Ariel Rusila's Conflicts [Ex-BalkanPerspective]

A fter recent failure to reach agreement on treaty for international arms trade the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon wrote article ”The world is over-armed and peace is under-funded” (August 28, 2012). The main idea is in his article headline and article contents lot of good intentions and initiatives for peace development too. However I would like to bring up only one hard fact mentioned there. And here it is: Last year, global military spending reportedly exceeded $1.7 trillion – more than $4.6 billion a day, which alone is almost twice the UN’s budget for an entire year. The fact above describes that Military-Industrial-Complex (MIC) – especially in U.S. - still rules the world. Global military industrial consumption represents a few percent of GDP and is still rising. U.S. share of the cake is about 40%. The international community still is willing to invest hundreds of times more to the war than peace. MIC is a concept commonly used to refer to policy relationsh...

F or years the EU has outlined a common foreign, security and defense policy (CFSP, ESDP) and has even created the EU battle troops (EUBG) and established its own European External Action Service . However recent developments in Libya once again clearly showed the insignificant role of these EU activities. One could ask, if those new systems really are needed or could it be better for EU to go backwards redusing it to focus to the original visons and structures of the European Coal and Steel Community and European Economic Community (ECSC and EEC). Somehow it was characteristic, that while United Nations and the EU were deciding their statements for Libya, the British and the Americans special forces had been operating there already for at least three weeks preparing military intervention. Wheter the intervention really was needed is a bit unclear for me. William Bowles gives one view about this inervention in his essay Kosovo Revisited (kind of) : It (interventio...

W hen UN made new Kosovo related decision on September 2010 it was believed that resolution would enable a dialogue for resolving this frozen conflict. With minimal preconditions new direct talks between Belgrad and Pristina and a possible deal between local stakeholders could open the way for sustainable solution. However resent events have have resulted in stalemate: President of separatist Kosovo government resigned and dissolution of the government itself have put the focus in Kosovo on next elections which will be held in December 2010. Meanwhile also Serbia starts soon preparations for its next next elections, due by spring 2012. Thus there is a narrow negotiation slot between the time when a new Kosovo government takes office and to end successfully before the Serbian election campaign makes any compromise impossible. The core question is if there is political will to start talks with the aim of reaching as comprehensive a compromise settlement as possible. ...

There is no way to peace. Peace is the way. (Mahatma Gandhi) A R Ironically The International Day of Peace occurs annually on September 21 st – ironically on 21 September 1980 Iraq launched a full-scale invasion of Iran, which was the beginning of an 8-year-long bloody war between the two countries. International Day of Peace is also a Day of Ceasefire so a simple definition for peace could mean absence of the war. In my opinion it should be more, it should have more ambitious aims and ideals. I call this value added peace with term “quality peace”. Some aspects of this context may clarify what does this term signify. Peaceful conditions may reflect totalitarianism The great armies, accumulated to provide security and preserve the peace, carried the nations to war by their own weight. (A. J. P. Taylor) Peaceful society with low crime records (excluding state-terror which is not recognized as crime) can same time be a totalitarian state based to fear. Totalitarian d...

“ US recognition of severed Kosovo province was a serious mistake, leading to an escalation of tensions, instead of calming down the situation in the Balkans ... consensus boils down to the fact that nobody knows where Kosovo is ” (John Bolton) " The recognition of Kosovo was premature and conditioned by great pressure from the former American administration"... "Today, we can see that two-thirds of the international community does not recognize Kosovo ... this shows that we are talking about a grave mistake " (Gerhard Schröder) Two years has gone since Kosovo Albanians declared their independence from Serbia. However calling to Kosovo needs country code 381 – which is Serbia – or by GSM 377 44 (via Monaco Telecom) or others via Serbian operators. This because as at this time, Abkhazia, Kosovo, Transnistria, Somaliland, South Ossetia and others are not in the ISO 3166-1 standard due the absence of recognition by the United Nations. Situation is one minor example ...