The long-awaited publication of the Military Doctrine of the Russian Federation in February 2010 was the result of years of debate within the Russian military and political establishment. It outlines a post facto legitimization of Russia’s role in the August War against Georgia in 2008 and of other initiatives adopted by Moscow in the field of international security in the new century
The creation of nuclear weapons at the end of World War II has created a conundrum for military planners and policy makers around the globe. How do you construct a model for defense against nuclear weapons? Beginning in the early 1960’s until the present day, policy makers around the globe have crafted a number of missile defense systems to attempt to counter nuclear weapons deployments. The results have been mixed.
Water has always been a very important factor in the Israel-Palestine conflict. Given the importance of agriculture for both economies, whoever had access to water would obtain access to land once they managed to cultivate it. The Jews used this as a strategy for land appropriation before the official creation of Israel, but after 1948, water politics transformed to attain other national goals.
Although the United States’ irrational, and at times, imperialistic actions are seen to be out of the desire to spread American ideals, the superpower in reality is more concerned about the preservation of the global order. The fact that the United States is concerned over not only the security and peace of the world but the betterment of mankind is precisely the reason why the United States is allowed to call itself a status quo power.
The Greco-Turkish conflict is a product of long-standing traumatic experiences that are based on Stereotypical Images of the Enemy. Both share a complicated mechanism that promotes patriotism by systematically devaluing the “other” via selective education, literature and the media
British strategy in the Middle East consolidated around a sustained effort to prevent any adversarial penetration into the Persian Gulf, defending its position athwart the principal lines of communication and supply between Northern Europe and British India, and to protect the newly discovered Persian oil that was used to power the Royal Navy
Three recent publications provide a fresh perspective of the developments which resulted in the decline of British influence in the Gulf, and the subsequent rise of the US.
The decision by the United Nations to partition Palestine in 1947 was a major watershed in Middle Eastern history. Not only did it lead to the creation of the state of Israel, a Zionist aim since the eighteenth century, but it set in stone a conflict which still to this day remains unresolved.Although the decision aimed to appease both Jews and Arabs, who laid differing ideological claims to the same territory and, as James L. Ilsley stated, was the ‘best of four unattractive and difficult alternatives,’ it failed.
Traditionally, the promotion of Human Rights and the concept of state sovereignty have been fundamentally opposed. The institutionalisation of Human Rights in the international system is a relatively new concept. It wasn’t until after the Second World War that the challenge of Human Rights upon state sovereignty emerged.
The responsibility of the EU Presidency is first and foremost to play the role of a chairperson, and to listen to the views of different member states. The question is whether member states, during their Presidencies, give priority to their own national interests or to the EU as a supranational institution.
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