yorks), or in general the more
liberal Western countries. Exactly as in the US, also in Europe,
post-modernism is currently hegemonic in colleges and mainstream
media, which are trying to inculcate it also in the common man.
Finally, the massive immigration flows of last decades into Europe
are making its society more and more resembling to the composite
ethnic mix of North American society – even in the trend towards
communitarian vote. According to reliable statistics, the last time
white voters in the US favoured in majority a democratic
presidential candidate was in 1964: Lyndon Johnson. Since then,
Carter, Clinton and Obama won the elections thanks to the decisive
vote of minorities. If you look to the Brexit vote, for example, you
will find out that the social group more favourable to remain in the
European Union were not Scottish nor Irish, but the new minorities:
Asians, Blacks and Muslims. In such similar environments, it is
predictable to find similar political trends and demands: Trump's
victory in the US may be soon followed by populist successes in
Europe.
In conclusion, we can say that, regardless of his
real actions once in office, Donald Trump is already influencing
European politics by encouraging the already rampant rightist and
populist parties. This will translate in more regulation of the
immigration flows, abatement of the EU supranational power on
European countries, and better relations with Russia. That is true
even if those populist forces do not win any election: in fact, more
traditional parties and politicians are compelled to adopt at least
some of their requests not to lose approval and power. But, if
President Trump will maintain his electoral promises, even greater
changes are looming in Western politics and society . A lasting
conservative and populist turn could affect the Western system,
leading to a possible inclusion of Russia into it.

ALESSANDRO CIPRI
Born in Chile and raised in Rome, Alessandro Cipri
has just finished his postgraduate studies at the department of War
Studies of King's College London, graduating with distinction from
the Master's Degree in "Intelligence and International Security".
Having served in the Italian Army's "Alpini" mountain troops, he has
a keen interest in national security, military strategy, insurgency
theory, and terrorism studies. His Master's dissertation was on the
impact of drug trafficking on the evolution of the Colombian FARC.
December 4, 2016
ALLONS ENFANTS
By Michael Akerib
"The
treaty does not say that France must undertake to have children, but
it is the first thing which ought to have been put in it. For if
France turns her back on large families, one can put all the clauses
one wants in a treaty, one can take all the guns of Germany, one can
do whatever one likes, France will be lost because there will be no
more Frenchmen."
George Clemenceau
A bit of history
France went through the second demographic transition in the middle
of the eighteenth century and its population lagged behind those of
Germany and Great Britain. While citizens of these last two
countries immigrated, France imported migrants from other Catholic
countries such as Belgium, Italy, Poland and Spain. The French
government also took pro-natality measures such as such as family
allowances.
While originally Europe’s most populated country, France’s slide
into lower birth rates preceded the other countries of the continent
by approximately 100 years. At the end of the 1930s, the country had
the world’s oldest population.
The French population, which has doubled over a period of two
hundred years, has alternated periods of strong growth (in the first
half of the 19th century, early 1920s and from the end of
the Second World War to the 1960s) and of decline.
One of the reasons for France being a demography laggard was most
certainly the fact that French women had easier access to
contraception than other European women, and in particular than
German women. Further, the First World War killed or made prisoner
1.3 million men. One in eight Frenchmen aged between fifteen and
forty-nine died.
Petain’s government during the German occupation attempted to
increase birth rates through the distribution of medals, but
registered a total failure.
Natality today
Today France is only one of two countries in Europe with a growing
population and has the continent’s highest birth rate at 2.0
children per woman, representing three quarters of Europe’s positive
demography, but it remains below the replacement rate of 2.07. No
doubt this very honourable result is due to the fact that the
country offers a large number of day care centers, generous parental
leave, allowances and tax breaks. France spends annually nearly 70
billion Euros, or nearly 4% of GDP, in various payments to encourage
birth and the upkeep of children. One percent of GDP, or nearly 12
billion Euros, is spent just on the upkeep of children younger than
three years old.
Immigrant fertility is another important contributor. In Paris, for
instance, one third of the mothers is foreign-born.
These results have been achieved in spite of a number of drawbacks.
Women have, in France like in other countries, entered massively in
higher education, and therefore couple formation takes place
increasingly later. Therefore highly educated women are
time-restrained to have more than one or two children.
While marriages have reached a low point, civil unions (PACS or
Pacte Civil de Solidarité) are catching up with marriages – half the
cohabiting population is not married. Women in France have their
first child at 28 years old, ten years after their first sexual
relations, while it was 24 years old thirty years ago.
The number of childless women has remained stable at a low level and
one woman in five has only one child and this has been a stable
figure. 11% of women remain childless while the norm is of a
two-child family.
Women who are practising Catholics have a higher birth rate than
non-practising women. The decline in fertility parallels religious
decline.
Men are increasingly childless. One of the reasons is that an
increasing number of men live alone. However, this increased
incidence of childlessness also affects men who have been married or
lived with a heterosexual partner – 12% have remained childless.
Aging
It is forecast that France’s population will be of 73.6 million on
January 1, 2060, thus representing an increase of 11.8 million
compared to 2007. The number of people aged 60 or over will have
increased, during the same time period, by 10.4 million and will
represent one third of the population or 23.6 million. The number of
people aged 75 to 84 will be of 11.9 million and those over 85 would
be 5.4 million. Only 22% of the population will be younger than 20.
These figures are based on a scenario in which the average number of
children per woman is of 1.95, there is a positive migratory flux of
100 000 per year and life expectancy continues to progress at the
same rhythm as in the past.
While French women have a long life expectancy, among the longest in
Europe, this is not the case for French men. For a male born in
2006, life expectancy was of 77.4 years, while it was 84.4 years for
a male. By 2050, these figures are expected to be, respectively, of
82.7 and 89.1 and by 2100 to be, respectively, of 91 and 95.
By 2060 the country should have 200 000 persons over 100 year old.
In fact, their number doubles every 10 years with the vast majority
(6 out of 7) being women.
If France’s long term demographic growth is confirmed, with a
population reaching 75 million by 2050, the equilibrium between
European nations would be altered - Germany would have slightly
under 71 million inhabitants, Great Britain just under 59 million
and Italy 43 million, equal to the present Spanish population.
The percentage of the population over 65 compared to the rest of the
population – is expected to increase from 28% in 2013 to 46% in 2050
at which time the average life expectancy will have grown from 81 to
86 years.
Health issues
Compounding the extension of life and the continued higher than
European-average birth rates, there will be a lack of personnel to
take care of both these extremes of the population curve. This
phenomenon has been called the ‘care deficit’.
Economic impact
The economic dependency ratio – in other words the percentage of the
population over 65 compared to the rest of the population – is
expected to increase from 28% in 2013 to 46% in 2050 at which time
the average life expectancy will have grown from 81 to 86 years.
This is expected to increase savings rates as pensions may be unable
to offer generous payments to retirees. France is, in fact, France
is the country in the EU where people spend the longest time in
retirement: 24.5 years against an average of 19.8.
A French specificity is the very small rate of employment of the
population over 55 years old, particularly in comparison to other
European countries. Thus, only 18% of the 60 – 64 years old are
employed while the corresponding figure in Sweden is of 64%. Even
worse, only 4% of the 65 – 69 age bracket are employed in France
against 18% in Sweden. The situation in France is due not only to
the fact that it is felt that younger persons are more productive,
but also to the large salary differentials between employees due to
their age and number of years in employment in the same company.
Another effect of ageing is the later transmission of the
inheritance. This means that the inheritors will be older than
previously and will therefore be less tempted to make riskier
investments, such as in shares. Corporations may face difficulties
in raising finance.
By 2060, the cost of aging will represent 3.7% of GDP. The majority
of these costs will be represented by health costs as although the
population is aging, the number of years during which the population
is in good health is not changing.
Conclusion
Will France end up as a poor country of older people with those in
the most advanced age groups left to care for themselves as the
number of care givers shrinks?
Unless a reversal of the population decline takes place, this is
what is most likely to occur.

Michael Akerib, professor of business and entrepreneurship,
former University Vice-Rector
Owner, Rusconsult
December 4, 2016
PRESS RELEASE
Camilla Habsburg-Lothringen
becomes the new Director at IFIMES
LJUBLJANA,
November 28, 2016 –
Her Imperial and Royal Highness
Camilla Habsburg-Lothringen,
Archduchess of Austria and Princess of Tuscany is the
new Director appointed for Euro-Mediterranean Diplomacy and
Intercultural Affairs at the International Institute for Middle-East
and Balkan Studies (IFIMES).

At the official
ceremony the promulgation document has been handed over to the new
Director by the Institute’s Honorary President Stjepan Mesić
(former President of Croatia), in the presence of the Vice-Chair of
the Institute’s Advisory Board Prof. Dr. Ernest Petrič
(former Constitutional Court President of Slovenia), and Institute’s
Directors Bakhatyar Aljaf and Dr. Zijad Bećirović.
Upon the ceremony, the Institute’s Honorary President Mesić has
expressed his great satisfaction of being part of such esteemed
team. He emphasized his content that the Institute gets decisive
support from a prominent personality such as Her Highness Habsburg-Lothringen.
“Her reputation, experience and vigour will give a new impetus to
IFIMES. We are all honoured, thrilled and pleased having Her with us.”
Vice-chair of the Institute’s Advisory Board, Prof. Petrič has
pointed out importance of collaboration of different stake-holders
in our decisive build-up of society for the new century. “In the
world burdened with grave problems, but short of decisive and
lasting actions, it would be hard to imagine better team member than
Her Highness Habsburg-Lothringen. Once more, we are proud to have
Her in the leadership of IFIMES.”
Closing this, Her Highness also voiced her own gratitude for this
prestigious position in the only world institute that connects two
fascinating regions, that of the Middle East and of the Balkans.
Director Habsburg-Lothringen stressed importance of the unique
civilizational circle, that of Euro-Mediterranean – “Euro-Med is
the cradle of the Western civilization, today’s pivot, and modus
vivendi of our common future”.
Her Highness sincerely hopes that her work with IFIMES in the field
of diplomacy and intercultural affairs will strengthen, accelerate
and diversify the Institute’s scope and range.
“Consciousness, grand visions and means to achieve them always
necessitates wide coalition of both skilled and open-hearted
individuals. Our recent past brought untold number of sufferings all
over our continent. Names count, but numbers too.
Our past needs the
truth, but not us locked there. It is high time to start living our
tomorrow. Cross-continental and cross-generational, our future
starts now.”
The official ceremony was attended by many officials from Slovenia
and the Western Balkans.
Link
(in Word&Photos):
http://www.ifimes.org/en/9259
IFIMES Presentation film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=645V9eryieI
Facebook:
www.facebook.com/Ifimes
Twitter:
www.twitter.com/ifimes
Youtube:
www.youtube.com/ifimes
Ljubljana, 28 November 2016
International Institute for Middle-East and Balkan Studies -
(IFIMES)
Vošnjakova 1, P.O. Box 2795
SI-1001
LJUBLJANA, SLOVENIA, EU
Tel.++386
1 430 15 33
Fax. ++ 386
1 430 15 34
E-mail:
ifimes@ifimes.org
Http:
www.ifimes.org
November 28, 2016
ORPHAN EUROPE
By Tomislav Jakić
After
Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential elections (which was,
by the way, a surprise only to those indoctrinated, seduced or
simply bought), Europe, or to be more precise: the European Union is
behaving like an orphan, abandoned by its strong father, whose hand
it held and whom he(she) followed wherever he went. Europe does not
know. Europe is asking. Europe has to know. Europe is warning. All
this is addressed to the new leader who will take over the White
House in mid-January next year. When we say “Europe” we think, it
should be repeated, on the European Union, although the countries,
just a few of them remaining, who are not already members of the EU
are equally puzzled, they don’t know what to do and who will give
them instructions for their behavior in the future.
This total disorientation and – let us put it frankly – the fear
from a situation in which they will have to think for themselves and
to take over the responsibility for what they are doing, this is the
main characteristic of European countries after Trump’s victory. If
we believe him “nothing will be as it was”, but let us be aware of
the fact that Europe got accustomed to the role of a US “lackey”
from the first days after victory in WW 2 and especially in the days
of the cold war and extremely tense relations between East and West.
The only exemption was France in the years of President Charles de
Gaulle.
The general even took his country out of the military structure of
NATO, because –as he saw it – the US dominance in the Atlantic Pact
did not correspond with the role he wanted his country to play on
the international scene. But the rest followed, although the public
opinion in these countries would from time to time openly rebel
against the American policy (just two examples: demonstrations
against the war in Vietnam and against deploying the Pershing
missiles in Germany). What is however important, is the fact that,
despite these vigorous protests, the ruling elites in Europe
accepted the role of followers of the US, without asking any
unpleasant questions.
Read more on the next
page:.........
November 19, 2016
The Sino-US relations – Recalibration or
Repetition?
By Qi Lin
“The
Chinese grab for fossil fuels or its military competition for naval
control is not a challenge but rather a boost for the US
Asia-Pacific –even an overall– posture. Calibrating the contraction
of its overseas projection and commitments – some would call it
managing the decline of an empire – the US does not fail to note
that nowadays half of the world’s merchant tonnage passes though the
South China Sea. Therefore, the US will exploit any regional
territorial dispute and other frictions to its own security benefit,
including the costs sharing of its military presence with the local
partners, as to maintain pivotal on the maritime edge of Asia that
arches from the Persian Gulf to the Indian Ocean, Malacca, the South
and East China Sea up to the northwest–central Pacific. Is China
currently acting as a de facto fundraiser for the US?“– professor
Anis H. Bajrektarevic famously asked in his policy paper ‘What
China wants for Asia: 1975 or 1908?’.
Contextualizing the challenge, hereby a fresh take on
the issue. The U.S. pivot to the Asia-Pacific in Obama
Administration has concentrated on reinforcing traditional
alliances, redeploying Navy forces, and creating multilateral
cooperation mechanisms, such as Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP).
Unfortunately, mounting suspicions have undermined the Sino-U.S.
relationship and stability and prosperity in the Asia-Pacific.
Washington needs to take a larger, more constructive
approach. It needs not only to engage China but use U.S. leverage to
influence China to act in a parallel fashion. U.S. interests in the
Asia-Pacific rely on regional stability and require a compatible
China. The focus of U.S. policy toward China needs to become a
win-win relationship.
Read more on the next
page:.........
November 19, 2016
(UN)EXPECTED PRESIDENT
By: Tomislav Jakić
Tomislav Jakić
Foreign Policy Advisor to former Croatian President Stjepan Mesić
Shock! Disbelief! Total surprise! Those media (and politicians) who
have in the preceding election campaign totally uncritically, but
systematically supported Hillary Clinton, try by using such words to
convince the public opinion (and themselves most probably) that the
election of Donald Trump as the next American President is a total
surprise (a mistake, almost). But – this is not how things really
are. This is, simply, not true.
On one hand Trump seems to be a surprise to those who conducted an
almost unprecedented media campaign for the former Secretary of
State and for those too who allowed to be convinced (if not
deceived) by this campaign, but on the other hand Trump’s victory is
no surprise at all for those who tried, free of all prejudices, to
analyze all elements of the election campaign and its foreseeable
result. Of course one could argue about the fact that it is tragic
for today’s America and its political scene, dominated by
Republicans and Democrats who successfully prevent any “third
candidate” to come even close to the presidential race, that in
these elections we witnessed the confrontation between an excentric
millionare, a somewhat dubious businessman and a figure from the
reality shows and a woman directly responsible for destabilizing the
whole Middle East and for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of
people. But, there is not one single word about this from those who
are “shocked” and “surprised”.
Read more on the next
page:.........
November 15, 2016
The Trump Train is already heading towards Europe
Daniele Scalea
The
“Trump Train” (once a Twitter hashtag and then a successful metaphor
of the assertive, and to date unstoppable, reform wind blown by
Donald Trump) is finally arrived at the White House. But this is
very likely not the final destination of its journey. The Trump
Train could soon arrive in Europe.
And it would be a return trip. As Donald Trump frequently referred
to, his campaign owes a lot of inspiration from the Brexit movement.
Surely Trump got in politics well before, but after June he's
started referring to his rise as a “Brexit plus plus plus”. And it
wasn't just a motivational motto.
The Trumpist and Brexiteer final arguments strictly resemble one
another: a proudly nationalistic rebuttal of adverse fallouts of
globalization, from industrial outsourcing to the (West)self-hating
ideology of extreme multiculturalism. The Trump Train and the Brexit
share also a common grass-roots social base of support, which are
the White working and middle classes of small cities and rural areas
especially.
Even if US society is still very different from the European one,
the rampant globalization of last decades has made them quite close
compared to half a century ago. Both US and Europe has experienced
massive deindustrialization with a geographical concentration of the
remaining high-tech industries in a few islands of happiness – few
compared to the many rust belts of the Western world. Both US and
Europe has seen a deep financialization of their economies. Both US
and Europe has been overwhelmed by the new ideology of the so-called
politically correct, a post-modern, constructivist, relativist and
anti-Western set of theories and practices.
Read more on the next
page:.........
November 12, 2016
Multiculturalism is dead? Not quite yet.
(Recalibrate expectations and travel beyond
Europe)
Alessio Stilo*
Multicultural
approaches and policies vary widely all over the world, ranging from
the advocacy of equal respect to the various cultures in a society,
to a policy of promoting the maintenance of cultural diversity, to
policies in which people of various ethnic and religious groups are
addressed by the authorities as defined by the group to which they
belong. Two different strategies, as recently pointed out by Ms.
Camilla Habsburg-Lothringen, have been developed through different
government policies and strategies: The first, often labelled as
interculturalism, focuses on interaction and communication
between different cultures. The second one, cohabitative multi-culti
does center itself on diversity and cultural uniqueness; it sees
cultural isolation as a protection of uniqueness of the local
culture of a nation or area and also a contribution to global
cultural diversity.
A sort of “third way” between the two above-mentioned
strategies has been traditioned and further enhanced by core Asian
counties, e.g. Azerbaijan, where state policy has been accompanied,
in a complementary way, to a certain activism of intermediate bodies
(civil society, universities, think tanks).
Multiculturalism is a state policy of Azerbaijan and
it has become a way of life of the republic ensuring mutual
understanding and respect for all identities. The year 2016 has been
declared the Year of Multiculturalism in Azerbaijan, as stated by
President Ilham Aliyev on January 10. This decision was made taking
into account the fact that Azerbaijan brings an important
contribution to the traditions of tolerance and intercivilization
dialogue.
Read more on the next
page:.........
November 5, 2016
The (Trans-Siberian train of) Heartland or (Mare
Liberum of) Rimland?
Mega structures for the next century
By Filippo Romeo
This
year marks the centenary of the creation of the legendary
Trans-Siberian railway of Russia. By an ironic twist of fate, this
falls right in the middle of an epochal change in geopolitical and
geo-economical scenarios, whose main powers involved are also
responding by creating and planning great infrastructure works.
There is actually no doubt that in the profiled context the
continental infrastructures constitute an essential moment for
recovery, able to affect both technological modernisation processes
and foreign affairs stability. This is true if one considers a
nation's economic development, and by effect its geopolitical clout
on a global scale, depends heavily on 'voluntary geography'
improvement via implementing a modern, technologically advanced
transport infrastructure system able to face and overcome the
'distance' factor.
Read more on the next
page:.........
October 10, 2016
The most dangerous Wizard in the EU
Gerald Knaus
One year ago ESI described Viktor Orban as the
"most dangerous man in the EU." Since then, Viktor Orban has
exploited the confusion and insecurities around the European refugee
crisis, and the weakness of mainstream political leaders, to further
expand his influence in EU capitals and in Brussel
This week we talked to
the Economist, explaining what made Orban so dangerous for the EU:
"Mr Orban presents a unique danger, argues Gerald Knaus of the
European Stability Initiative, a think-tank, because he injects a
far-right virus into the bloodstream of Europe's political centre.
Fidesz's membership of the European People's Party, a centre-right
pan-EU political group, gives Mr Orban the ear of Angela Merkel,
Germany's chancellor, and other mainstream conservatives. Yet while he
may spurn hard-right outfits like France's National Front or the
Austrian Freedom Party, he borrows from their playbook. He lays charges
of treason against those who seek to import "hundreds of thousands of
people" from "groups outside European culture". Migrants have turned
parts of cities like Berlin and Stockholm into "no-go zones", his
government argues."

Viktor Orban (in this week's Economist) and the Wizard of Oz
Read more on the next
page:.........
October 10, 2016
Europe –
Hell
is other people
(Europe after
the Brexit, NATO summit in Warsaw and Turkish geopolitical vertigo)
Anis H.
Bajrektarevic
A
freshly released IMF’s World Economic Outlook brings no comforting
picture to anyone within the G-7, especially in the US and EU. The
Brexit after-shock is still to reverberate around.
In one other EXIT,
Sartre’s Garcin famously says: ‘Hell is other people’. Business of
othering remains lucrative. The NATO summit in Warsaw desperately
looked for enemies. Escalation is the best way to preserve eroded
unity, requires the
confrontational
nostalgia
dictatum. Will the passionately US-pushed cross-Atlantic Free
Trade Area save the day? Or, would that Pact-push drag the things
over the edge of reinvigorating nationalisms, and mark an end of the
unionistic Europe?
Is the extended EU
conflict with Russia actually a beginning of the Atlantic-Central
Europe’s conflict over Russia, an internalization of mega
geopolitical and geo-economic dilemma – who accommodates with whom,
in and out of the post-Brexit Union? Finally, does more Ukrainian
(Eastern Europe’s or MENA) calamities pave the road for a new
cross-continental grand accommodation, of either austerity-tired
France or über-performing Germany with Russia, therefore the end of
the EU? Southeast flank already enormously suffer. Hasty castling of
foes and friends caused colossal geopolitical vertigo in Turkey,
whose accelerated spin produces more and more victims.
Read more on the next
page:.........
October 4, 2016
EU Reloaded?
by Dr. Peter Jankowitsch
Revisiting and rethinking Europe recently on these very pages, prof.
Anis Bajrektarevic asked: “… is the EU the world’s last cosmopolitan
enjoying its postmodern holiday from history?
Is that possibly the lost Atlántida or mythical Arcadia– a Hegelian
end of history world? ... a post-Hobbesian (yet, not quite a
Kantian) world, in which the letzte Mensch expelled
Übermensch?”
Yet another take on the most critical EU debate comes from Austria,
this time from the long time insider into the rocky European
policy-making.
The narrow result of the UK referendum to leave the European Union
was not the catalyst for the increasingly pressing question of
whether the concept and practice of European integration, which has
defined the course of European history since the end of the Second
World War as well as enabled prosperity, security and the
advancement of the continent, are now exhausted and should be
replaced by other models.
Ever since France and the Netherlands voted against a European
constitution, there have been more and more signs of Europe becoming
less appealing in its current form. This is also evident in the
growing number of election victories of ‘Eurosceptics’ to
‘anti-European’ parties within the founding states of the Union.
Some of these factions have already managed to gain seats in the
European Parliament. Public support of the EU, regularly recorded by
the Eurobarometer, is falling in nearly all 28 Member States (MS).
It has only remained high in a few candidate countries such as those
of the Western Balkans.
Read more on the next
page:.........
September 26, 2016
DMCA Abuse: How corporations
are using US copyright law to harass and silence individuals
Murray Hunter
The
Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) was unanimously passed by
the United States Senate on 12th October 1998, and signed
into law by President Clinton on 28th October the same
year. The Act was put into law to interpret and enact two 1996 World
Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) treaties which dealt with
copyright circumvention and providing Internet service providers
(ISP) and online service providers (OSP) safe harbour against
copyright liability, provided they meet specific requirements.
The DMCA criminalizes the production and
dissemination of technology, devices, or services intended to
circumvent measures (commonly called digital rights management) that
control access to copyrighted works. Further, the DMCA also
criminalizes the act of circumventing any access control, even if
there is no actual infringement of the copyrighted material itself,
i.e., providing a mere link to a third site where suspected
copyright material exists is criminal.
The Act has extended the reach of US law beyond its
traditional geographical jurisdiction. Moreover, the Act has given
copyright right holders a “lethal weapon” to utilize
against parties who allegedly breach their claimed copyright. That
is, the ability to claim copyright breach directly against any
individual. Further, the Act enables copyright holders to force ISPs
and OSPs to take down any identified alleged infringing material
immediately from any internet site.
However the Act doesn’t give respondents any recourse
against a DMCA takedown notice before any material is taken down by
the ISPs and OSPs.
Read more on the next
page:.........
September 24, 2016
Italy and Egypt: from Regeni
to Libya, the difficult path towards normalization
Daniele Scalea
The
last, recent joint note of Italian and Egyptian attorneys on Giulio
Regeni's murder shows that a good degree of cooperation in the
investigation has been finally reached. Unfortunately that has
required various months during which Egyptian transparency wasn't so
high. Moreover, as the Italian attorney Pignatone has reminded, that
underway is not a joint but a mere Egyptian investigation, to whom
Italian investigators are only collaborating. So, the chances that
we will know one day who and why really killed Regeni are in the
hands of destiny and of Egyptian judiciary. For now, it appears
fallen at least the trail to the alleged gang of kidnappers killed
by the Egyptian police last March.
It is quite obvious that someone among the Egyptian apparatus has
tried to sabotage the investigation – too many false trails,
omissions and so on. That doesn't mean, however, that Regeni was
killed by Egyptian authorities, not to mention a direct involvement
of President al-Sisi, which is really unlikely (even if speculations
about that appeared on the Italian newspapers “La Repubblica”,
citing a mysterious Egyptian source). The admission that police
investigated on Regeni isn't an admission of guilt. Egyptian
authorities said that the denunciation came from an independent
trade union and that the investigation lasted only three days. Could
that support the hypothesis of a murder committed by union
officials? Whether or not, we are probably still far from any truth,
both real or official.
Read more on the next
page:.........
September 23, 2016
BiH 2016 local election:
Dodik's referendum –opening Pandora's box in the Balkans?”
Bakhtyar Aljaf
Bosnia and Herzegovina will hold
local election on 2 October 2016. There are 3,345,486 registered voters in the
country. The number of voters who will vote by post at the forthcoming election
has significantly increased to 65,111. About 30,000 candidates are competing for
the positions in the future local government. Altogether 2,835 councillors will
be elected, of which 1,687 in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (FBiH),
1,117 in Republika srpska (Rs) and 31 in the Brčko District, as well as 301 city
council members of which 117 in FBiH and 184 in RS, 131 mayors of municipalities
and 12 mayors of cities. Election will be held in all local government units with the exception of the
city of Mostar where no election has been held since 2008. The greatest
responsibility for the situation in Mostar lies with two leading parties: the
Party of Democratic Action (SDA) and Croatian Democratic Union of BiH (HDZBiH).
Despite their optimistic announcements regarding the agreement to be concluded
on local elections in Mostar, the current political leadership has not reached
any solution yet. The current election campaign in Bosnia and Herzegovina has been marked
by traditional political rivalries. As usually there are two political blocks in Republika Srpska: one coalition
comprises Alliance of Independent Social Democrats (SNSD), Democratic People's
Union (DNS) and the Socialist Party (SP), while the other one (Union for Change)
is a coalition between the Serb Democratic Party (SDS), the Party of Democratic
Progress (PDP) and Democratic People's Alliance (NDP).
Director: Bakhtyar Aljaf
Read more on the next
page:.........
September 17, 2016
Geopolitics of Climate
Change:
Future of Tao and
Quantum Buddhism[1]
Anis H.
Bajrektarevic
From
Rio to Rio with Kyoto, Copenhagen and Durban in between Paris right
after and the recent China’s G-20, the conclusion remains the same:
There is fundamental disagreement on the realities of this planet
and the ways we can address them. A decisive breakthrough would necessitate both wider
contexts and a larger participatory base to identify problems, to
formulate policies, to broaden and to synchronize our actions.
Luminaries from the world of science, philosophy, religion, culture
and sports have been invited to each of these major gatherings. But,
they – as usual – have served as side-events panelists, while only
the politicians make decisions. Who in politics is sincerely
motivated for the long-range and far reaching policies? This does
not pay off politically as such policies are often too complex and
too time-consuming to survive the frequency and span of national
elections as well as the taste or comprehension of the median voter.
Our global crisis is not environmental, financial or
politico-economic. Deep and structural, this is a crisis of thought,
a recession of courage, of our ideas, all which leads us into a
deep, moral abyss. Small wonder, there was very little headway made
at the Rio+20, Paris Summit and beyond.
Between the fear that the inevitable will happen
and the lame hope that it still wouldn’t, we have lived… That what
can be and doesn’t have to be, at the end, surrenders to something
that was meant to be…[2]
Read more on the next
page:.........
September 11, 2016
Gong or Song from China’s Hong Kong?
Aine O’Mahony, Elodie Pichon
Aine O'Mahony has a bachelor in Law and Political Science
at the Catholic Institute of Paris and is currently a master's
student of Leiden University in the International Studies
programme.Contact:
aine-claire.nini@hotmail.fr
Elodie Pichon has a bachelor in Law and Political Science at
the Catholic Institute of Paris and is currently doing a MA in
Geopolitics, territory and Security at King's College London.
Contact : elodie.pichon@gmail.com
Following the recent abduction of five Hong Kong publishers, alleged
to have edited books disclosing “inconvenient truths” about the
Chinese government, thousands of people took to the streets of Hong
Kong to protest and fight for their right to have Freedom of
Expression, which had already been enshrined in the Fundamental Law
of Hong Kong. The post 80 generation wants to defend civil liberties
and young people are concerned by the fact that the Chinese grip on
the media could be the potential starting point for the end of the
“1 country, 2 system” policy, agreed on between China and Great
Britain for the transfer of sovereignty over this territory. Is it
reasonable to believe that this territory could become a simple
reproduction of China, as feared by the younger generation?
Read more on the next
page:.........
Augustus 2, 2016
Europe – Hell
is other people
(Europe after the Brexit, NATO summit in
Warsaw and Turkish geopolitical vertigo)
Anis H. Bajrektarevic
A
freshly released IMF’s World Economic Outlook brings no comforting
picture to anyone within the G-7, especially in the US and EU. The
Brexit after-shock is still to reverberate around.
In one other EXIT, Sartre’s Garcin famously says: ‘Hell is other
people’. Business of othering remains lucrative. The NATO summit in
Warsaw desperately looked for enemies. Escalation is the best way to
preserve eroded unity, requires the confrontational nostalgia
dictatum. Will the passionately US-pushed cross-Atlantic Free Trade
Area save the day? Or, would that Pact-push drag the things over the
edge of reinvigorating nationalisms, and mark an end of the
unionistic Europe?
Is the extended EU conflict with Russia actually a beginning of the
Atlantic-Central Europe’s conflict over Russia, an internalization
of mega geopolitical and geo-economic dilemma – who accommodates
with whom, in and out of the post-Brexit Union? Finally, does more
Ukrainian (Eastern Europe’s or MENA) calamities pave the road for a
new cross-continental grand accommodation, of either austerity-tired
France or über-performing Germany with Russia, therefore the end of
the EU? Southeast flank already enormously suffer. Hasty castling of
foes and friends caused colossal geopolitical vertigo in Turkey,
whose accelerated spin produces more and more victims.
Read more on the next
page:.........
July 19, 2016
Blair + NATO + ISIL =
Genocide:
Immaculate Conception of the Iraqi mess
By İLNUR ÇEVIK
Britain
is receiving blow after blow these days. First, the British people
decided to pull their country out of the European Union. This was
then followed by threats from the Scots and the Northern Irish to
pull out of the United Kingdom. Just as the dust started to settle
down, England bade farewell to Euro 2016 in France when they lost to
tiny Iceland, a result that was seen as a disaster equal to pulling
out of the EU... But that is not all.
Now a report prepared by Sir John Chilcot, an official inquiry, has
shattered British confidence and has shown that the invasion of Iraq
by the United States and Britain 13 years ago was a great mistake
based on lies and deception and has served to ruin Iraq, divide it
into pieces, push the Shiites into the laps of the Iranians, create
DAESH and eliminate Saddam Hussein. But for the one Saddam Hussein
that was removed, another 1,000 Saddam's have emerged. It has also
led to the groundwork that has pushed neighboring Syria into utter
chaos...
Then-U.S. President George W. Bush and then-British Prime Minister
Tony Blair today are trying to justify what they have done. Up to
now, nearly a million Iraqis have died because of the mess these two
created and nearly 5 million people have been displaced. The two
have being justifying themselves by saying Saddam was a tyrant and
had to be deposed of. But what they have created and the mess they
have left behind is unforgivable.
Read more on the next
page:.........
July 18, 2016
Turkey’s Strategic Reset: engagement instead of contention
By
Barçın Yinanç
'The
EU loves to portray itself as a pan-European project. However,
it stubbornly rejects and systematically demonises the only two
European countries that have steady economic growth, Russia and
Turkey. Is the EU on its way to end up as the League of Nations
– pretending to be universalistic project, but by excluding
major powers, derogating itself to the margins of history?’ –
asked prof. Anis H. Bajrektarevic, well before the Brexit vote,
in his enlightening piece ‘Geopolitics of Technology’. What is
the new dynamics in this triangular equitation? Let’s examine
the Turkish take on this fundamental question.
Ever since the Justice and Development Party (AKP) came to
power, members of the Foreign Ministry have had ample
opportunity to witness the deeply-rooted relations established
between political Islamic movements all over the world and the
ruling party. One of the best one is with the Muslim
Brotherhood in Egypt. That’s why, it is not surprising to hear President R.T. Erdogan
put Egypt in a different category from Israel and Russia.
Read more on the next
page:.........
July 13, 2016
Summary of
INTERESTS & INFLUENCES OF
MAJOR EXTERNAL ACTORS IN CENTRAL ASIA
Prof. Anis H. Bajrektarevic & Samantha Brletich
|
H. Bajrektarevic
Anis H. Bajrektarevic is a
Professor and a Chairperson for International Law and
Global Political studies, Vienna, Austria. He is editor
of the NY-based Addlton’s GHIR Journal (Geopolitics,
History and Intl. Relations), as well as the Senior
Editorial member of many specialized international
magazines, including the Canadian Energy Institute’s
Journal Geopolitics of Energy.
|
SAMANTHA BRLETICH
Samantha Brletich, specializing
peace operations policy at George Mason University,
Arlington, VA, with a focus on Russia and Central Asia.
She is the prominent member of the Modern Diplomacy’s
Tomorrow’s People platform. Ms. Brletich is an employee
of the US Department of Defense.
|
|
Read more on the next
page:.........
JULY 4, 2016
IT law - a challenge of
dispute resolution
doc. dr Jasna Čošabić
IT
law or cyber law or internet law, is evolving in giant steps. On its
way, it has many challenges to meet and a lot of burdens to cope
with. Being a part of international law, it is though specific in
its nature, mode of implementation and protection. While the classic
international law deals with classic state territories, state
jurisdictions, with a clear distinction between national laws, the
IT law is uncertain about the state jurisdiction, earthbound
borders, rules and proceedings regarding any dispute arising on
internet.
However, with a fast development of information technology, the
number of legal contracts and businesses on internet rises,
requiring the fast response by legal order in terms of regulating
and protecting it.
From the time internet emerged, each entity operating on internet
provided for its own rules. With the IT becoming more complex and
demanding so were the rules. We therefore say that internet is
self-regulated, with no visible interference by state, apart from
criminal activities control.
Some authors even call the internet private legal order where
stateless justice1 apply. Justice usually needs a state, which is a
supreme authority, having the monopoly of violence, or the
legitimate use of physical force. But speaking in internet terms,
self-regulation has evolved, with the state interference being
mainly excluded.
Read more on the next
page:.........
JUNE 08, 2016
Pakistan in the US, the
US in Pakistan: Self-denial is the biggest threat to world peace
By Rakesh Krishnan SIMHA
One
of the ironies of being a Pakistani living abroad, especially in the
West, is having to pose as Indian. According to Asghar Choudhri, the
chairman of Brooklyn’s Pakistani American Merchant Association, a
lot of Pakistanis can’t get jobs after 9/11 and after the botched
Times Square bombing of 2010, it’s even worse. “They are now
pretending they are Indian so they can get a job,” he told a US wire
service.
That is because while Indians are highly integrated immigrants –
besides being the highest educated and best paid of all ethnic
groups in the US – Pakistanis have taken part in terrorist
activities in the very lands that gave them shelter. (Even the
frequent Gallup surveys conducted in the US, found out repeatedly
that the biggest threat to the international security and peace are:
nr. 3 Saudis; nr. 2 Pakistanis, and nr.1 – surprise, surprise – the
US itself.)
From Ramzi Yousef, who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993 (8
years before Bin Laden) and is now serving a 240-year prison
sentence to Mir Aimal Kansi, who shot dead CIA agents and was later
executed by lethal injection, to Faisal Shahzad, the Times Square
“Idiot Bomber”, there is a long line of Pakistanis who have left a
trail of terror.
The San Bernardino, California, attack of December 2015 by a
Pakistani American couple was the most spectacular in recent times.
The husband was American-born raised and yet he chose to launch a
terror act against the people of the United States.
But while Pakistanis wear an Indian mask for Western consumption,
back home it’s business as usual.
Read more on the next
page:.........
JUNE 01, 2016
MUSEUM 'INVISIBLE' GENERATION
Writes: Dzalila Osmanovic-Muharemagic
Many
still remember a sign at the door of National Museum of Bosnia and
Herzegovina stating „THE MUSEUM IS CLOSED“, which for years only
bothered few of the conscientious. Recently the museum has been
reopened in silence and without much fanfare, as if still someone
wants the public to be unaware of the times when Bosnia was not
prostrated, when it taught the others of tolerance, while its men
and women lived and died for its every corner. Right after the
reopening an unexpected route led me to the Museum, where a
prophetic recollection from my childhood made me realize I belong to
an „invisible“ generation.
Long time ago, at the beginning of high school, some good teacher
considered it would be useful for high school students, the future
intellectuals (today mostly well-educated, unemployed young people
or doing a menial job in a foreign country) to visit the Museum,
that basic cultural institution. It was an interesting fieldtrip,
without too much work, a lot of photos and mingling. Great for us –
the high school rookies!
There we watched some old rocks, beautiful
exponents of folk garments and much more. We watched, yet we saw
nothing... We did not see, since we did not know what there was to
see, since the entire primary school we learned about great
adventures of Marco Polo, Columbus, French Revolution and Hitler.
Read more on the next
page:.........
May 18, 2016
Suicidal Nuclear Gambit on
Caucasus
(Game of Poker at
best, Game of Chess at worst, and neither option should be
celebrated)
By Petra Posega
Nuclear
security is seemingly in the vanguard of global attention, but the
large framework of international provisions is increasingly
perceived as a toothless tiger. In the contemporary age where
asymmetric threats to security are one of the most dangerous ones,
the time is high to mitigate the risk of rouge actors having
potential access to materials, necessary to develop nuclear weapons.
Nowhere is this urgency more pivotal than in already turbulent
areas, such as the South Caucasus. With many turmoil instabilities,
lasting for decades with no completely bulletproof conflict
resolution process installed, adding a threat of nuclear weapons
potential means creating a house of cards that can cause complete
collapse of regional peace and stability. That is precisely why
recently uncovered and reoccurring actions of Armenia towards the
goal of building its own nuclear capacity must be addressed more
seriously. They should also attract bolder response to ensure safety
of the region is sustained.
According to the report by Vienna-based nuclear watch-dog,
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Armenia has established
quite a record of illegal trafficking of nuclear and other
radioactive materials. There have been a couple of serious incidents
spanning from 1999 onward. A large number of reported incidents has
occurred on the country`s border with Georgia, tempting the IAEA to
conclude there is high probability that the so called Armenian route
does in fact exist. There is a further evidence to support this
assertion. There were an unusually high number of Armenians caught
in nuclear trafficking activities. Additionally, some of the
reported incidents that made their way to the official reports
suggested that the main focus of trafficking activities is in fact
smuggling of nuclear material that could be used for nuclear weapons
capabilities. There were also reports suggesting the trafficking of
other radioactive material that could be utilized for alternate
purposes, such as the building of a so called dirty bomb. Since the
stakes with nuclear weaponry are always high to the extreme, the
recognition of this threat must not be underrated and dismissed
easily.
Read more on the next
page:.........
May 18, 2016
I FREE myself from Facebook
By Rattana Lao
BANGKOK – It was sometimes ago that the New Yorker
featured a cartoon that went something like this: “With the
internet, you can be a dog behind a computer and nobody knows.”
That's
my thought on the internet in general and social media in
particular. Behind the masks of perfectly manicured life or perfect
make up, there are multiple truth, reality, flaws and imperfection.
I joined Facebook when I was doing my Masters of Science in
Development Studies at the London School of Economics and Political
Science – far away from my hometown glory of Bangkok, Thailand.
Although I have known about Facebook from my highschool roommate
when it was only accessible for IVY League students, I was not quite
excited about it. I thought to myself “who in their right mind
published their lives to the public?”
During the same time, the One Laptop Per Child policy was popular. I
remember attending several public forums whereby tech savvy
professionals tried to convince low-tech Development experts that
the internet is powerful and through it we can end world poverty.
Something like that.
Being an outgoing and outspoken introvert, if that makes sense, I
signed up for FB with an ambivalent feeling. On the one hand, I
wanted to keep in touch with my friends and family from afar – to
let them know how I was, what I ate, where I travelled to. On the
other hand, I was scared and anxious of the unintended consequences.
Well, given that my BFF called me “the most intense meaning making
machine,” I was not sure I could cope with the outflow of comments
from strangers about my life.
Read more on the next
page:.........
May 15, 2016
India’s Education – one view on Optimisation and
Outreach
Dr.Swaleha Sindhi
Introduction
In
the present era of globalization, organizations are expected to work
with a creative rather than a reactive perspective and grow to be
flexible, responsive and capable organizations in order to survive.
In the existing scenario people are exposed to diverse knowledge
through internet, there is much to learn and more to assimilate.
Senge’s (1990) model of the five disciplines of a learning
organization emphasizes on the concept of systems thinking, personal
mastery, mental models, building shared vision and team learning.
This points on continuous learning for individuals and
organizations, with a great stress on the idea of bringing change
with innovation and creativity. If the future organizations are
driven by individual and collaborative learning, it is advisable to
transform schools also into learning organizations, instead of
school education being restricted merely to the process of acquiring
facts and loads of numerical information to reproduce in examination
using rote learning methodologies (current scenario in Indian
schools).
In line with the needs of education system in India, schools should
become more effective learning organizations that ultimately
increase the leadership capacity and support the personal
development of every individual at the institution. In chalking out
the aims of education in India, Kothari commission report (1964-66)
stressed that ‘education has to be used as powerful instrument of
social economic and political change.
Read more on the next
page:.........
May 12, 2016
Hungry of Hungary – One (senti)mental journey
By Julia Suryakusuma
Some
days ago, I achieved historical continuity between Hungary and
Indonesia — well, at least in connection to my father and me.
How so?In the early 1960s, my father was assigned to set up the
Indonesian Embassy in Budapest. Indonesia had already established
diplomatic relations with Hungary in 1955, but did not actually have
a physical embassy.
During my father’s time there as chargé
d’affaires, he met with many high-ranking officials. Among the old
photos from those times, there is one of him shaking hands with
János Kádár, Hungary’s prime minister at the time. Kádár was PM from
1956 to 1988. Thirty-two years, just like Indonesia’s Soeharto.
As dad’s daughter, I was invited to a luncheon at the State Palace
on Feb. 1 — hosted by President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo naturally — in
honor of Victor Orban, the current Hungarian prime minister who was
here for an official visit. I had my photo taken with him.
Cut-to-cut: in 1962 my dad with the then Hungarian PM, in 2016, me
with the current Hungarian PM.
While 54 years have lapsed,
my fond memories of Hungary have not. My father passed away in 2006,
so unfortunately he could not witness the historical continuity his
daughter created, albeit only as a snapshot (pun unintended!).
Read more on the next page:.........
April 26, 2016
450 Years of Jewish Life in Sarajevo
By
Mads Jacobsen
In this week's long
read, Mads Jacobsen explores the Jewish experience in
Bosnia-Herzegovina through the eyes of Sarajevo-born Rabbi Eliezer Papo.
The Ashkenazi Synagogue in Sarajevo (Foto: Mads H. Jacobsen)
“If you imagine Bosnia to be a piece of somun,
that piece of bread you eat during Ramadan, you
cannot say that Jews are the water of that
somun, nor can you say that they are the flour,
but you can certainly say that they are the
black seeds on the top of it. Now, could a somun
survive without it? Yes. Would it still be the
same somun? Certainly not. Jews are currently a
small percentage of the Bosnian population, but
they are an important part of the urban
population, and they have contributed a great
deal to the country. So, could Bosnia do it
without Jews? Yes. Would it still be the same
Bosnia? Certainly not”, explained Rabbi Eliezer
Papo in an interview with the Post-Conflict
Research Center.
This year, the Jewish community in Sarajevo
celebrated its 450th anniversary by hosting an
international conference in the Ashkenazi
Synagogue dedicated to folklore, linguistics,
history and the relationship between the Jewish
community and other communities. Following this
anniversary, Mads Hoeygaard Jacobsen – an intern
at the Post-Conflict Research Center – had the
chance to interview Sarajevo-born Rabbi Eliezer
Papo to talk about the Jewish experience in
Bosnia-Herzegovina during the different epochs
of the country’s history.
These mixed marriages proved important in
Sarajevo during the Bosnian War from 1992 to
1995, since the Jewish community of around 2,000
people8 was the only one equally
related to the three combating groups.
Read more on the next
page:.........
Mads Jacobsen Mads is an intern at PCRC. Mads Jacobsen is from Denmark and is currently
pursuing his Master's degree in 'Development and International Relations' at
Aalborg University...
April 24, 2016
Is Caucasus the next Syria - Don’t forget OSCE
By Aleksandra Krstic
The
recent all-shoot out in Azerbaijan between the ethnic Armenians and
Azerbaijani forces brought yet another round of casualties,
psychological traumas and property destructions. Sudden and severe
as it was, the event sent its shock waves all over Caucasus and well
beyond. Is Caucasus receiving the ‘residual heat’ from the boiling
MENA? Is this a next Syria? Is a grand accommodation pacific
scenario possible? Or will it be more realistic that the South
Caucasus ends up violently torn apart by the grand compensation that
affects all from Afghanistan up to the EU-Turkey deal?
Most observes would fully agree that for such
(frozen) conflicts like this between Azerbaijan and Armenia,
mediation and dialogue across the conflict cycle have no
alternative. Further on, most would agree that the OSCE
(Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) with its Minsk
Group remains both the best suited FORA as well as the only
international body mandated for the resolution of the conflict.
However, one cannot escape the feeling that despite
more than 20 years of negotiations, this conflict remains
unresolved. What is the extent of the OSCE failure to effectively
utilize existing conflict resolution and post-conflict
rehabilitation tools?
The very mandate of the Co-Chairmen of the OSCE Minsk
Group is based on CSCE Budapest Summit document of 1994, which tasks
them to conduct speedy negotiations for the conclusion of a
political agreement on the cessation of the armed conflict, the
implementation of which will eliminate major consequences of the
conflict and permit the convening of the Minsk Conference. In
Budapest, the participating States have reconfirmed their commitment
to the relevant Resolutions of the United Nations Security Council
and underlined that the co-Chairmen should be guided in all their
negotiating efforts by the OSCE principles and agreed mandate, and
should be accountable to its Chairmanship and the Permanent Council
(PC).
Read more on the next
page:.........
Aleksandra Krstic
, studied in
Belgrade (Political Science) and in Moscow (Plekhanov’s IBS).
Currently, a post-doctoral researcher at the Kent University in
Brussels (Intl. Relations). Specialist for the MENA-Balkans frozen
and controlled conflicts.
Contact: alex-alex@gmail.com
April
20, 2016
PRIVACY I(N)T CONTEXT
doc. dr. Jasna Cosabic
The
right to privacy, or the right to respect for private life, as the
European Convention on Human Rights guarantees it, has been affected
by the IT growth era. Privacy has long been protected, but will face
a new dimension of protection for the generations to come. The right
to respect for private life is not an absolute one, and may have a
different feature in different context.
By Niemitz v. Germany judgment (1992) the European Court on Human
Rights ('the ECtHR') included the right to connect with other
individuals into the notion of private life, saying that it would be
too restrictive to limit the notion of an 'inner circle' to personal
life and exclude therefrom entirely the outside world not
encompassed within that circle. The right to communicate was thus
inscerted into the the privacy context.
But the extent of communication and technologies which enable it
signifficantly changed since.
Few decades ago, it mainly consisted of personal communication,
communication by conventional letters and phone communication. At
the time the Convention was adopted in the mid last century, there
was no internet, not even mobile/cell phones, nor personal
computers. The feature of privacy protection was much more simple
then today.
Now, when we approach the rule of IoT (internet of things)
communication, not only do people communicate, but 'things' as well.
The subject of that 'non-human' communication may also be private
data of individuals. At the same time, the individual, human
communication became more simple, available at any time, and
versatile by its means.
Read more on the next
page:.........
doc. dr. Jasna Čošabić professor of IT law and EU law at Banja Luka College, Bosnia and Herzegovina
jasnacosabic@live.com
April 18, 2016
Saudi – Iranian future: 3 games – 3 scenarios
By Manal Saadi
There
is no need to argue on Saudi Arabia and Iran as the two biggest
regional powers in the Gulf, the rising tension between the two
countries who are engaged in proxy wars in Syria, Yemen, Iraq and
somehow Bahrein had installed a climate of Cold War.2.
How did we get there?
Saudi Arabia existed since 1932 as a Sunni country and the
birthplace of Islam. Its history of creation is so unique,
mesmerizing and fascinating. Iran, has a glorious past, with various empires that conquered the
Arab-Islamic world at certain pe-riod of time. While the Shah was in power, Iran’s relations with the Arab Gulf
States were normalized, Iran’s navy used to act as the policeman of
the gulf. The situation has changed when the Iranian Islamic
revolution occurred in 1979, with consequences on both countries and
on their relationships. Iran’s Ayatollah wanted to export their
respective model and undermine Saudi Arabia that Iranian officials
see as corrupt and unworthy due to its relation with the United
States and the West. The Shia country is also supporting Shia
communities in the Gulf which is seen as a direct threat to Saudi
Arabia.
Read more on the next
page:.........
Manal Saadi, of Saudi-Moroccan origins, is a postgraduate
researcher in International Relations and Diplomacy at the
Geneva-based UMEF University. She was attached to the Permanent Mission of Morocco to the UNoG and
other Geneva-based IOs, as well as to the Permanent Mission of the
GCC to the UN in Geneva.
April 4, 2016
Near East and the
Nearer Brussles Euro(h)ope possible ?
Anis H. Bajrektarevic
There
is a claim constantly circulating the EU: ‘multiculturalism is
dead in Europe’. Dead or maybe d(r)ead?... That much comes from
a cluster of European nation-states that love to romanticize – in a
grand metanarrative of dogmatic universalism – their
appearance as of the coherent Union, as if they themselves lived a
long, cordial and credible history of multicul-turalism. Hence, this
claim and its resonating debate is of course false. It is also
cynical because it is purposely deceiving. No wonder, as the
conglomerate of nation-states/EU has silently handed over one of its
most important debates – that of European anti-fascistic identity,
or otherness – to the wing-parties. This was repeatedly followed by
the selective and contra-productive foreign policy actions of the
Union over the last two decades.
Twin Paris shootings and this fresh Brussels horror,
terrible beyond comprehension, will reload and overheat those
debates. However, these debates are ill conceived, resting from the
start on completely wrong and misleading premises. Terrorism,
terror, terrorism!! – But, terror is a tactics, not an ideology.
How can one conduct and win war on tactics? – it is an oxymoron. (In
that case, only to win are larger budgets for the homeland security
apparatus on expenses of our freedoms and liberties, like so many
times before.)
Read more on the next
page:.........
Anis H. Bajrektarevic,
contact:
anis@bajrektarevic.eu
Author is chairperson and professor in
international law and global political studies, Vienna, Austria. He
authored three books: FB – Geopolitics of Technology
(published by the New York’s Addleton
Academic Publishers); Geopolitics –
Europe 100 years later
(DB, Europe), and the just released Geopolitics – Energy – Technology
by the German publisher LAP. No
Asian century is his forthcoming book, scheduled for later this year.
24 MAR 2016
Poles Saving Jews in
Bangkok: History Lesson for Humanity
by Rattana Lao
BANGKOK –
Polish,
Israeli and Thai diplomats, academics and students gathered together
to listen and learn about the courage of Polish people saving the
Jews during the Second World War.
Chulalongkorn
University hosted “The Good Samaritans of Markowa” exhibition to
honor the innocent and brave Polish families in Markowa who risked
their lives saving the Jews from Nazi extermination. The event took
place in Bangkok to celebrate the 40th year of lasting
friendship between Poland and Thailand.
During the course of World War II, more than 50,000 Jews were saved
by Polish people. Each Jewish survivor needed to change their
shelter at least 7 times and required as many as 10 people to be
involved in the process.
Irena Sandler, a Polish nurse, was one of the brave Poles who saved
at least 2,500 children from the Warsaw Ghetto. At the end of the
War, 6,600 Polish people were awarded with the Israeli Righteous
Amongst the Nation. However, not every brave Pole survived
Nazi capture. Approximately, 1,000 to 2,000 Poles were executed as
punishment to save the Jews.
The brutality of War took away more than 6 millions Jewish lives and
has inflicted deep wounds to those who have survived. The Ulma
Family Museum of Poles Saving Jews in World War II in Markowa is one
of the Museums established to offer a place of solace and for those
who are left behind to come to term with this atrocity.
Understanding the complexity of the Holocaust has far reaching
ramification not only to those directly affected, but also to
students and public who live world apart and far removed from it.

Why?
Read more on the next
page:.........
The first step for Thai students is to get the facts right.
Hitler is not a Hero and the Nazi is not a symbol of democracy.
24.03.2016
Bosnia and the first
circle of hell
Gerald Knaus
In the first half of the 1990s, Bosnians found themselves in the
deepest circles of hell, in a world of war, genocide and ethnic cleansing.
Following the Dayton Peace Agreement in 1995 Bosnians were able to escape war,
but have since remained trapped in a different European underworld: isolated,
looked down upon, seen as hopeless and treated as such.
In Inferno, the first book of his Divine Comedy, Dante describes his journey
through nine circles of hell. The Bosnian predicament brings to mind the first
circle of Dante's inferno, Limbo, which hosts "virtuous pagans struck with grief
from a lack of God's presence." Pagans had the misfortune to be born at the
wrong time and in the wrong place. They might be good people but, unbaptized,
they could not enter purgatory. Paradise is forever closed, not because of their
deeds, but because of who they are. It is time for Bosnia to be allowed to
escape from Limbo. A new ESI report sets out how:
ESCAPING THE FIRST CIRCLE OF HELL
or
The secret behind Bosnian reforms
One popular idea about Bosnia and Herzegovina among European
observers is that Newton's first law of motion applies to its politics: this law
says that an object at rest will stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside
force. For Bosnian politics, that outside force has to be the international
community.
Read more on the next
page:.........
24.03.2016
PUBLICATIONS: 2016
Brexit
– Pakistanization finally comes home - Dr. Zlatko Hadzidedic
Why
is Europe able to manage its decline, while Asia is (still)
unable to capitalize (on) its successes - Prof. Anis H.
Bajrektarevic
Geostrategic
Pulse is studied at Harvard! - (Format-PDF)
Kazakhstan
– Euroasian heart of gold - By Filippo Romeo
The
Role of Europe in the Balkan region's geopolitical crossing -
FILIPPO ROMEO
TRUMP'S
ELECTION AND ITS IMPACT ON EUROPE - Authors: Daniele Scalea,
Alessandro Cipri
ALLONS
ENFANTS - By Michael Akerib
Camilla Habsburg-Lothringen becomes the new
Director at IFIMES
ORPHAN
EUROPE - By Tomislav Jakić
The
Sino-US relations – Recalibration or Repetition? - Qi Lin
(UN)EXPECTED
PRESIDENT - By: Tomislav Jakić
The
Trump Train is already heading towards Europe - Daniele Scalea
Multiculturalism
is dead? Not quite yet - Alessio Stilo
The
(Trans-Siberian train of) Heartland or (Mare Liberum of)
Rimland? - Mega structures for the next century - By Filippo
Romeo
The
most dangerous Wizard in the EU - Gerald Knaus
Europe
– Hell is other people - Anis H. Bajrektarevic
EU
Reloaded? - by Dr. Peter Jankowitsch
DMCA Abuse: How corporations are using US copyright law to harass and
silence individuals - Murray Hunter
Italy
and Egypt: from Regeni to Libya, the difficult path towards
normalization - Daniele Scalea
BiH
2016 local election: Dodik's referendum –opening Pandora's box
in the Balkans?”
Geopolitics of Climate Change: Future of Tao and Quantum
Buddhism - Anis H. Bajrektarevic
Gong
or Song from China’s Hong Kong? - Aine O’Mahony, Elodie Pichon
Europe – Hell is other people - (Europe after the Brexit, NATO
summit in Warsaw and Turkish geopolitical vertigo) - Anis H.
Bajrektarevic
Blair
+ NATO + ISIL = Genocide: Immaculate Conception of the Iraqi
mess - By İLNUR ÇEVIK
Turkey’s Strategic Reset: engagement instead of contention - By
Barçın Yinanç
Summary of INTERESTS & INFLUENCES OF MAJOR EXTERNAL ACTORS IN
CENTRAL ASIA - Prof. Anis H. Bajrektarevic & Samantha Brletich
IT
law - a challenge of dispute resolution - doc. dr Jasna Čošabić
Pakistan in the US, the US in
Pakistan: Self-denial is the biggest threat to world peace - By
Rakesh Krishnan SIMHA
MUSEUM 'INVISIBLE' GENERATION - Writes: Dzalila
Osmanovic-Muharemagic
Suicidal Nuclear Gambit on Caucasus - Petra Posega
I
FREE myself from Facebook - By Rattana Lao
India’s Education – one view on Optimisation and Outreach -
Dr.Swaleha Sindhi
Hungry of Hungary – One (senti)mental journey - By Julia
Suryakusuma
450
Years of Jewish Life in Sarajevo - By Mads Jacobsen
PRIVACY I(N)T CONTEXT - doc. dr. Jasna Cosabic
Saudi
– Iranian future: 3 games – 3 scenarios - By Manal Saadi
Near East and the Nearer Brussles Euro(h)ope possible? - Anis H.
Bajrektarevic
Poles
Saving Jews in Bangkok: History Lesson for Humanity - by Rattana
Lao
Bosnia and the first circle of hell - Gerald Knaus
Mongolia and the New Russian Oil Diplomacy - By Samantha
Brletich
Noah, Peter Pan and the Sleeping Beauty (Europe – Identity
Imagined) - Anis H. Bajrektarevic
Key to Stop Refugee Flows: Unique higher education programme for
Conflict zones - Prof. Dr. DJAWED SANGDEL
Quantum Islam: Towards a new worldview - Murray Hunter and Azly
Rahman
Currency dictatorship – the struggle to end it - by Rakesh
Krishan Simha
Creative Economy and the bases of UNCTAD’s Creative Economy
Programme as instrument for growth and development - by
Giuliano_Luongo_200
info@orbus.be
www.orbus.be

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Maasmechelen Village

Maasmechelen Village


Adria


BALKAN AREA


prof. dr. Anis Bajrektarevic
Editor - Geopolitics, History, International Relations (GHIR) Addleton Academic
Publishers - New YorK
Senior Advisory board member, geopolitics of energy Canadian energy research
institute - ceri, Ottawa/Calgary
Advisory Board Chairman Modern Diplomacy & the md Tomorrow's people platform
originator
Head of mission and department head - strategic studies on Asia
Professor and Chairperson Intl. law & global pol. studies

Critical Similarities and Differences in SS of Asia and Europe - Prof.
Anis H. Bajrektarevic

MENA Saga and Lady Gaga - (Same dilemma from the MENA) - Anis H. Bajrektarevic

![Dr. Nguyen Anh Tuan, Assos. Prof.[1] Nguyen Linh[2]](images/Prof_Dr._Nguyen_Anh_Tuan_140.jpg)
HE ONGOING PUBLIC DEBT CRISIS IN THE EUROPEAN UNION: IMPACTS ON AND LESSONS
FOR VIETNAM - Dr. Nguyen Anh Tuan, Assos. Prof.[1] Nguyen Linh[2]


Carla BAUMER
Climate
Change and Re Insurance: The Human Security Issue SC-SEA Prof. Anis
Bajrektarevic & Carla Baumer

Igor Dirgantara
(Researcher and Lecturer at the Faculty of Social and Politics,
University of Jayabaya)


Peny Sotiropoulou
Is
the ‘crisis of secularism’ in Western Europe the result of multiculturalism?


Dr. Emanuel L. Paparella
A Modest “Australian” Proposal to Resolve our Geo-Political Problems
Were the Crusades Justified? A Revisiting - Dr. Emanuel L. Paparella


Alisa
Fazleeva earned an MA in International Relations from the University of East
Anglia in Norwich, United Kingdom in 2013. Her research interests include
foreign policy decision-making, realism and constructivism, and social
psychology and constructivism.


Corinna Metz
is an independent researcher specialized in International Politics and Peace
& Conflict Studies with a regional focus on the Balkans and the Middle East.

Patricia Galves
Derolle
Founder of Internacionalista
Săo Paulo, Brazil
Brazil – New Age


Dimitra Karantzeni
The
political character of Social Media: How do Greek Internet users perceive and
use social networks?


Michael Akerib
Vice-Rector
SWISS UMEF UNIVERSITY


Petra Posega
is a master`s degree student on the University for Criminal justice and Security
in Ljubljana. She obtained her bachelor`s degree in Political Science- Defense
studies.
Contact:
posegap@live.com


Samantha Brletich,
George Mason University School of Policy, Government, and
Intl. Relations She focuses on Russia and Central Asia. Ms. Brletich is an
employee of the US Department of Defense.

Interview on HRT-Radio
Prof. dr. Anis Bajrektarević


Dr Filippo ROMEO,


Julia Suryakusuma
is the outspoken Indonesian thinker,
social-cause fighter and trendsetter. She is the author of Julia’s Jihad.
Contact:
jsuryakusuma@gmail.com




Mads Jacobsen
Mads is an intern at PCRC. Mads Jacobsen is from Denmark and is currently
pursuing his Master's degree in 'Development and International Relations' at
Aalborg University...


Dzalila Osmanovic-Muharemagic
University of Bihac, Faculty of Education,
Department of English Language and Literature - undergraduate
University of Banja Luka, Faculty of Philology, Department of English Language
and Literature - graduate study


Rakesh Krishnan Simha
New Zealand-based journalist and foreign affairs analyst. According to him, he
writes on stuff the media distorts, misses or ignores.
Rakesh started his career in 1995 with New Delhi-based Business World magazine,
and later worked in a string of positions at other leading media houses such as
India Today, Hindustan Times, Business Standard and the Financial Express, where
he was the news editor.
He is the Senior Advisory Board member of one of the fastest growing Europe’s
foreign policy platforms: Modern Diplomacy.


Damiel Scalea
Daniele Scalea, geopolitical
analyst, is Director-general of IsAG (Rome Institute of Geopolitics) and Ph.D.
Candidate in Political studies at the Sapienza University, Rome. Author of three
books, is frequent contributor and columnist to various Tv-channels and
newspapers. E-mail:
daniele.scalea@gmail.com


Alessio Stilo,
Research Associate at Institute of High
Studies in Geopolitics and Auxiliary Sciences (IsAG), Rome, Italy, and Ph.D.
researcher at University of Padova, is IMN Country Representative in Italy.


Tomislav Jakić
Foreign Policy Advisor to former Croatian
President Stjepan Mesić


Zlatko Hadžidedić
Graduate of the London School of Economics,
prof. Zlatko Hadžidedić is a prominent thinker,
prolific author of numerous books, and indispensable political figure of the
former Yugoslav socio-political space in 1990s, 2000s and 2010s.

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