This happens just as I'm writing a proposal for a research project on the subject 'The causes of tension or conflict between East and West since the end of the Cold War, and whether they contribute to a resurgence of polarity in the current era'.
Johnny, if you referenced your stuff you'd pretty well do half my project for me.
I'll post up my proposal when it's complete, as it's a short one (1000 words-ish).
Edit:
Ivan's going to get his way on this one, maybe even as far as annexing Georgia entirely or bombing it back to the stone age if he so chooses.
Doubt it. The idea, or at least excuse behind South Ossetia is that the inhabitants are of the same ethnicity (Muslim, speak a different language, Turkic origin etc.) as neighbouring North Ossetia: a Russian Oblast. Georgia denies its existence calling it 'Tskhinvali region'.
Russia did a pretty dirty trick at the end of the Cold War by giving all Ossetians Russian passports, so even in news reports now they can say 'Russian Citizens' were killed.
Because I can be subjective on here, as opposed to my project, as far as I can see Ossetians are the good guys and Georgia are the bad guys, but the Ossetians are turning to Russia as they already have a foot in the door there. Russia are then bad guys too because they're exploiting the situation, quite possibly because an important gas pipeline for Black Sea trade runs through South Ossetia. I mean, they weren't very sympathetic to other Muslim separatists the Kosovars, assumedly because their old bedfriends Serbia were the ones to lose out.
Not so sure about Abkhazia.
Wasn't Stalin from Georgia?
Edit 2: yep. Born "Ioseb Besarionis Dzhugashvili" in Georgia. Funny how they left him off the list of 'notable Georgians' in the Wiki article I read the other day.
Interestingly, the google search for that information found this intereting snippet, although it may not be credible. Jelena Musijenko of Auckland wrote to the NZ Herald stating "Why South Ossetia people are named "separatist", but not "fighters for independence of Ossetia"? Ossetia was 'gifted' by Stalin to Georgia."
Edit 3: OMG the Russians accused Georgia of "ethnic cleansing". Gee guys, you never backed the Serbs in the Bosnian wars now did you? Srebenica, nah, had nothing to do with it. Duly added to the pool of meaningless buzzwords, to which the US has just contributed "regime change" and "campaign of terror" as pointed out by Hobzai.
Edit 4:
Ok, here's the proposal. Kinda crap, I did a rushed "fuck assignment's due in 12 hours" job. I welcome criticism or ideas. As I said, I know it's not very good so I won't be offended by criticism.
Topic
The causes of tension or conflict between East and West since the end of the Cold War, and whether they contribute to a resurgence of polarity in the current era.
Definition
With the end of the Cold War came the abrupt transformation of Cold War East-West polarity. The following ‘post-Cold War era’ was characterised by a reversion to multipolar international relations. The current era, that is the one following the post-Cold War era, lacks clear definition. Scholarship and media are dominated by discussions of globalisation and terrorism, and the era is often given descriptors such as ‘a globalising era’ or ‘the post-9/11 world’. The research project I propose will try to determine whether in the current era there is or will be a resurgence of East-West polarity, what the causes of this are, and what the consequences are or could be.
Significance
East-West polarity dominated much of the international relations of the Cold War era. Based on this historical precedent, a resurgence of East-West polarity would also have a significant impact.
On the day of writing this proposal it is reported that tens of thousands of Russian troops have entered the regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in Georgia (BBC 2008), Russia has bombed a Georgian military airbase near Tbilisi (BBC2008, CNN 2008), that Russia’s Black Sea Navy is blockading Georgia (CNN 2008) and that the US has warned that Russia’s actions could have a “significant long term impact on U.S.-Russian relations” (BBC 2008, CNN 2008). The coincidence of the selection of research topic and these immediate events are chance, but it demonstrates the topic’s currency.
Questions to be explored in the paper
Are the following events caused by or do they contribute to a resurgence of East-West polarity?
• The conflicts in the Balkans
• The Chechen wars
• The conflict in Abkhazia and South Ossetia
• The rise of the EU as a powerful bloc and eastward enlargement of its membership
• The proposed US missile shield with infrastructure in Czechia and Poland
• The increasing importance of Central Asian energy to European states
• The discovery of significant natural resources in the arctic near Russian Siberia and Russia’s claim to them
Are the following valid explanations of historic events since the end of the Cold War, and a possible resurgence of East-West polarity?
• Huntington’s Clash of Civilisations model
• Pan-Slavism
Could the UN’s ability to intervene in aforementioned events be impeded by Russia’s Security Council membership and veto power, and could NATO become an important entity as it was in, for example, the Bosnian War?
Regarding energy resources in Central Asia:
• What states beside Russia are stakeholders in Central Asian energy resources, either as consumer, producers, or have other economic interests?
• Are Central Asian energy resources or infrastructure a significant cause of conflicts such as those in the Caucasus?
• Do they significantly affect relations between states dependent on this energy such as Ukraine, and those with interest in it such as Russia?
If energy resources are depleted in regions such as the Middle East in the future:
• Could Central Asian energy resources or infrastructure become proportionately more important?
• Might states beyond Europe and China become dependent on this energy?
• Could this be a source of increasing East-West polarity?
Limitations
• The term ‘East’ has been used to describe Russia and its sphere of influence such as Belarus, and ‘West’ has been used to describe either NATO, the EU, or individual ‘western’ states such as Poland or the U.S.
• Because of the potential broad nature of the topic the research will be limited to the aforementioned ‘East’ and ‘West’. Relations with China may be of particular importance to the subject on an international level, and for Australia, but will not be focused upon, with the exception of China’s possible dependence on Central Asian energy resources.
Methodology
Of particular importance to methodology are the immediate nature of the events in Abkhazia and South Ossetia as mentioned beforehand in the ‘Significance’ section. This immediate nature will limit research to news media such as newspapers and credible internet news sources like BBC and CNN. Events in Abkhazia and South Ossetia will not be given any more attention than other ‘events’ described in the ‘Questions’ section, and special care will be taken to avoid inaccuracy or media ‘hype’, as for example the events described by BBC and CNN may be proven inaccurate or of diminished relative significance by the time this proposal is read by the Supervisor, or even by the time it is proofread and submitted.
For all other less immediate events and theoretical analysis research will be focused more on scholarly journal articles and books, either from internet databases such as EBSCOhost or online book sources like Ebrary, or from hardcopies. News media such as newspapers and credible internet news sources will be used secondarily, or where journal articles or books are not available.
List of References
BBC 2008, ‘Georgia Pulls out of South Ossetia’, BBC News, 10 August 2008, viewed 10 August 2008, < http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7552012.stm>
CNN 2008, ‘Violence in 2nd Georgian breakaway territory concerns U.N.’, CNN.com International, 10 August 2008, viewed 10 August 2008, < http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/08/10/georgia.russia/index.html>