In August 8th 2008, while Beijing Olympic Games was inaugurated, a military campaign was launched by Georgian troops in South Ossetia. ...
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In August 8th 2008, while Beijing Olympic Games was inaugurated, a military campaign was launched by Georgian troops in South Ossetia. This event should be named the Caucasian 9/11, because it changed the old order and established a new one in the Caucasus. It took place while the United States was involving in the financial crisis, presidential elections and military problems in Afghanistan and Iraq.
NATO's eastward expansion, next to Russian eastern and southern borders, as well as establishment of a missile defense shield in Poland and Czech republic, just closed to Russian western borders, brought about a very fragile situation to Russian national security. Colored revolutions alongside with NATO expansion and missile defense shield, has made Russia very sensitive to this trend.
Georgia’s attack to the South Ossetia gave the best pretext to Russia to react seriously to Georgia’s campaign. It is clear that Georgian president had made mistakes and failed to estimate his own possibilities. Western support was not done and the Georgia that was waiting to get help from outside, remained alone.
Summer 2008 developments in the South Caucasus opened a new chapter in Russia-West relations. Russian invasion of Georgia might have surprised many observers, but for those who had ...
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Summer 2008 developments in the South Caucasus opened a new chapter in Russia-West relations. Russian invasion of Georgia might have surprised many observers, but for those who had been familiar with the short Post-Cold War history of the region, was an inevitable consequence of Georgian President's (Saakashvili) excesses in agonizing Russia by threatening its internal security, helping Chechen rebellion with military supplies, attempting to get some sort of NATO membership, and embarking upon military invasion of the South Ossetia. Further, American support and some EU Member States' backing for Georgian actions played a great role in the development.
Having said that, to many observers disproportionate Russian military offensive meant as a Soviet style appetite for annexing Abkhazia and the South Ossetia and Russia's re-entering into the military confrontation of Cold-War era. Either way, the recognition of the South Ossetia and Abkhazia by Russia and inability of NATO and EU to stop Kremlin have been a matter of concern for the West and many regional countries. In this article while this development will be discussed, the attitude of all sides will be dealt with and finally the conclusion will be presented to the readers.
The emergence of war in the Caucasus was not an unexpected event for political observers. Although such crisis has been interpreted as a new cold war in political literature by the ...
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The emergence of war in the Caucasus was not an unexpected event for political observers. Although such crisis has been interpreted as a new cold war in political literature by the media, it has resulted different questions and considerations for international relation analysis. Different characteristic of the actors and the content of the conflict and the players’ objectives, are among above mentioned differences. In spite of uncertain, and fragile ideological bordering which may conclude political or military tensions in specific period of history, continuous structural contrasts, followed by tangible interests of nation-states are always expected. It is even to be claimed that in many periods of history, ideological crises have been narrated as the tangible interest clashes, projected in the form of ideologies. U.S.S.R. collapse and the end of Cold War, eliminated the incentives for ideological contrast between West and East, but the rational sources of those contrasts, based on the concrete national interests may still result in challenges. We suppose that the Georgia crisis indicates a conflict paradigm shift, from an ideological one to a rational confrontation, according to the cost-benefit model.
Thus, Georgia crisis is somewhat supposed as a kind of a rational reproducing of Cold War without any ideology. This new Cold War has taken place upon a rational model and must be assessed in respect of a rationalistic point of view. Meanwhile, this analysis shows that a tangible national based challenge is much more realistic to be pursued by pure ideological gaps, and can be reproduced in different categories, so it will have different consequences and any interpretation on such a conflict, deeply relies on the rational content of this strife.
Media war during fighting between Russia and Georgia in the south Ossetia in 2008 included two different strategies. First strategy was based on targeted persuasion aimed to direct ...
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Media war during fighting between Russia and Georgia in the south Ossetia in 2008 included two different strategies. First strategy was based on targeted persuasion aimed to direct and manage public opinion which has been developed during last century throughout academic studies and experience of western scholars in the field of psychological war. Media in west used this method against Russia resulting many advantages and successes for Georgia. On the other side, Russia undertook second strategy rooted into a narrow minded, fixed and singled dimension approach which was based on governmental organized mass communication and mass media. This method of managing communication and media had been shaped by the media culture remained from previous communist administration which prevented Russia to respond effectively in different situations during the war in production, process, distribution and evaluation of the war of information to meet the expectations in the new century.
Regardless of Armenia , Georgia and Azerbaijan republics of Caucasus with ethnic diversity and different cultural structural, face great challenges in ...
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Regardless of Armenia , Georgia and Azerbaijan republics of Caucasus with ethnic diversity and different cultural structural, face great challenges in the rule of one ethnicity over the others. Due to their cultural structure and strong civilization and also experiences in local autonomy, the Georgians are more prepared for interaction with other ethnics. However , it seems that the presence of Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Ossetians, Abkhazia, Ajars and the return of Meskhati Turks, will drag Georgia into a deep crisis. This paper is based on the statistics of viable sources and field researches , and aims at examining the vulnerability of Georgia in this ethnic challenge.
Volume 14, Issue 63 , November 2009, Pages 137-158
Abstract
Soft “revolution” or “revolution without violence”, in some of the newly independent countries of Central Asia and Caucasus has ...
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Soft “revolution” or “revolution without violence”, in some of the newly independent countries of Central Asia and Caucasus has become one of the main subjects for scholarly debates in international politics after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Due to the direct role of the US in these nonviolent regime changes, the importance of foreign factors in explaining these events has become a focal point. Rose revolution of Georgia in 2003, causing the downfall of Eduard Shevardnadze is a clear example. In Georgia, the convergence of the domestic factors and foreign interventions has been the main question. It is however, argued in this paper that the domestic crisis has been mainly stemmed from not having an indigenous, smooth, and timely process of nation-building; crisis that has been manipulated by Washington. Having said all these, the question would be: under which conditions are such revolutions repeatable in other cases? Addressing this question can be useful both theoretically as well as practically, especially by those independent states who are being challenged by the US.
