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26.09.2014

GLOBAL CONTEXT

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Zara Gevorkian

“The World War I turned out a momentous event for us, as Genocide took place and we lost Western Armenia. The current processes in aggregate are reminiscent of the WWI”, says Gagik HARUTYUNYAN, Director of Noravank Foundation.

- Mr. Harutyunyan, perhaps, it makes no sense to discuss the developments in Ukraine without trying to comprehend the global context of everything that happens in the world. So how does that global context look like?

- We live in troublesome and complicated times. We witness a quite painful establishment of polycentric world system and new order. The United States so far remain the world leader, but today they are more like the first one among equals and no more. Unfortunately, they seem to have no desire to accept this fact. That is why the decisions they make, regardless of motives, strikingly lack intellectual saturation. This in a way reminds activities of the USSR at the time of its downfall and such decisions, as a rule, lead to not really delighting consequences – so far for the rest of the world. It is logical to assume though, that sooner or later all of this would boomerang to America one way or another. It is nothing to be glad about. While breakup of the USSR was a geopolitical and humanitarian catastrophe for the post-Soviet countries, possible cataclysms in the USA may bring about a global collapse.

- What possible cataclysms are you talking about?

- For instance, inept manipulation of radical Islamic terrorist organizations and using them as political instruments lead to their consolidation and turned them into a global geopolitical actor. News coming from Syria, Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan and huge chunks of Africa, as well as from some provinces of China look like classical summaries on war combat actions. After Iraq’s occupation and implementation of the “Arab spring” project, about a million people died and a few millions became refugees in the Middle East. I repeat, we do not discuss the motives, as there are several versions about those, but all of them fit into the rationale of some sort of a “basic geopolitical and geo-economic instinct” where economic motives prevail.

- You mentioned the humanitarian catastrophe in the Middle East. In the meanwhile same type of humanitarian catastrophe unfolds in Ukraine…

- It is true. No wonder the “Right Sector” warlords trained in Eastern European training centers call themselves “Christian Taliban” and it was just days ago when cities with peaceful population were bombarded by multiple launch rocket systems. Many researchers compare the combination of these processes with the events a century ago, at the beginning of the World War I (1914-1918) that changed the global political settings and world order as a whole. It has to be noted that this date is strangely ignored in our information space. Yet that war was momentous for us, as Genocide took place and we lost Western Armenia. It seems that to a certain extent all of this was due to short-sightedness of the Armenian society as a whole, and the political elite in particular. It is known that forgetting the lessons of history and disregarding comparative analysis makes it a lot more difficult to adequately perceive the modern political realities, which in turn increases the risks of new mistakes.

But let us go back to Ukraine, which has become a subject of the poorly thought through strategy mentioned above. Yes, one may say that a tactics of forming a hostile state to Russia at its very borders, an outpost of sorts, has been implemented in somewhat downscaled version.

- Moreover, these plans were logical continuation of NATO expansion process, right?

- Yes. However, strategically not everything is so unequivocal. It appears the political planners failed to correctly assess their own resources and increased capabilities of the competitors. Also, I remember Liddell Hart, a renowned British strategist had written along the lines that unlike the tactics, in order to be effective the big strategy has to be moral. Thus, implementation of the “Ukrainian project” as a whole most likely will bring and to some extent already brought the opposite effect, because it is immoral (remember the situation in the Middle East). First, Russia stood up abruptly and opposed it, while China expressed solidarity with her. Even in the EU there is some dissonance, as many Europeans realized (although with delay) that the whole deal with Ukraine and sanctions is directed against them, too. Well, they express this idea quite timidly, all the time looking with caution to their strict “older brother” over the ocean. Interestingly, the confrontation policy is conceptually most opposed by the Czechs. The Czech president Miloš Zeman somewhat reminds the famous leader of Czechoslovakia Alexander Dubček, who in 1968 was not afraid to oppose the communist totalitarian ideology.

- So the history repeats itself, but somehow with a reverse sign …

- Exactly. Possible construction of a wall on the Russia-Ukraine border reminds building the “iron curtain” or Berlin wall. If that happens, the Russian president may deliver a speech (no less substantiated and successful) at such wall, along the lines of “open this gate!” and akin the iconic speech of John Kennedy delivered at the Berlin wall in 1963.

In any case the Ukraine crisis became a catalyst for consolidation of other countries’ resources. BRICS and SCO formats got energized (also, in the last summit of SCO there were signs that India and Pakistan might join it), while the Eurasian Union gains momentum, drawing interest from countries other than post-Soviet republics.

- So what’s next?

- As you know, currently there is a fragile truce in Donbass, which was achieved through position of force. One of the numerous scenarios suggests that a state structure (e.g. Novorussian Republic) might be created on the territories controlled by the rebels, which would be essentially evocative to Transnistria, but much larger and importantly, bordering Russia. Hopefully, a more pragmatic government will be formed in Kiev, which would abandon radical rhetoric and attempt to build normal relations with neighbors, rather than a wall. Of course, there are also some worse scenarios. In this context it is worth mentioning that as far as I know, none of the prominent think-tanks ever predicted the events that unfolded in Ukraine and the war in its southeastern regions. Only one professor from the University of Copenhagen, who did research ordered by the Danish intelligence services, predicted such developments in Eastern Europe as a result of rising nationalism, radicalism, etc. This shows how important it is to have qualified, high level think-tanks integrated with government structures.

- A recent escalation of tensions on Armenia-Azerbaijan border brought the two countries to the brink of a war. Was the aggressive behavior of Azerbaijan part of the above said Western game or just an improvisation on the sly?

- I think it was both. As I mentioned, the terrorist organizations have become a geopolitical factor and some countries act as terrorism breeding-grounds. Azerbaijan is a semi-terrorist state. Their propaganda is similar to rhetoric of people like Yarosh or radical Islamists in Iraq. In Azerbaijan there are unhidden calls for a war with and annihilation of Armenia. In this country prisoners are tortured and killed, and this fits well in the government policies. Yes we were at the brink of war. I believe the war did not break out first of all thanks to our army. It is the most well established structure in the Armenian society. We have talented military leadership, outstanding officers and remarkable, brave and smart soldiers. It was exactly due to the actions of our armed forces that we achieved a breakthrough in the August events. We have to also note the important foreign policy role played by our ally Russia, which organized a tripartite meeting in Sochi.

http://www.golosarmenii.am/article/25053/globalnyj-kontekst


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